In today’s Journal
* No Fiction, and Non-Fiction
* Marketing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
No Fiction, and Non-Fiction
I didn’t write much fiction yesterday, so nothing to report. And I’ve removed “Thunder Road” from the numbers because it was annoying me. It might have fizzled. Which is fine.
So instead I spent most of the day working up some things for the Journal, the first of which is below. I also played a bit with some earlier fiction fragments but nothing serious.
Then I took off the last couple of hours of my normal workday.
Remember, I’m resetting my process too. For a time, I forgot how well and regularly I’ve been writing for the past ten years. So I’m getting back to what works for me. I didn’t want to change my process so much as add to it.
I’ll start another novel (as usual). Then, to increase my monthly word count, I’ll write short fiction while writing that novel or in between novels. My goal remains 3000 words of publishable fiction per day.
Marketing
Since I started writing fiction in earnest in early 2014, I have been a writer and, to the degree necessary to satisfy Heinlein’s Rule 4, a publisher. I am not and have never been a marketer. Even thinking about business practically puts me to sleep.
As a result, this will probably be annoyingly vague, but I’ve loaded Of Interest with some links that you might find more helpful. For my money, the last link in Of Interest is the most valuable. Your results might vary.
From everything I can glean personally before I’m bored to sleep, the Number One Thing you need to do if you want to market your books directly to readers is create an email list.
That is, coerce the reader into giving you his or her email address so you can market future releases directly to him or her.
You can take my word for one thing: If you write fiction, market your book to readers, not to writers. From long experience, I know that writers typically do not buy fiction even from other writers who are teaching them how to write fiction.
To market your fiction directly to readers who potentially want to read your fiction, the best advice I can give you in that regard is to learn from my mistake:
- If you’re just starting out as a fiction writer, START BUILDING YOUR MAILING LIST NOW.
- Likewise, if you’ve been writing awhile and haven’t started building your list yet, START BUILDING YOUR MAILING LIST NOW.
Building a list of potential readers is an ongoing process, but it is not a quick process. Your list will build slowly, over time.
But as a writer, you should be used to that already. Stories and novels take time to write, don’t they?
And if you keep track of your daily and monthly fiction writing totals (and if you don’t, I strongly recommend you start), those build over time too, don’t they?
But in all things, you have to be proactive.
- If you want a story to eventually end so you can publish it, you have to keep putting new words on the page.
- If you want to see how many words of publishable fiction you wrote last month or last year, you have to build a spreadsheet day by day.
- And if you want to build your dedicated readership, you have to collect email addresses.
Here are some ways to be proactive:
1. If you have a website, explore ways to collect email addresses.
- Even the (to me personally objectionable and annoying) “pop ups” that offer a free book in exchange for an email address (and being added to your mailing list) is one apparently effective way to do that.
- You can also put a “banner” across the top of the landing page on your website. In that banner, you offer a free book (or something) in exchange for the reader’s email address.
- Then, as you release more work (stories, novels, etc.) you occasionally have to compose a reader-dedicated email to let those on your email list know. I recommend a weekly or even monthly newsletter. Stay in touch with your readers. (I sort of do this with my StanbroughWrites substack and a free short story every week.)
- Explore a mail-delivery marketing service (I recommend MailerLite as the best current value) or Substack (I also recommend this). Chances are good you’re reading this because Substack delivered it to your inbox.
2. Use a Direct Sales Venue whether or not you have your own website.
- Shopify is the biggie, but there are also Gumroad, BookFunnel, and probably a lot of others. I can’t advise you on those, but if you use any of them, you should explore them regularly for how they might help you market your work.
- Some platforms charge an up-front or monthly fee, and others do not. You have to decide which one or ones to go with.
- Payhip is the direct sales platform I use (and recommend), and it has a free option. And it works.
If you happen to use Payhip as your direct sales platform, they have a whole suite of marketing tools. Explore those.
I have only begun to explore them myself. There are only so many hours in the day, and I’d rather be writing fiction or putting something together for the Journal. Again, learn from my mistake.
- You can also check out the various book-promo sites like BookBub et al. Some of those require a certain number of reviews and some (maybe) do not. Likewise, some (maybe all) charge an up-front or monthly fee, and others (maybe) do not.
CAUTION: As you’re checking various book-marketing and promotion services, especially if you’re new to writing and publishing, ALWAYS be wary of any vanity publishers masqueraging as book marketing services. When you encounter one, run like hell.
- Most often, vanity or subsidy publisher offer for a fee things you can do free for yourself. Like setting up a social media account or “buying” you a Library of Congress Catalog Number (LCCN). Please don’t fall for their crap.
- Always read the Terms of Service (TOS) for ANY websites that offer such services.
Social Media (ugh)
Finally, if you have whatever social media accounts,
- promote your new releases and stay in touch with “friends” and followers there as well.
- You can also advertise on various social media sites to varying levels of success.
- Same thing on Amazon and maybe on Kobo, B&N, et al. Of course, advertising will always cost you money. Look at it as an investment.
- My only advice there is don’t spend more than you can afford to lose, and if a particular advertising venue isn’t getting you the results you need after a reasonable time period (test period), bail.
Okay, that’s pretty much all I know specifically about marketing.
As to what you can absolutely control as a fiction writer (and this goes directly to marketing)…
- Create or have created a eye-catching, genre-specific cover, with great sales copy. That will cause readers to check out your story or book. My best advice for writing sales copy remains Dean Wesley Smith’s How to Write Fiction Sales Copy.
- Write an excellent opening that pulls the reader into the story. That will sell the reader on the current story or book and on you as a writer.
- Write an excellent ending: not only the climax, but also the part after that, the denoument. That will sell the reader on your next story or book.
- There are several good books out there on marketing. Check out the authors to be sure they write and market fiction, then buy them, read them, and apply what they teach. Marketing doesn’t happen by osmosis.
Starting tomorrow or the next day, I’m going to get back to writing about what I know: How to Write Fiction. Which means I’ll be coming up with new thoughts and repeating older thoughts on how to actually be a fiction writer.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
5 Ways to Sell Your Books Directly This is from the SFWA. She’s talking both paper and ebooks.
How to Sell Books Direct to Readers from Your Website
The Truth On Selling Books Direct: Insights from 876 Authors
Direct Sales Strategies We Love from 36 Authors
How to Sell Books Direct to Readers: The Complete Guide
The Numbers
The Journal………………………………1390
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date…… XXXXX
Fiction for August…………………….….… 43510
Fiction for 2024………………………….… 555420
Fiction since October 1………………… 775560
Nonfiction for August……………………… 22930
Nonfiction for 2024……………………… 269940
2024 consumable words………………… 742443
2024 Novels to Date……………………… 12
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 5
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)……………… 94
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 9
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 242
Short story collections…………………… 29
Disclaimer: I am a prolific professional fiction writer, but please try this at home. You can do it.
On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Unreasoning fear and the myths of writing are lies. They will slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
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