Series Strategy ...

[Steve Wilson]

Why the differences? Good question. I think part of it is that self publishing relies so much on Amazon - and keeping visibility in the rankings there is key. Too long between books and things start to die a bit.

Makes sense, thanks @Jo Zebedee.
We're slaves to Amazon's algorithms then in a way...

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I'm guessing what Smashwords advise is based on stats

It is. Download Mark Coker's free two main marketing e-Books. The 3rd one is on formatting, and I suppose worth reading if you don't know how to make a wordprocessor doc (OpenOffice / LibreOffice "saved as" in MS Word 97-2003 format is fine for Amazon or Smashwords or CreateSpace or Trad Publishers if it's formatted correctly).

 

[Ray McCarthy]

We're slaves to Amazon's algorithms then in a way...

Which oddly are more "visible" on the USA Author Central than on the KDP pages. Nice graphs

 

[Steve Wilson]

It is. Download Mark Coker's free two main marketing e-Books. The 3rd one is on formatting, and I suppose worth reading if you don't know how to make a wordprocessor doc (OpenOffice / LibreOffice "saved as" in MS Word 97-2003 format is fine for Amazon or Smashwords or CreateSpace or Trad Publishers if it's formatted correctly).

Thanks for the advice @Ray McCarthy.

I think those e-books are those you mentioned earlier. If so, I have already downloaded them and will go over them some time this week (I hope, running short on time these days).

Fortunately, I have the latest version of MS Office installed and believe I handle it quite well. Glad to know that *.doc or *.docx formats are fine for most publishers.

From what I understand it's not that easy on Lulu.com (is that any good anyway?). Requises a PDF file with specific formatting I think.

 

[Steve Wilson]

Which oddly are more "visible" on the USA Author Central than on the KDP pages. Nice graphs

Haven't really checked out Author Central yet, but that's on schedule this week too.

 

[Montero]

The thing said earlier in the thread about spacing releases out to give readers time to read the book ......
Well as a reader, I am delighted when I come across an author new to me, who has finished a series - so I can gallop through the whole thing. I am not put off trying an incomplete series - but a completed series is definitely a bonus.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

but a completed series is definitely a bonus.

That's why in all my pre launch publicity I mention my future releases are spaced only to allow proper polish and proof, that enough of them are written. Also it has to be clear how many there to complete a story. A great failing of both Harry Potter and Wheel of Time. Fortunately not to many in Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling didn't die. Also like babylon 5, the Harry Potter work as individual books, though overall story ark. Most of the WOT are cliff hangers that often don't even get resolved in the next book! Grr!

So I think a completed series doesn't have to be all published or even proofed, but people like to know it WILL all be published in a reasonable time scale?

 

[Montero]

It isn't the usual business model, but I am wondering about the value of saving most of the publicity for a self-published eBook series until it is fully out. Then your publicity time is benefiting your whole series, the reader can see the whole series is there and you are not spending writing time on publicity before the series is finished, so it will be completed faster.
Down side of course is it is likely your sales will be lower until you do the publicity. With self published eBook series the money cost (but not time costs of course) are lower than with a print run but even so..... Also downside is maybe no-one will like the series at all and you could have found that out before you finished it...

Any thoughts anyone?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Also downside is maybe no-one will like the series at all and you could have found that out before you finished it...

beta readers that are not friends or family.
Even paper is POD now, and proof copies inc postage are less than a retail paperback. The e-Book cost might be zero apart from time.

 

[Montero]

Zero money cost on self-pub eBook - yes, agreed that is so if you don't pay an editor or a cover artist. Interested POD is now that cheap.

In terms of liking - beta readers that are not friends or family can be pretty hard to come by - and strangers who you know are reliable, critical, beta readers are gold dust. (It is so frustrating if someone reads your manuscript, you eagerly say "how was it" and get "alright". Um, what did you like about it? <shrug> "it was OK" etc, or the negative version starting with "sucked" - "what sucked, what can I improve?" )
In fact I am lucky and the friends and family I have are critical people with exacting standards. (Not always critical about the same things....) It is not necessarily the quality of the book I am meaning but simply whether or not it is to the taste of enough people that it will sell. Friends and family can have overlapping taste with you, and a majority of them liking the story you have to tell, does not mean it will be a popular story with other people.
So, waiting until you have finished the series before you publish it in one big hit, does leave you not knowing if a lot of people will like it. (With of course the caveat of is it not liking, or is it no-one noticing your series that means it isn't selling.)
Finishing the series first does have the writing advantage that if you write yourself into a corner, have a continuity error etc, you can put it right and when you do release the series, you know it is as good as it can be without the "I wish I could go back and change that".


Ray, going back to your post about having a lot of the series done except the proofing and publishing, realised I didn't pick up on your question in my last post. So, answering that - not sure how reassured I would be as a reader by your assurance. If I saw it after seeing that books 1, 2 and 3 were out and you'd met your deadlines - then maybe yes. But not on book 1. Wouldn't necessarily stop me buying if I liked the look of it, but I am not sure I'd be reassured by promises without a track record.

Also the idea that you state how many books there are to a series before you finish it - not everyone can set that in stone. It can take more books than expected. (Or even fewer....)

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Also the idea that you state how many books there are to a series before you finish it

No, that's not possible to set in stone.
Even if you killed everyone off (I don't), there are always stories in same "universe", in between stories (The Horse and His Boy) and prequels.

I've no idea how many "Talents Universe" books there will be. I thought Apprentice, Journeyman & Master would be the only "Maisie" books in the "Universe", though I have written two non-Maisie ones and have ideas for two. Yet I've done a draft for a 4th Maisie book (though standalone well) set 20 years after "Master" and I have an idea for an in between one (after Master) which would be a detective /legal one while she is doing legal course work experience.

 

[pambaddeley]

For Talents Series: I've 3 just needing proofing, two needing editing, one needing a lot more work ("The Mission's Talent"). I'd not planned on any gap more than 4 to 5 months. I may delay "The Mission's Talent" till 2018 and do one or two in between.
I can write 8 to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week if I want to, have the energy etc. Usually I only intensively write during creation of 1st & 2nd drafts, then take 1 to 3 month gap and come to it fresh to edit. Then another gap before proof.

My plan is professional final polish/proof if the books make the money to pay it. Including books already published. My concept of crowd funed books is you buy my book and if I can afford it, I pay for professional polish (content priority over cover) and you get free upgrade.

Mark Coker says if it's a choice between spending money on editing or marketing, choose content. He thinks it's possible to get decent cover under $100. But right now I can't afford a cover artist. He says never borrow for a book project or go short of food and shelter.

If you can make a pre-made book cover work you can certainly get a good one for under $100 but you do need to look at a lot of websites.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

If you can make a pre-made book cover work you can certainly get a good one for under $100 but you do need to look at a lot of websites.

It's not too hard for a standalone book (If you can't do decent Graphic design, then a stock photo is good and inexpensive for 100K copies), harder for a series. Even $100 can be a challenge. If I make sufficient, I will invest in edit and cover for existing titles, and eBook purchasers will benefit. Paper purchasers will get a free eBook.

 

[pambaddeley]

Yes agree series would be tough, where you want a consistent look and feel. So far, my books are all standalones so not so tricky.

POD prices do work out quite high don't they; at least have heard people on Goodreads saying CreateSpace somehow 'forced' them to make their prices quite high. Haven't looked into any of this yet though I did read a book a few years back about doing your own print copies via an actual printer (assuming you had space to store 100s of books in a dry, vermin free environment), and they worked out pretty expensive - the book went into various calculations which explained why it was necessary to set a particular price for any particular page count so as to not be out of pocket, let alone make a profit.

Good idea to give people a free ebook if they buy the POD in that case; how would the mechanics of that work out, e.g. would you have to send it to them rather than being able to somehow set CreateSpace or other POD to deliver it?

 

[Ray McCarthy]

POD prices do work out quite high don't they;

I don't think they are.
1) it's only for people that really don't want eBook
2) I price to get same actual amount "royalty" on non CreateSpace retail as eBook, that makes price excluding postage similar to any ordinary paper book in retail. $15 Retail USA, €13 Retail Germany on Amazon. I get more money off people order direct, but then they can't get any of Amazons's free postage offers.
Postage for one copy from CreateSpace to me in Ireland from USA is under $5. For 380 pages, including postage, the Proof Price = Author's Price is cheaper than any other way of getting one or two copies. Ten copies might only double postage, and they can be different titles.

If you want to sell 150K word paperbacks at $6 / €6 / £6 etc, then you are in supermarket territory and need to order 20K copies from China / East Europe or some place under $1 (as low as 50c if enough to half fill a container)

People have to give me proof of purchase (share email via my website contact form first). I don't see a way to do it via CreateSpace or their retailers (which include parent Amazon).
www.corvidspress.com/authors/ray-mccarthy/
either right hand of page on wider windows, or bottom of page on a phone. Make your PC browser window skinny gradually to see the magic.

Real bookshops and Libraries can order via CreateSpace and get a "wholesale rate". Amazon is CreateSpace owner. Sales via Amazon give profit to Amazon twice and less to Author than direct CreateSpace sales!

 

[pambaddeley]

Thanks, that's good if it works out competitive. Got the impression from what has been said on another forum that the price would put people off, those who don't have ereaders, especially for an unknown author. I know that people who are 'cheapskates' won't buy a book anyway; they want it for free. But genuine readers who are prepared to pay a going rate price - wasn't sure if the price levels would be a lot higher and put off those people. As I said, I am early days in investigating all this, as I am still doing yet another edit.

Yes I knew Amazon own CreateSpace. Did think that libraries and bookshops were not likely to order CreateSpace or other self published PODs? Or so it has been said elsewhere.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Did think that libraries and bookshops were not likely to order CreateSpace or other self published PODs?

I agree.
However it's possible, so if your "local bookshop" likes to stock "local authors" they can order in some sort of "normal" manner and make some cents at same price as Amazon.

I can PM you and we can exchange email if you want more detailed price examples and screen shots of set up stages of CreateSpace POD. If you do it just to get a paper copy or to, I suppose you simply never approve the proof. The Author price & postage = proof copy price and postage. There are no upfront charges at all, unless you hire them to format text, create cover etc. They even have half decent "cover creation" software online with a choice of images for those that can't manage that for their proof copy!

 

[Montero]

Several years back I played with a Createspace calculation tool where you put in word count and picked a book size (as in how tall, how deep) and from what I remember, the longer the book, the higher the price - not unreasonably - but if you've written something long - might have been over 170,000 - you had to be up at over £11 per copy to get just a couple of pennies in royalties....... (I mean pennies not percentage.) Been a while since I did the calcs and not been back to find the tool, but the numbers were depressing. So yes, people on Goodreads are right about Amazon setting the price.
You'd want to be announcing loudly how long your book is so as to show it is big and thick for the money, finding somewhere on the Amazon sales page to do that. But a lot of the public don't know what word count means, so you'd need to also be saying pages and comparing to other like books - not exactly a concise soundbite.

I seem to remember that there is also a wrinkle that at the moment there is a £10 threshold on Amazon where the percentage payable to Amazon rockets if the cover price is over £10.

I am currently reading Michael J Sullivan's originally self-pubbed Riyria series, as re-printed by Orbit, and they have two of his original books to one of their paperbacks.

 

[HareBrain]

Yes agree series would be tough, where you want a consistent look and feel.

Here's someone who's solved that particular issue.

 

[Montero]

@HB Oh dear.

Incidentally, on series, while we've been talking about consistent look and feel etc, we are back to the "two sorts" of series. As in one big story divided into a number of books, vs books with a common theme. So say the twenty Kitty Norville books (Kitty the Werewolf) (which I like btw) where there are individual stories but they hang off the underlying build of a story about the really big villain and the Vorkosigan saga where it is roughly chronological, mainly about the same character (certainly the same family) but the books vary from military stories, to essentially who dunnits, thrillers, romance and comedy.
However it is only the first type of series where the reader will be really hacked off if it isn't finished and they don't get to hear the end of the big story.
Now, I want lots more Vorkosigan books - but there isn't a big story that will be left untold if there is not another one. Bujold gives the impression of discovering the life of her character as she writes it.