This Self-Publishing Gig is No Day at the Beach

I am almost finished with the first draft of the second book in the Coursodon Dimension Series.  While I’m pleased with both the progress and the content, I find myself dawdling a bit.  When I was close to the end of the first book, I relentlessly plowed ahead, sometimes writing for 8 hours straight without a break.  And when I was finished, I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment.  I had done it, I wrote a complete novel!  With the current book, however, I feel much less inclined to forge ahead with the same tenacity.  I haven’t quite figured out why, but I suspect it is because I don’t want this story to end.  Oh, I am already planning the third in the series, so it isn’t angst over the end of the characters.

Maybe I’ve enjoyed writing this one more than the first?  I don’t think so, I’m just as excited about this plot as the first, perhaps more so.

It’s more likely I’m dreading the not-so-pleasant tasks of edits, re-writes, cover design, formatting and marketing associated with self-publishing.  I was blissfully unaware of the amount of time I would spend on what’s required after the book was done when I gleefully completed Special Offers.  Now, I know in excruciating detail what I’m in for.  Days and days trying to design and implement a cover that illustrates what the book is about, captures the feel of the plot and characters and doesn’t look like it was done by an amateur.  Then, dithering over if a professional cover artist is worth the cost.  Hours sending out review requests, most of which will go unanswered.  And on and on.

People may think that self-publishing is easy; you write some stuff, you put it out there, and that’s it.  WRONG!  To me, that’s more what traditionally published authors do.  Sure, they have to get someone to agree to publish their work in the first place, but after that, the decision making is mostly out of their hands.  They may not always like what the publishing house decides, but they don’t have to use time they could be writing on marketing and cover design.  I guess the difference is traditionally published authors may spend more up-front time convincing someone their work is worthy of being published, while self-pubs make up for that on the back-end of the process.

In any case, I’ll have to suck it up and finish writing.  Only a couple of chapters to go, and then the real craziness begins.  Time to refill that prescription for Xanax.  Or maybe I'll just take a trip to the beach...

Is There Such Thing as a Good Bad Review?

Today I got an email from a blogger who agreed to review Special Offers.  Her review will be posted in a couple of days, and she sent a copy in case there were any errors (which I appreciate, and there weren’t any).  I’m not sure, however, what to make of the review.  She gave it 3 stars  –  an “Eh, Whatever”  on their scale -  mostly because it didn’t have enough action.  On the other hand, she also says, “While creating memorable, quirky characters, Special Offers leaves a little more action to be desired. Watch out, though, because this series has the real potential to go places.”  (Here’s the link, but it won’t work until it goes live on August 23)

So, I guess it’s a good bad review?   I agree that Special Offers wasn’t action packed, but the nature of the story dictated when the havoc was introduced.  And I can use the comments to improve the next book (which is a work in progress and definitely has more action already).   The reviewer did seem to enjoy other aspects enough to add the positive comment at the end.

Seriously though, a 3.5 star garners a "Worth a Look".  Just a half a star takes the recommendation from "Eh, Whatever" to "Worth a Look"?  And really, it seems from the comments that the reviewer was not entirely not recommending it.  Regardless of my biased opinion, "Eh, Whatever" it is.  I’m just happy she didn’t hate it; if 3 stars gets you an “Eh, Whatever”, what’s a 2 star rating, “Better than Having a Sharp Stick Shoved in Your Eye”?

Added note:  2 stars is not "Better than a Sharp Stick in your Eye", it is "Not Recommended".  Which initially made me feel better in the sense that the reviewer wasn't not recommending it.  However, upon further investigation, I discovered that even though ratings go from 1 - 5 (one being "Burn It" and 5 being "A Golden Fave", with half-points in between) the lowest rating actually given is a 3.0.  Consequently, in reality, Special Offers was given the lowest rating used by the reviewers.  I am, therefore, officially calling this my first bad review.  Which is good, because it isn't really that bad.  That's my story, and I'm sticking with it...

Kinky Sex

Warning:  This post doesn't really have anything to do with kinky sex.  I'm just doing a little experiment.  I'm pretty sure that if a blog post has a title with any of the following words - sex, kinky, throbbing , you get the idea - it gets way more views regardless of its content than any other entitled tome.

Anyway, today's post has to do with reviews and marketing.  (Admit it, if the title was Reviews and Marketing, would never would have checked this out, right?)  Now that I think about it, having kinky sex with a reviewer could, in fact, be a marketing tool.  There.  I feel better.  I did mention kinky sex.  Now I can't be accused of bait and switch.  Bait and Switch...that could have something to do with kinky sex as well.  Probably something Christian Grey would be into.

So back to reviews and marketing.  Laurie, at Laurie's Paranormal Thoughts and Reviews has graciously invited me to do an author interview on her blog on September 8th.  I'm very excited; this will be my first time.  Her blog readers should enjoy that; isn't it always a bonus with a virgin? (Oops, there's a sexual comment again.)  Seriously, thanks for the invitation, Laurie.  But along with the invite, she added some incredibly useful "bonus" information, the best of which was an absolutely fantastic link to a list of potential review sites.  The long and informative list was compiled by Pippa Jay and Lauri Owen.  Using it, the last couple of days I sent out 48 new review requests.  I have already received positive responses from six sites!    I had previously used another list for names of potential reviewers, from which I sent out about the same number of requests.  Most of the listings weren't accepting new requests, and of the 52 I contacted, I only got six reviews. So, I'm pretty happy with Pippa and Lauri's list; most of the sites were ones of which I was unaware.

I am encouraged by the response so far, and I hope to have more agree to review soon.  My loins are throbbing just thinking about the possibilities...

Facebook Ad Experiment Update: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

My Facebook ad finished its run yesterday, and frankly, I'd have to say it was a partial success. The ad directed people who already expressed interest in paranormal romance to a post on Special Offers' FB page, describing the book and detailing where to buy it.  I was charged - I think - every time someone clicked on the ad.

The Good: I got over a hundred "likes" on my FB page.  And along with the likes, I got some good feedback from some people on a variety of topics related to Special Offers.

The Bad:  I didn't get that many sales.  About 10% of those who liked the page actually bought the book. Which is a little confusing to me; I would have thought when someone liked the book's page, they would be somewhat inclined to shell out the 0.99 to read it.  At first, I wondered if many of those who liked but didn't buy were people that didn't own an eReader, or didn't realize that they could download the Kindle app for free for their computer.  I posted asking if the lack of an actual print version was preventing some from purchasing, but only three people said they'd buy it if it existed as a paperback.

The Ugly:  I still don't completely understand the FB ad stuff.  You get a whole crap-load of "statistics" about how many people your ad has reached, how often people click, etc, but I never got to see what the ad actually looked like.  And I have no idea if my goal of getting more sales would have been better accomplished by directing the ad to the book's Amazon page rather than its FB page.  Because whether I like it or not, the vast majority of sales are through Amazon.  Sure, a few have bought the Nook or iPad versions.  But 99% of my "sales" through Smashwords have occurred during various free promotions.

In an attempt to make some sense from the bewildering world of the FB ad, I started a new, smaller ad campaign.  This ad directs people who are interested in romance books (presumably a wider audience than before) to a new post on the book's FB page.  This time, I should only be charged - I think - when someone actually goes to the book's Amazon page.  Or maybe not.  Which brings me back to the ugly part. It is unbelievably difficult to figure out what has to happen to be charged.  So what I think I'm paying for might not be anywhere close to what I'm actually getting.  And the forums are no help at all.  I think it is because everyone is as confused as am, but too embarrassed to admit they are clueless.  Seriously, I have a Ph.D., albeit not in advertising or marketing, and I'm pretty much flying by the seat of my pants here.  So much for higher education.

The Facebook Ad Experiment

I decided to try a small Facebook ad campaign to try and boost sales of Special Offers.  Setting up the ad was not particularly intuitive, and I'm still not certain I did what I intended.  I wanted an ad that, when clicked on, went to a post on the M.L. Ryan author page that described the book and gave info on where to buy it on Amazon or Smashwords.  But when I created the ad, there wasn't a preview available so I could see exactly what it would look like.  I never actually finalized the ad, so I tried again but still got no preview. This created a snafu that eventually resulted in my ad manager being shut down.  It took a couple of days to get it up and running, and then I re-did the ad and "created" it.

The ad went live, but I still never saw a preview.  Yesterday, I happened to be on my personal FB page, and my ad came up.  When I clicked on it, instead of going to my author page, it sent me directly to Special Offers' Amazon page.  Which isn't terrible, I suppose, but I'm confused nonetheless.  In four days, the campaign has reached almost 6,000.  I assume that means the ad was posted on 6,000 peoples FB page.  And apparently 40 of those people clicked on the ad.  And in that time frame, a bunch of people have "liked" my author page.  Which makes me think their click took them to my page, not the Amazon site.  So what's with that?

And with all that clicking - which isn't a great ratio, 40/6000 - I've only sold 1 book!  And I don't even know if that sale was a result of the ad or not.  This is all getting quite frustrating.  The book has 13 great reviews on Amazon, 10 of which are from people I don't know at all.  But still, my sales are pretty dismal; around 100 since it was published on February 12.

To add to my angst, a review that was supposed to be posted on June 4th wasn't (don't know if it is just postponed, or if the reviewer hated it so much, she decided not to post a review - hope to clarify that soon), and another reviewer emailed me to say that, while she found the book well-written, she just couldn't connect with the story, so she would not be reviewing it. Does that translate to "I hated it, but I'm a nice person so I thought I would spare you the trauma of having me rake your tome over the coals in print" or "I'm just not that into it so I have neither good nor bad things to say"?  Either way, I've gotten sale's boosts every time a new review comes out, and now there's going to be two less than I thought.  Of course, if the reviews sucked, there wouldn't be a sales bump, so I suppose it's all a wash anyway.

But I digress. I'll let the FB ad go a while longer and see what happens.  If sales don't pick up, I'll probably stop the campaign and try to re-work it in a way that will be more successful.  Problem is, FB doesn't give much help with exactly how to create a successful ad.  There's a lot of "try something and see how it works for you" rather than any usable hints or guidelines.

If that's the best they can do, I can see why the whole IPO thing was such a debacle.

Where and Why Ellicott City, Maryland?

I just realized that sometimes, when I log into my blog, the live traffic feed from Feedjit Now thinks that I am in Ellicott City, Maryland.  Or sometimes, Colorado Springs. And Iowa City. In any case, I do not live in either city, and I thought I blocked my IP address from registering on the feed.  So what's up with that?  I've been to Colorado Springs; it is quite nice, particularly if you like Air Force pilots.  Ellicott City, MD?  Never been there, never heard of it.  But apparently, my computer hangs out there in some virtual networky way. Note to laptop:  If you are going to travel, why not go somewhere really cool, like Tegucigalpa?

Anyone have any idea why this happens?

The Publisher's Ultimatum: Yet Another Reason to Self-Publish

I read a lot of Urban Fantasy-Paranormal Romance.  I can't help it, I like vampires, werewolves and such. Zombies?  Not so much.  All that mindless brain eating gets old fast.  In any event, there's a lot of  UF-PR out there, and most of it is really good.

One of my favs is a new-ish series by J.A. Saare, Rhiannon's Law.  It's gritty and the main character, Rhiannon, is a kick-ass smart-ass (my kinda gal).  Great plots, definitely page turners.  The third book will drop soon, and I can't wait to see what happens.

Unfortunately, the powers-that-be that publish the series think not enough books have been sold, and if things don't pick up, they might cancel.  I understand their business aims to make money from the sales of books.  However, this series is fantastic!  Why don't they try to do something radical and innovative to help sales. Like, I don't know, maybe promote it more vigorously?

I assume that the author signed one of those contracts that would prevent her from continuing the story on her own if it was cancelled.  Maybe not, but maybe she won't continue it anyway because the time spent on Rhiannon, Disco and Payne sans traditional publishing would not be time well spent in terms of her bank account. And I can understand that, too.  But it seems wrong that a great story would fizzle out and readers might never know what delectable twists the author had in mind.

Such is the way of traditional publishing (TP).  How many great reads have been rejected by TP houses because the first sentence didn't have enough punch, or they were tired of that particular genre, or the person doing the initial read had a fight with her significant other?  Which is why self publishing rocks.

This is reminiscent of publishing research in scientific journals in a way.  You do a crap-load of experiments, some have exciting, positive results and some that don't show anything.  But sometimes, the data that shows nothing happened can be incredibly illuminating.  Unfortunately, no one wants to publish "negative" data.  So other scientists may, at some point, ask the same questions you did, not realize you found out your hypothesis was null, and repeat what you did because they never knew you tried it.  It's all quite silly, really.

Just because the PTB think a novel doesn't fit the narrow parameters that define what TPs think constitutes a money-maker doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile tome.  But in the meantime, buy Dead, Undead and Somewhere In Between and The Renfield Syndrome.  You (and I, when they decide to continue the series) will be happy you did.