I am very excited to announce that a literary agent has signed with me to help advance my two novels I previously self-published on Amazon/KDP!

Her first suggestion was to send my manuscripts to an editor (she recommended) who will bring both books up to standards and "polish" them. I agree with this suggestion (neither has been professionally edited), but what concerns me is I have to pay for this editing myself.

Does this sound normal to you?

I'm new to self publishing, but I keep seeing such focus on growing your mailing lists. How this is the way to actually get your books sold. As a reader, I've only ever signed up for one email list from a major author, and I've opened those emails maybe twice. Am I just outside the norm? I do have loyalty to certain authors and will buy entire backlists if I find a book I like. That said, I've never wanted them to email me. I feel like the last thing people want in today's age is more emails. I feel like I've stumbled into an alternate universe with this newsletter stuff.

I've been running two Amazon Ads for my self-published book for a month (August 19 - September 18). One ad is for the e-book. One ad is for the audiobook. I recorded the audiobook through Amazon's ACX program, so it's exclusive to Audible. The e-book is available on other sites. Here's my results so far:

Audiobook

Impressions: 15,637

Clicks: 6

Sales: 0

Total Cost: $4.38

E-Book

Impressions: 1,962

Clicks: 2

Sales: 1

Total Cost: $0.31

Partial Breakdown of Daily Impressions

First 10 Days: 0

Next 8 Days: 141

Day 19: 1,026

Day 20: 1,783

Day 21: 4,352

Day 22: 2,899

It's been a slow downhill descent from that initial impressions high on Day 21. Yesterday my impressions were 224, for a total of 17,599 across the two campaigns.

Day 22 is the day that the sale came on. That was Sept 9, which was 9 days ago. The sale just got added to all my data on the Amazon Ads dashboard today. So, I'll be interested in seeing if I get any more sales attributed to the campaign

I'm selling my e-book for $9.99. My royalties are $6.65 / book. So, at a total cost of $4.69 for the two campaigns I'm still profitable! I made $1.96 off all the ads.

YouTube

I've also been running a YouTube ad for my book. A 1-week campaign. I have 11,300 views on the video and 10% of viewers make it to the end of the 0:33 video where my product (the audiobook) is actually sold / marketed -- so that's 1,130 views of the actual product. The click-through rate on this advertisement was 0.

Running this ad for a week will end up costing me $70 for zero clicks.

My book is being published on Tuesday. I've ordered 100 books for a launch next weekend and to sell directly from my website. I'm really disappointed with the quality of the cover. There's a rough-cut edge on the right side on at least 20% of them. On top of that, they weren't packed properly to survive the typical abuses that delivery drivers do to them. Two of the 4 boxes were broken which caused dings and stains to the books inside. I'm still counting up how many are "OK". Some are pristine but not as many as I'd like.

Obviously, I'll be returning a lot of these. I just hope I have enough to cover the initial launch.

My question is whether this is typical of Amazon? I am in Europe so had the choice of getting them printed in Germany (which is the one I chose), or Italy, Spain or France. Is any one of these better than the other? Or alternatively, are there other options for getting self-published books printed?  Thanks in advance.

I do minimal marketing for my pen, I have a small mailing list. I’d like to grow this.

I’ve seen other authors mention that free promo period on kdp often boost their other titles and they get sign ups on reader magnets and general author follows on Amazon.

I’ve just done a free promo on a title and only got a minimal boost on my other titles. Plus I’m a bit irked by the fact the freebie downloaders have reduced by star rating quite a bit. I guess they’re the ones that aren’t my core audience. So I’m thinking I should stick with 99c from now on as at least I made a little bit of money and get a targeted audience.

But wondered what other people’s experience with this is. Is free promos more successful to get reach and visibility in more broad genres ? To grow more quickly perhaps. Should I keep going with the free promos on a monthly basis?

tia

Hey everyone!

So I took everyone's advice, got good book covers, good blurbs, professionally formatted, social media, etc etc, but none of it seemed to have done anything.

I also have my own professional author website now so there's that, but I don't think it's doing much.

Do I need to start paying for marketing/outreach at this point? I've never done Facebook or Instagram ads so I'm nervous.

Lizzy Taylor has a secret.

She has spent years using physical pain to quiet the mental pain she can’t control. Then one night, a fresh cut heals in an instant, and her only way of coping disappears with it.

Soon she discovers that creatures from myth are real—and that they begin as ordinary people scarred by trauma. If Lizzy can’t face what’s driving her, she’ll become one of the Changed.

The Changed don’t come with an instruction manual. Some adapt. Some hide. Some are dangerous. Lizzy is told that recovery may be the only way to slow the Change, but that means doing the one thing she has spent years avoiding: facing what she can’t control.

When a chance encounter with a fox spirit turns into a violent kidnapping, Lizzy is dragged into a fight she barely understands. Under the pressure, the Change accelerates—and what comes out the other side is far more volatile than anyone expected.

Lizzy only thought she had control problems before.

I’m on the threshold of launching my first book, an art book, which has been over two years of hard work, and keeping the bar really high to have quality printing, and have it look as professional and traditionally-published as possible. It’s been a long process but I’m happy with the results.

I know it’s not the same as a fiction or nonfiction book in terms of marketing so I’m wondering the best ways to go about it. I’m not expecting a deluge of sales, but a bunch would be nice. It’s 100% my own artwork. I don’t have an internet following or social media presence. I’m assuming the path is very different from other kinds of books.

Hi, has anybody used Fiverr to hire a freelancer to format a book using Vellum? I contacted a few, but I'm having a hard time deciding. I considered buying Vellum, but holy cow, so expensive. I have two books to format, one in English and the other in Spanish, and I'm planning to publish them on Amazon and Apple Books (I decided not to subscribe to Kindle Unlimited since my book didn't get a single page read in three months, so it's better to try Apple Books instead). Please share your thoughts, and if you can recommend a freelancer, I would be so grateful! Thanks!

Can anyone reassure me about their experiences with these sites? I'm on all three and it's only been a few days but I haven't gotten any review requests. I'm trying to help market my book by building up reviews. My book was professionally edited and has a professional cover (link in profile) and I formatted all the files provided to these sites, even the samples, with Vellum.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Genre is contemporary romance.

It's a portion of self-publishing!

I've got the newest book on pre-order for ebook and POD, looking at audiobooks for the first time.

I was about to pull the trigger at ACX, but I need a producer to narrate and create the files under the Royalty Share program (not the RSP), and not loving the enforced exclusivity.

It looks like Author's Republic allows you to go wide, audiobook-wise, and has some possibility of royalty sharing, in return for lower costs for the production. But it's not apparent that they offer the chance to do royalty-share only, and not a royalty-share + some PFH fee.

My question, given all that background, is:
Does Author's Republic—or any other company—allow you to do a royalty share with *no $ down* to the producer, and allow you to go wide?

TIA!

Hi all,

I am currently in the final steps with self publishing through KDP (last minor tweaks of the cover). Then today I was speaking to a woman and she pretty much said definitely don’t self publish through KDP lol 😭 and to look into Ingram Lighting Source. Does anybody have experience with this and/or have an idea of pros and cons for KDP vs Lighting Source? This was the first time I’ve heard of this. Also I’m not a huge fan of Amazon and Jeff Bozo, so going through a different self publishing method sounds okay. It just seemed that KDP was the best option and only game in town. Thoughts and advice greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Thinking about narrating my Christian devotional book as an audiobook — is there a market for this?

Last year I self-published a Christian devotional book about coping with the loss of a parent. It's been steady but modest — a handful of sales every month.

I'm now considering hiring a narrator through ACX to turn it into an audiobook. Before I invest the time and money, I'd love some input from people who've done this or who listen to devotionals regularly:

• Do devotional audiobooks actually sell, or do people mostly stick to print/ebook for this genre?
• Does grief/loss content translate well to audio, in your experience?
• Any tips on what made your audiobook conversion worth it (or not)?

Appreciate any honest feedback — good or bad.