I had a few stipulations
for launching my debut novel. I started searching around the web for
self-publishing guides, information, podcasts, etc and found that it is all in
one way or another ‘pay to play’. I saw this as a challenge. I did not want to
spend any money launching Tears of Ugh: Part I. This meant no paid editor, no
Facebook ads, no google search ads. From the book cover to marketing, this
endeavor would be all organic.
The strategy
In 2012 I wrote a 54,000
word fantasy Young Adult novel. ‘Tears of Ugh’ is a standalone novel, but I did
not want to pursue publishing my manuscript until I had written a complete
trilogy. When the second and the third installments were completed in 2014,
only then did I query literary agents.
After over a dozen
rejections or non-responses from literary agents, I gave up on that path. I
have heard of people submitting hundreds of query letters before they get a
positive response. I could have done this, but it is 2015! The world is ours.
We don't have to wait for publishers to come around to our manuscripts; we can
take our work directly to the internet.
In early October I developed
a marketing strategy. Wanting to capitalize on the holiday shopping season, I
split my novel in half. ‘Tears of Ugh: Part I’ was to be released on November
24th, just before Black Friday and Cyber Monday, for free. This would give me
one month to work out the kinks of self-publishing and generate buzz for ‘Tears
of Ugh: Part II’--to be released just before Christmas.
Editing
Confession time: I have no
formal writing experience or education. I took my freshmen English class as a
senior in high school, meaning I literally took one English class in college
and that was nearly a decade ago. But despite all that, the month of November
would be my foray into the life of a full time author. After all: it was
November. NaNoWriMo!
My plan was to write
2,000 - 3,000 words a day on a different story while editing and promoting ‘Tears
of Ugh’. I had a pretty tightly edited manuscript thanks to my wife, but there
was still a number of errors in it. I found it easiest to edit by reading the manuscript
one paragraph at a time, starting at the last paragraph.
My schedule was to write
all morning and edit/promote in the afternoon. It was going to work out fine,
until I got sick. I had a flu and a headache and I could barely make 50 words a
day, let alone muster the brain power to edit. I would have made my
self-imposed November 24th deadline had it not been for this. Instead, my
manuscript was ready for show time on November 25th.
One important thing I
must mention is formatting. Make sure you have a consistent and simple format
to your manuscript. I use MS Word and I have only two different font styles.
One for chapter headings and one for text. The ‘keep it simple stupid’
principle applies here.
Uploading
It takes time! Give
yourself a head start. I was foolish and did not do this.
The plan was to have ‘Tears
of Ugh: Part I’ on Kindle and iTunes
for free. A few days before the book launch I realized that on Kindle Direct
Publishing (KDP) you can't publish a book for free; $0.99 is the minimum. I don’t
know how there are so many books on Kindle for free. When I find out how I will
let you know.
Since I wanted the book to be available for free, I decided to get it onto iBooks first. I'm not a Mac
user so this would take some getting used to. I could not find up to date information from Apple about self-publishing so I put together brief instructions on how to publish onto iBooks through iTunes.
My manuscript was ready on November 25th but the novel wasn't up until November 27th. Why? There was
some bad information on my iTunes banking information. I contacted customer
service. They replied very promptly, so if you are having issues don't be
afraid to contact iTunes Customer Service.
The Kindle upload went
smoothly and there was no issue—a few clicks and I was in. It even converts MS
Word .doc files into the proper format automatically.
With all that sorted out
the monumental moment of publishing my first novel came and went. My first
download was of course my wife, she has yet to leave a review...I hope she
liked it!
Promotion
Remember my goal of
spending no money. Promotion without spending money is difficult but not
impossible. Everyone has a ton of friends on Facebook and I leaned on them
hard. I did a few things leading up to the book launch. I created a Facebook
Page, an Instagram account and brushed the dust off my Twitter account. I
created some content and announcements and spread them leading up to the book
launch.
I'm super proud of this flyer that I made. I made a blog post about the story behind my story. I doctored Oprah's interview with J. K. Rowling and inserted myself into it. The flyer and
book cover were posted on Instagram; articles were announced on Twitter and
Facebook; and all of my social media fed into my blog.
Here is a great keyword
for you aspiring authors out there: Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I didn't
even look into this until after my novel was out. Before I started tinkering
with this, Google searches for my name/book were horrendous. It is something I
have started researching right now and possibly the topic of another blogpost.
I spent a few hours watching Youtube videos to educate myself on the basics.
I'm slowly understanding the Google Search Options website. It would take more
than a lifetime to learn all there is about SEO, and I want to be a writer not
a marketer! Make yourself smart about SEO by spending a few hours on Youtube
watching videos before you release your novel. For creating a great SEO
friendly website there is a ton of information out there, but the best place to
start for your website is website.grader.com.
After the book release I
did a total redesign of my blog. One thing I got lucky on was that my website
is pretty mobile friendly. All my work in the past 2 months has been on a
computer. I didn't even think about mobile friendly websites. 30% of the
world's internet traffic is on a mobile device, and it is probably higher than
that for the people I am trying to reach. Always think mobile.
For the blog redesign I
did some things that are core to a good website. One important thing was making
sure that all my links opened in a new tab or window. While it seems simple,
this something that is easy to overlook, yet absolutely critical in keeping
people on your webpage. I added 'Jump Breaks' to all my previous blog posts to
make my main page less cluttered. I put up links to ‘Tears of Ugh: Part I’ on
iTunes and Amazon and uploaded Gadgets for my Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
accounts. I created this form for email sign-ups in about 10 minutes and linked it to
my sidebar. I would make instructions on how to create your own, but that would
be insulting. Go to docs.google.com/forms and take it from there. Also, don't be
afraid to enter your information and sign up for email updates.
The Final Boss
How do I get random
people to download and read ‘Tears of Ugh’?
If I had the answer to this one, I'd be paying someone else to write and
promote this. Through my Facebook page I have 1,290 post reaches, peaking at
800 in one day. All organic, that is damn good! And probably about 10 times
what I thought it was going to be. The only drawback: I have only have 25
downloads (that's a 1.93% conversion rate). I don't know what to do here. I'm
going to spend a lot of time on trying to improve my conversion rate for ‘Tears
of Ugh: Part II’.
Some things I will
research are calls to action, good book blurbs, and getting further outreach.
If I make enough money from Amazon I will definitely spend it promoting on
Facebook. This is the main source of my clicks on this blog, and I'm assuming
that is the same for iBooks and Kindle as well. If I crack the code and beat
the final boss I will definitely share it with you. Until then I'll just post
pictures of cats.
Here's a cute picture of
our cat Nejm, may he rest in peace.
Leading up to the
release of ‘Tears of Ugh: Part II’, I am going to work on search engine
optimization, calls to action, and making a pre-order option; hopefully this
will bring up my conversion rate and increase my outreach. I will recap again
in January. Check back here for updates in the mean time. And don't be afraid
to follow me on social media; all the buttons are on the left of your screen.
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