With apologies to David Gaughran. A year or two ago, an ex-colleague of my husband’s (he works as contractor in IT, changes jobs a LOT, so there is nothing dramatic about the ex bit) mentioned that he was writing a book. The book was historical fiction and he wanted to…
A while ago, I wrote a post Why Don’t My Books Sell. It was originally written on this blog, but before I did the crash & burn to fix weird problems with this blog, I moved it to the “Self-publishing” section on my author site. That post is all (well,…
I’m going to be bold and I’m going to call myself a successful writer. No, I haven’t made a million in three months and I’m not dripping in money. But I’m consistently making more than goes out, I’m consistently increasing my readership and I’ve got the means to invest in…
If you poke around the internet, you will find posts by various wise writers exhorting you to spend x amount or proportion of your time marketing and the rest writing. Often it comes down to 80% writing and 20% marketing. I think these sorts of enforced schedules miss a really…
In conversation. GH = Grasshopper VA = Veteran Author GH: Soooooo, I hear Bookbub is all the rage, but is that site even open to us indies, because I submitted my book once, and they didn’t want it. VA: *loud belly laugh* You submitted ONCE? Mwahahahahahahaha!!! GH: But they didn’t…
In my last post I spoke about how I spend about $1500 average on each book. That includes editing, proofreading and formatting and the cover. Sometimes it’s more, sometimes less. The biggest variable is the cover. Some covers I can make, others I leave to someone else. I find it…
I came across this post in my Twitter feed. TL;DR: an author lamenting how much it costs to produce a book, and how little she has sold. The expenses side in her post looks fine. I tend to budget about A$1500 per book for editing, cover design and formatting. I…
General warning: as soon as you decide to self-publish, a certain section of the population decides that you are a cow to be milked. Some will be blatant about it by sending you emails soliciting your business. Usually, it’s to buy into some form of marketing. Mostly, you’ll be marketed…
Listened to the Marketing SFF people’s podcast with Elle Casey this morning. I love Elle and the nice, unassuming way she treats her career and the success she has had. She said a lot of things that I agree with. But she went on a little bit of a crusade…
This advice is often phrased as “mistakes made by new writers”. I don’t like the word “mistakes” and I like to express thoughts in positive advice that people can do something with. So what is the most important thing writers should be doing? WRITE Well, duh, I can hear you…
