Self-Publishing Lucky I Have a Job...

[tyes]

 

[RK Wallis]

Yep. Been there. Radio silence.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I do more business these days off Amazon than on--local stores, other online retailers, and in-person sales. A recent Amazon promo week I did netted me a bunch of sales, but I didn't recoup my promotion costs. You've got to constantly be advertising to make any headway on the Zon.

 

[Sarit]

Yep. Don't feel bad about it, trad pub is losing more money on most of their titles than we are. I'd like to say it's the times, but looking back it seems like it was always hard to break through. So I'm not quitting my day job either....

 

[Vagabond Heart]

If it helps, I know a very prolific trad-published author of over 100 books. Some have won awards. One was serialised on TV, and the adaptation won awards.
And she still keeps her day job.

 

[tyes]

My stats on Draft2Digital (for eBooks) are better, since it distributes to pretty much everything else. Libraries are the main revenue source. Audiobooks are also stronger, but the metrics are difficult for me to understand since it includes subscription services which don't pay out a full purchase.

Still, marginally despondant (maybe because my wife's SP non-fiction title still gets more sales ), butif we were doing this only for the money then I suspect our craft would suffer

 

[Sedayne]

Even Frieda McFadden has a day job.

I'm in awe of writers who self-publish. Not only have you taken the time to write the thing, but you've had to edit and produce it without the luxury of assigned staff, and now you're getting it out there, publicising and selling it. It's an amazing achievement.

 

[Jonny]

Keep at it Steve. It was ever thus in trying to break through. It's a lonely furrow we plough.

I occasionally bring this tale up but you may not have seen it. Things can sometimes turn on a dime as they say in the US.

McKinty at the time was a well respected author of crime and had won many plaudits and awards for his books. His earnings were so bountiful that he had to give up writing and drive an Uber to make ends meet.

But then...

From Uber driving to huge book deal: Adrian McKinty's life-changing phone call

Despite awards and acclaim for his crime fiction, the impoverished novelist lost his home and was set to quit – then the phone rang

www.theguardian.com

 

[JohnBertel]

It may not be very polite to give feedback when not called for, but as I often read thrillers, and sometimes techno, I'm going to give you the honest reasons I would skip this book:

The cover does not say 'thriller' or 'techno thriller' The best sellers in this category have way more 'mysterious' and intriguing illustrations and more popping colours. After looking at the cover for some time, I get that the illustration is kind of a word upside down and falling apart, but very very few people would look long enough to get that.

The subtitle on the kindle page (The new Techno Thriller) makes little sense. New?? The subtitle on the paperback page screams keyword stuffing = 'desperate self-publisher' By the way, the paperback does not appear on the kindle/audio page, so if anybody finds the paperback they think the only choice to read the book will cost 18 USD.

The first and longest part of the blurb describes the world and only close to the 'read more' line do we learn about the story.

The last thing, and this may only be me, but I close the 'look inside' as soon as I see paragraphs separated by a blank line instead of first line indentation. I don't think I've ever seen blank lines in a novel published by a traditional publisher. It may be unfair, but to me it signals that the publisher couldn't be bothered to do proper formatting, so what else couldn't they be bothered to do. But maybe it's just me.

Best of luck!

 

[tyes]

Thanks for your feedback John. Re: some of your Amazon comments, after a title is created, Amazon / KDP won't let you change the subtitle. This was a mistake on my part that, despite talking to KDP couldnt be resolved. Other formats don't have this but KDP is difficult. I'm not sure I fully understand the issue with the "look inside" feature: what is shown here is a cut down version of the eBook with less formatting and standard fonts. The actual eBook when viewed in app (or other eBook readers) seem OK to me.

I'll look into the other things you've mentioned.

Cheers

 

[JohnBertel]

I didn't mean that there is anything technically wrong with 'look inside.' I mean that the paragraphs are separated by a blank line instead of using indentation of the first line to signal a new paragraph. This may be my very personal preference, but I think this way of separating paragraphs (at least in novels) seems unprofessional.

What do other people think about this?

 

[tyes]

I didn't mean that there is anything technically wrong with 'look inside.' I mean that the paragraphs are separated by a blank line instead of using indentation of the first line to signal a new paragraph. This may be my very personal preference, but I think this way of separating paragraphs (at least in novels) seems unprofessional.

What do other people think about this?

I followed up on the pesky "subtitle" issue on the book, and managed to convince one of the KDP chat helpers to investigate further for me. One solution offered was that I just make a new title with the right info, but that would mean that the book would have a different ISBN. Since i also publish the paperback with IngramSpark that would mean the same book / edition would have two different ISBNs. They escalated to a second team member was able to correct the issue. Hurrah! The change is still pending review which will take 24 hours.

I also took a second look at the first line indent for the eBook. It's there, just wasn't very big, and the inter-paragraph spacing was also a little wide. So I've also changed these and reuploaded. Not sure why I made the original so small-maybe I copied whatever other eBook I was reading at the time. The paperback didnt have ths problem.

Thanks for your help

 

[Sedayne]

What do other people think about this?

My understanding is from print novels rather than ebooks, but the first paragraph is not indented in a print novel. And neither is the first paragraph of a new scene, which should follow a line break. Only subsequent paragraphs have indents and no line breaks.
Maybe there are different conventions for ebooks, though.
The image above looks fine to me with no indent for the opening paragraph. To me, it's the featured capital F makes it look distinctive/different. @tyes