Category: General

I’ve been trying to figure out what I like for the All Mad Here cover for a bit. There’s a lot of general elements that I wanted to include to allude to the story inside, but getting it all together is kind of rough.

For reference, I do not draw. I haven’t put the effort and energy into getting good at this kind of art. I find low-cost and free vectors that are labeled for commercial reuse from around the internet, and then I assemble and modify as much as I can.

Placeholder. I knew what colours I wanted and a general idea of something broken. I haven’t leaned into the tea yet, but it might be the time, given the title. And then I walked away from it until after the rewrite.

Tried to keep the tea theme, but there’s a necklace that plays a role in this story. So do I like the idea of a necklace? No. No I do not. But I do like the spiraling effect on the background.

I saw some Wonderland-related art that had keyholes and I do like the idea. The peek inside something locked is a concept that works. And everything on fire and broken hearts are good for this book. Just something seems off…

The colour is better. And the idea is starting to feel more right, with the second spiral coming out of the head of the keyhole. It looks a bit too orderly.

And this is where I’ve landed. The spiral feels a lot more chaotic here and I feel better about things. Yay!

Let me save you guys a lot of time and just go through all of the points in all of these How to Indie Author books. I’ve read a lot and they are very repetitive. I will add a disclaimer here and say that these techniques do work if you follow them to the letter. It’s just that I’ve decided that this kind of success is ultimately not for me. Here’s what’s in every single one of these books:

Writing

• Write to market! Pick your market and write books specifically catered to that one. It should be a super specific niche market. We aren’t going to say this should be a highly profitable market, but we’re going to use examples of highly profitable niches to imply it. 
• Write a series! Sellthrough is where you’re going to make most of your money, so make sure you write in series of at least three. Five is better, seven is great. ((They love odd numbers, I do not know why))
• Write a lot! You’re going to want to release rapidly so that the Amazon algorithm is happy. A book a month is what’s generally suggested. 

Listing

• Get a cover that looks like everyone else’s! You wrote to market, so make sure your cover also looks like the rest of the market. Market market market. Market? Market. 
• Write a catchy blurb! What does that mean? No one can agree on that, but you should definitely write something that’s catchy and makes people want to read it. Also, use HTML and keywords. 
• Price your books good! Use the same price as similar books to yours. ((But similar indie books, not the traditionally published ones)) Consider making the first book in a series a loss leader, which means pricing it to free ((Or 99 cents, which is less common advice)) which will increase the likelihood that someone will check it out. ((Your sellthrough in this price range is horrible, though, fair warning))
• Keywords mean search terms! Make these terms specific to what people are searching for. Remember when you picked your super specific niche earlier? That is what you should probably be basing these keywords around. 
• Pick good categories! Be sure you pick the specific categories that will get you as close to your target market as possible, and make sure you don’t have too much competition in them so that you can raise to the top of the category. Amazon will give you 10 categories if you email them. 
• List on Amazon! We aren’t going to say stay Amazon exclusive. But we’re going to go on and on about the benefits of it and give a couple token paragraphs to going wide. 

Marketing

• Make yourself a brand! And by brand, we mean everything you say, do, and present online is now part of your brand. Make it as appealing to your target as possible. Make sure everything you do falls into whatever you have defined as part of that brand, which means you are now only allowed to talk about things pertaining to your niche genre and maybe some of the blander parts of your life now. 
• Get a newsletter! Newsletters are a list of contacts that you can keep no matter what social media does. It gives you a chance to get directly in front of your audience and talk to them directly, so a newsletter is awesome. It also provides a lot more opportunity to let your audience see the bran-I mean, you! You as a whole person and not just a vehicle that sells books! ((I really hate marketing advice, can you tell?))
• Create some exclusive content! Use bonus short stories, artwork, or books to entice people to join your newsletter. You can offer the first couple chapters as enticement, but this doesn’t work as well as exclusive content.
• Go to where your audience is! Where is your audience hanging out? Go there, join the community, and follow the 80/20 rule while you’re in that community. The 80/20 rule means that you talk like a normal person in the community 80% of the time, and 20% of the time you promote your own stuff. 
• Social media is good! You can use social media to solidify your brand and talk to your audience directly, as well as meet other authors! Be sure you’re on the social media that your audience is on and be very active on it, including posting regularly and responding every single time someone talks to you. 
• Get friendly with other authors! While the advice is positioned as a way to get to know people who you can talk to and rely on, it’s mostly about becoming friendly so that you can have access to their audiences. 

Advertising

• Amazon ads are great! People are on Amazon to find Amazon products, so getting more eyes on your product this way is more likely to get you more sales. Be sure to target keywords, categories, and books that are related to yours to get the highest reward. Also, Amazon will not spend your budget, so don’t be afraid to set your bid caps high. But also, it has awful reporting on a several day delay, so keep track of how much you are spending vs how much you are selling outside of Amazon’s ad platform. 
• Facebook is risky, but can have high reward! Facebook audiences are not there to sell, but you can target hyper specific groups of people with your ads, which can prove to be great. Facebook, however, will use your entire budget so be sure you set it to only charge you by click, not impression. 
• We’re not mentioning how Bookbub is really not returning for people anymore, are we? You can buy a Bookbub ad! They are great, so long as you ignore the growing trend of people who are not making back their investment. 
• Hey, newsletter swaps are a thing sometimes! You’ve made friends with other authors in your genre now, so here’s a great way to leverage your friendship and their audience! You can put your book in their newsletter in exchange for them putting theirs in yours. Itès mutually beneficial. Alternatively, you can use something like StoryOrigin to organize your swaps. 
• You gotta spend money to make money! We probably won’t say it directly, but if you can’t afford to spend a lot of money on ads, you probably will never get the sales you are looking for. If you’re trying ads and not getting the sales despite a great cover and blurb, you probably need to spend more money on ads. 
• Here’s the boring financial stuff and an explanation of ROI. ROI stands for Return on Investment, and this pertains a lot to ads. The total spent on ads vs the cut you actually make on a sale is what you should be counting, not the whole sale. If an ad isn’t making back the money after running it for a couple weeks, turn it off.
  Also, taxes are a thing that exist. 

Other stuff

• Americans need to buy ISBNs. Buy them so you can list yourself as the publisher, otherwise your publisher will look like it’s Amazon.
• Libraries exist. Go do readings and events at them. We’re not going to talk too much about getting things in the library, though. 
• Conventions are also a thing! Sell your book at cons, do talks at conventions, make author friends at conventions! This is a great way to build your brand and meet people in person!

How they actually make money

So if you’re wondering how these guys who are selling the same how to guide over and over again with a new paint job. 

Near as I can tell, it’s selling pricey courses and coaching to other authors. The books almost always have at the very least a link to a mailing list that will sell you their courses, if not a direct pitch for their courses. Doing the math on how much some of these courses and coaching sessions cost, I can see how they hit 6 figures. On top of that, books on how to be a successful indie sell well! 

They follow all of their own advice. They write to market ((Indie authors)), write a whole series of these books to put out quickly, and hang out with their target audience as experts in the field ((These guys are constantly in indie author groups)). The techniques absolutely work in a lot of cases, but I’d argue that this is not an amazing revelation. This is largely Marketing 101 reframed for selling books on Amazon. And, as someone who has also made a thing targeted at authors, I can confirm that targeting authors is a good business decision.

I missed doing this! Quote graphics are a ton of fun. Here’s a roundup of the ones from this month!

I always like helping people figure out how to write stories and how to put their narratives together in a cohesive way. And I’ve also had a surprising amount of time on my hands lately, so I made a thing!

The Storyteller’s Workbook is a journal designed to help you to plan and write your novel with simple worksheets for characters, setting, plots, and writing session tracking. However you plot and plan your stories, this workbook has spreads that will work for you.

This Journal Contains:

• A table of contents that you can fill out for easy reference
• Story planning spreads
• Setting and location spreads
• Character spreads
• Writing session tracker

Magic can end up in the hands of anyone if they know where to look. Magical items litter the streets if you know where to look, and will work for anyone who happens upon them. While the Syndicate tries to keep them from falling into the wrong hands – or any hands at all – even they don`t know how many remain outside of the Evidence Locker at the back of the office.

Evidence looks at the stories of some of the magical artifacts that the Syndicate has yet to track down. Wands and pendants often find their way into the possession of people who don’t fully understand their potential or the consequences of using them.

The Evidence paperback is out at last! I’m slowly getting this whole series into print and I’m getting so close to done! For now, though, enjoy getting your very own paperback of my Canadian supernatural horror anthology series!

I know, I haven’t announced when the next book is coming out yet even though I said I would. I’ve been having a personal life crisis and I don’t want to pick a date without knowing that I can hit it. I will say that tentatively April, though. And until then, I have a few books for you to check out to get you in the mood for the next release!

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Of course! Check out the original and see where the original ideas all came from! It’s a bit of a strange read, but very worthwhile! It’s remarkably both similar and different from a lot of the movie adaptations, and it’s fun to see where the original story went. 

The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

Alice being a bit of a loner and being called to another world? Yep! Horror elements and questionable life choices? Check! A whole bunch of fairy tales that you didn’t really think belonged together but work surprisingly well in a single book? Bingo! 

Every Heart a Doorway by Seannan McGuire

I feel like this one is almost cheating with how similar it is. It follows a young girl going to a boarding school of other young girls who have all been to another world and are trying to either readjust to life in the real world or head back to their fantastical other realms. Also, it’s a lot of fun!

Miss Mabel’s School for Girls by Katie Cross

Bianca’s story of going to school to save her own life and the lives of her family from a cruel curse has echoes of a similar journey to it. Also, the universe is a little fun, though I would warn about that one chapter involving a cat for anyone sensitive to that. 

Sawkill Girls by Clare Legrand

I know this is a bit of a weird one, but this one has a very similar feel to it as the second half of The Looking Glass Saga. Each of the three girls has elements of Alice or Adrianna to them, and the demon definitely feels like some combination of the Bandersnatch and Cheshire Cat.

It’s that time again to bring back the quotes roundup for the month! In case you don’t follow me on social media, these are the quotes that got posted this month! These are all from The Looking Glass Saga.

Also, I tried to make a meme.

I tried.