All writers struggle with insecurities. I heard from a few writers this week feeling like failures. These were writers who are at various stages of their writing and publishing careers all with the same struggle.

We have all been there! I hope this post can be an encouragement to you if and when you’re feeling insecure about your writing or creative work.

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LISTEN TO EPISODE 155 – HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR DOUBTS

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app!

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HOW TO DEAL WITH YOUR DOUBTS

Identify the trigger

Can you find out what is causing those feelings of doubt? I’ve struggled with and still struggle with depression. When I’m having a low day, I put it on the calendar. It helps me identify if something happened to trigger it. There isn’t always something, but for you maybe it’s reviews or a particular Facebook group that makes you feel unhealthy. Try to find the cause.

Remove or adjust

If you are able to avoid or remove that thing from your life, even temporarily, do it! If not, see if you can find a way to adjust. I’ve left groups that made me doubt myself, disconnected from Facebook friends who weren’t positive, and I’ve taken breaks from writing altogether as needed.

Find support

We all need other creatives and to know that they are right there with us. Look for a group that makes you feel your worth. I don’t mean a group of people who tell you what you want to hear. But find a group that will speak the truth to you kindly and that will share in your struggles.

Remind yourself of truths

Focus on what you KNOW to be true, not how you FEEL. In January I had my best month ever. Then in February…I didn’t. I was really low. When I talked to my husband about my income that month, he reminded me that though my income was lower than January, it was still my third-highest-grossing month. I got caught up in feelings, not facts.

Take an action to move you forward

I’ve learned that I hit a low point at the time I finish a book. I am filled with self-doubt and even self-loathing. I think my book is the worst thing I’ve ever written. I want to quit. Once I identified that as a trigger, I learned to take an action: I start a new book. As soon as the finished book is with my proofreader, I open the next Word doc and start typing.

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You are not alone in your doubt! 

Every so often I’ve heard someone try to say that if you have doubts that it’s just imposter syndrome or a sign of immaturity in your career. Just say NO to that nonsense.

At some point, you DO have to get out of your head and take action. You can’t allow these doubts and hardships to hold you back. But having them is NOT a sign that you don’t know what you’re doing or that you have a lot to learn.

I’ve experienced doubt every single month for the last year, even though on paper I’ve gone from making under $100 a month to a healthy four-figure income.

You’re in good company!

You might also like: 

Joanna Penn on Self-Doubt and Imposter Syndrome

One big piece of launching that I don’t see a lot of people talking about is how to judge the success of your book promotions, specifically your paid promotions. This is part of a series on how I moved from making under $100/month self-publishing on Amazon to consistently over four-figures a month within a year. 

One of the investments I made as I launched my pen name last year was paid book promotions. I dabbled in Facebook ads and AMS ads, but the main bulk of my spending was in email promotions. These sites have built up email lists full of readers and send emails out to those readers with your book in them.

Email sells books and I’ve seen a good return from this! However, it’s not that simple. I’m going to share tips on how to tell if your book promotions are actually successful.

Before I get there, it’s important to note that many of the sites have requirements. You may need a certain number of reviews and your book may need to be discounted to a certain degree.

• For more details on paid promotions, you can check out this post: Launching Part 3: Paid Promotions

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Listen to Episode 154 – How to Judge the Success of Your Book Promotions

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app!

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How to Judge the Success of Your Book Promotions

Before you even START to think about paying for promotions, think about these things:

• If your book cover doesn’t look professional and/or fit the genre, you won’t make sales.
• If you only have ONE book, you won’t have a backlist to help you make more sales from the promotion.
• If your book is not part of a series, you won’t make as many other sales from the promotion.
• If your book is part of a series that has to be read in order and is NOT the first book, you won’t have as much success.

Choose Wisely

All of these sites are not the same! Just because a site costs a lot doesn’t mean that it will have the best results.

• Look for genre-specific lists
• Sign up for the email lists– does it truncate the email?
• Ask other authors in your genre
• Realize that established isn’t always better
• They should have responsive customer service

Test and Track

If you don’t note how the sales work, you may not realize which sites to use again and which ones to avoid.

• Try doing one per day
• Make note if you also have a newsletter swap that day
• When you start out, it’s best not to run FB or other ads at the same time
• Track it over time and by book title (ex: billionaire vs other books)

Know How to Read Results

It’s often not a dollar for dollar thing. If I spend $25 on a promotion, I would love to make $25 back, but sometimes it’s more complex.

• Other book sales that week
• Sales over a few days’ time
• Pagereads over that week (if you’re in KU)
• Ranking on Amazon, which gets you more visibility & organic sales
• Email list sign-ups that week
• One sale might turn into a READER, not just a sale

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When it comes to paid promotions, these email list promotions have been very successful for me, but I’ve seen them fluctuate over time per book. I’m not going to stop tracking the sales, because I don’t want to waste my money!

I hope that this helps you not waste your time and your MONEY on paid promotions. If you aren’t sure where to find these sites, you can check out these lists:

• Reedsy’s list of Book Promotion Sites
• Kindlepreneur’s list of Book Promotion Sites

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RELATED LINKS

• How to Sell Books on Amazon
• How to Use Newsletter Swaps
• A Simple Book Launch Framework
• The Create If Writing Facebook Group

 

 

This post follows my post about publishing successfully on Amazon. Newsletter swaps have been hugely important in my success and this post will walk you through how to promote your book with newsletter swaps. 

The biggest question authors face when publishing a book is: How do I promote it?? This is not a new question. It’s not unique to indie authors, especially given that traditional publishers want marketing plans for books they publish. Newsletter swaps are an effective and cost-effective way to get started with more organic promotion for your fiction book.

LISTEN TO EPISODE 153 – HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR BOOK WITH NEWSLETTER SWAPS

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app!

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WHAT IS A NEWSLETTER SWAP AND WHY SHOULD YOU USE ONE?

Newsletter swaps are an effective promotional tool where authors send their audience an email promoting another author’s book, in exchange for that author promoting them in return. The trade doesn’t always (or even usually) take place on the same exact day, but the authors set up the swap for when they have new releases, sales, or just a book they want to promote.

This is an effective marketing tool and a great way to network and build rapport within your niche and community. I’ll continue to stand by email as a selling tool and when you can leverage the power of another person’s audience, you can grow your own. I’ve also made great connections and done other collaborations with authors in my niche after connecting in Facebook groups.

HOW DO YOU FIND PEOPLE TO SWAP WITH?

• Facebook groups by GENRE
• Story Origin
• Paid and free services if you Google

My personal preference is to find these in Facebook groups. It becomes about community and networking, not just piggy-backing off someone else’s platform. We all want success for each other.

You also build trust there and know who you are dealing with. This is important because you are putting those people before your audience. You don’t want to break trust with your readers. If I send something to my clean romance group that isn’t clean, I’m going to get angry emails. My readers will stop trusting me.

HOW DO NEWSLETTER SWAPS WORK

I would recommend signing up for some author lists first to see what they send. Get an idea and then consider what YOU want to send. Do you want to have a close relationship with your readers? Do you ONLY want to give book recommendations without being very personal? Plan out what you want this too look like.

Get clean links from Amazon or wherever you are sending. That means that they stop after the ASIN and don’t have a ton of extra gunk on the end. Also, it’s against Amazon terms of service to use affiliate links in email and they also don’t want you to mention the price, because so often it changes.

• More reading: Important Rules for the Amazon Associates Program

Typically you’ll pull the book cover image and maybe a quick blurb, but different authors handle this in different ways. If I’ve read the book, I’ll often give a brief, personal review. I’ve found that it can help increase the clicks.

TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE NEWSLETTER SWAPS

Be familiar with the books you send. Maybe you don’t read each book, but check out the author and their other books. Use the Look Inside feature. I’ve sometimes found books that were engaging in poor practices like book stuffing, which violates Amazon’s terms of service, or ones that were supposed to be clean and had content that wasn’t clean even within what I read in the Look Inside feature.

Give before you get. When you’re starting out, you may not have a big list. Maybe you don’t have completed books. Start your list. Ask to send for people. Maybe at first they don’t need to reciprocate. You’re still building goodwill with those other authors in your genre.

Send books that will cultivate the right kind of audience. You are building a personal author brand and want to attract the kinds of readers who love your book. Send books that are going to attract and keep the kinds of readers you want.

Rarely go outside your genre. Every so often, it’s okay to test the waters with a different kind of book. But it needs to stay within the bounds that keep that audience you’re cultivating. I could send a Christian devotional to my clean romance list. Some would love it. I would never send books with adult content.

Keep track so that you’re trustworthy. I don’t always send other authors the link to my newsletter. I like the buddy system and usually know the people I’m swapping with. Sometimes it’s nice to get that, but overall, it takes time and I never click. But it’s a good idea to ask what the expectation is! Some people use a spreadsheet to keep track and some make people sign up with a google form to swap. You can click to Save a Facebook post, which will help you if you have set up your swaps in a group.

Don’t send too many books. This looks different for everyone, but I wouldn’t send more than four. Some only send two. It’s a good idea to be up front where possible or as people ask with those numbers, like your list size or how many books are in each email. More books = less clicks.

Be genuine. No matter how personal your emails are, you should always remember that even when you are sending for other people, you are building your author brand. People don’t respond as well to straight sales pitches, but are more likely to buy from word of mouth. As in, PERSONALLY. If you only send emails with books to buy and nothing personal at all, you are wasting an opportunity to connect with your readers. Find even small ways to be personal and genuine in your emails.

NOT SURE HOW TO GET STARTED?

Start building your list! It can be a slow process, but it’s very worth it in the end. Read my post on growing your email list to help you with this. Get in some swaps groups and see how they work, who is in there, and what people are sending. Then, start giving before you ask for something in return.

A NOTE FOR NONFICTION SWAPS

Because nonfiction readers are generally not reading those books as voraciously as fiction readers, this approach should look different. Instead of using a swaps group, email the people you know who might promote your book to their audience. Email people you DON’T know who might have a similar audience. You can ask for them to share with their list in exchange for you sharing something for them in the future. This is much more organic and still very effective.

Other resources:

• Email Lists Made Easy for Writers and Bloggers
• How to Successfully Sell Books on Amazon
• A Simple Book Launch Formula

I’ve found good success pairing newsletter swaps with other paid email promotion services. It’s free (other than the costs to start up a list) and has benefits beyond just book sales as you connect with other authors in your community.

 

This post will be a deep dive into the strategies I utilized in 2018 to go from under $100 a month to making solid four figures every month self publishing on Amazon. My goal is to be as transparent as possible and give you the strategies and tips you’ll need to find success! 

Caveat: There is no ONE way. These are things that worked for me. If you don’t have a well-written book, chances are you will not succeed self publishing on Amazon or anywhere else.

If you are interested in self publishing on Amazon, it’s a great time to be writing! There are so many more resources and tools out there to help you. But that can also mean a lot of time wasted researching, testing, and trying things.

I spent the last year testing, trying, and self publishing. I’m happy to say that within that year, I’ve made huge strides and learned a lot that I wanted to share. This post will be an overview of the strategies I employed and I’ll do a deeper dive on each piece in a separate post.

BEFORE YOU SELF PUBLISH ON AMAZON

Before we get into the strategies, I want to make this clear: You are unlikely to find success with a poorly written book, a bad cover, and an unclear genre. These are necessities! Sometimes you might get away with one of those, but all three are massively important.

WELL-WRITTEN BOOK

While we can all point to books that are poorly written and still find success, your goal should be to write a book that resonates with readers. Sometimes books with poor writing style or grammar do well because the story resonates with readers. But books that well well are books that connect with an audience. Start here: write the very best book you can.

BOOK COVERS

Without a solid book cover that looks professional and like the other books in your genre, your book will not sell. No matter how good the inside of the book is, people are turned off by bad covers. This is simply reality. The faster you understand that and stop fighting against it, the better off you’ll be.

Good resources for affordable covers: 

• Go On Write
• German Creative on Fiverr

CLEAR GENRE

If you try to tell someone about your book and say something like, “It’s kind of like a sci-fi thriller, with a little romantic comedy and fantasy mixed in,” then YOU ARE IN TROUBLE. Books in a genre may have elements of another genre (like a sci fi book that has a romantic storyline in it), but to do well with your marketing efforts, you really need to be very clear on your genre.

• If you haven’t checked out my post on Niching Down, this would be a great place to start!

 

Once you’ve got a well-written book, a solid cover, and a clear genre, it’s time to think about self publishing and marketing your book. 

LISTEN TO EPISODE 152 – SUCCESSFULLY SELF PUBLISHING ON AMAZON

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app!

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HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY SELF PUBLISH ON AMAZON

I tried a lot of things in 2018, but these are the main things that led to success with self-publishing. I’ll go into more detail on each in future episodes and posts, but for now, here are the top things I did. (Again, AFTER writing good books, having solid covers, and being clear on my genre.) The first three are related to writing and craft and the second three are related to marketing.

• Published quickly (about a book every six weeks starting in May)
• Writing in a series
• Writing in a hot trope
• Consistently grew my newsletter
• Set up newsletter swaps with other authors in my genre
• Paid for promotions through other email newsletters

Other than the two on the list, those three main things ALL deal with email! Email is and always will be my foundation for what I do.

PUBLISHING QUICKLY

I did not know that I could write so fast. This will NOT be for everyone! But I will say that if you don’t think it’s you, don’t put a mindset block on writing quickly. My very first book ever took two years to write. The first clean romance book I wrote took three months. My second clean romance book took two months and my third took two weeks.

I’ll address this more in a future episode, but as a note, writing quickly does NOT mean poor writing. The structure of sweet romance is fairly simple and the books are short, around 50k words. This makes it fairly easy to write them more quickly. I also find a cohesiveness in my books that I write faster. Whether a book is written quickly or slowly, you should consider hiring a proofreader! There will be mistakes either way.

Again, writing quickly isn’t for everyone. But whenever I release a new book, I see spikes in the sales of my other books. Writing quickly and publishing quickly on Amazon can be a great marketing tactic in and of itself. You may not realize that you have a quick writer inside of you–I for sure didn’t! Don’t feel that you have to do this, but don’t think that you can’t just because you haven’t yet.

WRITING IN A SERIES

To get the most out of your books, consider writing in a series. This gives readers a clear path on what to read next. If they find and love you, they may just go out and read ALL your other books. (I’ve done this for authors!)

If you’re writing in romance, the series have to be tied in some way that’s NOT leaving readers with cliffhangers. My series are tied by theme or location or have secondary characters becoming primary characters in other books.

For MOST genres, series should be read in order. Know your genre and plan a series within those genre expectations. It will impact your continued sales as you publish.

WRITING IN A HOT TROPE

Trends come and go! If you can latch onto a trend that is hot and write quickly enough to get books out there, you may find more success. Billionaires have been hot in clean romance for the past year or two and I’ve found that my billionaire books outsell my other books something like five to one. Or more.

Traditional publishing doesn’t always have this luxury, as books are finished years in advance. So if you see that vampire books are going wild again, you won’t have time to get a traditionally published vampire book out in time. But you might be able to get in there if you are self publishing on Amazon.

• Tip: I use K-lytics and am an affiliate for their deep dives into what’s selling on Amazon! Find out more HERE. I also use Rocket to identify keywords that people are searching for on Amazon. I’m an affiliate for that as well and you can check it out HERE.

GROWING A NEWSLETTER

Because I know that email sells books, I put money and time into growing an engaged list of subscribers. I used free promotions where I gave away short stories or whole books through Bookfunnel, Book Cave, and Story Origin, and I also paid for promotions with Booksweeps and AuthorsXP that connected me with readers in my genre.

I spent time crafting my emails and promoting engagement with my readers. Some weeks I get something like thirty replies to my emails! The goal is not just numbers, but to connect with readers who buy books and love YOUR books.

As far as social media, I barely did much. I started Twitter, then never went there. I also have a Facebook page, mostly for running ads (and the occasional post) and have started a Facebook readers’ group.

SWAPPING NEWSLETTERS

With having a solid list comes swapping spots in newsletters with other authors. Essentially, they share for you when you have a book coming out (or on sale) and you return the favor when they have a launch or book on sale.

The best way I’ve found this to work is by networking in newsletter swaps Facebook groups by genre. Make sure you are clear on your genre! Sometimes I’ll see books in the clean romance swap group that aren’t clean or aren’t romance. This works best when you are super clear on what you’re writing and what you’re sharing with your readers.

PAYING FOR PROMOTIONS

There are a ton of sites out there who will happily take your money and send your book to their thousands of email subscribers who buy books. These are NOT all created equal and can run anywhere from $50-200. I’m excited to break down more about how to choose the right ones in a later post, but for now, you can check out these resources on finding sites like this:

• Free and Paid Book Submission Sites from Reedsy
• 100+ Book Promotion Sites from Kindlepreneur

Also, I’ve got a podcast episode about different kinds of paid promotions for your book launch. Check it out!

• Paid promotions in your book launch

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Successful self-publishing on Amazon requires a plan. It also requires being willing to pay attention to what’s working, doubling down on the things that do work and backing off on the things that don’t.

• See my post on how I changed the title of my book mid-launch!

I kept spreadsheets of book promotions sites that worked so I could track my expenses and stop using sites that didn’t work. I pivoted and shifted when things weren’t going well. I networked with other authors, asked for feedback, and studied what other authors did.

Was it hard? Yes and no. Often the things I did were simple, but took a lot of time.

While you’re going to struggle to find success with a poorly-written book, writing a good book does not equal good sales. Just self publishing a book on Amazon likely will not result in sales!

You may not be able to do ALL these things. You may not WANT to. But if you’re looking to find success self publishing on Amazon, consider how you can hit some of these six markers.

• For more, check out my series on book launching!

 

I’ve talked before about launch failures, but I have a very real-time example of how you can pivot mid-launch. You’ll learn why I changed my book title and cover ten days into my launch and why you need to be willing to let your darlings die.

In the last post and podcast, I talked about my best month ever. I made a ton of sales and money. This month? My latest launch is nowhere near that. So I decided that rather than just accept this, I would do my best to pivot and change what needed to change in order to find success.

LISTEN TO EPISODE 151- How to Pivot When Your Launch Fails

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app!

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FOUR STEPS TO PIVOT WHEN YOUR LAUNCH IS FAILING

Here are the four things you need to do in order to gauge your launch’s success and pivot if it’s not working:

• Evaluate your launch
• Identify what’s not working
• Ask others for feedback
• Pivot as quickly as you can

EVALUATE YOUR LAUNCH

My launch hasn’t been working. I would have been happy about the numbers a year ago, but I shared in my post on Niching Down how I made $9k last month with my launch. I tracked my sales and promos and ran the same kinds of sales and promos this time, but found I’m making about a third of the income. There’s a problem.

IDENTIFY WHAT’S NOT WORKING

When I looked, my first thought was that the title was off. I debated on the title, which was The Rock Star’s Scheming Bride. The book was the first in a multi-author series, so I had to fit the trope (brides) and the title (The _____’s ______ Bride).

I wasn’t super clear on the trope to begin with, so felt a little shaky on that. Then the word scheming mostly has negative connotations and I hoped the cover of the book with a very sweet and cute-looking bride, plus the content, would offset that.

I looked at reviews and emails I’ve gotten about the book and noticed several people saying that the book wasn’t what they expected. I was getting five star reviews, more than any of my other books, but something was off with the sales vs the responses of those who read the book. That got me thinking that the word scheming needed to change.

Other things that I can’t know: maybe the book last month sold so well because it was a billionaire book and they sell better for me. Maybe it was the fact that I ran some Facebook ads. Maybe January is a better sales month. Some things are variables and unknowns, so you just do the best you can.

ASK OTHERS FOR FEEDBACK

Before making a change, I asked in a critique group. People agreed about the word scheming, but also pointed out that there was a lack of clarity and cohesion with the cover, title, trope, and blurb. The cover looked more like a fake marriage trope, but the blurb said nothing about marriage at all.

I felt stuck. I enlisted one author’s help privately, asking for her feedback. One thing she said to me was that I shouldn’t risk my own launch just to help support the group. This helped me realize that I needed to ask the other group members if I could cut my book from the series and rename it.

Note: I don’t recommend backing out of commitments. My book was the first in the series, so it didn’t impact anything in the series. It might have been worse for another series or circumstance. In another group I’m in for a multi-author series, we worked hard to get a series page (Amazon doesn’t like giving them to multi-authors) and then one author pulled down her book and now we lost our series page. No one is mad, but it was disappointing. So if you’re working with a group,  you DO need to stick to your goals, but also you should do your best to keep good relationships.

PIVOT AS QUICKY AS YOU CAN

This meant getting over the fact that I liked my cover as it was. It meant asking the group if I could leave and hiring another cover designer who could hopefully finish up before the next paid promotions I have. My hope was to update the manuscript and the cover in a few hours so that I could submit to Amazon and hopefully have them accept changes in time. Then I emailed all the paid promotion sites with the new info and made a note in the newsletter swap groups I’ve been in so that people there know there is a new title.

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It was exhausting. I hope it will be worth it and honestly think it will be. I have a whole series idea that can go with this book that I can work on later.

This is one of the reasons I love being an indie. I can decide, ten days into my launch, that I need to change a huge thing and then CHANGE IT. The hard thing is that you can’t always track it. Did my launch last month do better because it was a billionaire book? Because I ran some ads? Because I maybe had newsletter swaps with people who had larger lists?