I'm levelling up as a writer

Hey friends!

Some of you won't care about this at all, so...yeah.  You've been warned.  BTW, it's okay if you don't care.  The nuts and bolts of being a professional author aren't always glamorous or even interesting to everyone.

2021 has been my year or reconsolidation.  2020 was really tough for a variety of reasons.  Amazon has fundamentally changed their store.  I used to be able to be much more lazy because I could assume that if a book did okay, that Amazon would help my readers, or even new readers see my new releases.  

This is not true anymore.

The sequels First Song 2, Asgard Awakening 2, and Even Delvers LLC 4 massively underperformed.  

At first I was worried that people just didn't want to read me anymore.  My confidence was shot.  I also wondered if people being broke from 2020 (which is definitely true) might have been the reason. However, while these things might partially be true, especially the broke thing (most folks have left my Patreon over the last 2 years because their financial situation has changed, which sucks for everyone), over time I have found the biggest reason:

A lot of readers don't even know I've released new books.

Amazon didn't push my releases out, and without that, I don't/didn't have a good way to get the word out.

FB used to be a more powerful tool than it is.  I own several large FB groups, but the reality is that their usefulessness is limited.  If I make a release post on Facebook, the number of people who will see is is, at most, a couple hundred (usually).

More engagement can show the post to more people.

However, Facebook also throttles posts with links.  People can be lazy.  Not having links in the OP really hurts authors.

Then when you consider, say, launching an audio book in a big group like the Society.  Let's say 300 people see my post.  Now let's say only 150 of them are people who will read my books.  Now let's say 50 of them are people who might like the series I am promoting.  Now let's say 2 in 5 is an audio book reader.

This means that my 1 promotional post that I am allowed would net me...yes...20 potential readers.

And that's assuming they all have the money or credits or time to pick that audio book up.

Anyway, 2020 has proven that I am much too reliant on Amazon.  Once they changed the store, the rug was swept from under me.

The answer to this issue is what I should have been doing as an indie author ages ago--building a mailing list.

So this year I've finally begun paying for Mailchimp, and I also just created a bookfunnel account  today.  So what does this mean?

For one, it means that from now on I will be able to share a single link for whatever book I am promoting.  It also means that I can start more efficiently gathering emails, and I've already sent my first group email for Engineering Ludus.

I'm levelling up, being less lazy.  It sucks because this is all admin work that takes away from writing and editing time, but the writing is on the wall.  I will not be able to keep this awesome job forever if I don't grow and evolve, just like any other business.

This is good for everyone who likes my work because it means I will remain an author.  This gig is hard.  Very hard.  With the new changes /w Amazon, I'm predicting that in the next 2-3 years, a lot of authors will need to quit their jobs and get a regular job, and maybe even quit writing altogether.  Failing at something like this can be very discouraging and depressing.  I don't begrudge anyone who just... stops, especially since it might not be worth it anymore if someone isn't getting any readers like they used to.

So...yeah.  I'm proud of myself for finally taking the plunge.  It's also a little sad because the more professional I become, the more care I put into writing as a business, the farther I feel I'm moving from the joy of discovery that I felt when I'd first begun publicly writing.

But 2020 was a major eye opener for me.  A few authors did well in 2020, but most did not, and sales are down across the board.  For anyone who wants to understand why a little bit better, Amazon is basically forcing authors to use AMS (ads) in the Amazon store.  It used to be that agreeing to exclusivity through the KU (Kindle Unlimited) program would be enough for Amazon to share your books once you hit a certain number of sales, or 25, or 50 reviews in the store.

This is not true anymore.  To put this into perspective, Delvers LLC 4 only sold about as well  as a Nora Hazard book.  It did about 20% as well as I'd been expecting it to.  I had to admit this, but the poor performance has been killing my motivation to write.  What makes much more sense is to build my ability to let people know that I've actually released anything prior to trying to rekindle the series.  

The reality is that if Delvers LLC 5 doesn't do well, I will have to start worrying about bills, as in, the series might not pay them.  None of us want that.  So Delvers LLC 5 is really my chance to rekindle the series (numbers/sales/business/momentum-wise).  I can't fuck it up.  This means Delvers LLC 5 not only has to be a long, fantastic book, I also need to do my job as an indie and have a huge mailing list.

I am not willing to give up on Delvers LLC.  It was the series that started my career, and it's frustrating that Amazon is actively screwing over indies so brazenly these days.

To put some more of this into perspective, Amazon wants me to spend /thousands/ of dollars in their store basically just so readers can organically find it again.  Thousands.  In the first month after release.

And the real cherry on top is that the term "GameLit," that I had one of the largest hands in popularizing, will now cost me almost $2 PER CLICK on Amazon for me to use as an advertising keyword.  Why?  Because every other author wants to use that term and we're all competing with each other, so Amazon is winning.

...I just realized that not everyone might understand that statement.  I'll put it in a really simplified nutshell like this:  Ads are like... Ebay.  People buying ads want their ad to show, not someone else's.  So the person who wins is the person who pays more, in general.

Fun, huh?

Anyway, this is kind of a bittersweet year for me.  How this year goes will really prove whether I can weather a storm and make it as a full time author long-term.  The cost of being an author just keeps rising.

As it is, if you pay for an audio book, editing, a good cover (not some Fiverr bullshit), formatting for a print book, etc, a single book can cost an indie author $5k-$10k (or even more), to publish.  On top of that, I'm paying for mailing lists, ditigal editing progams, link data (this is for my website so people cliking on book links go to their Amazon store iteration), etc.

One reason I haven't taken the plunge to do conventions yet is the up front cost of convention branding/banners/tables/travel, etc.  Now if I do conventions, my focus will be primarly on gathering emails.  Selling books will be secondary.

---

Now let's switch gears for a second.  

One major blessing and a huge win recently has been my return to Royal Road.

If you are a new patron from Royal Road, major shout out!  Thank you for being here!  

Posting to Royal Road has helped me discover a little bit of that old joy of writing, and more importantly, it's helping me ramp up for the release of Jake's Story.  I really think this story has the potential to take off.  It might even be bigger than Delvers LLC.

More importantly, hyper successes like Shirtaloon, William D Arand, Pirateaba, etc, have shown me that I'm not using nor leveraging Patreon correctly.

Part of that has been my own fault.  My seasonal depresion is a thing, but it's also not a good enough excuse.  As authors, we live and die on consistency.  Sometimes at night I lie awake and wonder if, when readers' financial situations changed and they had to leave this Patreon, if they might have prioritized it higher if I'd been producing more.

I realize that this is kind of dark, and that a lot of you are here to just support me...which still humbles me.  But I can also see proof of the fact that authors who consistently produce, and produce a lot, have bigger Patreon pages, and more importantly, they are doing more sales on Amazon.

Writing more books has always been the best way to self promote.  But with Amazon having changed the store, it might be the best way to stay afloat, too.

Anyway, I know this has been a serious topic, and I know that not everyone is interested in this, but if you've reached this far, thank you.  Sometimes it's cathartic to talk about the business side of writing.  And I realize that for all the smaller writers or would-be writers out there, this might be useful information, too.

On that note, if you are a new writer, start building an email list IMMEDIATELY.  Also, this may seem self-serving because I have Adom Publishing, but I think the window of opportunity for new authors to 100% self publish and do well is closing rapidly.

The industry itself has changed and everything just keeps getting harder--exponetially so for new authors.

One thing most readers don't really understand is that /when/ a reader buys a book and /when/ they read it are both critically important, especially for indies.  We need readers to buy, read, and review a book within 1-3 weeks after its release.  A sale a year from now is a couple bucks and is very helpful, but a sale right after release helps get the Amazon algorithm spinning and can result in hundreds more sales.

This is why indie authors hate launching against other, big authors.  For instance, if you launch your book as a small or mid-list indie in the same week that a Brandon Sanderson book comes out, you've probably just killed your release.

In GameLit, authors we don't like to launch against are like... Dakota, Dave Willmarth, Travis Bagwell, William D Arand, etc.

It's...hard.  And a lot of work.  I realize that some folks  get frustrated with me about my output, and I'm sorry.  The best excuses I have are that I'm a slow writer, I plot out my books (stuff doesn't just randomly happen), and there is a lot of other work I need to do on the back end.  I also have a life, unfortunately.  The last two days were mostly spent on yardwork.  

Trust me, I didn't enjoy it. lol

BUT, and this is a big but (giggity), I am acknowledging that I have to do better with my bouts of seasonal depression.  Having a few months of little to no productivity is not acceptable, especially not as a professional.  This is my job.  I can't sit around and feel sorry for myself and still pay the bills--my name isn't Patrick Rothfuss.

I've published 13 books with my name on them since 2016 and I'm proud of that, but I can do better.

So I promise all of you that I will continue trying to be a better author, a better artists, and a better human being.  That's all I can do.

Again, thank you for being here, and thank you for all of your comments that help me make my books better.

And for all you mad lads who were entitled to free, physical books mailed to you, but elected to have them given to libraries instead, I plan to make a post soon documenting handing those books off to libraries.

I take charity and freebies very seriously.  

I hope you have a great day! And I also hope to have another Jake's Story chapter up later today.

-BC