Tao Wong

Business Post - Myth Busting - Editing

You HAVE to get your work professionally edited.

How many of you have read that? How many of you have been put off publishing because of that? 

Quite a few I'd wager.

Would you believe that I made over $3k for the first month my first ever book release, with the only additional cost the $250 I paid for the cover? No editing, no proofing, nothing.

I still have reviews with people complaining about bad editing. Justifiable complaints too. I had a LO...

Business Post: Mythbusting for Indie Authoring - Cost

One of the persistent myths I've been seeing a lot of is that it cost a LOT to publish. I've seen people talk about anywhere from $3-20,000 to publish a single book. More reasonably, many I see are still in the $3-5k range.

This generally breaks down to something like this:

- Developmental Editing (between $0.03- $0.10 a word - so a 100k book is like $3-10,000)

- Line Editing & Copy Editing (between $0.02 - $0.02 a word)

- Proofreading (around $0.001-0.005 per word...

Business Post: Discoverability and Promotions (3)

I'm struggling a little with these posts, not sure they're structured right. Anyway, here's another post about some other ways to increase awareness and discoverability of your work.

In-person Methods
I'm not a huge fan of in-person methods. For the most part, in-person events do not provide huge visibility or return on your time. For example, a talk about your book in a library might get you 20-30 listeners, maybe a half dozen sales at most for 3-4 hours ...

Writing & Release Update - June 14 2021

Okay, monthly update coming in. I did one for my patrons a bit a go but this is an overall update for everyone. 

A Thousand Li

The Second Sect launched in both ebook and audiobook formats! 

As of writing, they are still both doing really well with the audiobook being a bestseller still. Not the ebook (at least not on Amazo...

Failed Cover

So, figured I'd show this to you guys. You might get a laugh out of it. 

Here's a failed cover. The artist really surprised me. He had such a great beginning with the things he asked for, the way he built out the potential images. And then, when it came to actually doing the work it was just... 

Blargh. 

This took nearly 8 months to get from them and cost a lot of money and the final result is something I'd NEVER put live.

So it'll stay here for patrons ...

Business Post: Discoverability and Promotions (2)

Alright, we talked about increasing discoverability on your promotional site. Basically, ways to make your book show up more. The major thing to consider is that most retailers push up books that are selling, reduce visibility of work that isn't. It's why things like the 30/60/90 day cliffs exist (new books sell better); and so Amazon has created algorithms to help reduce things visibility on a regular basis to keep overall sales higher.

Now, we'll tackle the discussion about ways to in...

General Update

Some basic updates.

The Marketing assistant I hired disappeared. Had personal issues (again); so I'm stuck without one. I still have help but plans for marketing has gone to hell. Funnily enough, some of my advertising tests hadn't worked that well, so I ended up turning them off. We'll see how it all goes, but I just don't have enough time to dig into all that again which is a little frustrating.

I've been working on a few different stories, many of them going out to various anth...

Multiple Projects and Some Mythbusting

Recently there was a large discussion on Reddit from a meme about having more than one project.

Obviously, some readers were quite upset about that since some projects were set aside by other authors, sometimes because the works were abandoned, sometimes because they were rotated.

Completely understandable, and I'm not here to discuss reader preferences. Nor am I going to discuss the craft aspects of working on multiple series. It's a given that certain writers need to work on mul...

June Short Story Poll

I managed (somehow) to get May's short story out on time. So, here we go again with another vote. 

Patron Story - A Thousand Li: Illnesses & Villages

I finished it! And it's out on time. 8k, so this is not really a 'short' but more a novelette. A short novelette, but a novelette.

It's... well. I'm not sure how good it is. I know most of you don't comment, but I'd REALLY like your views on this short. 

I was trying for a little humor, a little mystery. I'm curious if that came through. How did you guys react to this?

Business Post: Discoverability and Promotions (1)

Watching a discussion on Twitter about how bestsellers are chosen in both trad pub and self pub via the dedication of resources (i.e. marketing budgets). This can happen in a wide variety of ways, from ARCs to promotional copies and actual advertising, but the more money you throw at something, the more likely it will become a bestseller.

And that's not wrong. Especially when it comes to trad pub, it's rare for books without a good marketing budget to become bestsellers. There are the s...

Word of Warning and apology

Hi everyone;

So, we might not get the short done by the end of the month so it'll come next month and possibly a 2nd one then too. Sorry, I just got sick again and had no energy to do stuff. Also, SA 11 ending (which I'm writing now) was putting up a fight so I took some time off to figure out what was wrong. 

I know what I need to do now, so there's going to be some backtracking and editing on the main story a bit, and what not. Nothing major, just a few scenes here and ther...

Marketing Strategy for Tao Wong: Power, Masks & Capes (IV)

Figured we'd do something different and discuss a series that is just beginning to grow and which is not in my usual categories. Specifically, we're talking about my Power, Masks & Capes universe. For those that don't know, this is a pure superhero series, and instead of novels or novellas, they are novelletes (around 10k per work).

Now, the Power, Masks & Capes (PMC) serie...

The Second Sect: Pre-Release Preview!

The Second Sect, the fifth book from A Thousand Li, is up for our Patrons for a limited time only! The book will be released on June 1st and we will be taking it down on May 31st, so be sure to take a peak before then!

Marketing Strategy for Tao Wong: A Thousand Li (III)

Let's talk about a star series - A Thousand Li. 

I'm skipping System Apocalypse because in many ways, that's a cash cow. The advertising and marketing strategy for that is similar to AoB (FB and AMS ads, newsletters once in a while, a lot of promoting in social media) with exploitation of the IP in other languages too (though I am hesitant on using secondary small languages thus far). 

A Thousand Li on the other hand is much more of a Star in the sense that I'm still bui...

Writing & Release Update - May 5, 2021

Been a bit since I did a writing update, so I figured I should get on it before I forget again. Lots to update.

A Thousand Li

The Second Sect (A Thousand Li 5) is scheduled for release on June 1, 2021. This is set-up to do a simultaneous release for the audiobook which will show up on May 17, 2017 for pre-order as well.

I will be working on book 6 (the Second Storm) after I'm done wit...

A Thousand Li: The Second Sect Audiobook

Great news! 

The Second Sect, the fifth book in the A Thousand Li series,  is now available for all patrons in the Master, Heroic, and Legendary class.

If you'd like to listen ahead of the release date, click on the link below:

https://BookHip.com/KWFGWCM 

May Short Story Poll!

Alright people. Sorry it took so long. We need to get this done by end Sunday for voting to give me time to write this. A few options this time around...

I took out a few I'm writing anyway (AoB 8, the Father, Son & Demon Lord series). I removed the SA option for now, since SA is being released and no reason to keep it running.

Marketing Strategy for Tao Wong: Adventures on Brad (II)

Alright, let's break this down by series. We'll tackle the Adventures on Brad series first, since it's an interesting case study.

Current Status 

The Adventures on Brad series is the first series I ever released. It's a slice-of-life young adult fantasy LitRPG. A lot of it is modeled on stuff like Konosuba and Dan Machi, so it's a little lighter, a little sillier with the world building a little less firm. I learnt a lot since writing it, so the se...

Imperial March Audiobook

The audiobook for the newest A Thousand Li short story, Imperial March, is up now on BookFunnel for patrons to hear!

Enjoy :)

Listen here: https://BookHip.com/BZLBTTC 

Another Day, Another Plot Audiobook

The audiobook for the second work in the Vampire LitRPG short story series, Eternal Night, Another Day, Another Plot is ready!

This audiobook will be released to the public soon, but Master, Legendary, and Heroic Class patrons get an early sneak peak.

Click here to listen on Bookfunnel: https://BookHip.com/CHFXDVG  2021-04-29 13:35:18 +0000 UTC View Post

Clifftop Crisis & Transformation Audiobook

~~~

We have a new audiobook out for our patrons! 

If you'd like to listen to Clifftop Crisis & Transformation, click the following link to listen on Bookfunnel:

https://BookHip.com/ZLJJLFW 

Business Posts: Fans & Different Types of Growth Strategies

I was thinking about fans, and how there are different 'levels' of fans. Thinking about it, I figured I'd break it down for myself and play with some numbers of my own.

So, in my view there are three type of fans that you can get. And I define a fan as someone who buys and reads all the books in a specific (X) thing. 

The three kinds are: 

- True Fans: will buy anything you write

- Genre Fans: will buy anything in the genre t...

New Short Story from A Thousand Li!

Imperial March: A Thousand Li Short Story

~~~~

The march to the throne is littered with the bodies of the great and small in equal measure

Born an Imperial Prince, Qu Yuan always knew his options were to strive for the throne or escape. When he's forced to put his escape plan into action too early, he's forced out of the imperial palace into the cou...

Marketing Strategy for Tao Wong (I)

Been asked about it, so I figured I should discuss what my own plans are... and show how all of these kind of mix together with my own career plans as well as my own marketing strategy.

Career Strategy

Plan for the long term. My time horizon on all my projects (outside of Starlit Publishing's contract with Grayson which is time limited by contracts) is not 5 years or 10 years, it's 30-40 years. 

Technically, it should be life + 70 years, but ...

Business Post: On Covers & Cover Design

Firstly, how much can a cover cost? Anywhere from around $35-2000. On average, you can find illustrated covers (what we see in the LitRPG genre a lot) around $300-500. 

There are three major types of covers:

- stock cover image manipulations  

- Daz or other 3D mockup software

- Illustrated work

Stock Cover Image Manipulations

2021-04-14 18:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post

A Thousand Li: The Second Sect [Cover Reveal]

Hello,

Kate here. Long time no see :)

As we draw nearer to publication, Tao thought you might be curious about the cover of The Second Sect ;)

How do you like it?

The Importance of the Backlist

I talk about backlist a lot. About how important it is to have a lot of work.

Since figures are worth a thousand words, here you go:

December 2020 Sales Pie Chart

January 2020 Sales Pie Chart

Not technically...

Marketing Strategy: Market Entry Strategy

When I was writing the Marketing Strategy posts, I forgot to include this section. Part of the problem is that I don't necessarily even think about things like this - or do so automatically - but this is rather important.

One of the things to note, as a new author (or when you write a new series in a new genre!) is deciding how you are going to enter the market. Part of that is also understanding the various limitations and issues within the market and what advantages you might have. 2021-03-31 18:00:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Quick Writing Update: 03/25/2021

A Thousand Li: the Second Sect is with the editors right now.

I'm talking to them about the ossibility of an earlier release date, I'm hoping we can do it in May instead of June. Part of that is wanting to ride off Cradle's latest release. I might just throw up a pre-order actually if I can't get it to release in May. 

We shall see, it depends on how fast editing and proofing gets done.

I heard back from Nick about Broken Council. He won't be able to record anything til...