How indie authors can break through the noise with NoiseTrade

How indie authors can break through the noise with NoiseTrade

Published by Adam on August 7, 2015

My biggest challenge as an indie author is getting the word out about my books. In a maelstrom of self-published authors, shouting louder than everyone else is just not a viable strategy–and at worst might very well annoy the audience I’m trying to win.

Lately, I’ve been looking into innovative book marketing companies who promise to help authors reach their audience more effectively than the author can do alone. After giving Story Cartel a go, I also decided to check out NoiseTrade.

NoiseTrade launched in 2008 as a music website, but expanded into eBooks in 2014. It’s a place for authors and musicians to give away their latest work to hungry readers and music lovers. While NoiseTrade consumers pay nothing to download, they are required to give their email address and postal code, and provide their consent to be added to the author or musician’s e-mail list. Downloaders can decide later to tip the author.

It costs nothing to post a book on NoiseTrade. However, authors can pay $50 to $500 extra to receive promotion in NoiseTrade’s Wednesday newsletter, or $500 to $1000 for a feature in NoiseTrade’s Saturday newsletter, which usually includes an interview.

NoiseTrade counts eight people on its core team. Staff work remotely from Minneapolis, Nashville, Chicago and Atlanta.

Amanda Michelle Moon, head of NoiseTrade Books, told me that she is optimistic about indie publishing. She also gave a few tips about how to have a successful launch on NoiseTrade.

Amanda Moon is the head of NoiseTrade Books and creative coordinator.

Q. The publishing industry is in a state of flux right now. Where do you think it’s going, and how well will self-published authors fare against industry published authors?

Amanda: My background (and degree) are both in Music Business. I’ve published two books, and the music experience has helped with the process greatly. Publishing has, and (I believe) will, continue to follow the music industry trajectory. The huge signing bonuses have already gone away, publishers are getting stingy about where they are spending money. It’s going to continue to get harder and harder to get that elusive Big 5 contract.

However, self-published authors have huge opportunities. By getting smart about the business side of publishing, they have the potential to make much more money than most ever would with a publisher. Having to do everything “yourself” is impossible, though, so I am much more an advocate of people thinking of themselves as “Indie” rather than “self” published. “Indie” is independent of a major publisher, but not alone. Very few people can actually do it alone.

Q. How can self-published authors match the marketing budgets of the big publishers?

Amanda: They can’t, and they don’t need to. A lot of publishers work through a formula for each book: Galleys on NetGalley, giveaway on Goodreads, ad in Name Your Large Publication. They can’t look at each book individually and make the strategic decisions that are right for that particular book, they don’t have time. It’s a shotgun approach. A self-published or indie author can take the time to really get to know their readers and target their marketing dollars in more effective ways. Just because a New York Times ad worked for Stephen King doesn’t mean it will work for your horror story.

Q. Could you provide a brief history of NoiseTrade, including when it expanded from music into books?

Amanda: In 2006 one of our founders, singer/songwriter Derek Webb gave away one of his albums for free online, asking in return for a little information (name, email address, and postal code). In three month’s time he gave away over 80,000 full downloads of his album and collected valuable information for as many new fans. As a direct result, Derek saw many sold out shows, increased merchandise and album sales, including a curious spike in sales of the very album that was given for free.

It was the massive success of this experiment that inspired Webb, with the help of a few trusted friends, to start NoiseTrade. Since its launch in 2008, NoiseTrade has seen incredible growth as a marketing and distribution platform for music. Books was added in early 2014. It was an idea that had been kicking around for a while–a few of the founders had ties in the book world, and the similarities between the recording and publishing industries are undeniable.

Q. How many book downloads do you get per month compared to music album downloads? How many musicians and how many authors have posted their work on the site?

Amanda: Music has about 10 times the downloads as books. There are over 20,000 musicians that have used the site in the last seven years, and almost 2,000 authors in the last 18 months.

Q. For an author looking to add their book to NoiseTrade, what tips do you have to maximize the success of a launch?

Amanda: Promote it! So many people put books on our site and don’t do any promotion around them— that has about the same success as putting a book on Amazon and then never pointing people to it. There is a ton of noise, you have to let people know what you have out there. We offer a few tools to help, including a widget that can be embedded on web pages, and a weekly, curated newsletter of paid content.

My NoiseTrade widget for We, The Watched:

Q. What do you tell authors who are worried that putting a book up for free on NoiseTrade might hurt their sales on other channels?

Amanda: Josh Garrels, an independent artist, recently released his new album with us the same day as it dropped at all the major retailers. When factoring in the tips he received, the amount of money he lost was negligible, and he added tens of thousands of new fans to his email list. These are the people who are going to support his subsequent albums, his shows, everything else he’s doing.

Authors have the same opportunity to create dedicated fans as musicians do, but they need to weigh the short-term loss against the long-term gain. We see a lot of authors put excerpts of their books on the site and see minimal engagement and high unsubscribes. It’s because they’re not offering anything other than what someone could find on iBooks or Amazon already, without having to give up their email address. The transaction has to be beneficial for both the author and the reader for it to work.

Q. When someone downloads a book, are they opting in to receive emails from the author?

Amanda: Yes. When a fan, either music or books, submits their email address to us to download something, they are agreeing to receiving emails from us (our weekly features) and any author/artist whose work they download. We do not share or sell email addresses beyond with the content creators.

Q. Besides NoiseTrade, what other innovative companies are helping self-published authors right now?

Amanda: I’m a huge fan of the model created by InkShares. It’s crowd-funding, but one person can’t spend a bunch of money to get the book through. The crowd really does need to support the project.

WiseInk also has a really great business model. As an author, what I really want is the “Manager” from the music industry: the partner with the experience to help make decisions, coordinate all of the other moving parts, and really help think strategically and long-term for both the particular project, but also for the artist’s career. WiseInk is more of a partner than a traditional publisher, and I love what they’re doing.

Q. What’s coming next for NoiseTrade? What can you tell me about any plans to further expand or enhance your services for authors?

On the immediate horizon are some updates to our weekly emails. We’re adding descriptions to all our books, not just our main features. We’re also launching a book club, where readers are going to have access to ask authors questions on social media. We’re actively working to bring in more genres, and also new readers, and continuing to create a community on the site.

Thanks to Amanda Michelle Moon for the interview. Please also check out my interview with Story Cartel’s Joe Bunting on how authors can get more customer reviews.

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A matter of perspective

A matter of perspective

Published by Adam on July 18, 2015

First-person or third-person? Past or present tense? These are questions that I think about a lot as a writer.

My first novel We, The Watched employs first-person perspective with a present tense, but it took me a few tries on chapter one to get there. I remember trying third-person past, and then first-person past, but neither seemed to serve the story of a man who wakes up with no memory in a surveillance society.

In the end, I chose first-person because the story is about one man named Seven’s struggle to conform in a totalitarian world, and this perspective allowed me to really flesh out his internal conflict. Because Seven has no past, telling his story in present-tense felt right, too.

This POV was also great for making the reader feel like he or she was Seven. Readers come into books with no knowledge of what came before–and so did Seven. First-person present seemed the perfect way to make the reader feel like a participant in the plot.

Also read: World building in dystopian novels We, The Watched and Divided We Fall

While this perspective worked well, I decided to shake things up for the sequel, Divided We Fall.

My second novel is no longer about one character, but two. Seven learns more about who he was before the events of We, The Watched, including an important person who he left behind. I opted for third-person this time so that I could smoothly switch between the perspectives of the two protagonists and highlight their relationship.

With third-person, you can do an omniscient, narrator style where the reader sees everyone at once and can see into everyone’s head. However, since Divided We Fall is about two people, I chose to limit each scene to just one of their perspectives. I like this approach because I think it makes readers feel more invested in the story–as if the events are happening to them.

This approach actually gave me a lot more freedom to play around with time. The perspective in my first novel forced me to follow Seven even when there was not a lot of action happening. In Divided We Fall, I could jump to a different character when things got dull, and jump back when they became exciting again.

Meanwhile, choosing past tense helped reflect that Divided We Fall is very much a book about looking back and coping with how things can change.

My upcoming third novel, The Wanderer and the New West, similarly uses third-person past perspective. However, I have expanded the number of POVs to include about seven main characters. This flexibility adds an epic quality to the story and keeps action levels high.

Of course, figuring out which character’s perspective to use in a given scene or chapter is not always obvious. Sometimes one character’s voice will bring a unique flavor that another’s does not. In some cases I’ve rewritten scenes several times before finding the best voice.

So wait, two books in a row with third-person past? Does that mean I’ve decided it’s the best way to tell a story?

No way! Actually, I recently wrote a short story (coming soon) in the world of We, The Watched and I went back to first-person present. I think it came out great! The decision on which perspective to use comes down to the story. What works for one kind of book won’t necessarily work for another. Often, it’s trial and error gets me to the right angle. The important thing is to keep trying and never be afraid of rewrites!

Feature image: “Relativity” (1953) by M.C. Escher

My favorite music from Australia

Published by Adam on May 20, 2015

While living in Australia for the last three years, I’ve looked for cool local music–the best young songwriters who sound poised for an international breakout (if they haven’t done it already). In recent weeks, I’ve highlighted a few of my top picks–mostly in my favorite genre, rock ‘n roll.

In case you missed any of them, here’s a quick video roundup! Click the names of the musicians to read my full post.

Tame Impala

The Delta Riggs

Seth Sentry

Cloud Control

Wolf & Cub

Best music from Australia – Wolf & Cub

Published by Adam on May 15, 2015

Welcome to final edition of Best Music from Australia, highlighting some of the best young musicians from the land down under.

You may have heard that I’m leaving Australia. After spending three amazing years in the land down under, my wife and I are moving back to the United States. While I’ve been here, I’ve tried to check out as much of the local rock scene as I can.

In previous posts, I’ve featured Tame Impala, The Delta Riggs, Seth Sentry, and Cloud Control. Not heavy enough for ya? In that case, I think you’ll really dig this week’s band.

Wolf & Cub

I only found out about Wolf & Cub recently, and regret to say I won’t see them live before we fly back to the US. This band from Adelaide just rocks, period. The closest band in sound I can think of is Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, but Wolf & Club doubles down on the psychedelia. And when I say double I mean that quite literally–there are two drummers!

They’ve got three albums. My favorite is their latest, Heavy Weight for its variety but their sophomore release Science and Sorcery is also pretty trippy, and a lot of people like debut Vessels for its balls-out rock.

Here’s how you listen to Wolf & Cub. Start out by closing your eyes and shaking your head slowly to the bass. As the music builds, open your eyes and start jumping. Fist pumping optional.

I mean, dance however you want to. But that’s how I’ll be doing it.

Check out the video for “I Need More” to see what I mean. And yes, you will need more.

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Best music from Australia – Cloud Control

Published by Adam on May 8, 2015

Welcome back to Best Music from Australia!

In previous posts, I’ve featured Tame Impala, The Delta Riggs and Seth Sentry. Today, I give you a great indie band hailing from the breathtaking Blue Mountains just outside Sydney.

Cloud Control

I’d heard of Cloud Control before arriving in Sydney, but it wasn’t until the release of their second album Dream Cave that this band became one of my favorites. You may remember I listed that album as one my top discs for 2013.

There is something darkly hypnotic about this band’s boy-girl harmonies and twinkling guitars. On track of track they show their songwriting chops, whether it’s the anthemic “Scar” or the dark groove of “Island Living.”

You know, I always love a band with a sense of humor. That comes through especially on “Happy Birthday,” which features the boisterous lyrics, “I hate my birthday it’s true / A happy thought here for you.”

Check out the video for “Scar” above!

Check back next week for another great Australian rock band!

Adam Bender Posts

Wolf & Cub

Cloud Control

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