The London Book Fair, Photo Credit: Combined Book Exhibit
The Wanderer and the New West presents a dystopian view of near-future America, but that doesn’t mean it’s only for readers from the States!
I was excited to display my novel at the London Book Fair in March. The book appeared in the New Title Showcase on a physical shelf and digitally. Actually, my book does have one English connection. Cover artist Ben Mcleod hails from Manchester!
Try to spot my novel in pictures below from the show, courtesy of Combined Book Exhibit.
ManyBooks promo and interview!
In other news, The Wanderer and the New West is featured today on ManyBooks, with a special $2.99 discounted price for the eBook all week long!
ManyBooks featured me as its Author of the Day. Please check out the full interview, where I talk about how I got the idea for my latest novel and whether I think America is going to end up in as dark a place as my book predicts! And I give a sneak preview of my couple next projects, so you don’t want to miss it.
Reviewed by IndieReader
IndieReader gave my novel a great review:
“THE WANDERER AND THE NEW WEST sports smart prose, entertaining dialogue and distinctive characters, and it reads at a breakneck pace,” wrote IndieReader. “Adam Bender’s novel is tight, literate pulp.”
I got the verdict as part of IndieReader’s annual book competition, which will reveal winners later this spring. Wish me luck!
Bid for a signed 3-Book set and support Writers for Hope
Iguana not included.
I’m donating a set of three signed novels to the Writers for Hope auction, supporting RAINN. Click here to bid. This event began in 2014 and is held every April in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. 100% of the money raised by this event goes directly to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), the United States’ largest anti-sexual assault organization.
At your local bookshop…
What’s this?The Wanderer and the New West in my local Philly bookstore Shakespeare & Co? It wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t switched paperback distributors to IngramSpark. With more flexible terms for small businesses, the move is making my novel more accessible to libraries and independent bookstores.
If you know a great library or local shop, please ask them to order a copy! You can also benefit local bookstores by buying my book online from IndieBound.
Spreading the word — it’s the hardest part of being an indie author. Writing the novel is fun and turning the manuscript into a real book is a thrill, but now you have to actually find people to give it a chance!
While I know the feeling of not wanting to spend money on marketing, I’ve come to learn it’s a key to success. The good news is you can control your costs. Before you do anything else, set yourself an annual budget and use a spreadsheet to keep track of what you’re spending. That will help you see how quickly you’re spending ad money, and can actually provide a lot of comfort when you’re thinking about spending more.
While many advertising companies will gladly accept your money, I’d recommend starting with online ad platforms that charge on a per-click basis. These will give you more transparent stats on how an ad is performing, including how many are seeing it, how many are clicking and how many are buying.
The tricky bit is deciding which online ad platforms are worth your time. A quick scan of the web likely will reveal that EVERYTHING WORKS. “Give us your money now!”
Your mileage may vary, but I’ve found that some work better than others. Google Adwords or Bing may be great for small businesses selling custom leather guitar straps, but I’ve found them to be too general-audience for selling books. Oh sure, they gave me a lot of clicks, but the traffic to my website didn’t seem to result in many sales. For example, I found a lot of people clicking my “western” keyword ads for The Wanderer and the New West actually desired clothes or strange pornography.
Those platforms can also feel a little intimidating to use if you’re not a web expert. It’s very possible that an advanced Adwords user could produce better results for me, but as a writer I found it difficult to get the results I wanted.
What I’ve found is that the ad platforms that work best are the ones that specifically target readers.
A sponsored ad on Amazon
My books are available on Amazon, so advertising them through Amazon Marketing has by far been the best use of my money. Amazon is a little picky about the ad copy but if you can write a message that’s clean and compelling without seeming too shameless, Amazon pretty much handles the rest. You can make sponsored ads that appear next to search results and product display ads that show up on users’ Kindles. I’ve had slightly more success with the sponsored ads, perhaps because those are seen by people actively searching for books to buy. However, definitely run both and see what works for you. As with all these ad platforms, you can set the ads up for a limited time, check your results, and edit ads accordingly.
OK, so what about other stores besides Amazon? The easiest, most successful way I’ve reached those readers is with BookBub. This is a popular e-newsletter that’s known for its selectivity about books it features. But the platform also accepts ads, so even if you don’t have enough customer reviews to be featured in a particular newsletter, you can still get your book in front of readers. It’s super easy to create an ad on BookBub–all you need is a cover and some short, snappy copy. Better yet, you can add links to your book in every store it’s available. BookBub knows the preferred store of its readers — whether its Google, Apple or Barnes & Noble — and automatically will serve them the correct link! Reedsy says not knowing BookBub allows ads is one of 12 common book marketing mistakes. I’d have to agree!
BookBub ads are great for targeting readers on multiple stores.
The third ad platform I use is Goodreads, though to be honest I’ve had mixed results. I do think it’s very important for authors to be on Goodreads–which happens to be owned by Amazon. However, while giveaways can be valuable, I’m not totally convinced by the platform’s self-serve ads. These seem to work best in conjunction with giveaways, as readers just seem more likely to click ads if they think they can get the book for free. But I’ve found that I have to pay more per click than on other services just to get my ads seen. When readers do click, they don’t always add my book to their to-read shelf. And while getting on that shelf does flag intention to buy for many readers, I’ve seen many others who have shelves with hundreds or thousands of books. It could take them years to get to my novel! On the other hand, not getting a lot of clicks means you’re not spending that much money. I find it pretty difficult to get through my ad budget on Goodreads, so this may be a situation where it doesn’t hurt to try.
Goodreads ads have been great for me.
If you’re an indie author, I’m interested to hear what ad platforms have worked (or not worked) for you. Please let me know in the comments!
Reedsy co-founder Emmanuel Nataf talks about the future of indie publishing.
Credit: Reedsy
Just because I’m an indie author doesn’t mean I can’t get good help with editing and book design.
I recently signed up for Reedsy, an innovative web platform that helps indie authors find freelance publishing assistance. A few days ago, I signed ex-DC Comics editor Rachel Gluckstern to edit my upcoming novel, The Wanderer and the New West. It’s an exciting collaboration that was made possible by Reedsy.
Reedsy was founded in London during the summer of 2014 by Emmanuel Nataf, Matthew Cobb, Ricardo Fayet and Vincent Durand. For the first year, the co-founders worked on Reedsy as a side project on nights and weekends, but it became a full-time job after the startup was accepted into Seedcamp, a London-based startup accelerator. Soon after, the tech startup raised cash from angel investors including Ben Yoskovitz, the bestselling author of Lean Analytics. Today, Reedsy is a team of seven that operates out of a co-working space in the Shoreditch neighborhood of London.
I spoke with co-founder Emmanuel Nataf about what Reedsy hopes to accomplish and where it sees the publishing industry headed. You can read the full interview below.
Adam: What problem were you trying to solve when you created Reedsy?
Emmanuel: We were seeing two major publishing trends converging. On the one hand, more and more authors were self-publishing, as they could easily reach an audience through digital distribution (460,000 titles were self-published in the US in 2014 according to Bowker). On the other hand, more and more top publishing professionals have left traditional houses in the past few years and have gone freelance, available to work with both traditional and self-published authors.
At the time, we were seeing too many low-quality books being pushed to the Kindle Store. It was clear that self-publishing was not yet a viable alternative to the traditional route. Quality can only be achieved with an investment in editorial, design and marketing services, something that self-published authors did not have access to. They needed a single, trusted and quality source of people that they could collaborate with.
It’s from this frustration that we decided to create Reedsy, a curated marketplace for the
publishing industry.
More recently, we started to work with traditional publishers as well. They have been impressed
with the level of quality Reedsy professionals can provide, and love the way our collaborative
tools streamline their workflows.
Adam: Today, authors can self-publish a book all by themselves if they want to. Why is it important that authors pay for freelance help, and how big of an investment does that need to be?
Emmanuel: The production process of a book doesn’t stop after the writing phase – it starts there. Self-publishing authors can certainly release new titles much faster than “Big 5” authors but they can’t skip editing, design or marketing if they want to have any chance of being successful. In fact, to stand out from the crowd, they need to publish a high-quality product and have a solid plan to commercialize it. This takes time and requires experience. This is where Reedsy professionals can help.
We are planning on open-sourcing our data so authors can get a better idea of the cost of self-publishing. However, for an 80,000 word book that needs editing, design and marketing help, you will need at least $2,000. Most spend $5,000 or more if they want to work with award-winning professionals and want to design an aggressive marketing plan.
Adam: 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?
Emmanuel: The whole value chain is evolving so much that I’m not sure how long the selfpublishing/traditional publishing antagonism will remain.
For instance, we recently helped PFD Literary Agents set up their own digital imprint where they give a very interesting 50/50 deal to authors. The emergence of more digital imprints is something that we follow closely. What we believe, though, is that the production of high-quality books can be commoditized through a service like Reedsy, and that publishers should only do what they do best: curate content, offer physical distribution and negotiate foreign rights.
Credit: Reedsy
Adam: How many freelancers and how many authors do you have on Reedsy?
Emmanuel: About 6,000 authors have joined Reedsy so far and we have selected 300+ professionals out of 7,000 applications.
Adam: What is the most popular service authors are looking for when they join Reedsy?
Emmanuel: Self-publishing authors are mainly looking for editing services when they come to Reedsy. We would love to see self-publishing authors invest more into their book covers though: too many of them still underestimate the incredible impact a beautiful cover can have for their book sales.
We see mix of authors looking to self-publish and authors looking to polish their manuscript before submitting to agents or publishers, which is why we recently added a “query letter review” service to our marketplace. Eventually, we want Reedsy to become the backbone of the industry, providing high-quality services to all authors or publishers.
Adam: Do you have any minimum qualifications for freelancers? Is it required they have
experience in the publishing industry?
Emmanuel: Yes! Our team receives hundreds of applications every week and only selects a handful of professionals. The objective is to provide the highest level of quality to authors and publishers. This is why people often describe Reedsy as a “curated” marketplace. We require a strong experience working at top publishers or with bestselling authors and a portfolio of at least 10 books. We also ask them to connect their social networks to Reedsy so we can verify their online identity.
Adam: How does Reedsy make money? Is it purely commission-based?
Emmanuel: Our fees are shared between professionals and clients who both pay a 10 percent commission on every transaction. This allows us to develop our product, curate our network, and offer customer support with a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee.
Adam: Besides Reedsy, what other innovative companies are helping indie authors right now?
Emmanuel: Crowdfunding platforms are a good complement to Reedsy. For instance, Reedsy authors often use Publishizer or Kickstarter to raise funds to pay for our services. We are also pretty excited to see what Find My Audience is going to release in the coming months to help authors locate and engage with a highly qualified audience.
Adam: What’s coming next for Reedsy? What can you tell me about any plans to further expand or enhance your services?
Emmanuel: Many things! First, we will be adding more services to our marketplace in the coming months: marketing, ghostwriting and translation will be progressively rolled out. Then, we will be adding dedicated publisher accounts to allow publishers to manage entire teams and projects through Reedsy. Last but not least, we will be releasing our collaborative book editor to allow any author to work collaboratively on their books and get properly formatted EPUB and PDF files instantly.
Thanks so much to Emmanuel Nataf for the Interview! For more on innovative indie publishing companies, check out my interviews with Story Cartel, NoiseTrade and The Fussy Librarian.
As an independent author, I’m always looking for new ways to promote my books. I recently came across a cool website called Story Cartel. The site is all about finding new readers–and importantly–encouraging them to write reviews on Amazon and other bookseller websites.
I’ve put both of my novels up on Story Cartel in the past few months. Essentially, the book goes up on the site and for three weeks visitors can download it for free in exchange for their email address. At the end of that period, the reader writes a customer review and submits a link to Story Cartel. When they submit the link, they are entered into a contest to win great prizes like an Amazon gift card.
The review itself does not have to be positive–Story Cartel stresses to readers that they should write honest reviews.
I asked Story Cartel founder Joe Bunting about the origins of the site and his thoughts on how authors can best succeed in a time of immense change in the publishing world. Check out his answers below and please leave your own comments.
What was the problem you were trying to solve when you created Story Cartel?
Joe: Out of the millions of books on sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, and all the rest, how do readers figure out which ones they actually want to read? First, they’ll ask their friends, but if their friends aren’t readers or have different taste in books, they turn to reviews.
Not professional reviews in the New York Times or Vanity Fair. Regular readers are much more interested in finding books other people like them are interested in reading.
That’s why getting reviews on their books are the first and most important thing authors can do today to market their books.
We had figured out how to get a lot of reviews on our own books, and so we built Story Cartel to help other authors get reviews on theirs. It’s working out pretty well. Since 2012, we’ve helped authors get over 15,000 reviews on their books. We’re pretty excited about that.
Why do authors need a site like Story Cartel?
Joe: Reviews, especially Amazon reviews, do three things:
Reviews provide social proof. You’re much more likely to buy a book with 100 reviews than one with 3 reviews, even if the 100 reviews are lower than the book with just 3. We all like to read books other people are reading.
Reviews build word of mouth buzz. And word of mouth buzz is what sells books the best.
Reviews work on Amazon’s algorithm. While Amazon is always changing its algorithm, we’ve found that books with more reviews rank higher on Amazon than books with fewer reviews.
How long have you been running, where are you based, and how big is the team?
Joe: We’ve been helping authors since 2012, when we started by launching just one book a week (now we launch over 20 a week, on average). We’re based in Atlanta, Georgia (but we often travel to Santa Barbara, California to escape the heat!), and have a small, busy team of four people.
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?
Joe: From our perspective, publishing has always been about relationship and conversations. Now the conversation is just faster and less centralized.
Publishers in the last model were heavily reliant on book reviewers in magazines and newspapers to generate buzz for their books.
So what do you do when the magazines and newspapers are closing their book review departments and yet the average reader has more of a voice than ever?
We’re doing the same thing publicists have been doing for decades–getting books into the hands of people with influence. The difference is that now everyone has influence!
How can self-published authors match the marketing budgets of the big publishers?
Joe: Honestly, they don’t need to. They just need to make relationships with one reader at a time, one life-long fan at a time. If you have 1,000 fans who are willing to tell all their friends each time you publish a new book, that’s a career. What else do you need?
Here’s how We, The Watched looked on Story Cartel. During the giveaway period, the “Buy on Amazon” button said “Download.”
Besides Story Cartel, are there any other innovative companies in this space you like that are helping self-published authors?
Joe: Story Cartel fits really well with Bookbub, the eBook promotion service that’s helping so many authors sell books online. They require at least 25 reviews before they’ll host your book, so Story Cartel is a good first step before using them.
I like what NoiseTrade books is doing to help authors build relationships with readers by giving away free copies of their books.
There are lots of other great services, but I think it matters less which tools you use and more that you’re developing relationships with your readers online using whatever tools are at your disposal (e.g. email, Twitter, Facebook, your blog, etc).
What are the next steps for Story Cartel? Do you have any plans to expand or improve your services, for example?
Joe: We’re writers ourselves, so I think we’ll always be creating new things to help them. Our sister site, The Write Practice, is all about helping people practice the craft of writing, and we’re in the process of building a publicity agency to help handcraft custom online publicity campaigns, especially for publishers. We just want to help writers, in whatever way we can, and it’s a huge honor to get to do that every day.
Missed the giveaway of my dystopian novel We, The Watched? For a limited time get the book for just $1 at Smashwords with the coupon code JQ73E. Or get it free on NoiseTrade! And please, leave a review!
