Showing posts with label reader information. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reader information. Show all posts

Monday, March 31, 2025

What I Wish Readers Knew About Self-Published Authors

Happy Monday, and welcome back to the blog, y’all! I’m getting a little deep with the readers today, and we’ll be talking about all the things I wish y’all knew about us self-published authors. Up until very recently, and in some cases still, we were considered the red-headed stepchildren of the publishing industry. We produce crap, right? We have terrible editing and shite covers, right? Well, allow me to clear a few things up. :)

If you’re ready to hear the ramblings of a crazy person, hunker down with a doughnut and a cup of coffee, and let’s get into the nitty gritty.

Those books you see with homemade covers and bad editing are usually an example of an author that doesn’t know what they’re doing. That’s all it is. As they grow and learn to be a person in the industry, they start to understand what it takes to make a great book people want to read and will tell their friends about.

If you think the first things out of Stephen King’s fingers was the brilliance it is today, you’re mistaken. He even talks about it in his book On Writing. He says the first things you write will always be absolute shit, and you should put it in a drawer and forget about it until you’re an established author. Then pull it out and laugh about it. First drafts should lay in a drawer until you forget what you wrote so you can come back to it with fresh eyes for edits.

New writers don’t start on a level that’s Christine worthy. They start somewhere around the I-want-to-write-and-have-drive-but-don’t-understand-what-to-do-next level. Then they write, and they rush to publish (because it’s so easy now and they’re excited).

Does that mean they shouldn’t be given some grace? No. It means they need to learn how to do and be better than they were day one. I mean, I started here, and I now have over fifty books published. That first stuff wasn’t the worst, but it also wasn’t the first thing I ever wrote. Those stories will never see the light of day, and I’ll certainly never publish them. Beg all you want. You’ll never see them. Nope.

Even my first book, Yassa, wasn’t great, as I said. I was one of those beginners. I grew.

Let me tell you a little something else you may not know:

Indie authors pay from their own pockets for editing and cover design. Unlike a traditional publisher, which handles every aspect of the publishing of a book (think: audio, editing, cover, different languages, etc.), an Indie has to do all that themselves.

There’s no team of people there. It’s usually just one person footing the bill for all of the above.

Now I invite you to listen to this podcast where I talk about what we make when we sell a book. I get very deeply into the numbers. Tell me, if we make just around $0.35 for each book we sell, how long it takes us to recoup a $3,000 edit? I’ll wait.

That’s right, $8,571.5 books sold. Most readers don't want to pay more than $0.99-$1.99 for a book, so here we are.

Add in marketing tools (because no one can do all this stuff alone) and the cover, and you’re looking at an Indie needing to sell TEN THOUSAND books to BREAK EVEN.

Most just think it’s not worth it and quit. Those of us who’ve been around a while know that we need to learn to do a lot of this stuff ourselves OR get a less expensive edit, which is where a lot of those nagging errors come in.

Even if you don’t think a book is worth five stars, maybe a nicely worded note to the author along the lines of “Hey, I noticed a number of grammatical errors, but I really love your writing style, and once you get your feet under you, I’d love to read some more! Keep me on your list for new releases, please” might just go a long way. Just don’t smack it with a one-star review.

Because they’ll improve. We all do. You want to be there to see that happen, right?

If you’re an author, be sure you listen to that podcast. It’s telling.

If you’re a reader, try to keep some of this in the back of your mind as you navigate the book world. Please.

I hope you all enjoyed this post! Which author have you seen come a long way? Colleen Hoover isn’t an answer. Hahaha That woman has always been the diamond she is now. No one truly discovered her until recently though. I'm talking about an author that started in the doldrums and is now doing very well. Do you know of a breakout author (one who hit with their first book)?

Well, that’s all for today, folks!

Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Friday, March 13, 2020

An Author and Reader Guide to StoryOrigin - Part One - Signing Up with SO and Integrating Mailing Lists

Hey all! I hope you're doing well and staying out of the way of the mess hitting the fan right now. Today, I'd like to introduce you all to a platform that's been getting a lot of traction called StoryOrigin. I'm not gonna lead in with a bunch of yakkity, so just grab your coffee or tea and let's get going!

*******AS ALWAYS, THERE IS NO COMPENSATION FOR ME TO DO THIS AND NO AFFILIATE LINKS ARE USED****** That being said, know that all opinions are my own, and I'm free to give them. ;)

First off: What is StoryOrigin?

StoryOrigin is a platform for authors to gain new subscribers to their newsletters through group promotions and swaps, give out ARC copies, have a universal book link page, and distribute audio codes. Newsletters are a huge part of most authors' marketing efforts, so you need to know how to make the most out of every tool available!

But there's more! I know, right? StoryOrigin is also a site for readers to find ARC copies and keep up with how they're doing on their reviews.

If you don't have a mailing list and want to use StoryOrigin for some other reason (ARCs, audio code distribution, etc...), this post isn't for you. Scroll to the bottom of this page and find the links to the next parts!

Best of all, right now, it's free, so let's get you enrolled!

There's a lot to go over, but we'll start with signing up, integrating all the mailing list types, and press forward from there. All posts will be listed and linked on all posts for easy navigation.

Start by going to the StoryOrigin homepage:

Click Login in the top right hand corner.
Click Signup! Where it asks if you're new to us. If you've already gotten this far, feel free to skip to the relevant content. :)
Enter Name and Email Stuffs. I'm making dummy accounts that will be deleted once this tutorial is done. If you have an author website, feel free to click to add it. You also need a privacy policy IF you have an email client that requires one, so go ahead and link it.
Next, you'll see a page that looks like this. We're gonna start at kinda the bottom and work our way up.
Go all the way to the bottom and click Author Profiles.
Right now, you have to have a new account to manage more than one profile, but hopefully, this functionality will be available soon. You should see your author name and website (if you added one) listed.
Let's go one higher and click on Integrations. This is where you'll connect your mailing list and a VERY important function of the site.

MAILCHIMP

Click the blue button to integrate and select your provider from the list. I'm going through each one, starting with MAILCHIMP, so if your provider is different, scroll down until you find that instruction. Select Mailchimp from the dropdown and click Authenticate Mailchimp.
Sign in to your Mailchimp account and click Allow.
There you go! All done! You should be taken back to the page on StoryOrigin that shows your Integrations. Your Mailchimp account should be listed like so:

MAILERLITE

On to the next one: MailerLite Click Integrate Email Provider and choose MailerLite from the dropdown. You should see this:
Your API key is found by clicking your name in the top right hand corner on MailerLite, selecting Integrations, then clicking USE next to Developer API. Will look like this:
Copy it. Go back to StoryOrigin and paste the string of letters and numbers in. Click save. MailerLite is now on your list. You should see it back at your Mailing List Integrations page.

ACTIVECAMPAIGN

Now, we'll go on to ActiveCampaign. Click Integrate Email Provider and choose ActiveCampaign from the dropdown. StoryOrigin walks you through this one:
Follow the directions (copyable text on ActiveCampaign is a little difficult to see, but it DOES copy):
and click Save. ActiveCampaign should be added to your Mailing List Integrations page.

AWEBER

Now we're headed to the next one! AWeber! Click Integrate Email Provider. Choose AWeber from the dropdown.
Click Authenticate AWeber, log in to your AWeber account, click Allow Access, and it should appear on your Mailing List Integrations page (I couldn't do this one because they want a credit card up front).

CONVERTKIT

But we're moving on to ConvertKit! Integrate Email Provider. Choose ConvertKit from the dropdown.
Click on the hyperlink: Click here in the text. It will bring you to the page shown below. You can also get there by logging into ConvertKit, choosing Account, then Account Info. The arrows show where the info is on the page. You have to click SHOW to get the API Secret.
Click save, and ConvertKit will be added to your Mailing List Integrations page. And that's it! Super easy to add your mailing list(s)!

Next time, we'll go over the next two tabs up: Subscribers and Posted Mailing Lists.

Links to all other posts in this series will go below this line (I'll add them as they're completed).
Part Two - Subscribers and Posted Mailing Lists

Thanks for reading, and remember to WRITE ON!

Jo