@craigmartelle
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Sure. Craig A. Price – start it up and let me know the link. I don’t have discord so it won’t be me doing anything on it. And that isn’t a call for training. I don’t have time for another social media channel.
Welcome aboard – watch the blog and stuff. We’ll try to invigorate the forums over the next couple months. Lots of great stuff coming up.
Hello everyone. Welcome – the forums don’t get a lot of air time. No reason. It should. Welcome aboard. Look for our blog posts and informational stuff. We’ll see if we can ramp this up in 2022:)
It’s a good question – rather than spend time on the forums, I’ve been working to get our books visible through the free book monthly promotions and coming soon, the for-profit promotions. I need the members to ask questions and be active, like you’ve done. The plan? become the professional SFF organization we need to help us to sell more of our books. That will happen both directly and indirectly. Better understanding of markets and marketing and directly, by helping authors put their books out there.
Royalty share is a great way to get your book into audio, but it locks up the rights unless you develop a great relationship with your narrator. The challenge is if your book takes off. Pay $3k now and then earn out over time, but if your book sells $100k worth, then you just paid your narrator $50k. That being said, it’s more likely that the book won’t take off – there’s a lot of competition out there. If it is the only way to get it into the audio market, then there isn’t a question as to what you need to do.
I have the complete Metal Legion omnibus releasing July 10-15. All eight books in this military science fiction epic, about half a million words for only 99 cents. My list size is over 8000, mostly organic. Would appreciate comparable list swaps. I send a Newsletter every Monday and only have two calls to action. Any swap would be the second CTA.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/BB087TBX9Z5
I’m not sure that axiom was ever a truism. Novels are as long as they need to be (more then 40k words for a technical definition). My bestselling Sci-Fi book was 57k words. I finished the nineteenth and final book in that series a couple days ago and it was 135k words. LitRPG is long – those books are usually well over 100k words. Lots of good selling books are shorter. Don’t strap yourself in to an artificial barrier. If you want to make a paperback look bigger, use a bigger font or bundle books together. My End Times Alaska series was on the bookshelves near GRR Martin’s books (Martelle – right next door). I had three books in a bindup version of 160k words to look (and be) comparably girthy.
Ryan gets my highest personal endorsement – I only have about 30 covers on my books from Ryan, maybe 40:)
Ryan gets my highest personal endorsement – I only have about 30 covers on my books from Ryan, maybe 40:)
Thanks for your offer to help with the physics side of science fiction. It is oft needed:)
From Rachel Aukes:
I use the Microsoft platform for writing (Word), planning/storing notes (OneNote), and tracking (Excel).I’m a Mac user, so I can use Vellum for formatting ebook and print files, and I love it for convenience. It saves me a ton of time, especially for creating print books. While it’s more restrictive than what I could create on my own, they keep adding features, so it meets all my needs.
I spent WAY too much time creating several covers, so I hire those out now. It was a smart decision for me.
I name my universes in two ways – after the main theme and then I try to find a word that is not used anywhere else in case I need to trademark it for film rights or merchandise rights somewhere down the road. Michael Anderle found a word that did not exist and then owned it – the Kurtherian Gambit is now a massive universe and a valuable property. The Kurtherians are the antagonists of the overarching story theme.
I’m trying to think long-term viability in case my stuff becomes popular to the point that someone makes a movie or a theme park ride, anything like that. I always search the series title looking for future potential trademark or copyright issues. I search for the individual book titles, too, just to see how I can shape my marketing campaign where potential buyers aren’t directed to the wrong books when searching. So building marketing into a naming convention comes first.
My Free Trader universe appears to violate those things as the Free Trader seems to be common. You see them in 7/11s near the check out stand – publications selling stuff like real estate, cars, boats, and more. But The Free Trader is not. In science fiction, it has been used before, but wasn’t a universe. It has worked well for me. Same with my Cygnus Space Opera. Cygnus is an oft-used word, but as far as a series universe, it stands above. My Judge, Jury, & Executioner series is in the Kurtherian Gambit universe, but that series title seems common and fraught with risk, but it was first used in the 1800s. And that is my bestselling series right now. So there you are. I recommend unleashing the Google on your potential choices until you find something that will be unique to your property, while not be so obscure that potential buyers misspell it (this is a problem with Kurtherian so marketing campaigns now include a list of misspellings that we’ve seen to make sure searchers are directed to the correct books) or can’t remember it.
And then make it a great universe in which readers can get lost.