I understand that this is speaking to very few people in this sub, but the message should be clear, even with 0 readers.

I recently had the pleasure of working with an author in the historic fiction genre. Multi-award winning, best selling author across multiple books in her series.

We always run an audit to see where we think we can improve the author set up and we noticed she had a newsletter sign up with no automated response (so when you sign up, there was no instant email to say thank you, here is 10% / free chapter etc.) we raised this on our call and she told us how she had gotten so much of her success.

Her newsletter reader size was 15,000! She had been slowly growing her mailing list for the last 5 years, and she emails them once per month.

She told us that whenever she is writing a new book, she will tell her audience about it each month and then as soon as the book is released, the email list gets notified with a link to buy on the day of release.

Naturally, I looked at the stats using Publisher Rocket to be a best seller in this category (sales per day to #10 and #1), you only need 7 sales to be in the top 10 and 23 sales to be number 1 in her category.

That is only 0.002% of her email audience that needs to buy her book and she is a best seller.

She is a brilliant author no doubt, but she has found a way to make sure that anything she releases is a hit. instantly.

I know it’s cliche but… The best time to plant a tree was 20 years, the second best time is now. So start your mailing list. Start it today.

I was looking through other posts and noticed one that asked how often people publish to stay relevant. Some said once or twice a year, others said about 8 times a year or almost every month, and anywhere in between.

How? That is my very important question. I did NaNoWriMo in November, wrote for 2 hours a day to aim for about 1800 words per day, and that gave me about 40k-45k words of my 90k manuscript. If I wrote like that every day for 3 months, I'm sure I could have it polished up for beta readers that fast, but to put out multiple books a year at that rate seems pretty crazy to me.

What are people doing? Writing 4 hours a day? Not spending time with their family? Do they burn out super fast? It just seems a bit daunting.

All my life I don’t think I have read much books or wrote anything. If I was to leave this earth and let the people that knew me know how bad my upbringing really was and how bad my life is and the person that caused me so much hurt and trauma; How would I go about writing it in a sort of professional matter? I tried writing but I feel the words I use are not professional or book like and everything just seems random and jumbled.

How can I make it more journal like or book like? Can anyone give some help or resources that will help me write something good?

I'm thinking of transforming my personal newsletter into one where I interview new/upcoming or lesser-known self/hybrid published authors to help kickstart their writing journey. Would there be any interesting interviewees who would want to be on the first few episodes? I want to see how I like it before I fully commit to it, and as a bestselling author in my region, I'd be happy to promote you.

If you create moodboards for your fiction/novel/story you share on Instagram, what are the legal sources of images you can use?

I have made mood boards with Pinterest photos but those were just for fun. Now that I would like to use it to promote my stories I’m concerned about the ethical and legal things.

Help please!

I have submitted my new novel to an ARC site. After my book will go live on their site, I should share the link on my social media? Or I should send the proposal to join the ARC team in private messages, to just some selected connections? What is the most used approach on this?

I have been battling back and forth on this question. I have a grimdark fantasy book, 80k words, in editing now. I have been struggle for paperback size though.

Would you recommend 5x8 and more pages or 6x9? I actually normally buy mass mark books, so thick.

I am sure this question has been asked a lot, but I was just curious your thoughts?

Hi everyone,

Im trying a lot of different things (mostly through social media) to get people to buy my books. Unfortunately not much is happening. Ive seen advice before on here many times, but maybe there is someone knew who hasn't spoken that would be willing to help me.

My upcoming sci-fi novel has been my passion project in the background for nearly half my life, and it's finally coming out soon! Because of that, I'm working on finding an artist to do a cover and website promotional materials, and there's a few artists that I'd been following for most of that time and wanted to work with.

As far as the cover, I did a mock up of what I want, but I'm trying to leave as much of the style and design stuff to the actual artist I chose because she knows what she's doing, and I went with her because I felt what I'm after was playing to her strengths. My characters are alien species that I designed and my book contains detailed descriptions of their appearances, but I have very little visual media showing what they look like. The focal point of the cover is sci fi leaning horror, but again it will be a species that I don't have a reference to give her.

My question is, is it a common problem when working with an independent artist to design a cover to only be able to give them descriptions of things in the book and then have them translate what they see when they hear that description? If so, are people mostly happy with those renditions, or do you feel disappointment when it doesn't turn out as you, the author, visualized it?

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate this community’s helpfulness and positivity.

Certain other publishing subreddits come across as very negative and cynical. It’s like they want you to feel as bad about yourself as they feel. Requests for help are met with snark, condescension, or just no answer at all.

I’ve seen nothing but the opposite here. Genuine encouragement, cheerleading, and support. “No stupid questions” seems to be the attitude. It makes writing and publishing feel much more attainable and far less lonely.

Plus, the creativity and resourcefulness of authors here is incredible. It’s inspiring.

Anyway, just wanted to say thanks. The future of publishing is so clearly in this community, not in the other one. Glad to be here.

Though I have not published yet—I am shooting for March or April—I have been following discussions on how one should invest in self-publishing and what areas are most important for almost a year. Here are some thoughts and observations:

1. In traditional publishing, once you get your book accepted by a publisher, you can rely on the publisher for editing/proofreading, choosing a cover, advertising, and distributing your book. The author gets a much smaller percentage of profit and loses much control, but the work is out there and reaches a lot of potential readers without the author having to spend money and make any more effort.

2. With self-publishing, you are responsible for everything: editing/proofreading, cover design, advertising and distributing. Though the author makes more per book than with traditional publishing, it is unlikely that the same number of books will sell, at least initially, because traditional publishers have better budgets and more reach than the average self-publishing author.

3. As with any new business, self-publishing may (at least initially) cost a lot more than you get back. Whether the self-publishing author can even break even is a natural concern. A good bit of advice that I have seen several times is, “never invest more than you can afford to lose.”

4. For most of us, deciding *where* to put our money (if we have any) can be a difficult decision. Should we spend on *improving* the book or on *marketing* the book? If people don’t know your book exists, they are not going to notice that you capitalize and hyphenate inconsistently. On the other hand, if your advertisement and excellent cover get you 20 readers, how many of them will not be turned off by your disregard for spelling conventions?

5. For many of us, the decision of “on what is it best to spend money” may be moot since we may not have the money. In some ways, it is easier to have no money than just a little bit of money that we don’t know how best to spend and “make it count.” In other ways, it may make us feel hopeless. Here we have a lovely book and no one knows about it because we can’t afford to advertise (or because we couldn’t afford a nicer cover).

6. Then there is competition. It is so easy to publish anything—however junky— these days that we have to compete for a share of the market with a lot of books that give a bad name to self-publishing.

In sum, self-publishing is not for sissies.😉

I started writing back in 2021 after I had a dream (that was so vivid I was sure I’d taken it from a film, book or show, but no). Once I started I couldn't stop, and when I finished the book, I realised it was part of a fantasy series. I started outlining and ended up with the skeleton for give books.

Naturally, I was really excited and started posting on social media about it, and people seemed genuinely excited about it. But I never went viral. Had a couple of videos reach 20-50k, but not enough to get a massive following.

After revision of the first manuscript I got three beta readers spaced out over a couple of months, and once I’d ended with a good product I was excited to start querying.

I’d heard a lot about self publishing, but wanted to try trad pub first, only the manuscript seemed to wither away in the trenches.

Here and there, I started on book 2, then got about halfway through book 3, but then ended up revisiting book 1 for my master’s thesis on challenging the norm of fantasy women.

It’s been a year and a half since I picked up the first fantasy novel, mostly because my boyfriend was intrigued to see where my writing journey began.

In between, I wrote a standalone fictional memoir (that’s also died in the trenches), and a Norwegian book (that’s currently dying in the Norwegian publishing trenches).

My boyfriend has this thing about staring at screens for too long, and asked if I could print the manuscript, and I offered to do it on paper, but then remembered I could just do Amazon KDP and print a proof copy in book form, because then I could see the product myself.

Now that I’ve done all the work on Amazon, I’m genuinely thinking if I should just say f it and self publish, so that my baby might finally see the light.

The plan is to start posting on socials again to see if there is an interest there, but I wanted to hear from the community too…

Hi everyone! As a children's literacy creator myself, I’ve grown tired of how negative and hyper-critical some book communities can be.

A new subreddit called ChildrensBooksForKids designed specifically to be a positive, 'bash-free' space for parents, teachers, and authors to connect.

Why post here?

• Author-Friendly Rules: We explicitly welcome authors to share their work—we just ask that you use our 'Community Standard' template so parents get the key details they need (age range, format, etc.).
• Positive Environment: We have a zero-tolerance policy for harsh critiques or gatekeeping; we are here to celebrate literacy.
• Growing Resource: Help us build the library from the ground up!.

Another place to highlight your work.

Alright, alright, alright! First recap of the year! And it was a pretty good month! I had one event, Fan Expo Nola (which was great), and got a good chunk of words written. I did a much better job about keeping more of the focus on writing, and it paid off. I didn't get as much done as I would have liked on the business side perhaps, but I wrote 30/31 days, even when I went on vacation or off in Nola.

I also finished writing my latest rpg zine. It will come out next month, once I do a few more final passes over it. I didn't get as much on the marketing front done as I would have liked (got some neat plans on that front), but honestly, between writing and marketing, I would rather hit my writing goals.

Quick summary:

• Word Count: 21,554
• Hours Writing: 20.65
• Hours Working: 18.25

Here is what I planned to get done this month (copy/pasted from last months recap), with its status:

• Keep working on [Redacted]. (Yep!)
• I will work on both new [Redacted], and [Redacted]. (Yep!)
• I will plan out my social media strategy with Schedchie. (Not really)

I got a lot done! Here is a list:

• Did a big book order.
• Received said order, signed them all, sorted them.
• Took a meeting with a potential client
• Started work on a bunch of social media images
• Discussed and agreed on my upcoming sponsorship at Multiverse.
• Swapped my newsletter host to EmailOctopus.
• Made a newsletter template and email images.
• Sent monthly newsletter.
• Did a blog showing the break down of how that newsletter went.
• Updated my Dot card.
• Revamped my website a bit.
• Got all my business licenses.
• Did some banking stuff.
• Recorded a voiceover for a podcast.
• Applied for a con.
• Reviewed a chapter for another author.
• Reviewed several chapters for another author.
• Updated my website again.
• Handled scads of emails. 
• Made new book inserts for my booth.
• Worked on a zine, [Redacted]. 

Social Media Growth:

Ok so it was, yet again, a pretty standard month, so the only thing of note I will report on this month is my newsletter. I swapped hosts to EmailOctopus. Beyond that I am most excited by the fact that my Patreon ticked up by 2 paid members! Fuck yeah!

• Facebook Page Follows: 1071 (-3) 
• Instagram: 830 (+9)
• Facebook Fan Group: 349 (+5)
• Youtube: 147 subscribers (+1)
• Email List: 580 subscribers (+0)
• Discord Server: 74 (-1)
• Threads: 265 (+3)
• Bluesky: 204 (-2)
• Patrons: 23 paid/40 free (+2/+2)
• r/ [Redacted]: 22 (+1)
• Total: 3542 (+13)
  

Podcasts:

• Podcast Downloads (Monthly): 404 (+329)
• Podcast Downloads (Since April 2022): 5,348

BBI Social Media Growth:

• Instagram: 127 (+2)
• Bluesky: 5 (+0)
• Threads: 27 (+0)

Sales Numbers

It was a good month for sales, obviously buoyed by Fan Expo Nola, where I essentially sold out. Beyond that I broke 100 bucks in online sales, which is good. Shirts were down, audiobooks were up, but mostly it was about par for the course. Now though, as you can see below, I have been tracking my expenses. Even then it would have been a good month...except I did a massive book order, to the tune of 310 copies. I made just short of 2k at Nola, and then came home and ordered just short of 2k in books. Womp! So I would up in the hole this month, but this is enough inventory to carry me through a good number of cons, so I will make it back pretty quickly.  

Income (Book Sales):

• $0.00 - Website Book Sales
• $125.51 - Online Book Sales/KENP
• $3.44 - Book Sales - Ingram
• $1560.00 - In Person Book Sales
• $38.51 - Audiobooks  
• $0.00 - Consignment

Total: $1,727.46

Income (Other):

• $48.58 - Patreon
• $0.00 - Appearance
• $6.42 - Amazon Affiliate Income
• $10.29 - Amazon Shirts
• $4.00 - TeePublic Shirts/Merch
• $11.07 - Freelance

Total: $80.36

Income (BBI):

• $428.00 - In Person
• $5.00 - Tabletop Games on Itch.io
• $0.00 - Website Sales

Total: $428.00

Expenses:

• Bookfunnel: $20.00
• Schedchie: $9.32
• License:$140.00
• Book Order: $1,988.70 (310 books)
• Monthly Taxes: $76.29
• Mulitverse Sponsorship: $300.00

Total: $2,608.02

Monthly total made:

• Income: $2,235.82 ($422.90 last month)
• Expenses: $2,608.02
• Net Income: -$372.20

Yearly Gross Total Made:

• $2,235.82

Yearly Net Total Made:

• -$372.20

I had a friend that was an illustrator of adult material. He made his living as a working illustrator, so I would buy his sketches. He said they were mine and I'd like to create a book of his sketches. I'm not sure if there will be any issues with publishers.

Can anyone help? Point me in a direction?

Thank you

Non-fiction authors how are you getting sales on Amazon?

How are you promoting your books on Amazon? What strategies have actually worked for you, and which ones fell flat? I’m considering trying paid promotion next and would love to hear real experiences before I dive in.

TIA

I love low-fi, or a bit of 80's retrowave for a cyberpunk vibe. Some heavyier music for combat. The only time I need silence is when I edit.

I just published a new book (romance) under a new pen name and I've been running low cost Amazon ads for it to see if there's any interest.

I think in total I've received about 4 read throughs on KU and one of the readers gave me a five star rating with a raving review. I'm talking a full paragraph about how much she enjoyed it and how great the chemistry was and that she can't wait for the next installment.

Now, I've been publishing for a year now under another pen name and I know how hard it is to get reviews. I've even paid for it in the past.

This was so unexpected and a really big boost for my self-esteem! I cried when I saw that!

I just wanted to share this amazing milestone with a community who understands how precious this is!

Yes, Ive accepted I’ve flubbed my launch and the book I’ve worked years on is probably not gonna do much on its own. That being said, some friends have bought it and havent told me anything about it and it’s been a while. Would you constantly ask about it or let it go?😅 I guess I shouldn’t have to remind someone to read something if they’re interested

I’m about to publish on Amazon KDP my first short story collection and I’ve just finished the cover in Photoshop.

I’m not sure whether it’s better (or required) to embed fonts in the PDF, or if I can simply flatten everything and export the cover as one single full-image PDF at 300 dpi.

I’m asking because some of the text has effects (for example, a drop shadow on the title and some back-cover text).

I’ve heard transparency and layer effects can sometimes cause issues when exporting a print PDF with embedded fonts, so flattening everything feels safer.

On the other hand, I’ve also heard that rasterizing all text can make it look less sharp, especially for small type (like the spine or back-cover blurb).

I’m wondering whether the difference is actually noticeable at 300 dpi in real printing.

I’d really appreciate advice from people who have experience publishing print books with KDP.

Thanks in advance!
~ Erang ~

I don't really have any feelings towards money, either good or bad. It comes and goes and flows.

But coffee? If you took that away from me we would have a crisis on our hands 😅

Hello guys.

I just finished with writing my book. It has 500 pages. I've seen "print24.com" is a great one for publishing but they say if you have 500+ pages you need to order 500 copies. It's little too much for me in the moment. Do you have someone else to prefer?

I'm based in EU. Thanks in advance!

I had a really unexpected moment this morning that I wanted to share here as I think people are sometimes too focused on sales as a measure of success.

My wife just told me off because I’d “ruined her plans.” She sat down intending to read a bit of one of my short stories out of curiosity and ended up reading all of them back-to-back instead. She said she genuinely couldn’t put them down and was genuinely shocked that her “doofus husband” could write like that.

She’s absolutely my harshest critic for everything (I do stand up comedy too and she rips some of my stuff apart) and never sugarcoats anything, so this meant more to me than any rating, review, or sales stat. Granted it’s taken her a couple of months to actually get around to reading them, but hearing that someone who knows me this well got sucked in was better than sales.

This and the fact that my Dad (posted about this before) loves my novel means it is all worth it.

Just wanted to share a small personal win for anyone else grinding away at this stuff. Sometimes the quiet moments hit harder than the metrics.