Podcast appearances and mentions of mark coker

In this week's episode, we look at five tips and tricks for optimal ebook pricing. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook versions of my Tower of Endless Worlds series at my Payhip store: TOWER25 The coupon code is valid through June 30, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 254 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June 5, 2025, and today we are looking at ebook pricing strategies. Before we get into that, we will do Coupon of the Week and have an update on my current writing and audiobook projects.   First up is Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook versions of my Tower of Endless World Series at my Payhip store, and that is TOWER25. And as always, the coupon code and the links to the store will be in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through June the 30th, 2025, so if you need a new ebook series to read this summer, we have got you covered.   Now for an update on my current writing projects. As of this recording, I am 53,000 words into Shield of Power, which will be the sixth and final book of my Shield War series, and that puts me on Chapter 13 of 29. I feel like the book is going to be between about 105,000 to 110,000 words in rough draft, but we will see when I get there. I'm hoping to have it out before the end of June, but there's a good chance it may slip to July, so listen to this space and watch my website for updates.   I am also 104,000 words into Stealth and Spells Online: The Final Quest, which as the name implies, will be the third and final book of the Stealth and Spells trilogy. I am right in the middle of writing the climactic scenes of the story and because of the length and how far I've gotten and I've been chipping away at this since October, it will come out very quickly after Shield of Power, possibly even in the same month. I'm also 5,000 words into Ghost in the Siege, which will be the sixth and final book of the Ghost Armor series, and that should probably come out towards the end of summer, if all goes well.   In audiobook news, Brad Wills is recording Shield of Battle and Hollis McCarthy is recording Ghost in the Corruption right now. I know they're hard at work at it because both of them sent me emails with questions about pronunciations today. Hopefully we'll have some exciting new audiobooks for you later this summer.   00:02:12 Main Topic: Ebook Pricing Strategies [Note: All Prices Referenced are USD]   And now let's move right into our main topic, ebook pricing strategies, which is often a contentious topic for indie authors. We're going to go over five different ebook pricing strategies to look at when they're the most effective or why you might want to try them. I'll talk about when I have used each of them and why I chose to do so or not to do so, as the case might be.   As I said, this is often a contentious topic for indie authors, especially newer indie authors who often have in their head an idea that their book is worth X amount of dollars because the amount of work they put into it, like for example, “my novel should be a minimum of $9.99 or $14.99 because of all the work I put into it. It was a year's worth of work, and if you can buy a fancy latte at Starbucks or $6 or $7 or whatever, then you should be able to pay $9.99 for this novel upon which I toiled for a year.”   And that is a nice sentiment, but in reality it doesn't work that way for a couple of reasons. For one thing, people are only willing to drop that kind of money on authors that they've known for a long time, like hardcore Stephen King or James Patterson or Jack Reacher fans dropping $20 or $30 for the novel in hardcover when comes out the first time. That kind of loyalty has to be earned over the long term, and if you're brand a new indie author or a newish indie author, charging $9.99 for your ebook is something of an ask.   For the second thing, an ebook is not a physical object, and there is a point where people blanch at paying a lot of money for an item that is essentially electronic and digital. If you're paying $9.99 for a paperback, at least you're getting the paperback, the physical object. Paying $9.99 for something utterly intangible like an ebook is a much harder sell. Because of that, the optimal price point for ebooks tends to be a bit lower than that.   For the sake of not adding too many caveats to each point based on genre and format, let's assume for each of these strategies, the ebook we are pricing is a fantasy novel of about 90,000 words without any maps or images and is not being traditionally published by an established author. In an interview, Smashwords founder Mark Coker presented data from Smashwords that showed most indie authors selling full length fiction will see the most success setting their ebook prices at either $2.99, $3.99, or $4.99 (depending on genre). That is still the case, generally speaking. However, there are some special pricing strategies that may increase your sales, and that is what we'll be focusing on this episode. #1: The first of the five pricing strategies we will look at is permafree, and permafree means that the book is permanently set to free instead of just for a short period of time. Why does this work? People like free things. People will eagerly take something that's free while something that's even $2 or $3 will lead to hesitation on their part, especially for an unfamiliar author, and that is true of $0.99 as well.   However, permafree is a strategy only makes financial sense if the book is the first book in a series and there are at least a few books in the series already published. If you have one book and make it permafree, that's fine if you want to give away the book to readers so it's read, but it will not make you any money. It makes more sense to make the first book in a series free when there are like four or five or more books in the series. Just setting a book to permafree is not enough on its own. You still need to spend money on ads and marketing, so you're relying on sales from the next several books in the series to subsidize the free book and marketing cost. Very often I will advertise the free first book in one of my series and then calculate whether the ad was successful or not based on how many copies of the rest of the books in the series that I have actually sold.   There also needs to be a strong hook at the end of the first book to lure readers on to the second book to inspire readers to continue, but not an outright cliffhanger, which will annoy most readers and could hurt your reviews. If you're going to make your first book in the series free, it is a generally bad idea to end that book with a cliffhanger or to end that book with an unresolved main plot. People will get mad at you and accuse you of trying to nickel and dime them on the rest of the series.   It's also a good idea to put the link to the second book right at the end of the first book in order to help the reader continue on in the series. You also need to accept that most of the attention for permafree titles often comes from so-called book hoarders. This strategy is not a great one for trying to get reviews as there is a significant segment of readers who blindly grab whatever is free and then they never get around to reading it, much less finishing it.   In the same vein, you have to accept that the percentage of readers converting from the free ebook to the rest of the paid series will be much lower than the conversion from a paid book to the next paid book in the series normally would be. What kind of conversion rate am I talking about? If you have say, a conversion rate from the free first book to the paid second book of 5-10%, you are doing very well.   How have I used the strategy? I've made almost all of my series starters permafree, and since I write fairly long series, it's easier for me to do that than for people with a series with only two or three books. Making books permafree has been a major part of my indie publishing efforts over the last 14 years, and I found it's pretty much the most consistent low effort thing I can do to drive sales. It's like a constant trickle, though it does work better on the non-Amazon stores than it does with Amazon today.   #2: So now we will move on to our second pricing strategy, which is the $0.99 price. Some authors will temporarily set the $0.99 price at launch in order to gain some reviews and then raise the price once that has happened. Others will price the first book in the series at $0.99 and then price the subsequent books in the series higher, in a similar strategy to permafree. This strategy gets a higher percentage of the people reading the book than permafree and authors have reported a higher percentage of read through continuing to the next book as well.   This price does well with BookBub deals and could be used temporarily for that. BookBub customers are extremely price sensitive and they expect steep discounts. The biggest downside of the strategy is that on sites like Amazon, you'll be paid a lower royalty rate of 35%, so any ads or marketing costs will effectively eat most of your profits. However, if your book is wide in all the stores, many of them offer better royalty rates than Amazon for books at $0.99. For myself, what I've done for long series is that I make the first book free and then the second book $0.99, and then all the books after there are full price. Obviously, you take a bit of a hit on the first few books in the series, but if you have a long series like I do, then you can definitely make up the lost costs with sales of the rest of the books. I've also used $0.99 to pretty good results with BookBub deals over the years.   #3: The third pricing strategy we're going to look at is the box set. This strategy applies to a series since you're packaging multiple full length novels together and sometimes throwing in a short story or other special content. The important thing about pricing box sets is that it should be a substantial discount over buying the full length books in the sets separately. The price will be a bigger hook than adding special features. You might want to make the first box set less expensive than the subsequent ones in order to motivate readers to begin the series. This strategy is great for Kindle Unlimited (KU) since readers are getting multiple books but only have to take one of their allocated book spots in the KU Library. Longer books also lead to bigger payouts, since KU operates on pages per read system, which means that the longer the book is (and assuming someone actually reads it), you'll then get a bigger payout. This also applies somewhat in a more limited way for Kobo Plus, in the way that it calculates page reads. They use minutes read instead of page reads.   How have I used this? I have many box sets, and because of the limitations of Amazon pricing, most of my box sets aren't above $9.99, but if the three novels in the box set are individually $4.99, that is a savings of 33% as opposed to buying the books individually. So I mostly did the box sets to provide a base for doing the box sets in audio, but they do also generate some income on their own because of the savings.   #4: The fourth pricing strategy we're going to look at is coupons. The most common way to provide coupons in Indie Author World is either through Smashwords or a direct sales page, such as My Payhip store, which I mention frequently on this podcast. Coupons are a convenient way to make a book free to only a select group of people, such as newsletter subscribers or contest winners. It is by far the easiest and most flexible way to discount your books temporarily. For example, on Payhip, it only takes a couple minutes to set up a coupon and then it will be ready to use instantly or for whatever specific dates and times you have set the coupon to run. They are the most effective when they are short term to create a sense of urgency to buy the book, but not so short term that readers miss out on the deal. The biggest downside is that most buyers are not as familiar with using Smashwords or a direct sales page, so they may be hesitant to use a new site, especially if they have a large ebook collection on another platform like Kindle.   How have I used this strategy? For years, I've used the Smashwords coupon strategy to give away a free short story when I publish a book (with Ghost in the Corruption, it was Ghost Spells, and when I finish Shield of Power, the short story for that will be called Consort of Darkness and newsletter subscribers will get a Smashwords coupon code they can use to get a free ebook copy of the short story). I also frequently do Coupon of the Week through my Payhip store, where I offer 25% off a featured ebook or series or 50% off an audiobook. Since the royalty rate on Payhip is higher than on Amazon or Audible, I'm able to offer generous sales prices without losing money on a discounted sale. So once you have a large enough catalog, coupons through direct sales can be an effective strategy.   #5: And the fifth and final sales strategy we'll look at this episode is Kindle Countdown Deals. If your book is in Kindle Select/Kindle Unlimited, Kindle allows you to run a limited time discount on it. Readers will see a countdown clock showing how long they have to buy it at the price. To be eligible to run a Countdown Deal, your book must have been enrolled in KDP Select for at least 30 days, and your book's list price must have been unchanged for 30 days before and 14 days after the deal runs. There are some other requirements, so read Amazon's documentation page very carefully before you decide to run a Countdown Deal. The biggest advantage of a Countdown Deal is the royalty rate for the book during the deal will be based on the book's regular price and not what it's discounted to during the sale, so this is a nice way to try a lower price for your book. For example, if the book is usually $4.99 and during the Countdown Deal it is lowered to $0.99, you'll still get 70% of the sale rate. Now granted, 70% of $0.99 is not as good as 70% of $4.99, but you may be able to make it up in sales volume. This strategy gets a lot more viewers than a coupon with Smashwords or your direct sales page would. However, it's not nearly as flexible as those options. It requires some advanced planning. This method is most effective when paired with a marketing push, such as an increase in ad spending or a newsletter notifying your newsletter subscribers about the deal. The biggest downside of this strategy is that you have to be exclusive with Amazon in order to take advantage of the deal. If your books are wide, you can't do a Kindle Countdown Deal for them. I've used this strategy intermittently with limited success, I have to admit, because generally I don't have that many books in KU at any given time. That said, when I have had books in KU, I've tried Kindle Countdown deals and had moderate success with them. Overall, I do think the other methods I've already mentioned on this episode are more effective, but if you have books in KU, it is definitely worth trying a Kindle Countdown Deal in combination with some ads and a newsletter push.   So hopefully these five pricing strategies will help you make sense of the pricing of books in Indie Author World and will be helpful to you as you decide how to price your own books.   So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy, and we will see you all next week.  

It's been three years since we shook up the indie publishing industry and merged Draft2Digital and Smashwords into one big player in the indie space. Now that we've had three years and most authors have been migrated into Draft2Digital, Kris Austin and Mark Coker join Jim to look back on the last three years and forward to our plans to come. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Writer Beware discovered a new company that is so supposed to protect authors from scams, but some things are not quite right. Amazon is offering refunds on unused Kindle Vella tokens in March. KDP upgraded their virtual voice software. And, the US Copyright Office released the second part of a report on registering a copyright of a publication created by AI. All that and more in the self-publishing news! Book Award Pro - https://DaleLinks.com/BookAwardPro (affiliate link) Subscribe to The Self-Publishing Hub - https://TheSelfPublishingHub.com Subscribe to my email newsletter - https://DaleLinks.com/SignUp Join Channel Memberships - https://DaleLinks.com/Memberships Join Me on Discord - https://DaleLinks.com/Discord Check out my main YouTube channel - https://www.youtube.com/@DaleLRoberts My Books - https://DaleLinks.com/MyBooks Source: The Ultimate Guide to 2025 Book Awards for Independent Publishers and Authors - https://publishdrive.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-2025-book-awards-for-independent-publishers-and-authors.html Writer Beware - Book Guard: “Anti-Scam Protection” That's Anything But - https://writerbeware.blog/2024/11/22/book-guard-anti-scam-protection-thats-anything-but/ Invite-Only KDP Beta for Audiobooks - https://www.kdpcommunity.com/s/article/Invite-Only-KDP-Beta-for-Audiobooks?language=en_US We are winding down Kindle Vella - https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/a/faq Apple Books for Authors - https://authors.apple.com/ U.S. Copyright Office Releases Part 2 of AI Report: What Authors Should Know - https://authorsguild.org/news/us-copyright-office-ai-report-part-2-what-authors-should-know/ Miblart (Cover Design) - https://DaleLinks.com/Miblart - code LOVECOVER14 good till Feb. 14, 2025 on romance-themed covers (Affiliate link) GetCovers (Cover Design) - https://DaleLinks.com/GetCovers - code ROMANCE20 good till Feb.14, 2025 on romance-themed covers (Affiliate link)  Get Authentic Book Reviews - https://GetAuthenticBookReviews.com Book Bounty - https://DaleLinks.com/BookBounty (Affiliate link) The Virtues of Wide Distribution with Mark Coker - https://selfpubconnect.mn.co/events/member-qa-the-virtues-of-wide-distribution-with-mark-coker (ALLi membership required) Authors Guild: AI Rights Licensing 101 with Created by Humans - https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SLdFX6VoS3OYgJSK_Gn43w#/registration  Written Word Media: Written Word Media Speaker Series with Ferol Vernon - https://streamyard.com/watch/3mry2CB5wsuU  Master Amazon Ads: Live Ad Audits for Authors - https://www.youtube.com/live/a0snbVjJEPw?si=OCn5IUJ7XgHwxem1 Get your Amazon Ads audited - https://DaleLinks.com/AuditMyAds No Writing Required: Turn Your Podcast Into a Book in 90 Days - https://www.youtube.com/live/VFNtF9K6MJ0?si=MCw9kkwKE9_6Tb8c 6 Authors vs 1 Impostor: Who Will Fool the Rest? - https://youtu.be/WzztnGi-Oj4?si=9Sf9JkKGkmqbNDDv Apply for 6 Versus 1 - https://DaleLinks.com/6v1  Credit: Authors Guild - https://authorsguild.org/  Where noted, some outbound links financially benefit the channel through affiliate programs. I only endorse programs, products, or services I use and can stand confidently behind. These links do not affect your purchase price and greatly helps to building and growing this channel. Thanks in advance for understanding! - Dale L. Roberts  

Now that we're done reflecting on 2024, it's time to look forward. We bring together some of our favorite all-stars of the publishing world, including Joanna Penn, Dale Roberts, and Mark Coker to give us their predictions for what authors can expect in 2025.//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Did you know the Smashwords store pays indie authors the industry's highest royalties? Did you the Smashwords store is about to celebrate its 7th consecutive year of sales growth? And did you know the 7th Annual Smashwords End of Year Sale was another record breaking Smashwords Sale? Join us as Mark Coker and Mark Lefebvre explain how YOU can use Smashwords sales to reach new readers and sell more books. //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

We've assembled a dream team of industry luminaries to unravel the key trends and issues that will shape publishing in 2024 and likely impact your author business. Join us as we welcome Mark Coker, chief strategy officer, D2D; Jane Friedman, founder & editor of publishing newsletter The Hot Sheet; Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn Podcast; Dale Roberts of the Self Publishing with Dale Podcast; and Orna Ross, co-founder and director of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi). //Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career//  Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor worldwide. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way—and we won't charge you a dime.  We take a small percentage of the royalties for each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money. That's the best kind of business plan.  • Get started now: https://draft2digital.com/• Learn the ins, the outs, and the all-arounds of indie publishing from the industry experts on the D2D Blog: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog  • Promote your books with our Universal Book Links from Books2Read: https://books2read.com  Make sure you bookmark https://D2DLive.com for links to live events, and to catch back episodes of the Self Publishing Insiders Podcast.

Do you want to get your books into libraries? Discover how to sell your self published book to libraries with Chief Strategy Officer of Draft2Digital, Mark Coker, and Director of Ebook Services at the Digital Public Library of America, Micah May. Authors who self-publish their books exclusively through KDP are missing out on a larger market beyond the Amazon platform - libraries! While getting your self published book into your local library used to require a ton of selling and marketing strategies, the latest way to sell your books to libraries makes it a whole lot easier with Palace Marketplace. Find out how Draft2Digital (D2D) and the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) are publishing over 500,000 indie titles to Palace Marketplace, reaching over 400 libraries in the United States.  This uncut interview came from a live broadcast on YouTube. Draft2Digital - https://DaleLinks.com/D2D (referral link) 

Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords and Chief Strategy Officer at Draft2Digital, discusses LOOKING FORWARD IN INDY PUBLISHING. He discusses how platforms like Facebook are the new gatekeepers, the rise of subscription models (and why he likes Scribd), the importance of implementing best practices, why we should be excited about AI narration, and how indy authors are the future of publishing. Do any of those topics pique your interest? Check out 2 MINUTES OF INDY https://bit.ly/2MinutesOfIndy, where over the week following the airing of the episode, you'll find brief video clips from the interview on each of those topics. You can also catch up on some highlights of previous episodes there. For a transcript of this interview and links to more information, go to https://www.theindyauthor.com/podcast.html. Did you find the information in this video useful? Please consider supporting The Indy Author! https://www.patreon.com/theindyauthor https://www.buymeacoffee.com/mattydalrymple Mark Coker serves as Chief Strategy Officer at Draft2Digital, the world's leading publishing platform for indie authors. Mark is the founder of indie ebook pioneer Smashwords, which was acquired by Draft2Digital on March 1, 2022. Mark is an outspoken advocate for self-published authors, a former contributing columnist for Publishers Weekly, and the host of the SMART AUTHOR podcast where he teaches evergreen best practices to help authors publish ebooks with pride, professionalism, and success. 

Smashwords was the original distribution service for indie authors and Mark Coker has been an advocate for wide publishing for over 14 years. Draft2Digital has been a fantastic service for indies over the last decade, moving into new markets, providing great tools, and helping authors sell more books. On Feb 8, 2022, Draft2Digital announced they […] The post Draft2Digital Acquires Smashwords. The Opportunities Ahead For Wide Publishing With Mark Coker And Kevin Tumlinson first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Publishing away from the Amazon platform has its shares of pros and cons. Two avenues - in Smashwords and Draft2Digital (D2D) - offer the best reach, royalty structure, and publishing options. Now, both platforms will work together. D2D acquired Smashwords and the two companies will work together to build a stellar platform for self-publishers worldwide.  CEO of Draft2Digital, Kris Austin, and CEO of Smashwords, Mark Coker, sat down to discuss the upcoming merger. -Join Draft2Digital at our referral link: https://DaleLinks.com/D2D - Draft2Digital is Acquiring Smashwords! - Live Q&A - https://dalelinks.com/merge - FAQs: Draft2Digital Acquires Smashwords - https://dalelinks.com/mergefaq 

t could be the biggest news in self-publishing to come our way in a decade... Draft2Digital is acquiring Smashwords! What will the merger of these two self-publishing giants mean for indie authors? In this episode of Self Publishing Insiders, Kevin Tumlinson chats with Kris Austin and Mark Coker about how this started and where it's going—and most importantly what it means for self-publishing!//Draft2Digital is where you start your Indie Author Career// Looking for your path to self-publishing success? Draft2Digital is the leading ebook publisher and distributor. We'll convert your manuscript, distribute it online, and support you the whole way, and we won't charge you a dime. We take a cut of royalties on each sale you make through us, so we only make money when you make money! • Get started: https://Draft2Digital.com Get insider info on indie author success from our blog. • Visit: https://Draft2Digital.com/blog Tune in to our monthly livestreams and ask us anything! • D2D Live: https://D2DLive.com Promote your books with our Universal Book Links! • Books2Read: https://books2read.com//Get ahead of the Self-Publishing game with our Amazing Partners// Findaway Voices || Find a narrator, produce your audiobook, and distribute it to retailers worldwide, including Audible.com and Apple Books. • http://findawayvoices.com/d2dReedsy || Assemble your team of publishing professionals! Find editors, cover designers, marketing experts, ghostwriters and more. • https://reedsy.comBookBrush || Build graphics and video that help you market and promote your books. • https://bookbrush.com/d2d-mockups///Join the D2D Community Online// Facebook || https://facebook.com/draft2digitalTwitter || https://twitter.com/draft2digital

The self-publishing movement is just getting started in Jamaica and the Caribbean islands, and authors are discovering they can tell their stories in their own way. C. Ruth Taylor talks about how she became an authorpreneur and why she believes in an indie-first, empowering ecosystem. In the intro, Draft2Digital acquires Smashwords [D2D; Mark Coker]; Impact […] The post Self-Publishing In Jamaica And The Caribbean And The Importance Of Diverse Voices With C. Ruth Taylor first appeared on The Creative Penn.

What is the difference between preselling your book and making it available as a preorder on sites like Amazon? Is one better than the other? Tune in to the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, episode 138, where Autumn and Jesper share the result of a recent experiment, using the pre sales function as mentioned by Mark Coker, the CEO and founder of Smashwords, in episode 118.   If you're interested in the $150 discount voucher, to be used for any of the Am Writing Fantasy premium courses, sign up via this link: https://www.subscribepage.com/awfnewsletter   Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.  SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.  Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (29s): Hello, I'm Jesper. Autumn (31s): And I'm Autumn. Jesper (33s): This is episode 138 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. Back in the eighth episode, 118, Autumn talked to special guests, Mark Coker, the CEO and founder of Smashwords. And during that conversation, some new tools where shared, which was around how to resell your books as opposed to set up pre-orders or pre-sale as you write and say, presale you books, as opposed to setup, pre-orders like to do on to Amazon. And you have been testing that out, Autumn. Autumn (1m 8s): As always, I'm the perfect Guinea pig for all our experiments. So I tried out for free sales and I have tried out preorders, both on Smashwords in other places. So we have some results to share on some thoughts and tips. If anyone wants to check out this feature and I can't wait to share it, but really today we're both kind of getting back into the driver's seat because you just back from vacation. Jesper (1m 38s): Yeah, yeah, indeed. I mean, we recorded the bunch of episodes before the holidays to carry us through. So in reality, well, for the listener, that sounds like it's only been a week, but for us it's been a month since we last recorded anything. Autumn (1m 51s): Oh, I know you have to record it even late. Cause we had so much stuff to talk about forehand. So yeah, we have a lot Jesper (1m 60s): Of future pants to the future plans to have to talk about Autumn (2m 5s): Definitley, but you have a good vacation. It's been good. Yeah. Jesper (2m 8s): Good vacation. A lot of relaxation and the doing as little as possible apart from reading a ton of books, I think I managed to read five books, which has never happened before or some of them where a fairly short, but there was also a one very long won in between. And so, yeah, and that was good. And the way it's been busy, so busy coming back, I must say a and the, the, the, the thing is that time off work always makes me think about a million new things. So apart from writing stuff, in what we should write about how we should tackle our next series, which we just talked about offline here, I've also filled up my pocket of marketing ideas, primarily like Facebook ads, strategies. Jesper (2m 54s): I think you noticed all in once I started emailing about, can you make new ad images for this and that? Autumn (3m 1s): I know you're on vacation. I started getting some new tasks. So I was like, wait, what? So I'm not on vacation. Doesn't mean you could assign me things. Yeah. It, you know, so it was fun. Oh yeah. Jesper (3m 14s): Yeah. That, that happens. So, you know, I, I stopped thinking once, once I get down, then my brain start thinking about new things. So I think that's good. It's good to take some time off sometimes. Autumn (3m 25s): Yes. I think it is very good. And I have to admit, even though I S I had a total task list that I, I didn't actually get the bottom, have there still few things on my list of things I've meant to do while you're on vacation when we didn't have our normal sessions when we record. So they're still have stuff to do, but I have to be in, I snuck in some extra books and some extra reading as well. So it was nice to meet me. You slow down a little bit and get some reading in it. It was kind of, Jesper (3m 56s): Yeah. And the, the other thing that actually happened while I was on vacation was that like, I got an email from the national soccer association. Oh yeah. And they, yeah. They asked me or they sort of, well, how do you say that? But they suggested in a nice way, because they have a position coming up a as to become a referee Instructure oh, instructor, referee Instructure. So they send me the email and says that we would like you to apply for this position, if you would please consider it really. So, yeah. That's pretty cool. Jesper (4m 36s): So, and of course there is no guarantees that I will get it. I was not the only one, but I think they have, like, that was five people as something on, on that email that they have picked out and say would like you guys to apply for this. But if I understand correctly, I think there are going to hire a couple. So it's not only one person. I think there are going to be a couple of, but yeah. So as we know from the recording, this podcast, all the courses we do with writing and I love teaching. So I think this is excellent. So I would like to become an instruction. And if I'm honest, one day, at some point in the future, I will not be able to run as well anymore. And she catches up with me. Jesper (5m 16s): So maybe teaching would be good to get into. Autumn (5m 19s): Yeah. Oh, I can see that. Let's not talk about age because I'm even older than you. So lets just not, that might be that, you know, it's so flattering to even get an email asking you to apply, but good luck. That would be really kinda cool. We just spend like two hours talking to you. You didn't oh, you're just telling me this now. And I always do this on purpose and I think he like holding out on me. Jesper (5m 46s): Yeah. I could, I could just say it to the listener that a, we just had a two hour like business and writing meeting. And I think I started up by saying, I want to ask Autumn a question and then I did not ask the question until two hours later and I gave her like three teases throughout the two hours that I'm going to come back to the question Autumn (6m 7s): That you didn't know where it was. We go to each other, having to use, I was like, okay, what is this question? And then you have to keep hitting sing about, but if we got through it with the question, we can do it. Yeah. Excellent. Narrator (6m 24s): A week on the Internet with the Writing Fantasy Podcast. Jesper (6m 27s): So Autumn, another thing I want a spring on you here. Autumn (6m 30s): Already? Jesper (6m 32s): Already? We are recording, but the first time in the months, so I'm kind of like coming to the, the gates running now Autumn (6m 40s): That you saved all of these things up on you have in place. This is why you been thinking about while you're on vacation are the things that you can the spring on me. No, I know. Jesper (6m 49s): No, but this is now on probably a month ago because that's how long it's been since we recorded. What did you notice? How Dominick wave in on Patrion on which one of us? One episode 123 where we did the top 10 lists of the worst characters, all the worst people that we could think about teaching magic. Did you see to the, he actually I have sometimes to say about who Autumn (7m 15s): You bring this up 'cause he said you won that's my reading this out. Otherwise you would probably have forgotten about this topic of conversation, Jesper (7m 30s): But he did say something else as well. Yeah. He did say something else as well. And that's where I first my memory, he was saying that the way I was trying to move the goalpost and change the rules of our top, Tim you where I have no idea what he means. That's you, that's not as important either. That was the important thing was that you said you wanted, he said that I was the wind up that episode Autumn (7m 58s): And he apologize to me, but I don't know that it was just one opinion. I'm still holding out for other's Jesper (8m 8s): I'll really oh, patron supporters. Very important. So Autumn (8m 15s): Maybe we can double Waite him. At least Jesper (8m 16s): They have to say, I want to him, that's it. Autumn (8m 18s): Yeah. That's all you need. So know I see how this goes. Oh yeah. Jesper (8m 24s): Oh yeah. A quick reminder here. A as I mentioned in the past few weeks, on the past few weeks of episodes and we might just mention it next week as well, but after that it'll be too late. So this is one of those last kind of reminders now. But we have decided to offer everyone on our email list, a massive discount for either one of our flagship courses. So I want to mention that in the autumn, Autumn (8m 53s): You said either one, you have forgotten your month off, we decided it was going to be for three, either have the three courses Jesper (9m 1s): Three. Yeah. That was you explain what those costs as well. Autumn (9m 5s): Obviously I've kept my mind going in. Was it on vacation? But yeah, so we're going to offer coupon for either the ultimate fantasy writer's guide, which is our premium premier writing Corus, the one-stop shop for everything, from how to write, develop ideas, to marketing and building your author brand and platform to crafting incredible fantasy world, which is our world-building mega chorus, which is so freaking awesome. But it'll take you to sort of along the, you will develop a world, not just for a world, but you're going to actually develop it in conjunction with really feeding into your story and creating a world in a story that are combined and just intricate. Autumn (9m 48s): Or we decided that you remember it's like, that was like the beginning of the previous episode. We decided we would throw in our master mailing list of course as well. So if you have questions on how to, to email marketing and talk to the readers and turn your readers in the super fans, that of course we'll be having a coupon to only if you sign up for it though. Jesper (10m 15s): Yes. So we will be emailing out this voucher. It's going to be $150 off, but if you want to get your hands on it, you'll have to get on the email list fast now because it's going to be super. So you're going to, you are going to be too late. If you don't get on the list quite soon, we have placed in the link in the show notes from where you can do just that. Yeah, but don't linger. Autumn (10m 38s): You don't linger where you are going to be signing up for the next time. Maybe we'll know if we, when we decide to do this again today. Jesper (10m 52s): So we are going to talk about preorder versus presale as we said up at the top. But I think we need to explain what is the difference here? Yeah. Autumn (11m 1s): Think so as to what you, okay. You want me to explain this, right? Jesper (11m 6s): Oh no, no. Well you hear me. Oh, okay. Autumn (11m 9s): All right. You can see if I get it right. So a pre-order I hopefully a lot of authors are familiar with this though. It was interesting when I was talking to mark Coker that he said that a lot of authors still don't use pre-orders and that typically the authors who do use pre-orders tend to be the higher earning one. So I thought that was the kind of an interesting to statistic, but a pre-order his, when you put up your book and you say it's, it shows up on Amazon, it shows up on Smashwords actually Barnes and noble cobalt. All of those platforms do have pre-orders. And so you'll see it often there is the book cover and it'll say a release date and you can go ahead and click the button so that you were buying technically before it is released, you don't get an actual copy of the book. Autumn (11m 58s): You just gets M you get to put on your order or early it's like you don't, you, once it's released, you will be there in the first ones to get it. And most authors, when they do pre-orders often offer a discount. So you're usually buying in. So if you're book is normally four to 99, maybe you're gonna be able to get in 99 cents are 2 99. Then you get a little bit of a discount by ordering it early. And for authors, it's nice because you usually depends on the platform, but often all those sales dumped in on one day was a pre-order often, those first few days after release are the biggest selling days for your book. And that part of that is because you have maybe a month, two month, six months, or even as possible of pre-order where your book shows up as being live. Autumn (12m 43s): Some authors, they make it fun and they use M a fake cover. They will just say like cover coming soon. And they'll do a cover reveal and you can do all this stuff. It's kinda if there's a lot of stuff that goes on with pre-orders, but that's it. You put up the book for pre-order and you don't see any money from it until it is finally released. The day that is released, whatever day you decide to have as a really estate now pre-sale is different and is something that smashed where it's has come up with. Those are the only platform I'm doing it. And actually my coworker has put it in four, a patent. He just wants to own this one, which I don't blame him. Cause I have seen Amazon pickup. Some of the things Smashwords does first. Autumn (13m 26s): So leave him for, to sign, to kind of copy, write this one himself. But the pre-sale is that in between steppe, you can put your books book up for pre-order and you don't see any money from it until you release it. Presale is that space in between where you put up the book for pre-order you do have to have it up for pre-order and then for certain people, or you could do it for the public at large, it's kind of cool. You can get it into the nitty gritty. You can actually sell the book before its available in stores like Amazon. And what's kind of cool is that means if your book is going to be in the Kindle unlimited, but it isn't released yet. So it's not in Kindle unlimited. Autumn (14m 8s): You can actually run a presale and not run a foul of Amazon's terms of service. So that's kind of a cool tidbit if you are a Kindle unlimited customer, but yeah, this gives you a chance. You, you sell it like as a regular book, except for there's some really kind of cool twists and why it works out as a presale. It's very exclusive. And you know how to readers love exclusive deals. This gives you some income between the pre-order and actual launch. Jesper (14m 39s): Yeah. Now I haven't tried this pre-sale stuff, but since you had the Guinea pig here, Autumn, but it sounds to me very similar on you. You, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but it sounds very similar to what we normally like to do in the, in the sense of, if, for example, we want to release a book in Kindle unlimited. We noticed some readers like to read on Kobo or something. So what is a pretty good strategy is to, for example, if you have something on Patrion, you could go to your readers and say, okay, for during this two week window, you can buy the book via Patrion here. Jesper (15m 24s): If you, if you don't wanna buy from Amazon, here's the two week window where you can buy it and you can avoid buying it from Amazon, if you prefer, and then, you know, you can then use book funnel and just post the book from the link inside patrons. So when you buy it from here, but using Patrion that it makes it easier in the sense that they're already paying money in so on so they can download it from there. Or you could, you could do it yourself if you want it to using the sales link directly from BookFunnel. But I guess this the same thing, isn't it? Autumn (15m 53s): It is the difference to me. I think the difference. Well, the, but I was talking to mark. I said, oh, well, you know, I already sell my books on my website and I often have done that, releasing it early. And we've done this for our own books if we re released them early from our website. So if you buy directly from us, you know, it's often available a week or two weeks before the preorder date comes up so that we do that. 'cause we get a higher royalty rate, which is fantastic. You could get people to trust us in, come and buy from us directly. Presales are kind of filling that niche. If you do not know how to do that, set up the actual ebook sales directly from your website. Autumn (16m 34s): So it works and it, you do get a higher percentage Smashwords set. So does a 80% royalty rate. So that is, you know, better than you're going to get off of Amazon, which was kinda cool. And it sort of that idea, there is a few differences where if there is an anti piracy pledge that people are signing. So that works out really well, that if you're selling the book like literally two months before you would ever released it on the pre-order, you, you, you know, you know, they're not going to be sharing it around other people because that's, oh, you, that would be something that would be concerned about it. If I was doing a pre-sale, that was way out front of my pre-order date. And the other difference is you can actually through M through Smashwords they have, they done it so that they can get a second discount that if they sign up using, in giving you your, their e-mail address and so subscribing to your e-mail rate, they can make me get another small discount or a big discount. Autumn (17m 34s): So you could say, pre-sale, it is 4 99. But if you agree to my email list is going to be 2 99. So suddenly this is a way of generating people to get on to your email list. And that's kind of the thing about the pre-sale 'cause if you do that, you would obviously there's two ways of doing the settings and we can talk about the setting's, but you could make it a public one. And so, you know, people who just go to Smashwords where you can just spread the link everywhere, and the people who can go and find it like a regular book, and then they can get a discount. If they sign up to your email list, I was like, oh, that is, you are getting a sale. Is that you're getting money. Autumn (18m 14s): And you're getting someone on your email list. That's pretty cool. Or you can do a private link. And so in that case, you're probably just sharing the private linked, like you sent to your Patriot supporters or the people that are already on your email list. Well, in that case, they're probably not going to care too much about signing up for your e-mail list. Cause they were already on your email list. They probably can still sign up and get the discount. But yeah, in that case, when you have a private link, if you know that little extra coupon deal, isn't that exciting though. Speaking of coupons Smashwords is one of those places that does offer coupons that you can use and generate, and you can use those coupon codes with the presale. Autumn (18m 56s): So if you want to do still do something exclusive too, the readers who are specifically on your email list, you can give them, Hey, go and get this book on presale before it's out in stores. And if you use this code, you can get 10, 25% as well. So if you could make people get so excited, you could, you make the coupon good only for one or two people and use it as a give-away there's a lot of fun things you can do with the presale length and how they have it set up. Jesper (19m 27s): Yeah. Yeah. I can see that, that, that is different than the, for sure. The, the, the part about getting people to sign up. That's not something that you can do anywhere else. So that is quite unique. It was. Autumn (19m 37s): So that's why he kinda convinced me to like, oh, I know you're selling books on your own website, but you should give this a try because you can generate people signing up to your email list. And I'm like, okay. That is, that is pretty gosh. Darn cool. Jesper (19m 50s): Yeah. And the other thing about is that if all of the setting up have the payment modules on your website or setting up the payment collection, some of our books on which you can do now-a-days, but if all of that feels too daunting and to technical than at least this, I mean, it's probably like ticking a box when you have uploaded Smashwords anyway, isn't it? Autumn (20m 11s): Oh, it was two pages, but mostly just radio button check boxes. So yeah, you have to start by uploading you're pre-order and the caveat you have to have your completed final manuscript. So, you know, often with pre-orders people set it up and they're like, okay, you know, S Amazons like gives you five days'. You have to have it before release that you need to have the final version of uploaded on this case. You need to have your final version. So you have to plan ahead and you have to have the final book. And that's I think really the key here. So you're purposefully pushing off your pre-order, even though you have the final book, instead of releasing it, just to use the pre-sale. Autumn (20m 52s): But yeah, once you have that uploaded, there's literally a button in your Smashwords dashboard that says, Hey, you know, sign up for pre-sale and you go through a few questions, like, do you want to public? Or do you want the private, do you want to offer a discount through email? Do you want people to have to sign up the, the antipiracy pledge? And you answered this really quick questions. There are mostly radio buttons, just like thinking about it and have done. And off it goes it's up there. And whether it's public or giving you a private link, there you go. It's it's really pretty painless. I will say. Jesper (21m 28s): Yeah, the, that is pretty cool. And of course the nice thing being as well, that with the presale here, you're, you're collecting the money right away. I, I guess, I mean, some people might not know, but for example, if you are doing pre-orders on Amazon a if the reader then seize you, pre-order on Amazon and they buy via the pre-order, like you said before, it's not going to be delivered also not charged until the date that pre-order goes like, but what some people might not know is that Amazon actually does not count pre-orders against your bestseller rank or the book rank on the release date now. Jesper (22m 11s): So basically Autumn (22m 12s): The time to go, but not in here. Jesper (22m 15s): No. So basically the stuff that you sell during your preorder is not going to help on your ranking at all. So of course, if you're white, other retailers do not punish you like this. And honestly, I feel like it is Amazon punishing you for doing pre pre-orders, which I don't understand why. No, but they do. There's probably some reason for it, for somebody in the past who was gamed the system, and then they have done something like this. I couldn't imagine, but I don't know. But on the contrary, the other retailers, they will actually give you a bonus on release day. So the pre-order will increase your visibility in their store, but your ranking will also increase from the cumulative buys when the book goes live. Jesper (22m 55s): So you actually getting a booster twice, if you are using pre-orders on the other retailers, which is quite cool that, but of course we know 90% of all the book sales for most authors comes from Amazon. So that means that Amazon in general are the only one we are majorly concerned and focused on, unfortunately, but that's how life is we. This also means that the pre-orders in Amazon, I guess that the reason we usually use pre-orders of them. Yes. But the reason we do it is not because it's going to help on the ranking or, and also not because it's going to help on the more sales and so on. Jesper (23m 37s): But actually the reason is just because it can be very stressful when you have a deadline and when you have a pre all the way that we do it, because Amazon is not very flexible in moving the dates at all now. But I think if they allow for you to do it once that one today, what are Autumn (23m 57s): The days? And that is yeah, Jesper (24m 0s): But what we normally do is that we make sure that we have the entire book ready and done and final. So we actually will, we could of done is we could just release it and make it public. But we already said it. We always set it up as a pre-order for one, because there was no stress. Then we don't have a deadline by which we need to upload the final files because we already did. But the other thing is that then that allows us to run some of these other things, doing the pre-order a meaning, for example, then we can tell people, Hey, if you want it earlier, you can buy it directly from us. Of course, we do have all these websites, shenanigans that we need to take care, have a lot of them gets to do, but the, but then we have that possibility too, to sell the book directly. Jesper (24m 46s): And 'cause, we can offer that earlier than other people getting it from buying on Amazon, there was an incentive, they have to buy it directly from us. And of course we want people to buy directly because then we were getting the full royalty ourselves. We don't have to pay 30% to Amazon for instance. And the other thing is that we need, we don't do this always on in, but sometimes we do, we like to run some sort of giveaways or something related to the, to the action release of this new book, just to get the word of mouth going as well and, and people sharing online and so on and so on. So you can do some, have all of these other things when it's on pre-order technically you could also do it if you just pop into the book. Jesper (25m 31s): But the problem is that when there is no time limit limit on things, you could come up with some arbitrary, the time name on and say, you have to do this within one week to get this price. You could do that as well, if you want it to. But yeah, but when you do and the, yeah, Autumn (25m 48s): Yeah. If you do the pre-order though, you can, Elise, you can get people excited about the giveaway. You know, you have you, maybe you have a month or two months to tell people when this releases there's going to be one week where if you get back to me with the first word in chapter 28, then you will be in for a drawling. You know, you get the two month window to let people know about that. Where if you just released the book and you say, OK, you have one a week to do that. If it's you just have those that one week to tell people, Hey, do this and you can get into it. So the time limit is totally different. And I'm surprised you didn't mentioned this, but with you, you have a pre-order you have the website where the book is going to be live. So if you want to set up any advertising, you have the link to the website where, or the book's going to be live. Autumn (26m 32s): You can actually get all your ducks in a row and have your advertising ready for launch week. And that's that's to me, I think Y the authors who do do pre-orders, they have all their ducks in a row. They have the advertising, they have the giveaway are the scavenger hunt after release. They have all of this excitement going on and they use that pre-order period to generate that excitement and to get people ready. And really, they know the rules, they, they know what's going to happen and they can celebrate what the author, where they author said, oh, by the way, really start yesterday that I'll tell you, you're like, Ugh, okay, what you said, you don't feel quite catching and you have to catch up. So I think pre-orders, Mmm. Autumn (27m 13s): Yeah, you have to have all your stuff together in the beginning, but it gives you a chance to have a lot more fun. And I think to celebrate, because you're not freaking out that you need to get the final format done and getting up there and all of those other things it's already to go, and you can kinda kick back in and just do some Instagram posts on it. Jesper (27m 33s): Oh yeah. I, at least I feel like the entire release process of a new book is it's less stressful. Once everything is just on pre-order and you have your time to get all those ducks in a row and so on and so on, and this is how I feel, but I do also know, and I have a full disclosure here. I do know that there are some disadvantages they have, and I mentioned before, right? Ah, how its in a sales on not counting against your sales rank and so on. So there are definitely this advantages to doing pre-orders but yeah, to me taking the stress out of the picture. Oh yeah, yeah. That is worth some money to Autumn (28m 8s): Me. Yeah, I agree. And it is interesting. So I did try to with a presale, I ran it on the last book in my tainted face series instead of putting it up for sale early on my website. And actually I've always been, I'm not a good procrastinator. I always do stuff as soon as I'm supposed to. Or like that's why assigned times and deadlines for it because if I don't do it when I meant to, and then forgot to do it. So I still have to put up the final books for sale on my website, which I do have some odd, some readers who always wait for me to do that. And I'm just realized that and I now feel really guilty and I've got to go on my website and get it all set up. But if you, I did try it out. Autumn (28m 48s): So instead of selling it directly on my website, I decided to do it and Smashwords pre-sale and I think it had mixed results. You know, it was hard because I only tried it once and I literally only did it as a two week window 'cause as you and I both know, I was very behind getting this last book out the door. It was very long, 150,000 words. So I it's not horribly long, but it was so long and I have other projects and other things going on. So it kinda got backburnered when it should of been front in Bernard. And I only had a two week pre-sale trial, but I did it public. And I also did it, did send the link to the mailing list and I did have a lot of people go and check it out, but I will have it. Autumn (29m 31s): The final result is I did not have a ton of sales. I think just like pre-orders just with everything is you have to have your ducks in a row and you have to let people know you have be either advertising it or on social media and posting about it in telling your newsletter quite a few times. And I think there's one, maybe two other things that might cause people to hesitate before they go and buy your presale book office Smashwords and I dunno if you can guess what those are you. Mm, Nope. I've got to put you on this, but Jesper (30m 8s): It's very late from you. My brain is not working. Oh, you know it is, we are recording now. My brain is not working anymore. You Autumn (30m 14s): Just going to make me to take pity on you. Cause you know, I always do. But the first one is not many leaders to know what Smashwords is. So they it's not Amazon. It's not Kobo. It's not Barnes and noble. And goodness know Smashwords has been around almost as long as Amazon has been selling eBooks, but still it's never made it in to that big name categories. So they see Smashwords and they're like, oh K and new profile and knew place to have library of books. And I do you think it's unfortunate. It's out of the problem. It's always as problem, but of all the seller's that are out there and Smashwords M really does it's best authors are from indie authors are from a third near and dear to mark Coker his heart. Autumn (30m 58s): He is an indie author. That's why he created this platform. So I, I respect so much that he does for indie authors. And that's what I try to tell people about smash where it's, because I don't want to see this one go away. I had like the pronoun when the pronoun was out there for authors. Oh, it was just a fantastic thing. And when they collapsed and closed up shop, I was very sad, but Smashwords, I don't want to see that happen because they have been leading a forefront of stuff and tools that are available to authors, indie authors, that the other platforms are slowly putting into place as well. So there are kind of like, you know, there, there scavenging off of smash words like coupons Smashwords you used to be the only place where you could create your own coupons. Autumn (31m 43s): And I just saw, I don't know if it was Kobo. I forget which other platform now allows you to do that as well. I was like, oh, I know where they got that from. They did not come up with that on their own and they're not doing it just to me that they're not doing adjust to compete with Amazon. They're doing it to compete with Smashwords actually. So that's one thing to keep in mind. So yes you, are you going to have some readers who maybe they'll follow the link and they'll see Smashwords I don't know. I don't know if I want to start a whole new profile. So I think you have that going against you. And then the other one in, I almost feel guilty saying this one. So I'm surprised you didn't guess, but have you been on the smash where its website and looked at it recently that you can think of it, but it was developed in, in 2010 ish I'm and it looks like it was developed in 2010 ish. Autumn (32m 34s): And to me that as it's so superficial to say is that, but it's a problem if you've never seen Smashwords not following it, you don't think it's superficial. Jesper (32m 46s): No, I don't think the superficial, because I mean, if you, if you come to a website or you, I mean, it's similar to that. So imagine somebody who wants to let's say buy one of our courses, for example. Yes. And then they go on to Am Writing fences, you have.com and this is something that could of been developed like 15 years ago. Would you, by the cost of, I wouldn't, I would think like, well, okay, if this is the quality than I don't wanna do that. So I understand that part, but I think even more, your first point is probably even more important in the sense that if you think about like the average reader, if you are, let's say you used to buying books on Kindle or even on Kobo, it doesn't matter. Jesper (33m 26s): But you, you used to buying eBooks from one of the major retailers like Kobo or Amazon. So you go on to Amazon, you find the book you wanna buy, you put a, you press, the one-click buy. And the, you say delivered too. My Kindle and whipped. You have to you the books on your Kindle, right? And as soon as you take the reader out of that environment, the first thing they will be asking themselves is how do I get this file on to my Kindle now? Because I can't click that button where it says delivered to my Kindle. And it might be that, you know, that it, at the end of the day, it's quite easy with Smashwords and so on it's because we sometimes have to same problem with BookFunnel yeah. Jesper (34m 6s): Where some readers comes to it and they didn't like, they don't understand how they can download the book and get on the kennel from BookFunnel. Even though like, there, there, there is like a button like click here and then on does a good job in explaining how to do it. And it's very, very easy, but I can easily say that because I've done it so many times. But for the, for the like 65 year old lady who likes to read fantasy books and just goes and click one button on Amazon and the need, the P S Kindle for her to go to BookFunnel or to go to the Smashwords so someplace where she's not used to be and freak out how to, which buttons to click to get. And it might be easy for us because we're used to this and we work in this environment everyday, but I think we have to keep in mind that most Redis they don't right. Jesper (34m 53s): That they are not familiar with all these different sites and services and whatnot. So for them it's massively confusing. Yeah, Autumn (35m 1s): I think, yeah. And in that case, you know, you're, you, maybe you get so send people there because they were really excited. Cause I had a ton of people who have followed the link to go and see like, oh my gosh, the books available in the last book in the series is available early. They were excited. But when you have never been to Smashwords before, if you don't know this story, because you know, what are the readers care that they support in the authors? And they're really fantastic. And all that, they land on a website that was built in 2010 and looked like it was build in 2010 and then they might not feel that comfortable saying, yeah, I can totally use and go with it. And I feel comfortable. I know they're going to support me if it's, it doesn't have that feeling that, that kind of sleek look, modern look. Autumn (35m 47s): And I'm like I said, it as part of me feels bad saying that because I know, I know how many people I've uploaded a book there and they're like your 28 in line to have him, you know, converted in, turned on to a computer, into a book because there's 28 people ahead of me uploading books at the exact same time. This website is active. All the time books are being published at all in on all the time. And I redesigned our course website while it was live. And even though I knew what I was doing to then take it from the staging site too, the actual website while it was live. And we have students who are like taking the class, even though, you know, you, you tell them I'm gonna to take you down for like two, three hours. Autumn (36m 30s): Hopefully everything will be fine. It's wracking it. It's a lot of work. And I can't imagine doing that on a website, the size of Smashwords actually that's oh yeah, for sure. I, there is a really funny story in, I cannot remember which book store it is, but they went and did an update recently and they accidentally turned everyone's book into the exact same one, like this dragon book, which it looks so as the dragon book and they apologized profusely. But I couldn't imagine being on the other side, having pushed the staging site to live and then going wholly, oh my God. Autumn (37m 11s): Yeah. We just screwed up the entire website. I would not, you could not pay well, you, you would have to pay me. Gosh, awful. A lot of money to put up with that level of paranoid craps so I can understand why the website, it hasn't been updated yet, but it shows, and I think it does hurt Smashwords itself. And also you, if you're using it in your sending readers who don't understand what Smashwords is, and they looked at the website and going, and it looks like, you know, 2010 Yahoo Yahoo or something, it does not look sleek and pretty. And so those are the right to especially also let me see. Jesper (37m 51s): Yeah, we actually also 'cause we were talking about putting in your credit card somewhere. Right. And, and that's where there that's really where the big barrier is because even getting people to, I mean, we've been talking at some point in the past, we talked about maybe if we, because there is quite a lot of people who don't like Facebook and probably like a year or maybe two years, I can't remember what quite a long, a while ago, before the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group became what it is today. There was a point in time when we were sort of debating, should we stay on Facebook? Or should we move somewhere else to mighty networks? We talked about at some point. Absolutely. But also then that doesn't even cost money for people. Jesper (38m 32s): But just the fact that you have to create a new user profile somewhere on the mighty networks app that you don't know, you're not familiar with it, that Facebook has on your phone. Everybody knows it. Everybody uses it. So already there is a barrier, but that if you then add on top that you need to put on your credit card and you don't know the brand, you don't notice. And maybe if it looks a bit dated as well, you could be worried about safety, ah, of putting on your credit card information as well. I mean, there's just so many barriers that you need to get across there and it's really not easy. Autumn (39m 4s): It is not. And I saw that with my results. Like I said, I did not advertise it heavy. I was just kind of, you, you know, that it was just, I was happy that we get the book out. Oh, that's that was done. I was happy with that. I was, I should have marketed it a hell of a lot more, but even so I did not see many for the number of people who did follow the list. Cause we have quite a big e-mail of reader list and to see the number of people who did follow it versus the number of people who, because you can see the status, I will say that in Smashwords that gives you a great stat. So you can see how many people looked at it. How many people download it to the sample, how many people bought it, those are all clearly laid out for you in your dashboard. Autumn (39m 44s): And to see those, the number of people who went and looked at the book versus the number of that. So that I actually went and bought that. You're like, yeah, that's something, these are readers who desperately want the last book in the series. And I did not have a ton of people biting it. I get more people who would buy it from me directly from my website. So this shows that there was something about the presale, something about that. That was just like people where like it's something stopped them from actually buying the book early. And as a reader who just, while you're on vacation, I red seven books, I've read the whole everything in lay BARR to NGOs M Grisha vers. So I ran all of her books. And as if I do, I can get one of the, the next one that she hints at early, I wouldn't be buying. Autumn (40m 32s): So knowing that if you're hopefully developing fans, who are that excited for the last book in the series, and they're not willing to pull out their credit card, something was stopping them. And my guess is not that they didn't want my book. It's something on the website. Jesper (40m 48s): Hm. But of course all have that doesn't change that a, the pre-sales function that my Coca and, and Smashwords developed in. It's very, very cool. So I would still say if, if the listener here missed out on the details, then go back and listen, listen to episode 118. When autumn talked to my coach and you can hear a lot more details about all the things this map, which can do if it was a very good interview. So Autumn (41m 16s): Yeah. Oh, in there just so people can know. I mean, there they work as a distributor or that you can send out your pre-orders to Cabo all those other platforms. I still like it. And they have an amazing customer service. So, you know, feel free to join, create an account. I think they're better than digital in many ways. And then send them a message saying, Hey, where are you gonna update your website, helped me out. Jesper (41m 43s): And don't see that autumn asked you to say, Autumn (41m 46s): Please don't get that mad at me. We've had a great conversation. Jesper (41m 53s): Oh right. So next Monday we are looking into a topic which has actually been brought up several times by different people. And that is how relevant race and gender is in fantasy. Narrator (42m 4s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

There is an underlying key to being a successful self-published author. Do you want to know what the secret is? It's all about your mindset. Autumn and Jesper delve into what that outlook is and why it can make such a difference to how you fair as an indie author in this episode. See if you have the attitude and why you need to develop it if you don't. Check out the FREE Self Publishing Success Course that we mention in the episode at https://ultimatefantasywritersguide.com/self-publishing-success/ Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.   SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.   Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to The Am writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need. And literary agent, there is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper. Autumn (32s): And I'm Autumn. Jesper (34s): This is episode 120 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And today we are going to share some thoughts or tips that will be you. We got to break your career as a writer. And the personally, I think that this stuff is something that is often overlooked, but I don't know. What do you think about that? Autumn (52s): All of them. I think its definitely not talked about it, but I've just like, Oh wow. Don't pressure or this is going to make or break or you just don't get it into that stuff. And cheese hard stops like, Oh my gosh, am I ready for this episode? I don't know why, but no, I agree. This may be a sound better than it is. It's very, you've ramped the tension right up straight to the insight pull incident and boom. Jesper (1m 20s): Okay. Yeah, I should do it the other way around like, like maybe start out by saying this might be a completely useless Episode and there's going to be no tips for you at all. And then we can go from there because then it only got to get better. Autumn (1m 35s): That's something that I don't know if that's going to work right there. I think we just have to stick with what we started with. And this was one of the most important episode of your entire author career. And then we had to little bit on that two point, Oh my God. Now that you've set that and now I got conscious about it and no, that's not a good, that's why you thought of anything. And I would just apply that on like nothing ever happens. If someone is going to call you out and I am here for that. So it's all right. Yeah. And you have jumped off pretty quickly as well. So you kind of surprised me. Oh well. So how are things over on your side of the planet? Jesper (2m 15s): Well as good a school. So I close to this week here in the Denmark. Of course we are a recording a bit ahead of time. So it's East the holidays at the moment. So the kids are home, which means that the I get to sleep In and I could just get up like nine or 10 in the morning and then right. A chapter before lunch center, you know, I could get used to, this sounds really like my life, but that's one way except for the kids and no indeed. Yeah. I would say it's really nice. And a fantastic. Yeah. And also the fact that I can asleep in the also means that my wife and I have had some time to watch this TV series late in the evening where we are now, I would normally go to bed, but we didn't have been watching some, some stuff and I finished up or we finished up watching a show on HBO called a bear town. Jesper (3m 6s): Are you familiar with that one? No, no, no. I haven't even heard that line. So Bri, our town is a, a, a Swedish series. OK. And it's about a, a youth hockey team. Ah, which is not doing particularly well. Oh yeah. But then a former NHL player comes home from the us and he was like at the end of his career and he checks takes on the job of coaching this team. So at this point you're probably thinking, it sounds like some sort of sport series right here. Yeah. But it's not because here it turns a bit dark, but that's usually the type of stories out there. Jesper (3m 53s): Like as you know, you know, but so to start a player of the team, he actually ends up raping the coach daughter. Oh I, I, but then 'cause, it becomes very, it's, it's a very serious, serious series what it was about to say, but it becomes very, I don't know what the right word is, but interesting in one way or another, because it starts exploring because you are in a very small towns, society or community and its sort of explores, how does a close knit group of people who know each other really well deal with a situation like this, where you have like the popular kid that everybody's hoping that he's gonna be the next hot key star or a hockey star. Jesper (4m 39s): This is going to, you know, put this town on the map and then you have this new girl in town that basically nobody knows. And she, and of course he goes to the police with what happened and so on. And then this whole thing plays out about how the community as well as dealing with the situation. And I really feel like it's, it's very interesting. And it's also very interesting as it dives into details about how, how we, human beings are incredibly good at justifying things to ourselves. Even when we know that our standpoint is clearly wrong, they are because so many of these characters, they, they really convince themselves that they're point of view is the right one. Jesper (5m 28s): When, you know, when you're looking at it as, as the viewer and of course you are at a distance, but it makes sense from the person being inside of that community reacting that way. But when you're looking at it as a view at a distance, you can sort of see how completely wrong it is. And it is actually a very I'm, it's a very interesting story. Autumn (5m 47s): To be honest, it sounded interesting though, since I've spent 90% of my life in small towns, I have a feeling of that. I'd be like, Oh, I know this is so true. Jesper (5m 58s): It, yeah, It could be. Yeah. I, I mean, of course its a pretty serious topic, so it's not like a lighthearted thing that you sit down and watch, but, and I, I would maybe have liked the ending to have a bit more oomph in the end, but what I do recommend the people checking out bedtime time at town on HBO and of course watching it in the original Swedish language, trying to swap titles, instead of all the toppings stuff, I was about to use a nasty word. So the FCC does not broadcast, you know, register, watch over us as a Podcast thing. Goodness. I don't know how we got around that one way or the prolapse to swear. Jesper (6m 42s): Yeah. Yeah. Well technically we would have to market in our podcast hosting that there was wearing in the a seven mile language. Autumn (6m 51s): Ooh. Yeah. So a lot. Well I thought to the bullets just, just, just, well we can just add a beep. Yeah. Yeah. Jesper (7m 2s): Okay. But that, that's something I could recommend if people need something to a new shoes to look at. And so I guess it's the right way of saying it, but yeah. You need your stomach like a bit of a topic though. Yeah. So Coker prepared for a very serious topic. Yeah. Knowing small towns, I can see how it would totally grow out of proportion and being on an easy resolution that you would imagine. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, hopefully you have some more lighthearted stuff on your side of the Atlantic. Autumn (7m 37s): Absolutely. It's like spring here are all of our snow. I mean, Vermont, we had so much, well not so much, no. We had a normal winter For, you know, in 2020 in climate change, but it like melted in five days and now the weather is like in the sixties and it's sunny and the streams running. So its beautiful. But it's also, I feel that like I don't usually get spring itus or whatever you want to call it where you are. Like, I just want to go outside of my spring. I, this is what we use. It's cool. Yeah. Or senior-itis when you were a senior in school and you just could not concentrate cause you know, you're about to graduate. So this is a spring fever and I just want to go outside and go for a hike. And I got some work done over the weekend just because it was raining. Autumn (8m 20s): So I've got a chance to work on some covers and I'm almost done editing I'm in my book three and my tainted face series. So that's like, yeah, it's so much work going on. We just, we're almost done editing a reader magnet that we've got going on. So I don't know. I might have to take a break and go for a, a little bit of a walk soon. That would be kind of nice. But otherwise life is pretty good. I can not complain. It's hard to concentrate. It's my worst thing. I could say that I was speaking of shows. I sent you one that was, if someone wants a Fantasy that has amazing graphics as a major amazing CGI in a really good story. I sent that one to you that yin yang master's, which is actually proved is by China, which was trying not to read into that. Autumn (9m 6s): I'm like, is there any propaganda in here? So there's and what's funny is, and that's what I didn't tell you is there is use two movies so you can get a master's and then there's a second one that has a subtitle. I know that I can remember what it was, but you know what it reminded me of, it sounded like someone came up with like, there is a main character or here's a little bit of a story in a world in the background. And so two different people wrote an idea for it and they decided they liked them both and produced both. So they could almost relate. They feel more like a parallel stories of parallel ideas. And so it was very interesting to watch them back to back and be like, Oh, is that the same character? Autumn (9m 46s): But that's a totally different story for him. I don't know how this works, but the, the one in the yin-yang masters do it without the subtitle. I just, it was a fantastic story telling. Very good. And so if someone wants something much more fun, I wants to see ferret demons should have won a ferret demon. You get to watch that. Yeah. Will I we'll definitely watch it. Yeah. I have added to My, I have an app on my phone where I keep track of everything I need to watch a and then I added to it in there. It's where it was pretty good. Jesper (10m 21s): So every time I hear about a cool show or a good movie, I just add it in there because then it's it's there and I won't forget about it. And then every time I've done watching something, I go into the app and then I just find something I want to see next. Nice. That's a very useful app, right? Narrator (10m 40s): Oh, a week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Yeah. Jesper (10m 45s): Find a way of voices came out with their 2020 headphone report. It has where they share all the data that they collect it on the audio of that market over the past year. Okay. So it's up with audio books then. Yeah. And you know how I love to put you on the spot, Autumn. I, this is not fair. Yes. That's what I love it. This is because it's not fair. So I was wondering if you couldn't guess, which is young Rose had the most growth in the audio book market in 2020, but I have prepared some very, very short sound clips for you. Jesper (11m 32s): So it is going to give you a hint. Okay. So this is a podcast. So some clips are cool. So it is basically sound clips that is hopefully giving you some idea about a young, right. That's the point of the sound clip? So there is no words is just music. Autumn (11m 51s): Oh, this is true. It just me, I am going to argue, remember I'm half deaf. So it was just not fair, but lets go for it. Jesper (11m 59s): Okay. So I'm going to give you some clip number one and then see if you can guess what's younger. This is okay. Autumn (12m 13s): Yeah. Jesper (12m 13s): That's it that's like a fog horn. What could that be? Autumn (12m 18s): I'm guessing thriller, but I would almost have said for those clothes, it's a misery actually mystery. Jesper (12m 26s): Oh yeah. It's a mystery. We had a growth of 158% in 2020. That's exciting. That's a lot. That is a lot. Yeah. Okay. And number two on the list of the second, most growth in 2020 and let me know what this sound Clip. What do you, what do you think this is? Okay. Autumn (13m 1s): Yeah. Jesper (13m 2s): Yeah, of course. It's so obvious. Well, I'm going to guess because I, because I found this out Clip that is a completely obvious to everybody else is like, what is that? Autumn (13m 13s): I would say a memoir. I mean, it sounds too sad to be like cozy and romance. It sounds in the stallion to me. And that's why I would say memoir. Jesper (13m 25s): You just trying to be difficult. Of course a romance. Yeah. So I don't know if lifting at the end of the music, we really portrays romance. It's obvious growth rate by 146%. Autumn (13m 45s): Wow. That is amazing. And it doesn't actually surprise me. I mean, in COVID who was not looking for a good role mans to sweep you away from this place. Jesper (13m 55s): Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. It could be it, but Okay. Number three and a final show. Is that experience the most growth in 2020? Well, not the final one, but the top three final in the top three. Alright. So are we ready for this song? Clip? Yeah. I'm just going to be getting one, right? Are you ready? Autumn (14m 31s): I'm guessing Weston say something to do with Cowboys or a Western. It has to be Western. Jesper (14m 35s): No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Autumn (14m 38s): What is it? Jesper (14m 40s): It's Fantasy. Autumn (14m 41s): I can not be Fantasy. Yeah. It sounds like a Western. You misled me. You totally misled me, but okay. Jesper (14m 50s): So what's the Fantasy grow 68%. So it's not as smart as the other one's but it's still quite significant. That's good. That is it. What do you think of those growth numbers or Autumn (15m 2s): the growth numbers are a fantastic, there are in many ways, in some ways surprising because you know, COVID people are locked down, but it also, if your homie might be listening to Moore, I know, I think my husband has gone for the weekend and I actually ended up streaming a YouTube, a, a series called art at the highest actually he was on CuriosityStream or to the highest, but then when he got back, I'm like you have a subscription to audible. I want access to your books so I can see it when you're holding, when you were working on the computer or your music's. Okay. But its kind of fun to listen to a story so I can see audio books growing. Jesper (15m 43s): Yeah. It is growing very much about that. Oh, I also think that it also has to do with the distribution of it, that it, I mean, if you looked at the top three emerging markets after the us, it was Canada followed by Australia and I don't think those two were very surprising, but number three was Sweden. I wasn't really expecting that. So I, I think in part of the big growth numbers in part, because the base line is fairly low, so its easy to get into the triple digit growth rates kind of scary. That's true. So I think that there was that and then it's getting more and more widespread a and therefore as well as you're getting into many more new markets, which helps the growth rates. Autumn (16m 26s): I personally don't think it is. I still think it's early days when it comes to audiobooks. Jesper (16m 33s): I don't think that the market print tracing, is that a great to be honest. So it it's still Yeah, it's still early days and I was still, even though we keep hearing about these massive growth rates, I would still say that unless your e-books are selling really well, they don't get don't rush into creating an audio book just because you hear that that was great growth rate because honestly you probably not going to earn back to the production cost unless you're selling quite well already. I agree that that would be an, almost a whole talk because of, you know, how audio books affects sales. Autumn (17m 7s): But yeah, even my current series, I enjoy audio books, which I did couldn't say before I used to not, but I have no plans right now to put, turn the teen at Faye in the audio books, even though we're a couple of readers of asked for it is a lot of work in really expensive. And if it doesn't really effect your regular sales on Amazon, it's not like this major boost, No way. If the, if the production cost were low, which I don't think they will be in three or four years, maybe for now than it would be a no brainer to always just like we always create a paperback print on demand version, then you would always create an audio book just because it's another, it's another way of selling you a book right now. Jesper (17m 50s): I'm not a format, which I think is good, but when you have to pay like 5k or something for it, it's like, ah, now when they get to the AI, that has a very natural voice that you can just drop in your text and it creates a very nice sounding audio book. Autumn (18m 6s): I don't want to put voice actors at a work because they are amazing. But you know, if you could just upload an audio book file, like have it converted. And it was a few hundred bucks, Holy kind of, I would probably do it. Yeah. Or maybe I'm even thinking of you, if you could look in the future, you could look at a market where it's just a designated, like it, it will say here is the, you know, a cheap audio book and it will say this is a I rated and there will be an expensive version of an audio book where assess this is a voice acting narrated or something. Jesper (18m 39s): I, I could imagine that it would happen so that it's like, if you don't care or some readers don't care, you know that as long as that's the case then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And as long as it as decent, they are happy and then they will pay or paid at a discount or have the budget version. But I can imagine that will happen in three or four or five years maybe for now that, that you will have two versions of audio books. That's a whole other topic. So I could see that happening. Autumn (19m 6s): Definitely me too. It will be interesting Narrator (19m 11s): And on to today's topic. Okay. So Jesper (19m 16s): Yeah, I'm thinking that it's probably useful to just start up by stating that when Well, I was about to say we, but actually, I mean me when I'm talking about Mindset, because I can only talk about myself and I have my own biases, meaning that a for instance, when I'm tackling this topic in this episode here, I'm coming at the Mindset from a commercial point of view, meaning what is the mindset behind making a living from writing and earning money from it. And I also understand that in saying that not everyone is Writing to make money and that is perfectly fine, nothing wrong with that whatsoever. Jesper (20m 2s): However, I just want to share it. That's where I'm coming from when I'm talking about Mindset. So I don't know, maybe, maybe you have a different perspective on, on it out of, I don't know, but that, that sort of way I'm thinking, I think with you, when we come to author Mindset that is looking at it from a business perspective. So you're looking at the marketing and is sort of wrapped up into it. But I think I do have maybe a little bit of the artistic because I also think part of part of what makes you a good author platform, a good market or a successful author, hopefully, you know, making money is that you also care about the quality and your abilities as a writer. Autumn (20m 44s): So to me, I have a little bit of the artistic side, but I think it of overlaps, you know, the sphere is, are definitely where they joined is to me as the author of marriage Mindset. It's not a hundred percent marketing. It's not a a hundred percent craft, but there's a point where you merge those two. And that is my idea of an, a successful and a rewarding author Mindset. Yeah. Hm. Okay, good. Yes or no, but I, I think it's good to see if, I mean, we, we might come at it from like 80%, the same angle, but then slightly different anyway, which is probably good. Jesper (21m 23s): Yeah. That's probably a good way. Or you have to have something different. Autumn (21m 25s): I'll play devil's advocate if I have two, just so we are not always in agreement, you know, if you have two, like if I take it and you make it sound like you don't enjoy it at all, and this is like, Jesper (21m 35s): okay, I will sacrifice myself to do it, but in reality you love it. Autumn (21m 41s): They don't need to know is that I'm very, I would like to be Willy well in just play the play at the numbers, you know, but maybe one place to stop could be easy to talk a bit about catching reader's attention. I guess I could put that label on it because honestly, I think from a mindset perspective, you know, when you're thinking about how to get readers to read your work, I think the attention span is too big or as turtle probably, or one of the biggest hurdles we have in today's Publishing landscape. Jesper (22m 26s): And from a mindset perspective, I'm looking at it in the point of view about understanding who is it actually that we are keep competing against for reader's attention. That's true because they say it or the office. Autumn (22m 46s): No, not really. Well, Amazon, I do agree with that. A recent interview with Mark Coker, where he said Amazon is sort of pitting other authors against what their authors, because if you could do a search on Amazon for another, ah, for your, even yourself. So the first floor of slots are paid advertisers. And before you actually get to the person you are looking for, and that is really annoying, that is on Amazon. But in general, if you're talking about whose attention or, you know, we, as author's trying to pull readers' into, it's not for some other authors, that's there not our competition. It is the rest of the world. The app's the media games, Audio books. Autumn (23m 30s): There's so many other things that are competed to try to get a real game games is a good one. Jesper (23m 37s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean to some extent I, Yeah, I like you said, I, I think just some extent you could make an argument to say that there is some competition about A, between other authors, but I'm also of the firm belief that those people who really like to read, they will always go on to read more. And there's no way that we can write enough books for them on our own. So if they like to read, they will read more and other authors as well. So in some, some sense you are not really those people. I don't think we were competing that's as much for the attention because they love reading and they will continue reading. But all of the big chunk of people that sits in the middle, you know, we have those to reach a lot. Jesper (24m 21s): And all the time at the bottom may be of the, of the buckets. We have those who are basically never reads. And, and then in the middle we have the majority of people who reach sometimes, but not all the time. And for those people, I really think that our main competitor And I, that's why I said games. I think that's a good point that you made there. But what are the ones that I was thinking about was really streaming services like Netflix, HBO, Amazon, and that kind of thing, because one of those people are going to do, you know, they come back from home, they've even the dinner there. They have a sort of thinking, should I go and lie on the couch and watch the next episode of my series on Netflix? Jesper (25m 6s): Or should I open the eye book and start reading? All right. I mean, that's really the choice that they are making and that's not an easy competition to be him because it really means that you have to produce a very, very high quality content, meaning that you are you a story. It has to be really, really good. And that's not, I hope not for everybody Am I change? Hopefully you already know that you have to produce really good content, but there are also those that think that they can sort of get away with a half decent cover and they will get there on two, which is a, an English teacher to do the editing. Jesper (25m 51s): And then that should be fine. Right? And then they just put it that way. Autumn (25m 55s): Well, if you're trying to compete against Netflix, people are not going to read that book then, you know, it's, they will Peter out very quickly. I mean, there's so much more to it. I mean, having a little bit of psychology and knowing like you need to have a hook at the end of every chapter that makes them want to turn the page and then a good opening to the next chapter so that they don't want to be like, Oh, it's a different point of view. Or there is the answer to my question. You want to keep them going and going because it is a lot of marketing. It is a lot of trying to feed their curiosity so that they want this more than the ease of sitting back and watching a show because even science-wise watching a movie, it's only a lighting up part of your brain. Autumn (26m 36s): So I mean, it is really couch potato. It is truly low energy, low, low need of a paying attention. You can still surf On your phone and you've watched a show and talk to your spouse and you know, you can do a multi-task when you read it. If you're really reading, it's like just the rest of the world could be on fire. And you're like, just one more chapter, just one more time. So it's a little more energy. And to have it fires up your brain, like your actually there doing it, if it has a well-written book, all of your senses are firing. It's like, you're dreaming it. It's your it's becoming part of you and movies do not actually do that to you. So it's a totally different process that you're trying to get readers hooked on, get that adrenaline rush going, You know? Jesper (27m 23s): Yeah, that's true because essentially the, well, what do you know, watching a slow a, a, a, a show on Netflix, for example, if it is just being served to you right now, whereas the reading is an immersive, may you are inserting yourself into the story. Whereas watching his show on Netflix, it's just a couch potato or wanting something. And, you know, you don't, unless the character mentioned a smell or sneezes, or does something to clue you in that they're smelling something. It doesn't even Dawn on you that, you know, they're sitting by the campfire in there going to smell like Ash. But when you're reading it, there are a good writer is going to have layer that in or the smell of a dragon, or is it the smell of something? Jesper (28m 6s): And it's going to immerse you, like you said, in a far different way. And that's what the people who love reading. That's what they love has because it really drags you in and you don't get that quality unless you're working on it, unless you're doing it, you know, on purpose. Autumn (28m 22s): Even after 20 some books, I still have a Check where I check all of my chapters for things like the five sentences and stuff, because it's easy to get into the mood and you're done writing and you go all the visual and very little auditory because I'm half deaf. So let me do, you know, you got to add that stuff and yeah. Jesper (28m 42s): Yeah, that's true. Autumn (28m 44s): And, and that's really where the Mindset thing comes in. Meaning that if you have to be conscious about the fact that you have to produce really, really high quality work, because otherwise, if its sort of halfway there, you can imagine like somebody is sitting there with the Kindle Or whatever they are reading on. And There are sort of, well maybe they read two chapters and they're like, Oh, well it's not really engaging me the stuff. And then they are watching over at the TV, hanging on the wall over there and it's like, no, let me, let me go watch some TV or is that right? Jesper (29m 17s): Yeah. Yeah. That's the problem. So it is, it's not an easy for sure, but a, but it is important to be aware of. Autumn (29m 25s): Definitely. And I think that's, I like that you started on that one. Cause like I said to me, the quality, the artistic, the desire to keep trying to improve yourself and your craft and your writing to me, it's very important. It's important, artistically, as important as your mindset that always having that curiosity, you never say I Am good enough. I do not need to learn anything else about Writing. I don't need to read any books because I don't need to learn anything. That's not going to, it's not the right mindset to have to be a successful author. You should always be thinking, what can I do better? How w who is another author? Who's better than I am. So I'm going to read there and see what I like. And I'm going to break it down. Every time we read a book, every time we watched a movie, you are like breaking down the plots and the characters in the person next to you. Autumn (30m 9s): I was like, Oh my gosh, just please it enjoy this. And you were like, no, I'm going to tell you that that was foreshadowing. I know that that's true because, well, at least for me, when I started writing myself, the way I experience stories was like, if you a, if you were looking at it one way, you could say broken forever. Jesper (30m 38s): But if you look at it on another way, it's just changed forever because, well, yeah, I don't know how to improve because in some way it has broken because I cannot enjoy a story. Like it could be four because I'm looking, I'm looking at a structure behind the words and, and I cannot help myself. Or even sometimes I try consciously to ignore it and just read the story. She would go up, but I cannot help myself looking at, Oh, that was a forest at foreshadowing hint there. And there was something that I might pick it up and I just can't let it go. I'm reading one. Now I just started, I'm probably like 20% Intuit. I'm not going to mention the title of anything. So don't worry. Ah, I'm not going to put any time anybody down on it, but actually, you know, but, but honestly I really liked it. Jesper (31m 22s): It was so far, it's a really good book. It's a really good story. But the one thing that I did pick it up already is that because it's a FANTASY, so you have multiple characters and I've done this myself in the past as well. So I'm not thinking on the author at all. But the introduction of the point of view characters is quite aggressive in the early phases of the book. Meaning that you're, you are sort of, are you jumping from one to the next, to the next, to the next, like the, for the first four or five chapters in a row? And it is slightly confusing, but as you, because you don't quite understand how it connects together. And, and also you are a bit like when you get back to the characters, like which character was this again? Jesper (32m 7s): Because it was introduced too fast and I've done this myself. So I'm not thinking on anybody at all, but I just think that there is something there I notice is a slightly detour, But, but there's something there about thinking about how are you eating new characters into the story and not going too fast. I think I'm 25% in the, according to my Kindle now. And is it starting to make sense? I can see how it connects now, but the first like 15%, maybe 2015, 20% of the book, it was pretty confusing even though what was happening was really cool. And I really liked it. It, it was cool. Cool action scenes and everything was really good. Autumn (32m 48s): Well, billing is great, but it's just a small things that might tick some people off. Some readers me like, no, this is too confusing. I'm going to give up it's right. Jesper (32m 58s): And you can't write it for everyone. So there is going to, you're never going to satisfy everyone, but it's definitely something to think, to keep in mind, as you learn your craft, you know, you have someone who maybe will point that out to you or something for yourself to think about. And I think that's where the idea of always improving, you know, looking at how things are working, reading other books and seeing what worked and what didn't work, so that you can look at your next story and you keep writing and keep going. Autumn (33m 26s): Indeed. And the other thing that I also feel like it is really important when it comes to Mindset is long-term thinking a little bit. I like that one, because this is of course where I'm looping back to the fact that I was set in the beginning, that I am looking at this from a commercial perspective, but overnight riches almost never happens. So if you're trying to plan for, or even hoping that your debut novel we'll be like this major Success, it probably won't a, and I'm sorry, but the truth of the matter, and we can take a couple of examples here. So Lee child, for example, a highly, highly successful British a thriller author. Jesper (34m 10s): I, he is, I think last time I tried to look it up, he was estimated to have a net worth of around $50 million. Okay. So I guess we can call that successful. Can we, Autumn (34m 22s): Yeah, I guess, I mean really? Yeah. Jesper (34m 24s): Yeah. But he didn't really find much success until he had published about 10 books and George RR Martin is similar. Yes. Autumn (34m 32s): Yeah. I'll say he has had a very long career to finally reach the pinnacle that he has. And he's no, you know, the kid anymore either. Jesper (34m 43s): No, indeed. So it's, it's small like millions. I know it's not just going to start rolling and you know, it's, it's a matter of over the longterm to build a catalog of books with each will earn you a little bit more and to make that career out of writing, you have to consistently be working on a new book. And this is not me saying that you have to release a new title every month. Not at all because I, I know some people do and that's how they enter the living and find if that's what you can do. But to me, it would stress me out. If I felt like I had to release a new title every month and write 6,000 words a day as something, Nope, not going to happen. Autumn (35m 25s): I'm not that kind of a writer. And I don't want to be either, but at least put your butt in the chair and at least two, some writing so that you are at least working on your back a back catalog all the time or building that back catalog 'cause At the end of the day, that's where the money is going to come from. And then they go down the line 15, 20 books later, or like with your tire Martin, 20 years later, if you finally get some awesome success than great. But I, I think planing for that, or even expecting that it's not going to bring you any good. No. And especially in today's market, I mean, maybe you will hit it out of the park with one book, but you, I think we've both seen it. Autumn (36m 6s): I think Chris Fox as a few other authors who have try it a couple of a different series and they still, even once they become popular, they can have something that doesn't sell because it's not as much of an interest. So you have to keep trying in generating new content and trying to find maybe the book that hopefully Lyfts all of them up, but you could always have that one series and everyone's like, Oh, Oh, well, that's the one we don't talk about, you know? Jesper (36m 30s): Oh yeah. You remember when he wrote that, you know, it's, it's always going to be a challenge, but it's definitely, you want to keep writing and you want to remember that this is a marathon. If you're doing this as a passion, if you were expecting to write three books and you're going to be as famous as George R. Martin or Stephanie Meyer or a JK Rowling's those that really is the less than a 1% have the 1% have the 1%, there are so many millions of authors and there are many, you know, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe just thousands that are making a full time living off of Writing. There's many more who are having it as a very solid PR part time job, or as a part of a different part time job, or, you know, balancing several things. Autumn (37m 14s): And then there's others that this is literally just going to be a hobby. That's not going to be a huge revenue stream. So you need to remember there's all of these different tiers and it is sort of onto you two have the mindset, the strategy is the goal was the marketing, the skills, the quality, all of those tools to help sometimes the luck to make this into something more. Jesper (37m 40s): Yeah, Yeah. Agree with that. And everybody fits into those categories differently. And, and, and, and that's also absolutely fine. Autumn (37m 47s): I just think from the front have mine set perspective, I just think it's important not to sort of set yourself up for failure, meaning that you get into it with the idea that I'm going to be in the top 1% of all authors globally. And I'm going to be as rich as a J K Rowling or something like that. It's well, great if it happens, but it's probably not. And if you're setting yourself up for that, you can see you're almost only gonna fail and you are going to disappoint yourself. One of the reasons is not all of them, but one of the reasons why people stop writing is because they get disappointed and they feel like, no, this is not what I expected. It should be. I had hoped that I was going to learn a lot more money by now or, or, or whatever. Autumn (38m 33s): But if they had just kept writing maybe four books more Jesper (38m 37s): From the word AI, it now it would make it a difference. So it was just a shame too, to drop your writing because of something like that. And I think it's important to try to set yourself up by thinking long term, maybe earning 50 K a hundred K a year. Maybe that's modern enough for what you want. I mean, who says you have to earn millions, maybe even 10 K if it's the sidekick, the 10 K can pay your summer vacation every year. And maybe that is Autumn (39m 7s): Yeah, absolutely fine. Yeah. I mean, nothing wrong with that. You should definitely have, you know, your idea of what, what is the, what is, I think everyone should have a solid, this is my goal to get to and know that it might take time to get there. And do you, like you said, maybe it's only 10 K a year, but to say, if I hit five K a year, 10 K a year, if I could do this much money, I would feel like I was totally successful and no, it doesn't hurt to have that like, you know, shooting for the stars. That's Okay. Because maybe then you'll hit the moon. That there's nothing wrong with that. But to know, to at least know that thinking you're going to hit JK Rowling's level is probably really going to be amazing and lucky and hard, but that's okay if you just hit Jupiter, the Jupiter is nice. Autumn (39m 54s): You know, you don't have to go outside of the solar system, but just to have that Real, that reality check where it's great to maybe dream big. But remember that is dreaming. The reality is going to be in something a lot closer to home and know what that is. Do you know what you really want to work towards and then working towards it? And for me, this is one part of my mindset, I think is really important. And I remember when I was first becoming an entrepreneur and I read that the sign of someone who will make a good entrepreneur is someone who can work for 12 hours, go to bed and feel like I'm out of ideas. I am disappointed nothing work today. And they will wake up in the morning and they'll go, all right, what am I trying to do today? Autumn (40m 35s): And you will start over with all the same passion, all of the same curiosity, problem solving, look at things from a new perspective, you have to wake up in the morning and say, I am doing this again. Cause this is what I want to do. And you're going to look at it from a different angle. And if you feel like you need to, someone keep bolstering you and telling you because you can everyone, you know, cheerleaders. But if you need that over 50% of the time, like 80% of the time, you are looking for someone telling you you're going to be okay, you're going to do a good job. This is going to be really hard for you. You need to have a certain level of confidence in what you're doing, your marketing. And if you don't have it, now go take the lessons, go get the skills, bring yourself up to where you feel. Autumn (41m 15s): You are capable of succeeding. You just need to keep, you need to work, keep working and getting there because it is a lot of hard work. And if you don't believe in yourself, and if you're not trying to improve yourself, then it's going to be that much harder and you probably will give, so you need to have that mindset of what am I gonna do now? This was a tough day. I'm having a glass of wine in some chocolate and tomorrow we are going to hit the ground running. Jesper (41m 46s): And tomorrow I'm going to make waffles dog. The dog Shrek is secretly. Autumn (41m 57s): One of my favorite movies. It's just awesome. Is the first one I ever watched the turnout, all of the fairy tales in their heads. And I'm like, this is it. This is why I love This. So yes, tomorrow you will have to make waffles if you were going to get up and you're going to do the waffles. And if you had to end the day in wine again, that's OK. But the next day you're doing waffles again. Jesper (42m 18s): Not, not, not everyday, hopefully ending the day with wine. That's that's not going to be very healthy in the long term waffles in the morning. And why did the evening, I think is going to be the end of you at some point. Yeah. Autumn (42m 29s): Why not? If you want me to, if you were enjoying life. Yeah. Jesper (42m 33s): But at least if, if, if you need some encouragement and if you need some support and back up the head off, over to the Am, Writing Fantasy Facebook group, 'cause, there is a lot of good people helping each other in their, and an offering SUPPORT. So, so that's at least the community that will help you. So feel free to join there. If you just go to the group session section on Facebook and search for Am Writing Fantasy, and you will find us. Yeah. But I have one more Autumn. And I think this is probably the most important one of them all Autumn (43m 2s): I used to be. I'll see. I'll see if I agree with you. Jesper (43m 5s): Yeah. Of course. Devil's advocate over there. You can see how we love it. Yeah. Autumn (43m 9s): Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Jesper (43m 13s): I think, and again, this is coming from the commercial perspective again. Right. But they are those who have the mindset that if the writing is just good enough, then the readers will come to me and it will grow from there. They will start reading the next book I write and the book after that. And if I got through that because of the writing is so great. So the only thing I really need to focus on is my writing skills. And don't get me wrong. Writing skills is incredibly important. Of course, you have to be able to tell a really, really good story and have really good writing as well. Jesper (43m 53s): But yeah, Yeah. It's not everything. Autumn (43m 57s): No, no, no. It's not every day and age. You just, Jesper (43m 59s): Or you have to advertise your books, but above all, you have to build an email list so that you can get in touch with your readers when you release a new book, because honestly, readers, I'm not as loyal to the author. As you might think. In many cases, they don't even remember what the author's name was. Then they might not remember the title of the book, but they don't really remember who the author was. And they don't really according to research. And I cannot remember the exact numbers, but I, it was something to do With that in an average Rita's I would have to have read three or four books of the same author before they started remembering what the author named was. Jesper (44m 42s): Because otherwise you just don't remember if you had them on your e-mail list, you can send them an email and you can say, Hey, the new book is ready here. Here's the link. So you can pick it up right now. And then they might not necessarily, but they might go on and do that because they know there's a reason why they ended up on your list and the first place it was because they liked what they read. So they don't have to remember to check Amazon. I wonder if this author here really is something new, because nobody will do that, right. That they won't go on to Amazon once a month to check if you uploaded the new book. Autumn (45m 14s): But if you get them on your email list, you could just tell them, and that's not a sale right there. So for me, the mindset around thinking that the writing is the only important thing, I think that probably worked 10 years ago, but not anymore. And even in 10 years ago, I'm not sure if it was, I mean, it helped when eBooks were, if you were out with eBooks, we're new and you were in a good writer, you were probably right now on the forefront. But for most people, it's not just about being a good writer. I mean, I, I, my true, true deep fans, you know, they tell me that I'm better than Told can. I just love them so much, but it's not enough if you don't have the mindset of how to market, of how to stay in touch with your readers, how to connect with them and even know some of those like little marketing tips, like this is why I saved. Autumn (45m 59s): I wrote an entire series and now I'm releasing them. Back-to-back it's not just because of, you know, the excitement of releasing them. Back-to-back but it's also because readers will then, you know, not get lost in the series. They will be like, Oh, it was the next ones out. Oh, the next ones out. And they come right along with it very quickly, because most series don't sell until you get to the last book anyway. So you might as well say to them all up to the end, but those are the things again. So you're always looking for it's more than writing. I love the writing craft. If I could just be a little hermit in the woods. Oh, Hey, nevermind. So if you could just sit in and right now we have to worry about marketing is fantastic, but it's not the reality. Jesper (46m 41s): You have to know how to Mark it and you have to be able to talk to your readers and know where they are and they have to be able to find you. And the email list is definitely the easiest way of doing that. Autumn (46m 54s): Yeah. It's a devil's advocate in the woods have spoken. Jesper (46m 57s): That's right. Autumn (46m 58s): And I got quite a hermit because I have a, another hermit with me. So what are two hermits? I don't know what the term would be. Hermits assists. Well, I know a hermit or a place where hermit lives as call it a hermit Todd. It was just so I can go with that. Jesper (47m 16s): Okay. Well, anyway, if you liked what you heard today, and if you want to sort of dive much more deeper into all the different aspects of being a self published author, what you Should be aware of, what you should think about everything to do with like creating covers that fix Fitz, the markets, how is the Amazon algorithm works? How to run book launches and so much more, the good news is that Autumn and I created a a hundred percent FREE costs that we call it self publishing success course. And I would encourage you to go and check that one out. We will place a link to the sign up page in the show notes. Jesper (47m 60s): A and it's not going to cost you anything other than you need to put it in your email address two too, so that we can email you the different modules and you get onto the cost platform. But I suggest that you check it out and there is so much good content in there that you can dive into. And of course, if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe at any time. No questions asked. So it's easy. Check it out for FREE. And yeah, that's pretty cool. So I think it's an amazing Course. So yes, it is. It is definitely something that if you're starting out or even just stalled or just have questions, this is definitely the thing to take. I wish I had it when I first started in 2012. Jesper (48m 41s): So I'm glad we have it now and can help out authors and helped them on their journey and help their mindset because there are things as a whole module on mindset you want to, Autumn (48m 54s): Okay. Jesper (48m 54s): Yeah. So next Monday we will do a deep dive into a tool that we are finding incredibly valuable when editing and that's the software called pro Writing. I, yeah. Narrator (49m 5s): Yeah. If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

What is in store for indie authors in 2021? Join Autumn and special guest, Mark Coker, the CEO and founder of Smashwords as they discuss his predictions for 2021. There are some highs and some trends to be cautious of, as well as some new tools that might help you find your readers. Check out the blog of Mark's predictions at https://blog.smashwords.com/2020/12/publishing2021.html and visit Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/. Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.   SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.   Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (0s): You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Autumn (29s): Hello. Well, I am Autumn and today. Yes, Jesper is on a bit of a vacation. And instead I have a very special guest with me, Mark Coker, the CEO and founder of Smashwords a high Mark. Thank you so much for joining me here today to be here. Oh, I really, really appreciate it. I'll let you introduce me to be more of your background than I could have scraped off the web, if you would be so kind Mark (57s): As to how much do you want? Autumn (59s): Well, we have 45 minutes, but I think guests, you know, they might want us to get into, we're going to talk about your 20, 21 Publishing Predictions. So Hey, you know, Mark (1m 9s): Well, make it really quick. Okay. So the story of Smashwords. So I founded Smashwords about 13 years ago, it was born out of necessity. My wife and I had written a book together, my wife as a former reporter for soap opera, weekly magazine. So we wrote a Romana clef about the soap opera industry wrote it in a cabin in the woods in Vermont. Autumn (1m 30s): Oh no, no. We just felt it from a connection. Yeah. Mark (1m 35s): We were lucky enough to get represented by distal and got a rich in New York. So one of the top agency's they shopped around to all of the major publishers of commercial women's fiction twice for two years. And it just got nothing but rejection. And the, the only feedback that we got from the publisher's that, that you know, that they never tell you that your book's sucks or that your writing sucks. They just say, its it's not right for us. Or we don't know how to place it or whatever. The only feedback that we got was that previous novels that the targeted soap opera fans hadn't performed well. So they were, they weren't willing to take a chance on our work. And it was really disappointing to have the, the door shut in our faces. Mark (2m 17s): And I started thinking about the challenges that we were facing. We knew that, you know, we had already shown our Book to fans of soap operas, and we knew that fans of soap operas enjoyed our books, our book. So I started imagining, you know, there are probably a hundreds of thousands, millions of other writers, just like us who were unable to get a book deal simply because the publishers didn't see the commercial potential and their work. And I also started thinking, you know, commercial potential is the wrong way to value literature. It, you know, books are worth so much more than money. You can't measure them by money alone. And if we're only going to measure the value of a worth based on how many of the value of a book based on how many copies it can sell them. Mark (2m 59s): And then eventually we're just going to have nothing but celebrity books. And, and we don't want that. You know, I, I love diversity in Writing diversity in thought and umm, you know, what better way to, you know, to, to celebrate the diversity of humanity than to what anyone published. So I thought, you know, anybody in the world should be able to publish because at the time you could self publish video on YouTube, you know, 13 years ago, 14 years ago, you can self publish on a blog and you know, it, it was still, it was a contentious time. People thought, well how dare someone think they can be a reporter or a journalist on their blog or, or published on YouTube. Mark (3m 39s): But you know, those people were reaching massive audiences and, and some of them were commercializing this audience. So why not make it possible for any writer anywhere in the world to publish an e-book for free. And that was the Genesis of Smashwords. That's what we launched in early 2008. We're pretty much the first to market with it. Amazon launched their digital text platform, which is now KTP just a couple of months before us. So we were working on the same thing at the same time, you know, launched it a great time. We launched it at a time when eBooks were less than 1% of the overall book market had no idea that they were about to explode like they did. Mark (4m 20s): And so it was just this perfect storm, you know, in those first, early years of 2008, 2013, where the promise of self publishing met the, the, the, the advantages of digital distribution of eBooks because suddenly retailers could stock every single book, every single e-book. They wanted every single e-book from every self published author. And we were there at the beginning, knocking down those doors and opening up these major retailers to self published authors and once self published authors got mainstream distribution at Barnes and noble Sony, you know, Kobo, Apple, Amazon There, sales exploded now. Mark (5m 5s): And it completely changed how writers and how the industry views self publishing. Because 13 years ago there was a tremendous stigma around self publishing. Yeah. No one wanted to self publish now, you know, unless you are foolish really, and you really have to believe in yourself, right? Autumn (5m 27s): Yeah. Yeah. You're almost considered either a failure or your book was enough quality. All of that was a horrible thing to get over those people today don't even realize, right? Mark (5m 36s): No, it was a horrible time and, and writer's were the most vicious to their fellow writers, you know? And well, yeah, somewhat, sometimes, sometimes, but yeah, it was, it, it was a way back 13, 14 years ago. A if you self published, really your only option is to self publish was in print. Yeah. But without a traditional publisher supporting you, you, weren't going to be able to get bookstore distribution. And if you couldn't get into stores where people went to buy books, you are going to fail is a writer. And that's why most self published authors were failing. It wasn't necessarily because they were sucky writers or that they were vain. Mark (6m 18s): I mean, let's be honest, all Publishing his vein. Okay. That all Publishing this vanity. Yeah. You've got to be like, you, you believe that you've created something you believe that it's valuable to other people there's some vanity in that. So it was just admit it all. And, but yeah, but what we saw is that readers don't care for Book a self-published author. If it comes from a publisher, they just care about the quality of that author of the quality of the writing in the value that they are getting. So yeah, so everything changed, you know, very, very quickly in 2008, 2009, 2010, you know, we were there at a very exciting time and, you know, writers around the world were unleashed upon the world has published authors and you know, many of them didn't sell very much, but a few of them, the same authors that couldn't get a traditional publishing deal at the same authors that couldn't get an agent, you know, it started becoming international bestsellers, you know, in New York times, best sellers USA today, bestseller wall street, journal bestsellers. Mark (7m 22s): So it's an exciting, and every time there's a, a, a, a, an indie author who's successful, it really inspires the rest of us. It takes, it shows us that yes, you can self publish with pride, professionalism and commercial success. And so what else matters Autumn (7m 37s): Exactly to me, I, EVERY, and a lot of gurus and the advice in writing an industry, and I know you've in Britain read on your blog, you know, you have to define what success is for you. And to me, you know, but at the time this was released will have been released, but I'm actually releasing my 21st book on this coming Sunday. And I'm hearing back from the arch team. And I think these are already fans. So that's why I chose them to be part of my book launch. And to hear those are like, Oh, this is the best you've ever read or written. And, you know, it's a gripping. And you're like, we just love you all are going to have one reader say that to you, to me, that's success. And that is just, you can't get that if it wasn't for platforms like Smashwords, or, you know, Amazon and all the others, but, you know, full disclosure, I suppose I should have a full disclosure. Autumn (8m 25s): Right. I joined Smashwords. I did Amazon independently and I uploaded my debut novel, born of water to Smashwords in 2012. I'm almost 10 years old on the platform. So I am very excited. I've been with you, not since your beginning, but since my beginning is an author in my journey. And I think there is a Smashwords. I know that there's a lot of other platforms draft to digital is one that, you know, I think it's a very direct competitor since you act as a distributor. And so it draft to digital, but you know, to me, you offer it more benefits and I've kept all my books on. Smashwords not just because of the loyalty, because I love your message. And I love the feeling that you really care about authors, and you are an author, but I think of how far things are like coupons. Autumn (9m 9s): You've just started doing something else. I want to ask you about a pre release pre-sale feature is going to talk about that in a little bit. It's part of a, sort of your Predictions. So you have this really cool things that I don't know, any other platform where I can say, like, you know what, I'm going to give people who join my, read your list of 50% off coupon, or I'm going to give them a special free coupon too. It's just so cool. It's so easy. And I really appreciate the flexibility, the things that you can do on Smashwords that you really do not have control on any other platforms. Mark (9m 43s): Well, thanks. You know, I really appreciate that. You know, we've got a lot of, a lot of authors that have been with Smashwords for, you know, for 10 years or longer that still have not been introduced to. So, so many of these tools that we provide, yeah. Autumn (9m 58s): I have to admit that you have an on the questionnaire, a section, and I started filling in out, but I ain't never finished it so that Mark (10m 6s): You all through interviews Autumn (10m 7s): As I started mine. And I don't think I ever finished it and hit publish. Mark (10m 11s): Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, that was one of my mini wacky ideas. You know, my background is in public relations. I used to run a PR agency and, you know, in PR our job was to get our fortune 500 clients interviewed and the press that you, you know, you are always looking for a free press coverage. Everybody wants to be interviewed and tell their story. And, you know, authors are the same way. And I thought, well, wouldn't it be cool if we could just create this tool that would allow author's to interview themselves in and share the story behind the author. And so that's been really fun feature. I, I think we've had that feature for six or seven years now. Yeah. That's one of many features. Mark (10m 51s): And you mentioned Smashwords coupons. You know, that's something that we did very early on. I think we introduced Smashwords coupons maybe in 2009 and we've since expanded it. I mean, there's so many different coupon options that we offer. Now, nobody in the industry offers the, the breadth and depth and the flexibility. You can create any kind of custom coupon using these tools. And it's, it's fun to see. Autumn (11m 17s): Yeah, it is fun to see her. I bet to see them being used and this and that would be needed to be a reason. You have a reader, it talk to you as an author, but to have all of these authors using your platform and making sales and making connections must be amazing. Mark (11m 34s): Yeah. You know, I can't, I still can't believe that Smashwords became what it did. Yeah. I can't believe that like a 150,000 authors around the world are using us. I can't believe that we've got like 550,000 books. Yeah. And, and, you know, lots of things have changed. Like you mentioned that we have competitors now. I mean, there are dozens, really hundreds of Smashwords clones out there. Now, there, there are just so many different ways to get your books out. Its pretty confusing for providers, especially new writers because sometimes too much choice is paralyzing. Autumn (12m 20s): I totally agree. I was very helpful because it kind of cutting things out really easy to say, Okay know meat. Oh, well that's three options I can too. Right. Mark (12m 32s): Yeah. Well, I, I just feel like, you know, when I, I just imagined new writers coming onto the scene now and it must, they must feel like I feel when I go to the grocery store to buy laundry detergent, you know, how do you choose there? There's, there's 30 different brands and different types and they all kind of do the same thing and they all clean clothes. So how do I choose? I mean, often I'll go to buy laundry detergent and I see too much choice and I just don't buy anything. And I said that, I see that happening with a lot of authors that they, they just get so paralyzed by the complexity what's involved in becoming a self published businessperson, you know, often the, It put, it makes them vulnerable to making poor decisions, to falling victim to predators. Autumn (13m 21s): Oh yeah. That is horribly true. Unfortunately there's too many services. I mean working as a writing coach and we offer some courses or the Am Writing Fantasy and we try to be very upfront about what we offer, but the other side of it, that people who are predatory on new authors and basically they they're stealing like author's dreams. Sometimes they make it to the point where the author gives up and I just, Mark (13m 47s): Oh totally. Oh yeah. It, yeah. It makes me really mad when I, yeah. When you talk about dreams being stolen, that's exactly what's happening. You know, a writer may spend their entire life dreaming of writing a book and then they finally get to the point where they make the commitment to do it and complete it. And to have someone take advantage of them at that very moment when they're most vulnerable, when they're first learning and, and basically just parasitize the opportunity. It's, it's really sad to see. That's why education is so important. Mark (14m 27s): Definitely. And that's why, you know, in the author's need to look out for their fellow Indies. Autumn (14m 33s): That's why I think groups in that there are some benefits of social media in some of the platforms as much as it was sometimes. So yeah, but we can support each other and send out tips and warnings a to let you know, you know, don't listen to this water and you know, don't you ask for advice on 'cause otherwise you can end up in definitely the wrong spot and lose a lot of hard work or at least the passion you had because of that can really just suck it away. Now I did. I don't know if you noticed this, but I did think of it at Amazon recently rolled out that authors actually allow you to control your series. You guys that's been on your platform since I think I uploaded my first book in a series, I stopped that and be like, Oh, they're copying you guys. Autumn (15m 19s): Yeah, yeah, Mark (15m 20s): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I've used to, I can say I enjoy it. You know, we have invented many things it's Smashwords and then it just gets copied. Many of these innovations just get copied. Umm, you know, it's one of the reasons that, you know, for the first time ever, we filed for a patent for the Smashwords pre-sales tool that you mentioned. Yeah. Autumn (15m 46s): That's a good idea. You guys deserve it because I feel like I said, I have stuck around and I think you guys have a lot of integrity and you have a lot of feeling and you truly care about authors, which is fantastic. And part of what you do. So every year, I believe from what looking back, you do these Publishing Predictions and then you do a follow-up post at the end of the year. So this year you did 13 of them. And I know it hit home for me because like looking at 'em how you talked about Facebook, Amazon and Google solidifying their platforms really because of COVID they became, these monster is in 2020. And you looked at that and that really hit home for me, especially cause like I've mentioned that it was organizing this arc team and I had one reader who's been with me for, I think almost the whole time. Autumn (16m 30s): And she was like, well, I would love to join the launch team, but you probably want reviews for Amazon. And you know, I, for whatever reason I didn't ask you, you can't do reviews on Amazon. And I'm like, no, you know, the whole point of this is not to put more money in the number one, the, most of the world's most richest man's pocket. I'm like, you can, you can push on good reads, which is technically still owned by Amazon. You can post it on your blog. And so yeah, she is on my, on my launch team because its not all about just Amazon and they thought it was so interesting though. You talked about how these big places became massive in 2020 and that's how you began your Predictions. Mark (17m 10s): Yeah. You know, it, it's really interesting to see, you know, I had spent a lot of time last year as everyone else did thinking about the pandemic and you know, I, I like to think about how what's happening today is going to impact the world, you know, one, two, five, 10, 20 years from now. Yeah. And, and it's also fun to stick, to sit back and think about some of the big macro trends that are powering forward in like, like a, like a storm I'm just carrying us in the wind. And, and so, you know, eCommerce is a really big trends that, you know, people are moving online, doing more of their transactions online, more of there, not just socializing online, but they are purchasing And, and entertainment online. Mark (18m 1s): So things have been moving to the online space for a long time, but what we saw and, and we've also seen consolidation over the last 10, 15 years around a couple of really big tech platforms, you know, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and what what's really coming to light now in a w is that the pandemic and the lockdowns accelerated the consolidation around these few large companies and each of these large companies mediates the relationship between the writer and the writer's audience. Mark (18m 43s): They are the new gatekeepers. They determine which readers can see your book, which readers can consider your book. So if you, if you, if your marketing on Facebook, you got to pay them. You know, even if you have built up your own organic social media platform there, you've got to pay them now to reach your audience. If you're Publishing at Amazon and Amazon is now pay-to-play, they have so much power and the business they determine which books are seen in which art in the books that are seen are either of the exclusive books under KDP select or books published by the Amazon imprints or books where the author is willing to pay. Mark (19m 27s): The tax are a tole in the form of Amazon advertising to basically trap all the platforms of other authors. Because that's the, that's the way that, I mean the, the way Amazon advertising is set up, it's very nefarious because basically when you pay to advertise, you are paying to trample and other authors brand. Yeah. Yeah. You're definitely onto their coattails and holding on. Yeah. Like you can go to jail Amazon right now type in your pen name and the first four results are going to be for other authors. Yeah. Yes. That is a huge, yes. Mark (20m 8s): That is a huge disservice to your readers because you know, your readers are looking for books by you. All right. All right. But the first results that come up are a sponsored ads from other authors. So your readers are confused and being diverted away from you, even though they're looking for from you. So that's, that's a, that's a pretty toxic caustic, umm, you know, system long term. And we're seeing that it's, it's basically going to suck the profits out of Publishing and make them more pay to play. So you don't have to pay Amazon to publish there. But if you want to be seen, these are the, yeah, these are the toll Gates that Amazon's putting up. Mark (20m 47s): So, you know, author's need to be concerned about this. You know, authors are losing their independence, they're losing their ability to control their own destinies. And it's because you've got to have a few very strong, platform's have consolidated their power are consolidated, their market reach and the case of Amazon. Umm, you know, they, they control the world's largest collection of ebook buyers. Yeah. Autumn (21m 14s): A very powerful search engine that everyone likes to say is just so good. But like you said, what's the purpose of the best surgeon and you can run wen now it's bringing up only Amazon, you know, ad's that people are paying there. Yeah. Mark (21m 28s): Yeah. I think what we've seen with Amazon over the last 13 years is we went from, or they went from really a brilliantly architected search system where books that were selling best and being reviewed the best buy readers would bubble up and become more visible. That, that to me is an example of a good search, good organic discovery. But what they've been doing over the years, you know, every single year or they make little policy tweeks that all have the effect of, of, of putting up barriers, right. Making the search results. When I talked about this in the Predictions going from organic inorganic and no, no one's ever referred to a search algorithms as organic or inorganic or well I guess organic, they have, but in organic, I mean that these are artificial constructs that Amazon has created. Mark (22m 21s): So they're not, they're not recommending books to readers because that's the book that the reader will satisfy the reader the most or that the book that the reader is looking for, they are recommending books that benefit Amazon, the most books that cost Amazon less books were Amazon could pay the author of a loyal or a lower royalty or book's where they can pay in an effective Loyall and effectively lower royalty 'cause in order for you to get that 70% you had to pay, you know, a whole bunch of money in an Amazon advertising. So your effective royalty rate is not 70% any more at Amazon. If you are using their tools. You know, if you're in KDP, select the are exclusive, the cost to you is you don't get to distribute anywhere else. Mark (23m 6s): And then there's a cost to That. And these are the costs that are difficult to manage it. You said to measure it. Autumn (23m 13s): That's one of the things that you talked about with KDP select and even COBA select, which I haven't even thought of, but the subscription services. I mean, what that is, you talk, you talked about how that is really dragging down the royalty for all author's because we are going to start getting used to less and less. Mark (23m 30s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, it concerns me that authors are so quick to take less. Autumn (23m 37s): I am. And I had thought of it that way until I read how you had written it. And I'm like, you're right where it's like, we are so desperate for readers that we're willing say here's our book for free or you know, for just pennies pennies for what other people would normally pay to read. Mark (23m 51s): Yeah. I, I just wrote a story of the other day. I forgot the name of the company. It just brought in $16 million and venture funding. Oh well They're paying author's 25% list of authors who signed contracts with them, you know, authors. It, it concerns me that so many authors are willing to work for free. Autumn (24m 21s): And Mark (24m 23s): You know, I, and, and to work for Les in exchange for readership, I mean, you talked earlier about what it feels like to, to receive those appellations from your readers, because that's really why we write. We wrote, we write to touch people and to change the world. And that's where most writers are coming from a there's a lot, there just a higher purpose. And, and so, you know, Amazon understands that writers write for reasons that are different than traditional publishers publish traditional publishers are publishing because their running a business to make money. It it's not that traditional publishers or bad people, they're all Book lovers to, But the business and the nature of the business itself is there. Mark (25m 4s): They are. They have to make money to keep the lights on authors who are working from home, who might have other sources of income or who just love to write because there are artists want to express themselves Autumn (25m 17s): Addicted to it as well. Mark (25m 20s): Well look, I, I think, I think art is one of the most noble pursuits anyone can pursue. Yep. All right. This is art and it's, it's not the most lucrative job. This is not a job. This is not a career that you follow to make a lot of money. You know, I've, I've been telling people since I first found out Smashwords, if you want to make a lot of money, go get a job at McDonald's you'll make more, most authors will make more working. Full-time at McDonald's than they will as a self published author. You've got to be doing this for reasons other than money. But if you're smart, you can do it for the love of writing, but still make money. And Autumn (25m 57s): That's. Yeah. Mark (25m 59s): And that that's that's, you know, the advice that I try to give authors, you know, a lot of the advice that we share is focused on, you know, evergreen best practices, things that we'll help you achieve all of your dreams, help you reach reader's help you touch your readers, but also help you earn some income because you deserve it right now. But in order for an author to maximize their opportunity, they need to approach it like a smart business person. And that's where the education comes in because we're not all naturally business people, you know, writers come from all walks, you know, like someone who studied art in college and studied business like I did, Autumn (26m 43s): Did the, so I get it. You know, I know if I could rewrite, if I could redo the entire educational system, every a part of high school would be money management and business classes, because almost everyone has a side gig. Aside had a passion that they are developing on the side. They're going to start their own little business at some point, whether it's mowing lawns or writing a book, we all should have those basics, market marketing and business expense ideas. Yeah, Mark (27m 12s): Yeah, yeah. That would be, that would be awesome if they would introduce that into like the high school curriculum, financial literacy, because you know, if you don't understand the language, you don't understand the terms or the concepts, then you get victimized by it. Autumn (27m 31s): Exactly. Definitely. But you did. So we have, you know, you have these, these trends where, and you even mentioned that there's a lot of platforms and you said we've had some consolidation, but you think even some of these duplicates in all of these there's thousands of places you can sell your books. Do you think some of those might be slowly fading it maybe in 2021? Mark (27m 54s): Yeah. I, I think we are going to see continued consolidation in Publishing and, And from multiple areas. So we've already got the, the pending acquisition of Simon and Schuster by penguin, random house, assuming that it goes through it, it may not go through if the government takes a close look at that because too much consolidation and the publishing industry starts creating an anti-competitive environment. That's not good for other publishers and not good for consumers. So we'll see if that goes through, but there's definitely a strong, a momentum towards further consolidation in Publishing among publishers' to reach, you know what? Mark (28m 36s): This is, it's in a, in a Publishing, it's a slow growth business and that's been generous calling Publishing a growth business. It, it, it, it, it's probably a flat to down business overall for publishing, especially if you account for inflation over the last 15 years, a the growth has been really minimal. So it, it's not a high-growth business, all of Publishing. So there, there, there will be more consolidation pressure among the publishers is going to be tougher for a smaller, independent publishers, two stay in business because there's just so much competition now. Mark (29m 17s): And, and, you know, the eBooks changed the dynamics of the competition as well in the old world of print publishers where maybe putting out 300,000 books a year and bookstores, you know, even in a large bookstore might only be able to hold 50,000 titles and inventory. So books were constantly being pushed out of print. There was always a limited supply of books controlled by the publishers, but now there's an unlimited supply of books, thanks to eBooks. Excuse me. And these books never go out of print. Yes. So they, they, you know, I've referred many times in the past to them as like cobwebs have stainless steel, they're going to be on the shelves forever. The retailer wants to carry your Book. Even if you don't sell a single copy in a year, they want to carry your Book. Mark (29m 59s): They want it on a shelf because they know that they recognize that there are readers value diversity and the discoverability have as many different titles as possible, but that, that creates pressures for the authors pressures for the publishers. And then when you look at the retailing space, I mean, it, we've already seen, you know, Barnes and noble, Apple Kobo. They are, those retailers have suffered over the last five years. Autumn (30m 28s): So even though, even though the books are becoming more popular, you think the publisher, they are not making enough money off of them, or why are they suffering? Mark (30m 37s): Because the, the store, I think the story is probably a little bit unique for each of them, but at Barnes and noble, which was an early pioneer in e-books would the nook. And for a while, there was one of the largest sellers of any books after Amazon, they've been in a long term decline, they are losing customers to Amazon and self publishing. And then the authors have had a big hand in that, you know, every time an author decides to make their ebook exclusive to Amazon for a period of three months, that's a vote to put all the other retailers out of business. Mark (31m 17s): So there are millions of readers every single year that can't buy the books they want to buy at Barnes and noble or Apple or Cobo or Smashwords. And they are forced to go to the Amazon if they want that Book. And so eventually, you know, all of these different retailers start losing their customers. It makes it more difficult for them too, to, to, to the great things they do for authors. It makes it difficult for them to operate their businesses. That makes it difficult for them to continue to invest in an effort to invest in innovation. And, and so it becomes death by a thousand cuts. And so I started talking about this back in 2011, when they first announced KDP select, and this would be the long term implication is that you're going to slowly starved these retailers, have their customers reduce the ability to compete. Mark (32m 10s): What happened, Sony, an early pioneer and the Book retailing left that market Barnes and noble, his, his, you know, a shadow of their former self Cobos, not as significant as they were in the past. And they're still a significant player. You know, Apple is not as significant as they were in the past. I hate to say, and I love Apple. I mean, I love all of these retailers. I even love Amazon. I mean, every single retailer has the opportunity to do good in the world, by introducing they're customers to your book's, that's the way the world should be is the more retailers out there. The more Book is waking up every morning, it spending their sour time thinking about how can I introduce more readers, two more books that I love that that creates and, and an amazing opportunities for authors publishers for Book culture, you know, the more booksellers out there in the world, the better, but as it is right now, if you want to start an ebook startup, you really don't have a snowball's chance in hell. Mark (33m 18s): No, you know, you can't well, if it it's really difficult, unless you're able to get, you know, $15 million in venture capital money and you're willing to lose millions of dollars to get started. And even then it's no guaranteed because when you look at what's important to readers, readers, value, selection, and price, selection, and price, they're like to have the biggest or most important factors in convenience too. But every one of the offers, good convenience, thanks to KDP. Select Amazon is always going to have, you know, somewhere between 1 million in however many books that they have exclusive that Amazon, I don't know what it is. Mark (34m 4s): It might be 3 million books are exclusive at Amazon. Now, I don't know. So that's 3 million reasons that you can't shop anywhere else if you want to buy these books. So, you know, that, that that's, that's some of what's happening is these are the things that don't happen overnight. They happen slowly over time, drip, drip, drip, the, the lifeblood of these retailers is slowly being pulled away. So like, let's say you want to, let's, let's say you love Fantasy, and you want to launch an ebook store that specializes in Fantasy, and you're going to do the best job of curating FANTASY and offer the best possible selection and great prices. You're going to serve your Fantasy customers better than anyone else, but you can't get the inventory to serve your customers because it's locked up at Amazon exclusively. Mark (34m 52s): So you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of building a successful business. And if you do your just barely going to scrape by the, the, the, the, the playing field right now is not level for, you know, entrepreneur entrepreneurs. And, and that's not a good thing, because we want that innovation and Publishing. You want to see dozens of new Publishing startups starting every single year, bringing new ideas to market. But, but as it is right now, I mean, most venture capitalists don't even wanna talk to people that, that wanna launch a business that is going to compete against Amazon or launch a business that Amazon might enter overnight. Mark (35m 34s): Maybe they've already seen at Amazon announced that they're gonna enter a market and all of the other companies and that market plunge. Autumn (35m 42s): That's true. Okay. Well, I think that's a, do you have some really good predictions that are helpful? And I also wanna talk about the things that authors can do. So you'd said reading because of the COVID because of the lockdown, because the cancellation of the Trump's show or a reading is still going to be popular in 2021. And I think that's, that's important Book sale Book, whether its sales or giveaways or whatever we're doing, people are still hungry for books, but what we as authors to do, what can we do? So you don't, I think a lot of authors don't realize that AMS ads running these ads are also cutting into our royalty. There are a bottom line, what are things we can do that we can help reverse these trends? Autumn (36m 24s): Obviously don't go hit KDB, select publish wide is definitely one of them, but what else can authors do to try to reach readers' and support a healthy market place where discoverability and a passion for reading is the most important thing, right? Mark (36m 41s): Yeah. Well, okay. So it, it starts with resisting this siren call of going to exclusive at Amazon, right? And I realized that is difficult for a lot of authors, but that's the first step. So just SUPPORT as many different retailers as possible with your books. So get your books at all the different retailers on your website, in your blog. And when you promote your books, list links to the different retailers, let the reader decide which retailer they want to shop out. Give them the options that is really important. You earlier, we talked about, you know, the, the, the consolidation and the dark side of that. Well, there is a solution to that. Mark (37m 21s): There is a hopeful solution to that, and it's in the hands of authors. It's more important than ever for authors to build a platform that they control so that their relationship with readers is no longer mediated by some third party, by some retailer, by some marketing platform. So the author mailing list, the private mailing list, I think that his, you know, I've, I've been beating this drum for a long time, but I think that should be every author. His biggest priority for the year ahead is every single reader you have out there, your thousands of readers, you want every single one of them signed up for your mailing list. It's not enough for them to be following you on Twitter and Facebook, because they're not seeing most of what you're putting out there on Twitter. Mark (38m 5s): And Facebook is only going to see a small fraction of it. But if, if you can get them on your mailing list, you control the message. You deliver the message to them when you want, and your readers will never miss another release of yours. So that, that, that's just really important in the, you know, that it fits in with what we're doing with Smashwords presales. Autumn (38m 27s): Let's talk about it. So you've just launched. This I've even tried it out, but I did, I did get the email now that my book is like a week away saying, Hey, we want to try it out the pre-sale, but I actually do presales on my own website with the sort of what you're suggesting, but this is something that other authors who aren't set up to celebrate off their own website. This is a whole new feature. And it's really exciting. Yeah. Mark (38m 48s): Yeah. And even if you are already selling off of your own website, you might still want to consider using this tool. So let's talk about what this tool is. You know, a lot of people don't even know what pre-orders are. Right. You know, when we talk about, when we talk about best practices, you know, we've been talking about preorders. This is one of the most important best practices for the last eight or nine years. Yeah. About 85% of self published authors. Don't do pre-orders. Even though, even though authors who do pre-orders sell a lot more books than author's who don't like, pre-orders are still one of the biggest secrets to selling more books. Mark (39m 33s): And it, it boggles my mind that most authors it's, every single author, you know, like listeners today, if you only take one thing away from this, do a preorder, look at your Publishing calender for the next 12 months, get everything up on preorder. Now you don't even need a cover. You don't even need a final manuscript. You can get that preorder listing up that all the major retailers. So you can start collecting orders. Now it gives you more shelf space for longer. So do a pre order. So with a pre-order for authors who are familiar with them since most aren't a pre-order allows your customer to basically place an order reservation for your book when it comes out in the future. Mark (40m 17s): So your book has a future release state, the customer place's the reservation with a preorder. And then when the book releases on its public release state, that book automatically appears in their library at the retailer on their device. And the credit card is charged. So that's a pre-order customers love pre-orders. The presale is different. Yes. So a pre-sale where the pre-order, you've got a single public announcement that a public release date across all the different retailers with a presale, you're doing an early exclusive, early release. So you're just, you're deciding to let certain customers have early access to your book. Mark (40m 57s): The power of a presale for an indie author is that customers value timeliness, especially your biggest fans. If they can read your book even a week or even a day before every one else, they're going to lose their minds in a good way. Autumn (41m 20s): Yes. They're so excited that you want. Yeah, Mark (41m 22s): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, your job is to please your readers and the readers who will be most pleased by a presale are going to be your super fans. You're the most important readers, because it's a way for you to, Hey, super fans. I'm going to let you read my book early and it's going to make them enjoy the book more. It's going to make them wanna talk about your book more to their friends. It's all good. And so we built a system it's Smashwords and this is it's called Smashwords presales and it, his patent pending. So we file the patent for it. It was just fantastic that that allows any author. Who's doing a pre-order at Smashwords to also do a presale, and you can do a, either a public presale. So it's merchandised in this Smashwords store where you can do a private pre-sale, where are you might decide, okay. Mark (42m 8s): I am going to control who has an early access to my book. And I want to say, for example, I only want to offer access to subscribers, to my private newsletter and as a perk, as my thank you to all of these readers who signed up for my private mailing lists, I'm going to give them exclusive early access to my new release. You know, I'm gonna let them buy it at two days early or one day early or a week early. It doesn't matter. It's going to be early and the readers are going to lose their mind. So that's what you can do. And then it, and so this is a, this is a chance for authors, I think, to retake their platform. Mark (42m 49s): Now, currently, no retailer, if you sell your e-book is going to tell, give you the e-mail address of that customer. All right. Well, that changed with Smashwords. Pre-sales when we launched it a little over a year ago. So now anyone who is purchasing your pre-sale is going to be given the option to subscribe to your private mailing list. And if they subscribe to it, if they give Smashwords permission to share their email address with you, the author, then we will share that e-mail address with you, THE author for that pre-cell. And let's say that it it's more important to you than anything to get as many readers onto your private mailing list. Mark (43m 36s): You can even offer as part of this Smashwords pre-sales Toole. You can offer it to a special incentive for the, for the reader to agree, to share their email address with you, like, you know, a discount then all of that can be done within the tool in a lot of the people who are using the pre-sales tool or doing that, they're offering like a dollar off $2 off to really encourage the customer to click the box to say, yeah, you have my permission signed me up for this author's private newsletter. Autumn (44m 10s): This is a really brilliant, and one that you are doing it and how it's working. That's really fascinating. And yeah, Mark (44m 17s): Got it up. You know, we're, we're, we're big into privacy at Smashwords and, you know, respecting people's email addresses. So we, we set it up so that in order for an author to even use that feature of capturing the email addresses, they have to agree to some very simple, best practices of how they're going to handle this customers email address. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just basic stuff. Like you're not going to sell our rent that email, or you're just going to use it for your own mailing list. So yeah, it's a really, it's a really cool tool that I think is going to help put a lot of the power back into the hands of indie authors, I think. Mark (44m 57s): And this is a lot more than that we can say, Oh, I was just gonna say, and then there's a lot more that we'll be doing with it at Smashwords. Autumn (45m 5s): Oh, excellent. I guess in between the coupons in the pre-sale, if someone's not sure if they should try it out, Smashwords it's just a, they might have heard rumors about the old meat grinder process and the stuff, but I we'll get into that with some other time. It's not scary. I've been doing this for almost 10 years. It's a fantastic platform. So Grindr is infamous. It is. I have to admit when you started taking any public though, and because I use velum and I haven't, there's a beautiful, it's fine. If it's not a problem. Yeah. Mark (45m 39s): We've been taking the time, you know, author produced for eight years. Yep. I still see people online complaining that, you know, Smashwords makes me do Microsoft word. No, no, we don't. Autumn (45m 53s): You Mark (45m 53s): Could say it's your ebook your way. So you can upload word. Most authors still do word for word is a great tool because that you upload that single file, that single word file. And we produce it into multiple ebook file types, and word is easy to control, but you know, vellum was great too. So if you use vellum use vellum. Autumn (46m 15s): Yeah. It works. And they get out to all the stories, your still my distributor. And I can go into my dashboard and see all my sales across all of the distribution in like daily sales is the one shot deal. It's, it's so convenient that it's crazy not to be trying this with somebody. And I think you guys have the cornerstone in innovation. So I am glad, I'm glad you were still coming up with these new ideas and that you're patenting them so that Amazon and other places will just steal them away from you anymore. Mark (46m 45s): Well, you know, we are trying to patent it, so it, it's not easy to get a patent, especially as a patent like this, it it's, you know, because it touches a lot of things. It doesn't just touch eBooks. Right. It touches anything sold online and Autumn (47m 3s): That's fine. Yeah. Well, Mark (47m 5s): Yeah. So, you know, we, we have been going back and forth with the us patent office and I, I don't know if we are going to get it are not, you know, I'm still got my fingers crossed, but you know, our hope is that once we get the patent, we want to license this broadly. We want everyone using it. We want our competitor's using it. We're going to make it. You know, I, I think it's really going to help level the playing field for indie authors. If more in the author's can start using this and taking the power back because with the pre-sale you decided you, you get to it, you get to basically a harness, the power or the anticipation That of, you know, thousands of readers dying to get your next release. Mark (47m 52s): You get to trade that anticipation for something that benefits you the author. And that's the ability for you to build your platform, to sell your book at a higher royalty rate, because, you know, at the Smashwords store pays up to 80% list. You know, a lot of people don't realize that no, it was in 99 cent books often earn 80% list. If there's enough books in the customer's shopping cart, you know, there's really no reason not to do it. So it's, it's exciting to see, you know, the early adopters experimenting with it and doing new things with it. Autumn (48m 28s): Well, I think that I still have a few days till my release. Maybe I won't go put this in. I didn't realize that you can get the e-mail list or email address. So I might go give this a go tonight. Yeah. Mark (48m 40s): Yeah. So, you know it, if you think about it, I don't know how many people you have following you on Facebook or Twitter, or it might be thousands. Those are soft followers and get them to your opportunity is to convert all of those soft followers into a hard followers on your private mailing list so that you can reach them so that the tool will help them. Autumn (49m 7s): No, that's perfect. Well, thank you. I mean, we've almost been two an hour, 50 minutes, so I don't want to take up all of your time. You're CEO of a very well, to me, a very important company. Mark (49m 17s): That's a highfalutin title. Autumn (49m 19s): Well, that's all, I think it's important that I love what you, I love that what you're doing for in the author's that you have Smashwords, But that there's someone out they're fighting, basically for all of the, you're an author. You need to have our voices heard to take back. Like you said, the power of what other places are trying to claim. I mean, you only make so much money off of a book. I'm happy that over time, you know, in the books have gone for like two 99. So they average price the four 99, five 99, but that's done now how much time for books that can take months and months and months too. Right? So it's nice that there's someone fighting for higher royalties for us to keep control of our careers at the, of what really is the heart of the indie author movement, which has us controlling our fate. Mark (50m 4s): Well, it certainly what we fight For, and we need to see more indie authors fight for it as well. Because, you know, we talked earlier that many of the authors that will willingly surrender their independence to give it up, they'll surrender royalty rates, they'll surrender their ability to price their own books. There are certain they'll surrender their rights, all exchange for the promise of more visibility. And it's M it's a slippery slope. You know, we talked about the valuation. There is massive devaluation pressure out there because there is a glut of high quality books on the market. And, and so it creates a situation where someone like Amazon can take advantage of that glut. Mark (50m 49s): And that's exactly what they're doing. They've decided to, you know, create a tiered market. And there are certain authors that play by certain rules that can get the visibility. And those are the authors where Amazon pays less and it's all pretty transparent, Autumn (51m 11s): But yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it in. And I like it. I said, I think that is fantastic that you are fighting for the Indy author and try to wake us up when you start, you know, you get tied up lid and try to do sales and try to generate, you know, reading, like you said, trading in for readers are taking the lower royalty to get better exposure to remembering what the bigger picture is and what the whole market is. Like I said, I did an art degree are an English degree, not marketing. So it's important that someone is speaking about the other side. Mark (51m 42s): Yeah. And also, you know, I see so much of the conversation when you see what indie authors are talking about, much of the conversation focuses on the wrong thing. You know, it's like, how do I Please Amazon's algorithms? I mean, should we allow our futures to be censored by algorithms? No. And other conversations aren't happening. Like I think a lot of authors are losing sight of the importance of quality. Nothing is more important than craft and your ability to right. A reader pleasing Book. It looks like we might have lost the connection there for a little bit. Mark (52m 25s): Yeah. Autumn (52m 25s): Yeah. It was just a little bit, hopefully it came back. We'll see how it goes. Okay. Mark (52m 29s): Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I think there's still lots of great opportunity for authors. I think the pandemic kind of reminded readers and former readers about the joys of books. And so I think that's going to stick with us for awhile. I think we're going to see increased reading for the next couple of years, just because of the pandemic. Autumn (52m 53s): That's fantastic. I mean, an and readership, eBooks marketing, there are still areas growing. So I think there's still a future to be an author, whether its, you know, how much you're making or what you're in it for it for a success is a different platform. But looking at the whole perspective and maybe what you want, your legacy, what is the in the market? Do you know, what are we trying to sell out our rights again, it's a good question to ponder and think about when you are deciding where to publish right. Mark (53m 24s): Focus on the long term, that's really what indie authors should do, you know, ask yourself, how will my decision impact my future five years from now? And if you start thinking that way, then indie authors will start making smart decisions in they'll start reaping better results over the long-term. You know, even when we talk about this being a massive, you know, talking about the, the, the market being flat for a long time for Publishing that the Publishing market is not a lucrative growth market. Well it still a multibillion dollar business. There is still an amazing opportunity for every single author, if they focus on what matters most. So focus on the craft of writing the most reader, pleasing books that you can take your reader's to an emotionally satisfying, extreme, because good books aren't good enough anymore. Mark (54m 9s): Your book needs to be super awesome. So if you're going to spend money on anything, spend it on editing, write the most incredible Book you can because the most incredible book is going to be the best marketing for that book and have a great books market themselves. And then, you know, study best practices. You know, I've written books about best practices in all my books are available for free. So the Smashwords book, marketing guide, every author can take advantage of that and you don't even need to be at Smashwords. It's a free ebook. You get 65 free book marketing ideas. It's all focused on best practices. So these are not a femoral flash in the pan tricks. Mark (54m 49s): These are the things that are going to work, you know, just as well today as they worked five years ago and five years from now, you know, these are the essential oils. If you get the best practices down, you'll have a much more successful longterm career. And one of those best practices that we talked about of course is pre-orders and pre sales. And pre-sales pre-sales are a new best practice and you know, but let's get more people doing preorders This as well. Autumn (55m 18s): Okay. That sounds, I'm going to put that down on our, our market, our list of topics for the podcast, because I did not realize that most authors weren't doing pre-orders. So we'll get that one Mark (55m 30s): Startling. If you go back and you look at some of the old Smashwords surveys that I've published at the blog, and you know, you got this very small percentage of authors doing pre-orders and those are the authors that are on the USA today, bestseller list. But those are the authors that are scooping up all the sales for the new books. And there's a camera, it's the pre-order authors, right? Autumn (55m 51s): I will, I will go in and scoop up that data. And if I can't find it, I'll email Jim and I'm sure he can find it for me, but thank you so much, Mark, for taking the time and being in here. And I appreciate it. And if anyone has questions, we're going to link up to your 20, 21 Predictions and Smashwords and Have author's go check it out and see everything that you guys offer as well as, you know, you have some good Predictions in some incredible best tips of what we should be doing. So thank you so much for doing that. Every single, not just this year. All right. Well great. Thanks Autumn. Thank you. Good luck. Autumn (56m 32s): And so Yes for it, we'll be back next week and we we'll be discussing a one of our humorous ones on some systems. You come back and check it out. Narrator (56m 42s): If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

For this week’s show, we started out discussing some of the predications that Mark Coker of Smashwords made in his beginning-of-the-year post: 2021 Publishing Predictions – Pandemic Reshapes Publishing, Accelerates Consolidation. After that, we moved…

Writing a #book is half the battle. Now, as an indie published author, you have to consider, editing, cover art, marketing and distribution. How will the #reader get your book? How will they even know that it is available?Don't forget to follow me on your favorite social media: https://linktr.ee/angelakayaustin.When I began in this whole game of self-publishing, the major distribution partners for indie published #authors were Amazon and Smashwords. Of course, over the years more and more players have joined the game, but many have failed. However, Smashwords is still working with #self-published authors.When #authors speak about "going wide" with their books, that usually includes distribution through the major players for electronic books: #Amazon, #BarnesandNoble, #KOBO, #GooglePlay and Smashwords. These resources allow authors to distribute their books across #America without incurring a lot of fees.Join me as I chat with Mark Coker, CEO/Founder of Smashwords about book distribution. I think you will be surprised. I know I learned a lot.Smashwords, the world's largest distributor of self-published ebooks, makes it fast, free and easy for any author anywhere in the world to publish and distribute an ebook. Since 2008, Smashwords has helped more than 146,000 authors, publishers and literary agents release over 540,00 titles and distribute their work globally to top ebook retailers, subscription services and public libraries. Visit Smashwords at http://www.smashwords.comTwitterSmashwords: @SmashwordsMark Coker: @markcokerFree Smashwords Ebook Resources:1. Smashwords Style Guide (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view... The Smashwords Style Guide has helped tens of thousands of authors produce and publish high-quality ebooks. This free guide offers simple step-by-step instructions to create, format and publish an ebook. It's required reading for any author who wants to distribute their book via Smashwords to major ebook retailers such as Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Scribd, & Kobo.2. Smashwords Book Marketing Guide (

I talk to the founder of Snashwords, a company revolutionizing the publishing industry. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dale613/support

Learn about Ebook Publishing with Mark Coker. The post Ebook Publishing Tips, Tricks, and Traps appeared first on Christian Publishing Show.

Learn about Ebook Publishing with Mark Coker. The post Ebook Publishing Tips, Tricks, and Traps appeared first on Christian Publishing Show.

On today’s show, Andrea, Jo, and Lindsay pick out some of the predictions that Mark Coker of Smashwords made in his January post 2020 Publishing Predictions: House of Indie on Fire. They agreed with some…Continue ReadingSFA – 022 Discussing Mark Coker’s (Smashwords) 2020 Indie Author Predictions + Questions and Answers

In this very special episode of Excelsior Journeys, host and producer George Sirois sat down with Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords, one of the most valuable tools any independent author would ever need to get their books out in the widest distribution possible. They talked about Mark's thoughts on the book publishing industry, his inspiration for Smashwords, his success working with authors, his plans for the company's future, and more! (This was meant to be a two-parter, but since life has a way of getting in the way, I missed last week's post date and so here are Parts 1 & 2 combined.)

In this very special episode of Excelsior Journeys, host and producer George Sirois sat down with Mark Coker, founder and CEO of Smashwords, one of the most valuable tools any independent author would ever need to get their books out in the widest distribution possible. They talked about Mark's thoughts on the book publishing industry, his inspiration for Smashwords, his success working with authors, his plans for the company's future, and more! (This was meant to be a two-parter, but since life has a way of getting in the way, I missed last week's post date and so here are Parts 1 & 2 combined.)

Mark Coker is the founder of Smashwords, the leading distributor of indie eBooks, and the creator of the Smart Author podcast that details the evergreen best practices of successful self-publishers. Mark is one of the good guys in publishing. Check out his views on the industry here.

My guest today is Mark Coker.   Mark is the founder of Smashwords, a free ebook publishing and distribution platform. They make it fast, free and easy for authors and publishers to distribute ebooks to the world's largest ebook retailers and library ebook platforms.   Authors and publishers retain full control over how their works are published, sampled, priced and sold. In addition to this, Mark hosts the Smart Author Podcast, which guides authors step-by-step from the very basics of ebook publishing to more advanced topics.   In this interview, we talk about Mark's book "The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success"   https://www.smashwords.com

The opportunities for creatives continue to explode but in a world of so much fast-paced change, it can be overwhelming to navigate possibility. In today's show, I discuss what it takes to be a successful 21st-century creative with Mark McGuinness. In the intro, I discuss Mark Coker's 2019 predictions [Smashwords blog], as well as Kris […] The post Lessons For 21st Century Creatives With Mark McGuinness first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Smashwords began in 2008 as the first ebook distribution company for self-publishers and remains the world’s leading ebook platform. I’ve known Mark now for a decade and have watched his journey as Smashwords has evolved not only to help authors get your books distributed to the online retailers but to market your ebooks with features like the series manager, assetless preorders, author interviews, coupon codes, special deals, and audiobooks. You’ll learn about all these features in our conversation and also how to use Smashwords to create your book in all the different file formats.

Publishing in the classroom.  When high school students are given the chance to publish their writing as an ebook, it helps them gain a new appreciation for the written word.  Mark Coker shares details of an innovative writing project in Los Gatos, California where each  year high school students collaborate to write and publish a poetry anthology that is sold in all the major ebook stores.  Learn how you, as a writer, reader, educator or concerned citizen, can launch similar ebook publishing programs in your community.

Beau L'Amour was born in Los Angeles, California. His father was Louis L'Amour, a well known author of magazine and paperback fiction. His mother was Katherine Adams, the daughter of a silent movie actress and a southern California real estate developer. Throughout a good deal of his youth Beau lived in West Hollywood, an unincorporated section of Los Angeles county, known as a center of counter-culture and beatnik life. He grew up surrounded by his parents eclectic and eccentric group of friends; Austrian philosophers, American Indians, FBI agents, members of the Hollywood Ten, Eastern European refugees, Thai aristocracy, mysteriously talented dealers in primitive art and a wide array of writers, from Ray Bradbury to Jim Thompson. MENTIONS:New to Wordslinger Press, pick up Writing a Better Book DescriptionPick up a copy of Kevin Tumlinson's newest Dan Kotler archaeological thriller The Girl in the Mayan Tomb - https://books2read.com/mayan-tombCONNECT ONLINE:Website(s): http://beaulamour.com/index.html http://www.louislamourslosttreasures.com http://louislamour.com/aboutlouis/biography.htm http://www.thediamondofjeruaudio.com Twitter handle(s): Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BeauDLAmourAmazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Beau-LAmour/e/B00FVVNKGE/THIS WEEK’S INDIE PUBLISHING NEWS:Amazon targets Kindle Publishing Scams — Finally. I mean, seriously, this story should have been a headline years ago. But finally Amazon is taking steps to cut down on scams and abuse from unscrupulous authors using their Kindle Direct Publishing service. Amazon has filed five complaints against authors who are violating the terms of service, with everything from trafficking in fake reviews to “link abuse,” where an author puts a link in the front of the book that sends readers to the back of the book, in an effort to capitalize on Amazon’s page reads policy. Amazon is seeking more than half a million dollars in damages from five authors. It remains to be seen whether these actions will curtail some of KDP’s woes, but a start is a start. — http://bit.ly/WPC146-Amazon-LawsuitMicrosoft quietly rolls out E-Bookstore — Authors looking to reach a very specific and narrow group of readers can rejoice … Microsoft has finally rolled out its eBook store, which is available exclusively to users of the Windows 10 operating system. Ebooks can be purchased via the Microsoft Store app, or on Microsoft’s website. When asked if Microsoft will eventually support devices beyond Windows 10, such as the prolific and near universal Apple iPhone or the stunningly popular Google Android platform, Microsoft replied in the vaguest terms possible. Which means “no, but maybe.Someday. If we get around to it.” — http://bit.ly/WPC146-MicrosoftSmashwords Founder Mark Coker thinks Indies are losing their independence — Citing an ever-increasing dependence on KDP Select, Mark Coker wrote in the Huffington post that “Authors who now derive 100% of their sales from Amazon are no longer indie authors. They’re dependent authors. I suppose we have indie authors and de-authors now.” A bit cynical, but does he have a point? Personally, I believe the “independent” in “independent authors” is more about owning your career and being in control of your decisions, but Coker’s point is that dependence on one sales channel will lead to losing options. Whether this is the future of Indies, we really can’t say. Definitely food for thought, though.— http://bit.ly/WPC146-CokerTHIS EPISODE OF THE WORDSLINGER PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY:Draft2Digital—Convert, publish, and distribute your book worldwide, with support the whole way. https://draft2digital.com/wordslingerWordslinger Press—This is your chance to start your indie author career right. Pick up books and other products to help you build and grow a successful writing career. Start growing at http://wordslingerpodcast.comSupport this show: Subscribe and share!Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/wordslingerpodcastPick something up to read that will be tough to put down—Archeological Thrillers, Science Fiction, YA Fantasy and more, at https://kevintumlinson.com/books ___GOT A QUESTION FOR KEVIN AND HIS GUESTS?CALL 281-809-WORD (9673)

How to earn free press coverage to elevate your author brand and drive demand for your books. You'll also learn how to write a press release and how to promote your news to mainstream media. This is part six in Mark Coker's six-part serialization of the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide.  This six-part marketing series began with episode 10 of the Smart Author Podcast.  Full transcript of this and all other episodes available at https://smashwords.com/podcast

One of our earliest guests on the podcast, almost 150 episodes ago, was Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords. We had him back on this week to talk about some of his predictions for the coming year and marketing tips derived from the 2017 annual survey of the Smashwords sales and distribution data. Note: we had some technical issues so

Learn 25 book promotion tips. The tips are grouped in logical order to roughly correspond to the different stages of a book's marketing, from pre-launch to launch to post-launch. These tips can be implemented in any order at any stage of an author's publishing journey.   This is part four of Mark Coker's six-part serialization of the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide.  Show notes at https://smashwords.com/podcast

17 tips to leverage your book to sell more books, build your social media platform and catalyze word of mouth. Part 3 of 6 in Mark Coker's six-part serialization of the new 2018 edition of the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide.

On the inaugural episode of The Career Author Podcast, Zach and J. discuss an indie author's recent troubles with Amazon KDP, as well as what 2018 holds (or doesn't hold) for the indie author community.Special thanks to our very first Patrons: Leisa Zoeller, Steven Turner, Rachael Herron, Jill Harris, Chloe Adler, and Marrije SchaakeGet exclusive bonus content by supporting The Career Author Podcast on Patreon at www.thecareerauthor.comChoose Your News Stories:Amazon author rank-stripped for the 3rd time - http://www.thepassivevoice.com/2018/01/innocent-author-rank-stripped-for-third-time/Smashwords' Mark Coker predicts doom and gloom for 2018 - http://blog.smashwords.com/2017/12/2018-book-industry-predictions.htmlAmazon to buy Target - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/02/amazon-will-buy-target-in-2018-influential-tech-analyst-gene-munster-predicts.htmlOther Links:Sell More Books Show Summit - http://www.sellmorebooksshow.com/summitSign up for J. and Zach's free webinar taking place Wednesday, January 10th at 6 CST/7 EST - http://www.thecareerauthor.com/webinar See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Learn ebook marketing.  Part 2 of 6.  This episode explores author brand-building, knowledge-building, platform-building and distribution.  17 book marketing tips are presented, all of which help the author build a solid marketing foundation. Mark Coker reads from chapter 2 of the new 2018 edition of the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide which comes out in late January, 2018.  Full transcript at https://smashwords.com/podcast This six-part series on book marketing is best listened to serial from Episode 10 (Part 1 of 6) onward.

Butterflies of Wisdom is a podcast where we want to share your story. We want to share your wisdom if you have a small business if you are an author or a Doctor, or whatever you are. With a disability or not, we want to share your story to inspire others. To learn more about Butterflies of Wisdom visit http://butterfliesofwisdom.weebly.com/ Be sure to FOLLOW this program https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wins-women-of-wisdom/id1060801905. To learn more about Challenge Aspen go to https://challengeaspen.org. To learn how Win walk and about Ekso go to http://www.bridgingbionics.org/, or email Amanda Boxtel at amanda@bridgingbionics.org.   On Butterflies of Wisdom today (Tuesday, November 28, 2017), Best-Selling Author, Win C welcome Mark Coker. Mark founded Smashwords in 2008 to make it fast, free and easy for any writer, anywhere in the world, to self-publish an ebook. Today, Smashwords has grown to become the world’s largest distributor of self-published ebooks representing 120,000 authors and small independent presses around the world who publish and distribute 400,000 books with Smashwords. Many Smashwords authors have hit the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists.  Smashwords distributes globally to major retailers and library providers including Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, OverDrive, Scribd, Gardners UK, Baker & Taylor Axis 360 and more.  Mark is the author of three free ebooks which teach ebook publishing best practices – The Smashwords Style Guide, The Smashwords Book Marketing Guide and The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success.  These books have been downloaded over 750,000 times and have become essential reference guides for many of the world’s most successful authors.  Follow Mark on Twitter @markcoker.  Mark blogs athttp://blog.smashwords.com. To learn more about Mark visit http://www.smashwords.com/. To learn more about Win Kelly Charles visithttp://wincharles.weebly.com/. To follow Win on Twitter go to @winkellycharles. To follow Win on Instagram go to winkcharles. To follow Win on Snapchat go to Wcharles422. To follow Win on Snapchat go to Wcharles422. To see Win's art go to https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/2-win-charles.html. Interview with Mel Marton: http://traffic.libsyn.com/winwisdom/LAF3494_08172017150526412_1189015.mp3. "Books for Books," you buy Win's books so she can purchase books for school. "Getting through school is a 'win' for her fans and a 'win' for her." Win is a professional writer and in 2018 she is going to get a new MacBook to write her books and do the podcast. With every book she sells and the donations from Butterflies of Wisdom will go to her new MacBook. Please support her in getting her new MacBook. Please send feedback to Win by email her at winwwow@gmail.com, or go tohttp://survey.libsyn.com/winwisdom and http://survey.libsyn.com/thebutterfly. To be on the show please fill out the intake athttp://bit.ly/bow2017. Butterflies of Wisdom sponsored by Kittr a new social media tool that is bringing about new ways of posting on Twitter. It's fun, full of free content you can use, helps you schedule at the best times, is easy to use, and it will help you get more followers. Visit Kittr at gokittr.com. This is a 20% off code for www.gracedbygrit.com. The code will be XOBUTTERFLIES. If you would like to support Butterflies of Wisdom go to https://www.patreon.com/wcharles. If you want to check out what Win’s friend, Dannidoll, is doing (a.k.a. Dannielle) go to https://www.facebook.com/dannidolltheragdollclown/?notif_t=page_invite_accepted¬if_id=1492366163404241. To learn more about Danielle visit http://www.dancanshred.com. For iOS 11 update:https://www.youtube.com/embed/HNupFUYqcRY. To learn about the magic of Siri go to https://www.udemy.com/writing-a-book-using-siri/?utm_campaign=email&utm_source=sendgrid.com&utm_medium=email. If you want to donate Butterflies of Wisdom, please send a PayPal donation to aspenrosearts@gmail.com or aspenwin@gmail.com. Please donate to Challenge Aspen or the Bridging Bionics Foundation. Please send a check in the mail so 100% goes to Bridging Bionics Foundation.    In the Memo section have people write: In honor of Win Charles. Please donate to the charity of your choice thank you in advance, Win.   Send to:   Challenge Aspen PO Box 6639 Snowmass Village, CO 81615 Or donate online at https://challengeaspen.org.   Bridging Bionics Foundation  PO Box 3767 Basalt, CO 81621   Thank you Win

Learn what makes readers respond to your books.  The annual Smashwords Survey takes a quantitative, unconventional approach to identifying best practices that make books more desirable and more enjoyable to readers. Mark Coker discusses the results of this sixth annual survey, and provides new data never before released prior to this podcast.  Supplemental show notes at https://smashwords.com/podcast

Introductory primer to ebook publishing. Learn how easy, fast and free it is to self-publish an ebook. Mark Coker presents a complete ebook publishing checklist. You'll learn how to produce, publish, price and promote an ebook. You'll learn how to make your book discoverable and purchasable by millions of readers around the globe.  Supplemental show notes at https://smashwords.com/podcast 45 minutes.

This episode continues from where episode 82 left off with KWL's recent live interviews with attendees from RT Booklovers Convention in Atlanta, Georgia in early May 2017. RT (Romantic Times) Booklovers brings more than 3,500 fans and between 600 to 800 authors together for a celebration of romance novels. Mark Lefebvre, Director of Kobo Writing Life, interviewed authors and industry folks about various topics. In Part 2, we share Mark's chats with:   Meredith Wild A new series of collaborative novels launching in September, starting with Meredith's novel Misadventures of a City Girl and the fun writing experimentation that led to it Advice that Meredith would offer to beginning writers who are just getting started on their writing journey How Meredith allowed herself some “time off from writing” during this particular conference Stephanie Bond Stephanie's latest release in the Body Movers Series, 8 Bodies is Enough The things that Stephanie loves about RT, which is one of her favorite conferences A forthcoming project, Temp Girl, and the temporary tattoos that Stephanie is giving out to fans at the conference Liliana Hart The forthcoming book (due out May 23rd) in a brand new series (Gravediggers) from Pocket Books entitled The Darkest Corner which is a mix between her J. Graves and the MacKenzie Family series (combining thriller and romance) The unique position of being a hugely successful indie author who is also working with a major publisher and making the best out of both worlds How Liliana writes all the time, including sequestering herself in a hotel room or even as a passenger in the car while touring to events like RT   Stephanie Phillips from SBR Media Literary Agency Some of the 20 authors that SBR Media represents, including Debra Presley, Kahlen Aimes, Micalea Smeltzer, as well as authors who are attending RT (M. Willard, Misha Elliott, Elizabeth Hayes) The pitches that Stephanie has been taking from authors interested in working with her agency Stephanie's Romance Focused Review Blog: Stephanie's Book Reports (where authors can submit their books for consideration for reviews)   Mark Coker from Smashwords A sneak peek at the annual RT Smashwords survey that explores the aggregated sales data across all the retail platforms, including: Which price points get the most sales / which price points get the most income What impact does a pre-order have on sales related to different genres A deep dive into series, including the effect of free as series starters As of the time of this posting, the 2017 report hasn't been made live, but here is a link to the 2016 and 2015 report, chock-full of great insights and info for authors   Diane and Dante from ListenUp Audiobooks Diane's role at ListenUp in assisting indie authors in the production of their audiobooks, including the initial discussion, finding the right narrator and getting the book distributed if the author chooses that option Dante's role as audio engineer and technical director, including working directly with the voice talent and the post recording production to ensure top-quality audio product KWL authors can get $100 off per hour by following this link, navigating to “Get Started” and entering the promo code “Kobo” http://www.listenupindie.pub/

In this episode I talk to Mark Coker who is the head of Smashwords, the biggest and longest-established of the eBook aggregators.   It is the last (for now) of the eBook aggregator interview series.  It's been a long ride.  I've you've missed the other shows here are the links to them: PublishDrive with Kinga Jentetics Discovering Streetlib with Giacomo D’Angelo Pronoun with Justin Renard (UPDATE NOv 17: THEY ARE NO LONGER TRADING) How to Use Draft2Digital with Dan Wood   You can find the transcript of this show at: http://beginselfpublishing.com/smashwords-mark-coker

Ep#41: Indie Author Fringe Highlight with Mark Coker from Smashwords Authors are in the midst of rapid and dizzying change, and Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords, shares his insights about the "10 Trends Driving the Future of Publishing" in our latest ALLi podcast. Mark kicks off the podcast talking about his epiphany moment that helped to get Smashwords off the ground in 2008. Mark's company was at the forefront of of the indie revolution, and for those of you who aren't familiar with Smashwords, they're an eBook publishing platform that makes it fast, free and easy to publish and distribute your books. At the time of recording, Smashwords features 400,000 books from 115,000 authors and small independent presses. Mark's discusses 10 key elements that are driving the future of publishing, and and how indie authors can can maximize their potential for self-publishing. Trend 1: THE RISE OF EBOOKS. Trend 2: The Democratisation of Publishing. Trend 3: Ebooks are Going Global. Trend 4: The Rise of Indie Authorship. Trend 5: Indie Authors are hitting all the Best Seller Lists. Trend 6: Previous stigma of being self-published is disappearing. Trend 7: A glut of high-quality low-cost books means it's becoming more and more difficult to reach readers. Trend 8: Amazon is exploiting this product glut. Trend 9: Kindle Unlimited is undermining the market in single copy sales. Trend 10: Indie Authors will write the next chapter in this industry's evolution. The power centre in publishing is shifting from publishers to writers. So as an indie authors you decide where, when, and how you're going to publish. It's the collective decisions of writers that will determine the course of the publishing industry, and really shape the industry for the next generation. It's a pivotal moment in publishing, and as an indie author you have the tools and the knowledge to publish with pride and professionalism. You also have the freedom to self-publish as an indie author, or go the traditional route. It's your choice. Mark is supportive of all the options available to writers, and only time will tell whether Amazon will strip indies of their independence. Are Amazon trying to control the supply of books? Mark believes that's true, but at the end of the day, Indies control the supply if they decide to to wield their collective power. So imagine twenty years from now. Imagine the future that you want and then make the decisions today that enable the future to come to fruition. Do your best to support a thriving and dynamic ecosystem of multiple competing retailers, by supporting all of the retailers that distribute your books. As an Indie author, fight for your right to be the captain of your own destiny.  Our weekly Self-Publishing Advicebroadcast is brought to you by ALLi, the Alliance of Independent Authors. This Indie Author Fringe Highlight  is one of four regular shows, which include an ALLi Member Q&A, a beginners' salon and an advanced self-publishing salon. Find more author advice, tips and tools at our self-publishing advice center, www.selfpublishingadvice.org. And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at www.allianceindependentauthors.org.   If you're not familiar with our Fringe event, it's three-times a year, online conference for self-publishing authors, brought to you by the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), and fringe to the major global publishing fairs; London Book Fair, BookExp, and Frankfurt Book Fair. ALLi brings together the most up-to-date self-publishing education and information available and broadcasts it to authors everywhere. Running 24 sessions over 24 continuous hours allows our members, and other authors round the globe, to attend sessions, no matter where they’re located. For more information, visit our Conference Home Page.   Now, go write and publish.

Synopsis If you have any hope of having your book achieve financial and critical success, you must understand how your readers, view your book when they first see it. Once you fully understand how your readers will perceive your book when they first see it, you can adjust your book accordingly. It's not a difficult process, but one you must devote some serious quality time to exploring. What You Will Learn In This Post 1. You will learn how to improve your book's sales by fully understanding how your readers perceive you and your book. 2. You will learn what specific questions you must ask yourself in order to improve the reader's perception of you and your book. 3. You will learn what things readers notice first about your book, and how those things can affect their perceptions. Introduction If you have any hope of having your book achieve financial and critical success, you must understand how your readers (your customers), view your book (your product) when they first see it (online or on a shelf). Once you fully understand how your readers will perceive your book when they first see it, you can adjust your book accordingly. Share This Image On Your SitePlease include attribution to https://kunzonpublishing.com/ with this graphic. Put Yourself In The Shoes Of The Buyer In order to accomplish this, you must separate yourself from your personal feelings about your book, and think as the objective buyer would think. Think about who the audience is for your book, and try to step into their shoes, and then look at your book objectively, and subjectively – through their eyes. Thank you to Iryna Spica of Spica Book Design for featuring this article on her website.Important Questions To Ask Yourself Question # 1. What would attract you to a book like yours? Question # 2. What would attract people in your audience to a book like yours? Question # 3. Would you as a buyer be more attracted to a handsome cover, or to the cover blurbs? Question # 4. Would you buy a book based on its cover art, or because of the well-known names that are quoted on the cover? Question # 5. Does the book's page count seem too long, or too short, to cover the topic adequately? Question # 6. Does the subtitle seem to be promising too much for such a topic? Question # 7. How does your book's attributes compare to other books within your subject category? Here is a quick look at the first things that readers notice when they first view your book: Thank you to Nancy and Merritt Barnes of StoriesToTellBooks.com for quoting and linking to my article "7 Things Readers Notice When Picking Up A Book". Also quoted in this article are Chip Kidd, Michael Hyatt, Mark Coker, and Kristen Eckstein. 1. Cover Art Having the appropriate graphics, images, photos, illustrations, colors, fonts, etc., are essential if you expect to get noticed by book buyers. Books with a great-looking cover almost always sell better on Amazon than those that have a lame, confusing, or unprofessional-looking cover. What needs to be on your book's cover that will draw in, or attract, a reader and a buyer? Are the graphics, colors, and fonts appropriate to the book's subject matter? Make sure that you design several covers. And don't be afraid to hire professional help. Thank you to author Joel Friedlander of TheBookDesigner.com for linking to this article.2. Title And Subtitle Your title must grab your buyer as quickly as possible. Generally, it must let the reader know what your book is about in as few words as possible. You can give more specific details in the subtitle. The subtitle is where the author lets the buyer really know what the book is about. When deciding which book to purchase, the buyer will usually give more weight to the subtitle than to the main title. Thank you very much to author and blogger Kristi Bernard, of KristiBernard.WordPress.com, for sharing my post "7 Things Readers Notice When Picking Up A Book."

Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, an ebook distributor, tells his views on authors going exclusive with online retailers, particularly amazon. We also talk about translations, self publishing, and the power of the Internet in providing a level playing field for authors. Shownotes and resources mentioned in this podcast are available at mykitaab.in/mark. Mark previously founded Bestcalls.com, an earnings conference call directory and Dovetail PR. He is an angel investor and advisor to technology startups. He is on the advisory board of GetQuik (a restaurant order automation technology provider). Mark is a frequent speaker, guest on podcast, and blog interviews, and  is a contributor to the Huffington Post. He describes himself as a gardener, dreamer, doer, hiker, explorer, battler of squirrels, and co-author of Boob Tube and several other books. He is an alumnus of the University of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business. Please subscribe to the podcast in iTunes or Stitcher and if you like this podcast, please leave a review!  Shownotes for this podcast episode are available at mykitaab.in/mark

We, authirs discuss a lot about whether we should stick exclusively to Amazon or our books should be sold on all platforms available out there. I decided to talk to Mark Coker, who is an author himself, but what is more important for this particular case he is the founder of Smashwords. Smashwords was founded in 2008. It is a free ebook publishing and distribution platform, which works with over 100k authors and publishers. In this interview we talk about: Preorders and their benefits Transitioning from Amamzon to other platforms Why Smashwords is the best choice Writing and marketing series  Food for Thought Every writer in the world has a right to publish a book. The most important piece of the puzzle is to write a super awesome book. If your book is only good - the good is not good enough anymore. The book has to take the readers to the emotionally satisfying extreme. Readers are reading either for an emotional experience or for an intellectual experience. (sometimes the combination of both) There has never been a better time to be a writer. Useful links Smashwords Smashwords Style Guide   Also - consider signing up for the Self-Publishing Success Summit, which is the best online summit on the topic with amazing line-up. On that summit 37 World-Changing Authors & Entrepreneurs Reveal How to Write, Market & Publish Your  First Book AND Use It To Get To 6 Figures You can get your FREE access to the Self-Publishing Success Summit here. Write 2B Read Closed Facebook Group Don't miss the opportunity to join me and other Write 2B Read podcast listeners at our Facebook group.

Please join Marsha Casper Cook and VS Grenier on Wednesday at Noon EST 11CST 10MT 9PST as they welcome  Mark Coker, Founder, CEO and Chief Author Advocate. Mark Coker founded Smashwords in 2008 to change the way books are published.Mark and his wife Lesleyann co-authored Boob Tube, a novel that explores the wacky world of daytime television soap operas. Their book was rejected by every major New York publisher of commercial women's fiction, despite representation by a top NYC literary agency. The experience inspired him to start Smashwords, a free publishing platform that allows authors to instantly publish their work online. Today, Smashwords is the world's largest distributor of self-published ebooks. The company has helped over 50,000 authors around the world publish and distribute over 200,000 ebooks to major retailers such as the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony and Kobo. This is going to be a great show listen live or on demand. http://www.worldofinknetwork.com http://www.michignavenuemedia.com Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com  

Part 2 From his perspective as the founder of one of the largest ebook distributors in the world, Mark Coker talks about the trends in the ebook industry; Where the ebook industry will be in 5 years; How readers actually find books; 25 secrets he's learned from the most successful authors on Smashwords about publishing successful ebooks; And how to get your favorite ebook at your local library. Read Alex Anders' books at: www.AlexAndersBooks.com  All Alex Anders Audiobooks: http://bit.ly/2RkGUa5  Her Two Wishes - AudiobookAudible - https://adbl.co/31NneOvAmazon - https://amzn.to/2rroo4Y iTunes - https://apple.co/2AOus8Z

Mark Coker founded Smashwords.com, one of the largest ebook distribution companies in the world. And in February of 2012, he was caught at the center of a battle over censorship between Paypal.com and Erotica. This David versus Goliath story saw your favorite erotica authors fighting to keep, the books that you love, available while Paypal systematically froze the accounts of any company that dared to sell it. When Mark Coker got the call from the financial giant, however, he didn't fold to their will. Listen to the amazing story that unfolded as the battle was forged over what you are allowed to read and fantasize about. Read Alex Anders' books at: www.AlexAndersBooks.com  All Alex Anders Audiobooks: http://bit.ly/2RkGUa5  Her Two Wishes - AudiobookAudible - https://adbl.co/31NneOvAmazon - https://amzn.to/2rroo4Y iTunes - https://apple.co/2AOus8Z

This week we interview Mark Coker, C.E.O. of Smashwords.Com, Chris and Paul re-visit 11/22/63 by Stephen King, Jim The Book Guy Philips talks about the books-to-movies he's been watching with his son, Sir Jimmy talks about the podcast Five Hundy in a night and more! Your Hosts:  Chris Jagr, Jim Philips, Sir Jimmy, Paul Alves Visit our web site at BookGuys.CaPublished On Jan 22nd, 2012 Find out more on the Book Guys Show website. Send us your feedback online: https://pinecast.com/feedback/bookguys/746ea976-c37c-40d5-b7ae-95941f874d70

The founder of smashwords.com talks about the future of reading, publishing, the relationship between electronic and print books, why it has taken so long for ebooks to catch on and why it's happening now, DRM, and a whole lot more.

Mark Coker, Founder, CEO and Chief Author Advocate Mark Coker founded Smashwords to change the way books are published, sampled, marketed and sold.