Predicted trends for self-publishing 2021

 

Spotted this piece floating around the internet, and it seems to be proving pretty accurate.

1: More traditional authors will move to the indie model

Some indies are having major financial success, and the rest of the publishing industry is taking note. Dean Koontz and Patricia Cornwell have signed with Thomas & Mercer. Big publisher corporate mergers means traditional authors will have less negotiating power and at least some will be tempted by the indie path

2: More indie authors will collaborate or consolidate in collectives

From sharing production costs to combining marketing efforts, this is a great way for indies to publish quicker, expand back catalogues, increase output and earnings, not just by combining email lists, but actual books as well to compete on a level above.

3: Authors will benefit from competition in the eBook marketplace between Amazon, Apple, and Google

Amazon is the largest retailer for indies, but in 2020 Apple redesigned its author portal so authors without a Mac could publish to iBooks and Google Play revamped its publishing analytics interface in fall 2020 making it easier for authors to analyse their sales on the platform. Apple and Google are clearly investing in indies in 2021.

4: More platforms fighting for Audio supremacy will benefit
savvy authors

5: COVID-19 will impact book sales in different ways at different times

2020 saw more people turn to books for at-home entertainment and education via digital means and will continue in the first half of 2021. The second half of the year could mark a downturn for eBook sales if vaccination efforts in the US and Europe are successful. This could mean a temporary lull in eBook sales during the “post-Covid re-emergence” phase of our lives.

6: The overall eBook market will continue to grow

Overall industry stats show that upwards of 70% of people who read, still read print and haven’t yet adopted a digital reading. Covid 19 turned more readers to digital in 2020and more readers are joining the digital eBook market in 2021.

7: Authors will see more success with international sales

Authors willing to invest in translation could get a great foothold in this rising European eBook market. The German market first, but the French, Italian and Spanish ones will be catching up quickly.

8: It will be a volatile year for paid advertising

More retailers and brands will spend more marketing dollars in digital channels in 2021. Increased spend and competition will drive up the costs of digital advertising for authors.

9: Email delivery and engagement will become a focus for authors

Email lists become more important and the competition is fierce. Nothing prevents you from letting them know about your latest release. Other marketing channels will suffer in 2021, so email is more important than ever.

10: Authors who write into series, and with big backlists, will win larger pieces of the pie

Writing a series results in more sales, and authors know it. Expect to see more authors writing series, and those who do will see the financial rewards.

 

Gloomy days for Indie publishing

Gloomy days for indies

Facebook is abuzz about posts from Nora Roberts and others who have revealed the plagiarised, ghosted, pirated scams going on in the world of publishing. The scams have now moved into audio where Audible pays on hours listened just as Amazon pays on pages read; scammers run "loop systems" where the book just plays for hours and hours and... consequently the pay-pool for genuine audio is reducing.

In retaliation, readers are saying that therefore any book offered for free or 99 cents is ghost-written and isn't worth tuppence. Yet many indie writers have, in the past, been advised to offer a 0.99p series leader as an enticement to bring readers into the entire series. The pundits said it was a solid marketing technique; they also advised offering the book for free for a while to encourage reviews and possibly ensure an Amazon ranking. 

Now readers are saying they will never look at 99 cents and free books again. This is a sad blow for the genuine indie writer and publisher, who works very hard to write every word of their offerings.

Hints and tips on publishing a book with KDP

This is an aid memoire for me in case I decide to do it again, but i thought others might be interested, which is why it is here on my blog. Of course, by the time I decide I want to do it again, the KDP structure might have changed….but currently, this is the link to the User Guide:
https://tinyurl.com/y7ecsj4d

 You ought to read it before you start! 
By using the headings function on your computer you can format every chapter heading as Heading 1, and this makes it very easy for the system to produce a table of contents for you. You need the cleanest story before you commit to KDP - checked for mistakes and for basics such as the same font throughout, correct  punctuation, paragraph spacing.  Load Kindle Create to your computer from the KDP site and copy and paste your story into it. 

Be patient and wait for it to do the basic formatting. Then have a look at the style choices. There is not much in the way of instruction, but the system works quite well if you use trial and error. There are 4 options for a basic style, and once you have chosen the one you prefer, your story will be formatted in that style. It isn’t fixed in stone. You can choose again and again until you decide which is the one for you. 

You can make more decisions about font and size, dropped caps, separators (scene break symbols). It is fun to see what you can do, but eventually you will be ready to move on; once you are absolutely certain you have everything as you intended,  press the PUBLISH button and you get a version saved into your files identified by a brown circle. This is what you upload on the normal KDP site - the one you may have used before to self publish. Upload your cover separately, as you used to, and they will be matched together. This had me puzzled for a while until I understood the cover still went through separately.

Now for the paperback. Once the Kindle is complete, KDP offer to do your paperback as well. Take the offer, as it makes it easier than doing it from scratch. Not all the e-book style formats are available, but a good few are. You can still have dropped caps, but the separators revert to ***. 

Doing the content is fairly straight forward, but it is best to decide the page size before you begin. A 6”x9” paperback is popular these days. Remember the margins will dictate the number of pages in your book, so you may need to fiddle with them on your original file until you get what you want. The number of pages dictates the size of the spine (and also the cost!) when it comes to the cover, so that is important, too. My last effort had margins so wide my paperback looked like a large-print version.

You don’t need a Contents page in a paperback, but you do need page numbers. Leave the front matter pages unnumbered; make a section break on the final front matter page, do not link the sections, and then start numbering on the opening page of your story so you will have Chapter One, page 1.

Some people like to put the author name and title in headers on alternate pages, but I don’t think it is necessary, and offers more chances for things to go wrong!) I add in my other titles list, and how to contact mein either the front matter or the end pages. I contemplated adding in a cjapter of the next book, but since I don't hae one ready, I let the opportunity go this time. 

Once you are happy with the content, upload it on the KDP site. You will be told if there are spelling errors or other glitches and given the opportunity to check and OK them.

Then comes the tricky bit. You need a cover. Not just a front cover as for Kindle, but a front, back and spine too. All in the size you have chosen for your book. I used Photoshop to do mine. Download the KDP template, which looks like this 

~ in the size you have decided upon for the cover, 

It took me a while to discover that the template size is not fixed; I was required to resize it in Photoshop from 13.27” to 13.47” before it was accepted. It seemed a tiny change, but it was necesary. Ensure your cover pics reach right to the edge of the red zone. Remember your spine cover size depends on the  number of pages in your book. 

If you want to add an ISBN (purchased by you) you will need to use a barcode generator like Bookow.com and get the barcode e-mailed to you; transfer it to your cover and place it bottom right, very close to the spine fold. It took me some time to realise they wanted a “real” barcode; in Createspace I think I only had to input the barcode number and they added the barcode.  It is probably easier to ask them to add one for you, but I already had the (expensive) barcode and was determined to use it. 

If you are happy with your cover, save it at 300dpi in PDF format and upload it to KDP. I learned the hard way to save it in Jpeg format as well, in case alterations were needed. In my case, they were!

You might get the cover thrown back at you a few times. They will tell you where you are going wrong with it, and you must correct the original and try uploading it again. And again. It takes patience and a lot of time, but is well worth it. 

To pay or not to pay?

Spotted this article from Jane Friedman this morning and intend to study it closely since I have been wondering about how to increase the number of my reiews - particularly for my latest Viking Summer, which currently has none. I  have looked at Brag Medallions and such like and was shocked - shocked, I tell you - to discover that you paid  to send your work in for a "possible review/award." It has always been the way of the big book prize competitions to charge an entry fee, but I  assumed that the money funded the cash prize that went to the winner. Anyway, I have steered clear of both! 

Jane Friedman says:

Paying for professional book reviews remains a controversial topic that very few authors have practical, unbiased information about. In fact, it’s not even well-known in the author community that paid book reviews exist, and even less is known about the value of such reviews.

Before I discuss the pros and cons of paid reviews, I want to define them (strictly for the purposes of this post).

§  Trade book reviews. Trade publications are those read by booksellers, librarians, and others who work inside the industry (as opposed to readers/consumers). Such publications primarily provide pre-publication reviews of traditionally published books, whether from small or large presses. Typically, these publications have been operating for a long time and have a history of serving publishing professionals. However, with the rise of self-publishing, some trade review outlets have begun paid review programs especially for self-published authors. Examples: Kirkus Reviews and Foreword Reviews.

§  Non-trade book reviews. Because of the increased demand for professional reviews of self-published work, you can now find online publications that specialize in providing such services. These publications or websites may have some reach and visibility to the trade, or they may be reader-facing, or a mix of both. Examples: Indie Reader, Blue Ink Review, Self-Publishing Review.

§  Reader (non-professional) reviews. It’s considered unethical to pay for reader reviews posted at Amazon or other sites, and Amazon is actively trying to curb the practice.

This post is focused on the first two types of paid reviews; I recommend you stay away from the third.

Some of you reading this post may be looking for a quick and easy answer to the question of whether you should invest in a paid book review. Here’s what I think in a nutshell, although a lot of people will be unhappy with me saying so:

The majority of authors will not sufficiently benefit from paid book reviews, and should invest their time and money elsewhere.

She has a lot more to say, and a lot of information on the website for those who wish to discover it. I have bookmarked the site and I have no doubt I will learn a lot from it! Find it here:
https://www.janefriedman.com/paid-book-reviews/

Metadate 2

When thinking about the metadata for your book, don't skimp on detail: include all that is necessary - your book's title, subtitle, contributors, your own name, all the normal stuff.

Then we’re off into the realms of category and classification. Amazon gives me 7 keyword slots to fill in and I try to use every single one of them. Firstly I tagged my books as romance, then added historical romance and thought I’d done well; then discovered I should be more specific; not just “romance,” but "adult steampunk fantasy romance." (Not that I ever wrote anything to fit that classification!)

Instead of "historical" something more like "late Victorian Underworld zombie mash-up" seems to be the way to go.

If you don’t feel inspired, type a couple of keywords into Amazon and see what other authors use. Amazon even offers advice and recommends keywords for certain sub-categories. I was aware that BISAC Subject Codes existed – after all, I was a librarian! – but I’d never thought of using them in my self-publishing. BISAC Subject Headings categorize books by content so why not check them and see if their headings inspire you? 

Think about including important story elements such as the occupation of your protagonist, the time period and place in which your book is set. Does it include any specific historic event? If so, work that in.

If you quote reviews in your book description, ask the reviewer if you may include a keyword. He may have written "Best thriller I have ever read!" but "best post-apocalyptic thriller I have ever read!" is even better.

Make excerpts from your book available where you can.

Provide links to your website and social media pages where allowed.

Add your author location if you want to appeal to your local audience.

Metadata

For a long time after I first self-published, I had no idea what Metadata might be.  Then one day I fell across something on the internet that made me feel I had to find out more about this strange sounding word. 

That is when I discovered that Metadata is the information that makes your book searchable. Or put it another way – potential readers can find your book by the Metadata you provide - such as the author name, the category, price, ISBN and title. Enhanced metadata include author bios, blurbs, review quotes and more.

If you are an indie author you will have to list Metadata at every place you publish your book – Nook, Kobo, Amazon etc. Like me, you may not have realised this is what you were doing!

It was about this time that I ran into another puzzle. What was SEO all about? It stands for search engine optimization and guess what? Metadata is the information that search engines look for when someone searches for a book. The advice was to create metadata that fitted my book and matched my target audience. Author name etc was not a problem, I could supply that sort of factual info with ease, but Keywords and Categories proved a different thing altogether. 

My next problem was which Keywords and Categories to choose. Sounds simple, but I’m not sure I’ve got it quite right even now. In my next post I shall run through some of the good advice I’ve discovered.

A final word on Blurbs

You Should:

See if you can get some Quotes from well-known authors. Some  will refuse you, but if one responds it will be worth it. The same applies to famous people reviewing your book because you can add their quotes to your book description. Quoting individual authors instead of publications will give you a much better click-through rate and that is what you want.

If you have won awards for your writing including that too.

Pick the best 5-star review and add that to your description.

You Should Not:-

Never give away the end of the story. In fact, be sparing in your actual description; make the reader curious, but be sure not to give away too much plot.  Avoid clichés and overused phrases like "in a world of..." which always makes me want to add the words "Myth and Magic"....because I heard it so many times while watching Merlin on tv.

Comparing yourself with other author can raise the wrong expectations with your readers. It is not very wise to call  yourself the "new Stephen King" or advertise your book as the 

"next Fifty Shades of Grey." 

Blurbs - the professional way

Further advice on blurb writing - gleaned from various sources: 

Guessing what will work with your readers might do the trick, but actual data might be better. There are various ways and means of accessing data.

Services like Manybooks allow you to test two different descriptions for your book to see which one gets the most downloads. Or you could send different version of your blurb to reviewers and see which version gets you the most responses. Though why reviewers would be bothered to do this beats me.

 Create a poll on your blog or website and ask people to tell you which version they prefer. That might get better results and might be something I would try.

Run Facebook ads simultaneously with different “pick-up lines” in your ad description  and see which ones get the most clicks - though I have doubts about this. Surely the first option will get the most responses? I wouldn't click on five versions of the same thing, and I don't think many people would.

 Providers like Constant Contact, GetResponse or AWeber will send your proposed blurbs to your subscribers to see which they prefer. Seems to me that I could set up an e-mail people would click without going to a company which no doubt will charge for doing this for you.

Most of this sounds like something I would not do, but I would send a blurb to a group in which I participate and ask for comments. Usually, the comments all seem to cancel each other out initially, but there is often a clear "winner" and that's the one I would go for.

Writing Blurbs part 2

My research on writing blurbs has gleaned the following hints and tips which I include here to help me when next I come to write a blurb :

To put it simply, start with a situation, introduce a problem and promise a twist. So easy! Show the mood of the story  if you can (and you should be able to do that!) Don't make a romance sound like a thriller - unless it is a thriller with a romance element!

Your first sentence may be the only one read by a potential reader, so aim for the biggest impact in that first sentence. 

Keep it short for the same reason.Make an impact with 100 words - 150 maximum. Also remember that short sentences grab attention. Try using white spacing to separate thoughts, break up blocks of text. 

Introduce your characters by name and characterization: ie actor Steel Collins, murderer Joan Pellow. The trick is to make what you say memorable and stir the readers' curiosity

Add the place and time of your story ie "From his floating island home in medieval France, the wizard....”

Once you have a blurb, print it out to look at in a different format. View it on your phone, ipad, etc etc.

Plan to take your time with it. Begin with a short summary. Write your first version. Read and trim. Try different versions; do at least five and see how they strike you when you look back at your work a few days later. If you start writing your blurb before you finish writing your book, you will have plenty of time for adjustments to the blurb! So start early in the writing process.

The pic of Perigeaux has nothing to do with writing blurbs, but reminds me of a lovely hot day in France - I need it on the wet, dank, miserable rainy day!

Further thoughts on Kindle Create

One of the things that worried me about Kindle Create was how it was actually published, because nowhere in the KC software was there any mention of book covers. I was wary of pressing the Publish button in case I did something that would screw up the whole project.
After I read the cryptic sentence for the tenth time, a light bulb moment occurred: the software transfers the ms into a specific file that can then be loaded into the Kindle  Direct Publishing package that I've used before.

Once I realised that it was easy, but I wish they had made it more clear!

Final checks to be made, price to be decided, blurb polished and keywords decided. Then I can final press the Publish button.

This is my cover. Depending how swiftly KDP works, publication day will be Sunday, or perhaps, if they're a little slow, Monday 19th March 2018.

KINDLE CREATE

The new software from Amazon that allows publication of an e-book is called Kindle Create. I've been exploring it with a view to publishing my next book, which is due in a few days. I'd love to give an official date of publication, but sod's law says I won't stick to it, so I'll just say it is very close.

 At first glance the software seems beautfully simple, and in many ways, it is.

There is a choice of four themes to suit different genres - Classic, Amour, etc.  They aren't exactly startling, but it means the software will modify the entire text for you to that style. It will seek out paragraphs, breaks, headings etc and deal with them for you, according to the style you've chosen. You can be certain they will all be consistent. 
The software will do the Table of Contents for you, too. 
If you have any links, the software will hold them but once you try to modify them they vanish.

My needs are simple as I have no illustrations, graphics or lists to incorporate. It is a plain novel, and the software seems to suit me well so far. One draw back I've noted is that though you can edit the text in Kindle Create, it - obviously when you think about it - doesn't make the change in your original Word document, so you could end up with no final copy of your ms. 
If I had made all my editing changes on the Word document, I would have been further on by now. I had about three goes at editing on Kindle Create before the penny fnally dropped. Now I'm back to doing a final, final, final edit on Word, so in a sense I've wasted all the time I spent each time making the style changes. Next time I'll know better!

Book Covers

Received my first review for Alba is Mine - 


Vasiliki said on 14th October:

"I didn't know what to expect when I bought this book, and I got a really pleasant surprise. It's packed full of detail with finely drawn, likeable characters and loads of intrigue. The world building/historical detail and description seem to me to be well researched and accurate (I covered a tiny bit of this era during my degree in Archaeology) but the author does not overdo it, keeping a light touch so that the story doesn't get bogged down with it. The writing is very good, and it is well edited so the reader isn't distracted by errors. Overall a very good read, that packs a lot in for the price."

All authors love to get reviews and I'm no exception. This one brightened my day and spurred me on with the writing of my next book. Here's hoping I get many more!

For a little amusement (and because I can't bare to delete them usused!) this is a cover I played around for a while before deciding to ask the very talented Dave Slaney to do a cover for me. His is so obviously better! I used to play arpund with ideas for a cover when I had reached a point in writing or editing when my eyes, or my brain, or both - had begun to glaze over. It was therapeutic but eventually frustrating because I did not have the expertise to get the effect I wanted. I see I even misspelled my own title!



Using different colours and fonts can make or break a cover,  and it is an absorbing process. Some colours fade back, other leap forward. Some fonts are just too - what's the opposite of plain? Beautiful hardly seems the correct word here. Mixing fonts and colours is just a no-no and that shows up well here in my two covers.

 I get the urge to go and take a class in graphic art, but then it all gets too complicated - no where local offers such things but the universities and they are so expensive that the idea just fades away.





No doubt I'll keep tinkering and trying and learning bit by bit. 
I'd really like to know how to fade layers into one another to make a wonderfully sophisticated cover like Dave Slaney.

If I was starting my life over again, I might  have chosen to do graphic art at university.

It's a bit late now! 

How am I doing?

I’ve spent several hours collating stats only to come to the conclusion that I cannot compare like with like due to the many changes Amazon have made in the last few years. 

In 2011 books were sold and we authors received a royalty. In December of that year, the first change appeared - books were either sold or borrowed. By the end of June 2014 we had the introduction of KU/KOLL units. I understood that KU stood for Kindle Unlimited, but I was never sure what KOLL stood for. (Now I know it is Kindle Owners Lending Library)

By July 2015 we saw the introduction of “Net Units Sold or KENP Eead.” Otherwise explained as:  Net Units Sold or Kindle Edition Normalized Pages (KENP) Read. According to Amazon people bought books but never read them, so this was an attempt to pay only on pages read in an effort, so they said, to weed out the dross that was self-published. 

When KU came in, KENP made some kind of sense. Members of KU didn't buy the book, but "borrowed" it, so no royalty accrued to authors. KENP means that for every page read the author is paid a tiny amount, something like 0.0016 of a penny. On a 400 page book that would amount to 64p. It was as much, sometimes more, than the original royalty payment on low-priced fiction. 

So far, KENP Read is still holding. The only way I can see that I might be able to tell if I am doing better or worse is by tracking the money. Is the money that comes to me via KENP pages read better, worse or equivalent to my payments back in 2011? Who knows? Looks like another few hours doing stats. Even then,  other things have moved and changed since those days, so I won’t ever be certain whatever the stats tell me.

Lowering book prices

My experiment with lowering prices of my self-published books was interesting and in general, successful. There was an instant response and while I cannot claim to be racing up the sales charts, my figures have gone up quite nicely. Lowering the price has also had an effect on KENP pages for all of my titles.

On the other hand, I did not simply change the prices and sit back to observe what happened; I did a few tweets announcing the lower prices, and made a determined effort to tweet one or the other of my titles two or three times a day. But that’s hardly what might be called high profile marketing or promotion.

It was around this time that I stopped sending out full cover pics, but made some small banners that sit comfortably on Twitter and Facebook without hogging the whole screen. I like making them, and like how they look on screen.

I suppose it was lucky that around this time I brought out a new book, The Matfen Affair and probably that spurred some interest.

I researched some tweet hashtags to widen my promotion activity, and checked my blog pages and Amazon Author Central to keep my titles and biography up to date. Now I need to check and see if yahoo groups are still working as they used to. My impression is that they are not, but I’m wondering what has taken over instead of them? Maybe it is time I was on Instagram, but would I have time for writing?

Publishing these days

Spotted this article today and saved it here so I can pop back and re-read at my leisure. It may be that other writers missed it, too! and I'm sure they will be interested. It seems author Jane Holland has a blog called 52 ways to write a novel (which I did not know but will now follow) and back in March this year an argument about indie/self publishing sprang up there.

http://52waystowrite.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/on-self-publishing-bad-advice-and-being.html

Something I noted this morning - the Historical Novel Society has redefined the way it reviews books. Evidently there are to be no distinctions between traditionally published and self published, but in order to climb out from beneath the piles of submissions, the criteria for earning a review are to be tighter, higher or just more rigorous, depending which word you prefer. I saw this on Facebook this morning, and now - typically - I cannot find the piece! I believe it was Alison Morton who placed the article, which may make it easier to find, but if not then I'm sorry Alison.

Ten minutes later, again in typical Facebook fashion, I fell across Alison's post and hastily copied the link. Here it is:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/our-reviews/indie-reviews/

Sales and glitches

While running down the tweets on The FALL, I noticed a couple of interesting links for self-published authors. If you are considering which way to go when publishing your book, then this could be of interest.   It provides the lowdown on what you need, what to expect and better still, lists of what kind of exposure you will get from places like Createspace and Smashwords. Here's the link :

http://writershelpingwriters.net/bookstore/

If, like me, you have been watching your Amazon monthly sales reports and wondering what is going on, then here's the link for you:

http://authorearnings.com/report/october-2016/?src=mc

There are lots of theories as to why even top authors are finding their sales figures dropping, but no conclusive answers as yet. Many suspect a glitch in Amazon's tracking system, or worse, think the company has altered the algorithms to suit different parties. 

https://scriggler.com/SharePost/Opinioncash=eef777d8eda116e438f70f571aa9455d

Another article that every aspiring author should read is behind the third link. Does price matter, does length matter? Do reviews help? All sorts of information gathered together in one place. 

It is an education to read the articles, including the comments section. Get yourself a coffee, sit down with an hour or so to read and inwardly digest what they say.

Family trees

Way behind because  of Createspace and my computer. All I can say is that the people who complain about the ease of self-publishing cannot have tried to publish a paperback! Writing the book was the easy part. Editing took time and effort, the cover was fun to do, but getting it all into Createspace is driving me nuts and doing my computer no good at all. (Either that or it still doesn't like Windows 10). Now that I'm almost at the end of the process, I think the book is priced way too high, but either I go with Amazon's  recommendation or I get no royalties. Some choice!

The other problem is that Createspace wants to publish the book as a Kindle e-book for me. There's no way to tell the system that it is already out in e-book Kindle format. Maybe I'll just have to publish and then delete my "original " Kindle - what a waste of effort!

On another front entirely, dh and I have become interested in family trees, both his and mine. I've discovered that a fair few of my maternal grandfather's forebears come from Cotherstone, which I believe is a few yards on the Yorkshire side of the river Tees, but I must check that. I wish the UK Census gave the surname of females who marry, as tracking them back in almost impossible. Birth dates seem flexible, but then  back in 1800 there would be many families who existed without a calendar or a diary to keep track of events and dates. I can well believe that by the time a man had reached 83 he could not recall if he was born in 1799, 1800, 1801 or 1802. (All dates are given!)

It is a fascinating process to track the lines back, though it isn't easy. It seems many didn't bother to report to the authorities when someone died, though most births are recorded. Even after 1837 when registration became law, there seem to have been those who died "unreported."

Author earnings

authorearnings.com report for February 2016 is a lengthy document with many graphs and figures, which I have not read from end to end yet - but I will, I will! - which concludes that e-books are on the up saleswise. Good news for all self-published authors. I think it is claiming that traditional publishers have the smallest slice of the market these days. It also recommends that paperback copies should be published where possible. Something to think about as my latest story nears completion.

The Queen's Courier is a continuation of Matho's story after he recovers from his adventures in Abduction of the Scots Queen. A new adventure as an employee of Sir Thomas Wharton, English West March Warden in which he travels alone across the border into Scotland with the threat of war looming between the two countries. It seems easy enough - a swift trip, deliver the letters Sir Thomas has given him, find Phoebe and bring her home to Aydon as his wife. But the Earl of Lennox, the English king and the Queen Dowager of Scotland decide to interfere and cause tragedy in his life.

Getting people to buy

85% of the U.S. population uses social media which means  if any self-published author wants to sell their books, they should start  using social media. Sometimes I wish I'd taken marketing at university instead of plain old English Lang & Lit but then marketing was barely heard term at the time. Already I can hear my d-i-l telling me "Marketing is not selling, Jen."

She has tried many times to explain the difference to me, since her field is - you guessed it - marketing. 

A normal dictionary definition of marketing is: 

"the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising."
However, the business online dictionary goes further:

"The managementprocess through which goods and services move from concept to the customer. It includes the coordination of four elements called the 4 P's of marketing:
(1) identification, selection and development of a product,
(2) determination of its price,
(3) selection of a distribution channel to reach the customer's place, and
(4) development and implementation of a promotional strategy.
For example, new Apple products are developed to include improved applications and systems, are set at different prices depending on how much capability the customer desires, and are sold in places where other Apple products are sold." 

Read more: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/marketing.html#ixzz48cWB0Yg9
So now you see why I wish I'd done this at uni. How on earth do I go about discovering peoples' habits, hobbies, interests? Help!

Indie author figures

No more than  40 self-published authors “make money” via Kindle, according to a report in the New York Times on 7th February this year. Selling more than one million e-book copies in the last five years qualifies you to make this claim. I’m surprised 40 authors have managed that. Here are some quick notes about the topic.

Last year, a third of the 100 best-selling Kindle books were self-published titles. That figure is averaged out for each week. The digital market is huge - there are 4 million titles today in the Kindle Store, compared with 600,000 six years ago. Standing out in such a crowd is crucial and very difficult to do.

Some ground-breaking solutions come from the successful self-published authors such as Meredith Wild, Bella Andre, Barbara Freethy, H.M.Ward, C.J.Lyons. They have struck deals with Ingram Content Group, a major book printer and distributor, thus getting their novels in bookstores, big-box stores and airports.

It seems there are two publishing worlds out there running in parallel. One is the traditional trail and the other is driven by Amazon with books priced at a much lower level.

The majority of authors earn a figure that is well below the poverty line. The statistics are grim:
Overall, the median writing-related income among respondents dropped from $10,500 in 2009 to $8,000 in 2014, a decline of 24%. That’s way below the poverty line! Most authors depend on another job to survive.

So if you’re not selling your books, take heart, you’re not the only one. If you’re considering becoming a writer, think twice, because it won’t make you rich.

Meredith Wild’s story is fully reported in the New York Times, here, and well worth a read.