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.

 

New Cover facts

 Been working hard  these last few weeks. 

I've been trying Amazon Ads and so far, I'm making a profit. 

Not a great profit, but  definitely in my favour.  In following the course I learned that my approach to marketing was dismal, and so I've been uprating my book descriptions, dreaming up hooks and renovating all my covers. They may not be perfect now but they are an improvement and may still change in the future 

It takes a lot of time and effort to do all this, because I have to find out where I'm going wrong  before I can try to put it right. I've lost count of how many videos on compositing and graphics in general I've watched - not to mention the talks I've listened to on the best way to use Ads. It has meant that I've been absent from Facebook and Twitter but then - would anyone notice my absence? 

It has also meant I've done no writing of fresh material though I have

 revised Alba is Mine. In doing so I discovered how much my writing

 has improved since 2005, which was a bit of a surprise.

I have put the new cover for Far After Gold up today as a comparison. It isn't that old, as my covers go, but I learned that a linked series of books ought to have the same font and cover treatment. If you check the pages for my books at the top of this blog, you will find that all my "Viking" books are now using the same fonts for the title, sub-title and author. (I've just noticed that the newest cover  I've put up here does not have a capital letter for Viking. I'll have to rectify that very soon.) So: Far After Gold, Viking Summer, Viking Bride and Magician's Bride are now "linked."

I'm happy. Now it is time to get back to planning a new book.

If you've ever wonder about the title I chose its an old saying that "Man will travel far after gold."

Series or stand alone?

When I began writing books about Matho and his adventures in the 16th century, I never thought they would stretch into a series,  yet here I am writing the fourth book. Matho features in the first books as a subsidiary character, but with an important part to play plotwise. He also meets and makes friends with Harry Wharton in Fair Border Bride and they were the main charactersin Abduction of the Scots Queen. 

Then Harry took a back seat and Matho went on to operate solo north of the Border and eventually Queen's Courier showed how he came to work for the Dowager Queen of Scotland. I haven't thought of a title for the one I'm writing now,  but I have a good 70,000 words down. 

My question is this: should I rebrand them all with new but linked covers and connect them as a series? Or leave them as stand alone novels? It would mean a fair bit of work, but it can be done over the winter. At this moment in time I am working on the garden pulling weeds like a crazy woman and tomorrow we expect guests from Oz for a few days; not long after that we'll be heading off on holiday.  Nothing will get done about the series until I finish the book I'm working on, but I shall keep thinking about it while all these other things are going on. If you have thoughts on the topic, do let me know!

When is a series not a series?

The Matfen Affair word count is almost 50,000 and the end is in sight. Another twenty or thirty thousand should do it. When I published The Craigsmuir Affair I had no idea of a series, but I loved the title, which I thought had so many connotations.

The Gybford story languished with a Canadian independent publisher for a couple of years but I felt  it deserved more attention than it was receiving, so I reclaimed it and then decided to go ahead and publish it on Kindle after an edit, a new cover and a new title.

I was drawn to the simple but effective title The Gybford Affair but the idea of a series still had not really hit home. The characters were different in each title, there was absolutely no link between them. No character in Craigsmuir knew or was related to the characters in Gybford. The settings were actually ninety years apart.

When I began The Matfen Affair, the idea of a series title could not be denied. But I liked it. In fact, I loved it. In each of the titles - Craigsmuir, Gybford and Matfen – it is the place that is the star, or the series link if you want to call it that. That, and the general genre is the only claim to a series.

Choose one of the three and you will find that they are all historical romances with a mystery or an adventure thrown in. With Craigsmuir it is Daisy and her dream of being an artist while getting caught up in a series of art thefts at Craigsmuir and meeting the man with whom she will fall in love. 

In Gybford it is the rich heiress who swears she will stay at her beloved Gybford and not marry again and then gradually falls in love with one man, who  is dedicated to his lost wife, only to be courted and kidnapped by another that she despises.

Matfen is the country house hosting a wedding where Leigh is the bridesmaid who struggles with the house’s ghosts while battling the misadventures of her sister and cousin and finally discovering the man she loves. 

Fiction v reaity

Isn't it interesting how certain fictional characters become real to certain readers?
There's an interesting furore going on in the press at the moment because J  Rowling has finally admitted that Hermione should have married Harry Potter and not Ron Weasley. Her readership has neatly divided into squawks of anguish or howls of joy. It's fun to read how intense these people get - see the excerpts below -

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/02/jk-rowling-hermione-harry-ron-married
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/03/harry-potter-fans-jk-rowling-plot-regrets

But then on a little reflection I have to own up and say I too indulged in this sort of thing over the Crawford of Lymond novels by Dorothy Dunnett though I have to say I found Lymond's marriage to Phillippa perfectly acceptable. It must be the mark of a good book when the character are regarded as real, don't you think? And how often does it happen? Much as I enjoy the Outlander series, I don't get so involved in Jamie and Claire as to argue about whether they should or should not have had sex on the window ledge or parted the first time or even if she should have returned to Jamie the second time. No other book has ever been that real to me, except perhaps for Pride & Prejudice, and even then that didn't happen until I saw the 1995 BBC version with Colin Firth as Darcy.

Which books became real for you?