Self-Published Authors: Why are You Paying for these Services?

The thing about self-publishing, something I really like, is that it's very DIY. You're in control of everything. You get to make your own cover (or not), you edit and format it (or not), and you're in charge of all your own promotion (or not).

So then, why the (or not)'s?

Some people (like me, in many ways) are just writers. They write a story, edit it, it's finished...and then what? Just a few years ago, if you had just completed a 80,000 word novel, your options were pretty much either to write to agents and editors asking for representation, or store it in the back of your closet and/or hard drive and write another book. Self publishing at this point was more or less a joke - an option, sure, but it was highly unlikely you were ever going to successfully sell any copies.

Now, though, that third "self publishing" option has opened up, and many authors, both new and experienced, are taking advantage. Many previously traditionally published authors have even switched over to 100% self-publishing, because they can often make more with a 70% royalty option over something like 8%.

But a trend that I'm witnessing, and am not in favor of, is new authors throwing their money away on things that are perfectly reasonable to do for free.

Granted, before I receive death threats and a downvote brigade, I do want to point out some things that, in my opinion, are somewhat reasonable to pay for.

• Cover Art - I have seen some wonderful cover art that authors have commissioned others to design. I did not do this, because in my opinion, it wasn't worth spending money on a cover, when I wasn't sure I was going to make it back. Although, I have seen cases where a designer just purchases some cover art, crops it a bit, and adds a title. (More on this later.)
• Stock photos - This can be lumped in with "Cover Art", because I know a lot of authors purchase stock photos for their covers. This is perfectly reasonable, and I plan on doing exactly this for when I release "The Night Life" - I even already have a few in mine (there's a girl who looks very close to how I imagine Tanya Roberts, one of my main characters!). This is especially useful when you're writing about something from say, the 1800's.
• Editors - I am still wary on this one; I do believe that every author should try and proofread their own work; however, an editor might be worth the money for some people.
• Advertisements: This one is more of a "maybe", but if you find a popular website willing to host an advertisement for a day (and hopefully not a pay-per-click ad), there may be value in this.

That said, I do not think new authors, especially ones without at least a few titles under their belt, should really be paying for most of these services, save for some stock photos for their cover art. I think authors that over-promote one book are mostly ridiculous - I want to slap most of them and ask if they're even working on another book (because the time some of these people put into their single title is just too much!). 

Not to mention the things I've seen people pay for - most of it could easily be done yourself, for free. Such things include:

• Bad Cover Art Designers - I once saw a case where the designer herself just purchased some cover art, cropped it, and added a title. And the portion of the image they cropped was so small that the cover was blurry. What?
• Blog Tours - Some companies, for the low low price of $99, will set up "blog tours" for you. But, why not just email some bloggers yourself and ask, "Hey, would you mind if I did a guest post?" You may have to email a lot of bloggers, depending on what you;re aiming for, but it's much better than spending $100 for somebody else to do the same thing.
• Ebook Formatting - I really don't understand this one. By the time I published Family History: Part 2, the formatting took me maybe an hour (and that was just because I needed to go back through and reformat all the chapter heads). 
• Setting up a Facebook Fan Page - I recently saw the blog post of somebody who paid a company to set up her Facebook Fan Page. Again, you can do this yourself in a few minutes, and you don't even have to pay anybody. In this case, this particular author had even set up another Facebook page for herself for one of her books. What? You can do one Facebook page, but two is just too many?
• Reviews - Admittedly, I haven't actually run into this one personally, though I have heard stories of people who pay others to review their books for them. 

That's all I can think of at the moment, though I know there's plenty more out there.

Please, people, stop paying for some of these services. How you're willing to shell out this much money, to sell a few extra copies of a $2.99 book, is beyond me.

The Twitter Experiment, Part 6: Data and Numbers

I've decided that, rather than all of my posts about Twitter saying nothing more than "Tw1t3r suks stfu", I ought to write about something constructive.

I joined Twitter because everybody said that it was a great resource for authors, for advertising, connecting with authors, etc. The question is: has it worked?

First off, for the Twitter data itself: I joined Twitter on 1/20/2012. It is currently 2/7/2012. That means I've been "Tweeting" for 18 days.

In 18 days, I have gained 291 followers and have sent 360 tweets.

I know, I'm ashamed too. I've sent more tweets than gained followers.

Less "hard" data: because of Twitter, I'm scheduled for two upcoming guest blog posts on two different websites, so keep a lookout for those (although one isn't scheduled to occur until April 17th).

That said: let's look at something else. How has being on Twitter affected traffic to Predicted Hindsight?

Number of Page Views Prior to January 20th, 2012.

• January 15th: 8
• January 16th: 12
• January 17th: 13
• January 18th: 35
• January 19th: 28
• January 20th: 32

Now, keep this in mind: January 18th was SOPA blackout day. For whatever reason, my SOPA post attracted a lot of attention that I wasn't used to having. I was actually getting people getting to Predicted Hindsight via Google searches, mostly with terms containing "SOPA" in some form. The dates preceding January 18th are more representative of what I was used to.

Now, what about after January 20th?

(NOTE: I'm not including January 21st, 22nd, and 25th, because I think I might have posted a Reddit link that day, and those tend to skew the data pretty high. Since I'm not looking at "The Effect of Reddit on Data", there's no need to include them here.)

• January 23rd: 5
• January 24th: 7
• January 26th: 28
• January 27th: 28
• January 28th: 25
• January 29th: 49
• January 30th: 8
• January 31st: 13
• February 1st: 17
• February 2nd: 25
• February 3rd: 33
• February 4th: 48
• February 5th: 35
• February 6th: 31

But...What Does This Mean?

To be honest, this is not ALL Twitter. There are a few other things to consider. Like, first off, I established my Facebook Author Page just a few days before (I'm thinking it was about a day or two before SOPA blackout day). Also, I post most every blog post, at least the ones with substance, on the Kindle Boards blog thread. Despite having only 20 likes on Facebook and being relatively unknown on Kindle Boards, these seem to generate quite a bit of traffic themselves.

Also, with any statistic like this, we have to remember to keep this very important fact in mind: Correlation does NOT Equal Causation. 

So, what else, besides the factors mentioned above, might be contributing to the fact that this little blog does seem to be gaining some traction?

Well, first off, it is important to note that I've been working on this little project for more than 2 months now. The passing of time alone might be contributing as more and more people have the ability to run across this website.

Also, the blog also now has nine followers. Quickly: may I give a big THANK YOU to those who have followed? :D

That said, though - despite everything, I do think Twitter has a lot to do with the slow uptick in numbers, ESPECIALLY since my "Twitter" posts seemed to have gained "some" attention on their own. Quickly...

• Part 1: 7 Page Views
• Part 2: 6 Page Views
• Part 3: 22 Page Views
• Part 4: 6 Page Views
• Part 5: 9 Page Views

Also, keep in mind that these are just standalone page views - these don't even count the people who read these posts just be "scrolling down".

What Conclusions can be Drawn?

Really, it's pretty inconclusive. To REALLY gauge where I'm going, I should be ceasing all advertisement of posts on Twitter, but nowhere else. But am I going to do that? Maybe. Though what's the point of that? At this rate, I seem to be doing something right, something that seems to be working.

Also, something else of interest: I did a "secret" free download of Family History: Part 1 today. By secret, I mean I advertised NOWHERE - no Facebook, no Twitter, no Reddit or Kindle Boards. As of 9:27 pm MST, there are 15 U.S. downloads and 5 UK downloads. With some advertising on Twitter, Part 2 made it to 24 U.S. downloads and 1 UK download (also: 5 Germany Downloads).

So yeah, Twitter does seem to be doing something. 

• 
  

On SOPA: Better Safe than Sorry.

To be honest, I never thought twice about doing a SOPA post, because while so many people are nervous over the bill (see Reddit's r/SOPA), I never expected this to pass. I still don't expect it to pass, really. That said, I'm glad that at least two major sites, Reddit and Wikipedia, have blacked out for today in protest?

"But why? It's not like you thought it was going to pass anyways."

Ironically, it was this post, somebody who more or less agrees with me, that made me want to post this. From an itty bity little forum that nobody has ever heard of:

This all seems very silly. SOPA wasn't going to pass in the first place, lobbying alone would have kept a bunch of 70-somethings with absolutely no idea how the internet works from causing it to self-destruct, just like nearly every other vast overreach of power in U.S. history, and even if it had Obama, especially in an election year where young (read: internet reliant) people are again going to be an important group for him, was always destined to veto the f*** out of it. All this would have happened even if word about it didn't get passed around faster than a drunk virgin in a frat house, but when it did, this whole let's be overly dramatic and shut errything the f*** down thing became rather useless.

But I'm glad everyone went ahead and got their panties in a bunch anyway, and at the end of the day it's those silly websites losing ad revenues, not me.

 First off, Wikipedia doesn't even have ads; they run purely off of fundraising. Second, Google isn't shut down, they've just blacked out their logo, and Reddit is only shutting down for 12 hours in an effort to (hopefully) not affect international users. So yeah, they are losing somemoney, but nothing compared to the money they would lose if, for whatever reason, this ridiculous bill did pass and everything is shut down.

tl;dr: Better to protest now and alert Congress how the rest of the world feels about it, then to say nothing, and, oops! "D00d, Y cnt I do my hw on Wiki now?"

That said, why not have a little fun with some SOPA humor?

If you just search "Sopa" on Google images, you still get Pictures of Soup.

P.S. Facebook, you should have blacked out too, at least for something like, four hours.

P.S.S. Even if SOPA doesn't pass, there's a greater chance that PIPA could pass.

Facebook 'Like Button' Added.

You see it there, on the side?

Yeah, if you have Facebook, you really ought to click that little button?

Why? Well, because then, I won't have to spend money on advertising. Now that I have or will do that anyways.

Also, boyfriend really wants me to get a Twitter account as part of advertising. No offense to Twitter users, but I've been staunchly anti-Twitter since it became popular, so unless I start seeing a very large benefit of getting a twitter account anytime soon, there will be no updates from me on Twitter.

Also, don't forget to download a free copy of "The Night Life: Chapter 1" today...or Friday. Whenever, really.