SPA Girls Podcast

We’ve talked about reverse harem a little bit on the show, but this week we decided to get someone on who knows all about it, so we could pick their brains… Mwahahaha…

We convinced USA Today Bestselling paranormal romance author Steffanie Holmes to come on the show and chat about exactly what reverse harem is, how she came to write reverse harem novels, what you need to know about it, and how she so successfully launched her recent series.

Steff is a very smart author, and she’s steeped in the reverse harem world, so not only was she was able to give us heaps of useful information for how to write and launch a reverse harem series, but  also insights into her writing style, her processes and ideas for marketing your books.

Cher’s main takeaway from the interview: I loved Steff’s idea of using a rough outline with just a few sentences per chapter to help speed along the writing process, but the key is to have an idea of how to begin and where the story ends. I might never write reverse harem, but I’m sure that even a simple outline would help when you’re trying to corral several heroes!

Trudi’s main takeaway from the interview: It was fascinating to be able to pick Steff’s brains on the ins and outs of the reverse harem genre (or relationship type, as Steff told us to call it), and to learn more about the reverse harem Facebook groups, and the ways she’s been able to do outreach for her new series.

LINKS:

Steff’s website: http://steffanieholmes.com/
Steff’s blog: https://www.steffmetal.com/

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The delightful USA Today bestselling author Kelly St Clare talks to the SPA Girls this week about how she moved from being a physiotherapist in a busy clinic to her current career as an Amazon bestselling author of young adult fantasy novels.

Kelly was fascinating because as well as all her fantastic tips on writing, time management and marketing, she was also able to give us some great advice on how to stay healthy as an author.

We all had some epiphany moments in this episode, from Kelly’s tips on how she improves her craft with every book, how she makes sure that she is proactive and motivated with her writing, and how she monitors the fine line between passion and health to ensure she stays at her best at all times.

Another great interview with a talented, hardworking and super-smart author doing very well on the international stage!

Kelly can be found at: www.kellystclare.com

In The Wild facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/inthewildtreasurehunt/

Cher’s main takeaway from the interview: For me, Kelly reiterated the fact that new authors must do their research before thinking about publishing a book. Find out what your genre looks like and what it embodies. Where will your readers be hanging out? Create a presence and be authentic, fun, consistent, and interesting.

Trudi’s main takeaway from the interview: I loved how Kelly talked about the “fine line between passion and health”, which was basically how she uses her physiotherapy knowledge to help her stay healthy as an author so that she can perform at optimal levels. I was struck by how she said that by ignoring your health as an author – ie staying crunched over your desk for 12 hours a day for months on end – will have a detrimental effect on your writing. Staying healthy is just another part of your writing career that it is important to maintain.

Shar’s main takeaway from the interview: As well as Kelly’s very smart approach to balancing “working author” lifestyle with health, I loved what she said about focusing on “one craft weakness” when she’s writing each book and really nailing that. Writing, let alone self-publishing, can be overwhelming and the way she spoke about channeling her focus instead of trying to “fix all the things” was a real lightbulb moment for me.

SPA Girls Podcast can be found at www.spagirlspodcast.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/spagirlspodcast, and Twitter at @spagirlspodcast 

In response to a few recent questions we’ve been asked on this topic, we decided to talk through the basics of launch strategies for first-time or early career authors, or for authors starting off a new series or pen name.

It’s sometimes difficult to know what you should do when you’re launching a new book. We all want to make sure our book babies do as well as they possibly can when we launch, but there’s also a whole lot of often contradictory advice out there on the best way to do it.

This episode is about distilling the best of the best launch advice out there for authors, so that you can make the right decisions about your launch strategy. Go forth and conquer!

Questions to understand:

Slow and Steady Launch, Single Book Exclusive to Amazon/in KU

KU enrolment is three months (90 days) and you can set your book your book to free for five days promotion.

Month one:        Upload at full price (see others in your genre for price guide), promote on social media, friends’ newsletters etc

Month two:        Use 3 free days and book ads where you can to promote those three free days – goal is to get readers and newsletter signups

Month three:     Use final 2 days promo – repeat as above.

Day 89: decide whether KU worth staying in or not (Temper expectations: probably won’t make much money at all with just one book up.)  If not, then uncheck the enrolment box.

Slow Wide Launch with Permafree & Pre-Orders

Publish three books in series, make first in series permafree and direct all advertising to that. Books can be published either together, fast release (one month apart) or slower with pre-orders.

99c Faster Launch of New Author -Amazon Exclusive

(inspired by Susan Kay Quinn)

Prep:

Write book and accompanying short piece in the world – upload short piece (novella, short story) to Prolific Works and Bookfunnel gather subscribers.

Create paperback version of book and get as many reviews as possible (friends’ arc teams, booksprout) so that when epub is uploaded, there are 5 – 10 reviews.

Launch:

Upload to Amazon in KU at 99c price for 7 – 30 days, then raise to full price

As soon as live, book ads in first week after official release over the next 5 – 7 days; do facebook ad

Repeat books 2 – 3 and onward

Upsized Launch with fries (KU or Wide)

Write freebie magnet to get mailing list subscribers

Write all three books in series and launch together, with pre-order for #4

Discount or permafree first in series; full price other books

Book ads for discounted first book – ongoing in bookbub, facebook, ad lists

Points to Remember

There are two schools of thought re launching all together vs one week apart to stay in Hot New Releases list longer – for some it works best all together, and others it works best one week apart. No-one can tell you what will happen for your books.

Experiment, be willing to try different things, don’t let the stress of launching stop you. Just pick one way that feels best for you and go for it.

Load your book 2 to 3 days BEFORE your official announced launch day to allow retailers time to make “live”.

If you have a mailing list, spread your launch announcements out over a few days to different segments of the list to spread purchases out

Links:

Draft to Digital Holiday Deadlines:

https://www.draft2digital.com/blog/winter-holiday-is-coming/

Susan Kay Quinn : http://susankayequinn.com/2017/08/how-to-launch-a-new-author.html

Bookbub Launch Guide: https://insights.bookbub.com/ultimate-guide-promoting-book-launch/

Mark Dawson Launch Podcast: https://selfpublishingformula.com/spf-013-how-to-launch-a-book/

With the holiday season fast approaching, the SPA Girls gathered to talk about their list of 12 Ideas For Christmas Promotion. Between the shopping, the relative wrangling, the wallet-aches and the end-of-year energy slump, it can be hard to manage your author promotion on top of that!

Listen up and we’ll (hopefully) ease your stress and you can go into the New Year refreshed and ready to rock your goals!

1.Do your own 12 days of Christmas promo

2.Plan out your FB posts, run holiday themed ads

3.Make your email newsletter festive:

4.Consider a Festive cover change up

5.Build a holiday boxed set? (release for a month)

6.Reduce the price of your ebook after Christmas so all those people who got ereaders/giftcards will buy it

7.Share your Christmas Shopping/reading list.

8.Check retailer closing dates if you are loading a book in December (they may be closed) D2D suggest submitting your books before Dec 11th for all retail sites.

9.People love Christmas themed novellas, maybe plan one of these for next year.

10. Do a free giveaway, short story, novella or part one of a series as a giveaway.

11.Get a Christmas hashtag going

12. Get writing so you have a new release ready in the new year.

Helpful link:

https://www.draft2digital.com/blog/winter-holiday-is-coming/

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It’s one of the big questions in the Indie author space, and hotly debated by many on either side. This week we talk about the pros and cons of going wide on all platforms versus going exclusive to Amazon.

No one seems to have a definitive answer to whether it’s better to do one or the other, and it can seem confusing and overwhelming. So the SPA Girls sat down and worked through what it means to go wide on all the publishing platforms, what you’ll get from it that you won’t get if you’re exclusive, and what you’ll be missing out – and then we do the same for the decision to go exclusive with Amazon.

If you’ve been worrying over whether you should go wide on all platforms, or go exclusive to Amazon when you publish your next book, this episode will give you the answers you’ve been looking for.

What Exclusive on Amazon means:

Ebooks only
You will be published exclusively with KDP for 90-days
Access to KU (Kindle Unlimited) which is monthly $9.99 subscription service to readers. They are limited to borrowing 10 books at a time.
Your ebook is in KU for a 3 month period.
Author is paid per page read. The amount received changes monthly, dependent on the global fund. It is then divided by the total number of pages read.
For example, $16.3 million / 3 billion pages = $0.0054 per page read.

PROS

Access to promotional opportunities.
Borrows count towards rankings.
Helps build an audience for new authors.
KU offers discoverability when you’re starting out.
Loading to one platform is easier. One file to format!
Amazon is the big fish in ebook retailers – with enormous market share of 80% (in US & UK) … iBooks is next with just 9% in the US

CONS
Exclusivity can be scary. Having all your eggs in one basket!!
Amazon can also change the rules on you at any time, and there is little you can do about it if you are locked into a pre-determined timeline for exclusive distribution.

What going Wide means: publishing on all retailer platforms you can access including Amazon, iBooks, Nook, Kobo either directly or through an aggregator such as Draft 2 Digital.

GOING WIDE PROS
Permafree (first in series)/promo opportunities
If Amazon makes changes you have income still coming in. Not reliant on one income stream.
Wider readership.
Potentially make more money if not in KU as readers have to purchase your book.

CONS
It’smore work loading your books to multiple platforms.
KU can be a large part of an author’s income.
Marketing time and expense is needed to build readership

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

How much do I want to learn? 

How much time do I have to give?

Where is my readership?

Remember, nothing is set in stone, so if it’s not working, then you can change things.

Marketing tips: 

Keen to join the SPA Girls in a live workshop next year? Join our mailing list here and we’ll let you know the minute we have workshop bookings open.  Info here: https://selfpublishingworkshop.co.nz/index.html

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