Write 2B Read: Writing, Self Publishing and Book Marketing for Fiction and Non-Fiction Writers and Authors

Alex Newton (aka Niehues) is CEO and Founder of K-lytics.com, the leading Kindle market research service on the net. Alex brings more than 20 years of experience in publishing, data analytics and management consulting to the table. Today, we talk about his company K-lytics, publishing trends, and how he made the transition from a "traditional career" to online entrepreneurship. We also discuss how one can predict if the book will sell or not before even starting writing it.

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As most of you – especially the fiction writers know – November is the National Novel Writing Month and around 300k people are writing their novels right now. Their challenge is to complete 50k words in 30 days, which may sound hard but I think it sounds much harder than it is in reality.

Many of you were reaching out to me asking if I am doing NaNoWriMo this year or not so I decided to make a separate episode letting you know and providing explanations and thoughts about the subject too. I wrote both of my novels Highfall and DreamDown participating in NaNoWriMo and it was a great experience.

There are few elements to it that I think are very important for newbie writer. Most of us struggle to finish writing our novel – especially if it’s our first novel. NaNoWriMo adds motivation and encouragement to your writing process. First of all you have a deadline and target wordcount + a challenge. And second, the forums with writers like you who have the same struggles and are as excited as you are adds to the emotional support that you will definitely need while writing your book.

So that is why I participated in NaNoWriMo 2 years in a row and as a result wrote and self published my 2 novels. This was the good part.

Now let me continue by saying that this year I am not doing NaNoWriMo and am doing something different instead. Before you think that I am contradicting to what I just said let me explain why. NaNoWriMo is good at making sure that you finish writing your first draft. And as all of us know the first drafts are very bad.

After that you will need to work on it. The first draft is definitely not what you’d like your readers to see. I guess what I want to say is that NaNoWriMo is good in making sure that you put out those words and that you complete your first draft. It is also very good in developing your habit of writing every day and if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while you know how important that is.

But NaNoWriMo has absolutely no impact on the quality of your writing. And that’s what differentiates the good book from the bad one.

So what I did this year instead of NaNoWriMo was enroll in writer’s bootcamp, where I will hopefully learn how to write well. And as a non-English speaker the challenge for me is bigger than for most of you out there. This is the second month I’m learning at the bootcamp and I’d like to give a big shoutout to Randall Andrews, who is putting up with my complicated character and unpolished writing.

The first side effect that I got from being able to differentiate good quality text from the bad one was realizing that what I had written up to now is not written well. It’s one thing when you know it as an abstract fact and it’s completely another thing when you have proofs for that. And believe me, that realization was not a very pleasant one and at some point it even made me think of not writing anymore. But then I understood that by learning how to write well I will be able to correct what was not written well up to now, instead of deciding not to write at all.

So why I am doing re-writes and concentrate on the quality of the writing is because if I did my 3rd NaNoWriMo I would most probably write my 3rd novel in the same manner I did the previous 2 ones and end up with the same results in terms of quality. So what I am doing now is going through my first novel Highfall and applying what I have learnt so far to what I had written back then. Like that I will learn on my mistakes, make sure I am

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Many authors think that writing a book is very hard and that once you finish your book, the rest is a piece of cake.

Well I would argue about that. For example personally for me the writing process is more enjoyable and much easier than everything else that needs to be done after that.

Once you have completed your manuscript there are so many things that you need to do after. It may even make some writers feel overwhelmed and confused.

So let’s understand what should you do once you finish writing your book? What are the things that you will have to deal with.

1. Get feedback Who you should get feedback from?

Well many rush to their friends and family but I personally think that it is not a good thing. First of all – they are people who might not be able to be objective. Second, they may feel bad about hurting your feeling and may not provide any negative feedback. And the third thing is that they may not be your audience. For example I write women’s fiction and it is logical that my husband is not the most suitable person to approach for feedback. So try to find readers, who enjoy reading books similar to the one you’ve written.

1. Consider modifications based on feedback Just because you have received feedback does not mean that you have to change the book based on absolutely all the points that were brought up. Try to objectively evaluate what you received and make those changes that will benefit your book and which were objectively true.
2. Self-edit

Your manuscript has to be self edited. In fact maybe you will need few rounds of self-edit. One before you send out the text             for feedback and one after you have made the final changes to the manuscript.

1. Proofread There will always be typos and grammar mistakes which you have not caught so you should take that fact as granted.

          Ideally you should get professional help; but if you can’t afford it, have at least 4 to 5 different people go through your manuscript. That way you will minimize the remaining errors.

1. Professional editing Many authors I have interviewed so far have mentioned the importance of having professional your book. It definitely will make the experience of reading your book much better one. It will also ensure that your book ensures good quality text.
2. Research your competitors Ideally you will have to do that before even starting writing then book, but if you have not done it yet n case you have not done it do some research. See which books in your genre are bestsellers now. What are they about? What do readers like about them? How are they priced? What do their covers look like? And so on. Make sure you have the picture of where are you getting into and how to make sure that your book is at least as good as other books in there and make sure you know what differentiates your book from the others.
3. Decide about the platform Yes, Amazon is still the obvious market leader but it is not the only self- publishing platform out there. You can also consider – B&N, iBooks, Kobo, etc. You have to decide whether you would like to concentrate exclusively on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing or embrace all the possibilities.
4. Format the book Yeah… that is yet another boring thing that needs to be done. Each platform requires a specific format of the book and you have to make sure that the book is formatted well and it is easy for the eye to read.
5. Choose your category Choosing the right categ

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