Hello!
I'm writing this to share my personal success with publishing to market. More specifically, in the paranormal romance academy genre. I've published books in the past that I've written based on my personal interest and preferences which got me zero sales or page reads. So trust me, I've been down the deep deep rabbit hole of "I'm not good enough to be a published author".
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| London Book Fair Photo |
Here it goes!
I began writing my paranormal fae romance academy book, High Fae Academy: Year One, in October of 2019 when I joined 20Booksto50K and learned about the power of writing to market. I set the pre-order up for November 22nd, 2019 after getting my covers professionally done. This date and the few pre-orders I got from friends and family kept me accountable to finish writing the book by October 28th.
To begin advertising the organic way I utilized social media to post about my title and the BookFunnel link for advanced readers copies. I had twenty-seven downloads and was blown away by the positive feedback on my story. I even had two people volunteer for beta reading and proofreading which I didn't have the budget for at the time (BIG MISTAKE, more info to come). After making changes, taking my beta readers into consideration, and using ProWritingAid to edit I uploaded my manuscript by the deadline using the Kindle Create software for eBook creation. I'd also like to note that my book is enrolled in KU which is HUGE for my genre.
On launch day I had several organic FREE advertising gigs set up. I had several authors through Story Origin sending out my book in their newsletter campaigns, all of my ARC readers uploaded their reviews on Goodreads and Amazon which got me over twenty reviews on launch day, shooting me up in the rankings. I also posted on my personal social media which has over 5,000 followers and posted to several Facebook groups I had joined in my genre.
Launch day ended with 54 eBook sales, and 3,890 page reads. I was ecstatic as I didn't expect this at all. It didn't end there though, over the past few weeks (not even a month yet), I have accumulated 106 eBook sales and over 157,000 page reads. I have also accumulated over 70 reviews on Goodreads with a 4.14 out of 5-star average. I just hit 10K page reads in a day yesterday which prompted me to post this to help others.
But this came with some difficulties. A lot of my lower reviews could have been avoided if I had the book professionally edited before publication. I now understand the power of a human editor over beta readers and paid software. It should be a combination of all three in order to make your book the best it can be for launch day. I've since had it professionally edited. However, I would have a much higher rating on both Amazon and Goodreads if I had gotten it edited sooner.
Takeaways:
1. Make sure to utilize all of the resources at your disposal. I have not paid a dime for advertising, and while I may in the future if sales dip, I don't plan on it any time soon.
Free advertising tips:
Build your newsletter before launch using social media and Facebook groups in your genre by offering a reader magnet. After building your newsletter to over 100 subscribers join Story Origin for author promotional swaps and schedule your entire launch month ahead of time, even going as far as to pre-make the newsletter emails for automation. One launch day use your social media with the proper hashtags to gain traction and create attractive graphics using Canva. Post to Facebook groups in your genre that allow self-promotion.
2. EDITING IS A MUST. I got several two, three, and four-star reviews that could have been five if I had sent it to a professional at the beginning.
3. An attractive cover is important. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn't have to be super unique. Covers in my genre are similar because they sell books, so I jumped on the bandwagon.
4. Continued marketing efforts through social media and your newsletter swaps are important. I'm still promoting.
5. Continue writing! I have booked two up for pre-order (publishing in January) with over 40 ordered. I also have a related novella with 20 preorders coming out this Friday to keep the interest of my dedicated readers. I plan to publish one book and one novella per month over the course of 2020 to grow my backlog. Wish me luck!
I hope this post has given some good actionable steps for those of you that need it! Don't give up! It is possible! This once again proves that writing to market WORKS!!!
Thanks for reading,
Kaylin Peyerk
