I really get her having to balance videos and writing. I'm so far behind in producing videos as I wade through the various "business" tasks these days. I realize she's YouTube and my videos are solely about marketing my books, but still. It's time consuming.
It's interesting about Amazon ads. I hear so many things about them, and how bad (basically) they are. And yet, who is making money off Zon ads? Someone must be. But HOW? If no one made money by advertising them, wouldn't folks stop altogether, which would prompt Zon to change things so they could keep making money off us? Just weird to me.
It's sort of scary to hear she makes more money off her non-fiction (essentially selling books to authors) than the fiction. As in - sounds like there are more authors buying books than readers buying authors' books. That may be negative, but that to me is part of the overall problem.
I agree with her about being in front of "readers" vs. each other. I couldn't agree more. And I confess I'm totally jealous that you all seem to know where to go to be on various podcasts to get your books out. I can imagine it would be an amazing bump. But also, the "drop in the bucket" concept is something I really resonated with. We need more books out. A deeper bench. To keep going until that "one" drop creates the ripple that changes things. (The whole concept that "it can take decades to be an overnight sensation.")
The ideas thing. LOL I get asked that, too, and am never w/out ideas. More than I'll ever write (given my age). I'm giving ideas away at this point - I have the next 21 books planned (7 or 8 of which are actively being worked to some extent or another). If anything, I need to pare down and only focus on about 5 of them.
I, too, am writing what I want to write and not tailoring it to any audience. But I also think that some types of fiction in self-publishing is really difficult to sell because it pits the author against trad pub in a way that is difficult to overcome. Where SciFi/Fantasy might be (dare I say?) more common in the Indie world, "upmarket" or "mainstream" fiction isn't as easily sold because "those readers" are really glued to mainstream, known, trad published authors. That's the way it seems to me, at least.
Another great podcast. Sparked a lot of ideas and reinforced some perspectives of mine. I sure appreciate TRBM. It's a great value.
The drop in the bucket analogy hit me hard in the moment. I need to clip it and make a short out of it.
And here, I'll give a brief venting: I want more authors to have the Harper Lee option. I want to write as many books as I can, but I want to value depth over width. Amazon is forcing us to have what you referred to as a deeper bench, but it's really a wider bench if we're talking total titles.
Probably, there's no way to make this happen, but I want what Andy Weir got: one book…rocket ship…pun intended………
Interesting that M.K. is able to get all her writing and other associated tasks done in just 2 hours a day! I've been trying to follow the sprint method, doing a thousand words here and there throughout the day 'cause day job.
I really liked her energy and the interaction you two had. I think you guys certainly hit upon the one thing I find trying to promote my work on social media. The community is mostly people trying to do the same. There aren't a lot of fiction readers saying to themselves, "Hey, I think I'll go browse X for the next book I want to read."
In so much as the two can be related, I have found the best way to get more listeners to my podcast is to advertise to listeners of podcasts. Hopefully, they will like and share and my audience will grow more organically, but the same must be true for books. Getting in front of readers and not other writers is definitely the way to go. I've had some luck lately getting book review bloggers to review my stuff, but I should start hitting up the YouTube channels as well.
Great show as always. Can't wait for that next library episode!
The standout moments for me in this episode were the discussion on ambition—being our own biggest client—and that realization that attracting writers to ourselves is a doomed way to build a brand.
I really get her having to balance videos and writing. I'm so far behind in producing videos as I wade through the various "business" tasks these days. I realize she's YouTube and my videos are solely about marketing my books, but still. It's time consuming.
It's interesting about Amazon ads. I hear so many things about them, and how bad (basically) they are. And yet, who is making money off Zon ads? Someone must be. But HOW? If no one made money by advertising them, wouldn't folks stop altogether, which would prompt Zon to change things so they could keep making money off us? Just weird to me.
It's sort of scary to hear she makes more money off her non-fiction (essentially selling books to authors) than the fiction. As in - sounds like there are more authors buying books than readers buying authors' books. That may be negative, but that to me is part of the overall problem.
I agree with her about being in front of "readers" vs. each other. I couldn't agree more. And I confess I'm totally jealous that you all seem to know where to go to be on various podcasts to get your books out. I can imagine it would be an amazing bump. But also, the "drop in the bucket" concept is something I really resonated with. We need more books out. A deeper bench. To keep going until that "one" drop creates the ripple that changes things. (The whole concept that "it can take decades to be an overnight sensation.")
The ideas thing. LOL I get asked that, too, and am never w/out ideas. More than I'll ever write (given my age). I'm giving ideas away at this point - I have the next 21 books planned (7 or 8 of which are actively being worked to some extent or another). If anything, I need to pare down and only focus on about 5 of them.
I, too, am writing what I want to write and not tailoring it to any audience. But I also think that some types of fiction in self-publishing is really difficult to sell because it pits the author against trad pub in a way that is difficult to overcome. Where SciFi/Fantasy might be (dare I say?) more common in the Indie world, "upmarket" or "mainstream" fiction isn't as easily sold because "those readers" are really glued to mainstream, known, trad published authors. That's the way it seems to me, at least.
Another great podcast. Sparked a lot of ideas and reinforced some perspectives of mine. I sure appreciate TRBM. It's a great value.
The drop in the bucket analogy hit me hard in the moment. I need to clip it and make a short out of it.
And here, I'll give a brief venting: I want more authors to have the Harper Lee option. I want to write as many books as I can, but I want to value depth over width. Amazon is forcing us to have what you referred to as a deeper bench, but it's really a wider bench if we're talking total titles.
Probably, there's no way to make this happen, but I want what Andy Weir got: one book…rocket ship…pun intended………
Interesting that M.K. is able to get all her writing and other associated tasks done in just 2 hours a day! I've been trying to follow the sprint method, doing a thousand words here and there throughout the day 'cause day job.
I really liked her energy and the interaction you two had. I think you guys certainly hit upon the one thing I find trying to promote my work on social media. The community is mostly people trying to do the same. There aren't a lot of fiction readers saying to themselves, "Hey, I think I'll go browse X for the next book I want to read."
In so much as the two can be related, I have found the best way to get more listeners to my podcast is to advertise to listeners of podcasts. Hopefully, they will like and share and my audience will grow more organically, but the same must be true for books. Getting in front of readers and not other writers is definitely the way to go. I've had some luck lately getting book review bloggers to review my stuff, but I should start hitting up the YouTube channels as well.
Great show as always. Can't wait for that next library episode!
The standout moments for me in this episode were the discussion on ambition—being our own biggest client—and that realization that attracting writers to ourselves is a doomed way to build a brand.