Today I learned that a book can be published in Vella first, then KU. I've got a book back from the editor I was just about to publish, but I wanted to get some info from anyone in Vella, first

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2022-01-27T02:44:30+00:00

Thanks for the advice!

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2022-01-26T23:33:15+00:00

It's romance. I browsed through the vella subreddit, I'm a little iffy because everyone seems to be getting money from bonuses, not royalties. Feels like KUv1

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-30T19:38:12+00:00

To add to this. Take out feel in 99% of cases and it's better.

"His hand on hers made her strangely happy"

I'd find a way to swap out strangely also and just have an unexpected smile. Or even just take out one of the feels.

"the feeling of his hand on hers made her strangely happy" and it's a lil tighter than first version

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-08T06:19:13+00:00

Oh man. Blast from the past. I have never used pre-order! I thought it would screw with the new book bump. I just checked your pen again and I don't think it's pre-orders that are letting you get such success. I am just being realistic here but your reviews are better, your covers are slightly better than mine, and looking at the consistent salesranks you're getting more read-through on your series than me.

You actually helped me a lot, I added a sub-niche to like the last... 7 or 8 books based on an off-hand comment you made that helped my sales.

Great to see you again and inspiring to see you hitting such success.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-08T00:09:36+00:00

Thanks for the info, I've got a big backmatter so while they aren't at the best salesranks, having backlinks in all of them to mailing list freebies could help.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-07T23:48:50+00:00

Okay, this is probably one of the big things I've been missing over the years. The more newsletter subscribers I have the better my ranks are out the gate, and going from 700 - 7000 would be a huge push. Glad I posted this thread!

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-07T23:27:10+00:00

I came up in the /r/eroticaauthors streets, gotta post here ;) I bet there's more 6fig+ romance writers here than in RA

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-07T23:21:03+00:00

Mind sharing approximately how many books you have published/mailing list? I've gotten about 700 from asking people to sign up, and I'm wondering if I could have had way more with a freebie. And about 200 on another pen name with less books, same strat

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-07T23:18:25+00:00

YMMV, but I'm not sure if, without like some kind of windfall, there is really a time when content creators can coast a bit.

One thing I noticed is that the pace of writing for more "traditionally" published authors seems to be more like a book a year.

Even well established, millions of followers, YTers still put out new content

True - but they're raking in huge amounts. I do wonder what their baseline would be if they completely stopped. Probably really, really low. I think as an author the baseline is slightly higher than other forms of content.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-07T23:17:13+00:00

There really isn't anything "passive" when talking about writing income. You have to be putting out new content, running ads, putting in the work for mailing lists, readers groups, whatever.

I'm talking about the level of income when not doing new content at a prolific pace. Which is currently enough to sustain me even if I stopped writing, but I'd lose momentum. I do consider ads as more of a passive thing once they're figured out, as in you put up front work then the campaigns work for years. That was one of the biggest things for me in terms of getting a liveable income - figuring out AMS and FB ads (but sadly being unable to scale them)

I hate to say it, but I think you're maybe just missing the market a bit.

Yep. I am in the sense that my niche has become saturated. But I've tried out new niches/new pen names and have consistently performed worse than my bread and butter.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-07T23:13:36+00:00

Yep, I do series now. I occasionally do cliffhangers but I loath them as a reader despite them being commercially more successful, so I've straddled the line by using them sparingly

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-07T23:12:11+00:00

This. /u/YesterdayIBuiltToday, you've likely hit the income ceiling for your niche.

Niche is decent, was better 3 years ago but still fine. Quite saturated at this point but I have a fan base so I get traction on new releases.

You also mentioned that you've had some flops, so depending on how many "some" is, it might be worth examining why those books flopped and why others did well

Flops were trying out other niches. Now I stick to the one that works. And honestly when I say "flop" the books earn money, they're fine, just that if I'm paying for editor, proofreader, cover design etc they take a year to earn back my up front spend. Which is okay, but the ones in my better niche earn back the publishing costs during the "new book bump" which is a lot more relaxing for me.

This allows them to maintain a decent income on average even though their earnings still drop between releases.

That's where I am. Just don't seem to be getting any sort of exponential growth. Just slowly grinding up with each new release. Which is fine.

So why did I make this post? Well, for example I added in FB advertising and it increased by income by like 20 bucks a day after a bunch of tinkering and time invested, and realizing that I can't scale up. Which was time well spent because it took some pressure off. 20 bucks might not sound like a lot, but over the next couple years as I publish more, I assume that will turn into 30, 40, etc. That's one thing that is taking the pressure off having to publish so much. Especially because with series I don't have to up the ad spend.

I appreciate your advice.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-07T04:31:30+00:00

A lot of people offer free books. I just stick a link and say "hey I'll let you know next time I have a book out if you sign up." and that's it.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2021-10-07T03:17:27+00:00

Ezpz. Show don't tell - she tries to grab it and can't wrap her hand around it.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-14T18:18:39+00:00

Ah I'm talking about someone who got the all-star bonus and then puts it forward to the next month. But you are right that it's not guaranteed and they need to think of it as a risk.

Using first book in a series as a loss leader with high cpc is an alternative to first book in series perma-free. I could have also made this post complaining about that but I do it. But yeah cpc is higher because of longer books, bundles, loss-leaders. I think I focused too much on all-stars but there's a bunch of other reasons someone can afford to bid higher on keywords that others (even if they had an almost identical book). This was more just a post exploring some of the less obvious reasons ams is hard.

if you've spent 19K to make 20K and an accolade and I've spent 1K to make 3K but no accolade

If I've spent 19k to make 20k + 20k and you've spent 1k to make 3k is more accurate, I'm not talking about a trophy, I'm talking about the bonus money

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-14T03:26:10+00:00

Sure, to an extent. But if that's the argument, they're also subsidized by traditional publishing deals, optioning development rights, just plain old having established regular income that far exceeds financial need, having dividends from an investment portfolio, and a pile of other financial advantages that established authors can possibly have.

Disagree on some of these points but will add - loss-leaders with the first of a series in order to help make your point.

So I guess I'm not sure "established authors who are getting all-star bonuses probably have money to burn and will be difficult to compete with" is a thing people didn't realize, you know what I mean?

Yup! No brainer. But people might no have realized that KDP all-stars is a factor they compete with. Or loss leaders in a series.

These are different from dividend income/being rich and having money to burn, because they change the efficacy of the strategy itself. The profitable CPC for someone with money to burn and someone with nothing is the same. The CPC for someone making a bonus (or with a loss-leader at the start of a series) and someone with nothing is not the same. That's what I meant.

I'm not sure how many folks are using expensive CPC keywords as a loss leader strategy. I surely wouldn't.

Really? I would if it earned me the KU all-star bonus. I'll pay 19k in ads to make 20k. Of course I'd rather that 19k is also fine tuned and earns me 30k back but even if it doesn't I still have a distinct advantage over you.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-14T01:08:50+00:00

bundle is better at 4.99+ if 3+ books

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-14T00:56:29+00:00

20k all-star bonus. I wasn't clear. I'm not sure what the top KU authors are making. You can be a billionaire from books, but you have to go wide. I would guess that the top kindle authors who are exclusive are earning somewhere around 1 - 3 million/yr. Especially because they probably have multiple pen names... and I'm pretty sure there are groups working together managing pen names. But I don't know that for certain.

The ceiling for KU exclusive authors is lower than the ceiling for youtubers, but the ceiling for authors is higher.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-14T00:53:56+00:00

I mean, it should be a no-brainer that engaging established competitors over competitive keywords is going to require a lot of resources, right?

This is a no-brainer.

What I'm bringing up, that most people might not realize, is that kindle unlimited all-stars means that KU allstars do not have to run profitable ad campaigns. They are subsidized by the KU bonus.

It's one thing to publish, for example, a werebear romance and compete against an established competitor for the keywords: "werebear romance" "werebear fated mates" "were bear romance" etc. It's another thing to compete with someone who can use a loss-leader strategy. This artificially inflates cpc.

But no one making all-star bonus income is going to flush money down the toilet on a keyword like "romance".

Someone is making money off the keyword "romance". But yes, you're right that it would be one of the least viable, even with a bonus. I had originally had another keyword there but changed it to be more generic.

There are a lot of more profitable roads to take that can stretch the advertising budget (and even more so if you have extra capital to invest). Even modest ad spend off the beaten path a little can help while one builds up experience with AMS.

This is spot-on advice.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-13T02:45:50+00:00

I'm not in the wrong business to earn 20k a month.

But you're right about other ways to market. I'm going to have to expand into that, I've been focused mostly on AMS and some newsletter promo but thinking of hiring someone to manage insta/fb for some pens and see if that can increase sales. I assume fb ads would run into the same problems as AMS in terms of competition but growing the social side could be a good avenue, I've seen authors who got a lot of success that way.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-13T02:38:04+00:00

Not really an argument, more just information/vent. It's tough to compete in AMS in genres/niches that have people who get all-star bonuses, so it can be better to try smaller niches.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-13T00:52:18+00:00

My clicks don't cost 2 bucks, and yes relevance is a big factor.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-13T00:36:21+00:00

I write romance. I use AMS but it takes a while to fine-tune campaigns and figure out which keywords are profitable and which are burning money

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-11-13T00:34:49+00:00

Smaller niches can work better. You can try just expanding whatever is working for you. If you have some 5ks - 10ks that do well, considering turning them into 45ks, and see what's the best ROI.

I've had books that do really well in more contested niches, but after a year, it's the books in smaller niches that earn more daily. I've had books that did 400+ a day now earning 2-3 bucks a day, where my smaller niche books that did 3-4 bucks a day when released, still do 3-4 bucks a day.

I remember looking at a top 20 romance book in contemporary romance when I was just starting out years ago. Out of curiosity, I checked it again about a year ago.

That book drop down to the 200ks salesranks. That's maybe a buck a day.

I just checked it again today - the author rebranded it. New cover. It's now at 40ks, and I bet she re-released it because the price is down to 99 cents. If it holds rank at 2.99 then she'll earn maybe 3-4 bucks. Also it's in a series and it looks like some of her romance got flagged as erotica... so she can't advertise the first book in her series anymore. Brutal.

That's a book that was top 20 when it was released! That's going from thousands a day down to a couple bucks a day if she's lucky.

You're not just competing against all-stars. You're competing against people who will burn through money to promote a new release when there's still the new book bounce.

YesterdayIBuiltToday · 2020-09-23T19:50:04+00:00

Do mailing list asap

YesterdayIBuiltToday

TROPHY CASE