The Fantasy Writing Market
Recently I got a bunch of hits on my website from a discussion on Reddit in the r/fantasy forum. It centered around this question:
###
I’m really curious how is the market for fantasy writers doing traditional short stories / books? Not the top 1%, they are doing fine….I mean the typical writer.
How the heck do they market their stuff in a social media (and extra visual) world?
I’m guessing after building up a following (somehow) then you have a support base for future work….but…. how many are actually achieving that?
###
I don’t have a Reddit account and I have no interest in getting one, but this seems like a good topic for a blog post.
First, some history.
I traditionally published my first novel in 2005, and by the start of 2011 I was disgusted enough with traditional publishing to stop writing entirely. In that time span, I’d say I made about $3000 or so from traditionally publishing two novels and some short stories. To put that into context, in 2010 I made more from Google Adsense on a technology blog than I did from the entirety of my traditional publishing earnings. In fact, by the end of 2010, I had decided to stop writing fiction and focus that energy instead entirely on technology blogging.
However, I discovered the Kindle and started self-publishing in 2011, and by the end of August 2019 I have sold about 1.41 million copies of my ebooks.
How do I market my books? The simplest way is to write a long series and make the first book free. That usually generates a steady trickle of sales, and it is simplest to stack ads on a first free book. I will also sometimes bundle the first three books and a bonus short story into an omnibus edition and do a temporary sale for $0.99, and then stack ads on that.
I do spend between 8% and 12% of my monthly pre-tax gross on advertising (I did have one month at 19% this year), and I’m forever tinkering to get that as low as possible.
A newsletter is also important. I get people to sign up for my newsletter by giving away a free short story with every release.
I usually publish a book a month. I know that horrifies some writers, but that attitude reminds me of this Onion article: Pathetic, Washed-Up Rock Star On Fifth Decade Of Doing Exactly What He Always Wanted. I mean, I like writing books, and I like selling them. Why shouldn’t I write one a month? I know some writers will spend years polishing their manuscript and workshopping it to make it perfect, but there’s a term for that: the Nirvana Fallacy. New writers, in particular, tend to let the Perfect be the enemy of the Actually Achievable.
So, I’d say these are the three most important things I do for marketing, listed in order of importance:
1.) Write a book every month.
2.) Make the first book free.
3.) Build a newsletter.
Paid ads would come after all of those.
-JM
Well said. Folks talk a lot about advertising, but you need a decent body of work to make that advertising pay off. If you only have a novel or two written, the advertising isn’t going to be efficient. My first exposure to your writing was getting that Frostborn omnibus for $0.99 (great deal for the entertainment dollar). Then I saw how many other stories you had written, and eventually bought them all (I blame my speed reading ability). In my case, that one ad/sale made you decent money. Well done, and thanks!
Thanks! That was some ad money well spent right there. 🙂
Unfortunately, you’re “write a book every month” statement kinda implies that if some can NOT write a book every month, perhaps they shouldn’t bother writing at all. And unfortunately, very, very, very few people have the creativity and stamina to do that – you’re a 6 sigma kind of writer.
His statement actually does not in anyway semantically entail or pragmatically imply that at all. He even prefaced that that was how he approaches marketing. Never did he imply that his way was the best universally only that that was what is currently working for him. I’d advise not over reading a statement and extrapolating greater intent. There are many authors who write less frequently and sell more copies than Mr. Moeller and there those who write even quicker and sell less.
Overall, regarding that statement his point is that you probably need products to advertise before you actually try marketing.
Nah, no worries. My approach to writing advice is “this is what I do, it might work for you, or it might not.”
Right you are.
I shoulda written “implies to me” instead of just “implies.” And it does indeed imply that to me.
Your statement “[t]here are many authors who write less frequently and sell more copies than Mr. Moeller and there those who write even quicker and sell less” is immaterial because it’s the probabilities and trends that count, not a few anecdotes that may well be outliers.
Do I have data to back this up? Nope. Just my observations. And given those observations, if I was thinking of becoming a writer, I would definitely not do so unless I felt I could sustain the approximately a book a month pace.
For me there are 4 ways I get into books, 1) recommendations from friends which are somewhat unreliable (though frostborn omnibus for 0.99p was recommended to me by my wife before she read them so geeat marketing tactic! [on an aside she didnt like them but that was because of the editing rather than the story]), 2) recommendations from waterstones semi-reliable, unfocused but surprising Rothfuss’s Name of the Wind series, 3) recommendations from kindle which is good and likely what I’m going to enjoy (Trudi Canavan’s Millennium Rule) but occassionaly they miss telling me things like last months Thieves being out! and 4) old fashioned judging books by their covers in a traditional book shop! Hate to say it but the last one is the most fun but the most expensive!
Now I’m an avid reader and an aspiring writer but I cant figure out how I would market to me, let alone someone else so fair play that you’ve managed to find a method that works for you!
I heard that building an audience is like building a beach one grain of sand at a time, and I have certainly found that to be true!