What's New in Publishing for 2020? by Maggie Lynch

The biggest story in publishing is the shift of ebooks to indie authors while maintaining an emphasis on print books for traditional publishers. In each of the last two years the sales of ebooks in traditional publishing has gone down while print books have remained steady. Traditional publishers are also publishing significantly less genre fiction, again ceding that to indie authors.

In the indie space the discoverability problem continues to be magnified as competition has catapulted. In a world where over one million new self-published titles are created every year, and traditional publishers but out another 750,000 books, publishers and authors are left to the algorithms and bots that make a book visible or not. Traditional publishers have chosen to make visibility key by primarily publishing celebrities, experts with a platform, and those who have already proven their sales records. In other words, they are counting on the visibility of the author knowing that visibility of the book will follow.

If you don’t have celebrity, expert status, or a big network, then visibility is something you grow. There are three intertwined ways that have become critical in today’s publishing environment: good SEO; a combination of advertising and reader engagement; and product diversification.

SEO Helps Tame the Bots

I know that no author wants to hear this, but its true. In a world of algorithms your best friend is search engine optimization (SEO). In addition to the biggest discoverability search engine in the world, Google, all distributors use search engines now with different capabilities and weighting of information prior to display. That means keywords, categories, content description, product linking, targeted markets, and good calls to action.

Search engines are no longer simply matching a string of characters to produce a result. They are now AI (artificial intelligence) directed, meaning they learn and get better based on comparing millions of search results. For example, just in the search of a name—Maggie Lynch—there are a number of possibilities. What makes me show up above all the other Maggie Lynch people in the world? First my consistent use of SEO across all platforms from my website to my books on all distributors and in all blog posts. Second whenever someone types in Maggie Lynch and recognizes it as me they click to go to whatever that link is (whether it’s my website, Amazon, Kobo, Medium, etc.). If more people click because it’s me than any other Maggie Lynch in the world, then Google will assume that anytime someone wants a Maggie Lynch it is most likely they want me.

What you can’t control is the individual search engine weighting of the algorithm. For example, Amazon puts the most weight on sales but ultimately they want to deliver what the reader expects. That means if someone types in Maggie Lynch and there is another Maggie Lynch with more book sales than me, that person will come up first. Amazon also tracks the reader through web browser cookies. If that reader has most recently looked at or bought horror stories and then puts in my name (I haven’t written in horror stories), it is most likely Amazon will show them horror stories that has the name “maggie” in them.

In the end understanding the basics of SEO and putting time into making sure it is working for you as much as possible is the number one thing you can do where the only cost is your time.

Pay-to-Play vs Engagement

How does a book or author get “discovered” among over 1.7 million new books every year? There is the faster way and the slower way. Both are viable and both have pros and cons and are dependent upon both time and financial resources.

Pay-to-Play means advertising. Advertising is designed to find people who don’t know you and bring them to your product—your book. If you have zero people (outside of family and close friends) on your mailing list and a similar following on social media, then it is certainly efficient to invest in advertising to get discovered. However, the investment in dollars is pretty substantial with the current suggested average being $100 per day on Facebook or $3,000 per month. You can do advertising for less with something to giveaway (first in series book or a novella related to a series) but it takes longer. I did that at $150 per month over six months to get 6K people on a mailing list. That’s about two cents per name. The more you spend the more people you bring in faster.

In addition to Facebook, there are good advertising opportunities with several companies—Amazon, Kobo, BookBub, and Google are among the top. Again, depending on how many books you have and where you want to get pushed, the expense can be equal to or more than the Facebook expense mentioned above.

The downside of advertising based on a giveaway, besides the expense, is that only 10-20% of the people who download your free book or sign up for your mailing list will actually read the book. So, at best with that new mailing list of 6,000 I can expect 120 to have read the book and, one assumes, be excited to read the next one. Except that, close to half of those who read the book are possibly freebie seekers. Meaning they only read free books unless or until you have become important enough they are willing to spend money on your books. As you can see this method of discoverability really is a numbers game. Once you hit about 25K people on your list the numbers start working more in your favor.

For advertising on platforms like Amazon, BookBub, Kobo, etc. on most books it is difficult to get a consistent return on investment (ROI) unless you have read-through to other books (like in a series) or you have multiple book products (ebook, print, and audiobook).

Engagement is a more organic way to build your fans, but it also takes a longer time. You build fans by word of mouth, by publishing a lot of content on social media and on blogs with good SEO. It requires you to be working hard to be seen everywhere—in person, at workshops, with other authors who are selling well, and especially online delivering content your readers want.

The upside of this method is that if people come to you because they are engaged in what you have to offer they are more likely to be real buyers and truly interested in you and your books. The time and effort you are able to put into this is what determines how quickly that will happen. For me, I post nearly every day on six platforms, write blogs at least two to three times per week, remind people of my backlist at least once per week and am gaining somewhere around 70-80 new followers per month. That means to reach the same 6K numbers that I accomplished in six months of advertising and a $900 spend, will take me approximately 6 years.  And getting 25K (assuming the same rate of organic list building) would be 26 years. Now that’s depressing.

Most authors do some combination of paid advertising and organic, depending on their specific desire and need to sell books for income.

Product Diversification

Ebook and Print. The more different product types you have for a book, the more opportunities for people to find it because you are appealing to different reader types. Most authors do ebook and print, at least for books of a certain size. Though ebooks far outsell print for most authors, there is still a significant number of people who want print and you cut out that audience if you don’t offer it. If you have a series, be sure to put together a boxed set (another product type) for those who are looking for a deal and prefer to binge a series. If it is a long series it can be several boxset combinations. For example, a series of 7 books can be three boxsets: a boxset of the first three; a boxset of the final four; and a boxset of all seven. Depending on the length of your books, you can do this in both print as well. Think of how traditional publishers have often put together three short novels (or novellas) into a compendium book.

Audio. Though audiobooks still haven’t proven their sales efficacy for the majority of indie authors, it is a different way for readers to consume your book and brings in a completely different audience. In addition, audiobooks continue to rise by double figures each year, which means that more people are getting them. In audiobooks you can also do boxsets at no additional cost to you, other than time. If you can’t afford to do audiobooks—either narrating them yourself or paying for a narrator—then consider other audio options just to bring in that group of people who primarily consume content through audio. That could be through sample readings, through a podcast where you discuss your books regularly, or by participating in other people’s podcasts, or regularly reading excerpts and making them available online. The point is to have audio available in some form for bringing new readers to your books.

Other Book-Related Content. Nonfiction writers have long used the idea of worksheets, summaries of primary points, or a lead magnet instruction video to bring in new readers and show their expertise. Many authors are diversifying to offer courses in their areas of expertise. Fiction writers can do this as well. An article or course on the world building involved in your fantasy novel can peak a person’s interest in checking out the book. An article or course on the most common problems plaguing romantic relationships can be a way to interest romance readers. Science articles related to your science fiction world or a course on how to do science research for fiction works similarly. The more you are seen as someone who is not only a writer, but also has done some cool research or has an interesting background the more likely people are to look up your books.

Summary

Visibility aka Discoverability will continue to be the number one hurdle for publishing—whether it is traditional or indie. Competition will continue to be magnified because there is no longer a time by which books disappear from online distributors. In the past, creating something new was most important and writers were urged to write fast and put out as many books as possible every year. Generating a lot of books does create backlist—one part of discoverability.

 

Today, discoverability is reliant on the three parts of the stool to stand up in the long run: name recognition; backlist; and product diversity.

SEO drives discovery once you’ve built a fan base (name recognition), have a good backlist of product, and reach different reader needs with product diversity (print, ebook, audio, and others). You can have 100 products in the market, but if they don’t have the right keywords, the right categories—a way to be easily found by the majority of people searching for that kind of product—then you won’t be visible.

About Maggie Lynch:

As an idealistic nerd with a romantic streak that surpasses any scientific explanation, Maggie writes nonfiction to help authors master the business side of writing. Her character-driven fiction reinforces that life is about making heroic choices one messy moment at a time. 

You can read all about her and her books at https:/maggielynch.com. She also blogs regularly about writing, life, and topics that catch her fancy on Medium.

2018 Was the Year of Overwhelm, 2019 Will Be The Year of Partners

In preparing the blog this year, I wondered what I said last year and if any of my predictions came true. I know 2018 was definitely the year of overwhelm for me. I hit the wall on technology, new marketing ideas, and keeping up with my fans. Keeping up with that and still getting out ebooks, print books, and audiobooks among the normal chaos of life made me realize I’ve gone too far into the weeds and needed to fight my way back to a “real” life that included time for writing, as well as engaging with family and friends.

I wasn’t the only one feeling this. I spoke with my editor and she said that 2018 was the year of missed dates for many of her clients. They were dropping out of her schedule, unable to get the writing done. Even the three most prolific author friends I have decided to drop at least one book in their 2018 schedule. I ended up dropping two books out of the six I had scheduled for 2018. But I made up for it in other products. I would have preferred to have finished all six books. It just wasn’t possible with all the challenges this past year presented.

So, what happened that so many long-term and professional authors were feeling so overwhelmed? Was it the chaotic political arena? For some that did play a role in their ability to focus. However, for most it was how fast the “rules” were changing. First there was the entire GDPR legislation in Europe. Then various big vendors did some buying of companies, selling of companies and partnering with companies—including aggregators.

Amazon alone did at least four major system renovations in the past year:

1) They tried to stop scammers and stuffers; and in doing so set up additional automated processes to do that. Some of those processes caught up innocent people as well. 

2) Amazon decided to change its Advertising backend and name. The roll out of that process was not smooth and not very well documented. Even support personnel weren’t quite sure what was going on. 

3) In the early Fall, Amazon decided to close CreateSpace and began switching all of those customers to KDP Print. It was a well-telegraphed move—if not in actual messaging. When KDP Print started to look more and more like CreateSpace it was obvious the move was imminent. However, as with other huge system changes it was not smooth and that caused great drama, lost sales for some, and certainly a lot of confusion for the less technically inclined authors. 

4) Without warning Amazon changed their buy pages to no longer reflect “also boughts” a way in which indie authors could work to build their discoverability in the algorithms by making sure that the cross-pollination of also boughts was as close as possible to their genre. Amazon exchanged the “also boughts” display for two rows of sponsored ads on most pages. It is still rolling out in full. This now means that to be discovered on Amazon you either have to be a bestselling author OR pay for advertising. What many people call pay-to-play. In the end, Amazon is a business that wants to make as much money as possible. Once authors realize that every decision is a business decision (not only at Amazon but also at other vendors), and has nothing to do with whether they value authors or not, they can plan accordingly. I see far too many people, instead, hoping that any vendor will suddenly become beneficent and run their business as a charity for authors because we are so valuable to them. In my view, that is not a realistic take on the business world.

The competitiveness of the market has grown exponentially in the last two to three years. In the U.S. more than 80% of people buy ALL their books online—ebook, print, and audio. This means authors must be web savvy, mobile-ready, and willing to make changes quickly without spending time worrying about the fact the change must be made. In 2018, already 2.4 million books have been published! http://www.worldometers.info/books/ According to Statista’s data on publishing, there have been more than a million books a year being produced for four years in a row now. So consider all those backlist titles. This is why discoverability is so important. This is why we can’t wait and hope the world changes so we can suddenly become competitive. We need to understand the reality of the market and PLAN how we are going to fit into that market and find OUR readers.

Old Posts and Predictions and How it Compares to Today’s Environment

I’ve been doing this “What’s New in Publishing” and/or Predictions for the New Year on Romancing the Genres since 2013. That makes this my sixth year of being proven right or wrong.  Here are the past six years posts with a brief summary of the primary discussion and what is still relevant in 2018 and moving into 2019.

2013 Focus on your TEAM – It was true then and is still true now. Only now I think it’s imperative to have a good team. I call these “partners” because most authors are not in a position to have a company with employees who create their ultimate team. Instead, we partner with critical individuals or companies and pay them as we need them. And don’t be afraid to change your partner relationships when they aren’t working out.

https://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com/2013/12/whats-new-is-old-quickly.html

2014 was the year the indie publishing movement became mainstream. So, I had two blog posts that year. Part 1 was a history of changes in publishing over a decade (2004 to 2014). Part 2 focused on what the indie author could do. My big advice was to Focus on the Long Game instead of short-term returns. Given all the angst online about every Amazon change and keeping the rankings up, I don’t think anyone listened to me on that one. J  I still believe that for a long-term career, one has to look at long-term investment of time and finances and grow consistently year over year. This is even more true in 2019 and beyond.

Can you become a six-figure author in your first year of publishing? Of course you can, some authors have done it. BUT it requires investing a good sum of money ($10K-$20K) and religiously following a plan for releasing a book every three weeks or so, that is straight down the middle of the genre, and creating discoverability with lots of advertising money. There are several people who teach this methodology and it can work. The question is if you can afford to do that year after year. Do you have the time to learn the process? Do you have the talent and energy to churn out 10-12 books in a year or the money to pay ghostwriters to do it for you? Do you have the funds to spend significant money on advertising?  And the biggest questions is, are you willing to do this year after year to maintain that income? Or is your desire to do it for the ONE book you plan to write and that’s it? Only you can answer that question.

For me, that system doesn’t work because I don’t want to spend the time to churn out 10-12 books a year every year. I already work too many hours doing 6 books a year. I do write genre fiction, but it’s not straight down the middle and I don’t want to write straight down the middle fiction. I know it’s a trade off, and I’m willing to take that trade off of earning less. Finally, I’m not willing or able at this time of my life to spend $10K-$20K in advertising.

https://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com/2014/12/changes-in-publishing-part-1.html

https://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com/2014/12/changes-in-publishing-part-two.html

2015 Top Three Markets: mobile domination (e.g., phones); foreign rights; and writing in series. In my top three markets for 2019 Mobile Domination is still 100% true. In fact, I used to believe that people would abandon e-readers for tablets. I was wrong, it appears they are abandoning e-readers for smart phones. It is even more important today than three years ago that an author’s business is mobile friendly. That means your website, your store if you are selling direct, and your engagement with readers whether via email or social media.

I think I missed the mark on the importance of foreign rights. They are important but that importance has moved down the list for me. Whether we like it or not, English has become a global language and many countries where English is not the first language have a sufficient population of English speakers to make selling English-only books viable. Can you make even more money with translations? Yes, you can. The question is if you can make a sufficient amount to make up for the cost of the translation OR the cost of shared rights with a translator. For me, right now the answer is still no. I suspect that in a few more years and books, the answer might change.

In 2015 I also missed the mark regarding the building importance of audiobooks. They weren’t even on my radar. To have pursued audio in 2015 would have been a good idea for me. I wouldn’t be trying to catch up now. But I’m not a look-at-the-past-and-feel-bad kind of gal. I know I can’t do it all or know it all; and there is still plenty of time to be in audio. I started into audio in late 2017. If you haven’t yet, and you have more than five or six books, 2019 MIGHT be a time for you to definitely consider it.

https://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com/2015/12/changes-in-publishing-or-look-into-my.html

  

2016 post reflects that the top two trends were Mobile Phones and Audiobooks. So, two years in a row #1 was making sure everything was compatible with mobile phones.  I must admit, I am always surprised when now in 2018 there are still a number of authors who have not done two important things with their website. 1) Make sure it is responsive. In other words, make sure it looks good and works well on smart phones. 2) Make sure it is secure. Install SSL. It’s not expensive and it’s worth it! More about that later. Both of these are critical for search engines to pay attention to you AND for readers to find you and, once finding you, feel safe to be on your website.

https://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-future-of-publishing.html

2017 My #1 prediction was “things will continue to change more quickly.” Nailed that one. No wonder 2018 felt overwhelming. I’d forgotten that was my prediction. I’m sure I was already feeling it myself at the end of 2017 and it has been more powerfully true than I even imagined a year ago. Trends for 2018 were in the following order. You won’t be surprised by #1—mobile phones. #2 engaging readers. Still important but it’s getting more complex now. #3 Audiobooks. Enough said. #4 Direct Sales. I think this can be a game changer in 2019 for those who are ready to take advantage of it. #5 Blockchain. For me, the promise of Blockchain technology for authors is still too early for most authors AND for the systems that exist. I still believe in the promise, and it’s definitely a paradigm shift in terms of thinking about rights licensing and the economics of book selling. However, I don’t think the current platforms are ready for even the first wave of indie author early adopters to make a difference in sales for the time and learning required.

https://romancingthegenres.blogspot.com/2017/12/maggie-lynchs-top-5-developments-to.html

Okay, what about planning for 2019? For me 2019 is about the realization that if you want to have a career there are three things you MUST do.

1) Be willing to work with and pay for business partners. 

2) Have a brand and presence OUTSIDE of vendors like Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google, etc. 

3) Mobile, mobile, mobile. Let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

Partners and Investment of Money

I know that most indies start off with the idea of learning the ropes and doing everything for themselves. I think you COULD do that in 2010  and 2011; maybe even as late as 2013. By 2014 the tide had shifted and self-publishing was mainstream. It was already become extremely difficult to learn and manage everything one person needed to do. I don’t think you can do it now. Not only is the competition astronomically larger and more sophisticated, but it is also more professionalized.

When I started selling indie it was a mixed bag of professionalism. A lot of people created their own covers. A lot of people used their mother or best friend as their editor—actually as more of a catch-my-typos-and-grammar person. A lot of people did formatting however they could and lived with it if it wasn’t perfect and wasn’t pretty. In the early years you could get away with that because the competition was a lot smaller and being “indie” was cool. It’s not “cool” anymore. It is just the primary way the vast majority of authors are getting published.

Since about 2014, the professionalism has increased in leaps and bounds. The top sellers, those who began in earnest in 2010 and 2011 and made their first bestseller status, realized that it was important to have a great cover—a genre-specific cover that rivaled NY. These bestsellers were primarily people who had left traditional publishing or were doing both. They were willing to pay for professional editors, for cover designers, for formatters. Most important they were building their team so they could write more books and spend less time on the technology. If you don’t do that today, it is near impossible to move up and make any significant dent in sales.

Fast forward to 2018. We are ending this year in a pay-to-play discoverability universe. What I mean by that is that the competition is so stiff that your discoverability engine must be honed and used consistently. The fastest way to do that is through advertising dollars spent exactly right. Links to selling Landing Pages with great copy and a bang on mailing list developed for consistent growth. Can someone still do all of this? I know a few people who have all those skills AND write well AND write fast and are still holding it together. The other 98% of the population cannot but keeps pretending they can and are disappointed by the results after working so hard.

When you don’t have partners or funding to pay for partners, then one of two things happen. 

1) You become overwhelmed and you go in circles dealing with the technology and the sales aspects, but you don’t write the next book. That is a quick failing model. You need new product every year. 

2) You burn out because you are doing too much. You get sick. You get angry because no matter how much you do it’s not enough to move the selling needle. Then you give up. Maybe not forever, but I’ve seen really good authors give up for several years.

I’m not going to label giving up as failure, because I think some people SHOULD give up on being an author. Contrary to popular belief, it is not an easy profession. It is not a quick way to riches. It requires constant learning, improving, analysis, and doing it all over again. If you don’t LOVE writing first, you won’t be able to make the constant sacrifices you have to make for it to be a viable career.

If you are not intending on publishing books as an income-generating career, then ignore everything I’ve said. That is a different goal. That is a goal not based in business, but in bringing non-tangible happiness in the process.

Finding Good Partners and Determining Who/What You Need

The first step is deciding what you CAN do well, and what you WANT to do outside of the writing itself. The answer to this is different for each person. And how much you want to do or have the time to do is also different.

I’ve been a do it all myself person, and a bit of a control freak, my entire life. So, it’s no surprise that when I decided to make a career as an author I tried to do it all. I began indie publishing in 2011 while I was still working a full-time executive job—about 50 hours per week. I have a good technology background, so I felt comfortable with most of those aspects of creating and publishing. However, even then I knew there were two things I shouldn’t do myself. One was designing my own covers and the second was editing. I’m a decent developmental editor for other authors—though not a professional, but I knew I couldn’t do it for myself. I’m just too close to the work. I’m also a decent proofreader, but again can’t do it for myself. I always miss things. These are two big-ticket items that many authors choose NOT to pay for. But, in my opinion they are more important than any other aspect of the publishing process.

Maggie McVey Lynch

Because I have a good background in technology I did all the website design, social media, SEO, formatting, loading of books myself. That division of labor—using two professionals and me doing everything else worked for about five years. At twenty books behind me and putting out a minimum of six new products a year, plus marketing, it became too much for me last year. The first thing I did was hire a part time virtual assistant to coordinate a lot of things and keep me straight on due dates, timing, etc. I thought it would be enough. By summer, as I realized more of the importance of my author brand and presence on the web, I knew I had to let go of the one thing I was MOST sure of technologically—my website design.

I admit that aging has made me less astute at multi-tasking; however, I am still quite capable of learning. But the reality is things do continue to change rapidly and the depth of knowledge required for a complete understanding in EVERY area is just not doable. Sometimes that means finding a partner to do something you do well. For me I found that keeping up with website technology and SEO was the most time consuming task for me. I needed a major SEO update, a secure direct sales platforms, and a modernized look and feel for my buy pages that would provide more information for the reader without looking too busy or overwrought. For me to do that on my own would have been, minimum, a one year process. It’s likely by the end of the year I will need to make changes again. So, I broke down and found a good partner. Now nearly three months into the overhaul, I am soooo glad I gave that up. It was painful at first, and took some trust building on my part, but now it’s a huge blessing.

The more books I have, the more work I have to do to maintain them, manage them, market them. The more non-writing tasks I do myself, the less time I have for writing. In 2018 I probably spent at least a third of my book income on partners. Is that smart? I’m not sure. But I’m in it for the long term. I believe with the partners and systems I have in place now, I can write more in 2019. Having more product is the engine I need to move to the next level. I can only do that by carving out time.

My top 5 Things to Care About for 2019 are in this order of importance

1)    Individualized and personalized communication with fans. This continued building a good email list of true fans. Mailing Lists are STILL the #1 predictor of sales.

2)    Search. Everything having to do with visibility, discoverability, finding new people to love your books is related to search. This means you have to pay close attention to it and understand it well. Search includes the things we already do like keywords, categories, linking to related content. But it also has to do with structure. How to structure our website, our blog posts, our social media posts, and our buy pages across multiple vendors so that it is easily indexed and cross-indexed with critical searches.

3)    Audiobooks continue to trend up. The statistics point to a consistent 20%-25% increase. Definitely that market is growing faster than ebooks or print. My 2019 goal is to get all of my backlist fiction into audio so that any new book release is accompanied with an audio book.

4)    Direct Sales to Fans is What Orna Ross, of ALLi, calls Indie Publishing 3.0 I believe it can become a game changer in income and control of that fan relationship moving forward. My prediction about going direct to fans and cutting out the middleman by 2020 is starting to become a reality for many indies. I started putting in place the search, delivery, and banking linked processes for this in September of this year. For indies who have a good following, an established fan base of 20K or more, going direct can be a major income stream. For those in the midlist, like me (a 8K to 20K emails), going direct can generate income but it is a longer-term commitment to growth and training readers as to the value of buying direct.

5)    Focus on one thing at a time and make it work really well. If I’d paid attention to this rule earlier in my career (say five years ago) I might be in a better place instead of throwing money and energy at the next “big” thing. I’ve always known this rule as a business person in software, in education, in psychology. However, as an author entrepreneur I ignored this rule by buying into the belief that a “creative” business needed an approach that reached out to every unicorn reader and catered to them. Not true. Unicorn readers are outliers. The focus is to find the larger middle of your fan base and focus on them. The unicorns will decide on their own whether that is enough to keep them.

So, what is your focus for 2019? Which ONE area is the one you know you need the most? Do you see yourself adding a new partner for any part of your writing and marketing process? I’d love to hear your feedback and experience. Of course, I’m also happy to respond to questions with my thoughts.

Maggie Lynch is the author of 20+ published books, as well as numerous short stories and non-fiction articles.  Her fiction tells stories of men and women making heroic choices one messy moment at a time.

After careers in counseling, the software industry, academia, and worldwide educational consulting, Maggie chose to devote her time to her career as a full time author. Her fiction spans romance, suspense, fantasy and science fiction titles. Her non-fiction focuses on guiding authors to business success in their career through planning, distributing, and marketing their completed work.

You can purchase Maggie's newly released Author Secret's boxed set here:
https://maggielynch.com/book/secrets-to-becoming-a-successful-author-boxset/

Contacts: 

Website: https://maggielynch.com 

Facebook: https://facebook.com/maggiewrites

Twitter: https://twitter.com/maggieauthor

Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maggielynch/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9m7V6ilyKSYNQt2Oa4Y7cQ

  

Maggie Lynch's Top 5 Developments to Watch in 2018 and Beyond

This past year has continued to bring new technologies that are designed to help indie authors or small business creatives to compete well against big business. These new technologies provide more support for user-friendly options in book formatting, book and audiobook distribution to a global market, the ability to engage with thousands of fans without spending all day doing it, and options for advertising and driving traffic to books in a way that doesn’t require thousands of dollars to compete. More analytic tools are now available to track what works and what doesn’t. The availability of these tools has now put the small business person (indie authors) on par with big businesses in terms of access.

I have only one prediction for 2018. That is that things will continue to change more quickly. Therefore, it is the agile business that can embrace change that will win the day. My longer term prediction is that, by the end of this decade, the ability of independent creatives to go direct to their fans and cut out the costs of middlemen (Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Google, etc.) distributors will be a viable income generating option by 2020 through decentralized distribution of content through blockchain technology. The means to do this is already tested and working in the marketplace with other businesses. The only thing holding it back from working in indie publishing is a lack of context and enough early adopters to prove its viability. This is the next big paradigm shift that can truly change the publishing landscape to be tilted to the economic benefit of independent creatives instead of large centralized enterprises.

Here are the top five trends to watch and capitalize on during 2018.

1.      Phones Continue to Be the #1 Technology for Communication, Reading, and Computing. Statistics tell us that globally more than 2 billion people have smartphones and use them as their primary means of shopping and communication.  (Statista, 2017) The top users are NOT in the U.S. They are in China and India. Some of this is because they have larger populations than the U.S. However, it is more than that. It is in the rural areas of these countries, where traditional communications infrastructure (electricity, underground or above ground cables) are non-existent, where smartphones have become the primary way to communicate with the world.

This translates directly to readers as well. In areas of the world where libraries don’t exist or local bookstores are hard to maintain in smaller villages, people who love to read do so on their phone. For example, did you know that Pakistan, the 3^rd largest English Speaking market, now has 141 million mobile phone users? (46 million are 3G/4G subscribers). Yet no one seems to be distributing to them except Amazon which, evidently is crazy difficult for them to use on their phones. (Pakistan info from Mark Williams, The New Publishing Standard blog)

The author who ignores the importance of the phone, for both reading and engagement with their readers, will be left behind. Any apps that allow us to communicate directly through phones are bound to be the new growth and discoverability engine.

2.      Individualized and Personal Communication Venues Nurture and Retain Readers. Most of us have noticed the rise of images and video in online communication and sales. It is no longer acceptable to simply use words. There are many ways to take advantage of this without having to be a live video star. Invest in ways to create image libraries that are reflective of you as a writer and a person. Free ones like Pixabay are a good start, as well as monthly or bulk purchase options in stockphoto companies like Depositphotos and others. Both Google and Facebook are ranking videos higher in terms of reach. These don’t need to be long—thirty to forty-five seconds is great. It can be you reading an excerpt from your book, sharing a moment in your life, or talking directly to your fans. Don’t like showing your face? Not a problem, use those images and narrate over it. Fans want to know you are real and that you share some of the same challenges and foibles they have. The perception of a personal moment with you goes a long way toward building loyalty.

Individualized communication used to be email. It is now moving toward text messaging, and Facebook messenger use in particular. Twitter has benefited from a variety of individualized automation tools, and now Facebook has options too. Watch for technologies like chatbots (e.g., Manychat and Chatfuel) to provide individualized assistance for common questions, without you having to be at the ready 24/7. Use these as a supplement to your personal communications with your fans and as an alternative to email lists for growing engagement and sales.

3.      Audiobooks continue to be trending up. We are nowhere near the peak of audiobook demand yet. Particularly globally where audiobook sales are rising at a faster pace than ebooks. There are now several large companies competing with Amazon’s Audible platform: Kobo/Rakutan; Findaway Voices; and Playster represent three different dimensions of audiobook production and distribution, from narration and production management to retail and packaging. Each of them have global market reach and they provide terms of service and payment options that are more beneficial to authors/creators than the Audible contract. These are not the only players, but they represent a larger group of opportunities for indies to distribute widely and not be tied to exclusivity to compete with pricing and distribution.

4.      Author Direct Sales Can Become an Income Generator. Three years ago I predicted this was going to be a game changer, when digital delivery and secure sales came on the scene with Gumroad and Square, among others. However, I failed to recognize the need for strong customer support across multiple e-reading platforms. In November 2017, BookFunnel announced integration with direct sales options for authors. This means you can sell ebooks direct (making more money for you on a per book basis) and have BookFunnel deliver and support your users on the download process. BookFunnel has an excellent reputation in customer support and has become known and used around the world by millions of readers for the deliver of free books.

BookFunnel has now integrated with major systems like Payhip, Selz and PayPal through WooCommerce (a WordPress based ecommerce system). They will continue to find new integrations as their customer feedback suggests. I’m sure that other companies will also enter this market when they see more bestselling indie authors embracing it. This solves one major problem in the direct sales market and that makes it a viable option once more.

5.      BlockChain is the major content distribution disruptor on the horizon. There is a lot of buzz about this but it is hard for most people to get their head around. How it works in the backend is very complex. In a nutshell it allows creators (authors, musicians, film and video creators) the ability to distribute and sell or license their intellectual property in a decentralized way that keeps costs down and transactions transparent. Let’s parse that explanation a little bit.

Currently all vendors, from Amazon to Google and social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Medium are all centralized platforms. This means that a single corporate entity controls all the data, all the transactions, the display and/or purchase of content. In short, they make all the rules and charge the creators whatever amount they believe the market will bear to provide these platforms (e.g., 30-60% of sales). Both the consumer and the creator (authors) have no choice but to follow those rules in order to be a part of a wider market. More important, centralized systems can, and do, make arbitrary and unilateral decisions. We’ve seen this happen on all these platforms: Amazon suddenly removes all reviews or shuts down an author account without letting you know in advance. YouTube suddenly decides no one can advertise on the platform unless they have at least 10K followers. Kobo removes all romance titles in fear of the influx of pornography to their partner stores.  Sometimes the unilateral negative impact is eventually corrected. Often times it is not. In all cases there is no warning and even when corrected has had a lasting negative impact on sales and reputation.

In contrast, a blockchain content distribution system is decentralized. That means it is not controlled by one companies server AND it is not owned by any one entity. Instead it is spread across multiple individual servers and users (think peer-to-peer but in a controlled and accountable way). The blockchain distribution platform preserves an unchangeable record of all actions. That record creates an environment of total transparency for both content creators (authors) and media/digital consumers (readers, listeners). It also ensures that all views, comments and ratings reflect the REAL interactions with the content. With nothing deleted, or the inability of people to inflate ratings without everyone knowing they did so by using a click farm, it leaves no room for trolls or bad players to thrive because their past bad behavior is in the open and can’t be erased.

With blockchain-based content distribution, authors can be paid within seconds of a consumer paying for a download. Consumers would also know their purchase was directly supporting the content creators they enjoy. Authors who consistently deliver good quality content, that people are willing to pay for, win big in this scenario. Consumers (readers) equally deserve the ability to directly support the authors they enjoy. Yes, there are a still a lot of questions about exactly how this works, and the details of security are still being tested. However, my prediction is that this will be the major disruption to the status quo of centralized control of content for decades to come.

How to keep up? Pay attention to the new kids. Those who first stepped into the digital indie book movement in 2010-2011 tended to be people over the age of 40—people brought up in the traditional publishing paradigms. But the “rules” of indie publishing are closely tied to digital technology foundations, and those change every 6-9 months. This Internet and app savvy generation sees the world differently. They have unleashed new automations that are simultaneously personalized and able to manage thousands of fans. They have moved the focus from solely being about words to also being about images and videos. This new app-based, multimedia communication paradigm IS increasing engagement—not only within their young demographic, but also up the line to their parents and grandparents.

 

You can learn more about how you can capitalize on these trends to build your own brand and market your books through Maggie’s most recent release, SECRETS to Effective Author Marketing: It’s  More than “Buy My Book” or look for her boxset of the first three books in her Career Author Secrets series, releasing in mid-December.

Maggie Lynch is the author of 20+ published books, as well as numerous short stories and non-fiction articles.  Her fiction tells stories of men and women making heroic choices one messy moment at a time. Maggie is also the founder of Windtree Press, an independent publishing cooperative with over 200 titles among 20 authors.

Maggie and her musician husband live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, and are the slaves of two demanding cats. In 2013, after careers in counseling, the software industry, academia, and worldwide educational consulting, Maggie chose to devote her time to her career as a full time author. Her fiction spans romance, suspense, fantasy and science fiction titles. Her non-fiction focuses on guiding authors to success in planning, distributing, and marketing their completed work.

Cathryn Cade: Re-Inventing Myself as a Writer

It is an honor to be invited back to RTG. A few years have rolled by since I met the Genre-istas in Portland, OR at the Rose City Romance Writers. I still remember the awe I felt sitting in the same room with real published romance writers … I want to touch the nearest one, lol.

Now I am one! And 22 romance books & novellas later, it's been grand … but things change.

I was first published in 2007, just past the age of 50. I experienced the hey-day of digital publishing, when the small pubs like Samhain were rocking the romance reading world. Wow, my first paychecks were big! They continued to grow as I wrote more books, until … more publisher fish swam into the sea and they had new ways to grab their share of readers.

This thing called self-publishing happened. Market share of the publishers, large and small, began to shrink even faster as readers shrugged and said, 'I don't care where the book comes from, as long as I can load it on my e-reader and enjoy it.' My paychecks from Samhain shrank too.

I leapt into the self-publishing ocean. It was delightful! Those big paychecks returned, with a larger percentage coming to me since there was no publisher in the middle to take their share. Woo-hoo, life was once again grand.

Then, more and more and more writers began to self-publish. Wow, getting crowded out here in the romance ocean, even for those of us with marketable names. But paychecks were still big, so with some advertising and a newsletter, no worries.

Next, Amazon rolled out a feat of marketing genius (or an evil sledge-hammer with which to destroy writing careers, depending on one's perspective), the Kindle Unlimited subscription plan. My sales plummeted again as hordes of voracious romance readers leapt like sharks onto this new unlimited reading plan—and stopped buying as many books.

All the while, more writers published their works, meaning more competition. I was so discouraged … if I didn't love writing so much, in the winter of 2015, I would have quit publishing altogether and gone back to work at a library or in education. I'm still selling books, still have loyal readers, and I know I'm doing better than the vast percentage of authors now, but not making the BIG paychecks.

But I seem to need to write nearly as much as I need to breathe.

Thus, I listened to a friend and mentor, Maggie McVay Lynch who said, "Many people who are making money now in publishing aren't just writing. They're diversifying, offering services to other writers." She herself is a shining example of this, teaching on All Writer Workshops, helping writers decipher promotion and other facets of publishing. I'm taking her class on maximizing newsletter/email lists right now.

Diversification. Great idea, but what services could I offer? Hmmm, I love writing ad copy/blurbs/cover copy, and often volunteered to write it for friends and colleagues, who expressed undying gratitude for my services. So, perhaps other writers would pay me to do so?

Turns out they will indeed. In February—just as I turned 60—I opened up shop as The Blurb Queen. In that time I've acquired many clients. I'm now being paid to do another facet of the publishing biz—helping other writers highlight their stories in a few, exciting words!

Like writing good stories, writing good ad copy is hard work, but I enjoy it just as much. So I can now afford to keep writing my beloved romance, and working from my home office, which is exactly where I want to be. Now that I've relaxed a bit about the income stream, writing is once again joyous.

As George Eliot may have said, 'It's never too late to become who you might have been!'

Wonder what new marketable skill I'll discover when I'm 70??

What do YOU do to subsidize your writing career? I'd love to hear. We're all in this together, my friends.

Cathryn Cade

Red Hot Sci Fi/Contemporary/Paranormal Romance

RT 4.5 Stars and Night Owl Reviews TOP PICK

Goodreads, My Website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,

And sign up for My Newsletter for a chance to win goodies!

Cathryn Cade

Keep Calm and Let the Blurb Queen Fix It!

http://www.theblurbqueen.com

https://www.facebook.com/TheBlurbQueen

https://twitter.com/TheBlurbQueen