Madelle's Self-Publishing Strategy

Madelle Morgan

Last year I decided to relaunch my writing career and self-publish. I had to make several decisions; i.e., what sub-genre to focus on, the length, the series setting, the target market, the distribution, the formats, branding, the marketing approach (including pricing), editor and cover artist selection, and on and on...

The publishing industry is evolving so quickly. What’s an author to do when the ground keeps shifting? What was good advice three months ago is contradicted by other authors’ recent experience. That being said, I found a few e-resources super helpful. The Naked Truth About Self-Publishing, by The Indie Voice, a collective of ten bestselling romance authors, was very informative. The e-book How We Made our First Million on Kindle by Bob Mayer and Jen Talty caught my eye, because who doesn’t want to make a lot of money?

After countless hours of reading and listening to many well-informed romance authors and publishing experts over several months, my decisions were informed by these pearls of advice, in no particular order of importance:

• Series are hot.

• Have three or four books in a series available right away. Don’t make readers wait too long for the next one.

• The more product authors have out there, the better the sales and impact on distributor algorithms.

• Plan for but don’t expect overnight success.

Amazon has invested heavily in audio books. It owns Audible.com, which in turn owns Audiobook Creation Exchange (ACX.com).

• Amazon’s WhisperSync for Voice makes an audio version easily available to readers who buy the e-book.

• Audible.com prices audio books by length. Shorter is more affordable.

• In 2012 ACX.com gave self-published authors the opportunity to create and publish audio books.

My strategy, you ask? I plan to self-publish a series of hot contemporary romance novellas set in a beautiful lake district. In 2014 I resolve to release three novellas back-to-back in e-book and print, and follow that with audio versions. I’ve completed the first, Sex and the Screenwriter, and have started to write Caught on Camera, with Director’s Pick on deck. 

I’ve mapped out several more in the series in blocks of three to facilitate boxed sets, and have enough books planned to keep me busy for five years.

This strategy assumes audio is going to be very popular as prices become more affordable.

Readers, how likely is it that you will take advantage of the opportunity to buy the audio version along with the e-book?

Self-published authors, are you planning to publish audio books?

Find Madelle at www.madellemorgan.com and on Goodreads.