Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors #11 – Ruth Ann Nordin

Today we have a very special interview with best-selling Indie author, Ruth Ann Nordin. Ruth lives in Montana with her husband and four sons. When she's not playing wife and mother, she's reading and writing. She has written over sixty books, and about fifty of those are romances. Her romances include Regencies, historical westerns, and contemporaries. To find out more about her and her books, please visit her website (link at the end of this interview). Meanwhile, grab your favorite beverage and dive into this interesting and informative interview:

Who are you and where do you come from? Do you think that your life experience has gone someway towards making you a successful author in your chosen genre?

I’m Ruth Ann Nordin, and I was born and raised in Ohio.  I’ve lived in several states since I was 18, my favorite ones being North Dakota, Alaska, and now Montana.  To a point, having moved around and checked out different areas of the United States has influenced my decision to write historical westerns, so you could say it has helped to some degree.  However, a person can live in one place their whole life and be successful.  There is no limit to the imagination.

Did you try to get publishing contracts for your books early on with traditional book publishers? If so, did you have any success there or, if not, what was it that made you decide to self-publish the majority of your work?

I did, but only because people in my writing groups said it was the only legitimate way to be a writer.  I didn’t receive rejections, per se.  I was given feedback on things to change in my stories, and I was encouraged to resubmit them.  This was with two different publishing houses.  So it wasn’t like I was submitting all over the place or submitting a lot.  I barely managed the enthusiasm to submit to them since my heart wasn’t in it.

My heart wasn’t in doing the changes they wanted, either.  The stories would significantly change, and I wouldn’t have liked them the way the publishers wanted them.  I decided to go on my own and self-publish, much to the dismay of the writers in those groups.  Some people warned me I was making a huge mistake and some refused to acknowledge any of my self-published books.  This was back in 2008-2009.  I can tell you the attitude has changed so much toward self-published authors.  Ironically, the writers who once argued with me about my choice are now self-publishing their own books.

With over fifty published works, you write mainly Historical and Contemporary Romance but also dabble in other genres. What drew you to primarily write in the Romance genre/s and why do you also write in other genres?

I love reading a wide variety of books.  The same is true for watching TV shows and movies.  Writing in other genres helps me stay creative.  If I only did romance, my work would become stale.

Is diversification something you see as a growing necessity for contemporary self-published/indie authors, or is specialization (genre focus) more important in your opinion? If so/not please explain why.

I guess it depends on whether you’re going after a trend or not.  Romance sells well regardless of trends, so it’s easier to diversify between Regencies, historical westerns, and contemporaries (the three subgenres I write in).  I remember when serials were big, and now I barely hear anything about them.  I never did serials because I like writing standalones or a series where each book can stand by itself. 

I think what might be a good strategy is to find a genre you enjoy, find out what elements are in the bestselling books in that genre, and putting those elements into your stories.  For example, when I branched out to Regencies, I read the descriptions of the top sellers in the genre and picked out things they had in common (a forced marriage, a scandal, and the hero and heroine not liking the arrangement).  I put all three into my first Regency, and it was one of my bestselling books of all time.  I created my own story using those three things.  I think that technique can be done in any genre.  You’re not writing someone else’s story.  You’re telling your own, but you’re using similar elements.

I would also make the title and cover something the readers in the genre expect.  If you do something different for the sake of being different, I don’t think that’s going to send the right message to your target audience.  The audience has learned to expect a cover to look a certain way.  As for titles, I would use something that would naturally catch the target audience’s attention.  So having a woman in a beautiful gown on the cover with a title along the lines of “Bride” or “Marriage” or “Mail Order” attract romance readers, esp. for historical westerns.  The books I use with those elements on covers and titles sell the best long-term. 

The genres I write outside of romance barely sell anything.  For experimentation, I would say go ahead and spread the net wide.  But write most books that fit within the platform you’ve built for a better chance at a sustainable income.

Most of your books have positive reviews and lots of them (reviews, that is). How do you go about soliciting reviews for your work, or is it a more organic process for you in that you put the books out there and the reviews come on their own accord? Do you have any advice for indie/self-published authors as to the best way to gain reviews?

I don’t solicit reviews unless it’s a book with my publisher.  In that case, I offer a free book in exchange for an honest review.  (I only have five books with the publisher.)

For my self-published titles, I rely on an organic process for acquiring reviews.  I don’t like asking for them because I’m so busy that I have trouble making it over to Amazon to review books.  Readers are busy, too.  Some have been burned by authors who’ve actually harassed them over a review.  I don’t want to add pressure to a reader to review my books.  I prefer it to be their idea.  Having the first in a series at free has helped to get a lot of those reviews, but mostly, it’s been time that builds up the number of them . . .

For more of this fascinating interview, please visit Self-Publishing Successfully for full transcript.

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Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors #10 – Jeremy Bates

Welcome to the tenth interview in the popular series, Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors. Today's guest is award-winning author Jeremy Bates. Jeremy is a Canadian/Australian author. His work typically explores the darker side of human nature and the novels in his "World's Scariest Places" series are all set in real locations, such as Aokigahara in Japan, The Catacombs in Paris, and Helltown in Ohio. He is also the author of the #1 Amazon bestseller White Lies, which was nominated for the 2012 Foreword Book of the Year Award. Without further ado, here he is, the talented Jeremy Bates:

Who are you and where do you come from? Do you think that your life experience has gone someway towards making you a successful author in your chosen genre?

Hey, Will. I was born in Canada but now live in Australia. In between I’ve lived all over the place, including Japan, Korea, the Philippines etc. And, sure, I think my life experience has shaped me as an author. Most of my books are set all over the world: Japan, France, Africa, and so forth. I like different places, exotic places. Also, the characters are often from all over, whether they are Japanese, German, British, Australian, French. Part of this is because of where the stories are seat, but I also like using international characters because a lot of people I’ve met, a lot of friends, are from different countries. And you write what you know about, right? I should also mention that living in Japan got me into the horror genre, which is what I write now. My first novel was straight up suspense. My second was more an action thriller. I only started writing horror because I knew about Aokigahara in Japan and thought it would make a great setting for a story. And, given the subject matter, it sort of had to be horror. Anyway, it kicked off the World’s Scariest Places series.

Many of your stories feature elements and tropes from different genres. For example, thriller, horror and travel adventure styles and themes populate most of your work – would you call yourself a slip-stream author? What genre do you most identify your work with?

I would call myself a horror writer, but I focus more on the story than on the genre. Simply put, if I get a good idea for a story, I’ll probably try to write it, regardless of genre. For example, I’ve written several novellas which I would broadly classify as horror, but they could just as easily be dark suspense, or psychological suspense. One even borders on sci-fi.

Where do you get your inspiration from for your writing and for the way you brand yourself as an author?

This is an easy question. I get my inspiration from scary real life places. If you do a google search on “scary places” you get pages and pages of results. As far as branding goes, I guess I’ve just branded my books as horror set in real locations.

Your stories are many things –  adventurous, violent, terrifying –  if you could pinpoint one thing in particular that has grabbed readers of your work, what would you say it is?

The settings. People seem to like that they are set in real locations that they could visit, if they so pleased.

You have enjoyed best-selling status on Amazon – is there a particular moment in your career as an author that you realized that you had done something right to get where you are now? Can you pinpoint what it was that spiked your success to date?

Deciding to self-publish. It’s been great to have complete control over everything. Also, I’m no longer writing for my publisher, or agent, or what I think they think will sell. I’m writing what I want to.

Your first novel was traditionally published. Did you try to get publishing contracts for your other books early on with traditional book publishers? If so, did you have any success there or if not what was it that made you decide to self-publish the majority of your work?

My first two books were traditionally published. White Lies hit #1 overall in the Paid Kindle Store. But this didn’t translate into a huge windfall of cash for me because traditional publishers take a massive chunk—especially if you’re a first-time author and have a crappy contract. Having said this, I still tried to get Suicide Forest traditionally published. I had a great agent work on it, and he sent it out to the Big Five and others. That was back in late 2013. But I finally got fed up with was all the waiting. It’s a long process if your book doesn’t get picked up right away. So by the time we decided Suicide Forest wasn’t going to sell, it was late 2014, and I already had the next book, The Catacombs, finished. My agent for that one—a different one at Curtis Brown—sent it out to do the rounds. He mentioned if The Catacombs sold, the publisher would probably want to pick up Suicide Forest too. But by then I’d already begun to think about self-publishing Suicide Forest. The way I saw it, even if The Catacombs sold right away, it wouldn’t be published for over a year, so I was looking at a 2016 release date. And if Suicide Forest sold as well, it wouldn’t come out until 2017. That was sort of nuts. I’m a pretty fast writer, and I realized I was going to have this big backlog of titles if I didn’t start self-publishing. So I self-published Suicide Forest. And it did well, sold well, got good reviews. This was when I gave up on traditional publishers. I realized I didn’t need them. I got the rights back to The Catacombs, and released that. I finished up a third book, Helltown, and put that out too. I also wrote four novellas. So instead of having maybe two new books out by sometime in 2017, I now have 3 novels and 4 novellas out in mid-2015. Come 2017 I’ll have a couple more novels out on top of this, plus more novellas etc.

Once you have decided that self-publishing might be your route, what financial and artistic considerations should you keep in mind before you begin?

I don’t really have any financial/artistic considerations. I do the covers and interiors myself. I have an editor I pay, of course, but it’s not too much.

What kind of marketing did you do to establish your author brand and what do you think is the most successful marketing for self-published authors?

One, I put links to my Amazon page in the back of all my Kindle books, making it easy for readers who have just finished one book to get the next. And two, I have one book permanently free. This is a big plus because it gets 1000 or so downloads a day, which is a great way to build a readership and far worth the money the book might be making if it weren’t free. Also, I offer a free novella on my website to people who subscribe to my newsletter. I’ve gotten about 5000 subscribers this way since January who I send emails to regarding new releases and so forth . . .


For more of this fascinating interview, please visit Self-Publishing Successfully for full transcript.

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Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors #8 – Iain Rob Wright

The previous interviews I conducted in the popular series, 'Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors,' were such a hit with visitors to this site I decided it would be crazy not to continue them. I have got some wickedly good interviews lined up for you over the next month, including VIP guest interviews from best-selling indie authors Iain Rob Wright, Armand Rosamilia, David Moody, Jeremy Bates, Michael Bunker, J. Thorn, Michael Bray, Michael J Sullivan, Ruth Ann Nordin and Michale Thomas. If that wasn't enough, I hope to have a book from the first series of interviews ready for release by the end of August. The book is titled (surprise, surprise!) 'Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors.' It contains all the authors interviewed in the first series (Russell Blake, April M Reign, William Malmborg, Mark Edward Hall, Matt Shaw, Michaelbrent Collings and Matt Drabble). Included in the book is a lengthy analysis of their recommendations for self-published authors and for those thinking of self-publishing, along with useful tips and resources. The book will be available for pre-order early August and is essential reading for those interested in self-publishing. Make sure you subscribe now to get on the mailing list for all updates and new-release information. 

 

Right, let's get into it. Today's special guest, is best-selling indie author, Iain Rob Wright. Iain is from the English town of Redditch, where he worked for many years as a mobile telephone salesman. After publishing his debut novel, THE FINAL WINTER, in 2011 to great success, he quit his job and became a full time writer. He now has over a dozen novels, and in 2013 he co-wrote a book with bestselling author, J.A.Konrath. The three most important things in his life are his wife, his son, and his fans. His work is currently being adapted for graphic novels, audio books, and foreign audiences. He’s an active member of the Horror Writer’s Association and a massive animal lover. Here's the interview:

Who are you and where do you come from? Do you think that your life experience has gone some way towards making you a successful author in your chosen genre?

I am Iain Rob Wright, a horror author. What has helped make me a successful author is that I am a fan first, writer second. My books are the things, as a horror fan, that I would like to read.

Where do you get your inspiration from for your writing and for the way you brand yourself as an author?

My inspiration comes from the other people in my genre. I read a lot and learned to love horror from enjoying the work of Stephen King, Richard Laymon, James Herbert and many more. I also love movies and television, and get many ideas whenever I watch a particularly original film. After watching Legion, I gained the idea for The Final Winter, my debut novel.

If you could pinpoint one thing in particular that has grabbed readers of your work, what would you say it is? I.e. what is it about your books that keeps your readers coming back for more?

I think readers point out my characters as the part they most enjoy. I reuse characters across multiple books and like to have them change and grow. I also try to be original with my ideas. All of my books are different and I don’t just write about one thing.

Your first book, ‘The Final Winter,’ was very successful – how did you achieve such an impact with your debut novel and have you managed to replicate it since?

I have no idea. I published it and got a few sales, and then those sales kept increasing. What helped me in the early days is gaining a couple of really amazing fans who recommended my work a lot. They helped get my name around very quickly. A writer is nothing without readers, so I was very lucky to get those early fans.

You have enjoyed best-selling status on Amazon and have had your books adapted for Graphic Novels, Audio Books and foreign audiences – is there a particular moment in your career as an author that you realized that you had done something right to get where you are now? Can you pinpoint what it was that spiked your success to date?

When I started earning more from my books than I had been while working a full-time job. When I started earning enough to pay all the bills I realized that writing was my “job” now and not just a dream. Also, when I wrote a book with JA. Konrath, who I had been a fan of before I was a writer, it was pretty amazing.

Did you try to get publishing contracts for your books early on with traditional book publishers? If so, did you have any success there or if not what was it that made you decide to self-publish the majority of your work?

My second book, Animal Kingdom, was published by an American Press. Eventually I bought the rights back and self-published it. I’ll let that speak for itself.

I noticed that many of your kindle titles are published under the imprint of Dead Pixel Productions – is that your own publishing company or a collective? Do you think it is important for self-published authors to establish their own publishing company to publish their works? Do you think that the same results can be achieved by a self-published author without forming a publishing company?

Dead Pixel Publications is something I have just become a part of. It is a collection of authors all working beneath a single banner, dedicated to finding mutual success. It is very important to have allies in this business and far easy to find success with help. I’m always very happy to offer assistance so joining a group such as DPP made sense to me. It’s not vital for an author to start their own publishing group, but it is important to become a brand in their own right. Stephen King is synonymous with horror because his name has become a brand. That’s what an author should aim for.

Once you have decided that self-publishing might be your route, what financial and artistic considerations should you keep in mind before you begin?

Do the best with what you have. In the early days I did my own covers and editing. I made a few sales and put that money into hiring artists and editors. As I earned more money I hired better artists and editors. You can scale your business up, but you will only get back what you put in. It hurts paying $500 to an artist, but the cost will pay for itself when you reap additional sales.

What do you see as your most innovative promotional strategy?

Bookbub is the current number 1 sales promoter, but I have been testing Facebook ads with mixed success. The biggest mistake I made in the last few years was not maintaining an mailing list. It’s a big focus for me now and it’s a big tool being able to email a thousand people each time I have a new release. Trying new things is the key to success. You look at guys like Hugh Howey, J.A.Konrath, and Mark J.Dawson, and you see that they all got rich by being the guy to hit upon something first. Find the opportunities for yourself and you will reap maximum advantage. If you are a follower then you are forever chasing diminishing returns . . .

For more of this fascinating interview, please visit Self-Publishing Successfully for full transcript.

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Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors #7 - William Malmborg

Today I bring you the final long-awaited interview in the popular series Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors. Today's guest is author William Malmborg who is a successful writer of dark psychological horror/thriller fiction. From William's Amazon bio: "William Malmborg has been publishing short stories in horror magazines and dark fiction anthologies since 2002. In addition, four of his novels, JIMMY, TEXT MESSAGE, NIKKI'S SECRET and DARK HARVEST, are all available, as is a short story collection titled SCRAPING THE BONE that features five previously published and five original tales of horror. When not writing William caters to the whims of Toby and Truman, two cats who reside with him in Wheaton, IL."

Who are you and where do you come from? Do you think that your life experience has gone someway towards making you a successful author in your chosen genre?

My name is William Malmborg and I live in the Chicago suburbs.  It's hard to say whether or not my life experiences have played a part in my success simply because this is the only path I have taken.  I came into the publishing world during an interesting time.  For the first five years of my career, magazines were still printing stories and you submitted everything via the mail.  Social media wasn't a thing yet, and I had my first story published by a magazine before I had an internet connection on my computer.  During the second half of my career, magazines began to disappear, many of them with stories of mine that were supposed to be published, and publishing houses began to get goofy.  And then ebooks hit the marketplace, which opened up a whole new road toward publishing success.  Given all this, I think the fact that my first several years were spent in the trenches of the traditional publishing world – interacting with editors at magazines, facing rejection with work that wasn't ready for publication, and having other stories bought and published that were ready – helped in giving me an edge when the ebook marketplace arrived.            

Did you try to get publishing contracts for your books early on with traditional book publishers? If so, did you have any success there or if not what was it that made you decide to self-publish the majority of your work?

For the first ten years of my writing career, traditional publishing was the only real route an author could take if they wanted to make a living.  During that time, my short stories sold frequently to horror and suspense magazines, but my novels had a difficult time.  Just having a publisher agree to read the first fifty pages seemed a monumental success, and if they then wanted to read the entire thing . . . well, let’s just say that such was so rare that it in itself was a moment worthy of celebration. 

My novel JIMMY was the one that I strived the hardest to have published during that early period of my career, though I did have others, TEXT MESSAGE, SIMPLE LIES and THE MISSING KID, which publishers looked at as well.  Nothing was ever accepted during those early years of submission, the typical reason being that the editors felt the serial killers within my novels were too likable, and that readers would have a difficult time dealing with that.  “Who do they root for?” was a common question they asked.  Year after year, this went on, until finally Don D’Auria at Dorchester Publishing informed me (a year after I had submitted the novel) that he really enjoyed JIMMY, and that he would like to make an offer on it.  First, however, it needed some rewrites, specifically the portions of the novel written in the interview format.  He wanted the entire thing as a third person novel.  Two months later, I sent him the new version of JIMMY, one that was actually better than the original version had been.  Following that, sale imminent, I went on to do some self-imposed rewrites for TEXT MESSAGE, because I felt that would be a good follow up to JIMMY.  This did not happen.  Dorchester Publishing started to spiral toward bankruptcy before JIMMY could be published, and while I stuck with them for nearly a year, I eventually did the right thing and took the novel elsewhere.

Following that, thinking other publishers would be interested in having a novel that had been ready for publication with another publishing house; I began sending queries for JIMMY to everyone that was accepting proposals.  Each one was rejected.  No one was interested in JIMMY, which really surprised me.  During that period, I began to hear success stories from authors that were uploading titles to the Amazon Kindle.  Intrigued, I did as much research as I could on this new method of publishing, and then, once I made the decision to jump in, hired a well-known artist to create a cover, and uploaded it.  A few months later, it was a bestseller on Amazon and had made me more money during that short period of time than I had made in the first ten years of my writing career combined.     

Why self-publish?

I self-publish the majority of my work simply because it is the most logical and profitable method of delivery within the US right now.  With foreign language editions, I still use traditional publishers within the countries where the titles will be released since they know their markets the best.  

Once you have decided that self-publishing might be your route, what financial and artistic considerations should you keep in mind before you begin?

One of the biggest misconceptions of self-publishing is that it carries no overhead.  After all, with print-on-demand, the printer only has to print copies as they are ordered, and with ebooks, it is nothing but computer code that is stored within a device.  However, there are other costs to consider, upfront ones that are important in making it so the book will be noticed by the public and enjoyed once it is read.  The first cost; the cover.  If you want to be treated like a professional author, one whose work is going to stand alongside authors who have major publishers behind them, then you need to have a professional create the cover.  Poor covers are the most common reason why books are passed over when a potential reader is looking for their next fix.  It doesn’t matter how amazing the writing within is, if people aren't going to pick it up and open it, it might as well be four hundred blank pages.  Second: editing.  You need a professional to look over your work once it is completed.  Mistakes happen and it is nearly impossible for an author to catch their own when they have lived with the work, day in and day out, for months at a time.  Initial sales via a fantastic cover are great, but nothing will knock a title down like poor reviews due to editing and grammar errors.  Now, will these two things guarantee success?  No.  Nothing will ever do that.  But it will make the chances of success more likely.       

What do you see as your most innovative promotional strategy?

Honestly, I don’t really have a promotional strategy.  I simply write and release the work.  Initially, I always price my new releases at 99 cents, so that the readers who have been with me from the beginning will be treated to a great deal, but after that, once the price goes up to my typical $4.99, I step back and let word of mouth do its thing.   The only exception to this is when I’m able to get a book promoted by BookBub.  When that happens, I once again lower the price to 99 cents for the days they market it and enjoy the snowball effect as the initial sales from the ad bump the title into several top ten categories, which then brings in more sales . . . 

For more of this fascinating interview, please visit Self-Publishing Successfully for full transcript.  

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