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Sorry, Charlie: My first Kickstarter project

Sorry, Charlie cover

 

Sorry, Charlie on Kickstarter

 

A year ago, I almost pulled the trigger on a T-shirt project for Kickstarter. Almost. I got the first 15 or so shirts printed, wrote the text for my project down, and had everything going except the video. Then life happened.

 

I did, during that time, find out that it’s not impossible to self-publish your own book. I self-published Sorry, Charlie on Amazon, made it available for paperback through Createspace, and then placed it on bn.com for the Nook. So I dropped the ball on one thing, but picked it up on the other. I am also looking into getting an accountant to handle all the money I made last year from Sorry, Charlie. $41. That’s my age, by the way, which if there is any correlation there, by the time I’m 80, I’ll be doubling my take. Sweet. But the point is, it made me happy and I proved to myself that I could do something.

 

Of course, after I published it I realized that about 1000 people a day can do the same thing. I didn’t have a marketing campaign, and so the book got buried under a mountain of digital siblings. After writing the first 100 or so pages of my next novel, The Village, I have launched my first Kickstarter campaign. It’s still not the T-shirts. It’s a follow up to my novella Sorry, Charlie.

 

I had originally self-edited (never do this). And was creating my own book cover (never do this). Then I had two friends chip in who knew what they were doing. Jerson Campos created an awesome book cover and Bonnie Roberts edited the book. Huge, huge difference in the final product. Get people who do this for a living to perform these two services. Even if you are good at editing, you’re too close to your literary neonate. People don’t look at their newborns and say, “Wow, now that is an ugly baby!” Find people who will tell you that you have an ugly baby.

 

My very first Kickstarter project is to help these guys. One of them did their thing for free, and the other one did theirs for close to free. You know how it is when friends ask you for crap. You feel guilty charging them what you need to. This will hopefully put a little change in their pockets.

 

When this project is over, I’m going to launch the T-shirt project. Then a simpler one to spread a little love. Then one for my next novel The Village, so I can pay these guys up front next time.

 

I did my prep work. I watched other people come and go on Kickstarter. I watched what the successful ones did and I watched what the unsuccessful ones did. I read Don Steinberg’s The Kickstarter Handbook: Real-Life Crowdfunding Success Stories. I read the guidelines and helpful hints from the Kickstarter site itself. I took special care with my rewards. I wrote my story down. I shot my video. About 70 or so takes, I think. I upgraded to Amazon payments for business and verified all my information. I put in pictures of Bonnie and Jerson so backers could see the people they’re helping. Then I did what I believe to be the most important thing so far.

 

I got feedback. I used the preview link and let other people scour the project. I ended up taking out something that might not have come off as humorous as I had intended if you didn’t know me to begin with. I replaced it with something a little more gracious sounding. I changed a couple of rewards so they clearly stated that they included the rewards from smaller donation levels. I removed a comment referring to something that no longer existed in the video. Again, I stepped back and let people look at my wretched little newborn.

 

Then I clicked the Submit button and stared at the screen for a day and a half until Kickstarter approved it. Then I published it. Put my fragile ego, I mean infant project, out there with its eggshell crust for everyone to see. I’m hoping that they love him and hug him and call him George.

 

I published it on February 20, 2013 at 4:52 p.m. and got my first backer that night at exactly 1:20 a.m. Not that I was staring at the screen for 8 hours and 28 minutes straight. That would be creepy.

 

I’m going to go blink now.

 

 

 

Publishing My First Novella to Amazon

Sorry, Charlie cover

Day 135 . . .

. . . or something like that. I’m not keeping exact count anymore. Kind of like when you get a new car and you’re all like, hey don’t bring that bottled water in here, it could spill. And then a couple months later, you’re licking the chocolate from a candy bar wrapper before chunking it in the floorboard.

 

That’s what publishing has been like for me, anyway. I was manic at first. Someone I don’t know must buy it. I must get a hundred or so downloads a week for it to be even mildly successful. And I have to have at least 30 or 40 five star reviews. My e-book no longer has that new book smell, that 0 to 60 feel, that ego boosting kick from parking it in the driveway for the first time. (Confession: I’ve never bought a new car and probably never will. I have no pride in knowing I’m paying someone else a shitload of interest over a five year period just so I can stroke my fragile ego. Four years old with decent mileage for me.)  I’m not saying Sorry, Charlie is a yard car just yet. I’m saying that reality is sinking in.

 

So what’s the status quo? It’s about to hit month 5, and I have sold, at the most, about 10 or so per month. During a KDP Select promotion, I gave away almost a thousand. I received two good reviews. This month, I sold nothing on Amazon.com and the only blokes who saved me from a literary skunk were the UK site. They bought one. Thanks blokes.

 

So I’m trailing off to nothingness. How do I handle this? What’s the plan of action? Do I go networking crazy or hatch some more marketing schemes for a 115 page novella?

 

No. I’m going to write. Write. Write. Write.

 

One thing I’ve learned about readers is that they feel more comfortable when a writer has a stash of books to choose from. It makes sense, psychologically. Here’s a guy with five or ten books behind him. He must be a writer for real. And if I like his works, there’s more to choose from. It’s a comfort level thing that doesn’t get much attention because I think it all happens in our subconscious in about a tenth of a millisecond. So, I need to put another out there. Together, the two books can support each other, an online symbiosis. Then a third, a fourth, and so on . . .

 

Another thing I’ve learned is that although self-publishing is fun and rewarding, as is with most DIY projects, it’s also very tough. Not the getting-the-book-out-there part, anybody can do that, and a lot of people are. It’s what comes next that’s hard. Getting seen. There’s only so many things you can do to get noticed in a flooded market. That’s when having the big guns are helpful. Publishers already have a set process, a network, and a tried and true workflow. I don’t. So one of the next few books I put out needs to be a book worthy of the big guns. The more I write, the better each one gets. At least, I hope so.  And so furthers my chances of getting noticed.

 

And then there’s the books themselves. I don’t write life-changing works of art. Not yet, anyway. And I haven’t put in my 10,000 hours yet either. I believe that when I do, that when anybody does, they will reap the rewards. So my goal then, as it has always been, has remained virtually unchanged by all this.

 

Write a lot and get better with each iteration.

 

That simple.

 

 

Publishing My First Novella to Amazon – Day 52

Sorry, Charlie cover

 

Day 52.

 

For the month of March, I sold 4 copies and there was one borrowed. Borrowed means that someone got it on their Kindle and then loaned it to someone else for free. I still get a small cut of the Kindle Select money pot for that month. Of course, most of the buyers were people I know. That’s not a bad thing, mind you, it’s just that as an author, you kind of feel like it doesn’t really count until strangers buy the book. Anonymous, cloud-surfing people who happen upon your page through some mysterious search engine algorithm and like the first chapter enough to click the buy button.

 

From this, I made $13.22. I consider this a win. A small win, but a win nonetheless.

 

For April, I have sold 7 copies. If you ignore the blatantly obvious, miniscule figures, and use math to make it sound better, that’s a 75% increase. I think. I can never remember how to figure percent increases. Correct me if I’m wrong. You could also round the 7 to an 8 and say that it’s the start of a geometrical progression, meaning that come December of this year, I will have sold 2048 copies that month. That would be a . . . really big % increase. I would pull in over $5,000 that month. A really good Christmas-recovery check. By next year, millionaire. I prefer to stay positive.

 

For the month of April (so far), as part of a promotional tool for those of us enrolled in KDP Select, I have given away 535 copies on Amazon, 190 in the UK, 9 in Denmark, 1 in France, 2 in Spain, and none in Italy. That’s a total of 737 digital copies that I have given away. I think it’s really cool that someone in Denmark may be reading my book. I’m international, dude. And after giving away almost a 1000 copies, I finally got 1 feedback.

 

I realize that a lot of people, from what I’ve heard on the Internet, download a crap-load of freebies and don’t always read them. Or maybe they couldn’t get past chapter 2. Who knows? But I did learn something from the one feedback. The review title read ‘not bad.’ The pessimist in me notes that they didn’t say it was good, just not bad. Like it’s stuck in limbo somewhere in between. A kind of literary purgatory. The optimist in me noticed they said they really enjoyed it. It got 3 stars. I think I could have pulled out another star, but they didn’t like the price. Point taken.

 

It was $3.99. Before I put the original price on it, I thought to myself, what would I pay for it? Well, I’m a cheap guy. I probably wouldn’t pay over .99 for it. So then, why did I set it at 4 bucks? Because like all people, I have trouble coming to grips with reality. I know that since this is my first book and I am an unknown author, I can’t command a decent price. I know this. I just can’t accept this. That’s because the book is worth more to me than it is to the reader. I sliced my word-veins and bled all over the pages. Why in the world, my tender ego acclaimed, would someone not part with 4 bucks for such a work of art?

 

Also, anything set less than $2.99 on Amazon will only bring 35% commission instead of 70%. So the other reason for my pricey price is, well . . . greed. But I did take note and lowered it a dollar to $2.99. I can’t bring myself to go less. For now, anyway. But after my 90 days in Kindle Select is over, which should be at the end of May, I’m thinking it’s going to 99 cents. I’m coming to my senses, slowly. I know it would be better to sell a hundred at a buck and get some decent feedback than to sit stubbornly at 5 or 10 a month because of greed. I would make more money and have a much better chance of getting enough sales to edge my way into the top 100, even if only for a couple of days. It’s not that hard to do if you sell a bunch at one time.

 

But I do appreciate the feedback, whether it’s positive, like this one, or negative. The more the better. So, this Friday, April 27, 2012, I’m having another Promo where everyone can get the book for free! That’s a dollar cheaper than the .99! To me, it’s a path to feedback. So if you get it this weekend, and if you take the time to read it, I’ll go ahead and say thanks. And if you give me some feedback, I’ll give you double thanks, no matter what you said.

 

On another note, I finally got the proof of my print version from Createspace and accepted it. So now Sorry, Charlie is available on Amazon and Createspace in print form.  For some reason, it’s a little harder to find than the Kindle version. The Kindle version shows right away, but you have to search for the paperback version in the horror section to find the printed copy. Weird. You would think it would show right under the digital copy in search results. I’m still figuring this one out.

 

Again, if you have something you want to put out there, do it. It’s not that hard. If I can do it, anyone can. Good luck.

 

 

 

 

Publishing My First Novella to Amazon – Day 14

Five Stars

Wikipage

Day 14

Okay. So it’s been an even two weeks since I hit the publish button on my book. I gently placed my anonymous, digital book into the Kindle virtual world, armed it with some vague keywords for SEO purposes, stretched a pretty cover over it to make it more desirable, and donned it with a descriptive introduction that should touch the fancy of like minds, warped that is, who might find the courage and the $3.99 to click the ‘Buy’ button on Amazon. Then I blogged about it to my immense number of followers (11). Then I went to Bookdailey.com and set up a first-chapter free read. Then I used Facebook and word of mouth to elucidate the masses as to the location, at the end of the Amazon rainbow, of their waiting treasure.

I now have 4 sales.

This is tantamount to bedding your dream woman and then, right before the Big Bang, having her thump the shit out of your balls. It’s like Paul Harvey never telling you the rest of the story. It’s like the series finale of Lost. It’s like December 22, 2012. It’s very anticlimactic, you see.

The thing is, I understand that none of this is an overnight thing. I know that it takes time and that readers and publishers want more than one little novella from an author.  I am also aware that the Internet is a big place and I really know nothing about how to properly market anything. I am standing at the edge of the Atlantic, no boat, and casting my cane pole into the oncoming waves, a tiny sliver of soft Muenster cheese pressed on a barbless hook. Not to mention the fact that the book isn’t exactly an award winning novel. But then again, it wasn’t supposed to be. It was initially a 40 page scribble in my notebook. Something emergent and ephemeral that began to coalesce and demand a clarity of its own. So I obliged. But if I know this, then why does an average of two sales a week bother me?

If you’re a writer, you don’t need me to answer that. If you’re not a writer, I can tell you it’s because idealism will always trump reality. You might say though, hey, Dude, you published a book and not many people have done that. Traditionally, this might have been true, but with the advent of self-publishing becoming one-click-easy, it’s not. Anyone can scribble anything down and hit the ‘Publish’ button. There are millions of books out there, but only a small percentage worth reading. Is Sorry, Charlie one of those books? Who knows?

For every song, story, or play, there will always be someone that experiences it and thinks it was wonderful. That may be one person, or 10,000,000. And I think that is the one thing that is hanging like a grey cloud over my literary ego – lack of feedback.

If I only had 30 sells this year, but 25 of those gave positive feedback, that would in some way validate the process. Of course, even if I got 25 negative feedback, I know I would continue to write without pause. But with no feedback at all, I know nothing. It’s very dentist’s office. I am waiting in the lobby of my own tortured mind and listening to shrill screams against the background of metal grinding raw on teeth. Somewhere out there, someone is reading my attempt at dime store horror – and judging it with every word.

So, I have been working feverishly on getting out a more accessible printed version of the book. More availability, quicker feedback. That’s my reasoning. And I had no idea about some of the things that would come into play. I will share a few of them with you.

One was page size. Would the reader want a smaller 8×5 or a larger 9×6. I ended up going with 9×6 because it was standard, which I understand opens doors to more markets, and gave the book a little bit of mass for its smaller page count. Go larger and your book may not fit on some shelves. Most of what I read relayed that 9×6 was a good choice.

Another was font. I know that it makes a huge difference on readability. Ever opened a book and put it down because of the font? Or maybe you didn’t even consciously make the decision, you just knew something wasn’t right when you started reading it. If the words are too close to each other, your reading voice runs everything together. Too far apart and the line starts to stretch and pull at your attention span and the connections and meaningful associations between the words attenuates with each sentence. And then there’s leading and kerning. How far away from each other should the letters be? And the line spacing? Turns out that you can, and may need to, set the line spacing in points and not use the basic Microsoft line spacing. For mine, I chose the font the best way I knew how. I researched online to find out the most common and easy-to-read fonts, and then I picked out four to choose from. Then I set the font different on each page. I also set each individual font to a different size for each page. I printed the pages out and let my family number the ones they liked the best. They picked Mongolian Baiti at 11 point, so that’s what I went with.

There were common, first-time publishing mistakes of which sites warned. Starting a chapter on the left side of a page, for instance. Or having a line by itself at the end of a page. Or not justifying the text. There was header numbering that wasn’t supposed to be on blank pages or chapter pages. A lot of little things that you see and never think about. Unless they’re off. Then your mind realizes that something is not right, and even if you don’t know what it is, you may shy away from the book.

And there’s the cover. I only needed a front cover for the web. Now I needed to do things like multiply the number of pages by a constant that’s based on the type of paper I’m using to get the spine width. And there’s making sure the pictures bleed off the page and don’t have some weird border around them. This is all DIY I might mention, just time consuming. You figure things out like – If you set your page numbering in the header and then create your section breaks immediately following your page breaks before chapters, and you’ve got the checkbox marked for allowing a different first page header, then the header will not show on the chapter pages. It’s all very trial and error, even with the help of the Internet. Picture someone changing a car tire with nothing but a small hammer and you’ve got the idea.

And let’s not forget what needs to go on the cover. There’s more than the title, subtitle, and author’s name. There’s the description, illustrator and publisher information, pricing, the barcode, back matter, and blurbs, of which I have none. Nor will newspapers even consider reading self-published materials, because again, there’s too many of us and they would be inundated.

So I think I avoided most of the bad mistakes, but we’ll see. And if I didn’t, it’s okay. I’m climbing the learning curve. I’m figuring out things that I never would have if I had a publisher doing all the work for me. It’s a more fulfilling and personal experience. And kind of fun. Kind of.

So while I wait for my extremely underpaid (underpaid meaning no pay at all) but very skilled illustrator to send the updated book cover, I cross my fingers and wait for that first set of five stars to show up underneath my book. Hopefully they will all be yellow.

 

 

Sorry, Charlie cover

Publishing My First Novella to Amazon – Day 4

Silly Monkey

Wikipage

I hit the publish button and then hit F5 (refresh). Wait 5 seconds. F5. Wait 5 seconds. F5. I know, of course, that it takes up to a day or so for Amazon to actually list it. But I just . . . hold on for a second . . . F5 . . . as I was saying, I have a patience problem. I finally give up and go to bed.

Upon awakening, I check again. Now the KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) site shows the book in the ‘publishing’ stage. F5. F5. F5. Alas, it is time to leave. And my wife asks me when was the last time I used the bathroom. I look down at the chair in front of the computer and see a large wet spot. I have a problem. We go run errands.

When I return, I go sit in my wet spot. I have marked my chair. Mine. And lo and behold! KDP says my book is live! Live I tell you! Live! In my excitement, I go to hit F5, then realize that it’s unnecessary. I panic for no reason. I feel like Neo the first time he tried to jump the building. I find a ‘Reports’ link at the top and click it. Then I click the ‘Last 30 days report’ to see how wealthy I am. There are no results. Neo looks down, then falls to a squishy pavement. This is reality. This is actually what I expected. But I think I would’ve been better off mentally if they would have just lied to me. That’s the least they could have done. Just a panel that says you’ve already sold your first book. No one would need to know the dirty truth. F5. F5. F5.

I look out the window and see a flower bloom as if watching a time lapse video. I realize my arm is hurting. I’ve been continually hitting the F5 key again for 12 hours straight. The wet spot has spread to the surrounding floor. I have a crazy look in my eye. The dogs are whining when they are around me for no reason. I swim forth from a hazy shade of extreme refreshing and see that someone has borrowed my book! I smile and make strange monkey sounds. Dancing around the room, I pound my chest and bang on the door for my wife to let me out. I hear the key in the lock and then footsteps hurrying away, lest I take to throwing poop again.

When I awake, I am lying on the downstairs couch. I look up to see a huge spot on the ceiling where there is discoloration, probably from a leak somewhere above. It must be coming from the office. Strange. I look around to find that everything is nailed down. There is a tire hanging from a rope over the stairs. As I move to the windows and look out, I see my family through the newly installed bars. There is a note on the door. I read it twice before understanding it fully. Language is becoming harder to understand. But I see the word on the note – “Sale.”

Ooo – ooo – ooo – Ah – ah – ah! I swing from tire rope to stairs. I swing from stairs to office. Office big wet spot with squishy carpet. Mine. Mine. Mine. Magic screen show one sale. Right Turn Clyde! Me happy. Me happy. Throw poop. Throw poop. F5F5F5F5F5F5F5!

Ooo – ooo – ooo – Ah – ah – ah!

Publishing My First Novella to Amazon

Sorry Charlie

All in all, publishing to Amazon wasn’t all that bad.

I had gotten to the point that if I didn’t publish one of my works somewhere, I was going to blow a piston. And I almost put it out without getting it edited. What a mistake that would have been. When my editor handed the manuscript back, I think there were two pages – out of 156 – that had no red marks on them. If you’re going to publish, let a professional edit it. No matter what. You’ll regret it if you don’t.

Next comes the book cover. Again, don’t put something out there just to have it. I almost did this, too. And although I think I had a pretty good picture, the illustrator I used put me to shame. As a result, I feel much more confident that the book cover will represent what I have written. The reader can, hopefully, judge the book by its cover. Again, hire someone who knows what they are doing. It really makes a difference.

Then comes some keywords and categories. They have tons of articles on how to do all these things, so I’m not detailing them here. I will say that these are very important, too. How will the reader find your book (Out of over 21,000 in Horror, for instance)? What tags will they use on it? Spend some time on this one. You could argue that this is the most important. If you have a book in a category that doesn’t match it or you don’t have good keywords, then nothing you have written will matter because no one will ever find it. Be granular when choosing your categories. The smaller the niche, the more chance you have of rising to the top 100 in that niche.

I set the price at $3.99. Probably should have gone with $2.99, but then there’s a whole lot of people who would say for a novella it should have been $1.99, or even $.99. And of course, there’s the ones who say it should all be free.  I don’t know if I made the right decision, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask for less. My finger hovered over the ‘2,’ but I just couldn’t. Give me $3.99 or give me death. This will also be a good way to validate my writing abilities. The more the book costs, the harsher the criticism. If the reader feels like they overpaid for what they got, I’m sure they’ll let me know.

For formatting, I used Mobipocket Creator and Kindle Previewer. You just import your Word document and it does the rest. Once it was in a workable html format, I took the html and added some blank lines, removed some indentations, and added a dedication page. It’s not that hard if you know basic HTML.

Then you just hit the ‘Publish’ button. It’s really that easy.

My point for writing this update is not just to chronicle my first baby steps in the self-publishing world, and not just to shamelessly plug my book, but to let you know that if you have something that you think is worthy, then you can publish it. Stop thinking you can’t and let that baby see the light of day. Whether you sell 2 copies, or 5,000, you’ll feel better if you do.

Good writing!