š lisa writes stuff issue #28 indie authors conferenceš
call me by my name
Dear Internet,
I spent last weekend in a virtual conference on indie publishing sponsored by Romance Writers of America. The conference was a bit pricey, so I entered to win a scholarship and won! I was going to give the scholarship up (weekend long commitment seemed overwhelming) but am I glad I did not!
Saturday session started at 10 a.m. EST and I didnāt put my AirPods in their case until 6 p.m. that night. There were only 15-minute breaks throughout the day, so I ate and did other things during the downtime.
I sat in on the following seminars:
Using Amazon Ads
Marketing beyond social media
Freelance editorsā round table
Publishing trends
Marketing and PR 101 (not very helpful when the presenter admits to not wanting to use or take advantage of social media. Hello, itās 2024!)
Vellum (Mac based app to use for formatting)
Book launch planning
There were more sessions on audiobooks, other writing and publishing apps, intellectual property and copyright, and estate planning. I know Iām missing a few. Nice thing is RWA recorded all the sessions so I can go back and watch the sessions I missed!
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On my websites, linktr.ee, and at the end of lisa writes stuff issues, I advertise my chapbook commercial breaks. I do not advertise it anywhere else. The chapbook was edited and released in 2015 or so with an update in 2023. And while I am receiving a royalty check (which I got the email on the first day of the conference) this week, the book doesnāt sell. In the list of Kindle best sellers, Iām in the 4 million mark and in the tens of thousands in specific categories.
Yep. Those are the reality of my numbers.
The session on Amazon Ads led me to a few free seminars outside the conference on creating Amazon Ads. I signed up for a five-day challenge and coupled with the seminar teachings, Iām going to give Amazon Ads a whirl to get eyes on commercial breaks. As of Sunday, the ad is in review. Iāll keep you updated.
commercial breaks is a hard sell because it has no real genre. Itās two prose poems but doesnāt really fit poetry. Itās also memoir.
Here is how Amazon categorizes it:
The blurb:
āWritten over two days in April of 1996, "commercial breaks" portrays the raw and intimate world of a girl in the middle of a bipolar manic phase. Over sixty pages in length and consisting of only two poems, "commercial breaks" brings to light the deftness of love lost and found, the search for self, the critique of relationships, and the stigma of mental illness. "commercial breaks" remains as poignant and honest as it did when it was first published online over twenty years ago. ā
I hand wrote commercial breaks on single spaced college lined paper in those two days in April. I think it clocked in at 45 pages? I donāt recall. I remember it took hours to decipher my handwriting to hand code it into HTML to publish on my website. When it was online, I got a lot of feedback about the rawness and intensity of the piece and thatās when I decided to sell it in ebook and print format.
(It is now available on Kindle Unlimited to read for āfreeā if you donāt wish to purchase it. (KU is $10 a month.) I get paid by page view. Regardless if you purchase it or read via KU, please give me a review! I ordered a print proof of the book so I can see if anything needs cleaned up. I canāt wait to hold a book with my name on it.)
I re-transcribed the HTML file to a Word doc and paid for an editor. I bought an ISBN and designed the cover (this is why itās so simple looking). All of this took time. I cannot imagine having a back catalog of work, which zillions of authors seem to have, and doing this for every single book. But the thing is, these things are a necessity if you want the book to sell.
The PR and marketing session also gave a lot of info, as it says, beyond social media. As I told Great Kate, Iām shit for marketing myself. I am not a salesperson. I even feel uncomfortable leaving the link to commercial breaks in my issues!
After the conference on Sunday, I updated the metadata and put commercial breaks in KU. Once everything was approved, I posted links to my personal FB account, my FB page, Mastodon, and Bluesky. Lots of authors were talking this weekend about using IG reels to post content as well as well as trusty #booktok. Already managing FB, Mastodon, and Bluesky,is a lot of work. I donāt know if Iām ready for IG reels or #booktok yet. (I know that is where the cool kids hang out so who knows.)
(I have Bluesky invites if you want one. Email me at lisa @ rabey dot net so I can email you the code.)
My brain was spinning when I pulled my AirPods out after the closing session on Sunday.
In case you havenāt gathered, Iām using commercial breaks as a tester of what Iāve learned. In the Amazon Ads Five Day Challenge course Iām taking, the presenter said it could take one to three weeks before you see any data in your dashboards. Be patient. This is not a skill Iām that great at so letās hope Iām not checking and refreshing my dashboard pages daily.
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None of this info matters if Iām not producing work! I mentioned the writerās block Iāve been struggling with in AMUN #171 (and god knows how many previous issues). I followed a lot of breadcrumbs on the people I met this past weekend at the conference which stumbled me onto the book 5,000 Writing Prompts and immediately bought it. I flipped through and I love, love, LOVE that the prompts are broken out by genre and the table of contents is clickable so I can directly go to the section. In the prologue, Bryn states the book is, obviously, overwhelming. To ease into it, she recommends picking a random prompt every day for two weeks and just write based on that prompt for 15 minutes. This I can do.
Iām not necessarily totally bereft of stories ideas, I do have a few book summaries floating around:
Paranormal mystery
Historical (1910s) cozy mystery
Female led hardboiled mystery (1920s) (I read what I wrote and in the very first chapter I had my lead spring her secretary out of the clink and a few paragraphs later, mention the secretary coming into the office. Geeze. Also, some of my word usage is suspect.)
Womenās fiction (romance will not be the major plot) (I read what I wrote and boy, did I not keep the plot together. Names of characters and places changed in each chapter. Iāve written and re-written the first four chapters four times. Another thing to sort.)
Rom com
Smut of some variety
Needless to say, Iām incredibly impressed with the authors I met this weekend who have dozens of books published!
One theme that popped up in the conference is that seriesā sell better than stand alones. If youāre a fast write, itās advised you donāt start advertising your books until 30 days has past since the publication of the previous book.
So, much information!
Iām writing this on Sunday after the conference but Iām hoping by the time you read this, I have plotted Stella Matthew Makes a Decision. Time to quit dicking around and do some work!
Short story and poetry submission update
78 submissions, including 63 rejections, 8 acceptances, 1 withdrawal, and 6 outstanding.
Publication
chapbook: commercial breaks (Also available in KU!)
lisa x