/lit/ - Literature

I’m not going to ask for money.
I’m here to just tell you what works and will set you up for success here.

I just let my publisher deal with marketing. I have better things to do with my time, like writing.

>>19881369
8-15% of the profit goes to you. So you make no money.

Writing is part of marketing. Let me explain, in any industry marketing starts with the development of the product. You need to be aware of who is your customer, what channels you'll be using to reach them, and as such what is the Value Proposition that you're offering them. When you're outlining a book you should already be thinking about marketing. This is what separates most writers from Danielle Steele or Stephan King: they know what their readers want.
Knowing this there's often a mistake that self-publishing authors make, they follow other authors and people involved in online literary communities. Well these places are already saturated with other writers. Your value proposition lacks a USP. However, if you know who your reader is then you should be reaching out to them: if you write books with themes about Gourmands - food and wine. Then you should be interacting with food and wine online communities, because it's a space not already saturated with authors.
So how do you actually grab their attention? You have to learn from journalism. Think headlines, how does Vice, the Daily Mail, or the NYPost get people to click? What are the plot points in your story that are too intriguing, too amazing for people not to be interested?
You can then put up sample chapters, and at the end of the chapter have that big fat CTA button to order the entire book online or read the e-book instantly. make sure to offer a "discount" - if you're selling your e-book for instant reading at 5 dollars. You should have a big fat cross line through a figure like 9.50 and instead it say "limited time only keep reading NOW for just 4.99". Keep that FOMO going while they're hooked.
To be honest I actually have no fucking idea and I'm hoping that by Cunningham's Law some anon who actually knows how to market will tell me the real stuff

>>19881559
Here’s what you said that is right.
Know your audience before publishing.
That means at every point in the book should your target audience be able to tell who it is this book is meant for.
-title
-content
-front cover
-blurbs
-community you create before publishing the book
If I can look at your front cover and know what genre you’re writing in, you’ve done a good job.
If you have a community that follows you which will be your target audience, good job.
Finally of course the content needs to line up.
I don’t publish for women for instance so I market towards them.
Women aren’t interested in non romance and non fiction.

>>19881688
>Know your audience before publishing.
Lel this is exactly why I think publishing anything heartfelt is not only worthless but inherently cucked
Literally only publish if you want to fully commit to the market and pander as hard as possible

>>19881542
I get royalties, an advance and paid for the book on completion. While I may not be living in the lap of luxury, I get by and things are slowly but surely improving. On top of that they pay for the editor, which was probably about $4K, if I had to pay for the editor it would have just gotten a simple line edit as I did on my first book. I don't have to deal with distribution or pay a distributor, don't have to pay for printing or go print on demand, don't have to make ads and presskits, don't have to find reviewers. I am very happy with the arrangement.

>>19881737
are your books porn or what

>>19881753
No, fiction. Sex only occurs a few times across the my two novels and short stories and it is more implied than anything.

>>19881737
You get 8-15% of book profits.
You get a $2000 advance before you publish.
You sell maybe 500 copies at all.
Meanwhile
>self publish
>not be afraid to market
>know how to market
>sell 100-500 copies a month for each book
>make 500-2500 a month off of each book because I learned how to actually be self sufficient
You’re afraid of failing or relying on yourself.

>>19881794
What genre are your published books in?

>>19881817
History sub genres
Military sub genres
Notice how you didn’t say I was wrong, just looked to lash out.
Pathetic.
Clocked.

>>19881794
So you know what my publishing deal is? I am well into the 500-2500 a month range, if you include the money my publisher spends on me then I am out of that range, assuming you adjust for what that would cost me, while that editing service would have cost me $4k they have a deal with that editor (and others), the editor gets a flat yearly fee for X amount of hours, publisher buys in bulk. On top of the already mentioned things my publisher gets me various paying gigs, the odd interview (laughable pay at my level but still pay), handful of short story jobs that tend to pay fairly well, and all the marketing and distribution shit I already mentioned.
>>19881840
That wasn't me. You should learn some self control and wait a reasonable amount of time before replying to anyone who responds to you. Ironic that you reacted that way after suggesting I wrote porn.

>>19881233
Don't bother trying to redpill /lit/ on the business of selling books, OP. Firstly, there are so many snowflakes here who would sooner kill themselves than learn anything about marketing. Secondly, you are giving retarded advice. Twitter is worthless for new authors and a complete waste of time. Writing more books is king, email and website is second to that, and besides that your real "marketing" goal is to find ways to connect your books to people who would buy, read and enjoy them. Trying to get followers on social media like Twitter or Instagram, in the absence of any other strategy, is just doing unpaid work for those platforms in exchange for the attention of people who may not even buy your book in the end.

>>19881369
>I just let my publisher deal with marketing.
Understandable but plebeian.
>I have better things to do with my time, like writing.
Based.

>>19881718
It's not a zero sum game. The problem with this attitude is that you will end up refusing to even think about marketing at all. There are probably a massive range of things you can do that will make your book more appealing but realistically cost your artistic integrity little to nothing.

>>19881794
Self-publishing is definitely better for authors but for some reason people are emotionally attached to trad and want to be hand-held through everything. But there are many paths to success, so if that's how they want to do it...

>>19881948
>Understandable but plebeian.
I did consider self publishing, all the way to the extent of actually setting up a publishing company and all that, not just print on demand (I have a printing background). But some of my short stories got some attention and that got a few publishers interested and I could not pass up the time savings. Still like the idea of setting up a small publishing company, maybe if I ever get past being a literal who and get some clout.

>>19881948
>It's not a zero sum game.
Yes it is. Listen, I know how it all works. You have to fit your work to a broad consumer category for it to even exist, and unless you are naturally attuned to what these broad categories like, you've failed before you even start. The further you are from the general taste of the public, the more extensively you have to modify your work and tear yourself apart to deliver a product. There is simply no way to let the public like something they don't already know they like, marketing and the product you market, today, are indistinguishable. Unless you have a YA fantasy idea or something political or pornographic it's practically worthless to even try.

I don't care about making money. I have a job that takes next to no energy from me and which allows me to write at work. I'm just not gonna play your gay little game of self-promotion because I don't need what's at the end of it. To me, writing isn't some chickenshit way to stop working. I don't need a single, red cent from my writing. I'm just not gonna play your gay little game! Sorry! but no matter how many different ways you try to justify your sniveling and you scurryings-about in attempts at Accumulating the Currency, I'm just not gonna do it! I'm just not gonna stop looking at you as if you're a rat!

Nigger!

>>19881884
Ironic because I didn’t suggest you wrote porn, that was the other anon.
Also, sounds very lazy of you. I can edit my own book and have 1-2 friends read it to find errors and not have to pay someone $4,000 to look for spelling mistakes LMAO
You’re letting these parasites live off of your hard work.

>>19882919
Do you publish for free or keep your stuff unpublished?

>>19882919
Yeah yeah who are you who cares.
Write your books no one will read and cry about how you have your dignity not to market as you pay a trad pub to do it for you.
Nigger.

>>19881884
I may be too blackpilled but I refuse to believe that you make a livable wage writing things that aren't fucking unsanitary. There has to be a catch. What is it?

>>19882959
The catch is he’s lying.
At $2500 a month as a retarded trad pubber, he’d have to earn $31,250-16,667 a month in sales. He obviously isn’t because he’d be a successful author (why come here) that’s a BSR of like 2000 on amazon, the top 0.1% of authors.

>>19882973
If he was self published on the other hand, $500-2,500 a month would only mean 100-500 books a month, which is completely reason at a BSR of 35000-15000

>>19882977
That's also hard to believe, again, assuming that you're writing something with a minimum of integrity. 100-500 books a month and it's not smut or you're not some kind of YouTube celebrity (which never happens on the grounds of quality)? Impossible.

>>19881233
How do you self-publish apart from just putting your shit on Amazon in a flood of ten thousand other novels that get posted that day.

>>19882888
I don't agree but I'm not even going to try to convince you otherwise, so best of luck with your heartfelt writing anon.

>>19882919
I know this is bait but it brings up something that I have never understood about the people who are opposed to being business minded. Why not just give your writing away? If you don't care about making money why wouldn't you just put your writing up for free on stores and on a website or something so it can have the maximum possible social impact by reaching more people. There is just such a stink of failed artist resentment from the people who want to have a foot in both camps on this.
>I want to make money from my artistic authentic writing
>But I can't because the public have shit taste unlike me
>and because by definition "success = selling out" and i will never sell out

>>19881233
Where do I sign up for the course? I'm looking for some value, but please be only $499 this time

>>19883074
Post ten thousand of your own novels. Selfpub is a numbers game. You publish enough that anyone watching the flood of shit is likely enough to see one of your books in it, and let the recommendations take them to your other books. If you selfpub one book, it'll be completely missed. If you selfpub one book a year, it'll be missed. If you publish one book a month for a year, then you might get something out of it.

>>19883138
>Able to write a novel a month

Do you have incredible amounts of free time or are you using the Limitless drug.

>>19883138
So basically you spam trash books?

>>19883111
Not him but people have criminalized the very idea of earning money unless you're doing something soulless, which ironically legitimized only the "business-minded" hacks to make money. There's no such thing as saying "I just want to sell something and maybe in the long run sustain myself", NOPE, it's either full whore or penniless martyr. It's so fucking stupid.

>>19881776
>and it is more implied than anything
Good, I always cringe when I can tell an author is letting out their libido through their writing.

>>19883111
>Why not just give your writing away?
I do. I am all in, balls deep. I straddle nothing. I have a job I don't mind working because financial freedom is (unfortunately) artistic freedom in current year. Once you detach yourself fully from the economic—and ultimately extraneous—factors with their associated leeches and hangers-on, you are free to just write the best you can. I'll never be rich or have twenty McMansions with a side of McYacht, but I don't need that. I want to maintain a purity of artistic expression more than I want material or status or... anything, really. I'm willing to make sacrifices for that, and I have made sacrifices. I will continue to make sacrifices, because I believe in myself and my vision as much as I fucking detest the careerism and the capitalization of art run rampant in this generation of pathological self-promoters and climbers. Fuck all of that. I'm not going to cut an inch of slack to people who are little more than whores who walk the streets selling shit nobody should be willing to part with.

>>19882927
>he doesn't know what an editor actually does.
This is considerably more than a basic line edit. They read through your draft and any other work you have, they figure out what they think you are going for and then sit down with you and ask you what you are going for. They discuss it with you in depth, ask questions about bits that are unclear to them and so on. They give you a very in depth critique regarding how well it achieves your goal as well as making various suggestions on how to better achieve that goal. They also help you develop your style, they identify what is unique and good and help you build on it. You do the second draft, send them the changes, they respond, repeat until you are happy with it or you hit the limit for what your publisher is willing to pay for.
>>19882959
When did I say I made a liveable wage? I still work my old job (finish carpenter) on occasion, but that is slowly dropping away, only did three jobs last year. The catch is that it takes time, most authors spend years to get to the point of living off of writing and many never make it there. A small number get lucky and are there after a book or two, but that is pretty much winning the lottery.
>>19882973
I never said $2500 a month, I said I was well into the $500-$2500 a month range, and that includes everything I make through writing, not just royalties. 2020 I made $14k and change from writing, so about $1200 a month. Made more in 2021, not sure how much yet, need to do the taxes. Nice thing about having a publisher is that it really opens up doors, things like getting short stories published (and getting paid for them) becomes easier, you get paid interviews and get hired to occasionally write a piece. A lot of these are shit pay, like $50-100, but it all adds up. The local newspaper and arts/entertainment paper both hire me fairly regularly since I got published, probably $3-4K year right there and it is fun and easy work.

>>19883299
lol what a fucking cuck
congrats keeping the cuck torch alive while 50 shades and nigger biographies make another million

>>19883393
Money isn't everything in life, anon. Try finding things you care more about than just material and status. You'll be happier in the long run.

>>19883406
What the fuck does the modern public give to you? Feeding wild alligators pieces of meat feels less thankless and stressful than dealing with these absolute niggers. I doubt you even write anything cause I can't even fathom being such a fucking cuck. Are you a masochist?

>>19883413
Nothing. I don't want anything from the general public and I don't write for them. Really, when you stop caring about making sales and selling your book on the market, you actually gain the freedom from them. You don't have to deal with them or pander to them or concede your vision. When you stop caring about whether or not the Average Reader thinks your book is worth spending money on, you're free from their influence.

I write every single day, and I only hope that my work might resonate with a handful of people. That'd be enough for me, as long as I've written something I can be unreservedly proud of.

>>19883406
>Money isn't everything in life,
but all those things you care about cost money

>>19882992
>impossible
See how you instantly projected your inability to publish and land a good BSR onto me?
It’s not impossible and you’re unwilling to listen to how I did it repeatedly, which is why you’ll never make it.
If you were willing to listen you’d stand a chance of repeating it and even outdoing me.

>>19883074
>pre-order
>sample a chapter out
>email list
>following before release through social media
Etc etc

>>19883138
Absolutely garbage tier idea.
I the OP would never post anything low quality I didn’t at least believe in.

>>19883345
You actually let editors fuck with your artistic vision and do more than a spell check? No fucking thanks, that’s the exact reason I don’t pay for those kinds of editors. Who is really writing your book at that point?

>>19883865
I have literally never been proven wrong although it is what I want to see the most. Post an example of what you are publishing. Post the demographics that are buying from you. Anything that isn't "it's totally possible dude you just gotta market yourself!" then you figure out they're smut peddlers or they pass themselves as queer bipoc transwomen.

>>19883891
Because in your mind the only profitable writing is smut.
This speaks volumes about your own sales.
No thanks either, not going to doxx my books or attach my name to 4chan by giving my exact BSR.

>>19883890
>seethe at this level
The fact you're obviously jealous of $25K/yr from books (minimum wage?) is absurd.

>>19883903
>I will give zero insight on what exactly I am selling
I call bullshit then.

>>19883903
So don't do that. Tell us what kind of fiction you write.

>>19883903
Surely you can give an example of something similar to what you are doing? Maybe you can show me that? "My work is on the lines of this" can't get you "doxxed".

>>19883904
>the absolute lack of rebuttal
Brutal.
You know your editor is writing 5-10% of your book with these “suggestions” and it’s eating you alive.
And no, my day job before writing brings me in 96k a year plus benefits and retirement thanks.

>>19883912
I already said it’s not fiction you goober.>>19881840

>>19883916
Oh, so there's barely any art in what you write. Why does your opinion on this matter again? You basically just do research plus technical writing.

>>19883916
Can you post another self-pub author that is doing something similar to you? I'm sure there are hundreds, it cannot get you doxxed. Of course someone with the same reach as you. I am sure you are aware of similar writers within your ballpark.

>>19883924
>non fiction can’t have good story telling
Oh buddy… this is what separates us.

>>19883924
This is nonsense, if he's actually writing historical fiction it's still miles better than fucking smut or YA and weebshit. But I have a feeling that it can't be that. How the fuck would he sell 100-500 books a month with historical fiction?

>>19883928
Emphasis on the "telling" part. Post some prose, let's see your chops.

>>19883916
>it’s not fiction you goober
Literature board

>>19883930
*nonfiction
Who the fuck buys these books? Is it WWII /pol/bait?

>>19883915
Again - idk why you're yelling at OP for making a choice you disagree with.

>>19883938
I’m OP.
I’m ragging on the trad pubber who thinks he’s smart and “opening the door for opportunities” by getting 8-15% of the profit from HIS book.
Every trad pubber is a retard. You can get 70% just by self pubbing to amazon, it’s literally that simple.

>>19883916
You are in the position of someone who barges into a discussion on making a living as a jazz musician and goes "nah bro just sell your music on spotify I make decent money selling my home-recorded solo contralto sax albums there, it's perfectly doable you just gotta market yourself" and refuses to actually post an excerpt of what he's doing, how skilled he is, or similar artists, or any tangible proof that he's not lying or there's no asterisk anywhere.

>>19883954
Where your comparison fell flat was saying mine was spotify and he was “selling jazz music” without a specific medium.
It’s literally this.
We’d both be on Spotify.
I market my own stuff and get 70%.
He lets an music editor get his paws in it for $4,000, then lets them market it and he gets 8-15% of the profits.
Gee so smart and better than self pub…

How good of a strategy is to have a free wordpress site with your light novel free to read, but links to amazon and a print as demand page?

>>19883964
>I market my own stuff and get 70%.
This can mean
>I make mumblerap or some other cancer shit that sells a lot
>I am an instathot who markets herself with her tits who sells music on the side
>I am an extreme leftist West Side poc bigender transpineapple quadriplegic who spews politics on Shitter all day
>I suck the cock of a guy who in exchange works his Jewish black magic on the algorithm
"Marketing" is such a fucking empty word, I hate everyone who uses it

>>19883979
You'll start making the hosting fees back in 10-15 years

>>19884023
but I need to get readers, not looking to make money.

>>19884026
Oh in that case you will be able to observe your readers from your metrics panel, among a sea of crawlers and spambots.

>>19884020
>hates marketing
>thinks it degrades the sovl
>hires someone else to market for them
>makes 8-15% of their own book profits
Oh thank God, my sovl is pure and untouched.

where do you gain readers?

>>19884038
I am not the tradpub guy. I want to know what "marketing" means because in every single case I have pretty much understood that you have to suck all the cocks. You still haven't really given an answer about this so I am increasingly assuming that you have no integrity whatsoever. Why don't you just dispel my suspicions and make both of us happy? I can't express how much I want to be given a true glimmer of hope that the world isn't as fucking retarded as I think it is.

>>19884038
Why don't you answer? What do you write? What kind of "historical subgenre" do you write? Give examples of people who do something similar to you. Otherwise you are lying.

>>19881737
Don't listen to them, as a debut author, traditional publish books get the best chance . Self publish only works if you can market through an existing fanbase. Even Amazon will screw you over on advertisment. You made the right choice.

>>19884062
The self publish people here have never self published before. You can tell. Even on Amazon if you don't pay them for advertising you are fucked. Trad publishers literally get priority in Amazon searches.

I’m working on a novel called Fedbook. It’s gonna be out later this year. It’s about a nihilist honeypot terror cell at a university in central Wyoming. It contains racial and homophobic slurs, Christian exegesis and sumptuous intertextuality within the American literary tradition. This is my first attempt at marketing it. Keep a look out for banner ads. 112k words atm, will finish draft at around 150k.

>>19884038
You are some kinda retard. You have no idea how publishers work.

>>19884131
And tradpub is literally a closed off, no, walled off situation where they explicitly look for certain categories. It's over.

>>19884140
It's so that trash books don't end up in book stores. You have to be very good writer to be trad published.

>>19884311
>You have to be very good writer to be trad published.
oh fuck off please

>>19884316
Nobody reads non-trad published books for the most part. I can't even think of a non-traditionally published book that wasn't from a previously established personality or author.

>>19884355
That doesn't say anything about quality. Most trad published books today are garbage.

>>19883247
Yes. It's why you don't self-publish shit you care about. All of the people making more than six figures a year off it have a novel out every few weeks. No amount of twitter f4f bullshit """marketing""" or Amazon promotions are going to turn more of a profit than making the storefront work for you rather than against you. If you'd rather have your own books recommended on the pages for your other books, the only way to do that is to publish enough to fill the screen. This is the only way to make more money than traditional publishing. Other people are already doing it, and they're your competition in selfpub. Everyone else is just throwing unpublishable manuscripts in the trash and praying someone pulls it out.

>>19884570
LMAO I guess I'll just let them have it.

Self publish cucks seething. I have yet to read a good self published novel.

>>19884995
You have to go back

>>19881233
>only 8,000
>only

>>19883247
It's the American way.

>>19883890
You know that whole "the editor gutted my story!" trope only exists in movies and on TV? Outside of the most shit bottom of the barrel writing jobs editors suggest, still up to the writer to make the change and if it should be changed. If you are in journalism or the like and the editor regularly has to actually make changes to your work they are just going to fire you, it means you are literally handing in your work at the zero hour when there is no time to kick it back to the writer, but really they are just not going to print it 99% of the time and just put something else in it's place. When it comes to fiction, editor works for the writer, not the other way around.
>>19884116
They have no effect on my mood.
>>19884137
I don't think he has any idea how the world works.

>>19884570
>Yes.
So wait a second when I said
>this is hard to believe, again, assuming that you're writing something with a minimum of integrity.
you said no
but then it turns out that you just spam garbage
so basically you were full of shit?

>>19886023
>When it comes to fiction, editor works for the writer, not the other way around.
Yep. And if you're ever told otherwise, run, don't walk.

You could turn and attack too. It depends on the situation.

>>19885897
This, 8000 followers is a lot for an "author" who's never published anything before. If a decent fraction of those 8000 buy the book, of course it will go up the BSR. The question is, how do you get 8000 followers? Especially followers who are actually interested in a book you wrote, and not just random Twitter bots and idiots.

>>19886113
More importantly will it lead to more followers to keep sales going and will your old followers and new ones buy your next book? Most self published authors (all?) who get some success either fad back into obscurity or switch to traditional publishing.

>>19886141
> Most self published authors (all?) who get some success either fad back into obscurity or switch to traditional publishing.

>>19884137
>>19884094
>>19884062
Mmmm yes, I’m the retard.
This is like watching men who could own their own business instead work under others for “safety” because they’re afraid of uncertainty.
Cowards desu.

>>19885897
>>19886113
? I’m growing at about 1-3%following daily for months now. It’s very easy if you’re interesting. I’ll be at my goal of 5k in maybe 3 months or less.

>>19886113
>>19885897
This is the kind of viewership potential I have btw.
Being interesting is not hard to those who are not faking it.
The same will go for your writing.

>>19884570
Lmao where did this follow for follow meme come from? You only need to get 100 followers and have like a 2-1 ratio of following to followers before growth is quick and organic.

>>19887174
How do you grow your follower base on Twitter? Do you just spout normie opinions and get upboats?

>>19887740
No, normie opinions get you normie followers.
I espouse my true beliefs and get fringe followers.

>>19887174
How many actual followers do you have?