The Story Studio Podcast - Writing, Storytelling, and Marketing Advice for Writers & Business

Today we had our good friend and erotica writer Lexi Maxxwell (who Sean and I have said we're helping out with her business and publishing and stuff) back on the show as a follow up to her popular earlier appearance on the show. As with last time, this show is spicier than normal, so hide the kids. We talked to Lexi about a ton of stuff, including: - What to do if you built your audience on free stuff and want to transition away from free - How to select and court the best readers for you - How to think like a publisher and outside of just "putting words on a page," including an AMAZING new partnership between Lexi and premier adult site X-Art. - The branding reason that Lexi's friend KR Gray got a MUCH, MUCH different and worse response than Lexi -- sufficient that he had to bail on solo work and move "under Lexi's umbrella" -- despite their styles being very similar. - Why "erotica" is kind of a bullshit category, seeing as everyone in most books are having sex anyway, and erotica just "shows it." - Lexi's genius in mixing sex with humor in the STUPIDLY funny upcoming Kindle sitcom Adult Video, which Sean and I created and then gave to Lexi because we couldn't do it justice without holding back. NOTE: As we did with Ed Robertson last week, we kept Lexi on with us for Better Off Undead for a lot of really NSFW discussion. We also kept Ed on from last week because we recorded this and last week back-to-back, thus making this week's Better Off Undead a 5-writer show!

Today we had our frequent and popular guest Ed Robertson to talk about selling in other bookstores, like Nook (Barnes & Noble) and Kobo. But we kicked things off by asking Ed about his experiment in writing his serial The Cutting Room. Lots of good discussion on reader expectations and new experiments here, as Ed wondered about his ability to convert readers of his popular Breakers series to the new serial. Then we talked about selling in other stores. TONS of good info here, including how Ed ranked well on the hard-to-crack Nook store and why selling on Kobo is currently harder than the other stores. We also talked about why Apple makes shit so damn hard. NOTE: At the end of this show, we realized we should have talked to Ed about writing in Sean's and my science-fiction world of The Beam, since he's one of the writers we're inviting to join us. So we kept him on to talk about that with us on a VERY cool episode of Better Off Undead, which you can find here. To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #58 - Selling On Other Platforms with Ed Robertson

Today we had an AMAZING chat with Mark Lefebvre, Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations at Kobo. We talked Kobo -- our favorite non-Amazon publishing platform by a mile -- up one side and down the other in this info-packed session. Here are a few of the things we talked about: - How Kobo is different from Amazon and how to get the most of it - How Kobo ranks books, and how best to price them - A few of Kobo's eccentricities that you'll want to know and keep in mind - Why putting your books in multiple stores makes sense - What Kobo has going on that Amazon doesn't (though we do still love Amazon) And here are the tools and articles Mark mentioned on the show: - The correct way to link to books on Kobo by using ISBN search - Getting your Goodreads Reviews to show on Kobo, from the Kobo team - A post where author Eric Kent Edstrom posted a guide for hooking Goodreads to Kobo on his own website (with a nice visual tutorial)

NOTE: Johnny and Sean would like to announce that the FULL SAGA OF UNICORN WESTERN (books 1-9) is now available. You can get it here on Amazon, or search other stores to find it there. Today, we talked about the various species of writer's block… I guess. But more accurately, we talked about stalling or failing on a project and then ditching THAT PROJECT (or that draft) and doing something different or trying again. What we don't suggest doing is staring at a blank screen and thinking about how we can't write and are "blocked." Sean and I share the story about how in our new publishing company Realm & Sands(you're signed up for the mailing list to get our new releases at a discount, right?), we ditched the concept for one of our "sitcoms" because it wasn't working and replaced it with other projects. Dave talks about ditching words, Sean talks about pushing through discomfort, and I also share the story of how I COULD have gotten blocked writing The Bialy Pimps but was too new and too stubborn to do so. To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #56 - What to do When the Words Aren't Coming

Sean and I would like to announce the debut of our new channel (including the release of the rest of the Unicorn Western saga, which got pretty damn epic) on May 23rd. You can sign up for the Realm and Sands list to get our new releases at a discount here. Today we were supposed to have a guest, but he didn't show up so instead, we just got all caught up on the voicemails you guys have been sending in. Here's what we answered: * What's the best way to publish microfiction? * A comment about JK Rowling as pertains to crossing genres * When is it useful to use a pen name? * WHY THE FUCK DON'T WE SHARE OUR NUMBERS OMG (Dave loved this one.) * What's the thing in writing that makes readers share it with others? * I have three months to do ** SOMETHING ** in publishing and writing. What's the best way to spend it? * Is it worthwhile pricing at 99 cents? Permanent free? Whatever? * We also got a shout out from a listener on her blog. There was also some discussion of free and of moving to other publishing platforms and a fun revisiting of writing in several genres. Enjoy! Lastly: Don't forget to sign up for the Realm and Sands mailing list for channel launch on May 23rd! To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #55 - The "Catching up on Voicemails" Episode

Today, we talked again with our friend and bestselling author CJ Lyons. We talked about how self publishing has changed (and how traditional publishing is apparently just figuring it out), how to bond with your readers and grow your audience, and how smart publishers today need to pay more attention to strategic basics that never go out of style (writing good books, writing a lot, pleasing readers, etc.) instead of trendy tactics. CJ also weighed in on our writing across multiple genres and convinced Dave of several other things that made Sean jump up and down. As usual, it was like watching a marriage break up. CJ's main site is CJLyons.net and her blog is No Rules, Just Write. Pop in and say hi, and buy her shit! To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #54 - Exploding Your Growth, with Bestselling Author CJ Lyons

One year ago as of the day we recorded this episode (we recorded it on 4/26/13), we posted the very first episode of the Self Publishing Podcast. So in our longer-than-usual anniversarial episode, we talked about what a difference a year makes, how things have changed in self-publishing, and what we think the future will bring. Sean and I also announced our new "channel," called "Realm & Sands," which will launch on May 23rd. We're going to debut with three written "shows" and release one book a week. Our first three shows are the full saga of our epic fantasy/western series Unicorn Western, a sitcom-style self-referential series called Better Off Undead, and a serious, non-hilarious sci-fi serial called The Beam. Thanks for a great first year, SPP listeners! To view the video version of this episode, go to:  Self Publishing Podcast #53 - SPP's 1-Year Anniversary Show

As Sean and Johnny tie up production on Unicorn Western 9 and prepare to publish the full 1-9 Saga (in addition to launching a whole new venture), we decided to talk about the concept of "trusting the story," which is something we did a ton of as Unicorn Western finished. There was a lot of our typical debate, but in short, we all believe that there is a "truth" to a story and that it's your job to find it. Sean and I (Johnny) diverged significantly from Dave, though, in our nearly blind faith in the story. We truly believe that the story's "truth" exists out in the world and it's our job to excavate it as much as create it. Dave, however, said that it's super-possible to write yourself into a corner while you're being a story-trusting dumbass. Sean and I took that as a challenge, saying we could paint our way out any cockamamie situation Dave wrote us into. Hilarity then ensued. To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #52 - Trusting the Story

Today's show was a knock-down, drag-down fight that left all of us -- but mostly Dave -- exhausted. We talked about whether you should brand yourself as a writer of one type of writing or not, and ridiculousness ensued. But first, a voicemail from Garrett Garrett asked, in short, what we thought about what we'd done so far with our transition from releasing books for free at launch time to requiring folks to pay (99 cents) for them. Sean and I talked about what happened with the launch of Unicorn Western 4 (at 99 cents), and S&D contrasted it with the Available Darkness Season Two launch (episodes released individually for free). They weren't happy with the A.D. launch, but Sean and I were quite happy with the UW 4 launch -- not because the numbers were huge (they weren't), but because those people were PAYING CUSTOMERS. We also talked about the VERY interesting (and also very good) results of a recent launch done by our friend, erotica writer Lexi Maxxwell. Lexi released a title called The Slutty Little Mermaid and a buy-up $9.99 bundle of Filthy Fairy Tales recently using a similar model, and it worked great. More awesome talk about free vs. paid ensued. Then we got into it. So… is it smarter to be "a horror writer" or "a fantasy writer" or whatever else so that people will get to know you as a master of that niche? Or is it better to spread yourself around and write in as many genres? The very short answer is that both can work, in certain cases. The short answer is that it depends on which expectations you want to set and what your goals are. The longer answer is that Sean and I argued vehemently for writing across as many genres as you want under your own name, and that Dave disagreed with us. For the full answer, have a listen. To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #51 - Writing in Multiple Genres

I'm really under the gun today trying to finish up the Unicorn Western series (I'm writing the final volume -- #9 -- right now) so I'm totally going to phone it in on these show notes. We're cool with that, right? The short version is that we all really, really, really like collaborating with other writers. You can bounce ideas off one another; you can play to your biggest strengths; you can move much, much faster. (NOTE: This is where I mention that in the previous 12 days, I wrote books 5-8 of Unicorn Western. That's like 105,000 words. Insane, and not possible if I weren't collaborating with Sean.) So we talk on that for a while, and it was a great discussion. I'll end my "phoning it in" here and get back to work. To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #50 - Collaborating with Other Writers

On this week's show, we had J. Thorn, author of the Portal Arcane series and -- most appropriately for this discussion, the guide Formatting for Kindle -- on the show to talk about making Kindles do what you want. We were unable to find out how to make Kindles bring us coffee or give us massages, unfortunately, but as far as getting correct fonts, placements images, etc.? We nailed that shit. Perhaps the most interesting discussion here, in my mind, was how to make children's books work on the Kindle. This is something a lot of you have asked about but that so far, we've shrugged in response to and said, "Dunno. Google for it." I could go on and on, but luckily, this week J. has done all of my work for me by posting everything you'll need to know -- including a bunch of awesome free resources -- on his website. To get them, visit JThorn.net and click on the tab along the top that says "SP Podcast #049." How organized is this guy? To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #49 - Hacking Your Book's Formatting with J. Thorn

This episode was chock full of big-brained, high-strategy stuff. We started by talking how we're all getting a little disillusioned at the whole "free economy" that up until very recently we've endorsed on this show… which shows that all things are in flux and that very little is set in stone. Now, this is all just our opinion, but we all said that we've noticed SIGNIFICANT declines in the effectiveness of free promotions. I launched Fat Vampire 4 to a rather hungry audience (I'd been getting emails and tweets for a while from people eager for it) and that promotion resulted in approximately jack shit: 1. I rose in the free list, but not high enough for the free list to take the ball and hit critical mass, exposing me to new people. 2. I rose in the genre lists (horror and satire) but got no real new exposure. 3. Sales of other titles were pathetic. I can maybe attribute $40 total to this promotion. Something felt very wrong to me about this. Sean and Dave said they've felt the same… that all we're doing with free these days is giving shit away to the people who wanted to buy it. Additionally, we're not getting enough reviews to justify the giveaways. How important is it to keep readers? This led to an epic verbal battle wherein Sean accused Dave of being too soft regarding losing readers. Sean and I feel that if you have readers who will ONLY get your stuff for free (will in fact WAIT for it to be free and not buy it if it doesn't go free) and who also won't review your stuff, then FUCK THOSE PEOPLE. Dave wants to keep them, but I want readers who value my work… who, in short, don't feel that they're somehow doing me a favor by simply reading my work but offering me no return, remuneration, or response -- ever -- in return. Now, not everyone who gets your shit free will be like that, but a lot will. So we have to wonder… why not go back to charging for everything, and building funnels? Our new launch strategy Sean and Dave decided to go back to launching their episodes for 99 cents instead of free. Sean and I decided to do the same with books, which feels ballsy but also totally correct to me. We launched Unicorn Western 4 for 99 cents for a limited time as a special deal for our readers, but then raised it to full price of $2.99. There was no free period and will not be for subsequent books in the series. (Same thing will go for Fat Vampire books 5 and 6.) Remember, we are in the business of selling books. If that's not happening, we need to adjust. We feel and hope that our best readers will be willing to spend 99 cents. And if they're not willing, then we don't really need them. That may sound harsh, but it is what it is. Formula and format helps the creative process rather than hindering it We finished up by talking about how speed, formula for writing (ex: we decided in advance that Unicorn Western would be nine books of 25,000 words each… before we knew anything about the plot) and process actually helps the creative process. In other words, some people would argue that you should let your story be organic and be whatever it wants to be. But Sean and I at least contend (and Dave seems ambivalent) that if you put restrictions on the project, it gives you a framework and allows you to kick even more ass. I can tell I personally am going to listen to this one about five times. This is important shit! To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #48 - Talking Strategy and Other Big Plans

NOTE: Unicorn Western 4 will be at its launch price of 99 cents until the end of Sunday, March 24th. I (Johnny) have known Jim Kukral for a while. He's a good guy with an extensive background in internet marketing and sales, and he once stood me up for lunch. However, when I discovered that he was also, coincidentally, the guy behind Author Marketing Club -- which we've promoted often on SPP if for no other reason than their super-awesome multi-site submission tool for free promotions -- I said, "Let's get Jim on the show." So that's what we did. But first… Sean and I went to South by Southwest two weeks ago and sat down and mapped out books 5-8 of the Unicorn Western series, which now includes Unicorn Western 4. We also did a lot of planning and won't release ANY more volumes until the full saga is complete circa early May. So watch for details on how that works out. We also hung out (in a nonsexual way) with erotica author Lexi Maxxwell (somewhat NSFW link), who is a big SPP success story and who appeared on our show a bit ago (definitely NSFW podcast episode). She's working on some hilariously sexy stuff that Sean and I giggled like fifth graders until we cried talking about, including a series called Filthy Fairy Tales which will release soon. Johnny then mentioned hilarious hijinks discussed in a title that is currently live called The Autumn Diaries. Jim talks marketing This was a PHENOMENAL discussion that just epitomizes the nature of Amazon, of publishing, and about marketing. You have to be adaptable. Since the beginning of this podcast, we've hailed how awesome free is, but now we're talking more about other platforms and about moving away from free. For instance, Sean and I launched Unicorn Western 4 today at 99 cents instead of giving it away in a Select promotion. In fact, it isn't even IN Select. Instead, we're going to move the series to other platforms as our Select runs expire. There's a ton in this episode, but regarding how marketing is becoming harder with the changes in free and free blog promotion, I (Johnny) said this: "Things getting more difficult is always better for people who aren't deterred by difficulty."In other words, if you are a serious writer who is in this for the long haul and who is committed to continuing to write good stuff and to keep writing it, Amazon is doing you a favor by changing things to punish get-rich-quick, gold rush, gaming-the-system thinking. That doesn't mean it might not suck in the short term, but are you in it for the short term? To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #47 - Author Marketing with AuthorMarketingClub.com's Jim Kukral

Before you start reading, I (Johnny) would like to let you know that my brand-spankin' new book Fat Vampire 4 is available now and will be free on Amazon on March 14-15. Go here to check out Fat Vampire 4.  (Side note - the first three Fat Vampire books are available in a buy-2-get-1 bundle here.) -- This episode was our attempt to get to a bunch of little odds and ends that we've been wanting to mention but that don't warrant an entire show on their own. We also wanted to answer your listener questions. We got to most of them. Yay, us! This shit takes time Sean and I started off by recapping our numbers for the Unicorn Western series (check out our handy and inexpensive UW three-pack!) and spent some time underscoring the idea that this brand-new series is not raking in the bucks yet. One of the most important things you can do for your publishing career is to be patient and give your books time on the market to find an audience. Gareth asked about using and selling stock photography Dave's wet dream, Gareth from England, said that he was interested in selling his photographs for authors to use and also kind of asked about where one would buy stock photography. We recommended Shutterstock for both. Bathtub Girl asked about selling a cookbook -- publish, blog, or what? We thought that Bathtub Girl's idea to self-publish a photography-rich cookbook sounded fraught with peril and difficult to pull off due mainly to issues having to do with the photos themselves and the nature of selling cookbooks, but saw some promise in the idea of blogging as a method of promotion and becoming known as a Cookbook Bathtub Girl. An anonymous caller asked about knowing how big her sub-niche is Because Anonymous Girl says she's writing in a specific sub-niche of romance/erotica, Dave felt the need to declare publicly that he thinks that werewolf erotica is just for people who want to fuck animals in such a way that indicated that it had been on his mind a LOT lately. We then actually answered the question about determining the size or popularity of a niche. Seemingly. Kirk asked about outlining and story beats Sean elaborated some here on the "beating" process he talked about in our earlier episode on outlining and story structure. So we talked about that a lot. Dave said that he loves Scrapple Dave pretended that he was talking about this and not this, but I think we know what the real score is. Suffice to say that it's a cool visual organizational tool for writers. Steve asked about costs for building and running a website Our recommendations for writers' websites are these: FOR THE DIY'er: You can set up and run a site for less than $10 a month for the site and under $20 a month for the mailing list. Here are links showing you how to handle the website setup and installation and how to set up and use a mailing list, including our recommendations on service providers. FOR SOMEONE WHO JUST WANTS IT HANDLED: Sean recommended outstandingSETUP, which will do it all for you. Then, to close out the show, I railed a bit more about how the changes in free and KDP Select are really starting to piss me off. To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #46 - Q&A, Progress, and the Catch-Up Show

We took some voicemails at the start of this one and you can listen to hear all about them (With Sean and Johnny working together, who won re: sending books to an editor? How did Johnny's process change so he could write faster? And are we talking too damn much about strategy?), but this episode was super-heavy with newsworthy goodness, so let's get started. Are free book blogs dead… and if so, does authors' abilities to promote well die with them? Here's the problem: Amazon just changed their affiliate program so that if 1) an affiliate pushes the download of over 20,000 free e-books in a month AND 2) 80% or more of the books that affiliate pushes are free books, the affiliate will earn $0 in commissions from Amazon for the month. In case you didn't know, this is how huge free book sites -- the sites that push our books when we do KDP Select promotions -- make money. The changes in the affiliate program are, essentially, requiring that those sites promote fewer free books. That's bad news for us. Or is it? This week, we had Ed Robertson back on to hash this one out. There's a ton of debate here and I won't try to encapsulate all of it, but here are a few of the points that were raised during this show: 1. This doesn't kill KDP Select free promotions. It just makes them less effective for people who might have been picked up by the big blogs but now will not be. 2. It might make sense to consider changing to discounted promotions rather than free promotions rather than free promotions for SOME AUTHORS in SOME CIRCUMSTANCES. 3. But, making your book free will still drive sales if you're doing everything else right. There will just be fewer huge windfalls like those possible after a huge push of a book by Pixel of Ink or other sites. 4. Free is a tactic, not a strategy, and Sean and I both mention how gaming free promotions feels to us like playing search engine optimization (SEO) games. If it's a trick, you can use it… but don't base the success of your business on it, because it can change any time. 5. Because of that -- and because it's just common sense -- the advice we give time and time again continues to apply: Write good books. Keep writing more books. Build a smart marketing funnel. Build and grow an email list. Be good to and take care of your fans. Those things will never, ever, ever change (although email may one day be replaced when the future arrives and we all get rocket cars) as long as people continue to enjoy stories. 6. The top 100 free charts still need to be filled by someone, as do the top 100 paid charts. They will be filled by the best books. For the best books, nothing changes here. That means that you must be awesome or go home. If you're fantastic at what you do, the changing of any one tactic means exactly dick. This episode is jam-packed. Study it like you have an exam coming up. To view the video version of this episode, go to: Self Publishing Podcast #45 - The Death of Free Book Promotion on Big Blogs?