Episode Summary
Launching your book can be an investment for authors looking to get their story in front of readers. Jamie Davis joins us to share insight into common and out of the box methods for how to fund a book launch.
Episode Notes
Among the myriad things that indie authors have to grapple with is how to fund a successful book launch without going in the red. To help us tackle this subject, we’re joined by Jamie Davis, a prolific author of sci-fi and fantasy. As a nurse, retired paramedic and nationally recognized medical educator, Jamie knows a thing or two about service and giving back. Today Jamie is here to teach us how to use nontraditional funding and outreach tools, so that our next book is launched in the black. Join us!
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Transcript
Kevin Tumlinson [00:00:01]:
You just tuned into the hippest way to start and grow your indie author career. Learn the ins, the outs, and all the all arounds of self publishing with the team from d two d and their industry influencing guests. You’re listening to self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital.
Lexi Greene [00:00:26]:
There we go. And we’re live. Hello, everybody. I am Lexi Green, and welcome to another edition of Self Publishing Insiders. I am our social media manager. I am here with my wonderful cohost and friend, Lyssa, and we are here with a friend of the show, friend of Draft2Digital, friend to authors, Jamie Davis. Hello, Jamie. It’s wonderful to have you on there.
Jamie Davis [00:00:51]:
It’s great to be back. I think I was on a couple of years ago with the Findaway Voices audiobook topic, but, it’s great to be back. I I love I watch your show all the time, so it’s great.
Lexi Greene [00:01:01]:
That’s we appreciate the support. We we love to have a we love to have a fan who is a friend. But for those of you who don’t know, Jamie Davis is a sorry. Jamie Davis is a nurse, retired paramedic, author, and nationally recognized medical educator who began teaching new emergency responders as a training officer for his local EMS program. He loves everything fantasy and sci fi and especially the places where stories intersect with his love for medicine or gaming. Jamie is also the conference director of the Author Nation conference event that will be running from November 11th to 15th, where he and the team are in charge of all the behind the scenes logistical details. For those of you who don’t know, author nation used to be, 20 Books Vegas, and, they are now preparing for an exciting new conference. And I’m sure we’ll talk about that in a bit.
Lexi Greene [00:01:54]:
But for now, Jamie, I wanna kinda talk about you. Could you let us know a little bit about your journey? Obviously, from being a nurse, being a retired from being an EMS instructor, to where you are now as an author and a pillar of the publishing community.
Jamie Davis [00:02:11]:
Yeah. It well, pillar. I don’t know. I I maybe I prop up things here and there. Right.
Lexi Greene [00:02:16]:
But Like a pillar.
Jamie Davis [00:02:18]:
Like a pillar. Okay. Fair enough. No. I, about 10 years ago, I was dared by a nurse colleague of mine to write a book for NaNoWriMo in November. And I’d never heard of NaNoWriMo before. So I was like I started looking into it. I’m like, sure.
Jamie Davis [00:02:36]:
I’ll do this. And I I was a journalist at the time. I wrote a lot of words all, you know, every month. How hard could it be?
Elyssa Dolinger [00:02:45]:
Yeah. How how hard was it?
Jamie Davis [00:02:48]:
You know, I it was hard, but I don’t I’m not the type of person to give up, and I I hammered it out and got my word count in and came in at, like, 53,000 words with a with a a complete ish story, that eventually became my first book. But it was that that was the thing that kinda pulled together my my backgrounds and love for fantasy and my my paramedic background into a story that was essentially about paramedics who treat supernatural creatures, and that was my first series.
Lexi Greene [00:03:23]:
I do love the way that you took your kind of passion in life. And I was that, a good way for you to transition from what was it like journalism, nursing, obviously, very, like, nonfiction kind of base.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:03:38]:
I do feel like there’s a journalist to novelist pipeline. Like, we have quite a few journalists who
Jamie Davis [00:03:45]:
Well, we tell stories. You know, we we the best way to get a news story across is by applying some narrative functions to it, you know, to to relate the story to people in a way that makes sense to them, and you have to tell the story of the news item. If you can’t do that, you won’t connect with the readers. I mean, if it’s just a list of facts, you know, you’re just you’re just writing bullet points.
Lexi Greene [00:04:11]:
That’s true. You know what? That’s fair. Like, I think we, like, we don’t think of journalism as, like, creative writing sometimes, and that’s a flaw in how we look at good journalism. Now, like, obviously, your nursing, your EMS career clearly play a critical role in your author career. So, like, what how does that like, how does your background as just, like, a nurse, as someone who, like, helps people or, like, a career for a, like, a calling, how’s that informed your time as an author?
Jamie Davis [00:04:43]:
Well, I think one of the things that it’s informed me in mostly is that I still feel very much a a sense of giving back, and helping others. Because I didn’t get to, you know, the point where I have 50 plus books and, you know, I can write full time and all the things that I do now without a lot of help from a lot of very kind authors along the way who taught me a lot. And so, you know, I my my nursing self, my helper identity, is is very present in what I do. You know, I’ve I’ve I’m always willing to spend a few minutes talking to somebody and and offering a point of view or a a a hint to go in a certain direction if if they need a little, you know, suggestion or something. I’m happy to do it because, like I said, I didn’t get here by myself at all.
Lexi Greene [00:05:37]:
Yeah. And then, obviously, now that you’re part of, author nation, do you think that that, like, that is part of what led you to being part of, like, this group of, like, creating a a place to create, connections and, help authors develop and, create a community between authors.
Jamie Davis [00:05:58]:
Yeah. And I think that’s why I was drawn originally to the 20 Books Conference. And then when when Joe Solari took over, he asked me to stay on as conference director. I had been working as an assistant to Craig Martell earlier in the previous conference, and he asked me to stay on. Joe asked me to stay on. And one of the things he told me was we want to you know, we’re gonna create something new, but we wanna maintain this custom of helping each other and lifting each other up. And, you know, that’s that’s something that’s very important to me. So he you know, it’s kinda like he had me at hello in that sense.
Lexi Greene [00:06:34]:
We love to hear that. Like, honestly, I I’ve been one of the few times I’ve gotten to go to, like, a really big conference was, one of the 20 books. And, like, I that was my experience was, authors being there, helping authors, like, the like, connecting with people, from different walks of life and different stages of their authoring careers. So, I think that that is the kind of experience that I’m glad we are still going to be getting with author nation. That is exciting.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:07:05]:
So now that we’ve heard a little bit about Jamie, would you like to talk about our topic today, which is Yes. Absolutely. Launching.
Lexi Greene [00:07:15]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, we, you came in, looking to talk to us about helping authors launch in the black using nontraditional tools to reach out and fund their books. So I we we did, before the show start, get a comment that, for the record, Gil, we are not gonna be robbing banks to fund our books, for any federal agents who might be a fan of the show. This is not part of the plan. So, that is it is it’s thinking outside the box, which is thinking that we do love. But, we’re gonna we’re gonna leave the banks alone this time. But I would like to know, like, in terms of preparing a book launch, obviously, that’s a huge part of finding success as an author.
Lexi Greene [00:08:01]:
So, like, when it comes to funding a book launch, like, what what could authors be doing to, like, put themselves in a position for success?
Jamie Davis [00:08:10]:
Well, this all came about, because I had a recent series that I launched, my latest series. And it launched book 1 launched in the black, and it’s the first time I’ve ever had a book launch in 1 in the major stores, as, you know, where I on day 1, I was profitable. And that’s something that a lot of not not a lot of authors can say. And it’s not because I sell a ton of books at launch. You know, I’m not making I make enough to work full time, but I’m I’m, you know, not making enough to, like, retire to the, you know, the islands somewhere. So it it is it it took us a lot of hard work to launch a book and and continue to market my series and do these things. And what I had done with this series that was different was kind of, start thinking about how I could pay for my books along the way. And I got a lot of help from a lot of people, like I said earlier.
Jamie Davis [00:09:06]:
I I ran a Kickstarter campaign that was very successful for the 3 book series, the the first three books in this series that put got me started and basically covered my editing and my covers. And so all I really needed to do was cover some of my proofreading and marketing costs, you know, coming up to into the launch. But Kickstarter is not the only way to do that. There are other things that we can do. And since I’ve done that Kickstarter, I’ve started working on a subscription model to give people early access to some of my writing. There are lots of different ways that you can come up through the process of your book, from the very first inkling of an idea for a story all the way through publishing that can be ways that you can monetize that idea. And I and I that’s kind of what I’m excited about is that this is, you know, this was new to me. And so when I talked about that, I posted something about it online on my launch day.
Jamie Davis [00:10:12]:
And Mark Lefebvre, you know, said, hey. We need to get you on the show about this. And I’m like, oh, okay. I guess I can do that.
Lexi Greene [00:10:21]:
Yeah. We we appreciate we love Mark for that. Now I I I do love the notion of taking, subscription services, taking, Kickstarters, things that let you kinda connect with your potential reader base and give them like, do you feel like by giving your readers a chance to invest in your story and then you as a creator, that, like, you’re you’re creating a stronger, like, base of interested readers of people who are going to be more, like, proselytizing of your book to other people.
Jamie Davis [00:10:54]:
A 100%. And and I think that one of the neat things that the Kickstarter platform in particular brings is I’ve done 2 Kickstarters for my my fiction books at this point. Each time, I’ve had more more people come on board as backers than the previous one. And I’m and yes, it’s just 2, but I see I’ve seen that in other authors’ campaigns and heard other authors talk about it that have done far many more campaigns than I have done, that each campaign builds upon itself, that you get new backers plus your old backers are right there with you. And and I think that that’s what makes Kickstarter a great option even for somebody who’s just starting out. I mean, think about it this way. If even if you could just make $500, on, you know, a prospective book idea, that would be enough to cover your editing cost maybe or, an a nice book cover at that price. So the you’re you’re, you know, you’re already on the road to paying off that book.
Jamie Davis [00:11:58]:
And if you add in some of the other ideas that I’ve come up with, I think that, and these aren’t just my ideas. Other people have been doing these, you know, I I I wanna stress that this is not my, you know, idea. This is cobbling together a lot of things. But, you know, you can do things like a serialized platform where you share, you know, a subscription model, where you share your draft chapters with your superfans, you know, for a small fee every month. And then, oh, and then you take that and you put it together and you get the book done and in first draft mode, and you go in and start a campaign like a Kickstarter where you try to fund the cost of a new cover and your, your your editing costs and other things. You go out you bounce out of that. And another thing I did was I a month before my release on the stores, I put everything up on preorder on Amazon, and I’m wide with this series. And then I also gave it made it available on my own web store a month early.
Jamie Davis [00:13:06]:
Mhmm. So people could buy direct from me, And and basically, you know, that money came into my bank account every day. I mean, it wasn’t huge amounts of money, but I was starting to train my readers to come to me and and and pay me directly. And and so people who are my really big fans were happy to support me that way. And I talked about why I did it and why it changed the way I was selling books. And then I launched on the stores. And I had preorders up, and I pushed the preorders for people that just wanted to buy in the stores they were used to buying from, and that’s there’s nothing wrong with that. But when the preorders landed on day 1, I was like whew
Jamie Davis [00:13:48]:
I I’m clear. Yeah. And that was just such a huge relief that I had never felt before launching however many other books I’ve done over the course of my career. They’ve always been in the red, and I’ve had to scramble and scrabble to make make sure that they became profitable at some point.
Lexi Greene [00:14:07]:
Yeah. And and that I think that’s not an uncommon, author experience. Like, a lot of those early book releases will tend to need time to kind of recoup the initial investment costs. I do think you mentioned, obviously, like, selling a month early on your site and list immediately set presales. It’s worth noting to authors who are with Draft2Digital, Smashwords does have an option that you can set your books up. Once once you have, like, your whole file, once you have everything ready, you can set your book up for presale. And I I initially, I was I I’m not gonna lie. I was a presale skeptic, and then I did a a book release.
Lexi Greene [00:14:49]:
And I like, there is something about getting those sales that come before the release date that give you, a, a sense of confidence. It’s like, oh, good. I’m not, like, I’m not completely just out of my depth here. Like, there is something here. And, yeah, just it’s starting to feel that recoup of, like, the costs. It it it is good. It feels it feels good to see money be coming in.
Jamie Davis [00:15:11]:
And I didn’t even know that was an option. So I’m I’m, like, mentally, like, putting that on my list to, like, okay, Smashwords, presales. Got it. Because I think anywhere that you can help people get books early. Readers readers love getting a hold of something they’ve been waiting for, even a few days sooner than expected.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:15:32]:
Mhmm.
Jamie Davis [00:15:33]:
And and so something like that or offering it on your website or doing a Kickstarter where they can get it. I mean and that was the hardest thing about writing this series and doing it this way was sitting on 3 books for a year. That was hard. I mean, I wanted to get them out there, and, you know, only a 112 people had read the books.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:15:54]:
So I I wanna ask you I don’t want you to give away any of your secret sauce or anything, but what can we talk a little bit more specifically? Like, obviously, you have your own website if you’re directing people to your own website for your own presale situation. You said you’ve run Kickstarter twice. What, you mentioned subscription sites. Would that be like Patreon, or is there Royal Road or anything?
Jamie Davis [00:16:23]:
I use I use Reem for my subscription. I’ve been happy with, you know, the features that they have. It’s based on fiction, you know, fictionalized content. So, I I’m I’m happy with it. It’s not it’s I’m not burning down the world with my income from that, but it’s it’s it’s some income. And I I every little bit counts in in my book, and I’m slowly building a a following there. But
Elyssa Dolinger [00:16:49]:
Well, then I’ve also found the more eyeballs you can get on something, the fewer errors get through.
Lexi Greene [00:16:55]:
Yes.
Jamie Davis [00:16:55]:
So if
Elyssa Dolinger [00:16:55]:
you can kind of democratize your your alpha beta readers Mhmm. Through subscription services, that’s that’s yet another way to get a better
Jamie Davis [00:17:05]:
You know, Royal Road is is a great option for people that just wanna get eyeballs and and generate readers, generate fans. You know, there’s serialized platforms like Wattpad, Royal Road, and others, Radish, whatever. Name them. I mean, there’s a gazillion of them now. But they’re you know, find the one that’s right for your genre and consider putting some of your books out you know, one of your books or whatever out there as you write it, chapter by chapter, as a release model, to get fans and get them into your series and get them into your ideas and and build them to then come follow you whether it’s on a serial on a, on a subscription platform or come get on your newsletter for your website or just come get the rest of the books on the regular stores.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:17:57]:
So and you mentioned having 3 books ready to go sitting on them. Were you planning to rapid release? Like, is that your kickstarter plan?
Jamie Davis [00:18:05]:
I did. I my releases, I think I’d set the schedule to be, like, about 40, 45 days apart. So I, released the first book in May. The next book came out beginning of July, or the middle of July, and the next book’s coming out in September. And I’m finishing up book 4 now and getting ready to launch the Kickstarter for book 4, at this point. And so that’ll come out next spring. But the Kickstarter backers can get it early. And I’m hoping by having 3 books out there that I’m gonna have a lot of fans that might wanna read book 4 before anybody else gets a hold of it.
Jamie Davis [00:18:45]:
So there’s an opportunity there for certain backers, certain readers to become Kickstarter backers and get extra perks and extra fun and stuff.
Lexi Greene [00:18:54]:
I mean, so, obviously, it’s difficult to sit on books that you have written and you want people to see. But it is a a truth that, the phrase, you know, one of the best ways to promote a new book is to have another book, to to have that, like, backlog of books that can get people interested and engaged. But, it I think that there a lot of authors feel, hesitant or, like, they struggle with finding their readers. I think a lot of people just think about social media as the be all end all of, like, trying to get yourself out in front of readers. I think it’s good to realize that there are other platforms that you can find your readers on. There’s way ways that you can get your writing in front of people and amass that attention that maybe just a, a Twitter account or a Facebook page is not necessarily going to immediately get a bunch of people in, invested in your progress as an author.
Jamie Davis [00:19:57]:
I’m sorry. I was looking at the comments and then it came in at the end of that. So was there a specific question or I I I apologize.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:20:05]:
Alexis, you’re rambling.
Jamie Davis [00:20:07]:
No, no, no. It is it is it is the ADD author in me that is like, oh, wait. There’s a shiny column over here where people are talking.
Lexi Greene [00:20:16]:
No. Yeah. It’s just believe me. No. But she is also right. I am rambling a bit. But I think, it is, the notion of, like, how to do a book launch when you haven’t when you’re starting out, like, is obviously a bit of a different challenge than when you obviously, you’re a prolific author. You have 54, I believe, we settled on, novels out.
Lexi Greene [00:20:39]:
So that does give you kind of a base of readers that you can, depend on and that you can kinda cater to. Is there do you think that there are specific strategies for authors who are still in the early stages of their career that they should be looking at for a
Elyssa Dolinger [00:20:56]:
I can I can TLDR this for you? How do you start from 0?
Jamie Davis [00:21:01]:
How do you start from 0? Good question. Well, first off, I wanna say I started from 0. So, you know, we all did. At some point, every author out there starts from 0. And and I think that’s important to remember.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:21:14]:
But I will say starting from 0 today, different from starting from 0 in 2012.
Jamie Davis [00:21:20]:
It is. It is. But you there are also platforms now to help you build a loop build a readership. We talked about Royal Road or Radish or Wattpad or whatever that can you can put content up on for free and find readers and build a readership on those platforms and work to shift them over to other locations where they can follow you. And and so, you know, there are lots of different ways. And and I think it you know, there are some authors out there who were making really great money going to the local farmer’s market and getting a table, you know, and selling books there. So there are ways to build readers one reader at a time. And if you can, you know, if you can if you can go to the farmer’s market and find 5 new readers a week, you know, at the end of the year, that’s what? 250 readers that are that are fans of yours that come back and look for you for the next book?
Elyssa Dolinger [00:22:19]:
It’s also worth mentioning you should do what you don’t hate doing because, like, I I would hate that. I would hate going to the farmer’s market.
Jamie Davis [00:22:28]:
Well, no. And some people do, but I’m just saying there there are people that think out are thinking outside of the box and finding ways that fit with their personality and their sensibilities. You know, I I I have have friends of mine that are authors that are almost exclusively selling signed paperbacks, And they’re doing it from and they’re doing it from their website, and they’re making it very personalized. And they’ve built they’ve built a readership that way. So there there are lots of things you can do when you’re getting started, but it really is about building 1 reader relationship at a time. And it might be that first person who takes a chance on a new author in the Amazon store and leaves and and and finds your website and sends a nice comment there for you. And that’s that’s your first reader. You know, build cultivate that relationship.
Jamie Davis [00:23:24]:
Hey. Thank you so much. I hope if you like the book, share it with a couple of friends. I’m brand new. It’s it’s okay to say that. I think sometimes they’re just happy to hear back from authors. I can’t tell you how many of my readers sit there and go, but, Jamie, you actually talk to us. And I’m like, well, that would be rude if I didn’t.
Jamie Davis [00:23:45]:
Yeah.
Lexi Greene [00:23:45]:
I think we live in a time where the like, because of the creator economy, people do like to invest in people, and it is nice to for a reader to be able to have some feeling of connection with authors. I know that Mark Leslie, Lafave are one are one of our most favorite people, has the strategy of kind of, working with local libraries, to, you know, kind of put his book out there as a product of his region, because people do like to invest in local authors. They want to, connect with people that they know. So I I think that you’re right. There are a lot of ways that you can find readers if you’re thinking playing to your strengths, looking for readers where they might be. Now, obviously, you’ve had many book launches over the course of a 10 year, fifty plus book career. And I we’ve talked about some of your successful ones, some of the ways that you’ve launched books that have gone really well. But we also, as authors, learned from not failure, but, like, you know, things that didn’t necessarily go to plan.
Lexi Greene [00:24:50]:
Are there have there been book launches in your past that you’ve kind of learned lessons from because something didn’t work or, like, something didn’t seem to play out the way you were hoping it would?
Jamie Davis [00:25:01]:
Yeah. I’ve launched the crickets before. You know, the the the book blurb, the covers, for whatever reason, they I thought it was a great idea for a series, you know, nothing. I I have, I think, 7 or 8 series across those 54 books. There are 3 of those series that I don’t even try to market anymore. I mean, they’re there, and I have readers that find them and say, hey. These are great books. You know, you never talk about them.
Jamie Davis [00:25:30]:
I’m like, well, you you know, you and the other 50 people that like that series can get together sometime. But I just I’ve tried and tried and tried and can’t make a connection with those those books for whatever reason. I didn’t hit the right tropes. I didn’t hit the right, you know, the the right, ideas in in writing the story. It just didn’t connect. And sometimes you have to you have to cut and run and just say I’ve gotta do something different. And that’s hard. That is so hard.
Jamie Davis [00:26:02]:
I have a series that’s been begging for an ending, but I can’t justify taking 2 or 3 months to write the ending and publish it because I would just it would just be throwing money away. And that’s a hard business decision to make when you’re a creative person and that it’s hanging over your head. And I think at some point, I’ll probably finish it somehow, but, maybe I can make it end in a short you know, a longish short story or novella or something. But, you know, it that is that is a hard lesson to learn, and it is difficult to to stomach that that, oh, no. People don’t like my reading anymore. And I had those thoughts.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:26:47]:
At what point? Like, how do you make that discernment? Like, is it at book 3 if you don’t see a return or if you never hit black on your series? Or
Jamie Davis [00:26:59]:
I I tend before I started doing what I’m doing on the current series, I would say I’d I’d commit to writing 3 or 4 books. Try to write it in a story arc that has some sort of an ending and see how it see how it goes when I get to book 3 or 4 to make a decision on whether I keep writing. You know, what’s been the pickup? Or, you know, am I seeing increased readership over books from, you know, from books 1 to 2 to 3? Those kind of things. It really it really takes pulling off that creative hat where you love your characters and you love your book and you love your story premise and putting on that, you know, accountant’s visor and saying you know, leaning forward and looking at the hard numbers and making a decision that it it doesn’t make any sense for me to spend $1,000 on covers and editing and everything else that I’m gonna spend to write another book in this series. And
Elyssa Dolinger [00:27:55]:
Especially with the that’s hard to do.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:27:57]:
The personal creative investment, you know, like, the the mental burden of finishing out a book is a lot. So I it’s hard to take all of that knowing it’s not gonna go anywhere.
Lexi Greene [00:28:14]:
Yeah. The the we’re very possessive of our creative endeavors and just the the notion that sometimes you have to abandon your babies is is a tough is a tough lesson to learn, and it’s a tough thing to stomach.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:28:26]:
Supposed to kill your darlings if you’re a writer.
Jamie Davis [00:28:29]:
Right? Well yeah. And and and but my thought process has changed a little bit on that with what I did in this current series, and I’ll tell you why. If you start off writing on a serial platform, like, for instance, Royal Road, and you’re you’re doing great and going along, you’re getting good engagement, people are reading your chapters, and you get to a chapter and all the comments are bad. And people stop reading beyond that chapter or reading dry dries up after that chapter. Well, guess what? You just saved yourself the cost of a cover and an editor and everything else, and you know where you went off track.
Lexi Greene [00:29:10]:
That’s true. And then if you ever wanna go back to that project, that’s you know, where you have to
Jamie Davis [00:29:15]:
Right. And and I don’t even say abandon it at that point. Go back to that chapter. Look really hard at what you did. Look at the comments you got, and say, oh, okay. They didn’t like you know, this didn’t meet the trope expectation for this type of genre of what these readers expected. And it seems universal, and I’m going to go in a different direction. I have a a great author friend of mine, and she, recently made a change to the end of one of her books because there was such outcry about the way she had orchestrated the little cliffhanger she created there.
Jamie Davis [00:29:51]:
And, you know, her readers love her and love the stories and would have kept reading. But, you know, sometimes you gotta make that executive decision that, oh, you know, I was wondering about whether it was gonna be acceptable to do what I was doing, and turns out it wasn’t. So, there are ways to you know, luckily, as digital readers, digital authors, we can update our series. We can update our books.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:30:14]:
Right. And self publishing specifically. Like, we can’t pivot.
Jamie Davis [00:30:18]:
So we can take, you know, the we can take the first chapter of the next book and put it as the ending of this book because the cliffhanger was unacceptable. Right? And, so hats off to Kat Healy for for that because she she helped me learn that lesson. But there are, a lot of things that you can do now that can help you write the book correctly to begin with, where you’re landing all the tropes and you’re landing all the messaging and and got the characters dialed in, and before you ever have to spend hardly any money at all. And then you can so I think there’s some options trying to use this funding ahead of time method, also helps you build a better book in the long run.
Lexi Greene [00:31:07]:
I mean, like Lyssa said, it’s kind of like crowdsourcing, the the alpha beta feedback for your book. Like, you you have more access to readers than you’ve ever had before before you have to put out a you know, your paperback, your hardcover, things that you can’t that, like, put your book out there to the world in a more permanent sense. Now I do wanna jump into some questions that we have from some of the people in the comments. So we have from, William j Long the third. What places have you seen where readers are that are more open to investing time into new authors?
Jamie Davis [00:31:46]:
Definitely on the serial platforms. They’re hungry for content. The authors they love can’t write fast enough. I mean, even if they’re uploading a small chapter a day, the readers are done in 10 minutes and hungry for more. So you can cultivate new readers there, as a as a new author, I think, really well. There are other ways. You can serialize content just about anywhere. You can do it in a Facebook group.
Jamie Davis [00:32:12]:
You can do it on, you know, you can do it short format on a blog and point to it from social channels. There’s a lot of ways to get your get your books out there and and give a reader a chance to find you.
Lexi Greene [00:32:28]:
Yeah. That’s true. Totally fair. Now Beth Cox, one of our one of our regulars, when we were talking about Kickstarter, she did mention, you know, she heard the Kickstarter is a lot of work. So as someone who’s kind of used Kickstarter successfully, in terms of, like like, effort investment, like, was Kickstarter a lot of, you know, work on your behalf to establish, to get going, to make, successful? 100%.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:32:56]:
No. That’s not what we wanna hear. No.
Lexi Greene [00:32:58]:
There’s no easy.
Jamie Davis [00:33:01]:
There’s no there’s no easy button here. You know? It’s like, I wish I had the little easy button that goes, oh, that was easy. No. It it it’s hard. It’s hard all the way around. I think there’s different rewards for the author at a as a Kickstarter person. I will say there’s there’s a few things that’ll make a Kickstarter a little easier on you and easier to be profitable, and that is plan upfront for it to be profitable from the beginning. Know what no nail down what your costs are and then add 20%.
Jamie Davis [00:33:35]:
Understand you’re gonna spend a week shipping if you have a moderately successful Kickstarter and you’ve got 50 boxes to ship. Well, that’s gonna take you some time to box up and put the swag in there and make sure everybody’s got the right things going through all the orders and stuff, boxing it up, taping it up, putting a label on it, and driving it over to your post office so that sometimes they’ll pick up too. So but, I mean, the these are all things that take time, and and so there’s a lot of hard work involved. But it can if you build it profitably from the beginning, I my Kickstarters run at a premium. So they’re getting a signed paperback from me. I personalized them. So, you know, I say, hey, Joe. Thanks for backing the Kickstarter, Jamie Davis.
Jamie Davis [00:34:21]:
It is it is each book is personalized to that individual as much as I can. There are little things you can do, but I also charge a premium beyond what I might charge at, like, a book fair, where I’m just signing books and and selling books that way. So, you know, you can do things in a Kickstarter that you can’t do anywhere else. You this is these are people who want to back creators and are happy to back creators and are willing to do so sometimes at a little bit of a premium to know that, you know, they had a a piece of the creative process that way. So, definitely, it is a lot of hard work, but there are ways and I’m not saying price gouge people. But, you know, you know, charge an extra $5 for a for a paperback. And then make make that extra $5 above what it would cost you to get it to you and ship it and everything else. And then put that towards your next book or put that towards the launch of this book.
Jamie Davis [00:35:17]:
Those are those are some of the things you can do.
Lexi Greene [00:35:20]:
Perfect. Now we do have a question from, YouTube from Takara Mitsumi. How do you deal with readers who wait until the series is finished before they’re willing to buy books? Seems to be a growing problem because readers are upset. The authors stop mid series. Is there anything that you can really do about that as an author, or is that just kind of a a thing that you have to accept as part of reading culture these days?
Jamie Davis [00:35:47]:
Well, I’ll I’ll say this. They exist. Those readers exist. There are readers out there who only read completed series. That’s just who they are, and they don’t wanna get invested in something where they don’t have an ending of some sort. And I completely understand that. However, I don’t think it’s growing. That’s my sense.
Jamie Davis [00:36:09]:
They exist. They’re out there. When I finish a series, one of the first things I do is change the blurbs to say, this is book 1 in a completed series because it catches those readers right away. So there are people who are gonna read that way, but I don’t believe the number is growing. Maybe they’re more vocal, but I think they’re a vocal minority. And there are plenty of people out there who are happy to read along with you, especially if you can get the preorder for the next book up before that book launches. So that’s a that’s a great trick because it tells the reader, oh, there’s more books. And when they get the next book, oh, there’s another preorder already ready to go.
Jamie Davis [00:36:49]:
So there are ways to do this to to really keep them in the pipeline to know that you’re actively writing this series and doing it. And, you know, author notes at the end of the books are great as well. There are all sorts of ways to communicate with readers and let them know that you’re not gonna leave them abandoned when they get to the next book.
Lexi Greene [00:37:13]:
Absolutely. Yeah. We we do have several people, you know, one once again, Mark, Beth mentioning that they they love the idea of updating their blurbs, letting people know that it is a complete series. Because that is a selling point. Like, obviously, you’re you’re right. It’s not I don’t think necessarily there is a lot of truth to the notion that that is a growing contingency of readers, but it is still good for some readers to know. It’s like, oh, if I’m getting into this, I can go from start to finish this weekend. I can just binge through this story.
Lexi Greene [00:37:42]:
And for books for series that aren’t finished, I think that once we get we’ve been talking all all episode about getting your readers invested, creating that level of trust between author and reader. So I think that that probably plays a role in making that easier for your reader to trust you.
Jamie Davis [00:37:59]:
I mean, to be fair, I’m the guy that waits until the whole series is out on streaming TV before I watch any of it. So, I’m that guy in in the streaming services, at least. I don’t watch as they drip release it. I like to be able to kinda binge it in a weekend and stuff. So that’s, you know, the it exists. But if it’s 10% of the readers, they’re you know, know that they’re 10 or 15% of the readers, whatever the number is. I don’t know. And be ready to capture them when the series is done.
Lexi Greene [00:38:31]:
Yeah. I do so we’ve talked a lot about, you know, obviously getting your book launch ready, and, like, ways to kind of make some of the money back. But let’s talk a little bit briefly about the money that does go into it. How much should an author expect to be investing in a book launch that they want to make a success? Can you break down a little bit your advice of, like, what maybe especially a beginner versus an advanced author in terms of what they should be looking to invest to make their book launch work?
Jamie Davis [00:39:02]:
Well, for for a beginning author, really, the the the investment is in the things that go into publishing your book. Having a really great cover is paramount. And if if you can’t do anything else, you scrape together whatever you can to get the best cover you can afford. And if you can’t afford a great cover, get the best cover you can afford for now. And then when you have some extra money coming in from the book launch or from whatever, you know, even if it’s a year later, put a new cover on that book. It’ll you’ll my first series, it’s on the first three books are on their 4th cover version now. Every time I’ve updated that cover, those books jumped in sales.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:39:47]:
Yeah. That’s newsletter fodder right there.
Jamie Davis [00:39:49]:
It’s newsletter fodder. It’s it’s it catches people’s attention that they’ve been seeing this book because Amazon’s been showing it to them because there’s that’s their genre preference, but they didn’t like the cover, suddenly the same book comes across with a new cover on it and they go, oh, that caught my eye. And that’s all it takes sometimes.
Lexi Greene [00:40:09]:
It really is funny how, you can’t judge a book by its cover as such a, like, common No. It’s, so not true. Yeah. It’s it’s but, like, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my time with draft the digital, it’s like, no. Covers are is absolutely how readers will judge your book. We’re visual creatures. That’s the first thing you see.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:40:26]:
Well, I mean, that’s part of your passive marketing strategy, just like the blurb. Like, if you get all of those things, they will continue to work for you the whole time. So
Jamie Davis [00:40:38]:
Yeah. But, I mean, so so investing in things, invest in a good cover first. Invest in professional editing. See if you can get somebody after the edit to proofread for you if you can’t afford it yourself. Sometimes other authors will swap proofreading services with you. You know, you proofread their book. They proofread your book. And they’re not professional proofreaders, but they will catch the typos as they read, those kind of things.
Jamie Davis [00:41:05]:
There are ways to do this on the I won’t say on the cheap, but on the inexpensive to to get your book out there. And then when it comes to launch yeah. It’s affordable. And then when it comes to launch, I would definitely go, not put money into advertising right away if it’s your first book, or even your second or second book. I’d wait until at least book 3 is out before you start advertising book 1. The only time I’ve done that differently is with my current series, and I had all 3 books up for preorder, and I had I launched in the black. So I had money to spend on driving some traffic to the first book in that series knowing that I was getting preorders coming in because some people just buy the book 1 and automatically preorder the next 2 books. Sight unseen, they haven’t read anything.
Jamie Davis [00:42:02]:
Maybe they’ve read the the preview, But that’s it. And they go, oh, I’m getting all 3 of these books. And I see it all the time. So there are ways to do that. But I I would just recommend, you know, at least if it’s your first book ever or first couple of books, don’t spend a lot of money on advertising until you at least get book 3 out there because then you’ll have something to build upon and some read through to pay off for the advertising.
Lexi Greene [00:42:26]:
It’s actually funny that you jump right, Zach, because that was one of, I think one of our last questions we might take from the comments, was from Beth, which is, is there something beginner authors should avoid in their book launches? So I guess it is, like, overinvesting in advertising before you have, like, a a collection of books that is going to kind of draw readers and and have them invest in you.
Jamie Davis [00:42:51]:
Yeah. And and, look, I was this way. I put my first book out there and I go, that’s it. I’m a New York Times bestselling author. It’s just a matter of time. I can retire. You know, I’m gonna buy a boat. I’m gonna all you know, no.
Jamie Davis [00:43:05]:
It didn’t happen for me. And no amount of advertising would have fixed that, by the way. They I was a brand new author. People were not gonna take a chance on me as much as they would now being more established. So build on your brand, especially when you’re brand new. I firmly believe the best thing that’ll sell your book is your next book because you’re in a position where you’re doubling your presence on the store just by putting a second book out.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:43:34]:
Well and all of these places that you’ve mentioned, Rheem, Kickstarter, all of those sort of act like your advertising funnel also because you get to direct people to your website or
Jamie Davis [00:43:47]:
where Yeah. There are ways to market without spending a dime. And and you should learn you should spend the time and investment in learning how to do that early on in your career rather than rather than invest a lot of money in advertising. Unless unless you come out of, like, the digital advertising marketplace in some way, that’s your that’s your forte and you understand it, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t jump in there until maybe you’re, like, book book 10.
Elyssa Dolinger [00:44:16]:
I love that advice because it scares me.
Lexi Greene [00:44:19]:
Yeah. No. And I I think we all want, the the author career trajectory to be a sprint, but it is very much a marathon. And Mhmm. I think I think one of the best things that new authors especially can understand is that it is okay to not see immediate breakout success after your first book. That is not the norm, but you can, you’ll still find your place as an author over time. And just as one last thing to pop up, Launching in the Black, I thought you meant hiding from your spouse how much you spent on a book launch. We do not advocate for lying to your spouse, especially not on how much you spent your book launch.
Lexi Greene [00:44:56]:
But hopefully, with today’s advice, that will be a slightly lower number.
Jamie Davis [00:44:59]:
So Hopefully, you can go to your spouse and say, hey. Guess what? I made enough on day 1 to take us out to dinner tonight.
Lexi Greene [00:45:06]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. That is the that is certainly the ideal. So, for anyone who wants to just, you know, check out, check out more about Jamie Davis, check out more of his wonderful books. We do have his website as, jamiedavisbooks.com. And for anyone who is interested in Author Nation, the conference is going to be taking place in November in Las Vegas.
Lexi Greene [00:45:32]:
I almost said Los Angeles for some reason. You can go visit author nation. Live. Like I said, it’s wonder peep wonderful people are running that event. It’s a great place to form off a community. Definitely something worth checking out.
Jamie Davis [00:45:48]:
And there’ll be and there’s gonna be I know for a fact there are gonna be speakers there talking about all of the different platforms I’ve talked about here. So if you’re interested in Kickstarter, if you’re interested in serialized content, if you’re interested in blogging, there are gonna be people that are talking about all these things. And so there’s an opportunity for you to you know, if you’re gonna invest in something, I think that kind of an investment is well worthwhile.
Lexi Greene [00:46:13]:
Absolutely. Now thank you so much, Jamie, for your insights. Thank you for just a a very pleasant chat today. For anyone who is watching, please, be sure to like, comment, subscribe, share the video to your author friends. It’s all the all the classic, Internet video things that, we we would love for you to do. If you, be sure to bookmark, dcdlive.com so that you can be here for the next live event that we do with another one of our wonderful industry insiders. And if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up for a Draft2Digital account at draft2digital.com. That is the number 2 if you’re looking to get started with your author career.
Lexi Greene [00:46:55]:
Jamie, thank you so much, for joining us today. It’s been a pleasure.
Jamie Davis [00:47:02]:
Thank you so much for having me, and I hope my rambling has somehow helped somebody out there in the audience. You know, it’s it’s we’re in this together. It’s a solitary career in many ways, but there’s a huge and wonderful community of authors out there that I have, for the most part, found extremely supportive of my author journey. And I think you’ll find the same is true as well.
Lexi Greene [00:47:25]:
Absolutely. Jamie, if you could stick with us, just after, we’re about to play a quick, 32nd ad for d two d print. If you could hang out with us in the green room, and then we will chat a bit after the episode is over. But, folks, thank you so much for joining us for today’s d two d live. We hope you have a wonderful day and a happy writing.
Kevin Tumlinson [00:47:47]:
Ebooks are great, but there’s just something about having your words in print, something you can hold in your hands, put on a shelf, sign for a reader. That’s why we created D2D Print, a print on demand service that was built for you. We have free beautiful templates to give your book a pro look, and we can even convert your ebook cover into a full wraparound cover for print. So many options for you and your books. And you can get started right now at draft2digital.com. That’s it for this week’s self publishing insiders with Draft2Digital. Be sure to subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts and share the show with your will be author friends, and start, build, and grow your own self publishing career right now at draft2digital.com.