Become a Successful Indie Author

by Craig Martelle

  “You mean the president?” Nathan asked, knowing exactly what Terry Henry meant.

  The colonel nodded. Nathan leaned close to his monitor. Char hadn’t blinked. He was convinced that she was sound asleep with her eyes wide open. He looked back to Terry.

  “Yes. He’s pleased with the outcome and delivered an abject apology. He said that he wasn’t deliberately misleading. I don’t believe him, but we have our money in hand including the bonus and kicker. Your first mission and you are well on your way to paying off the War Axe. Only another three hundred and seven like that and you’ll own it outright.”

  “Say what?” Terry raised one eyebrow.

  Nathan maintained a dead-pan expression. “Just keep plugging away and you’ll be living the good life, retired on a Caribbean island.”

  “Already did that. It’s exhausting.” Terry rubbed the stubble on his face. “I need to put this one to bed.” He pointed to Char. “And then check on my people. You know the status—one lost, one severely injured.”

  “General Reynolds has sent Ted and a research group from R2D2 to Keeg Station for security reasons. We’ve received too much intel that suggests the facility is a prime target for undesirables. Ted seemed indifferent, but Felicity was ecstatic, or so I hear. She’s also going to be the station manager. The last one died in a bar fight with an Asplesian.”

  “What’s an Asplesian?” Terry mumbled.

  “You’ll find out. I’m sure Felicity won’t put up with any of their crap.”

  “The old team, back together already. I like it. I’m sure Ted and our Crooner will get along like old buds,” Terry suggested.

  “It looks to me like warfighting suits you, TH.” Nathan waved a handful of papers in front of the camera. “I’ve sent a batch of RFPs, requests for proposals, your way. Take a look and see what grabs you. They all need the Bad Company yesterday.”

  Nathan and Terry both shook their heads as they looked at the image of the other.

  “Will do, when I can see to read the words, Nathan. All I have to say is fuck those guys, and fuck the next bunch too, whoever they may be.”

  “Truer words were never spoken. Until then, Terry Henry. Thank you for a job well done.”

  What matters is that you finish the story. ‘Perfect’ is the enemy of ‘good enough.’ Remember that your readers will determine if it’s a product worth buying. I want to please my dad because he’s one of my biggest fans, but I have a lot of other fans, too. Stay true to the story you establish up front and your way ahead will remain clear.

  That should also tell you why I am fanatical about getting that first chapter correct. If you do that, then the rest of the book is a done deal. All that’s left is to spend the butt-time in chair to get the words down, which is easier if you already know what you need to accomplish and that your characters have an end point.

  Do it now! I am not a fan of starting a rewrite halfway through a draft. I have gone to the extent of sending the first half to my beta readers to see if it worked. Every single time, they said that it did. They asked a couple questions that helped me remove a misleading subplot or better, expand it because they saw it as something that I did not. When readers help you write your story, it is a magical thing.

  Abandoning a story. If you cannot get into your book, set it aside. I would never recommend completely abandoning a story. All words are hard to come by. Even if you’re churning out 7000 of them a day, they are words well-earned.

  I put Become a Successful Indie Author aside for six months because fiction is my moneymaker, but I never abandoned this guide. I kept adding ideas here and there as I thought of things before going back to the novel I was working on at the time. The end result? Become a Successful Indie Author is a fairly decent body of work. Also, the additional time helped me to learn more and add both more and better material.

  Out of all of that, I would say that you shouldn’t start a book that you are waffling about. If you can write the first and last chapters, then you can write the whole book. Some things may change and you will have to tweak or even rewrite the last chapter, but tell the story. Let the words flow from start to finish.

  Don’t be an author with a hard drive full of incomplete stories. Be the author with a nice backlist of material for fans to dig into.

  Detail Tracking

  How do you keep track of your world-building details? The best way you can.

  From my business consulting days, I am a huge fan of spreadsheets, so I have all of my business in one massive master spreadsheet. I don’t recommend this for those who aren’t spreadsheet-savvy, but you do need to keep track somehow. For my Free Trader series, I had columns labeled “Terms,” “City/Geography,” “People,” and “Creatures.” As it turned out, I ended up drawing a map and using that for my Geography, but I still needed the spreadsheet to keep track of who the key players were in each of the towns/locations. I had some unique terminology and made a mini-dictionary of terms. The two lengthiest columns, chock-full of entries, were People and Creatures.

  My Free Trader series is space opera/space adventure. It is all about the people and the sentient creatures. I wrote about the species and then a short narrative for the history. I added to it as I went with named creatures and named people. Just enough to know that someone was blue-eyed, or had a mate, or some other identifying characteristic. You love your characters, but you’re going to forget the little details. In my Nomad series, Simmons in Book 1 became Timmons in Book 2 and all that followed. We caught it after Book 6 was published when someone listened to the audio where it was obvious. It was too late at that point, so we owned the mistake.

  It happens. But try to minimize that by keeping a good record. For the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles, I had a single two-column spreadsheet. “Item” and “Definition.” That was only okay. I needed more detail. Maybe break out into antagonists, protagonists, and geography. It was a mess of notes and that’s how Simmons becomes Timmons. I wrote the books quickly, one after another, but that only partially made the difference.

  Maps are key. If you can draw a map or draw on a map, then your world becomes three-dimensional. Yellow stickies can be your friend, until you’ve got a pile of them falling everywhere. I write military science fiction so I also built organizational charts, because, command and control, of course!

  I also built a family tree, since the kids were going to grow up and become integral to the story. We were filling a one hundred and fifty year gap in the timeline, so the family tree was an important overlay of the timeline. That also helped with character interaction between storylines. And all of that stuff was rough and hand-drawn. I tried an online program called Story Shop and that didn’t do it for me. It was like trying to manage an Access database where you had to have your linkages correct otherwise you wouldn’t find your data.

  A couple wonderful friends built a concordance, an alphabetized index of all the words within your book, and it is something you can do for yourself. You load all your books into it and can then search by a variety of phrases to see where each of the references show up. In longer works, this helps your consistency and references, so you don’t misplace a bar or put a space station in the wrong solar system. Do a Google search on Concordance Software Download and you’ll find some from reputable download sites like CNet.

  I don’t know about you, but I like the visuals, so I have really rough hand-drawn stuff. I’ve been able to maintain eight unique points of view (POVs) throughout an entire novel with that level of notetaking. That’s also a benefit to writing fast. Had I taken a month off in the middle, I would have lost all train of thought on that book, which is my second-highest reviewed book on Amazon. The complexity of the POVs was important for the story and the readers stayed on board throughout. Many did not put the book down from start to finish because they wanted to know what happened to the next group, and then the next, and so on until the story was told.

  When all is said and done, if your world is JRR Tolkien complex, the
n you need to take your time to make sure all the threads tie together. He took a long time before he released those books because the world-building was at the highest level.

  Look to the DragonRiders of Pern. Anne McCaffrey did some incredible world-building, but the readers were introduced to it, one small piece at a time. I modeled my Free Trader in this style—still working to get to Anne’s level of prose—and it was easy to build the world as I went, filling in my spreadsheet one passage at a time.

  This method worked for me because I had already built the world in my mind, but had I tried to get it all down, then it would have taken time and I would have wrestled with details that held no relevance. Is it ten steps up to the front door or fourteen? Don’t worry about it, unless it matters to the story. “He looked up at the door, never taking his eyes from it as he climbed the stairs.”

  Open the world one door at a time so the reader can process it more easily. Keep in mind that everything you do is for the reader. If you write too complex for an average reader to follow, your market narrows and you’ll get some bad reviews. That doesn’t make it a bad thing, but I still can’t read Tolkien’s Silmarillion. I have a law degree, for Pete’s sake, but that’s more braining than I’m willing to invest in a story where I just want to get away for a while. The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings were perfectly epic or epically perfect, as it may be.

  Chapter 2

  Creating your Brand (your persona)

  What is your brand?

  Building your Email List

  Newsletter

  Other Ways to Have People Follow You

  Selling Books at a Convention

  Pen Name

  What is your brand?

  “Successful Author” isn’t a brand. Success is the result of good writing, publishing, and marketing, but also goes to your brand.

  Look at the product logos around you—Nike, the NFL, Dow, Tupperware, Pampered Chef, and so many more. How do you feel when you hear these brands? Now think about authors. What do you think when someone says, “JK Rowling.” I surely don’t think “that’s the Harry Potter woman.” I think class and grace, who writes a gripping tale, intricate but for a young audience. I don’t know about you, but I want to be more like her, not for the money, but for how she always carries herself and continues to work to spread the Harry Potter brand.

  Many of the old-school authors do not have a social media presence. They never needed it because the traditional publishing houses kept their names and books in front of people at the brick and mortar stores, on newsstands, in grocery stores, and in mailers.

  We don’t live in that world anymore. I saw an article that said 73% of Americans are on Facebook. Most people have an email address. Digital is now. As for tomorrow, who knows what the future holds?

  Getting your ads into magazines will reach some old-school readers, but getting your face in front of the digital crowd is instantaneous and far-reaching. We now have worldwide reach! If I publish a book today, it will be available around the world. Think about that and watch the royalties roll in from all of the different Amazon stores.

  As long as people get you. Back to your brand.

  Don’t be a dick, whether to other authors, to your readers, to anyone. I’m not sure how much I can emphasize this. Abrasive people generally don’t do well. Being an indie is about doing everything yourself, being alone as you write, but you aren’t alone. You are a member of a select group, budding professional authors, people paid for what they write. We all need help, and if you’re a dick, people generally won’t help you. Don’t let your brand harm you.

  Be kind, help other folks, especially when you’re just starting out. Even though you think you’re too new and don’t know enough to help others out, you aren’t. You can test read or simply be a sounding board to support another new author starting out.

  I wrote a couple different post-apocalyptic series, one that had a significant prepper/survivalist slant. The readers in that group have a certain characteristic, just like readers in most other groups. When you appeal to multiple groups, that’s when you have to take great care with your brand.

  A friend of mine told me that I was a cool Libertarian. I’m not big on labels like conservative or liberal. I believe people are far more complex than that. That’s part of my brand—I welcome all people equally. My main characters are couples, equal partners facing antagonists of all shapes and sizes. The themes in my stories run the gamut of social issues. My bottom line is my brand. Peace and justice.

  I post on Facebook on multiple pages—I tried to keep my personal page separate from my author page separate from my series page. Everyone friends me on my personal page. It has become the one place for everything. I don’t get to rant about politics or religion or the myriad of other issues out there that could be divisive. Many authors do, so understand, that becomes part of your brand. It can also earn an author a bunch of one-star reviews by taking a public stance on a so-called private page. Some multi-million dollar authors are very public about divisive issues. Me? I can’t afford to lose a bunch of sales, so I’ll remain in the wings. My author career is front and center. Want to know my views on stuff? Let’s sit down and enjoy a burger, drink a good dark beer, and talk. Outside of that, my books are my brand. Bottom line, don’t hurt your brand with negativity or divisive nonproductive issues.

  Do you have a logo? Giveaways? A mark that carries over to every cover?

  Think about the DragonLance covers. When you looked at those books, you instantly knew what they were. Do you have a similar typography across a single series? What about all of your books?

  Most of mine are similar with a block type font for my name. My series are all easily identifiable as being in the same series. Making bookmarks for giveaways uses the same font setup. It helps to have the same artist do all the typography work. If you are capable of doing your own, even better. I am not, so it’s easier for me to be mindful of the brand as I look at new work compared to the old and put it all together.

  I’ll include my coverwall on the next page so you can see how the brand works across a number of different series.

  My Cygnus Space Opera was going to be my magnum opus, but that was before I started writing the Terry Henry Walton Chronicles. I had a logo done for Cygnus and was contemplating challenge coins, but I put all that on hold because Terry Henry Walton took off like a Titan rocket. The fans wanted more so I gave them more. Everything else went on the backburner.

  And that’s why I say nothing sells the last book like the next book. The coins and branded goods can all come after there is a following, a market for them. If you put them first, you risk the spend without the return. Despite the fact that every book is your baby, they are still products, and getting a return on your investment is important. Making money from your efforts changes self-publishing from a hobby to a profession.

  And what a profession it can be. When there is a demand for branded products outside of our books, then you can create your own low-cost product line. Places like Society6 do print-on-demand where there are no upfront costs. Other places have a minimal setup charge and then they print on demand. Business card printers can do bookmarks by the gross.

  What do you put on them, though? Your brand. Let it be all that you are. For those who know me, I share as much knowledge as I have through social media engagement, interviews, and conferences. I’ll tell you everything I know for free. My Free Trader series? I love that brand. What about Nomad? Alaska? People associate those with me. That’s when you know you have a brand that resonates.

  Building Your Email List

  When building your email list, there’s nothing better than organic—people who have read your book and want more! They sign up because you’ve put a link in your back matter—the notes at the end of your book. They sign up because they want to know when your next books come out. Keep these folks on a separate list or highlighted in some way.

  They are far different from other signups.

 
I would rate the quality of signups as follows and much of it is based on your target audience when you promote your listbuilder. If you target only readers in your genre with ads, without bleed-over to low-quality freebie seekers, then you will get higher quality signups.

  Quality

  Type

  5-Star

  Organic signup from your back matter (from your full-length book)

  4-Star

  - Multi-Author Anthology where each contributor writes an original story and they are consolidated into a single book that the authors share with their lists only (not a general promotion - a genre-aligned effort)

  - Short story giveaway (they signed up to get your short story for free – this is only you giving it away).

  3-Star

  Sign up from personal contact (book signing). I would have thought these would be higher, but I’ve done four different events and can’t tell you a single person from those who is still on my list.

  2-Star

  General promotions across all genres with a giveaway of some sort. These are 30 or 40 author consolidated freebies where one signup adds the person to 30 or 40 different lists, even though the reader gets a comparable number of stories.

  1-Star

  Big giveaway (a Kindle or a computer where they have to sign up to your list to enter)

  I don’t have a zero star as there is potential to find your next superfan in all of these efforts. The 1-Star promotions could add tens of thousands of names to your list, which can get expensive, depending on your newsletter list provider. I use MailChimp because of its interface and ease of use. MailerLite is about half the cost, but comes with its own challenges. Regardless. A list with 30,000 names can be expensive to maintain, especially if those 30,000 don’t buy your stuff.