November 2024 Newsletter
The 200 author copies that I ordered finally arrived at the beginning of October!
On the left is Jade Bohlsen, the same one credited as a test reader and who drew the line up of human ethnicities in appendix 4. Jade has been incredibly helpful and encouraging since I began this endeavor. In the middle is Tom, another one of my test readers who also gave a lot of very helpful feedback and has been very supportive. On the right is Tre, the mail carrier who delivered the last few boxes of the author copies and I thanked him with one. I delivered another copy to Luke Bauer who has been absolutely instrumental in transforming all of my chicken-scratch maps into what you see in book 1 and these monthly updates. I have a few more rounds to make with the folks who’ve made this all possible.
Speaking of Luke, I dropped another project with him on Halloween morning:
This is the rough sketch of the city of Versingit. Chapter 3 of book 2 will have this city fighting for its survival, so there will be the overview map, like this, but also the map(s) of maneuvering forces as the battle/siege progresses. I had a comment from a writers’ forum on Facebook the other day that I should include more of the maneuver of forces beyond the opening moves. The map given was the decisive engagement of the Battle of Serna Hills (shown below for reference). This is more of a rout and slaughter of the orcs, so the opening moves are really the final ones.
But coming back to Versingit, I started an illustration that… is really beyond my ability, but it’s in the works. It will probably take me quite a while of picking at it (and it very well may still suck), but we grow somehow, right?
It clearly has a long way to go and I plan on having eleven figures in the fore- and mid-ground. The gate in the background is the eastern gate of Versingit. This is my first attempt at perspective and I’ll attempt shading, too… I hope I can get it in time for actually including it in book 2. But, also speaking of book 2, here’s the next iteration of the cover art by Dale Cordes (https://www.instagram.com/cordesillustration/).
We’re getting closer and I hope to have another draft for you in a month or two. Dale’s the same artist that did the cover art for book 1.
Shifting a bit, I can’t tell you how fulfilling it is to start to see your dream come to life. I mentioned Jade at the beginning of this letter who was my first test reader and was the first to draw fan art. She has been very kind to me and furnished me with a wealth of pieces and I’d like to share one.
Dareum of House Covendran. Tall, strong, naive, hotheaded. He is one of many heroes on our ‘good guys’ side. He’s a prominent character throughout the series.
Other good news: I have scheduled my first book signing. It’s in December, so it’ll be a while before I can get some pictures for you folks, but I’ll be sure to. At events like these and just talking with folks in general, I commonly get asked ‘hey, what’s your book about?’ Believe it or not, this is one of the hardest questions you can ask an author. I’ve done a couple Tiktoks on it (as part of my self-advertising).
Morgan Spring-Glace 📚 (@morgan.the.gamer) | TikTok You can check it out if you want to.
So, as with the last few months, I’d like to give you folks a peek behind the curtain about how this all works, in case you’re thinking about publishing something of your own or you’re just curious about this. But I tell you, my absolute biggest asset for advertising - is you. If you’re reading this, then I already have at least some of your interest. Maybe you’re here for the story. Maybe you’ve known me for a while and you’re just curious about this whole process. Regardless, I ask - tell your friends. Share the links with others that you think might like it. If you’ve gotten yourself a copy of the ebook or paperback, I’d really love a review. It would mean a lot to me and it’d be very, very helpful. As it is, it is somewhat difficult to find my book on amazon without having the direct link to it. Typing “The Witches of Serna” in amazon search will autocorrect to ‘The Witches of Serena’ and give you a bunch of different books. It’s actually easier (if you don’t have the link) to search my name as an author.
Advertising has been and will probably continue to be my focus. As much as I love writing (and I really do), this will never take off if I can’t get a wide enough readership to make it more feasible. This is going to be a long road, friends, and I appreciate your companionship along the way.
My main avenues for advertising are Tiktok, as you saw above, and Facebook (which is how a lot of you come to this site). I do also post on Linkedin. I have plans for twitter and instagram, but that’s not going to be for a few more months, candidly.
I am also experimenting with Amazon ads. I have two promotions out right now. When you publish an ebook, you get five days of free promotion where people can get your book for free. I get no royalties, but I am hopeful that I can grow some readers from here that will, perhaps, buy the paperback, but more importantly, tell their friends and come back for book 2.
I am also experimenting with a paid ad on amazon for the paperback. Here’s how that works. You select your product (my paperback), you select different ad strategies (like ‘top of search page’ or inclusion in search queries on first or second page, etc. You can adjust the likelihood of your product coming up in a search. The amount of increase adjusts how much you pay per click. Then, you set a time period over which to run your ad and how much you are willing to pay per day. As you can see, I’m running this ad campaign for the entire month of November and I’m spending no more than $12.00 per day.
You might say ‘whoa that’s gonna be, like, $400!’ Surely it might be, but that would require somebody to click on it. It’s been running since October 27th. I’ve had a total of 136 impressions (times that my book has appeared on someone’s search page - but no clicks. So, this is good and bad. Good that it doesn’t cost money. Bad because I’m not selling books.
On October 28th, I put out a Tiktok (what’s your book about, part 1). The next day, the 29th, I got 11 orders for the ebook. And I thought ‘it’s working!’ Maybe, maybe not. The 29th is also the first day of the free amazon promotion. So, good news is that, between October 29th and October 31st, people picked up 27 copies of the ebook through the free promotion. The bad news (so far), is that I have no read reports. So, either they picked it up without them having Kindle Unlimited. Or, they’ve put it in their ‘to read’ pile (I hope). I started writing this in the late evening of Halloween. Now that it’s the afternoon of the 1st, sales are dwindling off, though I did post another Tiktok yesterday evening. So, it was more likely the free promotion for those first few days of sales, though that does leave it up in the air as to why those sales have dwindled off with today and tomorrow remaining on the promotion. Meh?
But, to reiterate, my biggest asset is you folks, especially if you’re reading this far down on the newsletter, you’re the folks that are going to help this project make it. You might be thinking “oh, I can’t do much.” Given that I have less than a hundred readers total, I would argue that you are at the very foundation of this. By telling one or two other people that you think might be interested, they might get into it, tell their friends, post something on their socials, etc. Whoever you are, wherever you are, whatever you do, you can help, and I will be grateful.
Now. The last item of business was supposed to be the price fiasco that I told you about last month. Bottom line: I am keeping the paperback at $16.99. I may introduce a future version of book 1 with more illustrations and set that at a higher price, for broader distribution. But, for the time being, this is it.
Here’s my reasoning:
Whereas Ingram Spark would charge me the difference for their expanded distribution services, Amazon simply won’t let me do it without a price change. So, as you can see, just selling this book on Amazon, I can charge $12.17 and make $0.00 royalties. What I make is 60% of the difference between the price ($16.99) and $12.17. In order for me to put this book, in this format, into expanded distribution, I would have to raise the price to $18.25 and make $0.00 royalties. And, basically, in order to make what I make per copy at $16.99, I would have to charge about $23. Maybe it’s just me, but I think this is too much to ask for any given reader to take a chance on a no-name debut author - and also understand, this is part of my own decisions on formatting - putting more space between the lines, the font size, things like that. Little things add up. The maps and illustrations really don’t make much of a difference, since that only accounts for about ~20 pages, all told, whereas font spacing can make a difference of 90 or 100 pages, easily. So… it was partly my vanity for wanting a 500+ page book. Call me vain.
There is a bit of hope, though. I’m getting some mentorship from the management of my local bookstore and I might find a way to get this into general population. Not sure what it’s going to take, though. In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted about business stuff on the back end of these.
Song of the month for work: Broken Halo by The Goondock Saint (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvOlCyEXIrA&list=RDFnPbA6Hj05M&index=2)
Also enjoyed an album from The Goondock Saint that was great for plowing through some work: NEON (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj1vCh1RtY0)
As this has yet been another month of change, chaos, and turmoil, I also offer from The Goondock Saint, We Had Great Times (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3C2e2s_Ojg)
Truly. We had some great times, friends.
I hope you had a good Halloween.
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