I Purposefully Did Everything Wrong With My First Kindle Release
What was I thinking?
Earlier this month I published a novella to Kindle for the first time. It’s a Halloween themed story that I just finished polishing at the beginning of the month, so I didn’t have time to carefully study all the tips and tricks for maximum success. Instead, I pretty much YOLO’d this baby and have been learning as I go.
It has been rocky, to say the least. Let’s just say I’m on the cusp of breaking single-digit sales on a book that’s only priced at $1.49. Before you feel sympathy for me, let me tell you why I think this is still a success.
First, some background. I’ve been writing professionally for 20 years. Specifically, I’ve been writing for the RPG market (roleplay as in Dungeons & Dragons, not the naughty doctor & nurse type). In fact, my writing partner and I are working on the second edition of our most popular game.
After 20 years in the game market, I’m ready to switch to something new. Writing a novel has always been on my bucket list and at this stage in my career I have the confidence and skill to see it through. So after this last RPG book, I plan on pivoting to my novel.
Consequently, it made sense to me that I learn what to do to make that novel a commercial success. Even though I’ve been reading the tips and tricks other authors are doing, I’m very much a “learn by doing” kind of guy. Practicing a release on a novella seemed like a much lower-risk approach than putting my soul into my first full length novel only to have it fall flat.
What I Did
Thanks to the power of generative AI, I created a suitable cover after only about three dozen prompts (no exaggeration). I then had to learn about upscaling and creating the cover text (props to the Canva tool). Kindle Direct Publishing does a decent job of walking you through every step of the upload and encourages you to use their free tool to make sure the formatting looks correct.
After uploading it and waiting for it to go live, then it was just a matter of notifying my hordes of friends and fans and wait for the money to roll in. Unfortunately, “If you build it, they will come” only works in the movie. Yes, I did share the link with all my Facebook friends and the Facebook group for my RPG, but that’s when I hit on some harsh truths. First, the RPG genre and my little Halloween romance are very different animals, so it’s foolish to expect that readers will cross genres. The second harsh truth is a matter of practicality: only a small fraction of my RPG fans likely even own a Kindle.
Plan B has been to learn about Amazon Advertising. You know when you search for rice cookers and the first row of results has that light grey “sponsored” label? The manufacturers are paying for their product to show up in your search. Amazon ads seemed daunting at first, but again I’m a “learn by doing” guy so the only thing to do was to jump in.
I’m also a bit hamstrung in this case because I don’t feel right charging even $1.99 for essentially a long short story. The problem is that my royalties are small enough that I can’t afford to competitively bid in my categories, or I’d be losing money every time someone clicked on the ad. If this were a loss leader to get people hooked on my writing and buy the next three or four books then I’d be fine with that. At this stage though, there is no pipeline so it wouldn’t be a loss leader so much as just a loss. Still, I’m learning how the ads work, how to bid on categories, how to get your ad under specific books that are like yours, etc. As a practice run, it’s been valuable experience, so in that regard even though the sales have been a flop, I still consider the experiment a success.
I have not experimented yet with Facebook ads. Again, for a $1.49 book that I’m only making $0.50 on, I’m not willing to go deeply in the red. I may need to bite the bullet as a learning experiment, but deep down I’m also a cheapskate.
Next Time
Shockingly, who would have thought that all the advice I’d read in the preceding months about launching a book would be spot on?
It’s important to build connections with readers, it’s important to have a mailing list that’s not dependent on Facebook’s whims as to whether or not your friends or fans even see your post. It’s important to connect in communities of readers of the genre you are writing for. And it’s important to do all of those things well before you are ready to release.
So what am I going to do differently? I’ve already created a separate professional page on Facebook for my author profile. I’m going to post to it steadily, even if it’s just the occasional writing meme, and encourage people to follow it. I’ve also started being more active on other social platforms, and I’m plan on connecting with other writer and reader groups. I definitely don’t plan on spamming those groups when I release my first novel, but I hope by being an active member they will be more likely to see what I’ve written.
Things that I haven’t even started working but really need to include, taking time to understand the “booktok” phenomenon and learn how to create compelling content for Instagram. Either that, or bite the bullet and be prepared to hire someone to do it for me.
Finally, I’ve learned to price the novel high enough (probably $3.99) that I can afford to pay for ads.
By starting now, I have time to learn. Falling on my face with this Kindle release has been a fantastic, valuable learning experience. No regrets. YOLO.
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And now Part 2: The Economic Result
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If you want to see what the fuss is about, Two Princesses is a Halloween romance (after a fashion) and is available for purchase or for free if you have Kindle Unlimited.
