Takes Balance in Indie Publishing…

Indie Takes Knowing Major and Minor Skills…

Back in traditional publishing days, hundreds of thousands of writers worked to get past the gate keepers and get their books bought and into print. A few out of those thousands actually made it for a ton of varied reasons.  And so few out of those who made it actually had careers longer than a few books.

Reasons… Many were just not good storytellers, rewrote everything into mush, and had no voice, didn’t understand the entire business process of submission, or more than likely, just did not have the drive to keep going and keep learning and working to get better. They claimed writing was important to them, but it just was not when it became difficult.

You take out the ugliness of the gatekeepers and how little money you made per book in traditional and now every writer can give their book a chance on the market with just a little learning. Most do the writing, a novel or two, a few snort stories and don’t get the books out published to readers and finally give up. Some love the writing, get a bunch of books out, are disappointed at the time it takes and how little money and readers they have, and give up.

And some keep on writing and embrace the publishing and still don’t make any real money. And in indie publishing, there is one major reason for this. The writers block their own sales. It honestly is as if they don’t want their books to find readers.

There are steps to this blockage. The four major areas around the sale of the book itself, the poor website, the lack of doing promotion like Kickstarters and Patreon, and so on.

What I am trying to address now, for the first time together, are the four major areas of self-destruction around publishing the book itself. How can a writer make sure they only sell a few copies.

Kris and I have done a ton of teaching on covers, and Steph from WMG has a fantastic Design for Indie Writers… Covers class on The WMG Writer Store. Yet most writers make sure readers believe they are beginners and thus be hesitant to spend money on a book.

And I have just sort of talked a bunch about sales copy without really helping many people because, to be honest, writers don’t want to be helped. They can write after all, they know their book, they can sell it. (Snort with laughter…) Writers think the plot will sell their books, when in reality, that stops sales and bores readers. Readers want to read a book for the story and plot. They don’t want it in the sales copy. But heaven help you if you try to tell a writer their sales copy about their latest book is passive, dull, and has too much plot. So I mostly just stay silent.

And yikes when a writer does the same thing in the body of a Kickstarter. Makes sure you make a lot less, that’s for sure.

And every writer thinks they know how to do openings and endings. Right?

So, let me repeat what I said last night…

Getting a reader to spend money for a book comes in four steps.

• 1… Cover and author name. Branded big name and cover branded to a genre.
• 2… Sales copy.
• 3… Opening that makes a reader want to buy.
• 4… Ending, validation that make readers want to look up more work by the same author.

(The endings also includes back matter.)

So why do I constantly see writers making sure that readers will not buy their own books? Damned if I know.

As the editor of Pulphouse, I see story after story come in with openings that I go “Really, you think anyone would find that interesting?”

And sometimes a writer will get me reading all the way to the end, which always makes me happy until the writer didn’t know how to do an ending and I reject the story. If I was a reader, I wouldn’t buy any more of that writer’s work because of the disappointment at the bad end.

So with just five people, I am going to see if I can help them fix this problem.

If you want to learn this early, even though you only have a few books out, I hope to help. If you have 15 to 25 books and are only still making coffee money, I can really help.

I am calling this PERSONAL SALES HELP…

Here is the structure of the Personal Sales Help I am going to do.

• 1… I will give a short story assignment for a brand new short story or novella that is due in two weeks.
• 2… You will need to also send me the cover for that new story and the sales copy for the story on the due date. 
• 3… I will read the story, with a focus on the opening pulling readers in, and a focus on the ending getting readers to want more of your work. Then I will help with the cover and the sales copy so all four parts of the entire package works together. The focus will be sales.
• 4… This will last for six months only, or 12 assignments, whatever comes first. Later assignments will include back matter.
• 5… If you sign up now, you can start at any time, even into next year.
• 5… I will work with any writer at any point in their career, but you must be able to complete a short story and do your own cover and sales copy. I will not read a work in progress or a novel. 
• 6… I will take five writers (but I have just started this with one writer, so I have four spots.) First come.
• 7… Fee is $2,000 and needs to be sent to PayPal to dean@wmgpublishingstore.com (Note… that is a dead email and is only a PayPal address.)

The goal is to get your stories, your covers, your sales copy to professional sales levels and increase the amount of readers and thus sales you have going into the future.

This does not include any of the mentorships or coaching I have done in the past. This is a focused thing for six months for five writers. With my upcoming challenge for myself, all I have time for.

Questions, write me. Subject Line “Personal Sales Help.”

Again, this is for sales, and I will read your short stories and look at your covers and sales copy with that focus completely.