[Heather’s note: I’ve been following the recent self-publishing
adventure of science fiction romance author Melisse Aires. When the rights of one
of her books reverted back to her, she gave it a new name, a shiny new cover,
and re-released it through Amazon.
During subsequent email exchanges,
she shared some of the details of her experience with me. I was amazed at her
results and thought her strategy might be of interest to authors and readers,
especially at a time when the fiction distribution system is rapidly changing. Therefore,
I invited Ms. Aires to blog about her findings and she generously agreed to
tell the story behind her new self-publishing venture.
Plus, details follow the post
regarding how you can obtain one of her free sci-fi romance ebooks at Amazon!
(limited time offer)]
Sea
Change, My Journey to Self Publishing
A few years ago I started a series I was excited about.
Stand alone scifi romance stories set in a wide, wild galaxy. Four brothers to
start with, then later I would match make all their friends in this open ended
series I called Diaspora Worlds. But due to the roller coaster ride that
is digital small press, I ended up with the rights back to a 35k novella, originally
titled Cybot Awakens, actually the first in the series. I had moved on
to new stories so it just sat in my cloud of writing files. One day I would get
around to doing something with it.
I had heard of self publishing, even had an out-of-contract
short story on Amazon and Smashwords. It made a tiny bit of money but nothing
exciting. One day an online cover artist mentioned she had a sale so I went and
looked. One of her covers looked just like the couple in my novella. I
commissioned a cover and even got it at a sale price!
So then I had the book and the cover sitting in my
cloud. I was working on a SFR shifter story and in general keeping busy. I’d
started a story about Genteel Ladies with robotic parts, for fun. But I got
stomach flu so stayed home from the Day Job one Wednesday. Why not upload the
book to Amazon? So I did, with a new title, Her Cyborg Awakes. Amazon
had a program with free promotion days, maybe I could use the novella for a little
free advertising. I set it up to run for free over Memorial Day, which just
happened to be the upcoming weekend.
It did well for free! I ended up with 6k free downloads. It
also picked up about five reviews, good ones, a better amount than any of my
other Kindle books received. My other books also had a boost in sales.
It made it to 112 Best Selling Free and stayed for a couple
weeks on the Space Opera Bestseller list. After the free days were over I was stunned to
watch it sell more copies than anything else has sold for a year. Plus it
received several more five star reviews! It made more money from Memorial Day
to the end of the month than all my other books combined in the past year. (I
had had a rocky year!) Then June rolled around and it kept selling. Now,
I didn’t sell like Amanda Hockings, but I made two mortgage payments worth of
sales in six weeks. This was a Big Deal to me.
Book Two, Alien Blood, was finished. I had started
editing it with the idea of submitting it to some of the larger e-publishers.
But I’d been reading information on self publishing/indie publishing and
learned series are supposed to do well. So why not just get it edited and
publish it myself? Plus, instead of waiting nine months to a year for the book
to hit retailers, and another three or four months (or more) for checks to
transfer to my bank account, I could have it up in a few weeks with payments following in sixty
days. I had a synopsis written and a couple of chapters done for book three, Starwoman’s
Sanctuary, and a partial synopsis
for book four, Big Poison and book five, Cyborg 2ln77. If I
worked at it, I could have the first four, the brothers, up by Christmas. These
are all novella/novelette length, 35-40k. I could do a bundle. Or even a
POD bundle!
Several readers contacted me to see if Cyborg was the
beginning of a series. Readers!
So why shop the rest of the series around? I could hire an
editor and buy covers. I could set the metadata, change pricing, covers, bundle
them, put them on sale. Self publishing this series just made sense to me. Also
to Hubby (“You made how much?”).
Since the first book sold I am interested and motivated to
see if the next books will sell. Not to mention, I am just a tad control freaky.
Obsessed, hubby says, not that he thinks it’s a bad thing. He always knows
where I am, right? Hands on keyboard, eyes on the screen. Drinking the hard
stuff, coffee.
And I can always go back to submitting to publishers.
Will I continue to self publish everything I write? Who
knows? I don't. The publishing industry
is crazy right now and there are no guarantees--except that readers like to
read and they will spend money on e-books. And I like to write and find
readers.
Honestly, though, this is the most fun I’ve had with writing
for years!
Alien Blood Book 2 will
be free on Amazon Kindle July 14 and 15!
~ Melisse Aires