Thrillerfest

Two Weeks of being Published on KDP Select

/ evantpickering / 6 Comments

I’ve pored over various articles of various successful Indie authors proclaiming the benefits of either going KDP Select or publishing on multiple platforms.

I’ve come to a serious, important conclusion:

No one knows what the hell is going on.

Admittedly, many by their own admission. I read a great blog post by Hugh Howey on his forays with exclusivity. He, like many, can see the benefits of going KDP select and going multiple-platform.

Alternatively, Joanna Penn, who I had the pleasure of talking to face to face at Thrillerfest 2015, wrote a great article claiming that if you are making a series, multiple-platform is the way to go. It’s sound logic; the greater visibility you have for book one, the more potential sales there are for later books.

Problem is, I’m not sure we have a great idea for which approach actually grants greater visibility. It seems to vary from a case to case basis.

For me, I’ve been very happy with KDP Select thus far. I’ve made almost as much money on Kindle Unlimited Book Lends as I have with selling the book itself. And I’m sure it helps tremendously in raising my Amazon rankings and getting it out there.

A bit shy of two weeks of results: (published book on Jan. 14th.)

4ab86745489605314ac1c4c511df709f

I’ve been pretty happy with consistent book sales day-to-day. I’ve been extremely happy with my KENP page reads. (yesterday was my most, 3600 pages read in one day!)

If someone buys my book, I make about $2.10. If someone reads it cover-to-cover on KENP, I make $1.35. That’s not bad at all for being “free”.

As of right now, I’m ranked #144 in the Dystopian category on amazon, and #229 in Post-apocalyptic. I’m pretty tickled with that for being two weeks in.

I wonder what my numbers would look like if I had not opted for KDP select. It’s impossible to know, really. Though I’d have to be selling a decent amount of books on Kobo/Smashwords/ the rest of ’em. But am I sacrificing long term visibility?

Who knows. I’m just happy the book is doing pretty well thus far. Better than I expected for my first two weeks, anyway. Booya.

 

-Evan Pickering

I Love Thrillerfest, and It Loves Me? One Valuable Lesson about Agents.

/ evantpickering / Leave a comment

A few days late, life has been crazy. But as per usual, attending ITW’s Thrillerfest this year was nothing short of amazing.

Everyone is so nice and helpful, It’s awesome how supportive the writing community is of other writers, especially authors trying to break into the field.

So as I mentioned, I attended Pitchfest this year for the first time. With F. Paul Wilson‘s help turning my pitch into something people would actually want to hear, I threw myself at the speed dating bonanza that is the search for an agent. The awesome news, 7 agents were interested in my story and wanted to read some or all of it! Now I sit and hope the love the story as much as they love the pitch, hahaha.

In the meantime, I’m going to keep editing, and take the lessons I learned to heart. There’s one that kept resounding out like a bell amongst the din:

Don’t settle for an agent. An agent is like a relationship, the two of you have to be on the same page, so to speak. The right agent for you should love your story like you do, and shouldn’t be asking you to change it in such a way that alters the story the way you want it to be told. (Within reason)

It’s pretty reassuring to hear. While asking questions at the conference, I keep hearing people say “no one knows what the market is going to do, so just write what you love and if it’s good enough it will be successful.”

It’s true though. One minute everyone loves vampires, then zombies, then steampunk, yadda yadda yadda, everything changes so fast don’t bother trying to write for the market.

Also, I’m realizing how viable Self-Publishing is lately. It was awesome to learn about it, because it gave you the feeling if you learned how to market well (and had a good story, obviously) you could find your own success even if you didn’t get picked up. I’ll get more into that another time, though.

-Evan Pickering

Looking forward to ITW’s Thrillerfest/Pitchfest in NYC!

/ evantpickering / Leave a comment

Every year around this time, ITW (International Thriller Writers) has a downright awesome conference in NYC called Thrillerfest. I look forward to it year round, honestly.

This year, I’m attending Pitchfest, (which is tomorrow) a speed-dating book-pitching agent-meeting bonanza! I didn’t even know it existed until this past year, which is probably just as well because my MS, Hood, was not nearly where I wanted it to be at that time. Basically, if you have a completed manuscript and want to try your hand at pitching it to seemingly endless numbers of agents, this is the place.

So yeah, I’m pretty amped about it. I’ve prepped everything, been working on my pitch, (which I’m sure is still a work in progress, like everything) and am trying to keep my head from exploding in anticipation.

If any of you folks are going to ITW Thrillerfest 2015, feel free to let me know, or say hi to me while I’m there! There’s a picture of me on my about page over yonder. I’m just about the friendliest guy around, and love chatting with other writers or editors or whoever you may be.

So yeah, I’ll be there, trying not to explode from excitement, trying to soak in knowledge from whoever I can. Good luck to any of you fine folks attending!

-Evan Pickering