Why aren't you trying Kindle Direct Publishing, user? They now make paperbacks too. And it's free

>realise
Sure you are a stuck-up britbong. I knew it. Self-publishing is an American invention. It's okay you don't profit from it. Loser.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Hocking
forbes.com/sites/jaymcgregor/2015/04/17/mark-dawson-made-750000-from-self-published-amazon-books/#5cab09c66b5b
nytimes.com/2016/01/31/business/media/meredith-wild-a-self-publisher-making-an-imprint.html?_r=0

Dumb, stuck-up Britbong with no future who lives in a country with no future. Your existence disgusts me.

>Keep pumping out your fantasy trash with MS Paint looking covers though, feel good about t
that'll happen if you get your hands on self-publishing. Successful authors know how to do better.

>money money money
>nationalism
gg

Money is more valuable than your pseudo-intellectual frustrated virgin outcry.

>he literally has never read anything obscure
>he thinks his opinions matter

A thousand times, yes, OP. This meme that self-publishing is a waste of time is absolutely ridiculous. From March 13th, 2017 to May 19th, 2017, I've made over $100. No, it's obviously not enough for me to live off of, but I've only been self-published for 7 months and only have 6 books thus far with 3 of said books making a series, a 4th one roughly a quarter finished being written. I've also got two other books with a start to them that aren't part of any other books, and one of the books I've written is set up for a sequel which I haven't yet written. All this with just self-publishing, and it will inevitably improve as I continue to write what interests me. No, I don't bother with YA even though I hear it's very lucrative, nor do I bother with vampires/werewolves which I also hear is very lucrative at the moment.

Perhaps 15 years ago or so, self-publishing was a joke. Now with Kindle and KDP Select though, it's far from it. Even Kindle Unlimited and KENP. From what I gather, Kindle Unlimited is like the book version of Netflix; pay a certain amount monthly and you can read as many books on KDP Select as you want. With each page read, it's an average of half a US penny. So if your book is 200 pages long and it's read once, that's a US dollar bill. Or, if you set it to the lowest price of $0.99 USD and someone buys it, it earns you only $0.35 USD. If you set it to the common price of $2.99 USD with 70% royalty instead of 35% royalty, then you get about $2.05 USD, twice as much. Still, whether it's $1 or $2, you're getting money for what you've written without a book being manufactured, however with both CreateSpace and Kindle you have paperbacks available.

The real money is in Kindle though, and KENP. Not as many people seem to buy paperbacks even though it's what I personally prefer. So there, I've given a first-hand account into self-publishing, and though I'm not yet making a living from it you can't deny that $50 every month is a welcome addition to pretty much anyone's income, especially when you get it just for doing something that you love. I enjoy writing just about as much as I enjoy playing videogames, so it very much feels like I'm being paid to play videogames, which is a dream I've had since the 90s. So Veeky Forums can tout 'kys' all you want whenever someone mentions self-publishing. Personally, I'll go ahead and cry all the ways to the bank. It takes months for things to work out with traditional publishers, can even take months just to find an agent. May as well see about making some coin and getting some readers during those months while self-publishing, and for many writers self-publishing is all they need.

what do you do for marketing?
how do you price your books?

For marketing I have accounts on a few relevant forums. I make Youtube comments pretty regularly however I only mention my book at the very end of a comment which is typically several paragraphs long, no link provided so it's up to them to look it up if they're at all interested, and I only mention one or some of my books if it's relevant. I also mention it in threads on /k/ and Veeky Forums if it's relevant. None of my books are relevant here, so notice that I haven't shilled any.

I price my books low. First 4 I wrote are only $0.99 USD for Kindle, the last two are sequels to the first and are at $2.99 USD so I qualify for 70% royalties. I will only consider going above $2.99 USD for ebooks if I someday make a huge one 100,000+ words long, and even then $3.99 is the very highest I'll consider going for an ebook. For paperback, they're all $9.99 USD or lower, even though my longest book is 81,000 words long, about 235 pages or so in 5x8" format which is a fairly respectable size. Of course the longer the book, the more expensive it is to manufacture, so if I still wish to make some royalties off a 100,000+ word book I'll have to price it at over $10 USD but at that point I believe it'll be worth the extra dollar or two.

Been giving consideration to making my very first book (which is the first in my present trilogy, to become a quadrilogy one of these days) perma-free. Anyone can download it with an ereader, or even an eready app on a smartphone, but I'm still debating it. Perhaps when I finish that 4th book in the series I'll make the 1st perma-free even though it's thus far my longest book. That way people can judge for themselves if they like my writing and if they want to buy my other books. I do free promotions regularly, have had about 350 free downloads, about 50 paid downloads, and about a dozen paperback sales along with unknown thousands of page reads. Likely over 10,000. When starting out, it seems to be more important to get exposure rather than in making a few dollars, thus why I do free promotions so often. Next one will probably be early June. I'm hoping to get 100 free downloads in a 24-hour period one of these days.

I've also gotten free downloads on I think it was 9 countries on 5 continents. USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Italy, India, Japan, and Brazil.

Oh yeah, and I also occasionally write guest articles on a dude's blog. It's quite an old blog, all about survivalism and occasionally firearms, which is relevant to books about zombie survival. He loves zombie novels, and absolutely fell in love with mine. He was the first to buy my last two books and wants to be the first to buy my next one as well, whatever it will be. He's sort of like my first fan, which is awesome. Very cool guy, and a big source of motivation to me.

I hear Facebook and Twitter are also great ways of marketing, but I don't bother with those. Nor have I ever been on Reddit or Tumblr. In truth, I don't even fully know what Tumblr is, for the longest time I got it confused with Tinder.

thanks for answering. do you think 5.99 for an ebook is expensive even if the quality is godlike?

tumblr is polar opposite of Veeky Forums. it's filled with liberals and leftists.

>Tumblr
anonymous facebook, filled with liberals

Wow this post is fucking cringey

Well technically the saying "It's worth whatever people will pay for it" applies. If it's indeed that good, and readers feel it's a just price so will pay it, then so be it. For instance, I get a great amount of enjoyment from reading Bernard Cornwell's historical fiction novels. If I only used ebooks and he released a new book that was $5.99 for said ebook, a small part of me would consider it a rip-off since there's some paperbacks I can get for that price, but a larger part of me will easily remind me that his work has brought much joy in my life and he very much deserves the money. So I guess it all depends, but I know my books aren't as good as his. $2.99 is a very fair price I think, for my stuff, and if I ever put the time into writing a 100,000+ page book and I think it turned out really, really good then I might just set it to $3.99, but I don't think I'll ever set any of my ebooks to $5.99. Paperbacks, sure, but not ebooks.

I see it's pretty unilateral thus far that Tumblr is considered a safe-haven for Libbies. Clearly I would not be welcomed warmly there... but all the same, I am not tempted to go there to see if I can shill my latest book to some of them. In 'Living amongst the Dead: On the Road Again', I shit you not, there's a line of dialogue in there that calls a black lesbian woman a "nigger dyke". In my defence (FURTHER SPOILERS AHEAD); in the previous book in which she was introduced, a part of her background is that she raped/murdered a red-headed white teenager, actually shot the white male protagonist and nearly killed him, attempted to force herself on the white female protagonist who has been in the series pretty much since the beginning, has regularly called the male protagonist 'cracker', 'white boy', etc., and has just in general been like a personification of a 3rd wave feminist, BLM member, likely someone who would have fought alongside Antifa (even though I think I wrote her before Antifa existed), etc. A lot of abuse spanning two novels has gone from her to him, even though he's been trying to remain civil with her. Finally he snapped and decided to be who she thinks he is; a racist, sexist, homophobe, so he intentionally called her a 'nigger dyke'.

With context, I think it's an interesting addition to the series, rather than something thrown in just for the shock-value of wow-factor. Still, I'd love to see some leftists/SJWs lose their shit at reading a book in which a black lesbian is called that. Can you IMAGINE all the panties being tied into knots, both from 3rd wave feminists and male feminists?! God that would be hilarious to see... oh, and yeah, I guess I just shilled, but hey, it's relevant! You guys brought up Liberals/leftists which pretty much automatically includes SJWs/BLM/3rd wave feminism/Antifa by default in this day and age.

Notice how all the rebuttals and success stories are about making a few dollars a month for pumping out loads of uninspired genre trash or erotica? Just Americans trying to get rich quick by appealing to the lowest common denominator, then dismissing Europeans for wanting to create actual literature instead of being concerned with their temporarily inconvenienced millionaire status. Enjoy writing sub-pulp trash and the trickle of cents you get from people buying it out of curiosity.

>making a few dollars a month
You didn't read, or can't read.

>I am not tempted
I am NOW tempted*

That's what I meant. Fucking derp.

I've got a question: If you're selling 10-20,000 word stories for .99usd, why not write some few-thousand word stories, with perhaps more attention to detail and meaning, and sell them same price? Then market your larger stories for only slightly more? That way if people like your cheap, short works, they'd be more inclined to purchase your more expensive, longer works?

Just a curiosity, since I'm finally starting to get a little bank of stories, but most of them are short so I have no idea how to get them out to anyone worth looking at them or trying to sell them. I've only got one large volume I've begun to undertake and I can't see it being anything under a few books (100,000+ words each), and it'll take me probably to end of this of the year to finish book one.

im actually intrigued. link to amazon?

I'm one of the people defending self-publishing, but I'm not American, I don't aim to become a millionaire, and I only write what interests me. I love to write, and I pursue it. I also average a dollar or more a day, not 'a few dollars a month'. I think $50 a month is more than 'a few', but either way, as I continue to pursue interests and write my books out of passion rather than greed, my income from my books will continue to increase. If I can reach $15,000 a year, which I think I can reach within about a year or two at this rate, then I'm perfectly happy. I anticipate that as I continue to write I will continue to gain more income, but with my simple tastes I really have no use for becoming a millionaire. Bills paid, food on the table, firearms and ammo in my safes, buy my clothes at Wal Mart... I don't even know what I'd do with millions of dollars. Probably mostly donate it, and/or get a personal increase in taxes. I just want to keep writing, and probably one day I'll try my hand at non-fiction.

It's easy to pedal out trash, or even mediocre writing, and interferes in no way writing a greater piece on the side. It's calling knowing your market and not living with mommy and daddy anymore, so bills and food actually require money. Like he said, why not make money while writing? It literally hurts no one.

> why not make money while writing?
He cunt.

>I'm not American
>dollars
>firearms and ammo in my safes,
>Wal Mart

My shortest book is over 16,000 words, and yeah it's $0.99 USD. That's my only novellette and it's JUST shy of being a novella. The next shortest book is over 28,000 words, a novella, and it's also $0.99 USD. They're very different, with entirely different stories and characters. I also regularly to promotions where they're going for free. I think combining them into a single 2-work 44,000 word book/ebook is unnecessary. One is an action and sort of post-apocalyptic but no zombies, and the other is a drama revolving around a bad marriage.

My other four books are all over 40,000 words, however the longest is also only $0.99 USD, and the shortest of those four is also only $0.99 USD, though of course the paperback prices are different due to longer books being more costly to manufacture. It's the two middle book in those 40,000+ word group, which are sequels to the first book, that are $2.99 for the ebook version.

In self-publishing, it's pretty much entirely up to you how you market your books and what prices you place for them. $0.99 is the lowest you can go for ebooks, even with the Kindle Countdown discount.

Well alright, here's my Amazon page. Also, no, "J N Morgan" is not my real name. It's a pseudonym/pen name.

www.amazon.com/author/jnmorgan

>Thinking the US is the only country with dollars, firearms, and Wal Mart.

He can be Canadian.

Correct answer, though I think Australian is another option.

Is the CreateSpace paperback quality reliable? Do you have some copies in your possession?

Don't be an ass.

If you'd rather get the cheap ebook, I think there's an app you can install on your smartphone to turn it into an ereader.

I'm asking because I'm interested in self-publishing too.

Not him, but I got a couple a while back. From my experience, they're good. Solid spine, no obvious damage to the paper.