Apple Launches Breakout Books Promotion in Australia and New Zealand Featuring Thousands of Smashwords Titles

Apple has launched an exciting "Breakout Books" promotion in its Australia and New Zealand iBookstores featuring thousands of Smashwords authors. 

This is the largest, broadest and most significant Smashwords-specific promotion yet undertaken by any ebook retailer. 

The implications are exciting for our authors and publishers.  This gives thousands of Smashwords books a promotional advantage that would have been unheard-of in the old days of traditional publishing.  It means that during this promotion, many Smashwords titles will enjoy some measure of promotional advantage not available to authors of traditional publishers.

The promotional image at left shows the opening "Featured" page in the iBookstore, as viewed on an iPad for the Australian store.  At the center of the large promotional graphic are three Smashwords books - Kirsty Moseley's Always You, Isabelle Rae's When Summer Ends and Chanda Hahn's The Iron Butterfly.

Two of those books are today among the top 10 bestsellers in the Australian store.   Congrats to Kirsty and Isabelle!

Once the customer clicks the promotional image, they're guided to the special Breakout Books promotional catalog organized around the following categories:  Top Picks; Latest Releases; Free; Romance; Young Adult; Crime & Thrillers; Sci-Fi & Fantasy; and All-Time Bestsellers.

This special promotional catalog, which for two weeks will receive top-of-store promotion in their Featured Books section, includes titles sourced exclusively from Smashwords.  After the initial two week promotion, the catalog may become a regular feature in the Australia and New Zealand stores, providing yet another path for iBookstore customers to easily discover, sample and purchase Smashwords titles.

The promotion was formally kicked off on Sunday in an email blast Apple sent to its iBookstore customers in Australia and New Zealand.  The promotional email states:

We've gathered some of our highest customer-rated books, all of which are $4.99 or less (many are actually free). Following in the footsteps of Fifty Shades of Grey, all are independently published directly to the iBookstore. 

Screen shot of Apple's email blast to iBookstore customers
in Australia and New Zealand

Apple has always been amazingly supportive of our authors, but this promotion takes their support to a new level.   Of all 50 territories in which Apple operates their iBookstore, Australia is the second-largest-selling iBookstore for Smashwords authors.

How can you get your books included in this catalog? 

First, make sure your books are distributed to Apple through Smashwords.  Next, this promotion includes books priced $4.99 or below, so if your books are priced higher they won't make the catalog. 

Beyond these first two steps, the decision is up to Apple and its customers.  However, there is more you can do to maximize your chances of inclusion if you're not included already.  This new Breakout Books catalog appears to give preference to books with great reviews and strong sales.  Do what you can to encourage your fans to purchase and review your books at Apple.  Since millions of readers shop at the iBookstore,  make sure your fans know your books are available there.  This can involve simply listing hyperlinks to your books at Apple on your website, blog or in other social media outlets.  In my previous post, How to Sell Books at the Apple iBookstore, I shared tips.

Based on my observations, Apple's merchandising decisions appear to be both customer-driven and editorial-driven.  By customer-driven, I mean that the more Apple iBookstore customers who purchase and review your book, the more visible your book becomes in the store.  Sales increase your sales rank, which leads to greater visibility and more sales, more "People who bought this also bought this" automated recommendations, and great reviews drive sales as through reader word-of-mouth.  By editorially-driven, I mean that the Apple merchandising team hand-selects quality books that meet the interests of their customers.  If Apple observes that its iBookstore customers are responding well to a title as measured though purchases and customer reviews, they're more likely to to give a book extra promotion.  If an author has performed well with previous titles at Apple, their new titles are more likely to get attention.  All of this is pretty much common sense, and not really different from how other retailers merchandize.  The reader is king, and all else flows from there. What's different here, however, is that Apple has thrown some serious promotional weight behind this.

To determine if your book is in the promotion, from your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, sign in to the Australia or New Zealand iBooks app on your device.  To learn how, see my November 1 tip in Site Updates for how to view Apple stores in different countries.   If you don't have an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, consider adding one to your Christmas stocking-stuffer wish-list!  The promotion might also be viewable in iTunes, but I haven't had a chance to personally confirm that yet.

If your book is already in the promotion, here's what you can do to support it:  Let your fans in Australia and New Zealand know that your book has been selected for promotion in the Breakout Books feature.  Celebrate it.  Post on Facebook, Twitter or on your blog something like, "My book [insert title] is included in the Apple iBookstore's "Breakout Books" promotion this week in their Australia and New Zealand iBookstores!," and then provide direct hyperlinks to the books in those countries.  For cool tools for making the hyperlinks, visit Apple's LinkMaker page at http://itunes.apple.com/linkmaker/

Who are some of the many Smashwords authors included?  Here are some random names, in addition to those mentioned above:  Denise Grover Swank, Elisabeth Naughton, Lacey Weatherford, Quinn Loftis, Kira Saito, Danielle Girard, David Dalglish, R.L. Mathewson, Ranae Rose, Oksana Vasilenko, Adrianne White, Julie Ortolon, Derek Ciccone, Autumn Dawn, M.H. Strom, L.L. Bartlett, Ruth Ann Nordin, Ellen Fisher, Lucinda Brandt, JD Nixon, Marquita Valentine and hundreds and hundreds of others.

My thanks to Apple for giving so many Smashwords authors this great opportunity to connect with new readers, and my thanks to Smashwords authors and publishers who earned this opportunity by writing books that have pleased so many thousands of iBookstore customers.

Amazon The Grinch Who Stole Christmas? Amazon Doubles Down on Exclusivity

Will Amazon be the grinch who steals Christmas from thousands of indie authors this holiday season?

Last year, a mere three weeks before a record-breaking Christmas for ebook sales at the Apple iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony and other retailers, Amazon convinced thousands of indie authors to remove their books from the virtual shelves of all Amazon competitors.

The lure:  KDP Select, an opt-in program that requires authors to make their books exclusive to Amazon for a minimum of three months.  I blogged my opposition to the program here at the Smashwords blog, and in the months since also spoke out against it here, here, here and here.

The controversial program has its share of opponents and supporters.  Some authors have done well with it, and others have not.

I contended, and still contend, that exclusivity is a devil's bargain.  When authors go exclusive with any retailer, they increase their dependence upon that single retailer, limit long-term platform building at other retailers, disappoint fans who shop at other stores, and hobble the development of a thriving and competitive ebook retailing ecosystem.

KDP Select places authors in a difficult position.  They must decide if the short term benefits of KDP Select outweigh the long term harm caused to their writing career.  The potential benefits are uncertain, and the harm is impossible to measure.  How does one measure a missed opportunity?  One thing is for certain:  When I look at the Smashwords bestsellers, they're authors who maintain non-stop, uninterrupted distribution of all their books.  They're the authors who are working to build their audiences at each retailer for the long term.

This Christmas season is shaping up to be another record-breaker for Smashwords authors.  In the last 12 months, sales at the Apple iBookstore have surged as Apple continues to dominate the tablet and smartphone markets, and has built the world's largest global ebook retailing network with stores in 50 countries.  Barnes & Noble has expanded to the U.K. with the support of 2,500 brick and mortar retail storefronts promoting, displaying and selling the NOOK family of e-readers.  Kobo was acquired by Rakuten, a global ecommerce juggernaut, and has aggressively grown its global footprint and sales for the benefit of Smashwords authors.

Amazon's response to the rise of its competitors?  Today, Amazon doubled down on its exclusivity strategy. It sweetened the KDP Select lending library pot with an extra $1.5 million to be paid out over the next three months (press release here).

Undoubtedly, some indie authors will reach for the carrot and immediately pull their books from distribution, and as a result will never know what they missed out on this holiday season.  It's somewhat ironic that after decades of writers bowing subservient to traditional publishers who controlled the only path to retail distribution - and after so many traditionally published authors saw their books forced out of print when retailers dropped their books - that so many indie authors will now pull their books from distribution with their own hands.

What affect has KDP Select had on the growth of Smashwords?  Not as much as our detractors might think.  After Amazon announced KDP Select last year, some authors speculated it would put us out of business.  Quite the contrary.  We and our authors have enjoyed another record year this year, thanks to growth across the Smashwords distribution network.  We've enjoyed record profitability, and have grown our staff to 19 professionals, all singularly focused on creating success for the 50,000+ authors, publishers and literary agents we serve. We're reinvesting our profits to provide faster support, improve the speed and reliability of our distribution, and open up new distribution and sales opportunities (I'm writing this post from The Hague, the Netherlands, where I just concluded two days of exciting meetings with representatives of the International Federation of Library Associations). We'll end the year with nearly 100,000 new titles added to the Smashwords catalog.  Last Christmas was a blowout record for us, and I suspect Smashwords authors who remained fully distributed last Christmas and thereafter benefited by the reduced competition when thousands of KDP Select books disappeared from retailer shelves.  I expect this Christmas will be no different.  I expect some of our authors will pull some of all of their books, and the authors who remain fully distributed will become stronger for it.

Amazon is smart to realize that indie authors are the future of publishing.  If they can convince a large percentage of indies to surrender their independence to Amazon, Amazon will enjoy long term competitive advantage.

Indies have a choice to make.  They can support Amazon's strategy, or reject it.  I don't envy the decision many authors must now make.  It's unfortunate Amazon would play indie authors as pawns in its larger battle to harm its retail competitors. I wish the best to all self-published authors, regardless of their decision.


Image credit:  Wikipedia

How to Sell Ebooks at the Apple iBookstore

R.L. Mathewson tops Apple iBookstore
charts for second day running

The Apple iBookstore, which last week expanded its global reach to 50 countries, has always been kind to Smashwords authors.  Numerous Smashwords authors have graced Apple's bestseller lists over the last two years, and this week is no different.

Four days ago, R.L. Mathewson uploaded Checkmate to Smashwords.  In under 24 hours, we distributed it to Apple and it went live worldwide in 50 stores.  Yesterday, this contemporary romance hit #1 in Apple's US, Australia, U.K. and Canada stores.  As I write this, it remains #1 at these same stores.

Three days ago, Kirsty Moseley uploaded Always You to Smashwords.  The next day, we distributed it to Apple and it went live worldwide in 50 stores.  Today, Always You is the #7 bestseller in Australia, #20 in the U.S. and #20 in the U.K.

Last week, the US Apple iBookstore ran a special promotion of romance titles priced $1.99 and below.  We suggested they consider Mia Dymond's Playing with Fire, and they included it.

Last week, in conjunction with Apple's iBookstore launch in New Zealand, they named Shayne Parkinson's Sentence of Marriage their "Book of the Week" for both their New Zealand and Australian stores.  Sentence of Marriage is a free series starter.  Shayne's next book in the series, Mud and Gold, priced at $3.99 (NZ dollars), is today the #8 bestseller in the New Zealand store, and #54 in Australia (after the U.S. store, Australia is the next highest earner for Smashwords authors, just edging out the U.K., which is also big for us).  I suggested they consider promoting Shayne because she's one of our bestselling authors at Barnes & Noble.  She's also one of the few authors we distribute to Amazon, where she sells well. I suspected that since she was performing well at our other retailers but hadn't yet broken out at Apple, a dose of pixie dust merchandising love could help launch her to a new audience.  That's what's happening.

The Smashwords authors above aren't the only ones doing well at Apple.  Other notable standouts now in the top 10 store-wide bestsellers include Jillian Holmes, author of Temporary Kiss (#7 in the U.K. iBookstore), Isabelle Rae, author of When Summer Ends (#8 U.K.), S.H. Kolee, author of Love Left Behind (#5 Australia, #10 Canada), and Marie Kelly, author of Billionaire's Revenge (#2 Australia, #8 Canada).

Apple is today the largest retailer for Smashwords authors.  The chart here shows the growth in monthly dollar sales for Smashwords books at Apple.  I omitted the dollar figures, but you get the idea how Apple has grown.  For all its incredible growth in ebooks, Apple is conspicuously mum when it comes to talking about their accomplishments.  Did they do a press release or a press conference on their launch of 18 new stores last week?  I don't think so.  Most authors I meet have no idea Apple is distributing to 50 countries.

I think their low key approach has led many in the industry to underestimate their progress.  My advice to authors:  don't underestimate Apple.  If you're not there, you're missing out.  Every new country they launch represents a new micro-market, an opportunity for you to become a big fish in a small but growing pond. The authors who get out there first and establish footholds today will become the bestsellers of tomorrow. 

All the authors mentioned above?  Keep an eye on them.  They're all headed toward the New York Times bestseller list in the months and years to come if they keep up their great work.

Our relationship with Apple started prior to launch of the iPad in early 2010.  I, like the rest of the world, had heard rumors that Apple was preparing to launch a bookstore, so I got on the phone and called their main switchboard.  Within about a week, I met with a senior executive at our office in Los Gatos.

Keep in mind that at the time, Smashwords was only three people.  It was myself, Bill Kendrick our CTO, and Keri McKie our CFO.  He asked me a lot of questions about our business, my background, and how we ran things.  He told us that Apple was looking to form relationships with a small number of authorized ebook aggregators, their term for distributors.  We had already signed distribution deals with Sony, Barnes & Noble and Kobo, so of course we were interested.  He laid out their integration requirements, and told us if we met the deadline and requirements, we were in, and if we didn't, maybe later.  In this industry, "maybe later" can easily mean never because things change so quickly.  We wanted to be in on the ground floor, so we dropped everything and in two weeks completely reworked how we produce .epub files, we performed dozens of other technical enhancements to our platform and processes, and we met the deadline.  We had 2,200 books on the iBookstore on day one.

Today, we supply approximately 125,000 ebook to the Apple iBookstore, and we're one of a small number of global aggregators supplying books under their aggregator program.  To remain in the program, we must undergo (and pass!) rigorous quarterly audits.

As you might imagine, I've got warm feelings for the team at Apple.  They took a gamble on us early on, and that gambled paid off for everyone, especially our authors.  They've shown our authors incredible support over the last two years. They've also been especially proactive in terms of working with us to identify opportunities for them to promote our authors to their customers.

Below I'll share some tips for succeeding at the Apple iBookstore.  90% of these tips apply to every other retailer.  These tips are based on my personal experience, opinions and observations, and are not endorsed by our friends at Apple.

1. Read my Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success - My free ebook identifies 28 best practices of the most commercially successful Smashwords authors.  Many of the authors above are poster children for the best practices I recommend.  My Secrets book is all about what you as an author can do to publish professionally.  I underscore in the book how it's critical you publish a book that's as good or better than what the big New York publishers are releasing, and how you can employ my methods (such as pricing strategy) that will give you an advantage over them.
   
2. Get there and stay there - Once your book lands at Apple, don't remove it.  In the Secrets ebook, I show charts of how prior Apple bestsellers have developed at Apple.  For many of the charts, you'll see that many bestsellers sell poorly at first, but then something sparks a breakout.  That something might be a new cover image (See our interview with R.L. Mathewson, and don't miss the chart there that shows what happened after she updated her cover image), the release of a new book, or any mix of myriad viral catalysts.
   
   
3. Link to Apple in your promotions - I'm always surprised how often I see authors complaining that all their sales are coming from Amazon, and then I look at their website or blog and see they're only linking to a single retailer, Amazon.  Support all your retailers.  Not just Apple, but Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel, every one.  Your blog, website and social media promotions should provide direct hyperlinks to your book pages at every retailer, so your fans can purchase your book at their favorite retailer.  For millions of readers, one of their favorites is the Apple iBookstore.  Use Apple's free Link Maker tool to create direct hyperlinks to your books at any of Apple's 50 stores. Use their Widget Builder tool to create and embed interactive widgets on your web site or blog.   Click here to download Apple's badges and buttons that you can place on your website or blog.    Smashwords author Russell Phillips has also developed some free link- making tools of his own on his Tools for Authors web site.
   
4. Sales lead to more sales - Every time you send a buyer to Apple (or any other retailer for that matter) and they purchase your book, you gain five important benefits:  1. You get money in your pocket.  2.  You build your platform, because you get a reader, and a reader is a potential fan, and reader word-of-mouth is your single most powerful marketing catalyst.  Fans give you great reviews, and reviews lead to more sales.  Fans also await your next release, which means you have a built-in audience for your next book (definitely one of the catalysts for R.L.'s huge success with Checkmate, which is R.L.'s ninth book at Apple).  3.  Each sale gives you an incremental lift in Apple's sales ranking algorithms which by my observation is heavily weighted to unit sales.  As you rise in the sales ranking, first in your genre or category, and later in the store-wide rankings, you become more visible to more readers who are looking for a book just like yours.  4.  As you start rising in the lists, you'll grab the attention of Apple's merchandising team, which means they're more likely to give your book an extra promotional boost (more on that next).  5.  Apple's iBookstore, like most other ebook retailers, does automatic online merchandising so that when readers view a book page, they can see other books purchased by people who bought this book.  Each sale to an Apple customer gets your book cycling in their "Customers Also Bought" algorithm. 
   
   
5. How to get the attention of merchandising managers - This is a challenge.  I could probably do an entire separate blog post on this (Next year at RT Booklovers in Kansas City, I'm actually moderating a session on the topic of retail merchandising best practices).  From my experience, Apple's merchandising team works much the same as the merchandising teams at other retailers (though I've got to say, Apple's team is impressively proactive). 
   
   First, it's helpful to understand their job.  The merchandisers have responsibility for identifying books that are worthy of special promotion, and most merchandisers at Smashwords retailers have a remarkably similar approach.  They're looking for books that will please their readers, and this focus usually trumps the retailer's desire to earn money.  Most merchandisers I've spoken with, if given the choice to promote a $2.99 book or a $12.99 book, will promote the $2.99 book first if they think it'll make more readers happier.  They want confidence that if they recommend a book, that book will deliver satisfaction, and extreme five-star satisfaction trumps 3-star. 
   
   Merchandising managers have multiple methods of showering promo love on a book.  At Apple, the promotion can come in the form of getting your book highlighted under their "New and Notables" section, as R.L. Mathewson is highlighted this week, or you might be selected for a special promotion such as the $1.99 romance promo mentioned above, or the "Book of the Week," or any myriad other promos they're doing. 
   
   All the retailers, Apple included, keep their promotional calendar close to the vest.  There's no "editorial calendar" that mere mortals such as myself can access. 
   
   It's tough to get a merchandiser's attention because they operate in a world where hundreds of thousands of authors and publishers want the attention.  There's simply too much noise.  Nothing gets a merchandising manager's attention faster than a book that is already selling, or a book getting great reviews by their customers.  In this sense, the merchandiser's attention is democratically applied.  If your fans drive you into the bestseller charts, it increases your opportunities for merchandising love.  The most reliable method of attracting the attention of a retailer's customers is to write a great book, give it a great cover image, distribute it to the store, and promote its presence at the iBookstore.
   
   As I mention in the Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success, different books break out at different retailers at different times, and often for reasons you can't determine.  Just as each country represents a micro-market for your books, so to does each retailer.  To the extent you cultivate a fan base at each retailer, your follow-on books will have much greater success.  This is one of the reasons I am so staunchly opposed to exclusivity programs like KDP Select.  Audience cultivation is a long term endeavor, requiring nonstop presence, patience and participation (I shared more thoughts on KDP-S in the November 2 Smashwords author/publisher alert). 
   
   If you've previously sold well at the iBookstore, your next release is likely to get more attention, both because you've developed a fan base among the retailer's customers, and because you've begun building brand awareness among the merchandising team. 
   
   It was an Apple merchandiser, for example who contacted me and asked if Kirsty Moseley had a new release planned.  Kirsty's prior title, The Boy Who Sneaks in my Bedroom Window, has sold well at Apple worldwide for months, and continues to do well.  As luck would have it, she did have a new title coming, the above-mentioned Always You.  We coordinated with Apple so they knew when it was coming, and when it arrived they were ready to give it some love.  It's now rising in the charts.
   
   Another way to get their attention is to get the attention of your distributor's merchandising team, which in our case is me.  If you've previously sold thousands of copies at Apple, and you've got a new title coming, let me know.  Beyond that, I'll find you.  If I see your Smashwords-distributed book is selling well at our other retailers (like the example of Shayne's books), I'm more likely to pitch your book, because your performance across the Smashwords distribution network gives me the confidence I need to pitch you.
   
   Another method of getting Apple's attention is through social media.  If you're on Twitter, for example, consider incorporating their Twitter address (@iBookstore) in your Apple-focused tweets.  Apple has nearly 200,000 followers on Twitter, and they will occasionally retweet the tweets of authors (see the Smashwords Book Marketing Guide for twitter tips if you're new to twitter).   To maximize your odds of a retweet, tweet something interesting or compelling or complementary about your readers at the iBookstore, and provide a direct hyperlink to the book at the iBookstore.  Apple, as a massive corporation, is really strict about naming conventions and corporate identity, so if you don't identify them or the store properly, you're unlikely to get a retweet.  For example, the store is called the iBookstore, not iBooks.  They call ebooks books, not ebooks or e-books.  They like to see books referred to as on the iBookstore, rather than in the iBookstore.  Interact with @iBookstore by tweeting at them.  Follow them and retweet them if they tweet something you think would interest your Twitter followers.  Keep in mind that behind their Twitter address is a live person, not a machine, so you want to give them reason to retweet your tweets.  Keep your retweet expectations reasonable, because retweetage is a long shot.   Click here (downloads a PDF file) if you want to torture your brain with Apple's full list of identify guidelines. 
   
   Finally, if you write a great book that pleases your retailer's customers, those customers will propel your book forward with their reviews and word of mouth.  Also remember that the merch teams at the retailers are populated by book lovers.  They read what they sell.  If they read your book and love it, you're more likely to get promo love.  A little birdie tells me someone at Apple read R.L. Mathewson prior to the store putting their weight behind her and naming her a breakout author back in July.  They probably read her because their customers were reading her.
   
6. Support your retailers, maintain positivity - When you walk into a room, do you bring sunshine or storm clouds?  I've written about this topic elsewhere, put it in the Secrets book, and I've been talking about this in my recent workshops. For some reason, a lot of authors adopt an online persona of, "I complain, therefore I am."  Apple has never mentioned this to me, nor has any other retailer, but I can bet that everyone on the merch team has Google alerts on the "Apple iBookstore" search phrase, and if an indie author is out there trashing this or that about Apple or the iBookstore, I imagine it causes their hearts to sink.  If the day comes where they're considering giving you promo love (and 95% of the time, they'll give you the love without giving you advance notice), if they recognize your author name and brand as that [insert explicative] on [insert the name of your favorite author forum] who's always complaining about them, that's not the type of brand awareness you want. 
   
   New York Times bestseller Jonathan Maberry said it best, here in his interview at the Smashwords blog:
   

   Think about a party. If there’s someone who is bitching and moaning and someone else who’s getting folks to laugh and loosen up, which way do you drift? If a kid in a playground is constantly bitching about the quality of the toys, and another kid has turned a cardboard box into a sideshow funhouse, who’s getting more attention? Who’s going to be remembered in a positive way?
   
   And, even if you are a naturally cranky, snarky, sour-tempered pain in the ass, for god’s sake share that with your therapist or priest. When you go online to promote yourself and therefore your products, try not to actually scare people off your lawn. 

Good luck!  I might add more tips later.

Barnes & Noble Opens U.K. Ebook Store Supported by Heavy Brick and Mortar Nook Distribution

Barnes and Noble launched their U.K. ebook store (www.nook.co.uk) yesterday, bringing with them over 114,000 Smashwords titles.  B&N's move to the U.K. has been rumored for over a year, and publicly confirmed by B&N a few months ago.

It's great news for Smashwords authors and publishers.  Some publishing industry pundits have poo-pooed B&N's U.K. entry as too little too late.  I think the pundits are underestimating Barnes & Noble, and not just because they're flush with $300 million cash from a recent Microsoft investment.

Here's why I think their U.K. launch is compelling:  Brick and Mortar Distribution.  For day one of their launch, Barnes & Noble amassed a massive network of brick and mortar retail partners that will display, promote and sell the NOOK family of e-reading devices.  According to B&N's press release yesterday, their retail network will soon include over 2,500 store locations in the U.K.  To put this in perspective, Barnes & Noble operates 689 stores here in the U.S.  In the same way that B&N leveraged its U.S. brick and mortar presence to become a powerhouse in U.S. ebook retailing, it's now poised to do the same in the U.K, only this time it's amplified by a broader footprint.  The benefit of broad retail footprint is that it makes it easy and non-threatening for prospective customers to touch, feel, test and buy NOOK devices.

Also innovative in their approach is that they're not just merchandising the devices in book stores.  One of the new partners they announced yesterday is Asda, a large supermarket chains that will carry the NOOK line in 300 stores.  If you assume that most book buyers spend most of their out-of-home time in places other than bookstores, it makes sense to get your devices in front them in as many different outlets as possible.  In addition to Adsa, the other retail partners include John Lewis, Argos, Sainsbury’s, Dixons and Waitrose, Blackwell’s and Foyles. 
 

The Foyles home page prominently promotes NOOK

In addition to the brick and mortar benefit, B&N is also tapping into the online merchandising might of each of the retailers.  Both Foyles and John Lewis, for example, are prominently promoting NOOK at the top of their store's home pages as I write this post.

Earlier this year, B&N was rumored to be courting bookseller Waterstones as its flagship brick and mortar partner.  Waterstones has less than 300 stores. Waterstones surprised the industry in May by wedding itself to Amazon instead.  At the time, the deal was viewed that as a setback for B&N's U.K. aspirations.  In retrospect, the loss now appears inconsequential, and Amazon looks to be the online ebook retailer at a brick and mortar disadvantage.


It will be interesting to see if B&N utilizes the same partner strategy as it enters other countries.  I expect it will, and I also expect they'll have an easier time than Amazon signing up retail partners.  In a sign that 2013 will likely be a year of rapid international expansion for B&N, the company announced last month they hired Patrick Rouvillois for the new position of Vice President - International.  Previously, Rouvillois headed marketing and ecommerce for Carrefour, the world's second largest retailer with 15,000 stores in 30 countries. 

Publish Locally, Distribute Globally

The ongoing global expansion of our retail partners to multiple markets means that it's now fast, free and easy for our 50,000+ Smashwords authors and publishers around the world to reach readers that just a couple years ago were impossible to reach with either self-published or traditionally published books. 

Also exciting is that markets outside the U.S. (long the world's largest single book market), will begin to dwarf the U.S. market in the aggregate (lots of smaller markets combining to create a single large global market).  As I mentioned in my post last week about Apple's iBookstore expansion into 50 countries, Smashwords authors yielded 46% of their iBookstore sales in September (2012) from stores outside the U.S. 


The U.S. ebook market has grown exponentially in recent years.  In 2007, ebooks represented a mere 1% of the US market. For 2012, ebooks will probably surpass 30%.  Despite the growth, the U.S. market is already showing signs of maturing.  The exponential growth the US has experienced cannot continue forever.  Although there's still much room for growth in the US, gone are the recent years where the market grew over 100% per year. 

Not so in the global market, where most countries are now entering the steepest and most exciting periods of their exponential growth phases. 


Screens are the New Paper

The competition among ebook retailers is quickly shaping up to be a battle for eyeballs.  The eyeball glue is the e-reading device, whether is a dedicate e-reader, a multi-function tablet, or a smart phone.  The ebook retailer who puts their devices in the most hands will become the dominant ebook seller of tomorrow.  The major device makers, drawn from conventional booksellers such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon, consumer electronics manufacturers such as Apple and Sony, and online-booksellers such as Kobo, are all battling it out in the marketplace to get their devices into consumer hands. 

Each operates their own ebook store, and for most of them, their store is tethered to their device so that the quickest, most convenient path (and sometimes the only path) to book discovery and purchase is through their own store.  This is why B&N's broad-based brick and mortar strategy for getting its devices into the hands of readers is so compelling, and why I think B&N is likely to be successful in its endeavor.  It also means that B&N's entry into each market is likely to accelerate the growth of that market, rather than just steal customers from existing players, because B&N will reach customers not reached by the other ebook players.  To the extent B&N is successful, there will be more readers for Smashwords books.

If your book is already distributed by Smashwords to Barnes & Noble, there's nothing you need to do to get your book distributed into their U.K. Nook store.

If you're new to ebooks, visit our How to Publish with Smashwords page to learn just how fast, free and easy it is to reach a global audience with Smashwords as your ebook distribution partner.

Apple iBookstore Expands Global Reach of Smashwords Ebooks to 50 Countries

This week Apple expanded the reach of the iBookstore to 18 new countries, bringing the total reach of the iBookstore to 50 countries.

Over 120,000 Smashwords ebooks now enjoy global distribution through the Apple iBookstore, these new stores included.

The new countries include Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, and New Zealand.

With little fanfare, Apple has assembled the industry's broadest distribution network for indie ebooks.  As an indie author or small press, if your ebooks aren't at Apple, you're missing out.

Concurrent with the launch of the New Zealand store, Apple selected Sentence of Marriage by New Zealand Smashwords author Shayne Parkinson to promote as its "Book of the Week" in both their New Zealand and Australian stores.  Congrats Shayne!

Smashwords makes it fast, free and easy for any author or publisher, anywhere in the world, to reach all of these stores.  Our Smashwords Style Guide (quite possibly the world's most-read ebook formatting guide with a quarter of a million downloads), is available in translated editions for Spanish, French, Dutch, Bengali, Italian, German, and Danish. 

I'm excited about the global distribution opportunities available to Smashwords authors.  In the U.S., ebooks as a percentage of the overall trade book market will reach approximately 30% in 2012, up from about 19% in 2011, 8% in 2010, 3% in 2009, and 1% in 2008.  Every market outside the U.S. is now entering that same exponential growth curve as the primordial soup of supportive ebook ecommerce ecosystems come into their own.  Apple will help drive this growth, as will the 50,000+ Smashwords authors, publishers and literary agents that use Smashwords to publish and distribute ebooks.

Within the next few years, the market for your books outside the US will dwarf the US market.  Think globally, and get there now.

For the month of September 2012, Smashwords authors and publishers yielded fully 46% of their Apple sales from stores outside the United States.  With the launch of these 18 new stores, I expect November will easily cross 50%.  For the month of September, our largest markets outside the US were Australia, the U.K. and Canada, in that order.

The global sales opportunity goes beyond just English-language countries, however.  Sweden was our fourth largest market, and not because we sell a lot of books in Swedish.  Every day, we're selling English-language books (and other languages too) into multiple countries.  Although each country in isolation represents a small market, in the aggregate these markets add up.  Apple, with Smashwords as one of it's global aggregators, makes it fast and efficient to reach this global market.

Apple's move has exciting implications for international authors.  Brazilian Smashwords authors can now sell their books in the Brazilian market.  I think Brazil will eventually become one of the world's largest ebook markets.

An author in Costa Rica can upload a book to Smashwords today, and within several days that book can be for sale not just in their local market of Costa Rica, but to Spanish-reading audiences throughout Central and South America, Mexico, the United States, Canada, and around the world.

These publishing and distribution tools are free and available to every writer.  All a Smashwords author needs is a finished manuscript, access to the Internet, a word processor, and the desire the reach readers.

Imagine the new voices that now have the freedom and ability to instantly reach a global audience with their words.  Think how the world is forever transformed for the better because it's now possible for every writer to publish globally.

Writers, not publishers, now decide when their finished manuscript is ready to reach readers, and readers have the freedom to decide what books are worth reading.

We're still in the very early days of the ebook revolution.  As a writer or publisher, your best days are ahead of you.  Go forth and publish!

To learn how simple it is to publish and distribute ebooks to the Apple iBookstore and other major retailers with Smashwords, visit our Apple ebook distribution page or our page How to Publish and Distribute Ebooks with Smashwords.

New York Times Bestselling Author Lyla Sinclair Shares Secrets to Writing Successful Erotica

Early in August, indie author Lyla Sinclair hit the New York Times Bestseller List with her erotic novella Training Tessa. In an interview with David Weir, Sinclair shares her insights into the pragmatic techniques for success as an independent, self-publishing author, writing under a pseudonym.  She talks about the challenges and opportunities faced by female erotica writers, why women (and men too) read erotica, how 50 Shades of Grey has helped erotica come out of the closet to mainstream acceptance, and how she's building her writing career.

David Weir: How did you start writing erotic romance and erotica?

Lyla Sinclair: I was a single mom who needed more income. After I complained about my problems selling my outside-the-box romantic comedy novels, the man I later married (known on my blog as the Nude Spanish Guitarist) asked a ridiculous question. He said, “Why don’t you just write what’s selling?” I was appalled at first. I was an “artiste,” after all -- I wrote from inspiration. That overly logical techie didn’t understand my delicate artistic soul!

However, my straight-A daughter had no college fund. Was it possible I could nudge at least some of my inspiration in a more lucrative direction? I studied the sub-genres of romance, then erotica. Paranormal was huge, but I just don’t “get” paranormal. The only thing in demand that I could conjure up an idea for was erotic romance. Unfortunately (I thought), I only felt inspired to write it in a first-person, chick lit voice with bits of humor, instead of the elaborate, flowing, serious styles I had read in erotic romance. And I was pretty sure the sex wasn’t hot enough in my stories, either. I sent a couple of submissions out and was picked up quickly by Ellora’s Cave. Surprise!

DW: What groups or networks helped along the way?

LS: Nearly everything I know about fiction writing and publishing can be traced back to Romance Writers of America, one of the largest writers’ organizations. As a newbie, I attended RWA craft workshops and realized that, even though I had a journalism degree, fiction writing required a completely new skill set. I’m also a member of a local chapter of RWA in my city. Members hold meetings and post links online which get passed from one group to the next. Entering RWA writing contests is how I first found out that some people enjoyed my stories, and I learned where my strengths and weaknesses were. Friends from my writers’ group are now my best critics, saving me from all kinds of embarrassment. I also found my Training Tessa editor Jennifer Bray-Weber through RWA connections. There are all kinds of online and in person writers’ groups out there. I wouldn’t recommend publishing (fiction, especially) to anyone who hasn’t joined a writer posse.

DW: When did you discover self-publishing, including Smashwords, and how did you proceed with that?

LS: In 2010, members of my local writers’ organization began posting links about self-publishing to our Yahoo group. After reading a number of blogs by J.A. Konrath, Dean Wesley Smith, and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, I was intrigued. I’d always been marketing-oriented, entrepreneurial, and a control freak. Self-publishing seemed perfect for me. To try out the process, I used a story I’d had sitting on my hard-drive that was too short for Ellora’s Cave. Much to my surprise, it sold copies on Amazon before I even announced it on Facebook, and sales kept rising. I quickly wrote two more short stories to go with it in a series. These three shorts shot up to first, second and third on the Amazon erotica best-seller list and stayed there for several weeks. I was hooked. Meanwhile, I uploaded to Barnes and Noble, then I heard about another site called Smashwords that some of the bloggers were using, so I published there too. I was clueless. I didn’t even know Smashwords sent my books to other retailers. I was the first in my writers’ group to try this, so I’ve just been learning by doing.

DW: How have sales of your books trended over time, and what do you think provoked your big breakthrough with Training Tessa?

LS: Typically, when I publish a new story, sales increase for my backlist titles as well, even the more expensive Ellora’s Cave books. If I go a long time without publishing a new title, sales gradually decrease. My first indie story was published in the first quarter of 2011. I continued publishing short stories, than a novella, as fast as I could. So, 2011 was the year I began making a living as a writer, even though I’d written fiction seriously since 2003 and was first published in 2009.

I think Training Tessa was the perfect storm that happened at a lucky time. “Perfect storm” does not mean perfect story. My definition of the perfect storm in self-publishing is when you write a good story in a popular genre, create a cover that communicates the story effectively to potential readers, and write a description that is interesting and clear.

DW: What impact has the massive success of 50 Shades of Grey had on the erotica genre overall?

LS: This is where the luck comes in. I didn’t realize what a huge impact 50 Shades of Grey had on BDSM erotica and the erotica genre as a whole until Training Tessa came out. This is a genre that’s been around forever, but it’s suddenly out of the closet in a big way. Previously, a handful of women would send me discreet Facebook messages telling me they enjoyed my books. Now, they’re posting proudly on my Facebook pages, supplying their email addresses for my notification list, and sending me emails that say, “I lovvvvvvvved Training Tessa!!! When is Controlling Krysta coming out?” The embarrassment factor seems to be disappearing.

DW: Do you think female writers are treated differently than men when it comes to authoring sexual content?

LS: Well, authors tell me it’s different in some other countries, but in the U.S., we still have a lot of contradictions when it comes to sexual content. It seems that men can write stories with explicit or even brutal sex and it isn’t a big deal. People don’t generally seem to assume the author has done everything in his book. (I don’t know a lot of male authors, so take this with a grain of salt.) However, my female romance writer friends have been chastised and insulted because of the love scenes in their books. Friend’s husbands—who probably only read the sexy parts—snicker and joke as if they believe the author is writing down her personal experiences. Neighbors inform the author that they “don’t read those trashy novels,” and journalists have poked fun at the genre for years, with silly puns and childish innuendo. I’ve never seen this kind of disrespect heaped on the more male-dominated genres.

When you go a step further from romance into erotic romance, the situation gets even dicier for female writers, since most of us are moms. It has always been taken for granted that men had sexual fantasies—the cheerleader, the librarian, the hot teacher, etc. Women were supposed to pretend they didn’t think about such things, but it turns out they have common fantasies too. Like male fantasies, these usually have nothing to do with their real lives. They’re an escape, just like any other fiction. I think the stigma of reading erotica is starting to lift, so hopefully the same will happen for those writing it. Regardless, there’s never been a better time in history to be a female writer, just check the best-seller lists.

DW: You’ve experimented with various pricing models—can you share some of what you’ve learned along the way?

LS: My advice would be “listen to me, but don’t really listen to anybody” when it comes to pricing. You do need to study the pricing of other books in the top 100 of your genre before you consider your price. Different genres can have different price points. Also, brand new authors can’t expect people to risk $12.99 on their ebook. And as tempting as it may be, you can’t price your book by how hard it was to write. If so, each of my books would cost at least a hundred dollars, since erotica is the hardest writing I’ve ever done, barring none. Some authors advise you not to devalue your work and remind you that you can make just as much money selling fewer copies of your book at a higher price. This is true. However, it dawned on me that, even if the profit on a particular book is exactly the same at the end of the quarter, when I sell fewer copies I’m finding fewer new readers, therefore fewer fans will auto-buy my backlist and my subsequent books. I could be hurting myself in the long run if my prices are too high. When I put my novella Training Tessa on sale for $0.99 (originally $2.99) to see if it could sell better, sales of that story went through the roof, then sales of all my backlist surged drastically.

On the other hand, a friend of mine went against my advice and raised the price on a story that wasn’t selling well and sales increased a bit. (That’s where the “don’t listen to anybody” comes in.) To be successful in self-publishing, an author needs to stay away from the “sheep” mentality and become her own shepherd. I research everything I can, run my own tests, then decide what’s best for me. All my marketing and sales efforts are a work in progress. I never think I know it all. What’s best today is not necessarily what will be best tomorrow. Since publishing intersected with technology, the publishing industry has been changing fast. I’m stretching out and remaining agile.

DW: Many people say the quality of a book’s cover is critical in ebooks—what is your take on this?

LS: I can see why covers are one of the most frustrating, confusing problems indies have to deal with. The advice that’s generally given is so vague: “Make sure you have a professional, attractive cover.” This causes authors to focus on getting a graphic designer and leaving it to that “professional.” However, the graphic artist cannot be the decider because he doesn’t necessarily know anything about your book or genre. He may give you the most artistic book cover, or the prettiest, or the edgiest, even though that may not be what you need.

I think it’s important to remember why people read fiction. They read in order to escape and feel things they may not get to feel in their real lives. Therefore, the most important characteristic of a cover is that it invokes—in the potential reader—the same emotion he or she will feel while reading the book. In other words, the cover for a horror story should creep you out. A suspense novel cover should make you nervous. An erotic cover should turn you on.

If the cover image, the title, and the font don’t convey the right emotion, there’s little chance readers will click to the description or excerpt. No matter how cool the cover is, it isn’t serving its purpose. Of course, there are exceptions to any rule, but I’d never assume that my story was fabulous enough to defy the odds. In fact, I’ve become so practical, I planned the cover for Training Tessa and commissioned the photo before I actually wrote down the story.

DW: What has been your experience with social media, i.e. Facebook, your website, etc. on building your audience?

LS: Although today is very different, when I was first contracted by Ellora’s Cave, it seemed that the only free promotion I could do that might make a difference was on Facebook. I painstakingly friended women by finding them in a romance or erotica group and sending each one a note telling her why I was requesting a friendship. If she accepted, I put a nice comment on her wall that related to her info page or pictures. (I always found something genuine to say. I don’t believe in fake compliments.)

When it was time for my first book to come out, I started writing entertaining blog posts with irresistible titles and linking them on my Facebook page. This got me lots of hits to my blog, where readers also found my book cover and links to my book. Some of these Facebook friends became my core readership who bought all my Ellora’s Cave books and interacted with me about them.

A couple of years later, when I announced my first self-published story on Facebook, two of them posted that they’d already bought it. If I were starting out as a new author today, my primary focus would be on making the most of what the retail sites offer—author pages, tagging, Listmania, putting key search words in my title for the search engines to pick up, etc., then I’d deal with Facebook and Twitter next.

However, it’s very important to me to be able to contact my core readership. The best tool I have is that little check box on my website’s contact page that allows readers to sign up for book notifications. Habitual readers read lots of authors, and as much as they may love me when they finish the book, by the time the next is out, I may have slipped their minds. Being able to tell my readers when my next book releases means that a group of people will buy my book within a few hours or days of each other, which pushes my rankings up, which, in turn, causes me to appear in more locations on retail sites.

After my very first story was published (in an Ellora’s Cave anthology), I only had a few readers on my notification list. But each book got me a few more. Training Tessa has been a bonanza, and I now have hundreds of people who will be notified of my next release. A reader who goes to the trouble of finding my website, clicks to my contact page, then entrusts me with her email address is as good as gold. These are the people I’m writing for. That being said, my readers rarely hear from me. I use the list for its intended purpose and do not send unnecessary messages or share it with anyone.

DW: Are all of your readers women or do you hear from male readers as well?

LS: As far as I know, most of my readers are women. However, women are by nature more communicative, so there may be more men than I realize. Occasionally men “fan” my Facebook page without comment. Perhaps they just want to know when the next book is coming out without giving up their email addresses.

DW: Can you share with us your views on the pluses and minuses of blogging for authors?

LS: I think you must have heard I have a controversial opinion on blogging, David. Initially, I was stressed by all the advice about how I needed to blog frequently and regularly in order to be a successful author. While I have blogged to try to gain a readership, I see problems with frequent blogging. “Forced” blogging is a terrible time suck and can result in very boring posts. When I first started wrestling with the blogging issue, I asked authors on two Yahoo groups if any of them had seen evidence that blogging increased sales. No one had. Several felt sure it didn’t help them at all. But I knew I could write entertaining blogs that got me lots of hits to my site, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to discount blogging completely.

Finally, I decided to use the “movie star” approach to blogging. Notice how movie stars disappear from talk shows for months, then pop up when they have movies coming out? That’s what I try to do. I think it’s interesting to note, though, that I was too sick to blog around the Training Tessa release, except for an announcement that it was out, but it made the bestseller lists. And when I think about it, I’ve often heard complaints from readers that fiction authors aren’t publishing their next books fast enough. I’ve never heard a reader complain that his favorite fiction author isn’t blogging enough.

DW: Back to your bestseller, Training Tessa, can you speculate about some of the specific fantasy elements that may account for how well it is resonating with readers?

LS: Every genre has its peculiarities. I think with erotic romance and erotica, the most popular titles are often those that play into a common fantasy. For erotica aimed at women, the fantasy is an alpha male-type, who might also happen to be a millionaire or a shape-shifter, or something else interesting. With Training Tessa, I think I hit on three fantasies at once. Apparently, a lot of people have boss/office fantasies, plus the two male characters in Training Tessa and the upcoming Controlling Krysta are rich cowboy types. I guess rich-cowboy-boss may be an erotic romance triple threat. (Before you boys start rolling your eyes, I would argue that these fantasy men are no more ridiculous that the boob-ilicious cheerleader, librarian, or hot secretary fantasies guys are famous for.)

DW: Many indie authors get discouraged when their first book doesn't sell. Do you have advice for them?

LS: It is nearly impossible to be an overnight success as an author. Even when it seems that way, if you dig deeper, you find out the author has been working toward her goals for years. One book will not create a career for you any more than one year at a job will. Honestly, if a writer publishes one book, doesn’t sell much and gives up, I’m not sure he wants it badly enough. I was born a writer, and I would rather write limericks on bathroom walls for a living, if that were my only writing option, than not write. It took me about six years and the writing and rewriting of numerous works in three genres to become a self-supporting fiction author. I have traditionally published friends who had to start over several times in new genres with new names when their books didn’t sell. One thing is true, whether publishing traditionally or indie. A writer needs to be prepared to create multiple stories in order to build a following, then many more to sustain a career as a professional author.

DW: So what’s next for you?

LS: I find that having more than one type of project going at once keeps writer’s block away because if I draw a blank on one project, I can move to the next. That’s why I’m currently working on a non-fiction book for writers about indie publishing as well as Controlling Krysta, the sequel to Training Tessa, plus my romances I write under another name.

DW: Thank you!


 Smashwords distributes nine Lyla Sinclair titles to the following retailers:

Apple iBookstore
Barnes & Noble
Blio.com
Diesel eBook Store
Ebook Eros (Operated by Diesel)
Kobo
Smashwords
Sony

Smashwords Acquires 100,000 New ISBNs

Smashwords this week acquired 100,000 new ISBNs from Bowker to accommodate strong growth in the Smashwords catalog.

We provide these ISBNs to our authors, publishers and literary agents for FREE, as an exclusive benefit for those who utilize Smashwords ebook distribution services.

ISBNs are unique digital identifiers, and they're required for authors who want to distribute to the Apple iBookstore, Sony, Kobo and others.  We buy them so you don't have to.

To learn more about ISBNs, visit the Smashwords ISBN FAQ where you'll find links to other ISBN resources.  Smashwords authors and publishers will find additional ISBN information at their ISBN Manager page.

How Rachel Higginson Overcame Rejection From Traditional Publishing to Achieve Indie Ebook Success

Independent author Rachel Higginson lives in Nebraska with her husband and four young children. A year ago, she was an unknown, unpublished writer with a growing pile of rejection slips from literary agents.  Undeterred, she decided to self publish in early 2011.

Over the past three quarters at Smashwords, her sales have broken out, growing 25-fold with thousands of copies sold each month. Rachel spoke with David Weir about her journey from unknown writer to someone making a good living while achieving her lifelong goal of becoming a successful writer.

She has published four Young Adult novels in her Star-Crossed Series at Smashwords, and -- as is usually the case with self-published ebook authors -- her sales were slow at first. But Rachel never gave up and eventually found the keys to connecting with readers. Once she did, she's never looked back. 




David Weir: Can you tell us a bit about your background? Did you always want to be a writer?

Rachel Higginson: I have always wanted to be a writer, for as long as I can remember. I think my mom still has a copy of a play I wrote in fourth grade as a sequel to Alice in Wonderland that I made all the neighborhood kids act out in the middle of the street! During high school, I was positive I would pursue journalism and had great pipe dreams of traveling the world. I pictured myself wearing khakis and colorful scarves as a war correspondent covering Pulitzer Prize worthy pieces! However, when it was time to choose a college, I decided it was better to stay close to home. My dad had the first signs of a cancer that would eventually take his life, and so I stayed near family and picked a college that dropped their journalism program the same year I started school. During college I temporarily gave up on my writing dream, but was still able to travel the world by participating in a six month study abroad/internship program in Europe and spending a summer helping with the 2005 Tsunami relief in Sri Lanka. By the time I graduated, I had a BA in Intercultural studies, I had gotten married and my father had passed away. Dreams of writing were very, very far away.

DW: And when did you write your first book?

RH: I wrote my first book in 2007, so just a year after I graduated college. This book still doesn’t have a title and will hopefully, for everyone else’s sake, never be published! But I started writing it and kept writing it as a way to heal over the trauma of the year before. My husband Zach and I were married my senior year of college, and were very young at the time. My dad passed away just four short months after he walked me down the aisle. And a month after I received my college diploma I found out I was pregnant! By the time we had our firstborn I think I was a bit traumatized. I was at the very least emotionally depressed. I started writing a novel as part experiment just to see if I could do it, and part healing process to find myself again through everything I had been through. And that is exactly what happened.  Through writing I was able to heal and remember who I was and what I wanted out of life. Writing also became something I couldn’t live without, something that healed me on a daily basis, that made me healthy and whole. And from all of that I started writing the Star-Crossed Series.

DW: You wrote the first of your four novels in the Star-Crossed Series, Reckless Magic, in 2009 -- did you try the traditional publishing route and, if so, what happened?

RH: I definitely tried the traditional publishing route then. At that time I wasn’t aware of the possibilities through ebook self-publishing. I looked at the traditional publishing industry as my only option and researched the life out of how to get published. I couldn’t even tell you how many query letters I sent to agents or how many times I edited Reckless Magic so that it would be a better version of itself to present to agents. Although, it didn’t really matter how many times I tweaked that first chapter, no agent ever asked to see even the first few pages. Out of the hundreds of rejection letters I received, I began to give up on the idea that I would ever be published. It was definitely a hard couple of years struggling with rejection. On one side I had this manuscript that I believed in with all of my being, and a love for writing that had dug down deep and began to define part of who I was. And on the other side I had letter after letter telling me that I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn't writing anything the industry or public would find worth reading and that my dream would not be coming true. I think even to this day I am affected by the dichotomy of those emotions.

DW: When and how did you discover the self-publishing option?

RH: Self-publishing was first presented to me in the fall and winter of 2010 by my husband. Kindle was really making itself known at that time, and as an avid reader I had been very interested in just owning an eReader. But Zach started reading and looking into authors who were being self-published through Kindle and asked me if I would ever consider going that route with Reckless Magic. At first I think I laughed at him; I was convinced self-publishing was just another form of failure. To me, if I didn’t have an agent and publishing house behind me then I could never be successful. But then, in February of 2011 I received my very own Kindle for my birthday and instantly fell in love with the whole e-reading process! I discovered self-published authors, with their discounted prices and started reading their work. It didn’t take me long to realize there was definitely something to this Indie way of publishing. Zach had been persistently encouraging me to look into it for myself and go that route and after seeing the success of indie stars like Amanda Hocking, I couldn’t find valid reasons to put it off any longer. As soon as I published on Kindle, my eyes were opened to the eReader world and I published to Smashwords just days later.

DW: So once you had Reckless Magic up on Amazon and Smashwords, how were your early sales?

RH: I published Reckless Magic in March 2011 and didn’t really know what to expect. Even though self-publishing had worked great for other Indie authors, I knew I had a long, hard road ahead of me. In those first six months of Reckless Magic being live on Kindle and Smashwords I sold about fifty books total. I doubted myself constantly, feeling like more of a failure every day. I was working hard to finish the second book in the series, but self-publishing, at times, became just another form of the rejection I had experienced for two years while trying to get traditionally published. At the same time though, every time I sold a book was a small victory over those fears. And with the support of my family, especially my husband and mom, rejection turned to hope for a career to come, and for a successful future, even if doubts and insecurity nagged at me daily. At one point, I remember asking Zach what he would think of me if I never sold any more books than what I had. He changed my whole way of thinking by reminding me that it didn’t matter if I sold one book or one million books, I was doing what I loved and I was publishing manuscripts that I really believed in and that was what was most important.

DW: The second of the series, Hopeless Magic, came out in August, and then you made a strategic decision the following month -- can you tell us about that and what happened as a result?

RH: During the time Reckless Magic was alone on the market, Zach and I looked at a lot of different models for publicity and marketing. One model that really caught our attention was pricing the first book of a series lower than the subsequent books. This seemed especially appealing to me, knowing I was completely unknown and people were already taking a chance by downloading my book. So when Hopeless Magic came out in August, we made the decision to offer Reckless Magic, as the first book in the series, for free. The price change took about a month to make its way to every retailer, but when it finally happened on September 15th, it changed everything for me. I had been in the habit of checking my sales on a daily basis, cheering for every sale, especially when there were days in between them. I would even call Zach at work, every time I sold a book, just to let him in on my excitement. But September 15th, after dinner I happened to check my sales and I had gone from a month total of 2 downloads to 357 downloads. I immediately screamed at Zach to come look at what I was looking at and tell me what was wrong with the computer! We were both convinced my sales were a computer error, until we saw that Reckless Magic was now being offered for free. In the first week of the price change, I saw over 30,000 downloads of Reckless Magic. We were blown away.

DW: Now you've achieved success, how has that affected the way you approach writing and your life overall?

RH: This is a great question, because it is an issue I am working on daily to define. I am a writer who is blessed enough to make a living by my work, so I have to find a way to make writing a priority in my life. At the same time, I am also a stay at home mom of four beautiful children all under the age of five and they would very much like to keep all of my attention to themselves! Together with my husband, we have made an active effort to give me the time I need to write. Of course, I say that and realize the four hours of writing I had planned to do today were dwindled down to half of that, and in thirty minute spaces of time I snuck in here and there, instead of the big block of time I had planned…. But, we’ll figure it out! What we are learning though is that success takes hard work and sweat and tears at every single level. At the very beginning of this journey, I was convinced I would never work harder than I did to get Reckless Magic out there and selling, but now I can laugh at that. If anything, I am sacrificing more of my time to write. This career will, thankfully, always take hard work and sacrifice and that is just fine by me. As long as I am putting everything I have into it though, and putting out the best work I have in me I will consider myself successful.

DW: Can you share with us some of the makeup of Eden Matthews, the lead character in your series?

RH: What I really wanted with Eden was a strong female teenage heroine. From the very beginning of writing the series, I knew it would be this long, dramatic love story and I was terrified that Eden would get swept up in that and lose who I wanted her to be. So I purposefully set out to make her set in her convictions, which I think translated more stubborn than anything. I also wanted a very genuine and authentic heroine, someone that was really relatable but also imperfect. She makes mistakes, she gets tripped up in her own pride and hard-headedness, but she also loves deeply and means the best. Writing for me is very personal; I said earlier how I use it to heal or stay healthy. Because of that, I couldn’t help but write pieces of myself into Eden’s character. She is definitely a version of myself that at times can be hard to admit since I’ve put her out there for the world to see. But because I put so much honesty and authenticity into her, I would like to believe that she came out as I imagined her: flawed and at times completely oblivious, but also strong, sincere and absolutely authentic.

DW: You've said Eden encounters a world "more make-believe than reality" -- how important is fantasy in the Young Adult Fiction genre?

RH: For me, fantasy is the driving force behind everything I write. Fiction has the rare power to inspire and motivate every kind of person and I find my most motivating factors in the thread of a fantastic beyond-reality storyline. There is something about a hero or heroine facing unrealistic odds and overcoming them that is so absolutely inspiring and life-changing. I can name countless books along the course of my life that have helped shape and develop me into who I am today. But those moments of solid self-reflection that turn into actual action are the result of only the most challenging fictional scenarios. And I don’t think that Young Adults will ever outgrow the pure enjoyment of reading about a peer facing unrealistic odds or adversaries and coming out on top.

DW: Now that the series is finished, what are you writing?

RH: I am working on the first book in a new series that I have dreamt about writing since before Reckless Magic was even daydreamed. The title of the book is called Starbright and I hope to have it out in the early part of September. Starbright is another young adult book set in Nebraska, but this one follows a young Star living on Earth to protect our planet from a great evil. It’s more of an epic good vs. evil story line, but something I am really, really excited to share.

DW: Do you envision sticking with Young Adult Fiction or exploring other genres?

RH: Ah! Great question!! Right now, in my immediate plans I have only Young Adult in the mix. And since my immediate plans include the next three series I want to write, including a few spin-offs of The Star-Crossed Series I should probably say, yes I absolutely plan on sticking with Young Adult Fiction. However, after that it’s hard to say. I don’t have a different genre story in my head right now, but all it takes is that one special thought, or daydream for something to blossom into a full blown story line and then I could be off writing who-knows-what!

DW: Do you have a sense of your core audience and if so who are they?

RH: I write Young Adult Fiction, so you might expect me to say teenagers, ages 13-18. That is the age group I had in mind anyway when I wrote the series. But in reality my core audience are women just like me, who fell in love with the genre just like I did! And I love it! I love connecting with my fans, going through the same struggles of motherhood I am or balancing work and home life and feeling like both are dangerously tipping the scales. As far as audiences go I have one of the best and most supportive and I am really blessed by each and every one of my fans.

DW: What is your writing process -- do you set aside a certain amount of time every day to write?

RH: Every day I set aside a certain amount of time to write. And then every day that amount of time gets divided by three and mixed in with grocery shopping, making dinner and taxiing kids around from some activity to the other. But through all that time being the mom instead of the writer I am a perpetual daydreamer, plotting and planning the next chapter, or conversation or third of the book. Then, when I can finally get to my computer I’m ready to use the little time I have to the fullest.

DW: Do you work with an editor and if so how did you find her?

RH: I do work with an editor now. I definitely didn’t start out that way, and I am still in the process of going back through my first series and cleaning it all up. But I’ve learned a lot along the way and my editor is so extremely valuable to my entire process now. Plus she just makes me sound so much smarter! I have kind of stumbled through this whole process of learning how to self-publish, so when I decided it was time to hire an editor I went about it the easiest way I knew how. I found an indie author that I really respected and enjoyed and that continually put out great works and I emailed her editor! I went to her asking for advice on how to find an editor, but thankfully she was willing to work with me and excited about the series I already had out and the one I’m working on now.

DW: Your story of persistence and overcoming rejection is sure to inspire others -- what advice do you have for others who have not yet achieved success in the indie publishing business?

RH: I just want to encourage every Indie writer. I’ve talked a lot about how I faced rejection and feelings of failure throughout this whole experience, and I wish I could say that at some point those feelings go away, but I am convinced they only get worse! As writers, our work is so impossibly personal and emotional that a negative review by a reader can feel like the deepest cut. That definitely doesn’t change no matter how many books you’ve sold or positive reviews you’ve received. My advice is to push through it all, face it head on and stay true to your work. The most important thing is to write something that makes all of rejection and emotional trauma worth it. If you’re writing something you believe in, something you are passionate about and something you are just down right in love with then you will find success. And I would also say, play around with how you approach marketing. There are countless success stories in this industry and we’ve all taken different paths to get here. If what you’re doing now isn’t working for you, try something different and keep trying and working until something does work for you.

DW: Thank you and good luck!

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