Indie publishing (also known as self-publishing) has been around for quite a long time, and with the introduction of ebooks and print-on-demand, it is a legitimate and growing industry.
Being an indie means wearing a lot of hats and shifting among different roles, all necessary to the overall job of being an authorprenuer.
Last month, we talking about things to do before you begin writing: putting together a game plan, doing some organizing, and thinking about how you’ll tackle your novel.
Indie Pub Journey posts:
- Before You Write
- Deciding What to Write (this post)
Write to Market or Not?
This is an age-old question in the modern publishing industry, and there are a lot of feelings about it. “Writing to market” means writing books in a genre or niche that is popular right now.
When traditional publishing was the only option, there was no way to write to market. The time between you starting a book and it being published would be two years, minimum, but more likely, it would be much longer. The market shifts and changes all the time. There is no way to predict the future, so there was no way then to write to market, because by the time you wrote the book, got an agent, the agent got a publisher, it went through the editorial and proofing processes, got printed and distributed, that “hot genre” would be dead.
But indie writers have a lot more flexibility with time. Everything can move much more quickly for us, so writing to market is a possibility. But should you?
The Whys of Writing to Market
Writing to market is powerful for indies. Whether you decide to do it will depend a lot on what you already love to write and how close it is to that “hot genre.” Romance, especially some particular sub-genres, is always a well-read market.
Some non-romance authors think writing romance is easy, because it appears very formulaic. But writing romance is still writing. And if you haven’t read widely in it, if you don’t love the genre, if you don’t understand the reader expectations of that genre, you’re not going to do a very good job of writing romance. And that, of course, goes for every genre.
“Hot” markets are usually markets that don’t have enough books to satisfy the readers of that genre. It makes sense that if there are more readers and fewer books, if you write books in that genre, you’ll get a lot of readers. It’s just numbers. (So much of this is numbers. I know, I know. Math.)
So the bottom line as to why you might want to write to market is simple: sales.
The Hows of Writing to Market
If you’re interested in writing to market, begin by researching what is popular in the genres you love to write and read in. Look at the Top 100 of the genre. Look at the Amazon categories listing of the books. Bklnk.com is a service that lets you put in an ASIN and it will list all the categories in which that book is listed. You might not know, but books can be listed in up to 10 categories on Amazon. (I am usually referring to Amazon when talking about the book market, because it comprises a huge portion of book sales, and most strategies used on Amazon can be used in other distribution channels as well.)
Do any of these categories grab your attention? Look at their Top 100 books. Have you read any? Do you want to read them?
If you find a few categories that look interesting, read as many on the Top 100 list as you can. Don’t read the big authors, though. They sell on their names just as much as on genre, so they’re not going to be as helpful. You want to read other indie authors. Because they’re the ones you’re going to emulate.
Read at least a dozen. More if you have time. Keep track of their similarities, especially. Are most of the protagonists young women in their early 20s? Then that might be a model to craft your main character around. Are the settings small towns? Big cities? Create your setting based on what is common in the genre.
- What do the protagonists have in common?
- Where are the stories set?
- What are common conflicts?
- What writing tones are common? (serious, funny, heavy, light, etc.)
- What sorts of supporting characters are there? (a sibling? a lover? a best friend? an animal?)
- Bonus: How are the story points resolved while still leaving the series arc open?
Some people believe if you take direction from the market, that you’re stifling your own creativity. However, this is no different than writing a story to a prompt at a workshop.
Reader expectations are market-minded writing prompts. Use them.
And remember, you don’t have to write to market. But it’s definitely helpful, as an indie, to understand what’s happening in your genre. So even if you don’t choose what to write based on what’s hot, you absolutely should be reading extensively within your genre.
Series are Winners
Simple numbers tell us that the more books you have out, the more money you will make. If someone enjoyed your first book, they’ll want to read another one. And they’ve already invested in your world and your characters, so give them more.
“Read-through” is the term for when someone continues on in your catalog, and it’s especially important when it comes to marketing. If you discount your book in order to get sales, if you don’t have any other books for people to read, then it will be very difficult to make money on your sale.
You can get read-through with standalone books, but it’s much more challenging and will require a lot more savvy marketing. It’s way easier to get read-through with a series, because your readers already love your characters and your world, so they want to read more about it.
Patience is Everything!
via GIPHY
Standard advice is to have three novels completed before you release even the first one. (And believe me, I wish I’d known this before I published my first book!) There are specific reasons for this, which we’ll talk about in a later post, but the main thing is that having several books ready to go will allow you to really capitalize, from the beginning, on people’s tendency to binge-read.
Don’t get me wrong. Holding that first book and not publishing it is going to be hard. But stick to your guns, because it will be worth it when you can release three books in three months. That’s called rapid release, and we’ll talk about it a bit later too. But for now, just know that having several books ready is the best plan.
In the next installment, we’ll talk about some things you can do while you’re writing the novels that will set you up for success once you begin publishing! (Also, things I wish I’d done better before I started!)
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