Advice for new authors
An aspiring author reached out to me to ask me some questions about publishing books and I thought I'd share my responses here for anyone else that might be wondering about how to take that first step as an author (or for people that just love reading about behind the scenes stuff):
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Question:
"LitRPG vs. Fantasy? How did you decide to pursue a story in the LitRPG genre? Did you know before writing, or did this come organically? I believe we have similar interests when it comes to RPGs/MMOs, etc. so I fully understand the appeal. I'm interested in going the LitRPG route as well, but I'm a bit torn as to whether my story benefits from a RPG system, or if it's just something that I would enjoy building."
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My Answer:
Growing up, I read almost exclusively "traditional" fantasy/sci-fi until about 6+ years ago when I found the litrpg/progfantasy genre. Since then I've pretty much devoured everything available, including the weirdest translated novels and fanfictions, lol.
I couldn't imagine writing in a different genre, although I may not go strictly stat-heavy litrpg in the future. Jake's is already pretty light on that stuff and Nova Roma was my homage to a more traditional litrpg so I kinda got that out of my system and I don't like to repeat myself if I can avoid it.
I personally think you can do fine with either prog fantasy or litrpg, the two genres are pretty intertwined. If you try to do traditional fantasy, I think it's extremely hard to break out and find readers (way harder than in this genre). Most self-pub authors that try to make it in the traditional fantasy genre end up making very little, I think. This genre, meanwhile, devours everything they can get their hands on + has a huge audiobook following, so it's one of the most successful genres for self-pub authors.
That said, I think readers can also sense when an author is coming into the genre just to try to make money. So you do want to make sure you have your own passion and motivation for the genre and are fairly well-read in it. I think one of the reasons that Jake's took off, despite some of the flaws of the book and it being the first thing I'd ever written, was because people could sense the fun and passion I put into the book. I think that makes a big difference in the genre, because people are drawn to genuine people who share the same love of the genre that they have.
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Question:
Social Media - How important is Royal Road? Reddit? Discord? Patreon? Any types of marketing that are a must-do? I used to run a twitch channel and my discord was a huge boon for that. I know that you are also very active on Reddit - what have you found is most worth your time?
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My Answer:
Very important, in my opinion. I think the r/litrpg subreddit is almost singlehandedly responsible for my success when I first published. These days, I only advertise a new book there and on the Facebook page named LitRPG Books (the real one, not the fake one that charges people to post, be careful about that).
Generally it helps to have a discord and patreon at some point + an author Facebook page so you can connect with readers. I get the most engagement by far from my author Facebook page, followed by my Patreon/Discord. Being able to talk to fans/readers through your own social media rather than relying on reddit/facebook groups is 1000x better.
Some authors swear by mailing lists as well, although I never bothered because I hate sending or receiving emails. Too many years of spam emails trying to sell me shit I didn't need so I try not to inflict that on my readers lol
For advertising, I also only stick with Amazon ads and Facebook ads now, everything else is pretty much a scam except possibly a Bookbub new release deal if you can get selected for it. I've never been selected. I also only run ads a few weeks before and after a book launch and I'm still 50/50 if they are even worth it. I never really make any profit from them, but I tell myself they might help boost the rankings of the books so it's worth it... maybe?
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Question:
Audiobook Process and Timeline - I know that I want to pursue the Audiobook route, and I'm curious at which stage this should become part of my focus. Did you begin this during editing, and are you doing it differently now with a few under your belt?
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My Answer:
Now that I have more experience I try to write my book from the start with audio in mind. It doesn't take much but there are some important things you can do to make the audio better:
1- put any big stat dumps in their own chapter and reduce the frequency of them to 1-3 times a book at most.
2- try to eliminate as many dialogue tags as possible while still making clear who is speaking. So try to see if you can remove "he said, she said" and stuff like that wherever possible. They get very annoying for listeners (I've been told).
3 - include a recap of the previous books
4- make sure to have unique names. Anything too similar to another character's name can get super confusing in audio.
5- reduce weird accents or really strange speaking styles, likes girls that giggle a lot or monsters that speak only in screams. Stuff like that. Even if you get the best narrator in the world, chances are that stuff will get very annoying in audio format. See the audiobook for Mother of Learning, where sooooo many people complain about the voice of the little sister.
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Question:
Tools - Do you use character sheets and/or plotting tools? Also, are there any particular tools that you used in crafting the card and leveling systems themselves?
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My Answer:
I write my rough draft in Google Docs where I cut/paste things from the book into separate google docs to track important skills/plot points/descriptions of characters/etc. I also keep a notepad next to my desk to write down storylines stuff as well (repetition helps), this includes things to remember for later in the book, plot points, etc. - and then I ALSO do that on a huge sheet of paper I hang on my wall (sometimes multiple sheets of paper) where I put big bullet points to remind of really important things.
I also draw very crude maps for myself and hang those on the wall as well, with notes on city names, places, and so on. That helps me visualize the world I'm creating and keep track of names/terrain/etc/
And then one other thing I do is a have a notes app on my phone where I write down all the ideas that come to me when I'm not at my desk, because at first I always told myself, "oh there is no way I'd forget that, what a cool idea!" and then promptly forgot everything 20 minutes later.
So now I make sure to always write down an idea I have, no matter if it happens in the shower, driving, half-asleep, or wherever.
After the rough draft and 2 rounds of personal edits in Google Docs I download a Word version and send it to my editor and then work in Word from then on
After my editor compiles the e-book I use the Kindle Previewer to see how the book looks and I've just started using Atticus formatting software myself to make my physical editions
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Question:
Legal - Did you pursue any pen name copyright or other protection? Is your business piece of writing set up under an LLC or other legal instrument?
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My Answer:
I submit all my books for copyright protection even though by default I already have it, mainly because I've heard having the official letter can make things go a lot smoother with Amazon if there is ever an issue with one of your books. Nothing related to my pen name.
For business stuff, I had everything set up as an S-corp and paid myself a salary to help reduce certain taxes. My accountant helped me with all that. The general advice I've heard is stick with an LLC until you make above a certain amount, then swap to an S-Corp. That amount varies from person to person.
Basically, with an S-Corp you have to pay yourself a "reasonable salary". If you ever make a fair amount more than your "reasonable salary" would be, then you want to go to an S-Corp in order to save taxes on everything you make above that "reasonable salary".
Typically a reasonable salary is at least 20k a year, but there aren't any hard and fast rules (as far as I understand).
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Questions:
Hardcover book - thoughts on these? I have a copy of yours, is this direct via Amazon? I've seen this done to various levels of success.
Foreign Offerings - How have you found that the German version of Jake's is faring? How did this come about? Thoughts on other languages and expanding Jake’s to a broader audience?
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On hardcovers:
This is just print on demand from Amazon and the price they charge is ridiculous for color prints. Their paperback black/white are much more reasonable, but even then we authors see very little profit from it. I know some authors batch print their own books and sell through outside services, but I don't know the details of that. I just have the hardcover and paperback for the few fans that really want them, not to make any money from it.
On foreign translations:
Jake's translated copy has made basically nothing. I wouldn't do it again personally. The cost to translate it and produce the foreign audio has paid for itself, but after that I make like... $20 a month at most from the German version. Not really worth the hassle, sadly.
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Question:
Finding a Audiobook Publisher - How did you end up with Royal Guard? Was there a search? How did the process work?
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Interest in the audiobook rights started up when Jake's broke past rank #1600 on the Amazon rankings. Royal Guard and one of the bigger publishers were both interested. These days there is some fierce competition for stories going on, especially with the bigger companies trying to snag new authors off RR and offering them advances to get them signed with them as fast as possible.
I personally think it's a bit worrying because a lot of new writers are desperate for validation and getting signed with a "publisher" and getting an advance lets them feel like they've finally "made it" as an author - meanwhile some of the terms offered take a big chunk of royalties.
And people don't really know how easy it is to self-publish an audiobook, although I try to tell every new author I talk to they are welcome to come and ask me how to do it and I can show them, because that's what more experienced authors did for me and it made a big difference to me.
After discussions, I ended up signing with Royal Guard for Jake's audio because they were very fair and because the opening with Travis was a surprise stroke of luck and I wasn't sure at the time if it was worth investing 10k$ of my own money in the audiobook since I had just launched the book with zero expectation that anyone would ever read it.
I've been super happy with Royal Guard since then for publishing Jake's audio, while I self-published my other series and really enjoyed doing that as well.
