In a reversal of their advertised and touted “up to 365 day return policy” (love it or return it) on all ACX books, Amazon and Audible have updated their policies to provide more protections for authors, and encourage sensible use of their resources.
The problem
The crux of the problem was that if readers returned books to Audible up to a year in advance, the author would have their royalties retroactively cancelled, effectively reducing months where they’d sold more books as books from earlier were returned. And, with every system like this, widescale abuse could have been rife, though, Audible is fairly closed-lipped about how many returns they accept. While there is a policy to prevent listen and return as a use for credits, due to customer service issues, and the pandemic, it’s possible that the rules surrounding needing to contact customer service was raised, which could have created more returns before flagging. On that, I’ve only got personal experience to speak to and three total returned books in 12 years.
Why it was unfair
While it’s true that many of us don’t automatically listen to our books as soon as we buy them, and sometimes stock up during sales, it’s also fair to say that without good reason, very few other places accept returns – and if there was an issue with the audible file itself, it shouldn’t have passed quality checks. Authors shouldn’t be punished for readers deciding they’d rather treat Audible as a library, and so, the Author’s Guild and others spoke out late last year. In November, Audible confirmed they’d be changing policies and now the new policies have been rolled out, as you can read on the blog Audible issued on the 20th. Hopefully, this policy change will redress the balance back to the creator side and allow them to keep earning as they should.
Hi guys!
It’s a whole new year, and we’re planning all sorts of good things for you, but today, I wanted to touch on goals.
Back to…
Today seems to be the day for us to all be back at ‘work/writing/life’. The holidays, however, they were, are over and I’m on the fence about whether to goal or not to goal. I do, but I know others on the team don’t, so I thought I’d talk about how I’m organising my year, and if you’d like to share yours in the comments I’d love to hear from you!
Back to life, back to reality
Well, sort of. It’s pretty much a well-known fact that I live in a world of my own. It’s a nice world, if a touch grim sometimes (though, like many people my post-apocalyptic game is way down), but I’m hoping to find my way back to my main world. I’m sure I will, but I’m working really hard on planning books and re-releasing. I’m in an odd place as a writer – my backlist has completely expired back to me and I can choose to reboot everything, so the options really are endless for me. But I’m also starting a brand new pen name, so I’ll be working as a new author, and building up from my actual platform too. So, this year, I’ll be sharing a lot of everything that I’m learning. In fact, this month, I’m starting with newsletters.
I do have goals too, but I’m trying hard to actually pin them SMART format. Tying that to an ROI to boot is really difficult, especially when it’s something that’s not measurable by numbers, but I think if you set goals for yourself, you’ve got to find a way to measure them.
Planning in my me-time
The mistake I made last year was not planning some me time – I always told myself that I’d take my time off, but one thing or another came out, and even with everything that’s gone on in the last year – in fact, possibly because of it in some ways – I didn’t really take care of myself properly. I’ve got meditation apps, and things to help me sleep, and I’ve still completely failed on that front. Which is the last lesson thing I wanted to touch on – I’ve been seeing people talk about goals in terms of ‘I failed so…’
YOU DID NOT FAIL! (sorry, I didn’t mean to yell, but seriously).
The dichotomy in the author community is writing *is* lonely, but then again, it isn’t. We’ve got access to so many communities, but that leaves us open to so much, from poor influences that can throw us off, to seeing people where we want to be and feeling bad, to feeling intimidated and upset when things go badly. And the thing is, even if we’ve put out lots, won awards, had a good time with people, we always seem to focus on the negative, so if you’re not setting goals, please take one thing from this post, and just think about the good, not the bad. It’s important to focus on the good, always. That’s how we get through.
We’ll be talking about SMART later this week again, and newsletters for the next little while so if you’ve got anything you’d like to share, then hit the comments. Questions and requests, comments! And welcome to 2021. No resolutions from me, but I do want to rock it, in any way I can, and know that with the community that IAG is, we can do almost anything.
See you Saturday!
Well, the team have spoken, we’re updating the site, and there’s a lot of fun changes coming up. I thought today though, I’d share some of our best bits on the site.
Resources for miles
At the core of things at the Indie Author Group is our mission statement. Both Valerie Douglas and I felt, early on, supported by the rest of the team, that a safe space to get advice as an indie author. We don’t believe in judging others for their choices and are firmly all about making the most of everything. So, in 2011, when she set up the group, I was one of her first moderators, and we’ve gone on to build a really great resource. And we have an amazing team of moderators too! We founded the site late 2011, but the group will be 10 May 2021!
What you can find in the group
Honestly? A little of everything. We have resources that range from advice and support, to sharing information and tips and tricks. And a listing for the group’s Twitter list, Facebook pages, service providers (cover designers, editors, formatters, audiobooks, and more). If you’re not there already – why not? (tip, if you’re not, answer ALL the questions, and be aware we don’t allow advertising, at all, bar in communal documents for those reasons).
Happy birthday to the Indie Author Group. Founded just as the trend of self-publishing took off by Valerie Douglas, and her co-founder Kai Viola, we are a vibrant team of writers and artists that look after one of the oldest communities for self-publishing and hybrid publishing on the Facebook. It’s our birthday today! We’ll be celebrating next week though, so watch the blog, group and page! (or the blog page!) To celebrate our 9th birthday, we’ll be overhauling, adding resources and doing a lot more, so watch this space!
Today is National Sci-Fi day, and while we’re not on Sci-fi this month (that’s later in the year) as our featured support genre, for advice Mondays, I thought I’d share a bit of a thought experiment.
— Valerie Douglas #fantasy #thriller #romance (@ValerieDouglasA) January 2, 2020
Today would be Issac’s 100th birthday, and there’s little denying the impact he had on the world of sci-fi and writing. But the thing that always stuck with me the most was his three laws of robotics.
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Issac Asimov
Later, Asimov added a fourth, or zeroth law, that preceded the others in terms of priority:
0. A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Issac Assimov
I have many theories on AI, given I’m eventually doing a Ph.D. on it (hence the combined STEM degree now), but I’m not going to address the fallacies and intricacies of why the three laws (and the additional zero law, which is almost the same, but not quite, as law 1) fail and cause problems. If you want to know why there’s a plethora of books out there exploring that and similar issues.
No, instead, I wanted to talk about how the three laws apply to writing.
But I’m not a robot…
As you’re quite right to observe, it’s highly unlikely that you are a robot. You might be, but then, that opens up questions, again, not for a writers’ blog. But when you look at the three laws of robotics and change the context to writing, something interesting happens.
An author may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. I would argue this is common decency, but when there’s little of each online, it’s a good thing to bear in mind. It goes into a slightly broader concept though. While there’s no admonition to not harm our characters (cause we might), there is a duty in every community for the weakest to be cared for by the stronger. Writing is not a zero-sum game, so, if anything, I’d argue the first of the Writer’s three laws is that we need to work to prevent bullying. As we watch the mess with the RWA unfold and look back on Cockygate, I wonder why it isn’t a credo adopted by more. Beyond that, it also tells you not to hurt yourself. Planning and self-care are critical.
An author must obey the rules of its community, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. I think the easiest way to explain this one is 1) Don’t pick on someone for upholding rules on a group, even if you personally think they’re not fair. It’s their group, you agreed and continue to agree when you joined, and to be frank, bullying a moderator is something that we’re going zero tolerance on – and that includes if we *hear* of it from a friend that’s a mod. Beyond that, mob mentality is dangerous online – there’s a difference between defending the downtrodden and forming a lynching mob, and I think this law aptly states that. If an author is unhappy with a review and asks their tribe to retaliate, maybe question the worth of that tribe, and the person leading it?
An author must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Ah, you may say, doesn’t that mean if I don’t agree with people, I get to retaliate? Nope. You need to protect *your own existence*. What Jilly, Bob or Timmy does, as long as it’s not hurting you, isn’t important to you. I’m actually interpreting this one to be ‘don’t compare yourself to others, someone will get hurt’.
Law 1, Kindness. Law 2, fair play and Law 3, personal obligation. All three make for the best writers and the best communities. Personal obligation does mean sticking up for the rights of others if you’re sure you should, but it also means accepting that you ‘do you’. One of the hardest lessons I learned last year was that if I’m not careful, I will stay away for too long because I have nothing to give. My personal obligation became to me and only me for a while, and that was ok. But I have an obligation to you guys too. So, Law 3…it could also be read as ‘help yourself, help others’.
I don’t really agree that the zero law exists in the case of writers, but there is one final one I think all writers need to follow.
Law 4 – An author must ensure that everything they put out reflects the best of their work and the best of them. Each and every one of the team knows it’s hard to get things done in a budget, and we all sacrifice, but we are calling each and every one of our members to consider their reputations this year. Build good things, save and make things to the best of your ability, and only release books when they are professionally edited, covered and formatted. That way, you’re already ahead of a lot of people out there, who might see your example and follow suit (thereby helping you with the second and third laws ;)).
Yes, I belabored that one a bit, but I’m sure Asimov would forgive me.
Do you agree with my three laws of writing? What would you add?
Hi guys! I know it’s been a while that we’ve been writing regularly here, but we’ve got an actual editorial calendar and a plan now, and we’re back. Valerie and I will be blogging and we’ll be introducing the mods that are around, old and new, throughout the year. We’ll also be looking for guest posters, but I’ll explain more on that in a few days 🙂
In 2011, Valerie Douglas put out a call for moderators. I think I was either first, or one of the first to say ‘I’ll help’. We’ve run this site, and others for almost as long, but we took a sabbatical last year, to think about what we wanted to do. And now….we’re back!
But first…. This year is a fun year for us. Not only are we NINE in May, but Valerie is a stone’s throw from 30 books, unless I miscounted, and that’d be funny cause I’m doing a Combined STEM degree, mostly maths. No, we’re not back in 2011, when this all started, but things are very similar again.
So…to start with, we thought we’d invite you guys to share your goals. Same rules as always, you can use the link in the form that you fill in to make a comment, but any URLS in the comment bodies will be rejected. And if you’re not sure how to make goals, hang around this week – we’re doing a crash course on this, and some other stuff that might help.
Quick tips to setting goals
While I’ll be sharing many more articles on building yearly and five-yearly plans and your vision board for the decade, using free tools, the biggest and most important tip is that any goal you set (whether you call it a goal, a target, a resolution or where I’m going), is to be as specific as possible. Whether it’s “make six figures, five figures, four figures or three”, whether it’s to write a million, half a million or any range of words, whether it’s to publish 1-100 books, put a number on it, then tell *everyone*. Stick it in the sidebar of your blog if you have one. Put it on your Facebook, your Twitter, and check out our post on making an intentions post on Canva, on the 3rd.
And, share it in the comments on the blog. We’ll be here, cheering you on. You’ve got this – and we’ve got you. Happy New Year, guys!
New releases require a lot of the work and changes the ten hour marketing plan. So, here’s suggestions of a change to work well on your ten hour plan.
• Start building out your blog posts – talk about other books If there are best books in (your genre), that you enjoy, talk about them. Post about your new book and talk about everything you can think of – research, your cover, your discoveries. Share the joy and pain of getting the books done. • Set up your book on preorder when you do your cover reveal Pre-orders give you a place to start from and gives you a chance to build a readership. Remember, if you’re going to lower your price after publishing (for example the first week release at $0.99 or $1.99), then no matter when people order, they’ll get the book at the cheapest price after their order. Even if you raise it, those that order first can be rewarded by getting the book at a lower price. • Guest blog Ask your readers and author friends if you can guest blog. Focus on the places that your readers will be. Google blogs that would be read by your target market, and see if they accept guest blogging about books. • Newsletter swaps are another way to do so There are currently lots of groups for people to request newsletter exchanges. Remember though to be fair – if you’re a new author, don’t expect the bestseller authors in your genre just to open up their newsletter to you. They might, but if they don’t, do not choose to criticise. It’s everyone’s choice to offer space to their readers and it’s their reputation on the line. • Teasers, teasers, teasers Separate the teasers that you like the best and use them to promote your book. Head on over to Canva and use the free options and create eye-catching items, and memorable pieces of your book. Think about looking into podcasts or vlogging if you’re feeling bold. You can also generate different cover styles at Adazing. • Give away arcs to your advance reader team The best time to do this is a month before your book is out, but you can do so any time up to the actual release. • Set up book giveaways Choose books close to yours to attract readers and plan a great book giveaway. Reward authors in your genre too, by promoting them, as goodwill is often the simplest way to get into shared promotion projects, and it’ll show your readers that you are engaged in the community. Let them know that you’re promoting their books in a giveaway, and they may share too. • LAUNCH book! Give it a few days till your rank settles, raise the price if you had it lowered, and then decide your next moves. • PROMOTE– Back to the ten hour marketing plan!
In 2011, when IAG was formed, one of the biggest questions everyone had was marketing. All of the questions focused around how to make the most of writing and marketing at the same time, and from that, a project called ‘the ten hour marketing plan’ was designed, mostly based on the answers I’d given others with questions asked on the board.
Over the years (2014, 2016, 2018) we’ve updated it in minor ways, but with the release of other materials that grew from it imminent, I thought it was time to do a full explain and update. The original primer was basically designed around taking three pillars of marketing, and how myself and other mods talked about using the content that we’d set up, and how long it took. It was originally a sort of ‘day in the life of marketing a book’ but as it turned out it was close to ten hours a week, we shared it as that instead.
The new update removes Klout, as it no longer exists as suggested, and talks about a few items that we have found more useful since. If you’ve got variations, or questions, we’d love to hear them!
A Ten Hour Marketing Primer – 2018
Author’s note – the ten hour marketing primer is not designed to be used without adjustment. You do not need to follow our plan exactly, but it is a tried and true method for limiting the time you spend marketing, while maximizing results.
How do I promote in 10 hours a week? So…I keep giving people this mythical 10 hours a week number and saying ‘I do all of my promotion in 10 hours a week, more or less’.
And I do. So I thought I’d share my basics.
Schedule your writing time – some people are more productive in the morning, those with day jobs or kids may need afternoon or evening. It’s absolutely critical you work out this step however, because you don’t want to be doing work
Schedule your marketing time. I do this by:
Facebook sweep – I spend 10 minutes sweeping FB for anything interesting to share to my page. If I find something neat I either post it, or queue it. I fill my content usually by Wednesday for one of my author pages. I’m just picking up doing the second one now. I do this four times a day (40 mins total)
Blog posts – 30 mins. I write a blog post daily, but you should do a post at least once a week. (1hr 10 mins) Keep it somewhat short and as interesting as you can. (Examples, inspiration for books, prospective cover art, your writing process.)
You can also guest blog – https://indieauthorgroup.com is one of many sites that accepts a guest blog. Read the guidelines, and be aware of the style, editorial expectations and other rules surrounding that – it’s easiest to manage that way, and means you’ll get more yesses than nos. Some guest blog positions pay – most don’t, and that’s ok. If they are making money from you in a meaningful way, or are a huge website, you can try to negotiate, but most guest blogging posts are designed to introduce you to the site’s readership, so you shouldn’t expect pay, that’s normally a bonus.
Twitter – 10 minutes, three times a day. I retweet interesting stuff. (1 hr 40) MONDAYS – head on over to #mondayblogs, share other people’s posts and share one blog post of your own – make sure it’s not promotional.
Triberr 25 mins/3x per week – more content, more community building. Instead of Triberr, I sometimes switch to Pinterest and Instagram, especially if I’m working on stuff that is more visual, like layouts for books, so if you’re a more visual person, you can switch out Triberr and even Twitter with Instagram and Pinterest.
Work/write – I write a lot of posts and answer questions, and do content while I supporting others, so the majority of my day is taken up there. If it’s quiet, I get to write, if it’s busy, I’m doing a lot of ‘paying it forward’.
Email – 10 mins twice a day for marketing information via newsletters etc.(2hrs)
I then stop for lunch and write or do other work.
Repeat three days a week (except the stuff that’s daily). Ok, so it’s not quite 10 hours, and sometimes I’m faster than I think with the stuff I’m doing.
My biggest marketing primer tip?
I do my email DEAD LAST. It’s important – really important – not to do your email first. If you do, you’re reacting for the rest of the day. So I promote in just under 10 hours a week. If I’m doing a blog or other promotional tour, it goes up (naturally), and some of that is sharing other people.
We are now taking guest posts for three of our blogs, and we’d love to see our readers and members join in. If you’d like to guest post with us, all of the details are here!
The main rule of submitting to the blogs are that they CANNOT be fluff, no use posts that promote you. We are very keen to keep the quality of the blog high, therefore all posts should be your original content (we do accept reprints), with links to anything that you’re asserting that is to be backed up. So, for example, if you say that ‘The Benevolent Dictator says that nothing sells one book like the next book’, it’d be brilliant if you could also link those words to the page (https://twirl.indieauthorgroup.com/selling-books/). This means people can see where you’re learning from. Please do not link YOUR OWN blog unless you are an expert – you’ve got your byline at the end for that.
Main Guidelines
Aside from no ads, we also ask that people do not use affiliate links. If you link to Amazon books, we reserve the right to change the links to our own affiliate link, per our privacy guidelines. We do ask, on the whole that you don’t write articles with Amazon links in if you can avoid it, to avoid issues of this kind.
If you are linking to your own blog, we do ask that you link to specific posts, and that your own privacy guidelines are up to date.
Your byline can contain three links – one of which should ideally be a blog, or other site for people to follow you. We do not allow friend request links from Facebook – you must use a Facebook page.
Finally, we reserve the right to reject any articles that don’t work for our site, or fits with our guidelines. Full guidelines are of course listed here. Once you’ve read our guidelines, you can submit here. The blog posts will then be taken to tech or marketing, or posted to the main blog as the team decides is right. Please ensure you include your email, your byline and any images when you submit. We will not respond to return articles if we reject them, but we will of course let you know about accepted articles and your publication date. If you do not hear back within six weeks of submission, please consider that your article has been rejected.
We invite people to submit up to three posts. We know the categories are odd on the form, don’t worry about that, but if we reject all three, we do ask that you look at our guidelines (which are clearly listed in our post here, on the guidelines and at the bottom of the form) and then wait a few months.
Good luck, we’re really looking forward to seeing your submissions!
It’s always sad to see the demise of a platform that supports authors, and I heard (though never personally used) lots of great things about Pronoun.
But it seems like they’re at the end of the road.
Here’s part of the announcement.
Two years ago Pronoun set out to create a one-of-a-kind publishing tool that truly put authors first. We believed that the power of data could be harnessed for smarter book publishing, leveling the playing field for indie authors.
We are proud of the product we built, but even more so, we’re grateful for the community of authors that made it grow. Your feedback shaped Pronoun’s development, and together we changed the way authors connect with readers.
Unfortunately, Pronoun’s story ends here.
While many challenges in indie publishing remain unsolved, Macmillan is unable to continue Pronoun’s operation in its current form.
