"I think, maybe, it's time to accept that my book just isn't good, and the demand is zero."
I remember writing that in my journal on May 4th 2024. It was around 9pm, and I'd had a disappointing day (after a disappointing few months). I set out in late-2023 to achieve something, and four months into the new year, I was still no further to nearing my goal. At least, I didn't think I was, because I couldn't see my progress (however slow). I needed to see everything laid out on the page. What had I tried? What did I still need to do? What problems was I facing?
So, I decided to start a 'success' journal. It isn't really about success but progress. The aim of the journal, which is 100% handwritten by the way (other than blogging, I keep everything in notebooks and journals with a pen and paper), is to document everything about the re-release of my series 'The Chronicles of Pandora' and eventually, I'd look back after its completion and see just how far I'd come, what I'd achieved, and what I'd survived.
The aim of this short blog series four months later (I'm hoping for a minimum of four parts, maybe a couple more if I have enough to share from my notes?), is to show you the brutal, honest truth of self-publishing from the genuine* handwritten notes of an indie author in the midst of working full time, raising a child, trying to write, trying to help others, attending events and overall, attempting to maintain some level of sanity!
I hope it helps you (or at the very least entertains you!). Perhaps you can prepare for or completely avoid the mistakes I made.
*Yes, these entries are real, but I've edited out some of the more personal and private information for obvious reasons. I hope you understand! I will also not mention the names of people, companies or shops I've encountered in a negative way. It's only my experience, so it would be unfair of me to name them when others may have had a fantastic experience.
04/05/2024 9:10pm - this initial entry was a collection of all the issues I was facing so I could see everything laid on the page. It includes lots of different things and what I'd tried so far. In this blog, I'll summarise the following in my notes:
Amazon Ads and Keywords
A+ Content, Categories, and the Amazon Product Page
Re-Writing the Blurb
Book Stores
"I set out last year to give Pandora a chance because I wanted to keep writing in that series—I wanted to complete the story and re-boot it. I thought I had a good, complex storyline, and God knows it has been through so many re-writes... I'm utterly bewildered, honestly. I feel like I'm doing things right, and the cover is beautiful and the website is professional."
With things like this going through my mind every day, I knew I had to take some action. As I'm an anxious person generally, I find journaling really beneficial. It's a way to calm my mind and try to make sense of my feelings and the problems I'm experiencing. This first journal entry turned into... well... a huge complain. I was feeling sorry for myself because the re-launch of To See A World (book one in The Chronicles of Pandora) hadn't gone as I'd hoped. Despite the hours and hours of research I'd committed to the series to perfect things like keywords, categories, and learning advertising on Amazon and Facebook, I wasn't really seeing any real traction. You can check out my blog post about what I really hate about being a writer sometimes, and then read this to gain a further understanding of why.
1. Amazon Ads and Keywords
Keywords are one of the things I dislike because they are something which changes a lot based on demand and what people search for. As the hypes and 'next big thing' shifts, so do the keywords. I noticed I was having to adjust these keywords weekly. I don't know about you working mums out there, but having a side hustle is difficult at the best of times, never mind when it's being consumed by something so tedious for no good reason.
"...my budget for the day is just sitting there. My time spent calculating was, frankly, a waste of time. It doesn't matter, does it!?"
This entry relates to my efforts to get Amazon ad impressions and clicks. I'd sat and made notes about how many books I'd need to sell to make back my fees; how many impressions should convert to sales; how many sales might convert to reviews. I'd filled half a page with sums and calculations, and after reviewing what I should have been seeing vs what I was really seeing (and what others were claiming to be seeing), I assumed I must be doing something wrong.
"But here is the truly devastating bit. These people have seen my book and not one decided it was worth even looking at. I'm not sure what's worse—people clicking and deciding it's not for them (after presumably thinking it looked good), or people just not choosing to click at all."
Don't answer that question. Please, I beg you.
It was at this point I opened YouTube and did some searching. I found a guy who I thought made a lot of sense to see if he could help me with some of my main concerns when it came to self-publishing. As well as advertising, one of those was gaining reviews. I wrote a bunch of notes based on his advice, then added extras to convince myself I was already doing the majority of them.
He said that keywords need to be in high demand but with low competition. So I did a Publisher Rocket search for mine. This took many attempts because I struggled to find... well... ANY! Everything was either high demand or high competition. No matter what I typed in. Then he said the new categories needed to be niched down enough to rank effectively whilst still being relevant. I think I satisfied this point but, as I wrote later, "who knows?".
"KDP informed me I could not ask for more categories any more—three max. And only 7 keywords per format, and those require separate research too."
2. Reviews
He said that ideally, I needed between 30-50 reviews before I ran an Amazon ad. I already had a healthy number and I managed to find a website to help me encourage more readers to honestly and genuinely review the title in a shorter timeframe in the months running up to starting this journal (more on this later). But, my book is more popular in the US than the UK so most of my reviews are in that territory. It frustrates me that the number of reviews isn't carried across the Amazon platforms unless you look at the US site I've found, but this was something out of my control. I wanted to up my UK reviews but ultimately ended up gaining mostly US reviews.
The service I mentioned is a paid service, monthly, with an additional one-off fee if you want your reviews to be verified on Amazon, meaning reviewers have to buy the book first and then leave their review rather than just receive a free copy. I should note here that I checked thoroughly that this meets all policies, because I was anxious this would break an Amazon review law. It's allowed, but it also did not go well for me and has completely put me off doing this in future (and I'm no longer using it!). I didn't realise this until further into the journal so I won't explain the outcome here. But, I did note the following at this point:
"[the YouTuber] recommends charging more per Kindle edition and £9.99-£10.00 for a paperback, but then the verified purchases on the review platform are more expensive per book, so you burn more credits... At 1k credits each book, they do not stretch far!"
This related to the service working on a credit basis. Different books based on their length are worth a certain number of credits to read and review. The idea is you review for others and build up credits, then you can cash them in to ask for reviews. But if you're like me and you don't have a lot of free time, you can only help with low-content books so only earn around 1k credits each. But, it's maybe 1.6k to ask for a review of To See A World. You see where I'm going with this!
3. A+ Content and the Amazon Product Page
He also said I needed some good A+ content. That's the extra bits on a book's product page on Amazon when you scroll down. Often bigger publishers supply this for popular traditional authors, but indie authors can add it to their titles through the Author Central part of their KDP account. I had A+ content, but there were a few things I hadn't realised, so I decided to upgrade it. A+ content can take a long time to get approved and you must meet guidelines. If you don't, you then need to revise the submission which can then take a long time to be re-approved. Do it right the first time, or it's lengthy and tiring.
"I'm not sure having A+ content will make any difference, but it's something else I can now say I've done."
The YouTuber then advised another author in a video he'd made that they needed to indicate immediately what the book was about. I examined my product page and title, and as I write high-content fiction, it's hard to include what the book is about in the title, subtitle, and on the front cover like you would with a non-fiction book. Here's what I wrote about that:
"It took me a long time to design the new covers and an investment into Kittl** to create them. The word Pandora is on the front indicating Greek mythology and it is most definitely a fantasy. It looks and feels professional with the font, the winged woman and the skulls. The series indicates fantasy too with the word 'chronicles'. The only thing I haven't done is include keywords in the title (KDP don't allow those changes and prefer what is on the cover to be the title, so if it isn't, I can't put it as the title now... only in the description)."
**Kittl is like Canva, which is an online design tool. You can pay more to access their premium service.
4. Re-Writing the blurb
I introduced a book hook I'd been taught by another author. I had to pay for that advice in the form of a short e-book which did irk me somewhat, but it was an interesting read even if ultimately, it did not work. She says to write a comparison between two other popular (similar) books or films and then use exciting words to target a specific audience. I wrote this in my journal:
"Lord of the Rings meets Once Upon A Time in this magical, zero-to-hero adventure for YA readers of high fantasy."
I used Lord of the Rings and the TV series Once Upon A Time as my comparisons, and then used 'magical', 'zero-to-hero' and 'adventure' as the words before targeting YA readers of high fantasy.
You may see it still on some of my socials because it's accurate, but it didn't have any affect on sales. Fun to write, though.
5. Book Stores
I had already sent information about the book and my other novels to stores like Waterstones in the UK and many indie shops. But, I hadn't heard back at this point. I emailed an indie store who had previously supported me, and I also emailed a store I believed would but, and I'm sorry to say this, responded with a rather rude and offensive email. Needless to say, I won't be going back there.!
To summarise, they told me if I wanted a shot at having my book in their store, I needed an agent (plus a bunch of other things I didn't appreciate). "Go away you indie trash" is what I took from it, and for a few days I felt put in my place, until I realised they'd done me a favour.
This journal entry went on for eight A5 pages, and by the end of it, I'd written in capitals, "WHAT MORE CAN I DO? WHAT AM I MISSING? WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?"
Over the next few weeks I'll be going through my journal's content to see how I managed to overcome these issues and a bunch more, and documenting some amazing things that helped my progress, and some events I thoroughly enjoyed.
I hope this content helps you as an author to feel seen too; you're not the only one out there getting stuck and frustrated. You should know there is plenty of good intermingled with these struggles and they are worth the wait. Please stick with me for the next instalment in this series coming soon...
Rach x
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