Common Indie Publishing Questions

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Let’s tackle a few common uncertainties with new writers:

I’m cutting the name out of this, not because the person who messaged me should feel at all bad about what is here, but because I would never want to risk embarrassing a person unintentionally. These are really common questions and concerns regarding self-publishing, so if this response seems harsh, it is just me trying to be direct, brief, and honest.

ISBNs

When he says QR codes, I think he means ISBNs and barcodes. You can buy these from Bowker, but there is really no reason to unless you are already successful and need ISBNs that are consistent across multiple platforms or products for data purposes. For everybody else, Amazon gives you a free ISBN for your ebook and paperback, and that is totally sufficient. If you want a QR code (it’s one of those square codes) to link to a site, you can use a free online QR code generator.

Day of release

It really doesn’t matter what day you release your book on, especially if you are new to the business. There is no special day that will get you more sales magically, nor will Tuesday gain you more favor with the robot than Friday. I release my books most often on Fridays because that gives me a whole weekend to tell everyone about the book if I feel like it. Don’t worry about this detail. What is more important is how you are going to get people to buy it, which for a newbie is a long-term affair.

Copyright.

Copyright is something you have, not something you do. You have the copyright of your work because you created it. It exists at the moment of creation. People frequently confuse this with filing something with the Library of Congress, which does not “copyright” your work. It will send you a letter telling you that it received and filed the work in question. It is not a mandatory step and does not establish anything legal regarding your work – in other words, you do not need to send something to the LoC to prevent people from copying it. Most artists skip logging work with the LoC because it costs money. If you are worried about plagiarism or theft, then you can always batch all of your work for the year into one large document and submit that.

So, in this case, it doesn’t matter what the artist does.

Publishing frequency.

The old conventional wisdom was to publish as frequently as possible, separating each entry in a series by only a few weeks if it can be managed. I published a trilogy once on three consecutive days. The truth is, there is no magic formula for release spacing. The robot will not punish or reward you with algorithmic benefits, especially when you are starting out, and nobody is buying your books. It’s just not something you need to worry about early on.

Later, you can think about how long it takes someone to read your book and space the books so that one is coming out as your audience has just finished the previous book. The goal is to not let readers forget who you are but still build anticipation for the next book. For newbies, it probably doesn’t matter. Your first goal should be to get ten reviews for book one of your series. It is better for book one sales to have more books waiting – that builds confidence in the reader – but book one will be the marketing focus.

Selling books and the robot.

The truth is, old models for getting Amazon to sell your book for you are outdated and are of minimal value, especially if you are not dropping large amounts of money in Amazon and are just starting out. It is much more important to think about how you are going to find readers and convince them to read and review your book. A classic strategy is to sell book 1 for free or .99 cents to catch lots of readers, then sell sequels at an increased price. Book 1 is a loss leader, but you make it up on the read-through on the entire series. This requires more than one book, so again, worrying about publishing too much is misplaced.

The hard part of putting out a book is always finding the readers. Lots of methods proposed by gurus assume you can massage the Amazon algorithm to get it to sell your book for you. In practice, this doesn’t work out, especially when you are new to the business. Instead, just worry about getting a good book out, then worry about promoting that book afterward. You need reviews, which are very hard to get. I will be honest and tell you many authors buy reviews, though I do not, and I do not recommend it to others as it risks your account.

The cheapest and longest-term marketing is content marketing, which I have talked about elsewhere. In brief, you make content on social media or blogs on popular properties related to your own, then promote your book that way. You can even get paid while you do it on some platforms, which is nice. That strategy requires a good deal of work and learning on its own, however, so be patient.

Otherwise, you will have to buy your way into the market. That means paying for reviews (of sorts – certain professional reviewers will find ways for you to pay them), paying for ads, paying for mailing lists, etc.

If you are not building an audience, you are buying an audience.

I am an independent artist and musician. You can get my books by joining my Patreon or Ko-Fi, and you can listen to my current music on YouTube or buy my albums at BandCamp.

This month, you can get a deep-cut book previously only available on Vella – The Bright Children.