# Ask a Self-Published Author



## Merkoboldavain (May 23, 2013)

My name is Noah Murphy a self-published author who joined FAF because I write stories with lots of anthropomorphic characters and I'd like to build a fan base among the furry Fandom writing (non-erotic) anthropomorphic characters stories for FA. Somebody in my introduction thread asked me talk about self-publishing. I've decided ill talk about it because I think its something more people would appreciate. I'll refrain from posting direct links to my work here in this thread because I'm not here to advertise. 

I primarily write something called the K23 Universe which is a scifi/fantasy/cyberpunk/steampunk hybrid universe. In June 2011, I released a fantasy thriller novella called A clear and Feathered Danger about private detectives who stop a bunch of gangster parrots who are holding a city hostage. I followed that up with two quickly written sequels, and a collection of all three by august 2011. In October 2011, I released a superheroine novella called Barbarian Girl in its universe unrelated to the k23 universe.In February 2012, I followed up with a short story collection in K23 Universe that caps the novella trilogy.

 Of those 6 releases only ACAFD and the collection sold more than 30 copies(119 and 68 respectively). None of them are currently available them for sale, because they were all awful-mediocre in retrospect.

The standard line is the vast majority of self-published book sell less than 100-150 copies, the sick reality is, most of those books actually sell close to zero, probably in the single digits at best. So the fact I even managed to get a book in the 100-150 range is impressive. 

Barbarian Girl turned into a book called Ethereal Girls, released in October 2012, that despite being a vastly better book, managed to get trolled across the internet( link is blog post on what happened) in February 2013. That was a good thing as in one month I sold more than I had in the previous four(its now up to 70 sales in total and will probably eek into the hundred-sold range when its said and done).  Ethereal Girls is still available for sale if people want to go search it out.

The other books, collectively known as the K23 Detectives Series, is being rebooted next Thursday a book called Deltan Skies. It started out as a revision and expansion of a Clear and Feathered Danger that eventually turned into a new and much improved, book. 

What I've learned over the last two years is that self-publishing is not an easy path to follow. Publishing is the easy part, just sign up up at sites Kindle Direct Publishing or Smashwords, format your book, get a cover, upload and you are done. 

The difficult part comes in finding an audience and selling it to them.  I had a big lost post typed out, but the forums lost what I wrote and the auto save only saved half of it, but looking back, its probably better if I leave the specific topic up to you.   I can talk about book marketing, writing for money(its far different from fan fiction), book formatting. Ask away.


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## Teal (May 23, 2013)

Nice big cluster of an advertisement there honeybunch.


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## Merkoboldavain (May 23, 2013)

Somebody asked to talk about self-publishing so I did. I didn't have to spend all this time writing this up, I have other things to do.. If an admin wants to close it that's fine with me. I don't really care. Again, I did it cause I was asked and I thought other would be interested, nothing more.


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## Teal (May 23, 2013)

Merkoboldavain said:


> Somebody asked to talk about self-publishing so I did. I didn't have to spend all this time writing this up, I have other things to do.. If an admin wants to close it that's fine with me. I don't really care. Again, I did it cause I was asked and I thought other would be interested, nothing more.


 It's extremely difficult to read. I certainly hope your novels aren't like that.


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## Merkoboldavain (May 23, 2013)

Teal said:


> It's extremely difficult to read. I certainly hope your novels aren't like that.


Let me share with you something I learned about internet trolls like you. I can not buy the level of PR you give me. They more they trolled me, the books I sold because the more visible I was.  If you want me to go away, you shut up. Every time you post inane comments, you bump this thread, thereby giving more potential eyeballs to this thread. The more eyeballs see the this thread, the more interested they are. The more interested they are, they more likely they will seek out my work and buy it. Therefore, please continue trolling me, I like it.


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## Teal (May 23, 2013)

Merkoboldavain said:


> Let me share with you something I learned about internet trolls like you. I can not buy the level of PR you give me. They more they trolled me, the books I sold because the more visible I was.  If you want me to go away, you shut up. Every time you post inane comments, you bump this thread, thereby giving more potential eyeballs to this thread. The more eyeballs see the this thread, the more interested they are. The more interested they are, they more likely they will seek out my work and buy it. *Therefore, please continue trolling me, I like it*.


So I'm a troll now? How cute.
I really don't care what people spend there money on. 
I'm just saying you like to post huge clusters of text that are hard to read, and that this seems less "I wanna answer some questions" and more just advertising pretending to be something else.


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## Merkoboldavain (May 23, 2013)

Teal said:


> So I'm a troll now? How cute.
> I really don't care what people spend there money on.
> I'm just saying you like to post huge clusters of text that are hard to read, and that this seems less "I wanna answer some questions" and more just advertising pretending to be something else.


I was actually sharing some insight by being smarky(I did managed to sell a book by ramming it into the ground)
You are correct about the big blocks of texts and broke them up accordingly.
As for advertising, if I wanted to advertise, I'd be posting the cover, book burb, links to my except and far more details about the books than I did. You have no idea the lengths I'll go to advertise, this is nothing compared to what I usually do.


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## Teal (May 23, 2013)

We get several self-published authors a month coming in here, ignoring rules about advertising and posting threads that amount to "hey gaiz look I published a book plz buy it!!!!!11" Some actually do have atrocious spelling and grammar.


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## Merkoboldavain (May 23, 2013)

Teal said:


> We get several self-published authors a month coming in here, ignoring rules about advertising and posting threads that amount to "hey gaiz look I published a book plz buy it!!!!!11" Some actually do have atrocious spelling and grammar.


 OH i understand that completely, I really do. I was just planning to get to work writing my anthro-character stories for FA over the next few weeks, when somebody asked me "Tell me about self-publishing, I have several books myself and am interested" I might as well talk about it  in an informational capacity. I came here because I'd think you'd like my anthro-character style, not because I have delusions you're instantly going to make me rich, which is why those other authors were posting. if I've learned anything, you have to earn your sales, they just don't come.

PS. I don't know those other authors, but I bet I'm probably in the top-5 selling ones you got here, I figure those selling more than me are not advertising here. I didn't get my sales going "HEY GUYZ Looks at my book!" anywhere except on my twitter feed.


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## Teal (May 23, 2013)

I suggest putting your book's info into your signature and being active on the forum. Then you look less like those other guys. And at least you have an avatar and lasted more than one post.


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## Merkoboldavain (May 23, 2013)

Teal said:


> I suggest putting your book's info into your signature and being active on the forum. Then you look less like those other guys. And at least you have an avatar and lasted more than one post.


I wasn't sure about the signature part.


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## M. LeRenard (May 24, 2013)

I heard about Ethereal Girls.  Someone at some point linked me to a review of it, which was basically a highly exaggerated mimicry of the style the book was written in as the reviewer saw it.  I checked out the sample chapter that was on Amazon to compare, out of curiosity, although I didn't decide to purchase the book.  But there you go.  No such thing as bad publicity.

Here's a question, to get this thing on topic: what do you do about editing?  Do it yourself, have an English major friend do it for you, hire someone professional?  I can't help but feel that one of the major things keeping a lot of self-published fiction from reaching wide markets or getting good reviews is shoddy writing and then shoddy editing.  Most of the time it's not for lack of trying on the author's part, but when you start to read such a work it becomes immediately obvious that it's going to be a real chore to get through, which discourages both purchasing the book and leaving any kind of review.

So I'm just curious what your experience with this sort of thing is.  I still need to finish editing it, but I have a novel in the works I know I want to publish someday, and I've heard that two routes are either to go the traditional way by finding an agent and then submitting to various publishing houses, or to self-publish and try to wrack up as many sales as possible to show the book has market potential, so that it can then be picked up by a larger publishing house.  If I go the self-publishing route, I would want to hire an external editor, since I don't quite trust myself to find and work out all the major kinks in plot or general writing.


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## Pimlico (May 24, 2013)

Renard - Definitely look into Melange as a potential publisher. They are open to (well written) furry works, and provide complimentary editing and cover design services. I was very satisfied with the editor I worked with.

Merk - As a furry author myself, I'm very interested in your marketing / promotion tips, especially as they relate to marketing novels to furry fandom (particularly as the fandom, in my experience, is more interested in other forms such as artwork and fursuiting) and to marketing furry novels to non-furry fandom.


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## Teal (May 24, 2013)

Seriously is that all you do Pimlico? Push people towards that publisher?


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## M. LeRenard (May 24, 2013)

Teal: lay off the unproductive and/or off-topic posts.


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## Teal (May 24, 2013)

M. LeRenard said:


> Teal: lay off the unproductive and/or off-topic posts.


 Okay.


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## Conker (May 24, 2013)

I've self published two short pieces of work at a buck each and know the joy of not selling any copies  Well, family and friends threw me a pityfuck, but oh well.

In my case, I knew I wasn't going to make any money. Was more to just do it. To say I did it. 

If I were to write something longer than a novella, I'd probably go a different route, or at least try to advertise, but oh well. Not really worth it now, even if my giant poem is something I'm quite proud of. At least it exists, and I can toss that on a resume if I'm looking into work that involves writing. 

And as to editing, I'm an English major so I do that myself. Can't say I fix all the issues, but I think I get most of them.


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## Merkoboldavain (May 27, 2013)

M. LeRenard said:


> I heard about Ethereal Girls. Someone at some point linked me to a review of it, which was basically a highly exaggerated mimicry of the style the book was written in as the reviewer saw it. I checked out the sample chapter that was on Amazon to compare, out of curiosity, although I didn't decide to purchase the book. But there you go. No such thing as bad publicity.


You must be talking about Drew Toothpaste article, that is quite frankly the best sales tool I've ever had. I still post my article about it and people still by the book because of it. I in fact tweeted Drew that if he wanted to troll Deltan Skies, not only he is free too, I will mail him a hard copy. Hasn't replied yet. 

As for the book itself, the real sexism criticisms that had merit boils down to I'm a guy writing about teenage girls(not unlike the criticisms Joss Whedon often got for Buffy). I don't think I'm going to ever revisit that world unless at some point down the road Ethereal Girls magically sells. 



> Here's a question, to get this thing on topic: what do you do about editing? Do it yourself, have an English major friend do it for you, hire someone professional? I can't help but feel that one of the major things keeping a lot of self-published fiction from reaching wide markets or getting good reviews is shoddy writing and then shoddy editing. Most of the time it's not for lack of trying on the author's part, but when you start to read such a work it becomes immediately obvious that it's going to be a real chore to get through, which discourages both purchasing the book and leaving any kind of review.



If you read my bio on my site, you'll learn I'm autistic(not self-diagnosed, a real one). Not all high-functioning autistic people(aka aspergers) are detail-oriented math whizzes. I have very poor visual detail but have one hell of an imagination. I can look at a page full of errors and not see a single one. So naturally, I've had to hire editors.

A Clear and Feathered Danger and the first sequel What Lies Within was for free by a women online, meaning not edited at all. I was still getting out errors years later.

The second sequel Impending Darkness was edited by a women who did a rather good job on the cheap, but was not available. 

Barbarian Girl suffered from a hack-editing job by some guy who made an already problematic book far, far worse than it was.

The short story collection, Sandworm Rodeo, was edited by a fan and then by a guy who became my editor for a year. 99% of the errors got out.

This editor did a decent job with Ethereal Girls proofreading and beta reading. Then with the current book, he line edited the version of the book I had sent him to test read, not the one with all the changes he suggested. Plus over the intervening months after Ethereal Girls he got progressively lazier, so what he did do was poor. Then he told me EL James is a good writer and i should learn for her(she makes mistakes he told me to get out of my work), so I fired him in March. I've spent the last 3 months editing it myself six times. 

I currently have an arrangement set up with a new editor, but haven't used her yet because I've been spending all my writing time kicking Deltan Skies into shape. But because I've been editing hardcore, my skill is improving so I may just use a professional proofreading service and edit it myself. 

In short, good editors don't come cheap. 



> So I'm just curious what your experience with this sort of thing is. I still need to finish editing it, but I have a novel in the works I know I want to publish someday, and I've heard that two routes are either to go the traditional way by finding an agent and then submitting to various publishing houses, or to self-publish and try to wrack up as many sales as possible to show the book has market potential, so that it can then be picked up by a larger publishing house. If I go the self-publishing route, I would want to hire an external editor, since I don't quite trust myself to find and work out all the major kinks in plot or general writing.



Finally, as for publishing routes. I frankly don't see the point of using a publishing house. Even if you manage to get published, you still have to do all marketing and editing yourself, and get far less royalty rates that you do from Amazon(even 35% is a godsend compared to some publishers). There's many authors I follow on Twitter who might as be self-published for all their publishers seem to(not) do for them. If you managed to rack up the self-publishing sales to the point the publishing industry would notice, you probably make a living off it, so why switch.


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## Merkoboldavain (May 27, 2013)

Pimlico said:


> R
> Merk - As a furry author myself, I'm very interested in your marketing / promotion tips, especially as they relate to marketing novels to furry fandom (particularly as the fandom, in my experience, is more interested in other forms such as artwork and fursuiting) and to marketing furry novels to non-furry fandom.



I'm not a furry artist in the sense I've never considered myself one. I work with animals, and so when I write an anthropomorphic character, I start with an animal and add people characteristics but will often use animal behaviors to animate them.  
I posted on my site an all-dragon story called Weeding Out the Weak that demonstrates this. Its about my dragons, called Uthirans, brutal parenting style. It would help to note that this is a story from the collection about the hatching of two major characters in Deltan Skies...

I happen to know only furry author have done this kind of work, which is why I've come. But whether marketing to furrys or non-furries, write engaging fiction with relocatable characters and anyone will read it.

I'm going to go into more detail about selling furry work to non-furries, the number one you thing you have to do is: Do not call it furry work... at all, period, ever! In fact, don't even let word furry anywhere near your writing. 
My avatar is from the Deltan Skies cover. However, I do not consider Deltan Skies a furry work. Instead Deltan Skies is a science-fantasy novel I think the furry fandom will enjoy. That is a critical distinction. 

I'll be honest, I had extreme reservations about associating myself with you. In popular culture, the word furry conjures up images of people who like to dress up in fur suits and have sex with each other/furry porn. Of course that's just a stereotype but stereotypes come from somewhere. 
Looking around here doesn't help matters, which a large portion of the work in the critique forum are erotic stories and the publisher who just posted a thread publishes erotica. As long as the erotica/hardcore fetish stuff freely exists with the non-erotica/fetish stuff, the stigma will remain. 
I wish it could be different, but that's how it is. 

So instead of calling it furry sci-fi or furry fantasy, just call it fantasy and sci-fi. If you write well enough and tell an engaging story, people won't care if its about anthropomorphic animals or dragons or whatever.


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## M. LeRenard (May 27, 2013)

Try not to multi-post, if you can help it.

Regarding the editing thing, okay, I get your point.  Although hiring a good editor is really a good idea.  It seems a bit of a paradox, but from my experience most writers don't actually know how to write.  And I mean this in both senses: the 'understands proper English' sense and the 'can do plot, character, etc.' sense.  If you have a disability regarding things like this, that's perfectly excusable, and in some ways lucky as it's forced you to go out of your way to find someone who can do a good job fixing all the little errors you miss.  The average Joe self-publisher doesn't seem to ever think such a thing is necessary, when it really, really is for 99% of writers.
Honestly, my stuff is adequate on its own, but it's not professional quality, and I don't really think I know how to get it to that point myself.  But I would never want to publish something I didn't feel was professional quality.



			
				Merkoboldavain said:
			
		

> If you managed to rack up the self-publishing sales to the point the publishing industry would notice, you probably make a living off it, so why switch.


Street cred, basically.
In terms of self-publishing and getting picked up, if I were to go that route I would only accept offers from major publishers who I feel could actually improve my sales by a significant margin (enough to make up for the loss from the publishing house cut).  You know... like if Tor Fantasy wanted my novel, I would probably accept.  You can get a hell of a lot more out of a trusted brand-name than you might think.
If I were talking publishing with a smaller publisher, though, like (for example) Melange, I would probably just go to them directly instead.  Then the benefit would be getting the professional editing job and some degree of publicity, as well as the credibility of having been accepted by an external source.
It's all quite complicated, I'm sure, but there are different ways to go about these things that lead to the same result.  And sometimes we just have to cut our losses and take what we can get.


Regarding the furry fandom and erotica... honestly, I'm not even going to go there.  Believe me: we've talked about it on these forums.  And elsewhere.


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