More on Discoverability - Printed Books and BISAC Codes

In yesterday's post I spoke about selecting the proper categories for your kindle books. I wanted to discuss paperback books today.

For those that don't know the classification of print book is, in most part, regulated by the Book Industry Study Group. They're a trade association whose mission is to:

...create a more informed, empowered and efficient book industry. We’re committed to the development of effective industry-wide standards, best practices, research and events related to both physical and digital products that enhance relationships between all trading partners.

They have a committee that overseas the BISAC Subject Heading List which classifies books. For instance Michael's Riyria Revelations fit into the following:

• FIC009020 FICTION / Fantasy / Epic
• FIC009030 FICTION / Fantasy / Historical
• FIC002000 FICTION / Action & Adventure
• FIC020000 FICTION / Men's Adventure
• FIC008000 FICTION / Sagas

CreateSpace allows you to specify one BISAC code, Lightning Source three (but I'm not sure if an outlet like Amazon will make use of all three or just the first one.

If you are distributing books into bookstores you should make sure that the "primary BISAC" is on the back cover. For those that are traditionally published, when you review your cover design look for it near the left bottom of the back cover, and if it is not there, ask your publisher to add it. This is what tells them "where" in the store to place the book.

Michael's first small press failed to heed our warnings on putting a BISAC code on the book and "The Crown Conspiracy" was usually filed in the mystery section rather than fantasy....sigh.

It also probably doesn't hurt to place the BISAC in your book descriptions. Most readers don't know what they are or search for them but savvy readers, or those that work in bookstores might do searches on them to find new titles. Beside, it doesn't hurt and makes you look more professional. I would just place them at the bottom of the listing description.

Discoverability...picking the right categories

One of the most important things to consider when publishing your book is choosing your categories wisely. Because so many indie authors find that Amazon kindle will be their best sales channel, I recommend optimizing for it.

To do this you need to first know which categories have bestselling lists. I'm going to focus on science fiction and fantasy as that is the area I'm most familiar with. Let's start with kindle

1. Open Amazon to the main home page
2. From the list on the left side of the screen select Books->Kindle eBooks
3. Under Popular Features, select Bestsellers

Under Fantasy I find the following:

• Anthologies
• Arthurian
• Contemporary
• Epic
• Historical
• Series

Under Science Fiction I find:

• Adventure
• Anthologies
• High Tech
• Series

But that's not the end of the lists, as Kindle eBooks also show up in the book section so let's look there as well.

1. On the left side click on: Any Category
2. Click on Books
3. Click on Science Fiction and Fantasy

Under Fantasy I find:

• Alternate History
• Anthologies
• Arthurian
• Contemporary
• Epic
• Historical
• History & Criticism
• Magic & Wizards

Under Science Fiction I find:

• Adventure
• Alternate History
• Anthologies
• Graphic Novels
• High Tech
• History & Criticism
• Short Stories
• Space Opera

But that's still not the end of the lists. There are many "non" science fiction and fantasy lists that could fit my stories such as:

• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Action & Adventure
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->Action and Adventure
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->Men's Adventure
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->War
  
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Romance
• Kindle Store->Kindle eBooks->Fiction->Romance->Fantasy, Futuristic & Ghost
• Books->Romance
• Books->Romance->Fantasy & Futuristic
• Books->Literature and Fiction
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->Action and Adventure
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->Men's Adventure
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->War

You want to pick list that are, of course, relevant but you also want to look for lists that are the easiest to dominate. In other words a list that you can be a big fish in a small pond. For instance, Michael's fourth book in his Riyria Revelations series was called The Emerald Storm. Like all of the books in the series that was an epic fantasy, but it also takes place on a sailing ship and there is a category, Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->Sea Adventures. If we look at the first page of this is the ranking of the books are: #1 - 25,832 and #20 296,445. The Emerald Storm is being taken off the market in just a few days but over it's life it's rankings have ranged from 284 to 16,784 so I could have the #1 best seller for sea adventures simply by selecting this category.

The first page of the Men's Adventure list goes from 299 to 2,683 while the first page of epic fantasy goes 19 to 1,018. So if your epic fantasy appeals to men -- it might benefit you to use the Men's Adventure category when your ranking is too low to hit the epic fantasy list.

List popularity changes all the time. I recommend you watch the ranking ranges for the ones applicable to your books and change the list if you've fallen off one of the "harder to get on" lists - it might even introduce an audience to your books that wouldn't normally find it. For instance, if Emerald Storm couldn't make ANY fantasy lists - then I would probably classify it for sea adventure or men's adventure as then it would easily make one of those.

Sometimes a list that you want to be on is not available through the DTP interface. No problem. Simply make sure you have an open spot (i.e. only have 1 or none categories selected) and put in a ticket. They will set it into a category that you can't get to.

Be careful about DTP categories that don't have a best seller list. I have two great military science fiction writers: Joe Haldeman & Marshall Thomas. If you notice there is no bestseller list for Military Science Fiction (too bad because with my sales numbers for them would guarantee some dominance there). When setting up my title, one of the choices I COULD select Military Science Fiction as that best describes these books but if I do, then I miss an opportunity for hitting a bestseller list which is a high impact to my sales.

So what to do? For thse books I select:

• Fiction->War
• Science Fiction->Adventure

Remember that any lists "higher" than the one selected is automatically eligible. So using these categories actually make those books eligible for:

• Books
  
• Books->Science Fiction and Fantasy
• Books->Science Fiction and Fantasy->Science Fiction
  
• Books->Science Fiction and Fantasy->Science Fiction->Adventure
• Books->Literature and Fiction
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction
• Books->Literature and Fiction->Genre Fiction->War
• Kindle
• Kindle Store
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->Science Fiction
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->Science Fiction->Adventure
• Kindle Store->Kindle ebooks->Fiction->Genre Fiction->War

That's a lot of lists. For Leslie Ann Moore I could use lists such as:

• Epic Fantasy
• Romance Fantasy
• Historical Fantasy

When her numbers are good as they are now then I keep her in the Epic Fantasy and Romance Fantasy as those are very relevant to her series. But if her ranking were to fall off these lists...then I would move to Historical Fantasy because that is a list that is easy to dominate.

A key element to success is getting on a best seller list - as many people use these to discover new authors. It even makes sense to "mix them up". There is usually more than one category that applies and since you can only use two then switch them every few months to expose your books to sub-markets that "fit" your book.

Think like a Publisher...even down to your name

This will be another of my drive-by posts, as I'm still buried deep in several projects. Luckily for me, Andrew Jack has done a really great interview with me and I can draw from that.

Andrew asked me what the single biggest mistake self-publishers make. A great question! I think the answer is they don't switch their mindset and "think" like a publisher. If you don't do this then you'll die from a thousand paper cuts as little mistakes will add up over time. The most notable area that are not taken into consideration are:

• Title of Book
  
• Name used by author
• Pricing
• Branding

My interview with Andrew used book title for an example, and you can go over there to see what I said on that. But let's look at something else...Name used by author.

Initials
J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, K.W. Jeter, M.J. Rose, A.C. Crispin...many people use their initials instead of their names. In most cases this is used to "hide" the sex of the author (usually women who are writing characters or themes that seem more masculine). Another reason to do so would be because many authors with your first/last name already exist.

For me, I'm not a fan of this technique - it distances the author and reader - plus it makes it difficult for fans or reviewers to reference the person. I never know if it is a he or a she and calling someone K.W. when writing seems cold and impersonal. In general, think long and hard before you do this. Having good reasons, and still doing so is fine - just make sure you have that internal thought with yourself.

Using Pen Names
Again used to hide your identity. In many cases, it is for one of the following:

• Not wanting your friends/family to know you've written something: like Erotica
• People forced to because of non-compete clause in a traditional publishing contract
• People writing in multiple genres and don't wish to confuse their audience
• People already named someone very popular
• People trying to trick people into buying their book when actually looking for a more popular author, or to get their books "near" a popular author on bookstore shelves.

Again, this is putting a wall between you and your fans and if possible I say use your own name. But...if you think like a publisher you have to worry about discoverability and you may make conscious decisions based on this.

When Michael started writing, we searched on his name and were shocked. Did you know there are:

• My husband - author of the Riyria Revelations
• Author of Necessary Heartbreak
• Author of a ton of Academic Math Text books
• Author of books on Eastern Art
• Author of "Goosebumpish Books for boys"
• Author of International Relations

We couldn't use M.J. as someone was already using that (and for the reasons stated above), so I thought..well heck we'll just add the middle initial (which we did) but that still wasn't enough as there is already another Michael J. Sullivan !!

I happened to be on the phone yesterday, helping another indie author who needed advice on marketing of their books and she mentioned that she knows the Necessary Break guy. I laughed and told her that the next time they speak to tell him that Robin says, "He owes us money!!" That's because he's gotten a ton of sales through the name confusion. How do I know? Look at the cross-selling. My Michael is the #1 cross selling author with him and the first six books on his kindle "also bought list" are Michael's plus the other two show up later on, and most of the others are fantasy books that are in my Michael's genre. He's really benefited by the name confusion.

From a pure marketing perspective, we should have changed Michael's name before launching, but he REALLY wanted to use his own. The moral of the story is we thought long and hard before deciding what to do. We did our research, reasoned the alternatives and then made the decision. So think carefully about the name you use...it will be with you from a branding standpoint forever

Heavens to Murgittroyd...a new John Locke in the making?

Another indie author is hitting the tops of the Amazon rankings with $0.99 books. Rick Murcer has two books published through his own Murgittroyd Books publisher Caribbean Moon is #2 and Deceitful Moon #11. I'm always amazed with anyone who can hit these very high rankings.

Both are relatively new releases (first in March second in end of May). His blog has 9 followers and 3 posts???? Interesting...going to see if I can get him to do an interview.

EDIT: I just posted my thoughts after interviewing Rick Murcer you can read it here.

A sad day for enhanced ebooks...

As much as I love the ebook revolution, my eyes are looking to the horizon for what the next big thing will be and that brings me to ebook Apps. Ridan is actually in development for our first Appbook (Hope to have it out in a month or so) and we're working with our technology partner to brainstorm new features to add to this technology.

While what I'm doing with the Ridan App is exciting, it pales in comparison to what is possible with non-fiction works. Anyone who has seen The Elements or Al Gore's Our Choice can see the potential of the technology developed by early innovators and just imagine all the possibilities to come.

And so...it's with a Colbert "Wag of my Finger" that I admonish Facebook who bought PushPop (makers of Our Choice), not to develop more Appbooks, or continue pushing the AppBook potential, but to essentially dismantle it and use those talented developers to add more bells and whistles to Facebook.

I concur with this article that Facebook bought the company's employees more than their products. I'm sad to see this development. I guess I should wait to see what Facebook does before I make judgements, but on the surface of things, this looks like a blow to a new technology that was looking very impressive.

Shorter works

I wanted to talk today (in my small 30 minute allotted time about short stories).

Traditionally these have been sold to magazines (first in print and now a days online) and very genre specific. Often they are collected into anthologies and sold at the price of a full length novel. Historically anthologies don't sell very well.

I think "shorts" have a tremendous opportunity for indie authors especially those that think ahead. I'm turning my attention to Michael's big six release and one of the things that the publisher is going to be doing is making a Riyria Revelations Facebook Page. As it will start from zero I've been thinking what I can do to get followers which will be a signal to Orbit that Michael has a platform and is worth further marketing investment...enter a short.

I've asked Michael to write a short story with his main characters of the Riyria Revelations that I can give away to people who sign up to the Facebook Page. It will be a bit of back story of when Royce and Hadrian met Albert Winslow. For those that don't know Michael's work Albert is kind of their "front man" that operates in the world of the nobles finding jobs of intrigue to be performed for our pair of thieves for hire. This little piece of fiction won't take Michael long to write but gives me a lot of marketing opportunities for new readers to his world.

But...let's take it a step further. This short story, if written properly can also be the start of a longer work a little standalone story within the Riyria Revelations universe. No it won't be tied into the carefully constructed six-book story arc, but it will be a nice little stand alone going on another adventure with two characters that many fans have come to love. So when that novel is released I can use the short story as a $0.99 low priced entry into the $4.99 full length novel.

Many people use $0.99 to get eyeballs, and it definitely works. But if that $0.99 takes you six months or a year to write you're significantly impacting your revenue stream. Writing it in a week or so makes a lot more sense.

Moses Siregar has done something similar with his The Black God's War. It was just launched a few days ago (July 31) at $2.99 and is selling well. It is on at least two Best seller lists:

• #89 of Kindle Epic Fantasy
• #35 of Hot New Epic Fantasy Releases

His shorter Novella is currently free and #71 on the Free Epic Fantasy. It was released about a year ago and has sold for various prices (but on the low end). At 26,000 words I'd venture it took a lot less time to write than the novel followup. And he has used this year to get a name for himself, some good reviews (29 12 5-star, 13 4-star, 4 3-star). So low and behold when the novel comes out he hits the top selling lists right away and doesn't have to resort to $0.99.

So, as an indie author I want you to think about how you can use shorts as your "low price leader" and keep your longer, more time invested works at a higher price point. If you do write some shorts here are a few tips:

1. Make it CRYSTAL CLEAR that this is a shorter work. That means putting a clear indication on the COVER as well as mentioning it in the description. If a reader thinks they are getting a full length novel then they will feel cheated.
   
   
2. Think about branding them. Ridan will probably come out with a "shorts" line in the future and we'll come up with a "brand" (Name and layout) that identifies all our shorts together. Orbit (who is Michael's big-six publisher) has an Orbits short line - further proof that they are smart cookies over there and know how to maximize their income in the digital world. Amazon of course has their Amazon singles line further proof that there is some good business sense in utilizing this venue.
   

In the indie space, someone who is using the short well is Debora Geary who has something called Novel Nibbles. These are little $0.99 short stories that all carry this brand and have a little apple on the cover with a bite taken out of them. They are designed to be be something you can read while at lunch and its a brilliant move.

She's even turning this into a kind of a franchise. I don't know all the details, and hopefully I'll get her to do a guest post on this. But I recently saw one of the Ridan authors, Nathan Lowell came out with a Novel Nibble with, A Light in the Dark (Tales from the Deep Dark). It has the Novel Nibble brand but I noticed the publisher is listed as Durandus which I know is Nathan's own entity.

In any case, this title was released July 22, 2011 and I stumbled across it just a few days after its launch when I found it on a best seller list. It is currently ranked 674 and is on:

• #17 Hot New Release in Books Science Fiction and Fantasy
• #5 Hot New Release in Books Science Fiction
• #3 Hot New Release in Books Science Fiction Adventure
• #2 Hot New Release in Books Science Fiction Space Opera
• #75 Bestselling Books in Science Fiction and Fantasy
  
• #20 Bestselling Books in Science Fiction
• #5 Bestselling Books Space Opera
• #11 Bestselling Books in Science Fiction Adventure
• #2 Hot New Release in Kindle Science Fiction Adventure
• #3 Hot New Release in Kindle Science Fiction
• #85 Hot New Release in Kindle Genre Fiction
• #15 Bestseller in Kindle Science Fiction
  
• #9 Bestseller in Kindle Science Fiction Adventure

CONCLUSION
To maximize income your "low price leaders" should be something quick to produce. Think about your writing and how you can generate a short to lead people to your bigger, more expensive works.

Okay I'm way over 30 minutes but yesterday's post was shorter and it still took less than 1 hour.

First things first...

Okay, so I'm still under huge editing pressure so I'm not going to do a big involved post...but I do feel bad at the neglect of my blog for July. So I'm alloying myself 30 minutes to do a blog and the clock is running.

I've been asked to write a book on self-publishing by an imprint of Hachette Book Group. We are still negotiating the contract so it might not come to fruition but it has made me start thinking of the various steps to publication and this has led me to something that I want self-publishers to think of.

When you started writing your book, you may not have intended to self-publish. You wrote it the way you wanted it to be and realized that it would probably be content edited by the publisher. But then at some point you decided to self-publish so you probably went right to copy editing and formatting.

What I want you to consider is you have to take a step back and put your business hat...in particular I want you to look at your opening and do some serious contemplation on modifying it.

As a reader of slush material I'm all about the first sentence, paragraph, and page. I form a lot of my opinions on these and 99% of the slush I've read had not gotten past this stage. Probably because the author was thinking of "writing" and not "selling".

I know...I know...you don't want to taint your art with such ideas as selling books, but if you are going to self-publish, and are doing so to make a good income (as opposed to strictly control issues) then you need to focus on this.

Let me point out a few things in the new world of self-publishing.

• Everyone will sample first: Whether it is through a ebook sample download, or Amazon's Search Inside the Book, a reader is going to take a gander at your stuff first. Now more than ever it's important for you to come out of the gate with something compelling. If you start out your book describing the town that your main character lives in I'll probably be bored to tears and not download. you HAVE to grab them.
  
  
• People Quote First sentences: I always spend a great deal of time on the first sentences of the book. Probably 20 - 40 hours over several days. Today readers and bloggers share first sentences and if written well enough this can be a little ad for you.

Let's use a real example...Here is the first sentence from Michael's first book, The Crown Conspiracy:

"Archibald Balentyne held the world in his hands, conveniently contained within fifteen stolen letters."

This leads to several questions in my mind:

• What do the letters say that is so important?
• Who were they stolen from?
• What will Archibald do with them?

Let's take another example, which is one of my favorites. Well it's actually a first paragraph not a first sentence but you get the point

"I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army."

This is from John Scalzi's Old Man's War and again I have a host of questions...

• Was he being forced into the army?
• Why would they let him in at that age?
• Based on the title of the book do they only use the "old" as the young are too important?

CONCLUSION
Once you decide to self-publish, you should take a step back and look at your book with a VERY critical eye. You may have thought that your book was done, but now that you are the President and CEO of the company, you need to look at it through those eyes and in particular you need to focus on the beginning and make sure you are gripping the reader. You won't have the luxury of time that a author released through a publisher would have. They will be allotted more time to build up to a run, you've got to come out of the gates at 60 miles an hour.

Whew only 2o minutes maybe I'll give myself 40 minutes for the next post.