Please join us in welcoming Hope Tarr to Book Binge. She’s here to discuss the brave, new digital book world.

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Hail Brave New Digital Book World
By Hope Tarr

When my Victorian-set romance, Tempting, first released as a mass market single title with a major New York publisher, I thought my publishing career was made. But despite receiving stellar reviews, including a RT BOOK Reviewers’ Choice nomination for Best Innovative Historical Romance, the book’s sales failed to meet publisher expectations. Ultimately I received a letter informing me that Tempting was being taken out of print and any remaining stock would be destroyed. With the publisher’s reversion of rights letter in hand, Tempting was once more mine to do with what I would. Standing in my home office, I slipped the letter into a folder in my file cabinet and asked myself, “Now what?”

Flash forward a decade. I re-released Tempting as an e-book in February 2012 in time for Valentine’s Day. The turnaround process took me slightly under two months. Although the book had been professionally edited for its original print release in the early 2000’s, publishers then didn’t provide authors with electronic versions of the typeset manuscript or even the galleys. Working from the print edition, my most recent Word document files, and a decade of experience as a published author, I gently rewrote the book, shaving off 5,000 words.

Once I’d massaged the manuscript into its best possible shape, I hired a graphic designer to do a beautiful new cover as well as to format the manuscript for digital release across platforms. Setting up my publisher accounts for Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) Program, Barnes & Noble’s PubIt!, Smashwords, ARe etc. and then uploading the content (book file, reviews, links etc.) to each site was time-consuming but not especially difficult.

Once the book went live, I began a mini blog tour, sent the book file to reviewers who were amenable and made the usual social networking shout outs. What I didn’t do was run a single paid advertisement, nor did I bother with bookmarks, postcards, or other promotional items. I’d done all those things before and they hadn’t helped. This time, I vowed, it was Tempting’s turn to make me money.

The first month’s sales were tepid, and I began to think my experiment with self-publishing might remain just that. I got busy with other projects, so busy I scarcely remembered to check my sales on my various publisher accounts. And then my sales ranking on Kindle shot up—and up. Before I knew it, Tempting had landed solidly on the Kindle Top 100. It was also performing well in the Amazon Store’s Historical Romance section—print, digital and audio formats combined.

As I write this post, Tempting has remained on the Kindle Top 100 for eight consecutive weeks and continues to rank in the top one-thousand for Historical Romances overall.

That’s not just my good news. It’s our good news because Tempting isn’t an isolated Happily Ever After self-publishing story. My book is just one chapter in a much bigger story: a paradigm shift in publishing.

In the old print model, the first month of sale was absolutely critical. “Velocity of sales” was the big buzz word, the rule-of-thumb being that sales’ performance in the first month of launch, which reflected shipments but not yet returns by the big box chain retailers, represented a book’s peak. That peak or lack thereof predicted the relative robustness of subsequent months’ sales. If your book didn’t strike strong straight out of the gate, the overwhelming odds were that it wasn’t going to. Based on that first month, you were deemed either a winner or a loser—and you could expect those sales numbers to follow you into your foreseeable publishing future.
But in the current digital-first model, time can be an author’s friend. It is our friend. The longer an e-book is out on offer, the more time it has to find its audience and gain traction—and the better its chances for success over time.

As always, there are caveats to consider. The book has to be good—and really good would be better. Price point also counts. Cheap is in and nearly everyone is looking for value. Initially I chafed at issuing Tempting—a single-title previously published by one of the Big Six—for a piddling 99 cents but, putting pride aside, not even I can argue with the bottom line. It’s working. Selling thousands of units at 99 cents earns me more than selling hundreds at $2.99 or higher.

But I would be irresponsible if I ended without addressing the proverbial elephant in the room. The majority of those seeing substantial self-publishing success are established authors. Established authors have a readership, a following, a track record. In a market flooded with product, the consumer will almost always reach for the brand. That isn’t to say that you may not be the next Amanda Hocking—you may well be—but even Hocking put in the sweat equity to first build her fan base.

But sweating to make each and every book our personal best comes naturally to working writers. Between bleeding our hearts onto the (no longer necessarily printed) page, it’s what we do. Because whether our books release in print or digital or both, as self-published or published with an indie publisher or a member of New York’s Big Six, as overnight successes or long-term labors of love, we know something that non-authors don’t.

Even on a bad day, being a published author and sharing your stories with others, the World, is the toughest job you’ll ever 100 percent love.

Hope Tarr is the award-winning author of fifteen historical and contemporary romances including Tempting. Hope is also a co-founder and current principal of Lady Jane’s Salon™, New York City’s first and only monthly romance reading series, now in its fourth year with four satellites nationwide. Visit Hope online at www.HopeTarr.com as well as on Facebook and Twitter.

Many thanks to Hope Tarr for stopping by today to share her e-publishing story with us. If you haven’t read any of her books, you should stop by her website and check out her backlist. It’s a pretty impressive backlist.

Hope is giving away a book from her backlist. Comment for a chance to win.