Today, I'm proud to bring you another interview in what is proving to be quite a popular series - Secrets of Best-Selling Self-Published Authors. In the hot seat is Best-selling U.K. author, Matt Drabble. His Amazon Author's page bio describes him as thus:
"Born in Bath, England in 1974, a self-professed "funny onion", equal parts sport loving jock and comic book geek. I am a lover of horror and character driven stories. I am also an A.S sufferer who took to writing full time two years ago after being forced to give up the day job. I have a career high position of 5th on Amazon's Horror Author Rank of which I am immensely proud. "GATED" is a UK & US Horror Chart Top Ten Best Seller & winner of the Full Moon Awards 2014 Horror Book of the Year. "ASYLUM - 13 TALES OF TERROR" is a US Horror Chart #5 It was also voted #5 on The Horror Novel Review's Top 10 Books of 2013 & is a Readers Favorite 2014 Gold Medal Winner.
"ABRA-CADAVER" won an Indie Book of the Day award."
Without further ado, let's get in to it. Remember to make sure you check out Matt's excellent books and the other interviews in this series here on my website.
Who are you and where do you come
from? Do you think that your life experience has gone someway towards making
you a successful author in your chosen genre?
My name is Matt Drabble and I am
originally from a city called Bath in the South West of England. A few years
ago I suffered a nasty back injury and as a result I was unable to keep on
working a full time job. I have always liked writing and had many a notepad
full of ideas and the beginnings of books. One day I stumbled across an article
on Amazon’s self-publishing platform. With time on my hands I figured why not
turn one of my half finished stories into a full book, mainly just to see if I
could, so I did.
Where do you get your inspiration
from for your writing and for the way you brand yourself as an author?
For me King is King and long live
the King. I am increasingly working in the short story format and have produced
three anthologies so for and am currently working on my fourth. Inspiration for
a short story with a twist really comes from the world around me. It could be a
news article that makes me think “what if?” What if the outcome was different,
what if something else happened that changed the whole complexion? Normally I
start at the end with a twist and work backwards from there.
If you could pinpoint
one thing in particular that has grabbed readers of your work, what would you
say it is? I.e. What do you think it is about your work that makes readers buy
your books?
I always try and write
stories with some depth to them. There is a market for the gross out horror fan,
especially amongst younger readers, but my audience seem to be older readers.
I’d like to think that I write with a decent pace, interesting and exciting
situations, but all with three dimensional characters that you’ve come to care
about.
You have enjoyed
best-selling status – is there a particular moment in your career as an
author that you realized that you had done something right to get where you are
now? Can you pinpoint what it was that spiked your success to date?
When I first started
self-publishing about two and a half years ago, the market was less saturated
and you could do a free giveaway and I’d average maybe 3000 downloads a day
without any marketing. Now without any advertising you’d be lucky to see 100
[downloads]. I set myself a deadline of three books to see some improvement in
sales figures to give me any encouragement to keep going. Luckily, after the
first two sank without trace, the third offering was a horror thriller called
“Gated” which was a more deliberate attempt to produce something with more of a
commercial appeal. The going was slow but with a lot of patience and
determination sales started to pick up, reviews were good and I had a big free
giveaway weekend which netted me around 31,000 downloads. My next book was a
horror anthology called “Asylum – 13 Tales of Terror” which sold about 1600
books in the first month with no marketing. I am a firm believer that as long
as your work is decent, once people see it they will buy it. The obvious
problem with Amazon now is getting your book high enough up the charts for readers
to see it.
Did you try to get
publishing contracts for your books early on with traditional book publishers?
If so, did you have any success there or if not what was it that made you
decide to self-publish the majority of your work?
Yes. I sent out my
stuff to every agent and publisher that accepted submissions. I did finally
sign a deal with a publisher based in San Francisco who then unfortunately went
out of business about four days before my launch.
Why self-publish?
The great thing about
self-publishing is that anyone can do it; unfortunately, the bad thing is also
that anyone can do it. I believe that a lot of readers have had their fingers
burnt by poor work and can be more sceptical and less willing to give a new author
a chance. Self-publishing also gives an author time to grow and breathe, time
to develop and time to forge a very thick skin. The only way to get better is
to write and write a lot.
How important do you
think awards are, to an independent self-published author’s success?
This is a tough one as
awards look great on your Amazon page when trying to entice a reader and I have
entered a few and won a few. But there are also a lot of “vanity” awards out
there that are tantamount to simply buying one. I would say always look for the
larger and more prestigious award ceremonies.
Once you have decided that
self-publishing might be your route, what financial and artistic considerations
should you keep in mind before you begin?
Writing a novel really costs you
nothing but time. Financially, you will need a proof reader at the very least.
There are sites that sell cover designs if you are not artistically equipped.
If you are writing for yourself then just write. If you are hoping to build a
career or make money then first realise that the odds of any of us hitting the
big time are pretty slim. I have been writing for almost three years and at the
moment I am making a wage (I would dread to try and calculate my hourly rate as
it would be lower than minimum wage when you add up hours versus reward)
What do you see as your most
innovative promotional strategy?
Social media is always an
excellent source for growing an audience. Once you start to build a readership
they are a fantastic tool to use.
What kind of marketing
did you do to establish your author brand and what do you think is the most
successful marketing for self-published authors? Is there any one thing that
you have determined has helped you sell more books – i.e. could you outline
your path to establishing your brand and your most successful sales method/s
as?
Marketing myself is
always an area where I really should be doing more. I think that it all comes
down to download numbers and that can be a matter of luck. Facebook and Twitter
are crucial to getting yourself out there. I do a few book tours before every
launch mainly to garner quotable reviews that I can use on my Amazon page.
Again, interacting with readers is great, as it can give you excellent feedback
to be able to communicate with your audience to beta test books to make sure
that your customers are going to like the next project. Websites and blogs are
a great marketing tool but as always what you write only matters if people are
reading it. I always put clickable adverts for my other books into every Kindle
novel along with links to my social media and websites. I also use a mailing
service and put a link to sign up for my newsletter in every book. I shudder to
think of the tens of thousands of downloads that I had before I started adding
links into my books. That’s a hell of a lot of potential return customers that
I could have harnessed. If someone likes one of your books then chances are
that they would like others, but without directing them to the rest of your
catalogue once they’ve put yours down and picked up someone else’s they will
forget your name.
What are some current
best practices that you’re using to sell books? Any tips?
Without question,
BookBub has been by far the most successful site that I’ve used to date. The
drawback though is that it is incredibly difficult to get a novel accepted and
seems to be getting more difficult by the day. I’ve managed to get four
promotions with them and I’m about to do my fifth and their numbers are
fantastic whether it’s a free giveaway or a $0.99 sale. The initial downloads
are very high but it’s the knock on effect on sales for maybe three months
after that you can make your money back several times over.
How important are
‘series’ books to your success as a self-published author?
I think that they are
great when trying to establish a brand. I have published “Gated” and “Gated II”
with plans for a third to end the trilogy. I have also published a horror
anthology collection called “After Darkness Falls I and II” and I am currently
writing a sequel to “Asylum – 13 Tales of Terror”
Do you design your own
covers? How important do you think cover design is to a potential reader and
how big a part do you think it has played in your success to date?
I design all of my
covers. I have a background in design so fortunately I am able to design
(hopefully) decent covers. The cover is the only part of the book that can draw
a reader’s eye when they are staring at an Amazon page full of potential reads,
it has to draw them in as readers have so many choices now.
In your opinion, is
traditional publishing on the way out? Do you think that traditional publishing
can continue to keep up with the rise of self-publishing?
I think that
self-publishing is growing at a fast rate and the impact has been felt by
publishers as many are now trying to poach the most successful. Amazon now have
several publishing companies that will recruit successful self-publishers and
promote them above us little guys.
Would you ever consider
signing all your books to a traditional publishing house or will you always
mange some of your titles yourself through self-publishing?
I still send stuff off
to publishers from time to time and I would always try a traditional route if
one was offered to compare the two processes if nothing else. There is still a
part of me that can’t help but feel I haven’t made it until I was traditionally
published.
Have you ever used free
book promotions? Do you think they are a worth-while marketing tool for
self-published authors? If so/not – why?
Yes I use free
promotions all the time. As I’ve said before, the market is so saturated now
that a lot of readers can exist solely on free books and never have to buy one.
Giving one free book to one reader can turn them into a regular customer.
Reviews are also a huge part of attracting new readers and the review to read
rate is tiny, something like one review per 1000 downloads. So the more
downloads you have the more reviews you will get.
What avenues of self-promotion
did you find to be most effective and affordable? What’s the best
‘bang-for-your-buck’ advertising you have employed?
As said before BookBub was by far
the most effective.
Do you feel there’s a
good sense of community within the self-publishing industry?
There is good and bad
everywhere. I’d like to think that the overwhelming majority of people in our
field are good spirited souls always willing to hand out advice. There will
always be those who resent any kind of success and I have been trolled a few
times by obviously disgruntled authors.
Was it always your intention to
self-publish, or would you have considered the traditional publishing route had
the opportunity presented itself?
My intention at the beginning was
always to just finish a book with no thought to sales or downloads. I would
like to try the traditional route as publishers are still a mighty machine when
it comes to marketing, proofing, editing etc.
What would you say is the single
biggest advantage of deciding to self-publish?
You obviously have complete
control. You will also have the time to grow, to fail, to improve and develop a
thick skin. Hopefully if you stick with it then in time you will hit your
stride and be ready for the next step.
Are there things you
feel as though you missed out on by not going down the traditional publishing
route (working alongside an editor, for example)?
Definitely. When I was briefly
signed to my publisher before they went bust I worked with an editor who was
reshaping my novel for the commercial market and it was very interesting to see
what she thought worked and what didn’t.
Would you recommend other
aspiring self-publishing authors pay for particular services? Editing or cover
design, for example?
I would always use an outside
proof reader that is essential as there is no latitude given to self-publishers
when it comes to errors. Readers will demand that your book is as perfect as
the new King or Koontz despite them having huge companies with multiple
proofers, editors etc behind them. If you can’t design a decent cover then get
someone else to do it for you, you might have written a best seller masterpiece
but it won’t matter if no one picks it up.
You use social media a lot and
interact with your readership – how important do you think this is to becoming
a success as a self-published author?
You have to work hard to develop
your audience as you are a one voice screaming for attention amongst millions
of others.
Are you in regular
contact with other self-published authors and how important was any input you
may have received early on in your career? Do you have a mentor in terms
of your self-publishing success – someone who may have inspired you to ‘give it
a go’?
Not really, no. It was
still relatively new when I started and much of what I learned was through
trial and error, but there are lots of things that I wish I’d known then.
Where to from here? Are you currently represented by an agent and are you working
with any publishers on future projects?
I am still plugging away on my
own. I make a living from writing and am of the opinion that the more work I do
the more I stand a chance of attracting attention. I have had a few approaches
from publishers, agents and a film company, but as of yet nothing has panned
out. I believe that the right deal is out there for me and I’ll find it when
it’s meant to be.
Can you offer any
advice to fellow writers if you could go back in time and “do it all over?”
What’s your top tip for other indie authors?
Proof, proof and then proof again
and when you’re finished proof again! A good tip when finishing a novel is to
put it away for a couple of weeks and then come back to it with a fresh mind. Always
get it proofed by other people, if you can’t find or afford a proof reader then
look around your circle of friends and family. Find a professional, someone who
works with facts and figures, someone with a meticulous eye like an accountant
for instance. Always insert links to a website, blog or social media sites into
your Kindle novels, help people to remember you and find other works of yours.
Finally, thanks for sharing your
thoughts on self-publishing. Where is the best place for readers to find your
books?
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