Multi Author Boxed Sets as Short Term Marketing Tools & Money Makers!

Single and multi-author ebook boxed sets have become all the rage in the self-publishing world. Bargain hunter readers love them. What frugal reader wouldn't love twelve books for a dollar? (Or even two or three dollars?) Authors by the hundreds have jumped on the boxed set bandwagon, offering readers boxed set bargains galore. Some authors have complained about $0.99 boxed sets, claiming they "devalue" books (usually fully novels) by selling them at an incredible loss (sometimes $0.12 each!) What these authors don't realize is that there is room for boxed sets as a short-term marketing tool in the self-publishing repertoire. If they're done correctly (and there is a right way and a wrong way to do a boxed set) they can be big money makers and boost your readership.

An ebook boxed set is far more simple than a print one--ebook boxed sets are just one large file consisting of several ebooks. Single author boxed sets can combine serial novels so readers can read them all at once. Multiple author boxed sets usually publish novels along the same theme or in the same genre. Either way, both authors and readers can benefit from boxed sets!

BENEFITS FOR READERS

• For single-author bundles, the discount over buying all of the books in a series separately is a great selling point - readers save money and the author makes a sale! Readers also don't have to worry about cliffhangers or series that don't have an ending yet.
• For multi-author bundles, the discount for 6-12 books is enormous! Sometimes the bargain is just too good to pass up, even if there's just one book in the bundle they really want!
• Readers can use these bundles to "try out" new-to-them authors.

 BENEFITS FOR AUTHORS

• Authors can gain new readers and obtain visibility, which is hard to come by in the self-publishing world right now, in a way they might not be able to do on their own. Some boxed sets make it to Amazon's top 100, some even to the top 10. This creates huge visibility for authors and improves Amazon author rank at the same time!
• You make money! While it may seem counterintuitive to price 12 books at $0.99, you have to understand how well these boxed sets sell (when they're distributed and marketed correctly!) When done right, boxed sets can often make an author more (even split twelve ways) than they make on individual books. Depending on the author, sometimes all of their individual books combined! In some cases authors have made thousands of dollars each. Boxed sets can be quite lucrative. The whole can be greater than the sum of its parts!

• If a boxed set sells well enough, it can also hit the USA Today bestseller list, or even the New York Times bestseller list. As an writer, you can then forever claim to be a "USA Today" or "New York Times" bestselling author!

AUTHOR CONCERNS

I've heard authors say boxed sets devalue ebooks but it's just not true. Boxed sets are simply another marketing technique, one that self-published authors can take much better advantage of than legacy publishers can. We can afford to set a 12-book boxed set to $0.99 for a few weeks, raise the price to $2.99, and then sit back and let the money roll in. We have enough control over our pricing and pay close enough attention to our ranks that we can adjust our price to maximize both our exposure and our profit. Authors who haven't done a box set seem to be under the impression that they don't make any money, but that couldn't be further from the truth.

I've also heard other authors expressing concerns about creating their own single-author boxed set, too afraid the boxed set will cannibalize sales of their individual titles. In my experience, the profit at the higher price point more than makes up for any sales you lose of individual titles.

WHY CAN’T WE DO THIS ON OUR OWN?

Anyone can do a boxed set on their own, but it involves a lot of know-how and experience to do a boxed set well. We've done so many of our own boxed sets at Excessica that I've actually started a service for boxed sets alone. If you are an author who is interested in boxed sets, you can join our Excessica author forum. We put out calls for submissions for boxed sets there. If you already have a bunch of authors together and aren't quite sure how to proceed, you can check out our Excessica Boxed Sets page.

Goals: Are you looking to make the most money possible? Do you want to make the USA Today and New York Times bestseller lists? Excessica can help you clarify your goals and attain them!

Planning & Production: Working with up to a dozen authors can be like herding cats. There’s a lot of work involved in planning and producing a boxed set, from commissioning a cover, to formatting and uploading, to contracts, to working out all the financial details! It can be a great big headache. Excessica can help you with all of that!

Marketing: Marketing is KEY for these boxed sets. I've seen some boxed sets that should have easily hit Amazon's top 100, struggle to get into the 1000's and then drop off a cliff. You have to know where to market, how to market, and when to market. At Excessica, we have a very clear, specific marketing plan to help launch boxed sets as high as they can go!

Pricing: Most multi-author boxed sets aren't going to get much traction unless they start out at $0.99 but you won't keep your boxed set at this price forever. So how do you know when to change your price? At Excessica, we have very specific things we do with prices to maximize our bundle profits!

Limited Time Only: Multi-author boxed sets are usually limited time only. Think of them like concerts for books. They're a one-time experience. The reason for this is obvious - boxed sets are short-term marketing tools that work very well when utilized correctly. But long-term, they can cannibalize sales and start to be a detriment to authors. At Excessica, we can advise you, as a group, when it’s the best time for the ride to be over.

Boxed sets are simply another short-term marketing tool self-published authors can utilize to maximize both their exposure and their profits. Granted, there are no guarantees. I've had experiences where we've done everything right and a boxed set didn't perform as well as we expected. Sometimes genre is a limiting factor--boxed sets don't get home runs in every genre--but overall, especially in romance and erotic romance, boxed sets can do very well. In the end, they can be a win-win for both readers and authors!

Check out our BOXED SET service!

Selena Kitt 

Erotic Fiction You Won't Forget 

www.selenakitt.com 

LATEST RELEASE: A Modern Wicked Fairy Tale: Pinocchio

Erotica Gravy Train

My brother-in-law says he wants to write an erotic book.

What he really means is: I want to get rich. 

Everyone is talking about erotica lately. The words "mommy-porn" are on everyone's lips, from Dr. Phil to Dr. Oz to the ladies of The View. E.L. James' "Shades" series has pushed erotica and erotic romance into the mainstream spotlight. Suddenly my "smut writing" isn't such a shameful secret the family doesn't want to talk about--oh no, not anymore--now it's a lucrative career choice!

Everyone wants to ride that erotica gravy train, bay-bee!

My brother-in-law took a look at my current success in the genre and decided that he, too, could write about inserting tab A into slot B and make a million dollars.

And he's not the only one.

I get a lot of letters asking me what amounts to: "How do I get rich writing erotica?"

It's a hard question to answer, because I didn't set out to make a million dollars writing about sex. I didn't even set out to make a million dollars as a writer. All I wanted to do was find a larger audience for my year's worth of work at Literotica.

Maybe I'm a cynic, but I have a kind of "if you build it, they will come" philosophy when it comes to this business. There is no magic wand, no secret formula for success. You have to be passionate about and love what you do, whatever it is, whether that's being a writer or being a chef or working in advertising. No one ever gets rich inserting Tab A into Slot B--or writing about it, for that matter.

If it were that simple, we'd all be doing it, right?

Writing about sex may sound simple, but it isn't. Writing itself probably looks easy-peasy from the outside. You sit at a laptop and peck away on the keyboard until you have enough words on the screen. Taa daa, you're a writer! Ask the thousands of people who fail to finish Nanowrimo every year how easy it is to write a novel, to commit to writing every single day, or even just five days a week.

I happen to love writing. I also love sex. And I have a very vivid imagination. That has served to give me a modicum of success in the erotica and erotic romance genre. I'm no E.L. James, but I'm making a very good living writing about similar topics (although I tend to push things to far edgier places!) and the market for it seems to be widening.

So if you are a writer who is looking to get on the erotica gravy-train and want to know if you can make a living doing it, my answer would be a hesitant and conditional "yes"--if you're looking for short-term gain and not long-term stability.

Right now, erotica sells, and it sells well. There are many well-known authors out there who have opted to write erotica under a pen name who are doing quite well pumping out several 2-3K shorts a week, selling them for $2.99, and in a very minimal amount of time, making enough money to quit their day jobs.

But the question is, what is erotica's future? We have to remember that self-publishing is in its infancy, and while erotica and erotic romance has absolutely and unquestionably driven the sales of Kindles and Nooks everywhere, there is no telling how stable this genre is going to be in the future. We only have to look at how often this genre has been attacked, from Amazon pulling books from their shelves, Apple removing the genre from their bestseller lists, to Paypal refusing to pay for it, to see that job-stability is an issue for erotica writers.

My feeling is that this "gold-rush" - both in self-publishing and in erotica writing - is going to end, at least as we know it. Like those who never finished Nanowrimo, there will be writers who wanted to jump on the erotica gravy train who put out a few stories, made a few sales, and gave it up because they didn't make a million in their first few months. Or, like my brother-in-law, they'll talk a lot about wanting to write it so they can get rich too...but they never will.

And yes, there will be writers who make money at it, who take advantage of the "gold-rush" and pay off their student loans, their credit card debt, maybe even their mortgages. And good for them!

But in the end, the glut of work being rushed onto Amazon's virtual shelves on a daily basis will end up settling to the bottom. Big publishing has known for a long time that the bell-curve doesn't apply to books--which is why they invest all their money into those books at the top they think will sell best. They know that most books, whether they're self-or-traditionally published, only get minimally read.

The shine is going to wear off the Kindles and the Nooks. Readers are already getting more discerning about what they're willing to download. I've seen threads on forums where readers have asked, "How do I avoid downloading ANY self-published work ever again?" because they've been burned by the unedited, poorly written stuff that people are putting out there.

The fact is that this erotica "gold-rush" thing is going to end. This genre isn't a magic bullet. And trust me when I say I'm not looking to discourage the competition. As a publisher at eXcessica, I've done more to help writers succeed in this genre, I think, than most. What I'm trying to discourage is the "get-rich-quick" mentality that breeds poorly written and edited stories and books--and the heartache and disillusionment that comes with it, when authors realize they're not making the money they wanted to.

The reality is that writing isn't easy, whether you're writing erotic or thrillers or children's books. Writers work hard (and erotica writers may even work harder... every pun intended!) and, as in any profession, the best ones make it look easy. I always know someone is following their calling when, watching them do what they love to do and are clearly very good at, I find myself wanting to do it too. So it's always a compliment to me when someone says, "Wow, you make that look easy, I want to do what you do!" But I also feel a little like Simon Cowell on American Idol - I want to keep it real. I want to encourage those who are good at it, while redirecting others toward a path that may be more suited to their talents. So the whole, "How can I get rich doing what you do?" question also rankles me because it doesn't put the focus on the writing, where it should be, but rather on the money. 

When it comes down to it, erotica is like any other genre. Writing about sex might seem titillating, but in the end, those books and stories that stand the test of time will be those written by authors who loved what they were writing about, and who conveyed that to their readers.The writing that will abide will have been written by authors who didn't worry about bottom-lines and time-investment ratios, but rather let the story lead and the characters tell their tale.

As for whether my writing will be among those?

Only time will tell!


 
Selena Kitt  
Erotic Fiction You Won't Forget
www.selenakitt.com

Numbers from a Newbie Writer's First Year

I had a nice early Christmas present when my third quarter royalties came through. I was expecting this to be fairly light, but it also included some October sales, which was when my third collection of short stories, A Succubus for Halloween, came out. The amount this quarter was $600, a nice little sum right before Christmas.

That takes my total profits, after taking out initial setup costs, author copies and seller’s/publisher’s cuts, to $1,300 for my first (kind of) year as a writer. Obviously this is nowhere near the same ballpark as self-publishing titans Amanda Hocking and Joe Konrath, but this is all money in the black, with the only outlay being my free time spent in an activity I enjoy doing anyway.

I put out three collections of short stories, with A Succubus for Christmas coming out October 2010, A Succubus for Valentine’s Day coming out February 2011 and A Succubus for Halloween arriving October 2011. Christmas and Valentine’s Day were originally priced at $5.99 and this was dropped to $3.99 about halfway in the year after eXcessica head honcho Selena Kitt did some experimenting on pricing. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold just under 200 copies and Halloween just over 100, making 500 books (print + ebook) in total for the whole year. It’s a modest amount, but not bad considering collections of short stories rarely sell well and my subject matter is about as far from the mainstream as you can get! :)

More promising is the growth. Christmas and Valentine’s Day sold nearly 200 each over the whole year. Halloween came out at the end of the third week in October and my royalties run up until the end of October, which meant it managed those hundred-and-so sales in the first week. Baby steps, I know, but they’re going in the right direction.

Unsurprisingly, the lion’s share of these sales was through Amazon, but they are not the only game in town. I can understand why some might think Amazon’s current dominance is a cause for concern, but I suspect if Amazon really started to abuse that dominance to the detriment of writers and readers, they’d quickly find themselves outstripped by one of their competitors in the way Nintendo was usurped by Sony in the console wars of the ‘90’s. For the moment they’re fantastic and a budding writer would be foolish not to take advantage of what they have to offer.

Writers shouldn’t restrict themselves to only Amazon. Having their own webpage for direct sales can be very useful once they’ve built up a following. By promoting eXcessica’s coming soon link for A Succubus for Halloween heavily on my personal blog in the month leading up to its release I was able to generate 40 sales, nearly half of the total for that book, directly through eXcessica’s own store (which also took Halloween to the top of their bestsellers list, yay! Now if only I can match Selena’s sales out in the rest of the big bad world. :)).

For people looking to self-publish as a route to fame and riches, these numbers aren’t very exciting. If I was trying to make a living as a full-time professional writer, 500 sales and a return of $1,300 for the year would be horrifying. Thankfully I’m not, so I can feel chuffed about the numbers instead of worrying about what I’m going to live on next year.

Next year I plan to put out my first novel and a fourth collection of short stories. I don’t know where the path is going to take me, but it’s going to be fun to find out!

All the best for 2012!

M.E. Hydra