SFFMP 152: Pricing, Category Stuffing, Launching with Three Books, and Marketing Cross-Genre Novels

October 3, 2017 SFFpodcast Group Discussion, Podcast

This week, we answered some listener questions that had been piling up. We touched on a variety of topics, such as…

Should you try to put your books in as many categories as possible, and what can we do about books that shouldn’t be there knocking us out of our Top 100s on Amazon?
Amazon’s page of keywords for getting into unlisted categories: Selecting Browse Categories.
How many downloads a day can you expect from permafree titles?
Is it worth trying to sell English novels in countries where English isn’t the primary language?
How can trad publishers get away with charging 9.99 or more for ebooks, and can indies do this if their books are well edited and professionally done?
How do you market cross-genre books that fall into more than one category?
How do you guys feel about killing characters, and does it ever get easier?
How does your plotting process work?
Has anyone tried Kobo Plus yet and gotten results?
Where you can advertise as a newer author with less than twenty reviews on your book? Here are the links to the spreadsheets Lindsay mentioned (that C. Gockel maintains). We’re not sure if they’re up to date though, so let us know if you know of a good and recent resource. Where to Advertise Free Ebooks | Where to Advertise 99 Cent Ebooks.
How did Lindsay relaunch her pen name successfully after a long gap between releases?
If you want to write three books before launching any of them, can you use novellas as part of the plan?

Jeff and Lindsay are working on new projects, but Jo has some links if you want to check out what he’s up to right now. Here’s his serial-in-progress: The Adventures of Rustle and Eddy. Also, he’s recently done a series of “How I Write” blog posts, which cover his plotting process, among other things.