Nov. 8, 2014 — At an afternoon workshop for the Bay Area Independent Publisher's Association, Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, the world’s largest distributor of self-published ebooks, discussed "16 Secrets of the Bestselling Indie Authors."

1. Ebook Publishing Best Practices
16 Secrets of the Bestselling Indie Ebook Authors
November 8, 2014
Mark Coker
Founder, Smashwords
Twitter: @markcoker

2. Welcome
• What you’ll learn
• The Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success
• 16 Best Practices of the Bestselling Indie Ebook
Authors
• Who this presentation is for
• Indie authors, aspiring authors, published
authors and the people who love and support
them
• No technical experience required!

3. Let’s talk best practices

4. Platforms like Smashwords make
ePublishing and eDistribution Easy…

5. Reaching Readers is Difficult *
* most books don’t sell well

6. The Long Tail of Authordom
Author sales rank
Author
earnings

7. The Secret to Reaching Readers:
Best
Practices!

8. Let’s review the best practices of
the best-selling indie authors

9. Secret One

10. #1 Your best marketing is a
great book
• With the power to publish comes the
responsibility to be a great publisher
• Honor your reader with a great book
• Move reader to a satisfying emotional extreme
• Turns readers into evangelists
• Be fanatical about quality
• Edit, revise, edit, revise, repeat, proof
• Leverage beta readers
• Readers prefer L O N G E R books

11. Longer Books Sell Better!
As word count drops, sales and sales rank drops. Visualize the power
curve overlaid on this chart. Books ranked in the top 10, 50 or 100 will
sell exponentially more units than books ranked 1,000 or worse

12. Secret Two

13. #2 Create a Great Cover image
• Invest in a quality cover image
• Your first impression on path to discovery
• Look professional
• Resonate with target audience
• Should arrest reader with thumb nail
• Makes a promise to the reader

14. What’s this book about?

15. Don’t be sloppy

16. Don’t do this either

17. Great covers make a promise

18. Great covers make a promise

19. Great covers make a promise

20. Great covers make a promise

21. Great covers make a promise

22. Great covers make a promise

23. And now a case study…
The evolution of one cover

24. to this cover

25. … to this cover…

26. The cover sparked a breakout at
Apple

27. And landed her on the NY Times Bestseller
List

28. Secret Three

29. #3 Publish Another Great Book
• The best-selling authors on
Smashwords offer deep backlists
• Each new ebook offers
opportunity to
• cross-promote other titles
• build trust with your reader
• build your brand

30. Bestselling Authors Publish More
Books

31. Secret Four

32. #4 Give (some of) Your Books
away for Free
• If you have a deep backlist, offer at
least one full-length book for free
• Makes it easier for readers to take a chance
on an unknown, untrusted author
• ~39X more downloads
• Turbocharges a series
• Free works for standalone promos too
• The highest grossing authors at
Smashwords offer at least one free
book

33. FREE Series Starters
Turbocharge a Series

34. Secret Five

35. #5 Patience is a Virtue
• Ebooks develop differently
• Traditional print books – big sell-in, then yanked
from shelves, then sales go to zero
• Ebooks – can start small and grow slowly before
breakout
• Ebooks are immortal
• Never go out of print
• When your book lands at retailer, it’s a
seedling, nourish it
• Never remove
• Let’s look at some examples…

36. Slow boil, breakout, slow boil,
bigger breakout

37. Slow boil, breakout, slow boil,
smaller breakouts

38. Slow boil to breakout
Ruth Ann Nordin’s An Inconvenient Marriage

39. Secret Six

40. #6 Maximize Availability, Avoid
Exclusivity
• Ebook retailing is not like sports or politics
• If your book is not available at every retailer,
it’s not discoverable or purchasable
• Exclusivity
• angers fans
• limits audience
• limits merchandising opportunities
• increases your dependence upon a
single sales outlet

41. Smashwords Distribution Network
Upload/Update Once, Distribute Globally

42. Secret Seven

43. #7 Build a Platform You Control
• Platform is your ability to reach and cultivate
fans
• Platform gives you control, leverage
• Let fans decide how to connect
• Facebook
• Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn
• Blog and/or website
• Mailing list subscription
• Include “Connect with the author” links at the
end of every book (more on this later!)

44. Secret Eight

45. Secret #8 Use Viral Catalysts to
Drive Word of Mouth
• Books have always been a word of
mouth business
• Your readers determine your success
• Leverage viral catalysts

46. What’s a Viral Catalyst?
• A viral catalyst is anything that makes your
book more available, accessible, desirable
and enjoyable to readers
• Read the Secrets to Ebook Publishing Success (it’s
FREE!) to learn how viral catalysts spur word-of-mouth

47. Viral Catalysts
• Every thing you do right increases
virality
Great cover
Great book
Broad distribution
Fair price
Good categorization
Professionally edited
Great formatting
Great title
Great book description
Great marketing
Sampling enabled
Multiple formats
Patience
LUCK!
• Fall short anywhere, and you
undermine true potential

48. Secret Nine

49. Secret #9 Pricing Strategy is
Lever for Success
• Pricing strategy impacts unit sales
• Unit volume (sales and downloads)
builds author platform, drives readers
to your backlist
• Unit sales X royalty per unit = profit
• Pricing strategy essential to maximize
both

50. Which Price Points for Fiction Get
Most Downloads (% over/under
average)

51. Which Price Points Yield Highest
Earnings

52. Secret Ten

53. Secret 10: Don’t Let Fear of
Piracy Paralyze Your
Publishing

54. Everything you need to know
about piracy
• Obscurity is bigger risk
• Black hat pirates who steal your book
wouldn’t have purchased it anyway
• Most piracy is accidental – it’s an
enthusiastic fan marketing your book
for you
• Combat piracy by making your book
easier to purchase than steal
• Broad availability at all stores
• Low, fair price

55. Secret Eleven

56. Secret #11 Leverage Preorders!
• What’s a preorder?
 Advance book listing at major retailers
 Allows readers to reserve a copy in advance of
release date
 Customer credit card not charged until release
date
 Fast track to bestseller lists
 We’ll do a deep dive on preorders and preorder
strategy in the final segment today!

57. Secret Twelve

58. Secret #12 Practice Partnership
and Positivity
• Your fellow authors and service
providers are your partners
• Develop relationships
• Their success is your success
• Share your secrets
• Positivity trumps negativity
• Relationships give you upper hand
• Internet rants are permanent
• Google alerts keep no secrets

59. Secret Thirteen

60. Secret #13 Collaborate with
Fellow Authors
• Identify authors you love and your fans
will love
• Publish collaborations
• Box sets of full-length
• Short story collections
• Joint promos
• They have fans you don’t reach, you have
fans they don’t reach
• Everyone wins

61. Secret Fourteen

62. Secret #14 Add three sections to
backmatter
1. About Yourname Lastname
• Short bio
1. Other books by Yourname Lastname
• Title 1
• Title 2
1. Connect with Yourname Lastname
• Facebook:
• Twitter:
• Web site:
• Blog:
• Smashwords author page:

63. Secret Fifteen

64. Secret #15 Think Globally

65. Apple, B&N, Kobo, Amazon and
others are going global
You Have the Tools to Reach a
Worldwide Market Today
The tools are FREE

66. The market for your English-language books
outside the US will soon exceed the US
market
Apple operates iBooks in 51 countries. We
distribute to Apple. In 2013, 45% of
Smashwords Apple iBooks sales were outside
the US

67. Secret Sixteen

68. Secret #16 Pinch Your Pennies
• You’re running a business
• Profit = Sales minus Expenses
• Most books don’t sell well (!!!!)
• NEVER borrow money to publish a
book
• NEVER spend or invest money you
need for food and shelter
• DIY then reinvest

69. That’s it!

70. Q&A
Connect with Mark Coker and Smashwords:
Web: www.smashwords.com
Blog: blog.smashwords.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/markcoker
Facebook: facebook.com/markcoker
HuffPo: huffingtonpost.com/mark-coker
Twitter: @markcoker