I am more a marketing nerd with every year in the field so anything with that keyword in the title will earn my attendance, but I have been attending more author and publisher panels lately in preparation for publishing my novella. Is there anything cooler than a cosplaying author? I think not and there is certainly no one quite as articulately nerdy as Melanie Rodriguez. This self-published author had me running to the back of the room to grab a note pad and pen with her introduction. I have attended my fair share of writing panels—mostly at ClexaCon this past year where they actually have many indie publishing houses as guests, panelists and vendors which I covered in Writing Like a Queer Woman in Media—but none have been able to summate the craft quite like this one. Everyone in that room at Con-jikan 2019 may have come from different levels of understanding how to navigate the many pitfalls of the publishing world, but Melanie’s friendly and down to earth presentation made the concepts accessible for everyone.
Self-Publishing Q&A with Melanie Rodriguez
Melanie publishes her books through Amazon Create Space and, while she tables at conventions with her written wares, her novels and novellas are also available on Kindle. She says the submission process is relatively easy with a form where you can upload cover images or work with their designers for cover options. She has enjoyed the one-on-one communication with all the vendors she has interacted with at Amazon Create Space. She highly suggests a well edited manuscript to start, of course. Most of her novels average 120,000 words. It only took her about one to two weeks for Amazon Create Space to approve her novel for publishing. For her first novel, she spent about $3,200 and, after four rounds of editing, two rounds of graphic design and receiving two proofs in the mail, she was a self-published author. She cautions that any more than two rounds of proofs does drive up the cost.
If you want to go another indie publishing route, her advice is to research independent publishing within the genre that you write in. These publishing houses usually accept a blurb or detailed summary of your proposed manuscript as a first step.
Pro tip: Melanie encourages bartering to receive author copies, which are a small round of your printed work that is negotiated into your contract. Matte covers are less expensive than glossy and tend to have a more refined look in the end.
Marketing Yourself with Melanie Rodriguez
Now, you’ve got your novel approved by Amazon, what next? Well, then the fun part begins. You receive a box in the mail (if you went that route) or the link to an electronic copy of your novel and you have to put on your marketing hat. If you want to sell the book locally and have connected with a bookstore, she suggests a first run of 10 books to start out with. Melanie’s novels are also formatted for Kindle, which she says is the most widely used electronic reading mechanism for promoting her books. Through Amazon adding an ebook as a purchasing option is free if you can format it yourself. If not, you will need to pay a contractor to format it for you.
Pro tip: Melanie suggests investing in a couple kindles for your author tabling to help better sell your book to potential buyers.
Melanie practices what she calls multi-marketing of her book. Since she self-published, she is her own marketing agency for selling her written wares. To market her book to specific groups, Melanie has found that Facebook Groups are better than Good Reads. In Facebook Groups you can have release parties where, for a set amount of time, you host an online event. Your content is pushed up in the feed of the group while the event is going on which gets it seen more through Facebook's algorithm.
Pro. Tip: Melanie encourages authors to create a tagline for their persona, i.e ‘Cosplaying Author.’
Melanie has come to know that marketing your publication is dependent upon reviews. Book reviews are how authors sell their books and the placement of your book in Amazon’s algorithms are dependent upon the number of reviews a book has. Her golden ratios for these promotions are twenty-five email suggestions, fifty web page suggestions and to use as many hashtags as relate to your work for better SEO.
Of the many social media platforms out there to promote your book, Melanie has found most of her success on Instagram. This makes sense as the platform is the highest performing one for most cosplayers. Authors tend to group towards Twitter, but by mixing up her audience with her author persona, Melanie has secured Instagram success. She likes to play around with angles and lighting while taking photos of her paperback books. By using angles that are not often viewed on Instagram she creates thumb-stopping content that has grown her readership significantly. She also uses phone applications to enhance or improve her photos. Her two favorite are Instasize and Layout.
Another successful social media venture Melanie has experienced was her participation in #WriterWednesday. On Wednesdays when she is strapped for content, Melanie answers questions as an author. She posts a call out to her readers using the hashtag for them to comment or send in questions on a specific subject to boost engagement.
P.S. I was unaware, but found it interesting from this panel that New Mexico’s most famed author, George R.R. Martin, does not participate as much in social media or blogging as he does Livejournal.
No matter how you choose to publish, it will be a trying and sometimes expensive process. I, myself, attempted to go the querying route. When I made that New Year's Resolution to get published at the beginning of 2019 I began searching out literary agents looking for books in my genre. I ended up querying about five with the first 10 pages, all of whom rejected it. My last rejection rolled in about a couple weeks after I attended this panel. I knew when putting it out there that a novella was unlikely to be picked up as publishers find it harder to justify selling books with fewer words, the industry standard usually around 30,000. I also knew that the majority of authors just aren't picked up. Despite all of this knowledge, words still sting and, as someone who crafts and puts so much value into words, it is perhaps harder to be rejected through them. But listening to Melanie reinvigorated my intention to get published even if I had to do it myself. I hope her inspiring insight and expertise can do the same for you.