new release – M.L. Humphrey

On Releases and Finding Your Audience

I don’t do big releases, as you may have noticed by hanging around here for a bit.

I essentially write a book, get it ready to go, and then when all the links are live do a blog post, send out a message to the newsletter, sometimes remember to post about it on Facebook, and update my website to list the book. Oh, and usually throw an AMS ad or two at it.

(By the way, not only did I release the four books I told you about two days ago, but I also released the six books in the Easy Excel 365 Essentials series, too, yesterday. That would be Excel 365 Formatting, Conditional Formatting, Charts, Pivot Tables, The IF Functions, and LOOKUP Functions. Usually I wait to do that for a bit after the main release since these books are derived from the core series but I had a few days to wait until 2023 so got them ready then and also wanted the LOOKUP Functions book out there ASAP for anyone who knows Excel but doesn’t know XLOOKUP. Anyway. More books. Yay. Now you know. Go learn XLOOKUP if you love VLOOKUP.)

By releasing the way I do, it usually means that I don’t have a lot of work that I have to do leading up to a release, but that I then get to panic that the release was a complete failure for the next week or two after the release date.

Sometimes longer than that.

Since nobody knows the books are coming, most readers aren’t ready to drop money on the day of a release. And it takes time to get ads up and running and in front of the right audience. And for a book to get any visibility from ranking well.

Which means generally for me I don’t see what a book has the potential to be for a month or two.

And sometimes a book doesn’t get launched into the right place or in the right format so it takes even longer than that.

For example. I had that new pen name book I randomly wrote and published last year. I felt like writing something that didn’t fit under any of my existing names so I took a week or two, put it together, put it in audio, got it out there and…

Nothing. It died.

I put it in KU and ran a few AMS ads on it, which got clicks but no reads to speak of and no purchases.

In audio all I can see in real-time (ish) is what’s happening on ACX, which also was ugly. It’s a shorter title so not one that would attract subscription listeners.

I basically wrote it off as a dud. Until I checked my wide audio numbers for November which only came out yesterday.

Lo and behold, it turns out that maybe the market for that particular book is libraries. Because when I saw month-end library listens for the audiobook, that was a promising number. Not huge, but a high enough number to make me think month two could be good if it keeps going.

It took six weeks to know that, though.

Another book I released many, many years ago didn’t get any sort of traction until it was in audio two years later.

Which is all to say that unless you’re savvy as hell about who buys your books and exactly how to position them in front of that audience and also write the types of books that people need day one (so a hot series on the fiction side or a buzz-worthy non-fiction title that everyone wants to be able to talk about), don’t judge your books by their early performance. Things will sort themselves out over the long haul.

It’s also not over until you’ve published in every possible format you can think of, which probably means it’s never truly over…

Anyway. Today’s release-related thoughts. Off to update the website with some book links I guess. Or to have dinner maybe…(The admin side of launching ten books in a week is downright painful.)

Collections Are Great

I love publishing collections because the material already exists, it’s just a matter of putting it into a new package. And since some people prefer a collection over individual titles (especially on the fiction side where it’s usually called a box set even in ebook format) it reaches a new potential audience.

So, having said that…I just published the collections for the Affinity Publisher titles. The first, book formatting, combines fiction layouts and non-fiction into one title. The second, ads and covers, combines ad creatives and basic book covers.

And I published my first bright yellow cover, which was fun, too. In ebook there’s no price difference between buying the titles separate or buying the collection, but buying the print collection does add up to some savings.

Universal Link, Apple, Amazon, Nook, Kobo

Affinity Publisher for Fiction Layouts

I mentioned my newest project the other day and it’s now done. Affinity Publisher for Fiction Layouts is available in ebook, print, AND video.

So what is this book about? Can you guess from the title?

Basically, it walks a new user through how to use Affinity Publisher, one of the Affinity suite of products, to format a fiction title.

I actually started using Affinity Publisher for my non-fiction because I ran into an issue with using Word where the resolution of the images that exported into PDF weren’t what I wanted them to be and the only way to fix it was to use a paid Adobe product.

I’d heard a lot of buzz about Affinity so decided to give it a try and loved it.

They have great instructional videos on their website which is what I used to learn the program, but for me the videos just weren’t in the order I needed them to be. So I was 80% of the way through them before I knew that they covered everything I needed. Also, there are just certain things that are specific to self-publishing (like exporting All Pages not All Spreads) that trip new users up.

So in my latest “I don’t know what to write next” funk, I sat down and started to write up how to use Affinity Publisher for a print layout.

175 pages and 100 screenshots later, I had a book and hadn’t even touched upon how to use it for non-fiction. And then I realized I should probably do videos as well.

Sixty-plus videos later…I now have three video courses listed in addition to the books.

The video courses can all be found on Teachable. And if you use code MLH50 you can get them for 50% off.

Affinity Publisher for Fiction Layouts is the video version of the books. There are about eighteen videos and about 90 minutes of content.

Affinity Publisher Quick Takes is basically a reference library for when you’ve forgotten how to do something and need a quick one-minute refresher. That one currently has fifty videos, but most are a minute or less.

And then there’s a bundle that lets you get them both at once.

I’m new to Teachable so if you see something that looks unfinished, please let me know. There were lots of moving parts on that one.

Anyway, hope this is something someone out there can use. I know I would’ve certainly appreciated having it when I was getting started with Affinity. (Not that I would’ve bought it because I’m that do-it-yourself-as-cheap-as-you-can sort of person, but ya know.)

Knowing me there’ll probably be a non-fiction supplement at some point as well as one for basic cover and ad image design. Hard to believe that there’s still that much content left to cover, but it really is an amazing and versatile program that I’ve found invaluable over the last year.

And 2 More New Releases

Yet again I am a little behind on announcing new releases. (I impulsively decided to sell my house this month and it required this thing called cleaning that it turns out takes time to do.)

Anyway. The 2019 versions of the Access books are now out, Access 2019 Beginner and Access 2019 Intermediate.

I prioritized these over the PowerPoint updates because it turns out they made one “major” change in Access 2019 compared to Access 2013 that throws me every time I have to use the program and that’s in the import section for External Data.

Now when I want to import an Excel file I actually have to go to the New Data Source dropdown menu, then choose From File, and then I can finally choose Excel from the seconday dropdown. For a new user to Access I thought that was a big enough change that I wanted to get the updated guides out sooner rather than later.

Other than that, though, as with the other guides you’re pretty much fine using either Access for Beginners and Intermediate Access or Access 2019 Beginner and Access 2019 Intermediate. The base knowledge on all of these programs doesn’t change so drastically between versions that you need to relearn it.

(At least not since that lovely 2007 release.)

New Year, New Releases

The Excel Essentials 2019 series is out! That consists of three titles, Excel 2019 Beginner, Excel 2019 Intermediate, and Excel 2019 Formulas & Functions.

I’m going to take a moment to talk about them and then I’ll dive in on some thoughts for the writer folks who follow this blog.

So, how do these differ from the Excel Essentials series? If you’ve already read Excel for Beginners, Intermediate Excel, 50 Useful Excel Functions, and 50 More Excel Functions do you need to buy these, too?

The answer is no. These books are written specifically for anyone using Excel 2019 but 97% of what I talk about in the two series remains unchanged so if you already read the first series you’re fine.

In the formulas & functions book I do cover a few new functions, IFS and TEXTJOIN being the two main ones. MINIFS and MAXIFS as well. But in the prior series I covered nested IF functions and CONCATENATE which were the old way to accomplish the same thing as IFS and TEXTJOIN. And the older functions are still better choices if backwards compatibility is an issue.

Which is why I continue to recommend the Excel Essentials books for anyone using an older version of Excel or who needs to worry about structuring things so they work for others using older versions of Excel.

I basically came out with these books because I just upgraded computers which meant upgrading my Office version to 2019 so I had access to it and also because I know there are users out there who want a book focused on their particular version of Excel so why not give it to them now that I could.

Which is the perfect segue (an interesting word because I want spell it very differently based on the way it’s pronounced) to talking about this from the writer perspective.

Whether you write fiction or non-fiction you always have to think about self-cannibalization at some point if you’re going to publish more than one title.

On the fiction side writers do this when they release bundles. If I have a bundle of books 1 through 3 and books 1 through 3 available on a standalone basis I should expect that some readers will buy the bundle instead of books 1 through 3 standalone. Which means that every sale of the bundle is a sale I don’t get of books 1, 2, and 3.

But it can make sense to do so anyway, because there are readers who are bundle readers who won’t buy a book standalone and it’s also often a way to reach readers who won’t pay as much without having to discount the standalone titles. So you broaden your potential audience in two ways.

The drawback is on a site like Amazon that is so rankings-driven it can decrease overall visibility. Maybe. Because sometimes getting a Bookbub promo is easier with a bundle which can then increase visibility. (Of course at that point you’re selling at high volume but low per-unit profit, but that trade off can make a lot of sense depending on when you do it. My general inclination is to price low only when I have somewhere more expensive for readers to go after that because it’s not easy to make a living on 35 cents a sale.)

In non-fiction there are any number of ways to do this as well.

One is an updated edition of a book. Most readers if there’s a 2010 and a 2020 edition of a book will buy the 2020 edition assuming it’s the “better” edition so publishing a new edition often means no longer getting sales of the editions.

If someone takes another pass at the material you assume they will find better ways to say what they were saying the first time around and update the book for any changes over time.

(Although I will say with cookbooks this isn’t always true. I have Better Homes & Gardens cookbooks spanning thirty years and some of the older recipes are the better-tasting ones because they weren’t trying to be heart-healthy. Although, let’s just take a moment to be glad that 1970’s entertaining suggestions stayed in the 70’s. Hanging bananas off of a centerpiece is an idea no one should have ever had, ever.)

Getting back to the point.

With non-fiction other ways I’ve cannibalized my own sales is through bundles. For example, I have the Excel Essentials title which is the four Excel books from the original series combined into one title.

(Even though it’s a discount over the four individual titles, the individual titles still sell much better, probably because the initial price point seems daunting to someone who hasn’t read my books yet.)

I also have the Easy Excel Essentials books which are extracted from the main series titles and focus on specific topics, like Pivot Tables.

They’re less economical for people to buy if they buy them all but people do still buy them either because they only care about one specific topic (Pivot Tables or Conditional Formatting) or because the price point seems more reasonable to them. They’d rather buy six books for $3 each than buy three books for $5-$6 each even if there’s less overall content in the six books.

Of course, another reason to release new titles has nothing to do with sales, but instead has to do with visibility.

For example, the newly-available-to-everyone AMS Sponsored Brand ads work best with three or more titles. So I went ahead and released Access Essentials so that I’d have three books on Access that I could advertise via one of those ads. I didn’t actually expect high sales on that title, but it gave me another advertising option so it was worth it.

And, as fiction authors who focus on Amazon sales know, there is value in being in the new release charts. (Although that’s only self-cannibalization when it’s an omnibus or bundle release, but that can make people realize they missed book three in that series and go buy it.)

Anyway. It’s something to think about if you’re a slower writer and trying to figure out what you can do. Think about new formats, bundles, etc.

But I don’t recommend new editions unless for this purpose. (These three books took me over a hundred hours to create and with novels or short stories I’ve redone it took as long as writing a new one and probably wasn’t such a vast improvement it was worth it.)

Also, I highly recommend having a release of some sort in January because it’s a nice, easy way to hit at least one New Year’s resolution. 🙂

New Release Misstep

I received an email today from a writer friend who had just published their first novel on Amazon. And the email was basically asking friends and family to buy the novel and leave a review.

Which sounds like a great idea for a new release, right? Get some sales and some reviews.

Except, especially on Amazon, that can be the kiss of death. Because Amazon is all about the algorithms. What is this book you have published and who can I shove it in front of to generate sales?

And the problem with having friends and family be the first people who buy your book is that it’s very confusing to those algos. Because your middle grade fantasy is being bought by someone who reads 90% mystery and also by someone who reads 85% non-fiction and by someone else who reads gritty books across fantasy, sci fi, horror, and mystery. So what reader can Amazon find that fits all those categories?

None.

Now, granted, I myself have made this mistake. Because who wants to publish a book and have no sales? So you tell people about it. And because they like you (hopefully) they buy it even though they may never actually read it and generally don’t read things like it as a general rule.

Which means you end up trying to swim against the current to get to your actual audience. And you don’t have a lot of time to do it in because Amazon is relentless with its 30-day, 60-day, 90-day cliffs. It’s an environment where your book either proves itself or it sinks. Fast.

Better is to not tell friends and family about your new release until your also-boughts have populated. Also-boughts that you have hopefully helped craft via advertising towards your actual target audience, so that when those friends and family come by to show their support Amazon already knows what you’re selling and who it will sell to.

It’s a bit counterintuitive to a lot of businesses. When I was a broker you were encouraged to find friends and family members who’d invest with you first and then move out from there as you did well and got word of mouth. Lots of businesses are built that way. But books don’t work quite the same. Because people will pay a dollar or five for a book but it does you no good if that sale doesn’t help build towards more readers. Better to have people share links on your behalf with people they know who might be your target audience and hope those people buy it.

Anyway. Something to think about for the brand new author with no established audience.

New Release: Microsoft Office for Beginners

Just a quick note that buyers can now get Excel for Beginners, Word for Beginners, and PowerPoint for Beginners in one book, Microsoft Office for Beginners. This one is geared towards those who are looking to get a basis in all three program at once. It gives a bit of a price discount compared to buying the individual titles by themselves.

The ebook version ($9.99 USD) is already available everywhere. The paperback version ($29.95 USD) will be available within the next day or so. Click on the image below to choose the store you want or on one of the store tabs on the right-hand side.

New Releases: Microsoft Access

Access for Beginners and Intermediate Access are now live in ebook on Amazon and making their way to all the usual places. (Paperbacks should be live soon, too, but will take a day or two to link up to the ebook.)

I’m pretty sure these are books I said at one point that I’d never write because even though I use Access on a regular basis and find it essential to tracking all of my publishing results I never quite felt I knew it well enough to write a book on it.

So I finally went out a bought a book that someone else had written on Access to see how much beginner/intermediate knowledge I actually had. And it turns out that I knew about 95% of what I needed to write the books.

And, more importantly, that the way I think about how to use Access is completely different from the way the author of that other book thought about Access. It literally made my brain hurt to try to follow the way that person presented Access. Which made me realize there might be a need out there for the way I think about it.

So I wrote it.

These ones are longer than the ones on Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. And I’d recommend being familiar with Excel before you start them. But hopefully they help at least one person out there to master Access, because I really do think it’s an incredibly useful tool (for those circumstances where it makes sense, which in my opinion are somewhat limited these days).

Enjoy.

Intermediate PowerPoint Now Available

It took me over a year to write it because I truly do not like SmartArt and that had to be covered in an intermediate-level guide to PowerPoint (I find people misuse it atrociously), but it’s finally done.

So if you wanted an intermediate-level guide to PowerPoint that covers charts, shapes, WordArt, SmartArt, headers and footers, and a lot more, here you go. (And the paperback and hardback versions on currently almost 20% off on Barnes & Noble for those of you who like print.) Click on the image below for the universal link.

Data Principles for Beginners

I forgot to announce that I released a new title a few days ago called Data Principles for Beginners. If you’ve read the Excel titles you’ll note that I make mention throughout those books about issues I’ve run into on data projects I worked on with respect to structuring data or analyzing it.

Well, this book takes all of those little mentions and puts them in one place as well as exploring a few other key principles that will make life a lot easier for anyone trying to work with their data.