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What's Your Biggest Challenge with Your Book?

I'd be interested to learn what authors/publishers on this network think their biggest challenges are with their book. I wonder if there's any common, pervasive challenge we all face.

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Some years ago I earnt my Master of arts in publishing.

They thought me many things, but what really changed me were the lessons of literary criticism. The teacher thought me that writing is not 'creating' but 'finding' and 'accepting' what 'is really inside of you'.

The more you accept your ideas (and the less you create them) the higher the literary valure of your works.

I exercise a lot. I don't believe in 'waiting ideas': I think that writing a lot makes you a better writer.

One day, I tried to write a short tale about the Trautman character from the Rambo saga , because I thought it was a difficult character. The exercise was doomed to the trash basket.

I immidiately undersood that that short tale 'was the best hidden inside of me', and started writing about brand-new characters inside the Rambo saga in a prequel-set story.

I told my self:'I am an italian born in 77. What do I know about the Vietnam war'?

It turned out I knew a  lot, because of the many books I read (and still read... I am really interested in the subject).

But it was not enough... So I started watching documentaries, studying military field manuals of the sixties and chatting with real Special Forces veterans (those very few that accpeted answering my questions).

Then therewas the last challenge: the copyright problems.

For two years, I thought my Rambo work was doomed to be a 'pirate' bookfor freeshare, but after one year and an half, Morrell authorized my work to worldwide freeshare.

And here we are... Two years later, after FIVE Rambo novels, I freeshared the first one in both English and Italian languages.

It was a REALLY long road...

That s an awesome destination, though!

Thanks Joleene! :) :)  You can easly find RAMBO YEAR ONE on the internet and try to read the first couple of pages. It's free.

TY! I'll have to go hit google ;)

Sadly, you're right. But you need the good writing to keep the audience once you get it through all the gimmicks, otherwise they won;t go on to buy the rest/next of your books.

My on-going biggest challenge is finding the statistics for the unknown published author. Making another learned plan, calculating more new self-strategy, paying for better advice from the on-line experts, sending out more "award winning" query letters, paying for a knock-out front cover that is demanded by the industry, hunting up experts to do another book review, buying..., is all well and good, but I'm really operating blind here without statistics for the unknown author. Nobody seems to have these numbers. I'll share with you the last statistic of several years, which stated that there were around 3/4 million books published that year. Now if you throw in your book and mine, as well, then I'm lead to believe that our titles are lost in the pile of soft and hard covers. Yes? No? I'd like to see some data on how many unknown published books are really getting sold? What kind of books are they and so on? Recently at B/N I discovered an unknown author section that was maybe a 6x6 display and when I investigated the books, saw they were all "New York Times" best sellers? What? Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Am I the only one asking these simple basic questions? If so, what should I be doing to market my book? Are in other words, "What's the best realistic strategy for an Unknown Author to use in marketing his or her book?" And if so, what statistics are you using? Maybe someone can point me to a web-site of which I speak to solve my problem?

The trouble is no one wants to share numbers. I did do some research and found two different sources, one saying the average indy author makes less than 300$ a year and another saying less than 100$ - which from all the people I have talked to and do book covers for, etc, seems more like the average.  I have had the best luck with advertising to emailing lists - people who receive the email every day are LOOKING for books - but to list on those you need a free or a bargain book, and it is only really effective to have a free book if you have more than one book published. Everything I've read and seen says the best strategy is to write your butt off for at least three books, and then after that hit the advertising/marketing hard. 

here are some links to start you off, but some google searching will unearth 100s of blogs etc with advice

http://rachelintheoc.com/2013/10/how-much-can-indie-authors-realist...

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/23/authors-earnings-fall-...

http://authorearnings.com/report/the-tenured-vs-debut-author-report/

http://authorearnings.com/report/january-2015-author-earnings-report/

Once again I am faced with the challenge of promoting an indie author's book. Please stop by this week's edition of What I Am Reading featuring Dhungwana 2117 by Baibin Nighthawk.

http://thebookmarketingnetwork.com/profiles/blogs/what-i-am-reading...

That's why I've held off on the upgrade but I am considering it later. I have an art program that keeps updating with "intuitive" things and it gets aggravating because 9/10 it's wrong about what I am doing, LOL! 

Good look with the Wroldcon - let us know how it goes and if it results in sales boost :) 

Do you think fundraising sites are helpful?

I've heard differing opinions. Some authors love them and some say they couldn't raise enough to even buy a pot of coffee. I think it depends on the network you've already built and what you're offering. I ran across an author who was offering ebook copies of her old work - a fan is probably going to have those already, and, if they didn't, the price the contributor had to give was twice what they could pay on Amazon for the books. So, if you're doing one I think the best way would be to offer something unique ONLY to the fundraiser.

I admit, I find them a bit tacky myself, and would never contribute to one, but I am not by any means the rule to follow, and that's the joy of the indy publishing is that it's individual so we don't have to do it the way someone else would :)  You might try googling things like "Book fundraiser results" or "Book kickstarter tips" for more info from people who have actually tried it :) 

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