Author Bestseller How To: A Paranormal Author's Indie Pub Success Story
For years, I’ve been telling my indie author clients: if you want to make a living on your writing, you’ll need to do it in volume. Release the whole series (or at least first 3 books) at once; write fast and get a big backlist, then promote your backlist.
You’ll never make any money off one book, I tell them. Not without an existing platform. It’s just too steep a climb.
One client proved me wrong. In a big way.
I like to check in on my clients to see how their books are being reviewed, and one paranormal mystery in particular caught my eye. It had A LOT of reviews. It was ranked pretty high in each of its categories. And when I plugged in those ranks into the sales calculator, I could see that even months after her release, she was selling consistently.
With one book. And no backlist. I had to know how she did it. Not just for me, but for the many talented clients I have who struggle to sell their work.
And graciously—marvelously—this author was kind enough to share with me exactly how she conquered the self-publishing mountain.
Writing and Early Reviews
Katy Foraker started writing her supernatural novel, Memories, Lies, and Other Binds, during the pandemic lockdowns based on her love of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and other 2000s-era supernatural fare. She is an accountant by trade and a fashion lover, but had no writing background. Prior to her novel, she did have a good-sized Instagram account (around 7k), but it was entirely devoted to fashion and lifestyle. Not books, and not supernatural vibes.
She attributes her successful launch to three main factors:
- Her cover: Different from most other supernatural literature and has a “trad-pub” vibe to it
- Her blurb & comparables: She updated her blurb and comps several times based on reviewer feedback so it was perfect by launch time.
- Her ARC strategy
Once her draft was complete, Katy’s first step was to hire seven different beta readers from Fiverr. She specifically selected those with a specialty in paranormal fiction.
She made additional changes to her book based on the feedback from the beta readers. She also asked them for ideas for good comparable books and tv shows (comps) for her books, as they were all prolific readers in the genre.
She also used two different editors (me being one of them) and two different proofreaders.
The ARC Process & NetGalley
Once the book was DONE, Katy planned her ARC (advanced reader copy) strategy. Eight weeks prior to her release date, Kay submitted her manuscript to NetGalley for reviews.
“It was an emotional rollercoaster!” she told me, saying that authors need a strong constitution to be so open to feedback for their novel.
Initially, she opted to allow anyone to download and review her book. This is the “direct download” option. On the positive note, she got over 400 downloads within three days. On a negative note, the star ratings for her book were “all over the place.” Obviously, the multitude of reviewers weren’t all her target audience.
Having learned that lesson, she changed her settings so that reviewers had to request a copy and Katy would approve or disapprove each reviewer. One of the great benefits of NetGalley that Katy touted was the data on reviewers.
She was able to see their social media accounts and average Goodreads star ratings. So the hate-readers who frequently marked books as 1-star? That’s a nope for you.
In total, she gave away 800 ARCs through NetGalley.
PR Boxes
Another use of the NetGalley reviewer data was could get the TikTok account of those who had given her book a good rating. She sent several of them an email or a DM basically saying “I saw your interest in my book. Can I send you an ARC box in exchange for two posts?” She put no requirements on the posts they would make, and no requirements for review or star rating. But asked that one of the posts be during her launch week.
15 of the influencers she contacted said yes, and she sent them boxes.
One of the box recipients’ videos went VIRAL with almost 70k views. She got at least 50 pre-orders from this TikTok alone.
Obviously, Katy also leveraged her OWN social media accounts, making tiktoks and reels for cover reveals. She used trending sounds and also attached a Google form for ARC requests, allowing her own audience to review her book if they wished. Even though her audience was not book- or paranormal-oriented, she still got a few reviews out of those reels.
Launch Week
Katy released her book onto Amazon with little fanfare. Once it was live, she reached out to everyone who had reviewed her ARC, including her editors, artist, and other service providers. She asked them if they would like to be in the acknowledgments and would they please leave a review. It was important for her to have 10 reviews with an average of four stars prior to launch week.
Based on those first reviews, she updated her blurb and comps. For instance, she removed the Dark Academia keyword, as she was told by several reviewers that her book did not fit the criteria. Instead, she used Sookie Stackhouse books and A Discovery of Witches.
During Launch Week (2 weeks after it went live on Amazon), she went full force. She stacked daily promos for all five days of the week through sites like The Fussy Librarian, Buck Books, and BK Nights while her book was available for 99 cents.
She also ran paid advertisements on Facebook, on Amazon, and on BookBub (ads, not a feature). This was another venue where her data from NetGalley came in handy. She was able to upload her spreadsheet of reviewers from NetGalley and upload it into FB advertising, allowing the algorithm to find users similar to the people who liked her book.
Katy wanted to make sure that her book was “everywhere” during launch week. It worked and she ended up being a bestseller in two different categories, one of which was the very large and competitive Conspiracy Thrillers category.
One month later, she was approved for a Bookbub promotion, which happened to fall on Black Friday. She was also the first book in the email, resulting in her selling an additional 1800 copies from that promotion.
Launch week and the social media push was admittedly stressful for Katy, who like many authors, is an introvert. But that big push worked for her sales. And even though she is no longer actively promoting her book, five months later, she is still consistently selling.
Again, she only has this one book.
In January, she enrolled her ebook into Kindle Unlimited and has 48,000 Pages read to date. She has not continued using Amazon ads, as she has not found the results to be worth the money.
Facebook ads and BookBub ads, however, she found to be worth the investment.
Closing Thoughts
Seeing the work Katy put in, I hope this will be valuable to you as you come up to your own book launch.
No need to kick yourself if you, like me, you just put it on Amazon and hoped for the best. There’s always the next book.
When you know better, you do better. And armed with the right knowledge, we can all do better.
PS: A benefit of being into fashion and lifestyle is Katy’s website is AMAZING! You can find her stunning pics and links to all her socials (and of course her book) HERE.
