7/1/24 — July Trends and OpportunitiesLead Instructor Adam breaks gives you the June numbers and breaks down the major trends. Also covers a concept called “List poisoning.”...
6/1/24 June Trends and OpportunitiesAdam breaks down the numbers generated in May and talks about the upcoming opportunities they represent....
Why All the Genres?I have run into a form of this question several times now since we have opened the site. People understand, of course, why we do all the genres, but they don’t understand why that is a good thing for them, in particular. “I write cozy mystery. Why do I care about a dark fantasy guide?” It’s actually a good question, with two answers. First of all, there is something to be learned from every genre. No matter what genre you write, you can write it better by borrowing aspects of other genres. I write primarily fantasy, but I studied thrillers...
Market Report 4/3/24I have updated all the business reports in the genre guides. Let’s look at the headlines. Top Tier Genres Mostly Steady Most of the top tier genres stayed steady with a few exceptions: YA Still Promising Though the young adult genre itself stayed steady, growth in many of the SF and fantasy subgenres continued or held. If you’re looking at writing any genre, check for a YA subgenre and consider whether your book could be marketed there. Indies Dominating Norse Legends Top 100 List Big sales for indies in a niche category with a usual floor of 1k. Look at...
Show Don’t Tell: The Bad Writing Advice That Sounds GoodIf you’ve been a writer for more than say, an hour, you’ve already received numerous pieces of advice on how to do it. And while a lot of it may actually be good advice, there is undoubtably a great deal that is bad. Problem is, some of that bad advice may appear to be good. Even worse, some of that bad advice is widely accepted as good. “Show Don’t Tell” is one of those. It is one of the most pervasive pieces of bad advice masquerading as good out there. The problem isn’t that it’s necessarily bad advice, it’s that...
Email ListsThere is no other marketing tool as effective as a list of emails people have voluntarily given you. Besides the fact that it is proven out by every metric tested, it just makes sense: people gave you their email, so they are receptive to your pitch. They may even be anticipating it. Email lists have the greatest success rate of any other "advertising" and their cost-per-click? Absolutely free until you have at least 500 subscribers, at which point it is profitable to pay for the mailings you are doing.
Adding Content Like CrazyWe now have complete guides for fantasy, science fiction, nonfiction, romance, erotica, and thriller. That’s six full guides, including all the subgenres, and I’d say 90% of the associated stuff that goes with them: study materials, story builders, and the like. We currently working on/halfway through YA, horror, and mystery guides, as well as working on an in depth Writing to Market course. After that, we have to put in guides for childrens books and general fiction and we should have all the major genres done. That will free us up to start diving into the more advanced stuff like …
Fantasy Trends and Opportunities, February ’24Across all fantasy genres, and most of the other genres I've looked into, YA is growing, sometimes very rapidly. I think YA has finally taken hold in the indie ebook market, and I see great opportunity for growth. I think it might have taken a long time because despite YA having the biggest percentage of ebook readers in it compared to other genres...
Testing ContinuesTesting continues on apace. Glad to report that no bugs have been found; site is functioning great. Some typos and broken links have been discovered and fixed. Added chat for extra communication during testing. Got a great email from one tester who is loving the site. That was really great to hear, as we’ve put a lot of work into this site and we’re thrilled they are finding it useful. I wrote a 2k word article on breaking down bestselling book covers to find the commonalities and discover what elements are subtly signaling genre to potential buyers. This is an …
Breaking Down a Book CoverIf you've read any of the genre guides, you've seen my cover breakdowns. I take six covers off the bestseller list and break down their commonalities in elements, fonts, and overall structure. But I don't do it randomly. There's a system, and I'm going to outline it below so you can do it yourself in whatever subgenre you're writing in...
