Verity Lark is in a new flap!
Bedeviled by Colson Hardwicke’s treatment—summarily dumping her via tersely worded message!—Verity Lark is lying awake in her bed seething over his behavior when she hears a floorboard creak. Immediately alert to the presence of a late-night intruder, she deftly thwarts the attack.
Taking her would-be kidnapper captive is easy.
Figuring out what he wants with her—well, that part is tricky and she wonders if it could have something to do with one of her many alter egos.
It is baffling, to be sure, but Verity has a plan.
Of course she does.
As England’s most tenacious gossip and the London Daily Gazette’s most dogged reporter, she always has a scheme afoot, and this time it entails allowing her captive to escape so she can follow him. It’s the best way to discover what the devil is going on.
The ploy works exactly as intended, which is good but also bad because the more she knows, the less she understands. Somehow, she is at the center of an elaborate plot involving the French embassy, an English spy, and a ghastly murder, and just as she is trying to come up with a way to save herself, Hardwicke turns up to complicate it all.
Welcome to the third installment of the Verity Lark Mysteries, where secrets run deep, and every move could be her last.
What does Lynn Messina do right?
Though she would never say it, Lynn does nearly everything right.
And she does nearly everything right without doing things she hates doing.
She does not rapid release; she publishes only a few books a year, sends very few emails, and only lightly engages on Facebook, and only when we force her to. We fight with her over these things, because we want her to do more emails, release more quickly, be more active on social. She refuses - and yet… she always has huge numbers of pre-orders, and always breaks at #1 in her genres!
What’s her Secret Author Sauce?
Lynn writes beautiful, funny, charming books - and she writes VERY well. She is a professional writer and takes her craft seriously.
She writes in a genre she loves.
She has a defined target market that is not overly competitive or swamped with trade published books. She knows WHO she is writing for.
Her book covers are on-point for her genre. They are original and modern, but at a glance, readers know its Regency / Historical Mystery - and not Regency Romance. (She also writes woman-centric Regency romance as well, but her books differ from the sweeping gowns and bodice ripping jackets of others in this genre.
Her book descriptions are funny, charming, and beautifully written. Just like her books.
She has a profession editor and her books are carefully proof-read and formatted.
She writes long book series. I am going to discuss this in a moment, but for those of you who wish to write commercially, it is very difficult to earn a living if you are an indie author writing standalones.
She always puts the next book in the series on pre-order at the launch of the current book, and she includes the pre-order link at the back of her eBooks, so that her fans can click that button and be the first in line to read!
She runs strong ARC (Advance Review Copy) campaigns before releasing. This helps to find new readers for the rest of the books in her series. More importantly, along with her massive fan base, it guarantees she will have oodles of reviews within the first week of release.
She has a solid advertising and marketing plan in place, with a balanced ad spend between Facebook and Amazon Ads.
She has a strong fan base, built and nurtured over her last ten years in this genre. She got into indie at a good time, so some of it was luck - but she had a wonderful product that readers adored, and her fanbase has only grown since.
She abandoned genres that were not working for her in Indie (including some previously traditionally published books) and she pivoted within the regency genre when she didn’t find the right audience. Once she found her audience, they gladly went back to read her regency romance books! She never gave up and learned what her readers wanted - and she delivered.
Let’s discuss book series.
If you really don’t want to, of course you don’t have to. But do you remember, off the top of your head, any books written by JK Rowling that didn’t have Harry Potter in the title?
If you want to be a commercial indie author, it is advisable to write a series. Why? Because a single book rarely breaks-even on its own. If it does (and of course some do), the profit margins are small, and the lifespan is often limited. There is a saying in indie land - ‘The best way to sell your last book is to write your next book.’
And then there is simple math. (Yes, I know. I HATE math! I PROMISE it’s easy, back-of-napkin math.) For an example, Amazon Advertising is one of the best ways to reach new readers. Presenting your book to them at the right time, when they are already shopping for a book, will prime them to buy. (There will be more about this topic in the future.)
Let’s say you’ve perfectly scaled your ads for a reasonable 1 conversion for every 10 clicks. Let’s say you are spending 50 cents per click. You have spent $5.00 to sell a book that retails for $5.00, and for which your royalty return is $3.00. You’ve just lost money.
(This is a simplification - there are other advantages of this advertising spend that will not show up on your Amazon Ads dashboard. But stay with me...)
BUT - let’s say you have 5 books in your series, and out of every 100 readers who reads book one, 80 of those read the entire series. The price for each book in the series is $5.00. Your royalty is $3.00 per sale. The value of book one, then, is NOT that measly $3.00. The value of book one is $12.00 in royalties. Now you can spend $10.00 to sell book one, and still be profitable.
This back-of-envelope math applies to all your advertising expenditures. But wait - there’s more. And it’s weedy, but if you’ve read this far…
Amazon Ads and Amazon KDP, unfortunately, don’t share their dark and nefarious algorithms with mere mortals. (But if you take an ad rep behind the barn and pummel him enough, he’ll confess a few tidbits.)
Amazon cares about making money - or as they say - ‘providing a valuable customer experience.’ That means that Amazon is not only earning money from your $5.00 ad spend; they are also earning an additional $2.00 on their royalty share. The algorithm is going to favor ads that earn them the most money and please the most customers; this applies to both the organic search traffic on Amazon and to whether or not your advertising even shows up on Amazon’s Ad carousels. An author who has a strong sales history with Amazon will pay less per-click, get better ad placement, and will enjoy better organic placement in the Amazon search engine.
Just to summarize why you should write a book series if you are aiming at an indie writing career:
Reader Engagement and Loyalty: A series allows readers to become invested in the characters, world, and storylines you create. This investment helps build super fans who eagerly await each new book. Engaged readers are more likely to recommend your books to others, write reviews, and stay connected with your work.
Increased Sales Potential: Every book in a series is gateway to the others in the series, and a gateway to your other series (so long as they are in a related genre.)
Marketing Efficiency: Marketing a series is more efficient than marketing standalone books. Once a series gains traction, each new book benefits from having an established audience.
Long-Term Revenue Stream: A successful series can become a long-term revenue stream for indie authors. As the series grows, it will continually attract new readers while keeping existing fans engaged. Having multiple books available can make it easier to run promotions, bundle books, or offer the first book at a discount or for free to draw readers into the series.
Not every author needs to rely on their books for their income. It is perfectly acceptable to write for the love of it. I am married to one such author who manages a novel every five years. Wonderful standalones from talented indie authors can hit the best-seller lists and sometimes break even or better. But if you are looking for a sustainable career as an indie author, with books as your principal source of income, series are important.
One other thing, and this is back to what Lynn—and other successful authors—have done right. If your first book bombs (and it might), don’t double down and think a series will save you. Be ready to pivot and try something else. Take your time. Learn the ropes. Honor your craft and grow your writing skills. Building a fan base so crazy for you they will pre-order in the hundreds and thousands takes time, and will not happen overnight. As Lynn Messina proves, with every new wonderful release,—it CAN be done!