With that said, though, it's important to understand the effect that a single, big success can have for a writer... especially if they're depending on modern digital infrastructure and algorithms to work in their favor.
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| Because sometimes that single bump has long-reaching impacts. |
Before we get into the nitty gritty this week, don't forget to sign up for my weekly newsletter to get all my updates right in your inbox. Lastly, to be sure you're following all of my followables, check out my LinkTree!
Lastly, don't forget to check out my Vocal archive for additional fiction, articles, explorations of weird history, and more! And, of course, check me out on Blue Sky, since that's what we're talking about today!
Engaging The Machinery That Moves More Books
Authors have to worry about a lot of different numbers. So, I want to take a moment to talk about the kinds of numbers authors have to content with, and the effects they can have on your career. And while a lot of these numbers are very small (especially in terms of the Internet), these goals can be hard as hell to actually reach. So if you have authors out there whose work you enjoy, keep some of these things in mind. And if you're an author who is looking for a call to action for your audience, consider trying to rope them into some of these options to see if it will give your career a bit of a boost!
Book Reviews
Book reviews are one of the most basic numbers authors are generally concerned with. After all, reviews mean that people are reading your books, and it provides a running commentary that might get new readers interested. However, consider that when a book receives at least 50 reviews on Amazon, this causes the algorithm to start advertising it to other users who are looking for similar books. And the more reviews someone gets, the higher up their book will show in searches, with the possibility of it being on the front page.
And while these numbers are for Amazon, remember that whatever digital platform you prefer, the more reviews a book has, the better off it is for you as the author.
Now consider the impact that receiving a few hundred reviews on your book might get. Perhaps you sold a bunch of books at a convention, or you had a Kindle Unlimited giveaway and readers chose to rate and review as a way of paying you back. This essentially kicks off the website's algorithm, which both gives you a permanently higher rating than books that don't have as many reviews as yours does, but it also provides you a jump in attention. Because when the site sees that your book is doing well, the machine registers that it is currently popular, and it starts pushing it to other people browsing the site, doing a bunch of free advertising for you.
Free advertising which could lead to you finding more readers, and making even more sales, than you otherwise would have without that boost from a big review number.
Social Media
Social media platforms are the lifeblood of all sorts of creators because they let us reach our audience... in theory, at least. And the algorithms that govern social media work very similarly to the ones that run the online bookstores. After all, these websites want to promote things that are popular, because that keeps people on the website and scrolling through their feed.
So what happens when you start acquiring big numbers on social media platforms as an author? Whether it's for your book, one of your other projects, or just sharing some of your thoughts on the issue of the day?
When you make a post that gets popular on a social media platform (particularly a big platform like Facebook or Reddit, but this also applies to Blue Sky and similar upstarts), the algorithm starts up and begins boosting your signal. For Facebook or Twitter, it's more likely to show up in the For You feeds for users who may not know you, since the algorithm is showing it around to people that are statistically likely to have a reaction to those posts. And on Reddit your post may show up on the front page of the site, meaning that anyone who shows up might see exactly what it is you were posting about. This exposes you to more people, and makes it very likely you're going to pick up a lot of fresh subscribers and followers.
And what does that do for you? I'm glad you asked!
Social media platforms favor people who have a large number of followers. So if you had 1,000 followers one day, and then after a successful post you found yourself with 10,000 followers, you'll find that your posts are now getting more distance, and being seen far more widely than they were before. The reason for that is the algorithm supports you in ways it didn't before, because one of the major priorities for the algorithm, and how it treats you, is the size of your audience. This, at least in part, determines your reach.
If you do very well you can even get paid by the platform, but I gave details on that in Can You Get Paid By Social Media Platforms As A Writer? Probably Not.
YouTube
Not every author is on YouTube, but there are a lot of us over there who are trying to court an audience by making book commercials, audio adaptations of our work, or just talking about the behind-the-scenes of being an author. Speaking of, shout out to Alice The Author, whose channel is packed with great writing advice and information!
However, a single viral (or even nearly viral) success on this platform also shows how a big splash can lead to permanent changes!
For those who haven't read my older entries on this platform, YouTube requires creators to have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watched content within a single 365 day span before the site shares ad revenue with you. That is both a tiny number in terms of the Internet, and an impossible number in terms of what most creators can accomplish. And this is something I have some experience with, because I was with Azukail Games for their journey.
Because while Azukail Games had subscribers aplenty, the channel just could not get the view hours. Videos kept going nowhere thanks to changes to the site's algorithm, and it kept losing ground because the channel was several years old... this meant with every passing day it was having hours taken off the total view count.
What put us over the top (netting us over 1,000 hours) was a single video, The Problem With Pentex. This video essay about a niche aspect of the RPG Werewolf: The Apocalypse garnered a lot of interest (perhaps for the mention of the infamous copper merchant Ea Nasir), but more importantly the boost it provided to the channel's view hours (and to our subscriber count) permanently boosted the channel up to a new tier.
What put us over the top (netting us over 1,000 hours) was a single video, The Problem With Pentex. This video essay about a niche aspect of the RPG Werewolf: The Apocalypse garnered a lot of interest (perhaps for the mention of the infamous copper merchant Ea Nasir), but more importantly the boost it provided to the channel's view hours (and to our subscriber count) permanently boosted the channel up to a new tier.
So while this one video didn't launch the channel into the stratosphere (it got 10,000 views, not a million), it put us on a whole other level that we have been climbing from ever since.
Your Numbers Make A Difference (Especially En Masse)
I've said this before, and I'm saying it again because more people need to know this. What determines the success of an author (or really a creator of any stripe) is how many people show up for them. It's your purchases of our books that determine whether or not we get royalty checks, it's your views and listens that determine whether we earn any ad revenue, and it's your likes, shares, and subscribes that determine whether social media websites are actively restraining our signals, or boosting them because the machine believes our posts will keep more people on the platform.
And while having an engaged and growing audience is great, those big jumps when something gets popular can be a serious hand-up.
Now, that doesn't mean that as an author you should bend all of your attention and will toward going viral, and that you should only make posts, write books, etc. that are geared toward said virality. Generally speaking, going viral isn't something you can really engineer (without a lot of money and effort, at least). However, a lot of folks don't realize that those kinds of successes have long-term effects, even if the initial event seems like nothing more than a flash in the pan at the time.
The Reason This Is All On My Mind Lately...
The reason this has all been on my mind of late is (shameless self-plug) that I've been hammering hard on a new ongoing audio drama channel over on YouTube called The A.L.I.C.E. Files. A dark sci-fi reimagining of Alice in Wonderland, the channel will feature an ongoing narrative about the events happening inside the mysterious Carroll Institute, as well as smaller, independent stories that act as stand-alone stories.
And those numbers I mentioned earlier, the 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours? That's proving EXTRA hard to manage.
Which is why I wanted to ask everyone who read this far to please do me a favor. If you could subscribe to the channel, and listen to the stories we've posted so far (but especially the most recent installment, 50 Two-Sentence Horror Stories where we meet Dormouse), I would greatly appreciate the effort.
Because while we're doing our best to get as much great stuff out there as we can, we basically need something to go 10,000+ views viral to boost us up to the level we need to be at. And every click, view, and comment on the video gets us that much closer!
Support The Literary Mercenary
If you want to see me produce more work, consider some of the following options!
- The Azukail Games YouTube Channel (where I contribute video content)
- The A.L.I.C.E. Files (where many dramatized versions of my stories can be heard for free)
And if you happen to have some spare dosh lying around, and you want to be sure my supply doesn't run low, consider become a Patreon patron, or leaving a tip by Buying Me a Ko-Fi!
Also, if you're curious about how to write for tabletop RPGs, don't forget to check out my show Tabletop Mercenary, which you can find on both the Azukail Games channel above!
Like, Follow, and Come Back Again!
That's all for this week's Business of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my sci-fi dystopian thriller Old Soldiers, the Hardboiled Cat series about a mystery solving Maine Coon in Marked Territory and Painted Cats, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!
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