I have been getting a lot of questions on my Youtube channel, so I've started to compile them into a weekly roundup! You can also ask questions for next week via this post. Obviously many of the questions this week were simple writing questions, but you can ask anything!
If you could go back and do it (this refers to my writing 40 books in 4 years video) again would you? Was this a net positive for your overall goals?
Yes, definitely. I was enjoying myself quite a bit for most of it, before the burnout hit. And I had a few very good years financially. Some unexpected events came up and I felt like we needed to move very quickly, and thanks to the money I was making and saving at this time I was able to do what needed to be done.
Some if it is luck, though. One of my series just accidentally hit a trend right at the perfect time and a decent chunk of my income came from that. I also had some flop badly. If I had missed the mark on that one series it would have had a lot less reward. On the other hand, my fairy tales have been perennially popular and if I'd had one more series that kept selling over a 7 year period instead of just hitting a quick trend, I would have done even better.
So, there's definitely a crapshoot element to it.
So of all the marketing attempts that you did over the years, what do you think you saw the most success from?
Amazon ads were great for a while, almost all that was necessary, but there was an obvious problem that it was a way for Amazon to take back some of your royalties as ad dollars and the more people using it, the more expensive it would become, which is what happened. I have a video on this planned, but in short, the easiest way at this point is probably to do as many of the following as you can handle: Instagram and TikTok in the leadup to build a review team and do a release push, then Amazon and Facebook ads on release, and for later momentum, mailing list and BookFunnel swaps, Freebooksy, Bookbub if you can get it (easier wide but I would start in KU for many genres). I would not spend much if any time or money on paid influencer tours, takeovers, swag.
What book do you most recommend for writing craft?
Some that I really got a lot out of when I was in the deepest craft trenches were Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and Writing the Breakout Novel. Word Painting for making your writing more richly descriptive, Take Off Your Pants really helped me improve at outlines, and 7 Figure Fiction is great for anyone writing commercial/genre fiction.
Do you have any advice on Pseudonyms? I want to write a variety of genres and styles, but have been advised by friends that if I'm going to do that I should link each genre to a different name.
If the genres have a decent amount of crossover audience, I would keep them all together. If they are very different audiences, OR age or heat levels (like middle grade sci-fi vs sci-fi with adult characters swearing a lot), definitely different names. I adopted a pen name as soon as I started putting any sex in my books as I didn't want to have that with my YA, but ever since then I've kept it all together.
What is the reading order for the Hidden Lands books?
The Cursed Soul trilogy first (The Sorcerer's Concubine is the first book), then Doll Girl Meets Dead Guy. (UNLESS you happen to prefer cozier reads, then I would just start with Doll Girl.) The Broken Queen, which releases this spring, will come before these but it's kind of an outlier and isn't super connected to the others. It's necessary to set up a lot of things that will happen...way later. But besides that one, I'm planning to write my way through in order.
Any other questions? Ask away!
xo,
Lidiya
Hi Lidiya - love that you had a Moog (sticker, I think?) in one video along with a Devo t-shirt. My Moog t-shirt is one of my prized possessions (along with my Roland System 100M one) - I'm a total analogue synth nerd - is that one of your hobbies / passions too, or was it just a random purchase? A couple of more serious, writing-related questions: 1) Which of your books would you say is the most 'Cottagecore'? and 2) Which platforms do you prefer self-publishing on (and why, if you feel inclined to share)? Thanks :-)
Just popping in to let you know that your youtube channel (and substack) found me while editing my second book, that is probably as hard to market like the first one. I find your videos very inspiring to keep on writing the stories that want to be told and not necessarily those that turn out to be a huge hit. Writing is my side-kick and I will probably always work the 9-5 job as I am way to scared to live the creative life fulltime, but I did have some huge doubts about even trying to publish.
I do hope that your Hidden World books will get all the attention from the audience to keep you flowing. And I will definitely give them a try (as soon as my tbr is a bit smaller).