PART TWO: HOW TO BECOME A BEST-SELLING AUTHOR IN 20 YEARS OR LESS

Today’s guest is New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Olivia Cunning with part two of her special two part series on finding success as a self-publishing author. Part one, covering her early attempts at publication, is here.

 Part Two: My Own Brand of Insanity

So my first traditionally published book, a rock star erotic romance, was having a little success. I was far from quitting that day job. With my second book, I started to gain some popularity. With the third, I hit the USA Today bestseller list for the first time. Then all of a sudden, the erotic romance genre exploded with the success of Fifty Shades of Grey. People were looking for more sexy books to read. That’s when my career really took off.

It was also at this time that the self-publishing craze took hold and I decided to try my hand at it. I started with something a little different, a time travel erotic romance series (Lovers’ Leap) where the lead characters travel through time quantum-leap-style and fix the sex lives of people in the past. I love the premise. I love the characters. I love everything about that series, except that I don’t have time to write more of it. And it pretty much sells nada. Even with my best-selling-name on the series, people don’t buy it. Why? Because I wasn't being insane enough. I needed to do the same thing over again. Lovers’ Leap was just too different from my norm. (This is a good lesson for novice authors).

Since the Lovers’ Leap series flopped—and continues to flail like a fish out of water—I started writing a different rock star series with a shorter, serialized format, One Night with Sole Regret. And… that’s when it happened for me. When I could finally make a career out of writing and make good money doing what I dreamed of doing.

My first two One Night with Sole Regret books did very well because fans of my Sinners series were waiting for my traditional publisher to get its shit together—I mean, publish the next book. Because Sole Regret was less expensive than my trad pubbed books, I picked up new readers. Many of those went back to read Sinners. Then my fourth Sinners book hit the NY Times best-seller list and my third Sole Regret came out at about the same time and the two releases fed off each other. A delicious vicious cycle. After a few months of smashing success, I quit the day job and started running my own self-publishing business. This is where the late night, sleep deprived, sugar high induced rants that Sia “enjoys” come in.

Self-publishing is not as easy as I thought it would be. Especially since I’m a bit of—cough a complete cough—control freak. I need to do everything myself. If the book doesn't get done and I spell misspell “mispell” and the cover is stupid and I released it on a day when five big names in my genre also released, it all comes back on me. I’m responsible. I can’t blame anyone but me.

So what does this kind of responsibility look like?

I write the book. I edit. I rewrite. I edit. I send to beta readers. I rewrite. I send to my editor. I rewrite. I edit. I re-edit. I re-edit some more. Notice all those I’s in there? And how little writing is involved now?

Okay, the book has been edited and re-edited dozens of times, I can finally collect my cash, right? WRONG! I still have to create the cover, format, upload, distribute to various sites, and market and promote, and market, and market, and promote. I also have to answer reader questions, which come at me through social media and email and my blog and other people’s blogs and who knows how much I miss. I try to interact with fans online while avoiding the negativity that seems to slap me in the face when I least expect it. I never take a day off. I might not write every single day, but I’m doing something related to self-publishing all the time. And don’t get me started on the pain that is bookkeeping.

Traditional publishing is difficult to break into, but it does take a lot of pressure off an author. Someone else does most of those “I” tasks. So that’s why when I was offered a cushy advance for my next series, I said, “Thanks, but no thanks, I’m going to self-publish it.” Say what? You read that correctly, after spending twenty years in pursuit of traditional publishing, now that I’m in a position to get good, guaranteed advances, I turn them down.

Do I regret leaving traditional publishing behind to pursue self-publishing full time? Not at all. I like having control, but it’s a lot of work and it isn't easy.

So, have you figured out the secret yet? On how to become a best-selling self-published author? I’m here to share all my knowledge and expertise, right? So here it is:

The only one who can guarantee your success in self-publishing is… no one. It isn’t guaranteed. Some of it is working hard and producing the best book you can write. Some of it is knowing how to market and gaining reader attention and maintaining reader loyalty. And most of it is pure dumb luck. If I knew how to ensure luck, I’d share the secret, or maybe I’d charge for it, but I wouldn't keep it to myself. I’m baffled that so many authors self-publish their debut novel—without twenty years of rejection angst to back it—and not only succeed, they flourish. That’s amazing! I wish I could have done that. That’s who you should seek advice from. Not me. My method of success isn't a method at all. It’s madness.

So you too can become a best-selling self-published author like me! But I can’t tell you how. Every journey is different. You have to find your own path. And maybe you do have to be a little insane and keep persisting at the same thing—that thing you believe in, that book you wrote, that dream—and expect amazing results. 

Because only when I fed my insanity did I finally find success.

Even Sinners need love... 

When Sinners tie the knot, things don't always go as planned.

Combining her love for romantic fiction and rock 'n roll, Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance centered around rock musicians. Her latest release, Sinners at the Altar, is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers.

PART ONE: HOW TO BECOME A BEST-SELLING AUTHOR IN 20 YEARS OR LESS

Today’s guest is New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Olivia Cunning. This is the first part of a special two-part series on finding success as a self-publishing author. Part two will run on Monday, March 17^th. 

We hear so many great success stories in writing and from the outside it often looks so easy. But here’s Olivia to tell us about the truth about becoming an “overnight” sensation.

Part One: The Drawer Books

Sia asked me to talk about my experiences self-publishing. I've known her since before I was published. She’s seen all my ups and downs. Apparently, she thinks my late night, sleep deprived, sugar high induced rants are hilarious. Thanks, Sia. I’ll have you know my angst is real.

Back in the olden days—yes, the early 1990s are the olden days—I read a Silhouette Desire book by Nora Roberts. It wasn't the first romance book I’d ever read, but it was the book that made me want to write my own romance novel. Not because I thought I could write better than Nora-freakin-Roberts, but because I wanted to be like her when I grew up. This was before Nora Roberts was one of the biggest names in the romance genre, but even then I was blown away by her writing style.

I was nineteen years old, in a bad marriage, with a baby on the way, no college education, and my only job experience was in fast food. And I thought, hey, I’ll be a writer! How hard can it be? Don’t answer that. I was young and naive.

This was the “olden days.” There were no e-books. No Internet. Self-publishing consisted of paying out of your own pocket to have 1000 copies of your book printed. You would then stand in a parking lot and beg strangers to buy your book. If you were lucky, your mom bought a copy and used it as a coaster or something, pointing it out to visitors—“that’s by my kid, the writer”—which met with a lot of ceiling gazing and an occasional guilt-sale. So self-publishing never crossed my mind. I didn't have money to print copies of my book, and I’m much too shy and afraid of being punched in the face to annoy strangers in parking lots. So I went the traditional route.

I wrote my masterpiece—cough tripe cough—and when it was finished (with no editing), I saved it on my 5.25” floppy disk and took it to my second cousin’s house to use her dot matrix printer. I was too poor to buy my own printer. Hell, I was too poor to buy paper to put in the damned thing. Luckily, my cousin had a spare, yellowed ream. I looked through publisher marketplace books to find submission guidelines. I sent (via snail mail—there was no email in the olden days) a synopsis and three chapters to Harlequin and Silhouette. Those were the only romance publishers that would take unsolicited manuscripts from authors without agents. Then I waited. And waited. After ten thousand years (so it was more like ten months), Harlequin sent me a letter and requested the full manuscript. Which is good—because it gave me hope. And bad—because it gave me hope. So back to the cousin’s house to print out the entire manuscript and rip off more printer feed edges and separate each page along the bottom perforations. Oy! (Excuse me for a second. *goes to hug laser printer*) I borrowed money from my grandma for postage and sent off the book with big dreams for myself and my son. This was going to change our lives.

And…

You know this is coming, right?

It was rejected with a form letter.

Ugh. I was gutted. Devastated. Destroyed. I was never going to be an author, much less make a living at it. So I went to college. And worked my ass off. And became a science teacher. But my dream was still to be a fiction author. I never stopped writing. I wrote after I put the kid to bed. I plotted during my commute. I wrote on weekends. I plotted some more while in the shower. I wrote during vacations. But I wasn't writing romance. If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, I was the opposite of insane. I tried writing every genre I could as I attempted to find my niche. I could write. I just didn't know what to write.

I tried my hand at another series romance for Silhouette. The manuscript was rejected and shoved in a drawer.

I wrote a fantasy novel five hundred pages long. Agents wouldn't touch it. TOR, who also accepted unsolicited manuscripts at the time, rejected it. Shoved in a drawer.

I wrote a medical thriller. Rejected and shoved in a drawer.

I wrote a YA science fiction novel. Rejected and shoved in a drawer. Removed from drawer and entered into a contest. Lost contest and shoved back in drawer.

I wrote a paranormal romance. Rejected and shoved in drawer. Removed from drawer and entered into a contest. Lost contest and shoved back in drawer.

I wrote an erotic romance about rock stars. And…

Tada!

That manuscript and the rest of the five book Sinners on Tour series was picked up by a small publisher.

The first book was released in October 2010. Finally, after 20 years of trying, I was published. I could go to a bookstore and see my book on a shelf. I could do a book-signing and have half a dozen people show up and have a customer ask the bookstore owner when they were going to have good writers like Stephenie Meyer do a signing. True story. When the customer asked that, she was standing directly in front of me, my book in her hand and her nose turned up. But my first five fans, my family, and Sia showed up at that very first signing, which made me feel a little better about not being a good writer like Stephenie Meyer.

At first, my rock star erotic romance didn't do so well. It did okay for a first book. People discovered it slowly. Very slowly. So I was published, but I wasn't making a living at it. Not by a long shot.

• So how did I finally manage to quit my day job?

Come back on Monday for Part Two: My Own Brand of Insanity

                                                                                                                                                        

Combining her love for romantic fiction and rock 'n roll, Olivia Cunning writes erotic romance centered around rock musicians. Her latest release, Sinners at the Altar, is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other retailers.