BookAwesome March Edition

[renegadefolkhero]

Renegade Industries is rebranding our monthly chats.

I'm retiring several of my pen names. I have a few books left to publish, and I had the idea I just wanted to push those babies out and be done with it.

I was on the verge of yeet-publishing my next book--quite literally about to hit the button--when I came to my senses and asked, "Renaldo, what the hell are you doing, man?"

• The cover is terrible! Not because it's DIY, but because you can't tell a damn thing about what kind of story it is.
• The title is horrible! I'm still not telling you what type of book it is! Title and subtitle are top priority keywords and I'm not even using them right. What fresh hell even is this bullshit?
• ZERO SOCIAL PROOF? farts into the room and closes the door, so everyone can suffer accordingly
• Didn't tell my newsletter? No prep? It was gonna be a secret, silent yeet? that was the strat? WHAT TH EFUCK REN

I'm not even giving this weird little book a chance. And people need this book. They really do. This is in the public's best interest.

0 I've decided to roll back whatever I thought I learned and start from ground zero. I know nothing. Let's learn about selling books.

1 So I did a cover comp grid and was UNSURPRISED to see my off-market object cover was so dang off market it wasn't even on the same planet. And I highly recommend doing a comp grid, even if you don't really know what you're comping, because it gave me a much better picture than scrolling through the listings. Most MM fantasy romance covers ideally feature a couple, and if not then a hot "oooh he gay" fantasy dude, and my cover was neither.

Couples covers are kinda hard to DIY in this genre, so I found a hot man with a smoldering gaze, which is the next best thing. I also realized my super flourishy typography was way too much, and toned it down with that industry classic, Cinzel. (bless u Natanael Gama, and I sincerely hope you realize how many indies you gave wings <3)

New cover cost me 66 cents in stock. It's SO MUCH Better. Ugh. I cannot believe I almost did that.

2 I worked the shit out of that title.

You know why there are so many boring titles like The Alpha's Mate? Because title keywords have more weight than any other metadata, and if Amazon's sales algorithm understands what your book actually is it will try to sell it to people who like that thing, so you want to give it as much info as possible. Also, coming up with titles is hard.

I try to strike a balance between memorable and informative. None of my books have boilerplate titles, but I work hard to signal the book is super gay and kinda weird because--and I cannot emphasize this enough--I do NOT want to surprise readers with something out of left field they didn't sign on for.

3 completely reworked the blurb, which left out like HALF THE SELLING POINTs i honestly have no idea what I've been smoking the past month. truly embarrassing.

4 God help me I'm doing ARCs. I'm doing them. grabs a random Booksprout reader and stares intently into her eyes We're fucking doing this Susan join my goddamn team or else.

I was gonna try a new service For Science but HiddenGems has like a 3 month wait list D: so uh. Alright then nevermind. Maybeee next time.

5 Wouldn't you know it this book is too short?

I do this thing where once I realize where the story's going, and I've got it all worked out, I decide I'm done with it, and I wrap and put a bow on it post-haste. Don't do that. It leaves loose ends, and does the story a disservice. I've gotten better at this by enforcing a marination period after the first draft ends. When I return, I see where I need to expand and do that.

Well what do you know, I'm doing a final editing pass with epub on reader and all the lose ends start bonking me on the head. Like dominoes, bonk bonk bonk. So now I'm back to work, charting the book and figuring out where best to add story. So this book, which was supposed to be released a few weeks ago, is now coming out.............. whenever. Who knows. Two months? The things I do for the reading public.

6 RENALDO WHAT ELSE

well gentle friends let me tell you: not much. I don't know ads, and I don't think there's a good promo strategy for this situation. I am open to trying new things, but since I am retiring this pen it doesn't make sense to implement a longtail strategy that requires more books for momentum. If I was gonna experiment with Tiktok, threads, or Insta, I'd want to do it with a nice fresh sparkly new pen name. Same for establishing a DIY ARC pipeline. So idk. I'm digging around a bit, trying to see what I could try or learn with this one.

MOOENY

In other news all my platforms but Google Play Books were up this month, and I made some money. Alright! I don't know how much because my reporting software is wonky but should be over $500, which is plenty for ARC stuff and whatever else I end up doing for this next release.