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When did you first get the idea to interview indie authors
and make it into a book?
To answer that question fully, you
need a little bit of background about me and my wife Claire. At the beginning
of 2012 Claire and I were inspired to produce our first books, and began
researching all there was online and in bookstores about self publishing. We knew
from asking around that our original book idea would not be picked up by
"traditional" publishers ... the market was too small. However we had
our own email list to market to from a website we had been running for three
years. So self-publishing was the way to go. By the end of February, the book
was ready to go. Claire had written it, and I had laid it out for print (CreateSpace)
and for Kindle too. So we hit "go" and began publicizing the book to
our list and on our websites. To our amazement, it was a HUGE success! So we
rapidly put together a second book, for publication in May. Again, this book
was the result of years of research on our websites. And again, the same thing
happened ... another HUGE success!
At around that time we began to
wonder what other self-published authors were doing. How they were going about
writing, publishing and marketing their own books. We wanted to know what made
an author a runaway success. We've always believed in finding out what
successful people actually do, and trying to discover what their
"secrets" are so that we can learn to do the same. So we started
compiling a list of the top self-published authors on the market at the moment,
and we began digging deep online to find out what was working.
Like all good ideas, the book
"Interviews with Indie Authors" was the combination of this research,
people suddenly asking Claire for her own advice on self-pub, and us
remembering reading a great book called "Conversations with
Millionaires" that was inspirational to us maybe ten years ago (there
aren't any new ideas ...!). The idea to interview top indie authors and put the
results into a book was born. So we set about putting together an interview to
send out to our top 100 list. We knew the result would be an amazing book
because it filled a need that we ourselves had.
Was it an enjoyable process? Did you run into any problems?
As you can imagine, keeping track of
what turned out to be over 100 new contacts was quite a large organizational
job. I enjoyed sending out emails to these amazing authors, asking for their
help in the book, and trying to convince them that I wasn't crazy! I was
genuinely blown away by how helpful the world of self-publishing is. In the end
we got 34 amazing full interview responses back, and a 34% response is pretty
great in my opinion. Even more astonishing is that the majority of the authors
who responded were from those near
the TOP of our list. It definitely seems that successful people are the most
helpful too... probably a lesson to be learned for all of us! Of course, there
were many who got back to me saying that they were incredibly busy with their
next book, and I completely understand that... after all, they didn't know me
at all. I'm so glad that the interviews we got cover so many different genres
and give so many incredible insights. They really show what works and what
doesn't work. I've read and re-read
all of the interviews many times now and I still see new things each time.
Was it enjoyable? Absolutely. I've
got to chat with some amazing people, and have now gone on to discover their
books for myself. It was also our first joint publishing project as husband and
wife. We've managed not to kill each other!
Did we run into any problems? Not
huge ones! The trickiest part was keeping track of authors, their photos and
their book covers. It really wouldn't do to have the wrong photo next to an
author's name. It seems that we've
managed to keep it all together! Other than that, no, there were not really any
problems. All thirty-four of the authors have been really forthcoming and
helpful throughout the process. It is an amazing feeling to see someone who is
so well known Tweeting about our book, or mentioning it on their website. Thank
you to each one of you!
Do you have plans to publish more books on self-publishing
in the near future?
Claire is really busy blogging about
her findings about self-publishing on the Interviews with Indie
Authors blog and this is where our focus is at the moment. We don't have
any plans on publishing any more books on self-publishing for a while, partly
because there are loads of "How
To" books on the market at the moment, and I find that they go out of date
so quickly. The entire world of self-publishing is changing so rapidly that any
steps you write down now won't be useful in a year's time. In a way, that is
why "Interviews with Indie Authors" is special - the tips and ideas are
not tied to any specific technology or time. The ideas will always be useful
for someone who wants to publish their own book.
So, for now, Claire is concentrating on her next self-published Tudor history book project, and I'm running along behind doing the layout and setting up websites for it all. It keeps us busy!
If there is anything else you would like to add, please do!
As I've said above, we'd like to
take the opportunity to send out a MASSIVE thank you to all the authors
involved, and especially to you Theresa. Everyone was so giving in both their
time and the advice they shared. Their stories are inspiring and motivating,
and will definitely help other authors.
As a final comment, we decided early on that since we didn't write the interviews ourselves, it was only right that there was a charity element to the book. That's why we are giving 50% of royalties to charity. The money is being split between two charities – ROPE (Relief for Oppressed People Everywhere) and Goal for the Gambia. We hope that in some small way, those who are not as well of as we are will benefit from this work.
We've set up a page on the website with links to all the retailers: http://www.interviewswithindieauthors.com/buy-the-book/
The Amazon link to the book is HERE
Thanks so much for this opportunity
to talk about the process behind the book.
Tim Ridgway
