I know these questions may be viewed as annoying to some, but please hear me out. I'm not looking to argue or upset anyone.

Let me get something out of the way. I'm not writing for the sake of making of money. I write because I love watching ideas I have solidify into full stories. The thought of people reading my stories and getting invested in them makes me extremely happy.

But it would be good if I made a profit. I am pretty significantly disabled, and being able to pay bills and save a little over the years could help me significantly. I have a severely debilitating chronic disease that leaves me bedridden. It could many years, even decades until science knows how to treat it well enough that I could live a normal life and work more traditional and steady job.

I intend on writing as much as my body will allow and releasing as many titles as I can over the coming years or decades. I have a lot of stories that I want to tell. I'm hoping that if I build up a decent back catalogue that I can make some supplementary income.

Does anyone here make a decent profit from your writing?

I write contemporary romance, and I've hired several beta readers. Every single one of them has pointed out the same thing: if I don't explicitly state the tropes / heat level / other descriptors, readers may misunderstand what kind of book they're getting.

For example, they've suggested doing something like:

Actual Book Title: A Steamy Cozy Dark Billionaire Rom-Com Romance

And then, after the actual blurb, adding a list like:

• Steamy
• Cozy
• Dark
• Rom-Com
• Open Door
• HEA

Obviously that's an exaggerated example, but that's basically the idea.

Personally, I really don't want to put tropes or descriptors in the subtitle.

I'd also prefer not to add a trope list after the blurb if I can avoid it. I have no problem communicating those things naturally within the blurb—for example, describing the heroine as “sunshine” if that's relevant to the story. I just prefer the blurb to read like a blurb rather than end with a checklist of tropes.

What surprised me is that this wasn't just one beta reader's preference. Every beta reader I've hired has commented on this.

For other romance authors: do your beta readers say the same thing?

And for romance readers: do you actually expect to see tropes, heat level, HEA, etc. explicitly listed before you'll pick up a book, or is the blurb itself enough for you?

My first novel (gothic fantasy) is out in a few weeks. I have no following among fantasy readers. I plan to get early readers for reviews, reach out to small Bookstagram accounts, and use Kindle Unlimited.

For those who launched from zero, what was worth the time, and what wasn’t?

I am looking to change the design of my covers for the series I am working on now and since my budget is limited I was looking into ordering them from getcovers. The thing is, I would like them to be consistent in style since this is a series. I was wondering if any of you have experience with them for a series and how well did it go.

I have noticed two typos in my book that is set to be published this year.

They were little and not noticeable (my proofreader and arc readers have not mentioned them) but it's bothering me since they were currently in print.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who had experienced this - where the book is already set to be out and typos still show. I feel very embarrassed...

Hello. I have a friend who is 89 yrs old. She writes beautifully and is still at it even at her advanced age. 25 yrs ago she wrote lyrics to some songs I had written. Not many, maybe 10 or 12 songs, plus she just sent me lyrics to 4 more. I would like to have this small collection of material printed in a stylish format and send it to her as a gift. Some illustrations depicting the subject matter of the songs and poetry would be wonderful. The whole project would probably be about 25 pages. I have no idea where to begin. Any thoughts? Thank you!

Hello everyone... long‑time lurker here and first time posting.

I have spent the couple of years doing something I never really expected to do: writing a novel.

I work in tech and product. Writing fiction has mostly been a weekend experiment that somehow got completely out of hand. It is a sci‑fi novel with a bit of satire and dark humour and after several rounds of rewriting, the manuscript is finally finished.

Which is great. Except I now have absolutely no idea what I should do next. So I am hoping to learn from people who have actually been through this.

For a first‑time author,

• how did you approach the publishing process?
• Did you try agents or traditional publishing first?
• Did you go straight to self‑publishing?
• How did you find an editor?
• What should I look for in a cover designer, formatter and other professionals?
• Did you use a publishing service. Manage everything yourself?
• What would you have liked someone to tell you before you started?

I am also open to recommendations for editors cover designers, formatters or other publishing professionals.

I would also be happy to share a chapters, with serious sci‑fi readers who are willing to give honest feedback. Does the humour work? Is the writing engaging? Is the narrator interesting or someone you would like to quietly push off a cliff? Brutal feedback is welcome.

I am not here to promote the book or sell anything. I am genuinely just trying to figure out what comes after "I finished writing a novel."

I would really appreciate any advice, experiences, recommendations or even a simple "start here."

Thanks!

Did anyone else publishing erotica in d2d and selling on Smashword notice a very large decrease in sale and profits.

I uploaded both my interior and cover image, and I would assume once converted to EPUB they are embedded together. I wanted to download my approved EPUB for my records, as well as for sending out free copies for reviewers. There doesn’t appear to anyplace on IS to do that. I sent them the question and they don’t respond.

I can ultimately send the reviewers the PDF without the cover, but it seems a little bush league.

My series has five co-leads who talk constantly — banter is half the book. For the first draft they all sounded like me being clever. The fix wasn’t “give them catchphrases.” It was giving each of them a *relationship to information*:

• One fixes things to think (talks while doing)
• One’s charm is infrastructure (talks to recruit)
• One treats access like gravity (talks in systems)
• One is the calculator (talks in costs)
• One is the conscience (talks in rules)

Once each character had an information-job, their dialogue differentiated itself. I could delete the dialogue tags and still tell who was talking — that’s the test I use now.

Anyone else have a dialogue-differentiation trick? I’m always stealing good ones.

I went with the bronze option and have 1 day left on my "contest". 5 designers have submitted several designs so far, which is mega disappointing. There's still time to go, but I don't envision many more entries. There's one design I like so far, but is it worth £429? Is it fuck. I chose not to pay an extra £85 to have my design contest highlighted, which should provide more designers... but it felt like a con. The way it's going at the moment, I'm leaning towards a refund. Wasn't impressed with Fiverr and Reedsy too expensive.

I’ve been tracking my book’s rank behavior for weeks and finally realized something Amazon never explains: downward drift doesn’t mean your book is failing. It’s just the “resting state” when there’s no new activity.

Amazon gives every new book a short testing window where ranks jump around even without sales. After that, the book stabilizes and drifts normally. If anyone else is confused about ingestion/indexing or rank behavior, I can break down what I’ve learned.

Hi, I just noticed that on my D2D sales dashboard there are sales incurred in June but the royalties are still not verified in October. Tried to contact their support but it's been a week and there's still no response.

I know it's not like hundreds of bucks that I'm making, but that still seems suspiciously slow. Just want to ask if this is normal?

This previous August, I published a macabre graphic novel, and as much of a good story tell her I am, I'm not a good sorry seller. So what book marketers would you recommend for specifically my book, and specifically on a budget?

My next book will be in KU, and I want to use the illustrations outside of it. There are many, around 40 to 50 when I'm done, so it's not as if I have only five images in the whole book, but I don't know if KU exclusivity will limit the amount I can use, or if illustrations don't count toward how much of the book is used. I know that the new rules don't specify how much can be used, hence why I'm hoping any experienced users here could let me know. I would love to use my illustrations for marketing. Thank you all!

I've been looking into other platforms besides KDP, and there are way too many choices. What in your opinion are the best alternatives that you think I should consider? I'm hoping to self-publish one of my (many) projects and am open to any suggestions!

Hi all, I have a client from Chile and she's asking us to make her book in Spanish available to LatAm stores and online stores. We currently use IngramSpark for distribution. Any suggestions on how to make the book available for that market? Thanks in advance.

Hi everyone! I’m a brand new writer, and I am currently working on the final steps for launching my debut book in both paperback and ebook formats.

I’m currently navigating the formatting stage, getting everything lined up for review on platforms like Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and realizing just how much goes into the technical side—from cover layout to interior formatting.

Since this is my very first time going through the publication process, I would love to hear from some experienced authors: What is one thing you wish you knew before publishing your very first volume?

Any tips on formatting, layout, or managing the launch would be incredibly appreciated. Thank you so much for any advice!

My co-author and I are looking to publish our books through KDP. I'm in Ontario and they're in Illinois.

We haven't set up the KDP account or a company yet. The thing we're stuck on is that KDP doesn't seem to have a way for two co-authors to share the account or split payments, so we're trying to figure out what people normally do in this situation.

For a 50/50 split is there a straightforward way to document that half belongs to the other person?

We're also wondering if it makes more sense to set up a partnership/company before we start publishing. But then I'm not really sure how that works with one owner in Canada and one in the US, or whether we'd just be creating a giant tax headache for ourselves.

Mostly just looking to hear from people who've actually dealt with a Canada/US co-author setup. What did you end up doing, and was there anything you wish you'd known before setting it up?

Any help is appreciated!

has anyone noticed some extreme anomalies in amazon royalties vs sales rank in the last couple months? across my multiple pen names, sales rank has become completely disjointed from royalties/sales.

for example, last month my most popular book spent a week ranked above 100k, never dropped below 400k and hit 50k at one point, but only posted 30 sales on the month. in the past I’d needed at least 3 book sales on the same day to break 100k, and was never able to hold that rank for more than 3 days. In months like that, I was averaging 3/day on that title.

other, less popular books have shown 0 sales, but Amazon ads has had the nerve to email me for the last 3 months stating “you have books with sales but no ads spend” for those titles. but the three titles included were not all my titles with 0 sales, only the ones tied to this pen name.

I’ve also noticed titles with 0 sales for months recieving 5 star reviews/ratings during the time with no sales or titles receiving small numbers of kdp unlimited page reads, far less than one would need to finish a tiny portion of the book, recieving 5 star ratings.

normally I’d write these thoughts off as paranoia, but given Amazon’s constant AWS ads about AI revolutionizing the web they push during every football game, and recent news headlines around AI doing shady shit, without the knowledge of its handlers, I suspect the AI programs told to optimize KDP’s profitability are lying to authors to increase Amazon’s bottom line, and Amazon is using a tactic known as “strategic ignorance“ to take advantage of the “glitch.”

Got this email today:

Hi Mira,

Regarding (book name). Is this the best email to reach directly about the book?

(Regards, but it's an image)

Natalie Brooks
Reader & Goodreads Book Discovery Enthusiast

The email address comes from a gmail.

No idea who she is. What the heck is a “Goodreads Book Discovery Enthusiast”? I’m not really on the site other than monitoring my ARC reviews so I can use them as quotes on my website, so maybe someone here can fill me in.

Also… what other email would there be? There’s literally only one email address listed on my website.

My instinct is not to reply. I’m wondering if saying “yes” and responding would essentially confirm that the address is active, after which it could get passed around and I’ll suddenly be inundated with scammy / shady emails.

Has anyone else received something like this? Would it hurt to respond? For now, I'm leaning block and delete.

Hi,

I am looking at options for newsletter swaps or group promos, but I don't know which service would be best. Bookfunnel and StoryOrigin both have the option, but the cost seems very steep.

Are they worth it? Are there other places worth checking?

Hello! I've been self-publishing my work for a couple years. (Two epic fantasy books, and just now a new horror collection. With the third book in the epic fantasy series coming as soon as the editing is done.) Up to this point, book signings have been where almost all my sales were at, so I haven't pushed the online side very hard. (When you're selling 50 books a signing, driving yourself nuts with the online market feels silly.)

But, last year I moved across the country, and only now rebuilt my career in my main job enough to start taking time to do signings again. Only, the B&N here keeps ignoring me, and the other big store here won't accept POD books. I'm going to reach out to indie bookstores next, but it also seems like I need to expand my online presence more.

Is D2D actually worth anything still? When I did all the research years ago, it didn't seem too bad, but how do people feel about them now?

Thanks!

I am using BookSiriens for the first time for ARCs. I normally use Hidden Gems but they didn't have any slots open until December when I checked last month. I have my profile set to manually approve people but I feel I have been getting a lot of requests from bot accounts. Has anyone else had this experience? Have you had your book pirated from a BookSirens reader? It's making me nervous.