When Cindy L. Sell started as a freshman at Kansas State University, she had her sights set on a career as a tiger conservationist. “I wanted to work with the big kitties,” she says. Today, this mother of two young boys is starting to build a career that embraces a different passion: writing.
Cindy, who grew up writing Pokémon and Star Wars fan fiction, began by publishing the epic fantasy Remnants of a Scarlet Flame.
Remnants evolved out of Dungeons & Dragons gaming and world-building during COVID-19. Cindy was new to D&D, and spent a lot of time getting up to speed on the worlds others created. She didn’t like that, so she got to work. “I decided to make my own world,” she says. First came the D&D world, and then, six months later, she decided to turn her world into her first novel, Remnants.
In the weeks leading up to the Remnants launch, Cindy says her Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) team helped her reach 120 Goodreads reviews with a 4.5 average rating. A week after launch, she had sold more than 200 copies of her book.
What was her launch plan? How did she execute it? Read our interview with Cindy to find out.
Can you list the key marketing tactics you used for your launch?
- Applied for a BookBub New Releases for Less feature to drive sales from BookBub’s Fantasy-reader audience
- Signed up for the American Booksellers Association’s (ABA) Advance Access program to drive independent bookstore sales
- Registered for the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Library Market E-Blasts program to drive library sales
- Submitted to Locus Magazine for editorial reviews
- Signed up for Voracious Readers Only to drive reader reviews
- Used BookSirens, BookFunnel, and social media to build my ARC team
What worked well?
New Releases for Less and the ABA Advance Access netted me the most sales.
What was your pricing strategy?
I felt $3.99 was good value for my professionally edited and designed ebook. I haven’t run discounts on it yet because I priced it pretty low to start.
How did you learn about book marketing?
I watched other successful indie authors on socials, mostly. I’ve been lurking on forums (Fantasy Critique and Support Group and r/selfpublish, for example) for a while, learning all I can from them (both what to do, and what not to do in some cases), and talking privately with other indies who forged the path ahead of me. It’s been a ton of trial and error, and I still have a long way to go in terms of actually being profitable. But I believe in my writing, and I believe in the product I’ve created, so I’m just going to keep writing and experimenting until I find the method that works best for me.
Can you give me the step-by-step on building your ARC team?
I started planning my ARC team about three and a half months before launch.
I made a Google form with questions that screened for my ideal readers based on favored tropes, genres, and whether they could commit to reading a 450-page novel by launch day. I also prepared a few graphics and Reels to advertise the ARC request on social media, featuring the book cover and featured tropes.
Then I sent out the request first on Facebook in several ARC reader groups, aiming to post roughly once a week in each group. I had to pay attention to the times of day I saw the most traffic on my posts and the Google form. I also advertised a PR box with a signed physical copy of the book and other goodies as an incentive for signing up for an ARC. I sent out a total of 12 boxes to the most active bookish accounts that signed up, asking them to post videos of their unboxings and reviews as they were able.
A couple of weeks after I started, I noticed sign-ups and engagement dropped off pretty significantly, so I changed up my ad copy and swapped out my full three-paragraph book blurb with a snappier, three-sentence one. I saw an uptick in sign-ups before they tapered off again. Then I went back to the full blurb, tried a new ARC request image, and kept rotating things until I stopped seeing sign-ups at all.
I also tried posting on Threads and Instagram with the same strategy, varying the times of day, days of the week, and type of post (Reel, Story, etc.) I used. My most successful ARC request went out on Threads, and it doubled my number of sign-ups practically overnight. I still don’t know why it was different, other than it was the very first post I made on the platform after signing up. My guess is it just caught the algorithm at exactly the right time.
While requesting sign-ups on socials, I joined BookSirens to catch any of their readers and ended up with nine sign-ups and seven reviews. I will say the quality of a few of those BookSirens reviews was outstanding, and I connected with a few bloggers who really enjoyed my debut, so in that regard, I’d say it was worth it.
Originally I was directing my readers from social media over to BookSirens to receive their ARCs. I sent emails in batches to my sign-ups, directing them to the BookSirens link, as well as a link to a private Facebook group I made just for my ARC and beta readers.
I set up a reader magnet (a short story that pairs perfectly with Remnants) and started using BookFunnel about four weeks pre-launch. I took this opportunity to email my list again, thank anyone who’d already left a review (there were a few dozen), and let them know both the magnet and the ARC were now available to download through BookFunnel. I even reclaimed a few ARC readers who’d chosen not to download from BookSirens this way, too.
Then I sent out reminder emails two weeks before, the day before, and the day of launch thanking everyone who reviewed the book, and asking any who hadn’t yet to please do so. I included links to my review pages on Amazon, Goodreads, and Barnes & Noble.
When do you do your most productive writing?
I squeeze it in any time I can.
What’s your best way to take a break from writing?
I take my Harley for a spin around the lake.
What book have you read recently that you’d recommend?
A Distortion of Fate by M.J. Lindsey – it’s mind-blowing.
Cindy L. Sell’s Remnants of a Scarlet Flame is available as an ebook on Amazon and in paperback and hardback at many print retailers including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Thriftbooks, and Books-a-Million.
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Click to tweet: Interesting insight into this author’s debut launch! She goes step-by-step into exactly how she grew her ARC team and reviews before release: https://bit.ly/3YsqNYY #writingcommunity
Click to tweet: “The quality of my BookSirens reviews was outstanding, and I connected with a few bloggers who really enjoyed my debut, so I’d say it was worth it.” —@CindyLSell on building her ARC team from scratch 🚀
Read the interview: https://bit.ly/3YsqNYY pic.twitter.com/Fw1jG2EJk0
Click to tweet: “I believe in the product I’ve created, so I’m just going to keep writing and experimenting until I find the marketing method that works best for me.” —@CindyLSell on building her ARC team from scratch 🚀
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