Lindsay - March 26, 2020Our guest this week is USA Today-bestselling science-fiction author JN Chaney. He has a master’s degree in fine arts and started indie publishing a few years ago, and he’s quickly built up a large backlist of titles both as a solo author and in collaborations with other authors. He’s also started his own press, using his marketing experience to help make other authors’ books profitable.
We asked him about everything from Facebook pages and Facebook reader groups to planning long series to running your own press. Here are some of the specific questions we asked:
- How has having a Master of Fine Arts influenced your writing and style? Has it been worth it? And do you have any advice for authors who are thinking about getting one?
- You recently published the fourteenth book in your Renegade Star series that you started in 2017. What are your thoughts on long series as far as marketing and keeping readers engaged?
- How do you plan out your series? Do you have lengthy series arcs, or do you plan it a book at a time?
- Do you have a newsletter and how do you use it?
- Have you always been in all-in with KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited? Do you have any tips for authors trying to work the borrows to their advantage?
- I notice you’ve got a sequence of books on pre-order reaching all the way out to May. How do pre-orders factor into your marketing tactics?
- You’ve got a reader Facebook group (JN Chaney’s Renegade Readers) with more than 5,000 people. What role does that play in your marketing?
- What are your thoughts about Facebook pages for authors vs. groups?
- You’ve got a big following on Instagram. What are you doing there?
- Considering the sheer volume of books you release, do you depend upon new book releases to keep the momentum up, or is there some maintenance advertising?
- Any advice for authors just starting out? What things should they have in place before they begin pushing hard at marketing?
- What got you into collaborations and starting a press?
- How do you handle collaborations? For example, how do you organize and coordinate with co-authors? Is there a central repository for series information?
- How do you work around disagreements? Have you had to let authors go, and if so, what sorts of things have you learned from that process?
If you want to see what JN Chaney is up to, you can visit his website or find him on Facebook. You can also check out his books The Variant Saga and The Renegade Stars series.
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