Weekly Q&A! (Patreon)

Were you self editing most of your books?

I do self edit all my own books, although I wouldn't necessarily recommend this to everyone. But coming from trad pub, I learned pretty vigorous editing of the small to medium stuff already. Large scale edits, meanwhile, are so subjective.

Weird question, maybe… were you a teenager when you started publishing?

I was 26 when I sold my first book. But there is a local author here (trad published, YA, quite successful), Cinda Williams Chima, who got started in her late 50s I believe. It's very inspiring to remind myself I can still totally start something new.

How do you know what the new trends are for readers? Especially in regards to subgenres. It seems like most of the best sellers are just labeled "romantasy" but that covers so much! Short of reading every new bestseller I was hoping for a "tl;dr" understanding of where trends are going.

I wish I could say there was an easy answer but reading some of the bestsellers is exactly what we have to do sometimes. At the very least, put yourself where your potential readers are on a regular basis. Whatever your preferred social media platforms are, join reader groups or follow book fans/reviewers in your genre. Some trends are more obvious than others, though. When reverse harem first hit, you could do almost anything within it and sell. Romantasy is not really new, so I don't think it has that luxury.

How does Amazon compare to the rest of the markets mentioned? Is Amazon 50% or like 96% of overall sales?

70-90% depending on some other factors. Weirdly getting on Youtube has given me a better ratio of sales on the other platforms than I've ever had. I'm guessing in part because YT is very international.

Hi Lidiya - love that you had a Moog (sticker, I think?) in one video along with a Devo t-shirt. My Moog t-shirt is one of my prized possessions (along with my Roland System 100M one) - I'm a total analogue synth nerd - is that one of your hobbies / passions too, or was it just a random purchase?

Oh that's SO awesome! We do actually have a Moog Matriarch...which...we just scrounged and sold some stuff to buy because they are based here in Asheville but were recently bought out by a much larger company, and we had a feeling they might be moving production overseas. (From what I've heard they will continue to make the highest-end ones in Asheville, but probably not the Matriarch or anything else we could reasonably afford.) We really wanted an Asheville-made Moog, so...she's here!

Buuut we haven't been able to afford the amp to really get going. Kind of bought it hastily due to that circumstance. I have NO idea what I'm doing with playing it, but a lot of my favorite bands use analog synths, including Devo, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music (I think I might be a serious contender for the biggest under-60 Roxy Music fan in America, LOL) & early Eno works (and Eno produced works), Giorgio Moroder's various stuff, etc...