Self Publishing Success Stories
Periodically on this new site I will feature self-publishing success stories–writers who’ve reached their goals in publishing. Today I’m going to introduce you to Freddie P Peters, who I’ve been working with for just under two years.
Freddie P Peters
A Law graduate from The Sorbonne-Paris and King's College-London, Freddie P Peters started her career as a lawyer and then became an investment banker. Some 25 years spent in the Square Mile (City of London) working for too-big-to-fail International banks did give her a view on many hot topics from Financial Crises to Being Foreign and Female in a Male-dominated Industry, from Contemporary Art to Politics, without forgetting the most essential of questions, ‘Where have Ethics gone in all of this?’
When she is not writing, Freddie devotes her time to supporting young artists and small art galleries or mentoring students and young professionals.
The Henry Crowne Series
Freddie’s first financial and espionage thriller, COLLAPSE, came out in June 2018. Her second, Book 2 in the Henry Crowne: Paying the Price series, BREAKING POINT, was published in November the same year. The latest installment, NO TURNING BACK, was out 28 October 2019. Freddie is half-way through writing the fourth book in the series and is plotting a prequel novella too!
A Best Selling Author
Freddie has been a model ‘student’. She is doing all the right things in the right order. She’s now reaping the benefits of the time and money she has invested in her writing career. Earlier this month, her second title, BREAKING POINT, was accepted for an exclusive and hard-to gain BookBub feature promotion making that title No3 on the highly competitive Thriller category on Amazon Best Seller List. This is a huge achievement for an author who only started publishing her novels last year!
Doing All the Right Things
Freddie’s achievements to date are very much down to her energy, unfailing belief and trust in her future as a best-selling author. With her determination and my experience, gained through a decade spent in publishing, Freddie has started her writing career with the firm knowledge that she is making the right decisions from the very start.
Below are the steps that Freddie took to reach her goals:
Write, Write and Write
Before Freddie even sought my help, she already had two and a half completed manuscripts. The first book, COLLAPSE, was being edited, while she was making final tweaks to the second, BREAKING POINT. The third book, NO TURNING BACK was also already in the works. All three books are full-length novels, of some 300 pages, so we’re not talking short fiction or novellas.
Employ Professionals
Freddie has built a team around her to ensure that her books are professionally produced. In addition to an editor (Cressi Downing), cover and interior designers, proofreader, web designer and a photographer for polished author shots, Freddie has been working with me all throughout to navigate the increasingly complicated self-publishing landscape.
Publish with Amazon First, then ‘Go Wide’
As with most authors I help, we decided with Freddie to initially publish exclusively with Amazon KDP. We enrolled her first title onto the KDP Select program which allows readers who’ve signed up to the Kindle Unlimited (KU) subscription service read a certain amount of books free each month. This made sense, because Amazon holds some 80% of the eBook market, and authors get a payment for the KU reads.
Once she was more used to the publishing process, Freddie decide to ‘go wide’, ie. publish on various other platforms, such as iBooks, Kobo, GooglePlay, Barnes&Noble and Kobo.
My next blog post will explain in detail the choice self-published authors have on where to publish their eBooks and paperbacks. Sign up to the Self Publishing Tips Blog Feed to make sure you don’t miss any of my weekly posts.
Metadata, Advertising and Promotion
Before publishing her first title, COLLAPSE on Amazon, Freddie and I worked on an advertising strategy.
First, I helped Freddie determine the correct metadata for her new book. We made sure the genre of her book was right, and that we had the most effective keywords and categories for her novel. We asked Amazon to add a total of ten categories for the title and went on to identify comparative authors to her books. With the help of these writers, we were able to target readers on Facebook, Amazon and BookBub. We also made use of the KDP Select free days, and promoted COLLAPSE via several email marketing companies, such as Fussy Librarian and FreeBooksy, during the term of the free offer.
Rinse and Repeat
For Freddie’s subsequent books, we followed more or less the same strategy. Freddie is now moving out of KDP Select so that she can reach readers on Kobo, iBooks, GooglePlay and Barnes&Noble. All of her paperback titles are also available via IngramSpark on Gardners and other distributors so that bookshops and libraries are able to order copies.
I am incredibly proud of Freddie. She has showed such determination and worked tirelessly to become a successful writer. She is constantly learning from the ‘gurus’ in the self-publishing industry (Mark Dawson, whose Self Publishing 101 course I can wholeheartedly recommend and Joanna Penn whose podcast is an invaluable resource), while making sure she is continuing to write. I’m honored to have been able to help Freddie along the way.
You can find more about Freddie P Peters and join her bookclub on her website, here. If you like fast-paced financial thrillers with some espionage thrown in, get the Henry Crowne: Paying the Price Trilogy here.
Henry Crowne: Paying the Price Trilogy by Freddie P Peters
Like what you’ve been reading? Why not sign up to the Self Publishing Tips my weekly blog posts about everything to do with writing, self-publishing, and book marketing.