From Rejection to the New York Times Bestseller List: The Journey of a Self-Published Book
Description: THIS IS A SPECIAL, UNADVERTISED BONUS REPLAY FROM 2019. THIS INTERVIEW WAS SO FANTASTIC, I DECIDED TO INCLUDE IT AGAIN THIS YEAR. In this interview, Eva shares the incredible journey of her book from countless rejections to becoming a best-seller, with 200,000 books sold.Â
Format: Video Q&A
Level: This presentation is for the intermediate to advanced level author. Also most appropriate for fiction authors, but Eva covers some great marketing tactics that everyone can learn from.
Eva Natiello
Author and Coach
Eva Lesko Natiello is the award-winning author of New York Times and USA Today bestseller, THE MEMORY BOX, her debut psychological thriller. Eva draws on her 20+ years of experience in PR, marketing and branding to coach authors on self-publishing and book marketing. She is the creator and facilitator of Self-Publish Like a Pro and Find Your Readers Book Marketing Workshops. You can catch her speaking at writers’ conferences or read her articles on self-publishing and book marketing in the Huffington Post. She is thrilled to empower authors to be successful, dynamic authorpreneurs, while helping them to create greater visibility for their books. Eva is currently working on her next thriller.
[bctt tweet=”@evanatiello charts her incredible rise to best-seller status as a #selfpublished #author #indieauthors #womeninpublishingsummit #amwriting #ampublishing” username=”writepubsell”]
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Really great info! Also, inspiring story about all her rejections from trad publishers and how she managed to get on the NYTimes bestseller list! Will be taking her helpful info and applying it. Thank you!!
Hi Nina! So glad you found my talk useful and that you’ll be applying some of the marketing strategies to your book. Good luck to you!
I needed this today, was feeling hopeless in the land of rejections. Thank you for your wisdom and your perseverance.
Hi Kyla, I know exactly what you’re feeling. I was there, too. For authors who still want to pursue a traditional deal, I tell them to do the following. While you’re querying agents and/or publishers, prepare your book for self-publishing. Hire an editor and have it professionally edited (this will certainly not be a waste of time or money, you can use this edited manuscript when/if agents ask for submissions) and also hire a book cover designer. Querying takes a LOT OF TIME, and you don’t want to waste this time like I did. After I queried for 3 UNSUCCESSFUL YEARS, I then started preparing for self-publishing. All that time wasted. If you get the agent or publishing deal, good for you, and if you don’t at least you can hit the ground running and launch that book.
In my opinion, the only gatekeepers who ultimately matter are readers! Don’t let the other ones throw you off your game. As I always say, don’t let other people’s agenda be more important than yours. Go get ’em!
Fantastic and relevant presentation of resources and strategies for successfully navigating an indy launch. Very inspiring! Congratulations Eva on your first book and best wishes for the follow-up. Thank you, Alexa (and team) for all you do. This is fantastic!
Thank you, Kailyne! I can use your good wishes right now, trying to get this baby finished! Good luck to you, too, on all of your writing projects!
This has been a very informative and eye – opening session for me. Thank you both. Without the great questions , I would not have known the brilliant insights about Indie authors that came from Eva.
Thanks, Jean! I’m glad you received some new information from this session. Wishing you much success on your writing projects!
Great interview! I am one of the long-time aspiring writers who does not believe I have sales/marketing skills. I have definitely said “I can’t push my own work/sell myself”. But I know some very happy, successful indie writers and I am starting to see how it can benefit writers and readers! I took a lot of ntes, thank you for the tips and tools!
You can definitely do it! I sat on my books and didn’t market them for YEARS. I’m slowly starting to implement these things, and guess what?? they are selling! I encourage you to go watch the interview day 1 about the overview and how to use a team to market/grow. You might find that having some help is, well, helpful! Day 4 is all about marketing, but there are some amazing marketing tips sprinkled through almost every interview. There are so many ways to do it!
Hi Janflora, Thanks for tuning in. I work with all kinds of authors, everywhere from extroverts to introverts and everything in between. There are so many ways to market your book (and yourself) that will work for your personality. Don’t panic, you will not have to anything that will freak you out just thinking about! The thing I always tell authors who are uncomfortable “marketing themselves” always remember that in many cases, you are providing information that people are looking for. Whether that’ a book blogger looking for a book or an author to talk about, or a reader who is looking for their next read. Just stay authentic and “provide information” that would be helpful for people. Think of it as “helping them” not selling your book. That might do the trick! Good luck!
Thanks to Eva and Alexa for this informative interview. I picked up some great nuggets on marketing. Love the idea of adding Book Club questions in the back of the book and comparing books similar to mine in such depth. Best wishes on your second book, Eva!
JQ Rose
Hi JQ! Don’t you love that Book Club Questions idea! That’s one of my favorites. Just by including them, you are alerting the reader that this book “is a Book Club Book”! If the reader hadn’t thought that previously, you have certainly opened her eyes to the idea! Good luck to you! Go get those readers!
Loved this Interview!! Best one yet. Eva gives you a lot of info and tips for would-be Authors. I would watch this one again.
Hi Jan! Thanks for your kind words. Definitely watch again! I always get more ideas and understanding the second time around. Best of luck to you!
This was an incredible interview to watch. I am inspired by Eva’s tenacity. If I can ask one question: Can you be more specific with how you attained reviews and blurbs in order to build your status before going wide? Thank you.
Hi Emily, Thanks for your kind words. It’s true, though. A book’s success is not a short game, and that’s good news, really. There’s no “expiration date” on books, but especially indie books. We don’t have to worry about being pulled off the shelf, we just keep plugging away.
About reviews, honestly, when I just released The Memory Box and I would attend book club discussions for my book, or library discussions that I would do, I always explained that reviews were the bread and butter for an indie author. We don’t have sales departments, or publicists so it’s our readers and their word of mouth that’s so very integral to our success. I did explain this a lot in a humble way, and told people that I was grateful for every review. You’ll notice on my retail pages for The Memory Box under “about the author” I always add a line saying, Eva is so very grateful for readers who take the time to write reviews or tell their friends about The Memory Box.” A similar note is in the back of my book. Not only do readers feel appreciated, but if they haven’t thought about reviewing the book, now they will! I also see a bump in reviews when I have a price promotion for the book. Maybe this is human nature, but when readers get a good book at a big discount they are generous in return!
I hope that helps. Good luck to you!
Thank you Eva and of course Alexa. Such a great interview and so much of great information, some of which I will certainly follow up such as questions for the book for book clubbers. I came to become a small press publisher kind of by accident in 1991. There was much unfortunate experience with people in the Industry who tried to stop me, but this small Australian press niching stories and poetry by authors of different cultural backgrounds is still kicking. Just released another book for an 82-year-old author.
Best of luck foryou second book ‘Mistaken’
Hi Clarissa, Yes, you must tap into the power of book clubs! Especially for fiction books, of course. Congrats on such a long and fruitful career. I wish you much continued success!
This interview has come in at the right time. I have been sitting on a draft of my non-fiction book for almost two years now. I was petrified that as an unknown African writer, from deep dark Africa, no one in the Big World will ever want to read what I write.
Then last month, I told myself, “What the heck! Let me self-publish on Amazon and see what happens.”
I’m now getting ready for an April book launch & this interview has pointed me towards things I need to do in advance, and the hard work I need to put in afterwards. I won’t allow my book to go to sleep after hitting the “publish” button.
I want that “Best Seller” badge too…. just like Eva.
Hi Monica,
If you have been sitting on a completed manuscript for two years, you’ve already done the hardest part. You’ve written a book. Lots of people start them, t takes a special kind of person to finish a book. Don’t give up on yourself! No one ever know if there are any people out there who’ll want to read their book, but I can tell you this for certain. No one will read it if you never publish it.
Good luck with getting your book ready for publication. Two musts: hire a professional editor to edit the manuscript and hire a professional designer to design the cover. You’re so right, the work doesn’t stop once you publish, so good luck with the marketing too! Wishing you the best.
Thank you both, Eva and Alexa, so much for this fabulous presentation. I loved all the great tips, but even more, you both have such positive, great energy. And your generosity, wow, so wonderful. I’m so inspired simply by your story, Eva and your attitude.
Hi Sara,
Thank you for your kind words. I wish you lots of success and super-hero creativity for all your writing projects!
OMG! What a fantastic interview. My head is spinning from all the information. Thank you so much for such valuable information and suggestions.
Tammryn, I’m so glad you picked up some useful tips. I hope they work for you! Best of luck.
Super straight shooter. Learned so much! Thank you!
Thank you so much for all the advice and tips! I am getting ready to self-publish my novel in May and it’s wonderful to see that while I was on the right track (I have a professional cover designer and editor), there were major opportunities I would have missed when it comes to marketing.
Would you mind terribly clarifying something for me? I was told by someone that I should opt-out of extended distribution from KDP (due to third party sellers undercutting me?) and instead do Ingram Spark – I took this to mean that I should only publish e-books on Amazon and not paperback. But from what you said, it seems you had paperbacks on both services? Is this correct? Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!
Hey, Alexa here. I’m going to go ahead and post a response as a publisher. You should NOT use extended distribution on KDP. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t publish your book on KDP. You want to publish your paperback and ebook organically through KDP – there are a lot of benefits. But for 3rd party distribution and for the sake of bookstores buying your book, you want to put your book on Ingram as well. You do indeed want to put your paperback in both places, but if you make the mistake of choosing expanded distribution on KDP before putting on Ingram, it’s a big paperwork trail to get it straightened out, but it’s definitely possible. Check out this article (a little outdated but the general info is still basically on target). And also catch Carla King’s interview later in the week on distribution. The title of this is a little misleading – it’s titled transferring your book, I need to say, transferring expanded distribution or adding your book to Ingram, but keep the paperback in both places. http://writepublishsell.co/transferring-book-kdp-ingramspark/
This was one of the best sessions I’ve ever had at ANY conference. Thank you so much for sharing your successful marketing strategies, Eva.
Thank you for that! Isn’t she amazing???
Hi Alexa (hopefully this posts in the right spot), thank you SO SO much for that explanation. That clarifies so much for me. It’s been such a long journey with this novel (over ten years) that I’m worried about messing up something major.
This summit has been invaluable so far and I’ve only watched two videos so far. Thank you again! Tina
Thank you so much! Lots of resources on the Write|Publish|Sell blog and the Youtube channel – make sure you subscribe when you’re watching one of the videos.
Thank you Eva for sharing your knowledge and experience with us. I’m just starting on my journey and the information you gave will help me out so much in getting my book out there, especially in regards to marketing. I feel more secure on taking those next steps when they arrive. Thank you again for the plethora of information.
Eva, thank you so much for this interview. I was under the impression that if I didn’t get that orange banner on Amazon within weeks of my book coming out, I might as well pack it up. I had no idea that you could hit the NYT list a couple years out. That takes off so much pressure! Also, of course a debut author would need reviews first before tackling a big marketing push! That’s something I’ve never come across before and it makes so much sense. Most marketing info I come across is geared toward seasoned authors with a backlist.
Excellent, informative session! I’m in the process of completing my first book. I am encouraged!
I first heard Eva speak at a writers conference in Philadelphia and was impressed with her tenacity and creativity. (And, yes, I bought The Memory Box!) That was about 18 months ago and I had 3 chapters of my novel written. The draft is now complete. (Yee haw!) After bouncing back and forth on whether to try traditional publishing or self-publish, I’ve decided to control my own destiny and go indie. The kicker for me was an agent who requires authors to submit a marketing plan with their query letter. I figure if I’m going to create a plan, then I can execute it, too. I’m looking for an editor and a cover designer. What is the best way to go about finding both? I Google and get so confused. (Be careful what you search for, right? 😉 ) Also, I’ve outlined two more novels plus a short Christmas novella that follows the same family story over a period of 130 years. I’m writing the second book now. Is it a good marketing strategy to have the second story close to completion before releasing the first? I’m a slow writer and don’t want to lose traction with an audience. Thanks for this great interview!