Indie Author Confidential 9: Indie Author Confidential, #9

By M.L. Ronn

The ground-breaking, behind-the-scenes look at a working writer continues with Vol. 9!

Prolific writer M.L. Ronn (Michael La Ronn) shares his lessons learned on his journey to become a successful writer. You'll discover writing, marketing, business, and other miscellaneous tips that you don't hear every day.

Covered in this volume:

• How Michael exploded his word counts even further with a voice recorder

• Michael's thoughts around the problematic one-third mark of novels

• Experiments with book pricing

• Analyzing future trends that are surely coming to the indie author space

The information in this book is what writers discuss over beers at writing conferences. You may find it useful on your journey to becoming a successful writer. It just might make you more money and help you satisfy your readers, too.

Are you ready to dive into the world of Indie Author Confidential?

V1.0

• Language: English
• Publisher: Author Level Up LLC
• Release date: May 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885510370

M.L. Ronn

Science fiction and fantasy on the wild side! M.L. Ronn (Michael La Ronn) is the author of many science fiction and fantasy novels including the Modern Necromancy, The Last Dragon Lord, and Sword Bear Chronicle series. In 2012, a life-threatening illness made him realize that storytelling was his #1 passion. He’s devoted his life to writing ever since, making up whatever story makes him fall out of his chair laughing the hardest. Every day.

Book preview

Indie Author Confidential 9

INDIE AUTHOR CONFIDENTIAL 9

SECRETS NO ONE WILL TELL YOU ABOUT BEING A WRITER

M.L. RONN

Copyright 2022 © M.L. Ronn. All rights reserved.

Published by Author Level Up LLC.

Version 3.0

Cover Design by Pixelstudio.

Cover Art by jasoshulwathon.

Editing by BZ Hercules.

Time Period Covered in This Book: Q2 2022

Special thank you to the following people on Patreon who supported this book: Zhade Barnet, Stephen Frans, Michael Guishard, Jon Howard, Beth Jackson, Mojo Jojo, Lynda Washington, and Etta Welk.

Some links in this book contain affiliate links. If you purchase books and services through these links, I receive a small commission at no cost to you. You are under no obligation to use these links, but thank you if you do!

For more helpful writing tips and advice, subscribe to the Author Level Up YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/authorlevelup.

For avoidance of doubt, Author reserves the rights, and no one has the rights to reproduce and/or otherwise use this work in any manner for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text, including without limitation, technologies that are capable of generating works in the same style or genre as the work without the Author’s specific and express permission to do so. Nor does any person or company have the right to sublicense others to reproduce and/or otherwise use this work in any manner for purposes of training artificial intelligence technologies to generate text without Author’s specific and express permission.

CONTENTS

About This Series

Introduction

Become a World-Class Content Creator

Assessing the Value of the Indie Author Confidential Series

The Problematic One-Third Mark of Novels

Making Changes to Content with Speed and Efficiency

The Second Book is Always Easier

Falling Prey to Perfectionism

Hiring a Book Formatter

Rebranding The Good Necromancer Covers

Producing Audiobooks for My Estate Planning Books

Experiments with Voice Recorder Dictation

Thoughts on My Magic Bakery

Become a Technology and Data-Driven Writer

My First Steps in Learning Cover Design

Secrets of the Data Masters

Kindle Trends

Problems with Creating Large Print Editions

Fixing a Chapter Title Issue

The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same

Essential Computer Skills for Writers

Efficient Capital

Pitfalls with Indie Author Pricing

Looking Forward

Analyzing the 2022 Future Today Institute Report

Looking Back

Copyleft Trolls

Collecting Advantages

Why You Are Your Own Worst Enemy

Feeding the Insatiable Writing Beast

Q2 2022 Strategy Progress

Content Created While Writing This Book

Read the Next Volume

Meet M.L. Ronn

More Books by M.L. Ronn

ABOUT THIS SERIES

This isn't your typical writing self-help book. This series is a compilation of lessons learned from an indie author trying to walk the path to success. Follow author M.L. Ronn (Michael La Ronn) as he navigates what it means to master the craft of writing, marketing, and running a profitable publishing business. Learn from his successes and failures, and learn about things that most successful authors only talk about behind the scenes.

To read all the collected volumes of this series in an anthology, visit www.authorlevelup.com/confidential.

INTRODUCTION

2022 is shaping up to be a good year for my writing. The second quarter is usually a steadfast quarter—I don't accomplish as much as I do in the first quarter, but the victories are still meaningful. I chalk up the lower productivity to the fact that it's getting nicer outside…and no, I'm not one who spends a lot of time outside. I just produce better when it's cold and depressing.

Spring is always an interesting season because the first half of the quarter is still technically winter; it's cold but slowly getting nicer outside. I lament the change of the season…

Joking aside, I had some personal issues this quarter that slowed me down too—my wife battling long COVID and a family member dealing with cancer. I also dealt with a kidney stone. Yet, somehow, I managed to have a great quarter.

This is the second quarter operating under my streamlined strategic priorities, and I am seeing a big difference. It has helped me to focus more intently on content creation, technology, and data.

My Core Strategic Priorities

As a refresher, my mission is to create content that entertains and/or educates my audience, preferably both, and to remain nimble in an ever-changing industry. I do this by focusing on three strategic priorities:

•Become a world-class content creator

•Become a technology and data-driven writer

•Become the writer of the future (looking forward)

What's in This Volume

In the World-Class Content Creator section, I discuss the value of The Indie Author Confidential series, thoughts about the dreaded one-third mark of novels and how to beat it, my experience in rebranding my Good Necromancer and Chicago Rat Shifter series and retiring the M.L. McKnight pen name, and crazy experiments with voice recorder dictation and transcription that exploded my daily word counts and improved my dictation accuracy to around 99 percent.

In the Technology and Data-Driven Writer section, I discuss my first lessons in learning how to design my own book covers, lessons learned in creating large print editions, and my experience with a service that provides helpful market snapshots on the urban fantasy genre. I also discuss issues around pricing books internationally.

In the Looking Forward section, I analyze the 2022 Future Today Institute Trends Report, which outlines major trends that will impact every area of our lives. I also look back at previous volumes of this series to see what was on my mind one and two years ago during this same time. I also discuss a concerning trend with copyright trolls that could impact authors.

Enjoy this volume.

—M.L. Ronn

April 15, 2022

Des Moines, Iowa

BECOME A WORLD-CLASS CONTENT CREATOR

ASSESSING THE VALUE OF THE INDIE AUTHOR CONFIDENTIAL SERIES

Someone recently asked me why I write this series. These books don’t necessarily have actionable advice, they’re not focused on any single topic, and, to some people, they might be perceived as vain.

I write this series for several reasons.

First, I write it for myself because by doing so, I am more likely to retain the information I learn. If I can articulate concepts simply in 500 to 1,000 words, then I've grasped them.

Next, I wrote this series because of great advice I heard from Gary Vaynerchuk a long time ago. He recommends that influencers and entrepreneurs should document their progress and use marketing tools as practitioners of those tools. People will follow you because they're interested in the process and the steps you're taking. That has been insanely true for my writing business.

This series will continue to build in value with every volume I create. Every four volumes (which represents a year, except for the first year), the series quadruples in value. I keep reminding myself of just how powerful a series like this can be ten years from now, or when my career really takes off.

I don't know of a