310. Using Your Own Platform to Sell Your Books with L.C. Son

Award-winning and bestselling author L.C. Son discusses using your own platform to sell your books versus Amazon, the pros and cons, and gives tips on how to make it work for you!

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Check out L.C.'s website:
https://www.lcsonbooks.com

Grab a copy of her books (directly from her!):
https://www.lcsonbooks.com/my-books--short-stories.html

Follow L.C. on her socials:
https://www.instagram.com/author_l.c.son/
https://www.facebook.com/LCSonBooks/
https://www.threads.net/@author_l.c.son

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole-person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Authors have multiple options available to them for selling their books and other merchandise. But it often means giving up a significant amount of control and sharing your revenue. However, there is another option which is using your own platform to sell your books independently. Bestselling and award-winning author L.C. Son is here to share how this works and why you should also consider it.

Jennia: Well, it is always a joy to talk with you!

L.C. Son: I am happy to talk with you too! Thanks for bringing me here.

Jennia: Of course! So for those who aren't already familiar with you, could you share a little bit about yourself and what you write?

L.C. Son: Okay. Again, I'm L.C. Son. I write paranormal romance, dark fantasy. Been publishing since 2019. My first book was Beautiful Nightmare. And everything has been paranormal romance, vampires, wolf shifters, grims and reapers, and all those fun monsters in between. That's me in a nutshell over the last five years.

Jennia: So what led you to looking into having your own platform? Or did you do it right away?

L.C. Son: I did not do it right away. I actually, if I could go back to 2019 me, I would go back and tell her to start it. But I didn't. I had heard other authors who were doing, you know, direct selling.

Jennia: Mhm.

L.C. Son: And I thought—you know, I thought about it, but I really wasn't sure how the mechanics worked. I was really kind of confused.

Jennia: Right.

L.C. Son: So when I started sharing, you know, advanced reader copies, I started to learn about different technologies you could use to, you know, share those. And then I started thinking, "Well, if you could do that for something that's free, how can that work for something that's paid?"

Jennia: Ahh, yes.

L.C. Son: And to me, I realized that BookFunnel, which is one of the plugins that I use, has a feature to allow you to sell direct on certain websites, like Shopify or Payhip, which is what I use. And so it started as just, you know, "Let me just try, you know, one of my older books, see how it goes. Use it as a reader magnet," which was really cool. But, you know, again, that's nice for the freebies (laughs), but I wanted to see about, you know, just really what I could do on the direct side. And I knew it was going to kind of be a little tough because when you're an indie author we rely heavily on Kindle Unlimited.

Jennia: Right, yes.

L.C. Son: So—and I don't want to get too far ahead, but—so I was trying to figure out, like, kind of straddling the fence on, you know, should I just go wide? Which I tried. Should I just go, you know, direct? What should I do? And one of the things that really kind of got me to this place was one of my books just dropped from Kindle Unlimited for no reason. They—I didn't do anything wrong. They said they didn't know what happened. It was just . . . It just dropped.

Jennia: Yeah. You see horror stories like that all the time too—

L.C. Son: Yeah!

Jennia: —Or, like, their account is suddly deleted. Or they're told it doesn't fit their standards, whatever those standards are, their criteria. Or you broke a rule, but they don't tell you exactly which rule you broke. Or you can't figure out how you broke it. Yeah.

L.C. Son: And you can't get that traction back. Like, no matter what you do, it's so hard to go back and do a relaunch. And I did that. You know, you lost those pre-orders and so you try to get them back once they reinstated the book. And I'm, like, yeah, but—okay, you reinstated it, can you just go back and tell those readers that it's back, like? (laughs)

Jennia: Oh yeah, exactly. Because they don't have that information, so you can't do it. So then what? And then those people are mad probably too.

L.C. Son: Yeah, because then it's viewed on the author. They don't look at it as the platform may have had a technical hiccup or there was some averse action that you couldn't control. They just look at it, "Well, you know, maybe she wasn't able to publish her book." No, my book was there. It was ready. And they didn't just drop the ebook, they dropped the print too. And it was like a whole thing just went away. You know, I was crushed. And so—

Jennia: Mhm.

L.C. Son: —that's when I made a plan that for my next book, I would go towards trying to see what it looked like for direct and—just to try it out. And it was really successful. It was surprisingly successful. I did a—I went through a few courses, you know, [from] some other authors who, you know, had already been doing it successfully and it just kind of went from there.

Jennia: What kind of courses did you take or can you even remember maybe the names of some of them that were especially helpful?

L.C. Son: Oh, I can't—oh gosh. There's this one author in particular, really wonderful lady. I can't think of her name right off the top of my head. I would have to go back to the Facebook group, but I found her on one of those author Facebook groups and a lot of people had raved about her courses. And so I took, you know, a couple of her courses and I was like, "Oh, okay." And I'm in an IT-adjacent field in my 9-to-5 so it doesn't take me long to pick up stuff. Not that I want to do a whole lot of heavy software lifting outside of my 9-to-5 hours (laughs). So I was like, "Okay." And, know, I was like, "Okay, this is easy enough, I can do it." So that's, you know, what kind of got me to the place. And then I just started adding more and more books there. So yeah, that's kind of how I got to the direct selling.

Jennia: And then how has your marketing strategy changed? Because obviously now you don't have the pull of, "Well, you can go find it here," or anything they might be doing like their recommended books and that sort of thing.

L.C. Son: Yeah. So one of the great things about, you know, having some books that are still on Kindle Unlimited and then having some books that are not, you know, is whatever information you put in that back part of your book to let the people know where to find you? You know, if they like your book, they're going to want to keep up with you, right? And they're going to want to find you and they'll go to your website and then they'll find you from there. And so really kind of drawing people in through the newsletters that I offer at the end of my books has really been a big selling point for me. And I say this all the time because I have talked to other authors about it—I like to start with the zero-dollar marketing strategy first (laughs) and I say that the newsletter sign ups are a zero-dollar marketing strategy cause it doesn't really cost you anything—

Jennia: Right.

L.C. Son: —to collect that (laughs). So I started there and then—so you get to market to those folks because they are part of your reader base. But actually social media has been really good for me. I am not gonna lie and say that I'm, like, this super seller of direct books. There are some authors who are six-figure sellers and I am hoping for that to be me (laughs). One day. But yeah, I am modestly moving forward in a good way. The cool thing that I think I like about it is, you know, you can see the marketing happen right away. For example, when I would market on Amazon or any other platform like that, I don't necessarily see it right away.

Jennia: Mhm.

L.C. Son: But—and this, like, if I make a social media marketing ad or something like that—I can actually see that person clicked and then I can actually go to my dashboard—

Jennia: Oh, right. Yeah.

L.C. Son: Unfortunately, with Amazon—and here's the other thing—sometimes they don't catch your sales.

Jennia: I've heard that too, yes.

L.C. Son: Yeah. And I know that by, like, actually clicking something myself and waiting to see it, I'm, like, "I don't see it. I don't see it," (laughs). You know, I'll go pick up, like, some obscure short story that I know no one even—unless you know me and you're looking for me—Even though someone went through the other day and got my catalog, I was like, "Oh okay, whoever you are, thank you." But, like, I'll go and pick something like that that I know I'm not marketing to see what happened. And, you know, so that would happen. Whereas with direct I see it from two ends. So on the BookFunnel side they let you know a book went out.

Jennia: Mhm.

L.C. Son: And then on the other side, like, if you use Shopify or Payhip you're alerted, right? And, you know—and then whatever your revenue stream that you collect your resources, that's a third way of letting you know. So it's—and your resources are instant. There's no 90-day wait.

Jennia: That's interesting, too, thinking about it, like you said, from marketing, being able to know what's working and what isn't. Because you hear that a lot about, like, even if you're going to do a Facebook ad, of you're going to use certain keywords on Amazon that you might not always know. Especially if you're using a whole bunch at one time, you're not always going to be completely certain. Especially right away. Is this the one that's attracting people or is it this one? Or is it this thing I'm doing? Or this other thing?

L.C. Son: Mhm.

Jennia: So you talked about Shopify, Payhip, those kinds of things. How do you know what to look for when you're choosing a platform? Or how do you know if one's going to maybe be better suited to you than another one?

L.C. Son: Yeah. So for me I looked at—I think skillset is one big thing. For me, Shopify required way too many plugins and, you know, everyone is different in what their needs are. But I did not want a platform that was going to require me to one, have so many plugins, and then have to pay for all of these variants of plugins depending on, you know, if you're using Square, if you're using this—you know, I was like, "Okay, that's just too many things." Payhip for me was a lot easier and very simple. But there's pros and cons with both. I think because Shopify is a bigger platform, a lot of people are more familiar with it. I will say that Payhip has a terrible name. I think that's a terrible name. Cause nobody knows what that means (Jennia laughs). Shopify tells you what it means—

Jennia: Yes.

L.C. Son: —When you say Shopify, you know, that means I'm gonna shop and get something, whatever the product. Payhip, that just sound like—at first, I was like, "What the heck does that mean?" You're a part of PayPal? Like, what is that?—

Jennia: Yeah, and it's not—

L.C. Son: —And it's not. They have nothing to do with each other. So I had to try it out with other authors that I saw, and I was like, "Okay, let me buy their book and see what happens." And I bought a book, and I was like, "Okay, okay, that worked." So, and I was like, "Okay." And I got my book, and I saw how, you know, BookFunnel sent the email, and I was like, "Okay, so this is no different than when people get ARCs." So if you're used to getting an ARC, then you can do this. And because I think a lot of people are inherently afraid of direct buy.

Jennia: Yeah.

L.C. Son: Not just authors, but readers. And so they're like, "I don't know what that means," you know, and they get scared because they're afraid. Because, you know, in this time, we're so afraid of being scammed. And so people see it and they're, like, afraid. Like, how do I know I'm gonna get it? And I'm, like, if you are familiar with BookFunnel—which is why I like it so much, because they're a recognized provider for, you know, for books. I feel like, you know, a lot of readers once they realize that, and you don't need to pay BookFunnel to be able to get it.

Jennia: Ooh! Yeah, so you talked about how in your day job that you do have familiarity with this, you work with this sort of thing. Do you think it's also easy enough to use for people who aren't as tech savvy?

L.C. Son: Right. I think Payhip is. Shopify, I don't feel like it is. Shopify overwhelmed me. And I'm, like I said, pretty tech savvy. And I was like, "Okay, no one's doing all this. I'm not doing all this." But again, there are people you can pay if you really want to do Shopify. I know that there are companies out there that will build your Shopify for you, and you can just pay them to build it, and they'll put in the plugins and do all the stuff. So if you have the resources to do that, then go right ahead. I know some people, that's what—they just rather give it to someone else to take care of and go from there. So if that's what you want to do. I did not want to do that (laughs). So I think Payhip was easy because one, it's free, it does not require you to pay a monthly subscription. So you only pay a percentage of your sale like anything else.

Jennia: Oh, that's nice, yeah.

L.C. Son: Yeah, yeah. And so—and it's real, it's not top heavy at all. So it's like—it's very customizable as far as the website to put together. Very customizable. And you can really build your site really, really well. It can almost look like some of the Shopify sites if you want to go that far. Or you can keep it really simple and really basic. And it even has subscription options and things of that nature. So if people want to stay subscribed to you to find out what other books you have or if you have any sales running things of that nature, they can do that too. So that's been really, really good. My best selling book on direct buy was Vengeance Born and it's still my best selling one I think because I probably marketed that one a little stronger than anything (laughs). And you get to see what your views—your dashboard right away. You know, I'm like, "What do you mean in my first week like a thousand people have viewed it?" and I was like, "Whoa!" Like, where'd they come from? And, you know, and then, you know, over time and you get to see that grow and grow and grow and then you get to see your sales grow and grow. And, you know, I'm speaking right now from the ebook side of it, but I also sell paper, you know, and hardcovers as well. That, you know, has its place. Because I know a lot of people who sell on the TikTok shop side and they do that—I haven't done that too—

Jennia: Or the signed editions too. Especially now I'm seeing a lot of people put out signed editions because holidays are coming up, that sort of thing. So it seems more like a gift type item.

L.C. Son: Yeah, yeah. And I will say one of the biggest reasons why I went direct was because I wanted to be able to control my business. I, you know, as I mentioned before, when Amazon dropped that book, I wasn't in control. I had no control over it. I didn't have any control over it. And loss of control is a big deal for me and I didn't like that feeling (laughs). And I, you know, I just felt helpless, like there was nothing I could do but send these what I kept feeling like very pathetic emails (both laugh) to my reader saying, "I'm so sorry!" I do not want to be that person. That's not a part of my personality type. So I was like, "I don't want to do this," but I had to, you know, communicate.

Jennia: Right, yeah.

L.C. Son: So I wanted to be in control of my sales. So one of the things that I've been kind of toying around with, which has really been working for me, is that I've been doing my pre-order sales on direct buy.

Jennia: Oh okay. So how is that different than when you were doing it, say on Amazon?

L.C. Son: So with Amazon, as I mentioned, when you do the pre-order, of course the person doesn't get the book until the book is released. Well, same difference happens here, but you actually get paid for the sale right away, whereas with Amazon you don't. You still have to wait for 90 days. And if they drop you then you're going to lose that. Right? So the good thing is no one can drop you because this is your site. Again, you're not paying for hosting what Payhip site. So, you know, I'm not getting paid by Payhip at all. They, you know, for as much as I talk about them (Jennia laughs), I wish I would. But—

Jennia: Wouldn't it be awesome if they sponsored this episode after, though? (laughs)

L.C. Son: I know they really should! (both laugh) But yes. So, you know, they're not front heavy or whatever. And so for the pre-orders they have a nice connection with BookFunnel where you can actually have it set up for a future date. And so BookFunnel will say, "Hey, you know, your books are going out to 100 people tomorrow, you know, and get ready," you know. So you get all of the support from BookFunnel, all of the support from Payhip. And it's seamless and you literally don't have to do anything just like Amazon. So it's not like I had to get up in the morning and remember to send an email to 100 people. You know, and again, I'm speaking specifically for the digital books, but yeah, you do the exact same thing. You just have to make sure it's in BookFunnel just like you would have had to make sure it's in Amazon. And the good thing is the way I did it, for example, from my most recent book, Till Death Do Us, I gave myself a whole month in advance before it went to KU, so I got a chance to give some bonuses to the people who purchase early. So they got incentives. And that's one of the biggest things I always preach. If you're going to do direct buy, it's okay to give exactly what you have on Amazon. But because people already loyal to Amazon—

Jennia: Right.

L.C. Son: —we want to kind of curate it a little bit and do that a little bit more. So give them a bonus chapter, give them some incentives for purchasing early. I was like, "If you're gonna purchase early, you know, I'll get you art, I'll get you stickers, I'll get you—" you know what I mean? Those are some of the things you can do.

Jennia: That's a great tip because I think that goes back to what you were saying earlier, too, about that almost being a barrier where people are afraid that they might get scammed or, again, that they might feel like, "Okay, I'll spend 99 cents and get this pre-order and it's not a big deal if it doesn't go through," but there might be that hesitation if they're going to make a larger order. And that larger order could even just be 20 dollars for a paperback. But yeah, if you have something you're offering them as well, and as soon as people see that, yeah, this is actually coming into my mailbox and then they're sharing it. Yeah, then also you have that social proof from other people.

L.C. Son: Yeah. And even with the physical book, so if you do, you know, a order for a physical book, you know, through my Payhip—Etsy, I was kind of holding for, like, my backlog books and that's kind of how I started. But now I started shifting it, you know, so that I can have equal inventory on both sides. That way I don't care if they're Etsy shopping, they get me, great. If they come to my Payhip site and they get me, great. Doesn't really matter which way you get me (laughs). I'm open to all of the direct buy, any way you want. My biggest thing to authors is just to be able to control your bag, you know, just be able to control what you can control. And when you do start to see how you can get your resources not only faster but just the same, if not more, and you get to cut out the middle man? It's a good feeling.

Jennia: So what are the advantages to using two different platforms, like you have Etsy and Payhip?

L.C. Son: So the cool thing about Etsy is they do their own marketing. So they're already doing soft marketing in the background. And, you know, if someone buys something similar—

Jennia: Oh right.

L.C. Son: —my store, you know, they're already do[ing] that. Payhip is starting to move in that route, you know, but as they're getting, you know, a little bit more recognition. So they just opened a marketplace which is really—


Jennia: Ahh, okay.

L.C. Son: Yeah! So you can actually go to the marketplace and see other books. And you can put your books in the marketplace. And so if someone's in the marketplace—so they're working up their recognition. I know in Shopify, if I get an author's book and if there's a similar title—so they'll say, "Hey, you know, you may want to get this." That's the kind of marketplace stuff I would like to see in Payhip, because I think that would help all of us authors over time. But it's not as isolating as Amazon because that's just how marketing works.

Jennia: Mhm.

L.C. Son: And no slack to the reader, but that's just what we do. Well, with direct selling, you're not affording that reader that opportunity. You're putting them in front of your space. You're saying, "Hey, these are my books. And here's what you can see from me." And even with Shopify, one of the things I like is that they don't do the cross sell until you've put that other book in the cart. So that way you've already gotten that book from the author you came there for initially—

Jennia: Ohh okay.

L.C. Son: —and then they'll cross sell it. They were like, "Well, while you're getting this, do you want to get that?" I appreciate that because at least that author that I came there for is going to get the sale I intended. And then if I pick up someone else new, that's great too. That's really good.

Jennia: How do you handle the distribution of physical copies?

L.C. Son: So with Payhip if you order a physical book, you know, it's the same kind of deal. You put in your address and everything like you would. And I can actually enter in once I have, like, the UPS shipping, you know, a tracking and everything. I just entered the tracking in and Payhip will send that person an email saying, "Hey, here's the tracking number for your book." So it's real cool, but, you know—and then I just take it over to the post office (both laugh). Or UPS or wherever I need to go. That's always been real cool. And I have yet to have a hiccup. Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. I haven't had any problems with it. Unlike TikTok, they don't require all these really weird rules and different labels. And I was like, "Okay, TikTok, y'all I wasn't—" (laughs). I'm, like, I have a very demanding 9-to-5 and then the other parts of my life are very demanding. The minute another outside source starts demanding something extra from me, I'm like, "Okay, never. Nope, nope, I can't be doing that." (laughs)

Jennia: I think that's actually good news for a lot of people who might be on the fence. Especially when we think of something where you have to learn a new platform or how it works or even what their rules are. It can just feel like this is too much to learn and I already have enough going on. I don't need to also devote 20 hours of my life to this (laughs).

L.C. Son: Yeah.

Jennia: So are there any disadvantages to running your own platform or to doing direct buy?

L.C. Son: There are things that you do need to remember. Like, you know, you gotta be organized. I have—again I mentioned that type A personality. So I have a very extensive Excel spreadsheet to tell me what I'm supposed to be doing for each book. I mean, it's a template, you know, that I created over time and it's kind of my go to. So you gotta do it. And every time I mess up, it's because I haven't been using the template like I'm supposed to. So you really do have to be very organized. Because when you're doing direct buy, you have no one else to blame but you. You can't go to Amazon and say, "You didn't post it," or, "That's not the right cover. I uploaded—" It's on you. If it's not up there, it's on you. You know, like the other day I realized that something still said pre-order and I'm like, "The book is out." And so I fuss at L.C. as if we're not the same—

Jennia: If we're not same (laughs) Right! Go to the mirror and shake your finger.

L.C. Son: I'm like, "L.C." I'm like, "No, you're not watching the eighth time of Interview with a Vampire. You will see Lestat later. You need to go and fix this. You could be rewarded with Lestat after you do this." So yeah, so you just have to be really disciplined to make sure. The biggest thing I think would be to keep it simple. The simpler you keep it, the easier it is that you're not forgetting a whole lot. So you don't want to get too fancy. So, you know, you do have to make sure you're real good. So I put a lot in my phone. You know, I have dates in my phone too. Like I have a date right now to take something off a KU at such and such time. I'm like, "Okay, make sure you take such and such off because it's going to your direct buy." So you need to make sure, you know—so you have to be very organized.

Jennia: Yes, I would agree with that. I mean, just thinking about meeting all the different deadlines and making sure you've done all the different steps that are required. Yeah, there's a level of organization that you're already used to, so just apply it to this too.

L.C. Son: Yeah, yeah. And I mean, even though BookFunnel is, like, really easy and really helpful, you got make sure that you have two different versions. Like, if you have your advanced reader copy that you've watermarked to death, well, you can't have that be the one that you're selling.

Jennia: Oh, right. Yes.

L.C. Son: You know, and those were trial and error things I figured out along the way, right?

Jennia: Well, for anyone who still isn't quite convinced, would you have anything else you'd want to tell them?

L.C. Son: Again, I think my biggest thing would just be, I think everyone can direct sell something. I think, you know, you don't have to think about it in terms of, you know, putting your whole catalog out there. It could be a reader magnet. And that's how I started. I started with a reader magnet. I started to grow my email list. And that's how I realized that I could do this and that readers were open to the idea of getting things directly from me. So wherever you are in the process, get something on. And I would say, if you can, even with something like Payhip, because it doesn't cost you, you're not paying upfront or you're not paying monthly, go ahead and set it up and you can make all of the links invisible and hidden. But if Amazon or Barnes and Nobles or any other large retailer messes up on you, you make that link public and you go. You go live. So I'm like—

Jennia: Yeah, that is so true.

L.C. Son: Yeah! You know, and the cool thing about it is if you don't have a website, just use Payhip as your website. You don't, you know, like—

Jennia: Well, especially since it's free!

L.C. Son: Yeah, it's free! I'm like, "You don't sup—get that and some links in bio and call it a day," like? (laughs)

Jennia: Mhm.

L.C. Son: So you know, and then just make your money and just make your money. And then as you grow, you can, you know, diversify and do all that kind of stuff. But yeah, so you can—for the most of the direct buys, Shopify and Payhip included, you can leave reviews there too. So that's a cool feature. So you can—You just have to remind your folks, just like you do for anything—

Jennia: Yes.

L.C. Son: —to go back and give the review.

Jennia: But still, knowing that, too, that people probably feel a little bit safer shopping from you if they go over there and they see even, like, 10 positive reviews, or 50, or whatever it is, just knowing that this isn't a website that just popped up overnight and you don't really know if you're going to get what you purchased or not.

L.C. Son: Right, right. And—

Jennia: Or even what's going to happen to your payment information. I think that's another concern people might have.

L.C. Son: Yeah, that's definitely a concern. And I will tell you, we see nothing. It's just like, you know, anything else because, you know, all the information goes to—for me, goes to PayPal. So PayPal sees everything. They're the, you know, the middle-man conduit. So I don't see anything. And I think that's what people—Yeah, you're right. People probably are afraid of that, thinking that, you know, their information is out there. I'm like, "I have no idea what credit card. You could have put it in your mama's name. I have no idea how you paid for the book" (laughs), I'm just saying thank you. That's all I know. So, yeah, so they can be assured that, yeah, we don't see anything. There is an option on my Payhip for you to subscribe. So if you subscribe when you purchase, then I know—

Jennia: Ahh.

L.C. Son: —and, you know. But if you don't subscribe, I have no idea. But, like I said, you do have the option. And that's the other cool thing about direct buy, you can get folks to subscribe because you can't really do that with Amazon unless they go to the back of your book and you have it there. But there is—there's only "Follow you" on Amazon, but there's no "Get to your newsletter," you know, outside of people get it through your book. And if you're like me, I don't always go to the back of the book. You know, so I'm not the best reader either. I'm just as bad as the ones I'm wishing would rate for me (laughs).

Jennia: I think a lot of us are that way. So (laughs), I mean, admittedly, I'm also really bad at leaving reviews.

L.C. Son: Well, as an author, I try not to. I'm real careful about that. You're not going to come back and say L.C. said anything! (laughs). L.C. may tell her husband a whole bunch, but that's fine (both laugh).

Jennia: Well, before we end, where is s the best place for people to find you if they want to learn more about your books, or see your website, or sign up for your newsletter?

L.C. Son: They can always go to www.lcsonbooks.com, and you can find all of my connectors there. But I am on Facebook under Author L.C. Son and Instagram under Author L.C. Son (laughs). It's all the same. I am also on TikTok and Threads, so yes.

Jennia: All right. Thank you again!

L.C. Son: Thank you. Thanks for having me! I appreciate it.

Jennia: I was happy to have you (laughs).

Jennia: And thank you for listening and be sure to check out the show notes for additional information! And then please join me next week when Sue Mell will explain how to use subtext in dialogue. Thanks again!