Writer Mom Life Episode 6: Katie Cross and Diversification

Katie Cross was already a self-published author before she had her first child two years ago, so Daphne was excited to talk to her about the transition. Katie was inspired to start putting out resources when she found a lack of “what does it really look like” information out there for writers who are also parents (just like Daphne and J. R.!). She started a Facebook group, Indie Author Life, too! She’s also doing other things, like ghostwriting and consulting. We talk about how so many self-published authors “can’t do just one thing,” and why that’s both a good idea and how moms are already really good at that. There’s also a secret fun fact about Katie at the end of the interview, to reward you for getting to the end of this slightly-longer-than-usual interview.

We talked about a million different things, but here’s a rundown of the main topics:

• How far along she was in her indie career when she had her son
• Her maternity leave and how she set her expectations for what her writer mom life would look like after
• The lack of resources and information that pushed her to create her own
• What her writer mom life looks like most days
• Some random parenting musings that have nothing to do with writing but include great gems like “My job is not to entertain him all the time” and “I’m not failing if he’s not happy all the time”
• Why diversification in your income stream is important
• Why parents are in a great position to self-publish already
• Secret fun fact about Katie (one word hint: moose)

(Disclosure: some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that at no cost to you, we get a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.)

Katie’s links:

• Her website: http://kcrosswriting.com/
• Indie Author Life Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/indieauthorlife/
• The first book in her series, Miss Mabel’s School For Girls is free.

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J. R.’s tips and links:

Diversifying your income stream through putting one book on multiple different platforms is important! This enables you to expand the reach of one book, getting it in the hands of more readers, which is always a good thing!

• Kindle Direct Publishing is here (for US): https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/
• CreateSpace for paperbacks is here (or you can make a paperback now directly through the KDP dashboard): https://www.createspace.com/ 
• IngramSpark, another option for paperbacks, is here: http://www.ingramspark.com/ 
• Draft2Digital, for putting your ebooks on Barnes and Nobel, Nook, and iBooks, plus more, is here: https://www.draft2digital.com/ 
• Findaway Voices, partnered with D2D, is here: (click on “audiobooks” to the left hand side to get to their section, this will tell you about the special deal they have for D2D users!) https://www.draft2digital.com/partners/ 
• Amazon’s audiobook people, ACX, are here: http://www.acx.com/ 

To stay in Kindle Select, or “go wide”? Here are some pros and cons to each to consider. Which is best for you will largely depend on your end goal.

Kindle Select Pros:

• 90 day increments
• You can offer your book for free for a total of 5 days every 90 days
• You can set up Kindle Countdown Deals on your book to boost sales
• Your book is put into the Kindle Unlimited program
• You get paid per page read through Kindle Unlimited as well

Kindle Select Cons:

• You cannot offer your book for free ANYWHERE else except for on the free days you set up through KDP
• You cannot SELL your book ANYWHERE else except for on Amazon (of note, though, this only applies to digital rights, so, the ebook only)
• You cannot offer your ebook as incentive for signing up to your email list or put it into any giveaways
• Your ebook will be on Kindle only, excluding any readers who do not read ebooks on Kindles

Going Wide Pros:

• Readers can get your ebook on their preferred reading device (Kindle, Nook, iPad, Kobo, whatever)
• You can set your book to be free whenever you want for as long as you want (even permanently)
• You can give your ebook away to your list or in giveaways as often as you want
• You could directly sell ebooks from your website if you wanted

Going Wide Cons:

• Your book will not be in the Kindle Unlimited program so you won’t get any sales from pages read through that
• You won’t be able to do Kindle Countdown Deals (though you could manually re-create the structure if you really wanted through D2D)
• Generally most ebooks tend to be sold through Amazon, so sales on all other channels rarely add up to be as much, BUT there are authors out there who sell more on Kobo, for example, than Amazon…
• ….. yeah that’s pretty much it

Consider your options, consider your goals, and choose accordingly! And remember, Kindle Select is only for 90 days at a time! You can always try it out for 3 months and then don’t renew it if you don’t like it