Writers in the Storm

By Kris Maze

Being an indie author is a hellava lotta work, my friends. Passion for crafting great stories and knowing how to sell them as an indie author is just the beginning. You might have solid advice, a dream team to set up your store, and books your audience will devour, but that's only part of the puzzle. To truly make waves, to make a disruption in the publishing world as an indie author, there are other factors to consider. Read on for an inside look at my experience using WooCommerce to sell physical books from my author website, complete with its promises and woes.

The Hosting Nightmare

My website journey began years ago with Bluehost. Back then, my site was just a single page, and I was taking a class to improve my author platform. I fumbled my way through setting it up and, in an effort to save money, purchased a three-year hosting plan for a bargain price. Then Bluehost was sold to another entity. I figured, what difference does it make who hosts my site? As long as my books had an online home, I was good to go.

It turns out, it does make a difference.

Under new ownership, Bluehost’s quality dropped significantly, particularly when it came to supporting small, independent businesses like mine. Customer service became nearly impossible to reach, and when I did get through, the answers were vague or included upsells for add-ons I didn’t need. Billing was a mess—I once received an invoice for an additional three years of hosting that totaled nearly a thousand dollars.

WooCommerce Woes

My website itself was a disaster. I had set up WooCommerce on my own (full disclosure: I had no idea what I was doing), and it was cluttered with free and recommended plugins that often conflicted with one another. Unknowingly, I'd followed the advice of affiliates who were more concerned with their success than mine. My eBook links failed more often than they worked. Instead of a professional storefront, I had a clunky site that whimpered "amateur," eroding any buying confidence my audience had.

It's interesting in hindsight, but as authors we know that we need to disclose our affiliate links. But seeing those affiliate links in how-to videos, I believed that each one of those plugins was the solution to a problem, just like the YouTuber said it would be. I didn't understand that they could conflict with each other and cause even more problems... that other YouTubers would be happy to tell me how to fix by adding yet another plugin.

The real fly in my fondue? Customers were trying to buy my books. One particularly frustrated reader emailed, “I am literally trying to give you money. Why can’t I do that?” Imagine hearing that after months of sweat, investment, and energy spent trying to make this store functional. And for every customer who reached out, how many gave up after hitting the first broken link?

After two years of frustration, I knew it was time to call in the experts. I needed a website that actually worked—a clean, professional store that could sell my books reliably.

A Professional Website

I began working with Lisa Norman, our resident website expert at WITS that other authors highly recommended to me. Together, we rebuilt my site from the ground up. We designed a clean, polished store that could sell both eBooks and paperbacks. Lisa added logos for my two pen names. She set up analytics so I could track my sales, and installed essential security and spam protection. She removed the unnecessary and expensive fluff. I even got designated emails to make my storefront communications more professional.

At that time, Lisa warned me about my hosting company, and while I wasn’t thrilled with my long-term commitment, we decided to stick it out for the final year. The site looked fantastic, and I was excited to share it with my audience.

I ran a sale, prepped my email list of then 1,500 double opt-in subscribers, blogged, and created promotional materials. My readers were engaged—they interacted with my emails, commented on social media, and clicked my Calls to Action. Statistically speaking, someone should have been buying.

But I wasn’t selling books. Worse, during a big launch week, a broken URL greeted my customers. All the effort, momentum, and excitement vanished. I received confused emails from readers saying my site was flagged as “suspicious” or “spam,” despite having every privacy and security box checked. I had done everything right, but it still wasn’t working. My website was literally pushing customers away. When Lisa checked, she found that pieces of my website were randomly vanishing due to some problem with the hosting setup. As soon as she fixed one thing, another would break. We were both exhausted.

Discovering WooCommerce’s Hidden Costs

When setting up my store, I wanted customers to be able to buy paperback books, which meant navigating shipping rates and taxes. WooCommerce offered a supposedly new payment plugin that looked promising—until I tested it. My test customer couldn’t buy the book at all.

Next I learned that WooCommerce doesn’t automatically calculate shipping fees and taxes. You can set up flat rates and shipping zones, and as long as no one buys more than one book, it might work. But for taxes, you’re on your own. Each tax rate has to be added manually, state by state. For many authors, this is something an accountant handles. But as an indie author who wears all the hats, I decided to track taxes myself. Sadly, but within a realistic expectation as a small, growing business, the lack of sales made this less of an issue.

To cover my bases, I set flat shipping rates and added a note at checkout asking customers outside the continental U.S. to contact me directly. While this kept my costs in check, it didn’t give me the confidence to run promotions. I was constantly worried about orders falling apart or losing money on paperback sales. I've since learned that for shipping and taxes to work well in WooCommerce you'll need to invest in a costly plugin with an annual fee, annual fees that have been going up a lot lately.

Integration Issues: Lulu and USPS

I tried working with Lulu to automate paperback fulfillment, but the costs were ridiculous. I was losing money on every sale. So, I decided to manually ship my own paperbacks, which felt more sustainable but far from automated.

My next step was to integrate a USPS shipping plugin. For a $100/year subscription, I hoped to streamline the checkout process. Instead, I found myself trapped in a lucid nightmare. The plugin’s customer service was incomprehensible—one email was a copy-paste from their website, while another was so technical I couldn’t understand what they needed. After two months of frustration and a near-meltdown, I managed to secure a refund. To this day, I don’t know if the USPS plugin would have been a solution because I could never get it to work. I can't even tell you if the problem was with the plugin or my application with the USPS for an account.

The Big Switch

The three-year stint of Bluehost was nearly finished and I switched to the more reliable hosting service Lisa recommended last summer. I am happy to report that since that month, I have not had a crash or email complaint. Even though I have not held a full book launch since this change, I am getting small revenues each month without doing a thing. My confidence to dive into promotions is high. It feels like I finally have the indie website I intended. Had I realized how much the hosting service was impacting the functionality of my site, I would have made a better business decision to cut my losses and ties to the previous company. 

Live and learn. And learn from others. As I tell you my story, I hope you can take from my experience and find an online sales platform that works for you. 

The Takeaway

The combination of bad hosting, unreliable plugins, and unhelpful integrations made my website journey unnecessarily painful. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that Investing in quality hosting and tools isn’t optional—it’s the cost of doing business. As indie authors, we put so much effort into creating great books. Our websites, the places where we sell those books, deserve the same care and attention. Anything less will only cost us time, money, and readers.

Your Turn

What website woes have you had? What tips to indie writers would you share?

About Kris

Kris Maze is an author, blogger, and teacher. She enjoys writing twisty, speculative fiction with character driven plots. After years of reading classic literature from around the world, mysteries, and thrillers, she began to write and publish her own sci-fi and horror books. She also writes for various publications including a regular post at the award-winning Writers in the Storm Blog. 

When she isn’t spending time with her favorite people and stories, Kris Maze is taking pictures, hiking, or pondering the wisdom of Bob Ross. 

And sometimes, she cuts down a natural Christmas Tree.

Scaretastic and Sci-fi Stories

Scaretastic and Sci-fi Stories is a collection of short fiction written to mystify and frighten readers. With stories under the pen names Kris Maze and Krissy Knoxx, these tales span the speculative subgenres of science fiction and light horror. It includes award-winning stories and a preview of a YA science fiction series. Are you brave enough to take the path less traveled?

by Rebecca Forster

Topping my list of things critical to a books success are: a well- crafted story, a great editor, an exciting blurb, and, above all, an exceptional cover. But covers, like books, are not created equal and they serve different masters.

Branding: 3 Types of Covers

Here are three types of book covers with a "branding purpose." You have likely seen all of them.

Corporate Branding

Harlequin is a great example of corporate branding. Graphic elements such as type font and size, logo placement, and central images are as prescribed as the writing guidelines. A mere glance at the covers and the reader’s mind registers some key book elements:

• category romance
• happy for now, or happily ever after ending
• short novel
  and, above all...
• published by Harlequin.

The author is secondary to the brand.

Genre/Series Branding

The Idiots Guide to (insert word) or Chicken Soup for the Soul are fabulous examples of this.  The graphic elements are set in stone, making it simple for the reader to identify the book as being part of the over-arching series. These elements tend to be colorful and bold, the titles self-explanatory and prominent.

Author Branding

John Grisham’s books use a clean, easily read font for his name. His name fills the top third of his covers. The titles are secondary and the images are pleasant but not genre explicit. Grisham is the reason you are picking this book up, period. Many big name authors use this formula, and some indie authors are harnessing the power of distinct author branding.

My Own Cover Journey

My Traditional Years

During my 25 years as a traditionally published author, I wrote for Harlequin, Penguin Putman, Kensington Books, Harper Collins, and other houses. My covers from Harlequin were indistinguishable from other Harlequin authors, as we noted above. At the time, Harlequin is focused on their own corporate brand. My single title covers went from basic to intricate only when my book sales warranted the extra expense of foils and raised fonts.

The Indie Challenge

I entered indie publishing with 20+ books in my inventory, due to all the rights that reverted to me from my previous publishers. I was not, however, free to use the covers that were previously created. My initial efforts to create covers by myself were childish, and did me no great service in terms of sales. But, now that there were no advances on the horizon, my own efforts were all I could afford.

Luckily, my fortunes changed.

I hired a great editor, PR person, and I went in search of a cover designer. I had some luck, but nothing that knocked my socks off. The truth is, a person with a graphic program is not necessarily a cover designer. I discovered that two of these designers were actually using templates. That was fine, but I wanted more.

I just couldn’t quite define what that ‘more’ was.

In-House Again

Over the years, graphic design programs become user-friendly and reasonably priced, so I committed to learning how to create compelling covers. There was a lot of trial and error. Sometimes I succeeded—spot color and stark graphics for The Witness Series have proven successful, with over 3 million books downloaded.

My favorite self-made cover is Before Her Eyes (the book is also a personal favorite.).  Both these efforts are evocative of the stories. 

I was not so successful with the Finn O’Brien Thrillers. I knew what I wanted those covers to look like, I did a decent job of interpreting my ideas, but something kept them from being compelling.

Enter a Master Cover Designer.

I befriended an author, Luke Romyn, online.  I loved his storytelling but I was enamored with his covers. When I asked who designed them, he said that he did. It seems Luke is a graphic artist turned author, and the reason I loved his covers was indefinable. It had to do with depth of color and composition. I was drawn to them, understanding the story before I read a word.

I wanted that feeling for the cover of my books.

He took my "acceptable" Finn O’Brien covers and turned them into spectacular ones. Suddenly, there was an electricity that crackled off my thriller covers. The fonts he chose turned my name and the titles into bold statements. The tilt of a letter or intrusion of a graphic element into the type gave the cover life.

I possess a good eye; Luke has an extraordinary one. Look at the difference between my covers (left) and his covers (right).

The Bottom Line

It is impossible to quantify the soul of a graphic artist. They bring something akin to umami to the design table. Their talent is deep and ethereal. They seem to know more about our stories than we do without ever having read the book. Whatever the magic is, I’m glad Luke has it and am honored that he has me covered. If you want to see what I mean, check out Luke’s books awesome covers.

If you want to shake up your book sales, take a look at your covers.

What do you look for in a book cover, and do you know what cover elements make YOU buy? Do you create your own book covers or hire someone else to do the job? If you use a designer, feel free to recommend them below!

About Rebecca

Rebecca Forster started writing on a crazy dare and found her passion. Now a USA Today and Amazon best selling author, Forster is known for her legal thrillers and police procedurals. Over three million readers have enjoyed her Josie Bates thrillers in the Witness Series alone. With over 40 books to her name, Rebecca had a long career in traditional publishing before becoming an indie author. Her fast-paced tales of law and justice are known for deep characterization and never-see-it-coming endings.

In an effort to make her work as realistic as possible, Rebecca has graduated from the DEA and ATF Citizens academies, landed by tail hook and spent two days on the nuclear submarine U.S.S Nimitz, engaged in police ride-alongs, and continues to court watch whenever possi

Rebecca has taught at the acclaimed UCLA Writers Program and various colleges and universities. She is a sought-after speaker at bar and judges' associations as well as philanthropic groups and writing conferences. Rebecca is also a repeat speaker at the LA Times Festival of Books.

Rebecca has just released The 9th Witness, the final book in her acclaimed Witness Series, Josie Bates Thrillers. Find all her books at any online bookstore or here: https://www.rebeccaforster.com/.

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By Lynette M. Burrows

When Lisa first broached the idea of Disruptive December with the Writers in the Storm team, I liked the idea but didn’t have a clue what I could add to the discussion. Lisa made a suggestion, and I agreed to write about how being an independent author doing in-person events is a disruption. But it turned out I underwent a kind of personal disruption that's both related and feels important to share. 

Not a Marketing Gene in My Body

I started off as a reader ever since the first Dick and Jane book I could read on my own. Then I began telling stories verbally, acting out stories (both ones I’d read and ones I made-up), and scribbling them down on whatever papers I had. But the people who surrounded me didn’t believe authors could make a living, so I put aside writing and became a registered nurse specializing in pediatrics. 

Pretty soon, the writing bug returned in full force. I retired as a nurse and invested serious time in my writing. I wrote several books before I wrote one I felt worthy of being published. When I published it, it got some wonderful reviews. But sales weren’t what I had hoped for… Knowledgeable authors and marketers said the market had changed and we needed to buy ads to sell our books. Now, a registered nurse gets educated on chemistry and physiology and psychology, but there’s not one marketing class in nursing school. But I’m great at learning stuff on my own. 

Self-Education Isn't an Easy Button

Educating oneself on marketing isn’t as easy as it sounds. That’s because most of the marketing lessons in books or classes are for products like cars or houses or even life insurance. And those techniques made little sense to me. But finding qualified education about marketing books was difficult.

Oh, there are lots of books and people out there that say they know how to do it…but in reality, they know how to do it for their books or for one or two specific genres of books. I read a lot of those books. Took some classes and tried a bunch of different things. But most of those books and classes assume you have a lot of money to invest in marketing your books. Since I don’t have a lot of money to invest in marketing, much of their advice was unusable.

Know Your Audience

One of the pieces of information from regular marketing is “know your audience.” My problem was I couldn’t articulate who my audience was other than it’d be someone like me. 

So I do what I always do—research. I read books, watched videos, took some classes, and experimented with Amazon ads. I spoke with other authors and learned how they marketed their books. Some were quite clear about their audience. Others were at as much of a loss as I was.

Then a few months ago I watched “The New Approach to Personal Branding that Changes Everything,” a video by Chris Do, a personal branding coach, CEO and founded The Futur, an online education site with a mission to teach one billion people how to make a living doing what they love (without losing their soul). (Disclaimer: I have taken no courses from Chris Do or watched any of his other videos and do not know if they are worth pursuing.) However, that 50-minute video of his changed my approach to branding and marketing through a single tip and a template on how to use AI.

AI as a Branding and Marketing Tool

AI has been much maligned in the creative community for good reason. Stealing images or words of other creators is not okay.

But AI has a purpose. It can be very useful in data collection and analysis. And that’s how Chris suggested we use it. In the video he shared a template of a specifically worded prompt. The wording is intended to guide ChatGPT into helping us understand who our audience is. 

Now, before you zip over to YouTube, you first need to understand your business. Know why you write what you do, what tropes and themes you commonly use, what you hope to gain by publishing your book, what you are passionate about, and the relevant details about your company.

My request to ChatGPT, for example, includes the following: I write suspenseful soft science fiction with characters whose character growth is as important as fast-paced action and themes that make you think. I’m a company of one employee (me) with contractors for covers, editing, proofreading, and other services. The more specific your details in the prompt, the more likely you’ll find the answer helpful. 

For me, the answer was like a beacon from a lighthouse showing me the way through choppy seas. 

Disruption Through Clarity

AI won’t be 100% accurate, but it can come close. Pick the parts of the answer that resonate with you and you will develop a better understanding of your reader. 

The clarity of understanding my ideal reader helped me see how I could better reach my market. Let me say that another way. Knowing who my readers are has given me insights into where I can find my readers, and how I can appeal to them.

Understanding how detailed my prompts had to be for AI helped me frame other questions whose answers had eluded me. For example, my books are an uncommon blend of genres, so I thought finding comp titles was an impossible task. But when I gave ChatGPT a detailed prompt, I discovered I was wrong. Not only that, its answer showed me why those books were good comp titles. It helped me understand how to talk about my own books and how I can discover comp books through my own reading.

Disruption through Networking

Another frequently touted “good” marketing technique you read about is how valuable networking with other authors is. But being an introvert, that feels like it’s hard. 

Especially when you can’t go to conferences, you don’t know authors in your genre, or you would much rather be a wallflower.

Where can you network? Writer’s groups. Online and in person. Facebook groups. LinkedIn, BookTok, BlueSky, Mastodon, etc. For me, the easiest way was to go to an event and be open to hanging out with the other authors. Have coffee after the event? Sure. Sit and chat a minute? Sure. I often let the other people talk first, but I also have a couple of questions in reserve.

I recommend you have more than the traditional, what do you write, question in mind. Ask an easy get-to-know-you question like: what are you reading? Have you been to this event before? Any tips for a newbie? What’s been your most successful event/consignment shop?

To date, my networking has given me a spreadsheet full of potential consignment shops in my city and nearly as many local events.

Why Do Local Consignment and Events?

In-person events and consignment shops may not immediately yield income, so you have to be clear on what your goals are for doing this. 

Benefits can be sales, but there are other benefits too. You’ll meet readers. Local people who may not have heard of you before, but they’d love to brag that they met an author from their city. Local readers might be connections to other events, such as book clubs.

Meeting local authors may make connections that become good friends. 

You’ll learn about your area’s literary network. Maybe in your area it is small, if so you can help it grow. 

You might learn about other places to sell books and be able to get recommendations to new venues via the new author friends you’ve made.  

If you do readings, you’ll be able to observe people reacting to your words. Their reactions will help you gauge where your writing is strong and where you can improve. 

The long tail may include more people signed up for your newsletter, more sales, more connections, and more confidence. 

To get the most out of your local consignment or event, understand who that store or event appeals to. Is that something your ideal reader might like? The closer the shop or event matches your ideal reader, the more successful you’ll be. You’ll grow more comfortable with each one you do so that subsequent ones are easier.

Tips on How to Start Your Own Path of Disruption on a Local Level

You Don’t Have to Do It All

Figure what you can handle, back it up a step and try that. If that is doable, then add another piece. Don’t push it too fast too soon. You don’t want to over-saturate your area or over-extend yourself into not being able to follow through. Right now, I'm adding one consignment shop or event per quarter.

Thing to Have Beforehand

Have a one sheet, a bio, all your links and book descriptions available. 

Know how many books you have in inventory and how many you’re willing to put with the individual. 

Have bookmarks or business cards to hand out. 

Practice a one or two-line book description you can give verbally when appropriate. It’s smart to have a similarly short bio to give.

Send a brief email asking for an in-person meeting to discuss consignments or events when possible. Be agreeable and polite even if the answer is no. 

If you get accepted for consignment or an event, be sure to set yourself up for success and get enough information beforehand. 

Ask Questions About the Event and/or the Venue

How many books do you recommend I bring? What size of table will there be? Is it okay to put out bookmarks or business cards? Where do I wait/stand/sit? May I bring tall banners? May I bring snacks to share with the other authors? How many others will be there? What will happen in the event of bad weather? When may I set up and take down my display? May I promote the event?

Before the Event

Consider visiting the venue ahead of time. I have done photoshoots at shops carrying my books and at events. I use those photos on my website and social media and I clearly label the site and event operators. 

Always share the photos and information about event or venue before, during and after the event. Don’t forget to give credit to the store and/or organizers. 

At Events

Set up your table and yourself for success by following advice from PR and marketing experts like  in this WITS article by Alex Greenwood. 

If you have a giveaway item, make certain it appeals to your target audience. For example, I wouldn’t put candy on my table because it tends to draw children (not my target audience) as well as adults. 

Be helpful. Offer to bring snacks if you can. Offer to help with set up or take down. Be personable with staff. Be open to interviews with by other authors, or interview an author or two yourself during events.

Don’t Burn Bridges

I had a situation where I applied to be part of a book event a month or two ahead of time. I waited and waited and when I began seeing other authors featured as being part of that event; I figured I hadn’t gotten approved this time around. Then one evening, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a post mentioning how I was going to be at the event that would end in an hour. I said a few NSFW words to vent some frustration, then sat down and wrote the organizer of that event. In my note, I expressed my apologies for missing the event. I said that being new to the event; I assumed I had missed the communication, giving me the approval and details for the event and asked for an explanation of the procedures because I didn’t want to miss out on the next event.

I got a prompt response and heartfelt apologies. The mistake was on the organizer’s behalf and I got links and private group access that will allow me early access to the next event. 

Forgive Yourself and Others Often

Everyone makes mistakes. If you’re new to local consignments and/or local events, you’ll make some mistakes. Other authors will make mistakes. Event organizers and store owners/operators make mistakes too. 

Forgiveness doesn’t mean you forget. Be professional, polite, and gracious. Forgive the small stuff. Forgive even if the mistakes are egregious, but consider avoiding another event or shop run by that person.

Pricing and Packaging as Disruption

The most basic way independent authors can disrupt publishing is through how we price and package our books. We can write stand alone books or multi-book series, We can create special editions or an omnibus. And we get to set our own prices.

Setting prices is tricky. There's a school of thought that you should never price your book for free as it devalues your book. Another school of thought insists you price your book at the high end to create a sense of value. And there's everything in between.

The disruption comes because as independent authors and publishers, we can change our prices based on our goals. Want to get more books into the hands of more readers? Run "free for a limited time" offer. Want to entice readers with a special edition? Try it.

I need to get more books into the hands of more readers, so I'm trying a little bit of everything. While I'm doing that, I'm gathering as much data as I can so I can make better decisions in the future.

Create Your Own Level of Disruption

It’s an exciting time to be an author. We have the potential for more control and power over our products and our careers than ever before. We have tools that authors have never had access to before. Not only that, we get to decide what we do and how we do it. 

That can feel lonely and overwhelming. So remember to lean on each other a little. Reading blogs like Writers in the Storm is one place we can lean on each other. Lean on AI or other technology as you are comfortable doing so. Get involved in local events and consignment shops, even if it’s just one venue at a time. You get to choose disruption your way. 

Have you worked with local events and consignment shops before? Will you do more (or do your first) in the new year?

About Lynette

Lynette M. Burrows is an author, blogger, creativity advocate, and Yorkie wrangler. She survived moving seventeen times between kindergarten and her high school graduation. This alone makes her uniquely qualified to write an adventure or two.

Her series, The Fellowship Dystopia, is a “chillingly realistic” alternate history in 1961 Fellowship America where autogyros fly and following the rules isn’t optional. Books one and two, My Soul to Keep, and  If I Should Die, are available everywhere books are sold online. Book three, And When I Wake, is scheduled to be published in early 2025.

Lynette lives in the land of OZ. She is a certifiable chocoholic and coffee lover. When she’s not blogging or writing or researching her next book, she avoids housework and plays with her two Yorkshire terriers. You can find Lynette online on Facebook or on her website.

Top image from DepositPhoto.com