One Million Pages Read Case Study: Niche Genres

How Fiona Georgiou hit One Million Page Reads in One Month (as told in her own words).

My name is Fiona. I'm a chiropractor by trade and an Aussie mum of four, including my step daughter. However, my passion has always been English/Literature.

In 2009, I started writing to escape my world. (now ex-husband issues… long story.)

In 2014, I got my first contract with a medium-sized publishing house but soon yearned for the control of self-publishing.

The covers alone! OMG! I would get so jealous!

So, I dipped my foot into the self publishing pool in March 2015, spent my own money on covers and editing, and went backwards so fast, I pulled them out and sent them to a publisher again.

I couldn’t cope with spending so much money, and not making a thing.

I could write a decent book…or so I thought. But the self-publishing industry is so much more than just writing books.

But the lure was still there, taunting me, so I pushed on.

December 2016 was my first real launch, and although it went okay, my cover was wrong, I got complaints on formatting and editing, and generally wanted to cry.

I pushed through the start of 2017 with the help of friend and of course Rebecca’s FB group which offered helpful hints on building audience and product.

At this point, I had no idea what I was doing and was getting totally lost and making nothing.

I didn’t even know what to spend money ON.

In Feb 2017, I made $100 USD royalties that month. That didn’t even cover the editing costs, let alone the promo or cover art of the five or so books I had out there in self publishing, but I had a small audience thanks to my other publishing.

I’d never done a craft course, never looked at advertising. NOTHING. I was awash with hopes and dreams, and not much else. 

So I started small. A friend had introduced me to Rebecca’s FB group in January, and while I hung back and watched other people doing awesomely, I decided to dip my toe in slowly.

I paid $99USD to access Rebecca’s ‘Write to Market’ course.

And the clouds began to clear a little.

The course focused on how I could tweak what I was writing, and what I loved, to reach more readers.

What a novel idea! That you should think about your MARKET...BEFORE you write a book. Huh? 

In Feb 2017, I also joined Book rebel - as a writer and a reader. 

I soooo wanted to be a success. I loved writing, but what could I do to reach more people?

In March 2017, royalties for the whole month was $250USD.  And I think I spent more than that on ads (FB, AMS and other things) TRYING to be seen.

So when Rebecca Hamilton advertised in her FB group that some awesome author was sponsoring people for her Master Course (PMC) for half the cost of the full price - about $500USD - I jumped at the chance.

I just had to prove I made less than $1000 USD a month to qualify for the discount.

Um – are you kidding me?

That was in April 2017. Immediately I started to see what I’d been doing wrong. From my covers, to my titles, to my themes. Her course covered everything! From researching niches to writing at the correct pace.

I couldn’t believe how much I didn’t know! Even twenty books into my writing. 

I chose a series to write, at her suggestion – A Dystopian M/M shifter series. 

I already loved and wrote a lot of M/M shifters, so why not put it in a Dystopian setting?

[Editor's Note: The Dystopian recommendation was based on the current market. Throwing dystopian on everything isn't a magic sales tool. But writing to market is!]

Looking back, I should have done more with what she taught, but my cup was already full. 

I made the mistake to go, "Oh yeah! Gotcha." And I ran with it. I was so impatient. Now, I can see what I should have learnt back then - it was ALL THERE!

By the end of her course in April 2018, I was publishing more.  As you guys know, there is a 60 day turn around with royalties, and I’d been using Pronoun through 2017, so that put a slight spanner in the works, but my royalties for May 2018 was over $1100 USD plus a few hundred with the UK and AUS.

Next step was scaling up!

My best release up to this point had been The Omega Shift (the book I wrote during Rebecca’s course!) Thanks to paying for a Mega Boost through Rebecca and her PA, Rochelle McCarty, it became sticky for months!

Then Pronoun closed and things changed. But I’d seen what could happen if you followed the rules. (I still wasn’t following ALL the rules and the things RH teaches, naughty/impatient me, but I was getting there!)

In April 2018, RH opened up spots in the Book Boost Club. You pay to get access, but then you get all boosts at cost price, and a free spotlight every month.

I JUMPED on the chance!

Um- hello! The Book Boost’s were the BEST things for launches, and guaranteeing a huge sales spike for me always right when I needed it.

As a side note, I did two USA today bestseller runs with another author, who I LOVE, but we failed both times. This year, I’m in a box-set run by Heather and Rebecca, and the difference in the professionalism, drive, and co-ordination is AMAZING. I just know we’re gonna make it.

But back to my story. By April 2019, I was now making about $3000 USD (including UK, Canada and Australia royalties) and I see my next opportunity: Rebecca is doing a sale (I am a sale QUEEN! DO NOT tell me it’s a good deal, coz I’m grabbing it! No matter what.) She’s offering a package where she will manage and run your FB ads for 6 months for half the normal cost.

Now, FB ads and me have a love/hate relationship. I know they can be amazing for launches, or so people say, but I, for one, suck at them. My CPC is super high, and I get barely any sales from them anyway.

Enter Rebecca. I have her for 6 months and I get a new series to focus on every month. YES!!!

I start with my Regency romance series. She’s never done Historical Romance before and openly tells me so. But I want to give it a shot. It's my only 4 part series and has achieved BookBub featured ads before, so I hoped they would continue to make me more money! (Those books owe me a fortune as I’ve had them edited three times and spent so much in the beginning on advertising that didn’t work.)

First month: Regency series. ROI is about 200%

Second month: Dragon duet. ROI is only at break even point as it was a new release and I was off with my genres and cover. (It’s a story I love and its my THIRD re-release of the series. But it's time to stop flogging that horse.)

Third month: M/M PNR series. Again, Rebecca tells me she’s never done M/M before, but guess what? On a $10 a day ad spend ($325 for the month) I made $981!

And Rebecca will continue to tweak those ads for the three months to come. 

That’s kicking butt as far a I’m concerned! 

Now, some of you may ask why I paid Rebecca $1500 USD to run my ads for six months, rather than do her "Advertising for Authors" course, which was cheaper and would mean I could run my own ads FOREVER.

Well, first answer is...because she ROCKS! And I wanted her special sort of magic on my ads. (And I was kind of hoping to pick up some tips along the way.)

The other, and more truthful answer is, because I didn’t think her course could be that much different to the ones I’d already done.

I’ve already completed three FBs ads courses, and I’m not dropping names, but they are BIG names, and I can tell you- they didn’t rock my world. In fact, they got me spending a whole lot of money on ads, I never got back.

I was befuddled and depressed, and not wanting to do the ads myself anymore because I just didn’t know how to do it right.

Enter RH again - I love this chick - in June 2019. My royalties at the end of June were about $5000USD (if you include UK, Canada and AUS royalties)

So, I’m building, slowly but surely!

RH puts a post up in her FB group that she would like to start doing six figure author case studies. 

I now have 40 books published ranging from Regency romance, to contemporary, to fantasy, lots of PNR and LGBT.

So I apply for this ‘mentorship’ and she accepts me! The deal was that she would charge $679USD and we would get $5K worth of ‘stuff.’ And during the 12 months we would get a mentorship that would include help choosing concepts, covers, ads, the whole lot. All of it helps us to upscale to the next level.

I was sooo in!

The first thing RH does is give us all individual packages to start our learning off. I got Advertising for Authors! What I secretly wanted, and didn’t want to pay for.

You know what? This has been like… life altering! Her FB ads course alone is worth ten times what she charges!

In fact, I did the course in 3 days, and then spent the next two days setting everything up, and you know what happened?

FB shut down my account!

I like… broke the internet :P

I was getting 0.05c CPC for my PNR RH series, and FB had a hissy fit! The error message said that the algorithm had picked up something wrong, and they didn’t think it was me!

Face. Palm.

Since I hadn't done anything wrong, I was able to set up more accounts, and I am ROCKING those FB ads like you wouldn’t believe.

All because of Rebecca’s teachings!

The screen shot below shows my CPC is $0.09 - $0.18. Keep in mind my account is in AUD. If you're in the US, this is the equivalent of $0.06 - $0.12 USD CPC.

I now have the power in my releases! I don’t have to rely on newsletter swaps and other book sites to get me sales. I can direct traffic to my own books, my series, my boxsets, and control how much I spend and how much I pay per click.

My next launch is going to be EPIC!

No more throwing money at the big guys and hoping it sticks.

I’m in Australia so I wake up every morning to a dozen messenger messages, emails, and FB notifications while you American’s have your day.

Four days ago I wake up to ANOTHER message from FB ads centre saying : “Nice Work. Your cost per result is less than 80% of similar ads.”

And I get them ALL the time now.

I’m currently spending $40 a day on recent releases and boxsets, and am making an extra $90 a day on top of what I was already making.

Seriously!

And you know what happened today?

The very last day in July 2019?

I hit 1 MILLION KU page reads!

My estimate for July’s royalties is over $6K USD. That’s not all profit of course. But I can see the sky clearing.

The YEARS of hard work, slogging it out, working/writing for no reward other than the pleasure of my hobby/obsession… those days are ending!

I’m going to be able to make a living off this hobby, and that is a dream come true. 

Here's a List of Rebecca’s Courses that I have taken:

• Write to Market (included as part of Publishing Mastermind Course
• Publishing Mastermind Course
• BookBub Ads for Authors (included as part of Advertising for Authors)
• Advertising for Authors

And I have Advanced Social Media for Authors in my possession and will do once I finish this Academy book I’m meant to be writing. 

I also use Book Rebel with every single release, and Book Boosts through ZeroAlchemy.com for my BIG days!

Here's a Reminder of Where I Started (Before Rebecca) in 2016

Here's 2017, When I Took Rebecca's Master Course, which I didn't complete until 2018 and didn't apply the advice in full at first. (The course still paid for itself, though!)

Here's 2018, when I utilized the Book Boost Club.

And now, 2019, where I added in her Facebook Ads Service and Advertising for Authors Course. I've already surpassed 2018 sales with 5 months left to go!

And $6000 of that was from July alone, which is usually one of the hardest sales months of the year for most authors! I can't wait to see how the rest of this year plays out.