Indie Author Experiment · Day 25 · Lupe Farkas
Friday came with receipts.
Please put down your drink.
Dear Rebels, each and every one of you should send me a Coke Zero for the laughs I am about to serve you on this Friday.
Well, you know how “Penguin” contacted me saying how much they loved my book?
Today I am serving screenshots.
Recommendation: do not drink or eat while reading them. I refuse responsibility for Coke Zero coming out of anybody’s nose.
Welcome to Day 25 of my one-year Indie Author Experiment. No paid promotion. No new book sales yesterday. Loads of you reading The Chosen. A podcast suddenly collecting listening hours. Tumblr treating me suspiciously well. Google God behaving himself. And one supposed publishing conversation that took a turn I genuinely did not see coming.
Penguin contacted me. Sort of.
A few days ago, I received an email from a woman presenting herself as Julia Pallacco, Senior Commissioning Editor at Penguin Life.
The email was not one of those lazy “Dear Author, your masterpiece has touched my soul” messages either.
It talked about Elisabetta. Tuscany. The ninety-day structure. Identity. Memory. Happiness. Psychological tension. The different versions of truth people carry.
Rebels, whoever wrote it had done some homework.
Receipt One · The opening
Ms. Farkas,
I was particularly interested in Before October Ends: A Life for a Life and the way Elisabetta Rossi’s ninety-day retreat to Tuscany gradually reveals that the life she has carefully rebuilt may be far more complicated than it appears.
The message went on to discuss the diary format, identity, autonomy, memory, happiness, psychological tension and the different versions of truth people carry.
At this point I am mentally choosing what to wear to Penguin. Obviously.
Receipt Two · The introduction
“I’m Julia Pallacco, Senior Commissioning Editor at Penguin Life.”
“I prefer early conversations to feel direct and personal rather than overly formal, so I wanted to reach out personally.”
She then asked whether I was represented by a literary agent or working with a traditional publishing house.
Senior. Commissioning. Editor. Penguin Life. Rebels, my imagination had already left the building.
So I replied like a normal professional person.
I told her the truth. I am not currently represented by a literary agent or working with a traditional publishing house, and I would be happy to hear what she had in mind.
Receipt Three · Me, behaving
Hi Julia,
Thank you for reaching out and for your kind words about Before October Ends.
I’m not currently represented by a literary agent or working with a traditional publishing house, and I’d be happy to hear more about what you have in mind.
Best,
Lupe Farkas
Look at me. Polite. Professional. Completely unaware of what was coming.
And then came the proposal.
She came back.
Rebels, I need you to appreciate the journey we have taken together here.
We started at Senior Commissioning Editor at Penguin Life.
We moved through literary agents, traditional publishing houses and continuing the conversation.
And then we arrived here:
Receipt Four · The plot twist
“Regarding the proposal I have in mind for Before October Ends, I’m considering a cinematic book trailer…”
The message described a trailer designed to visually capture the story, atmosphere and central themes of the book while introducing it to a wider audience.
And the email ended:
JULIA PALLACCO
SENIOR COMMISSIONING EDITOR
PENGUIN LIFE
A CINEMATIC BOOK TRAILER. I did not have this plot twist on my Friday bingo card.
For the record, publishers can and do use video marketing. Book trailers exist. Promotional videos exist.
That is not the funny part.
The funny part is watching a supposed conversation with a senior commissioning editor about literary representation somehow arrive at a cinematic book trailer.
The internet continues to produce material for the Indie Author Experiment completely free of charge.
Now the serious part: indie authors, beware.
I am laughing about the situation, but this part is serious.
We checked.
I searched for Julia Pallacco and for a credible professional connection between that name, Penguin Life and Penguin Random House. I could not find an official Penguin Random House profile or credible public record supporting the claim that this person was a Senior Commissioning Editor there.
Then there was the email address.
The message came from a Gmail account.
Penguin Random House’s own fraud guidance is very clear that its employees conduct company business through official corporate email domains and that authors should not trust someone claiming to represent Penguin Random House while contacting them through Gmail or another personal email service.
So I am treating this for what the evidence indicates it is: an impersonation scam attempt using the Penguin name, not an official approach from Penguin Life.
And that is exactly why I am publishing the screenshots.
Indie authors are visible. We are hopeful. We want somebody to discover our books. We want the email from the editor. We want the agent. We want the person at a major publisher to say, “I read your work and I want to talk.”
Scammers know that too.
They know exactly what authors want to hear.
If somebody contacts you claiming to represent a publisher, literary agency or major media company, verify everything independently before you send sensitive information, a manuscript, identification documents, banking information or money.
- Check the sender’s complete email address and domain.
- Search for the person independently.
- Look for them through the publisher’s official website and professional channels.
- Contact the company using contact details you find yourself.
- Do not rely only on links, telephone numbers or addresses supplied by the person contacting you.
- Be especially careful if an editorial or publishing conversation turns into marketing, promotion, trailers or another service somebody wants you to purchase.
The Indie Author Experiment documents the lovely side of this industry, but it needs to document the traps too.
Laugh at the screenshots with me.
Just do not let somebody borrow the credibility of a real publisher to sell you a fantasy.
Now that nobody has choked on their coffee, here are the numbers.
No new Amazon book sales yesterday.
The KDP Sahara remains committed to the bit.
But around those sales, things are moving.
| Platform | What we are measuring | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Website | Daily views | ↓ 41.4% |
| Website | Daily visitors | ↓ 15.4% |
| Website | Visitors, latest 7 days | ↑ 1.9% |
| Imperfect Rebel Podcast | Plays & downloads | ↑ 400% |
| Imperfect Rebel Podcast | Consumption time | ↑ 1,617.2% |
| Imperfect Rebel Podcast | Average consumption time | ↑ 187.5% |
| Imperfect Rebel Podcast | New followers | +3 |
| Views | ↑ 176% | |
| Engagement | 12× | |
| Net followers | +3 | |
| Net followers, latest 30 days | +15 | |
| Views from non-followers | 50.5% | |
| Impressions vs previous 2-day period | ↑ 91% | |
| Discovery outside my network | 79% | |
| New follower | +1 | |
| Tumblr | Follower growth since September 19 | ↑ 66.7% |
| Tumblr | New followers, latest 3 days | +3 |
| Google Search | Overall CTR, latest 24-hour report | 4.4% |
| Google Search | “Lupe Farkas” branded-search CTR | 57.1% |
| Google Search | Average position for “Lupe Farkas” | 1.14 |
| Amazon KDP | New sales yesterday | 0 |
Different platforms use different reporting windows, so I keep them labelled rather than pretending they are directly comparable. Website figures are yesterday’s completed results. Social, podcast and Google figures use the latest reporting periods supplied by each platform.
The website cooled after the previous day’s spike. Fine. Websites do that.
The interesting part is everything happening around it.
The podcast moved. Facebook moved. LinkedIn is pushing the content beyond my existing network. Google is learning my name. And one platform deserves a proper apology from me.
Tumblr · Apparently I owe you respect
Tumblr, I owe you an apology.
I arrived there half expecting to find the digital ruins of 2011.
Instead, Tumblr has been treating me better than Instagram.
People are following. People are reacting. People are finding the posts. The Chosen is getting attention there. My little account has reached 10 followers, and considering I basically arrived yesterday carrying a book and nostalgia for Bloglovin’, I am delighted.
Tumblr is alive, Rebels. And from where I am sitting, it is coming back strong.
So, indie authors, if you abandoned Tumblr years ago or never bothered opening an account because somebody told you it was dead, I suggest you land over there quickly.
I am ten followers into this scientific research, so obviously I am now an authority. 😂
Seriously though, this is exactly why I am doing the experiment. Sometimes we spend so much time chasing the platform everybody tells us we need that we forget to look at the place where people are actually responding.
Instagram, meanwhile…
Anyway. Let us talk about selling books.
Selling books is still the part of this experiment that refuses to cooperate.
Before October Ends is sitting on Amazon waiting very patiently while I continue trying every normal indie-author strategy available to me.
So naturally, I am beginning to consider the supernatural ones.
Tomorrow is a full moon.
Rebels, I have questions.
Where exactly does one begin with full-moon magic for Amazon book sales?
Do I put Before October Ends under the moonlight?
Write “Amazon sales” on a piece of paper?
Light a candle?
Place my Kindle beside it?
Does Coke Zero count as an offering?
At this point, I am willing to investigate.
For the Indie Author Experiment, obviously.
Suggestions welcome. 😂
Apparently you like my fictional women making terrible decisions. Excellent.
The Chosen is getting loads of reads this week.
You guys are actually reading this madness.
If you have not started yet, The Chosen is my new serialized gothic horror story. Ksenia, Lucia, voices nobody should be hearing, places nobody should be going and women repeatedly making decisions that would make a sensible person turn around and go home.
New chapters are being published as the story develops, and you can start from the beginning whenever you want.
And if you like The Chosen, I have another woman for you.
Apparently you like my fictional women making terrible decisions. Excellent.
The Chosen is getting loads of reads this week, while Before October Ends is sitting patiently on Amazon waiting for you.
If you’re enjoying Ksenia, Lucia and the beginning of this madness, you may want to meet Elisabetta too.
Different story. Same author brain.
If you came here for The Chosen and discovered that psychological darkness, complicated women, secrets and questionable decisions are apparently your thing, Before October Ends: A Life for a Life is my psychological diary novel waiting on the other side.
Elisabetta Rossi leaves Milan for Tuscany with ninety days, a diary and a private promise.
Some promises save your life. Others ask for it.
Read Before October Ends or choose your Amazon edition
It is available in English, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese, with Amazon and Kindle Unlimited options available through the individual book pages.
And one more thing: A New Witch in the Northwoods is out.
I reviewed Elise Posledni’s A New Witch in the Northwoods back in July, and that review will always be special to me because it was my first ARC review.
Now the book is officially out in the world.
So if witches, the Northwoods and a book that accidentally helped launch this entire reviewer chapter of my life sound like your thing, go have a look.
Imperfect Rebel · with Lupe Farkas
Almost eleven hours, Rebels.
The podcast gave me one of my favourite numbers of the week: 10 hours and 59 minutes of listening time.
That means people did not just press play and disappear.
They stayed.
This week Leslie Reta joined me on Imperfect Rebel to talk about Always, Forever: A Memoir of Love, Addiction, and Letting Go.
It is exactly what I want this podcast to be: two people actually talking. Books, love, motherhood, boundaries, emotional moments, laughter, tangents and yes, somehow pancakes.
Come sit with us.
Listen to Leslie Reta on Spotify
So that was Friday.
No new Amazon sales.
Loads of you reading The Chosen.
Tumblr apparently deciding that old-school internet friendship is back.
The podcast eating listening hours for breakfast.
Google God behaving.
A supposed Penguin publishing conversation ending with a cinematic book trailer.
And tomorrow there is a full moon, which means Amazon may finally have to deal with me exploring alternative marketing channels.
I really could not make this experiment boring if I tried.
Go read The Chosen. Go meet Elisabetta. Go listen to the podcast. Go support Elise’s new release.
And if anybody knows the correct full-moon ritual for Amazon book sales, the comments are open.
Happy Friday, Rebels. 🖤