determination by all my authors ~ and not just by their writing. Some have put time and effort into building their own book trailers, excerpts and the like. If you check out our BOOK TRAILER page, you'll see what I mean!

ACTION ITEM: Enjoy my favorite Book Trailer by Author Patricia A. Knight above!

I wish I could tell you this tool was free,
but alas, it's not. It's a $20 item...


But, World Literary Cafe has a tool to let
readers know your book is on sale for 99¢.

HERE

Have you asked this question ~ What's a good markeing tool?

*Sigh*

I've been seeing questions asked such as this since the beginning of the Self-Publishing Revolution!
 
So I see these questions:


1. Are book giveaway's good marketing tool?
2. Is KDP Select still a good marketing tool?
3. Do book blog Tours sell books?

These are questions the traditional publishers want you to ask! They're suck ass questions! Meant to confuse you. Maybe instead of asking if they are a good marketing tools ask...

Is this an effective marketing approach for my goals?

1. Are book giveaway's a good marketing tool? I've seen it do a lot of good for one author and yet not so much for another. Depends on how you promote it. Are you doing an ARC? Are you on Goodreads? Do you have ads up? I've noticed that book giveaway's during a promotion CAN be good when done right. What's right? Making sure that you get an email for each entry of the give away. Seriously, that's the whole reason for a giveaway.

2. Is KDP Select still a good marketing tool? For brand spanking new authors, Yes AND when done right. Spur of the moment throwing your free days up~not so much. Planning, going to Author Marketing Club and filling out the forms~worth it!

3. Do book blog Tours sell books? When combined with free days, giveaways or actively directing people to the tour, Yes. But again. You need to do it right. Plan the event. Like months before.

Take a care.

Have a thought.

Study your own book buying habits. Study your friends book buy habits.

But the best marketing tool I've ever seen on the planet is word-of-mouth. But that kind of promotion is for another post. :)

Action Item:
Plan a promotion today! (My own authors don't count~they're all set for August - September.)

Today is Carol McKibben's birthday! We'll be celebrating and having her favorite Ms. Field's cookies because in her words..."Screw cake! I want cookies!" So while we roller derby with our very first published author here at Troll River, you can steal away with the chocolate!

See Carol roller-dance!
http://www.jibjab.com/view/y0-zXCHKROSf27m0zysLOQ?utm_campaign=Friends+Timeline&utm_content=roller_disco_female&utm_medium=Share&utm_source=Facebook

Really, publishing saved my life.

If I didn't have this, well, it wouldn't be a good time.

The whole reason I got started in publishing was not for my own sake, but for the sake of two other writers. My mom and PAK (Patricia A. Knight). Okay, yes I was going to publish my own stuff, but I'd known they had books they wanted to publish and they were books that needed to be out in the world and those two were going to let them just sit and rot in bag until they found a publisher. So I became one. 

I went into this journey with knowledge of marketing but no experience. But it keeps but in chair, hands on keyboard. Especially when you're scratching your head about how Amazon assigns its Page Numbers.

Amazon's rough estimate is determined by word count. Word count for me is 250 words per page. Word count for Amazon? 330 words per page.

So you can see where hard core paper back people trying to make sense of Kindle page numbers will just cause them frustration. I imaging they'll look for the page numbers on the paperback and when they don't find the paperback, they'll scratch their heads and say, I'm not buying 89 pages for ten bucks.

These are the things that keep publishers OUT OF TROUBLE. How? Because instead of beating up people, I'm beating up my computer.

I've haven't found a person in a review (YET) that says the story was too long.

/RANT

They bemoan that they wasted their time on a novel, yes, because they finish that book no matter the cost in time for them. Fantastic you finisher! I personally don't have time and won't finish a book because while I might have paid for it, my time is worth so much more than ten dollars.

/RANT>

What I do see people say is the book was too short.

"I paid 99¢ for this and it was only 50,000 words! I'll never buy from this author AGAIN!"

Wow. Okay. Ummm...I thought it was about the story. I thought it was about how the story enriched your life not a word count goal you had.

So being diplomatic, I contacted Amazon to get the book page numbers corrected. End result...ACTION ITEM...go to CreateSpace, upload your eBook, get a fiverr to add some text to a back cover, wait the 5 days for Amazon and VOILA! Pages are now estimated from the printed book.

And that's how I was able to stay OUT OF TROUBLE with my beloved authors! PRINT!

So I can't praise my author's enough...we found this article in the Mountain View News:

http://mtnviewsnews.com/v07/htm/n28/p14.htm

1.     It’s the story of a couple’s journey to find lasting love, and the dog who shows them the way.

2.     The central message is unconditional love. The message is clear. We all place conditions on others whom we love. It is up to us to remove those conditions and love unconditionally. If we do, the world will be a better place.

3.     The book is narrated by Luke, the Dog.

4.     Just like faith, one must suspend disbelief in order to believe… in a dog who can have the thoughts of a human being.

5.     The man and woman in the story are flawed.

6.     The dog pretty much stands for GOD spelled backwards, but this is not a book about religion.

7.     We can only find our way when we are open to facing our past and then leaving it behind us.

8.     The book is not about blindness or cancer. Luke’s blindness and Sara’s cancer are only present to test the conditions that Ashlundt places on them as barriers to love.

9. Carol McKibben has had many spotlight's in magazines about her book, Luke's Tale. Including Authors Tour and Mountain News.

10.      Life tests all of us. It’s not so much how we handle it but what we learn from it.

11.       Many people find it a sad story, perhaps because it hits very close to home. It is meant to show people the way to lasting relationships.

12.        Luke's Tale has received 40 five star reviews out of 48.

13.        Carol works with a local rescue and has fostered a few dozen dogs and has found good homes for all but one.

14        Luke was a real life dog Carol owned and much of what happened to him is portrayed in the book.

15.        Luke had 8 other brothers and 1 sister.

16.        Carol was awarded one of the Top 12 Spirited Woman's book award of 2013.

17.        Luke's Tale was Carol's first published fiction book.

18.        Luke was a real life therapy dog and was one of twelve therapy dogs admitted to critical hospital patients for both children and adults.

I FLIPPED OUT when I saw this content Idea Generator!

Need an idea for a post? Plug in a word, a phrase, whatever -- and it gives you something like the above! Ready to use it? ACTION ITEM: Click the button!

If you are an author, you need a team. My team consists of:

~ Author
~ Publisher
~ Promotions/Publicist

        

              You can do it all, but how effective are you?

Plus, while you are creative, another creative person will drive you forward and give you more ideas.

1. Coordinate.
I bring this up because if you have a team, you need coordination. But somethings are easy to track. I'll give you an example.

One author has a bookmark with a QR code on the back. this QR code lets me know it's been "hit" thus seeing if a sale was made by that link.

Another, bitly and other url shorteners, allow you to track how many times they've been "hit" as well.

2. Plan.
But the real answer to making sense out of promotions is planning. Have you heard that one a million times already? If you have, there's something to it.

Going into promotions willy nilly doesn't pan out. I've purposely tried both to see results. When your KDP free days come up, do the planning 4 weeks before-hand. Sometimes even a few days is okay, but really, you need to stop "doing" things and plan them. Honest to GOD that is the secret.

3. Measure.
There is such thing as the long tail in which I whole heartedly believe in, but people react pretty fast and make decisions TODAY so today's twitter will be seen today. So you know it worked if you (measure) see a rise in sales the day of.

Yes, momentum is valid. I've watched the snowball effect take place. But, for the most part, I've watched promotions go by and notice that people are fast to react.

ACTION ITEMS:
Coordinate.
Plan.
Measure.

When a new book comes out in a series, I do a few changes to the previous book of the series. My checklist is as such:

1. Did I add the title of the new book to the back?
2. Did I attach a link to the new book?
3. Did I add an excerpt of the new book?
4. Did I add a personification (a "Dear Reader" note) at the end?
5. Did I leave a link to my email list?

These 5 very small adjustments create sales for your book, how?

I get addicted to a series and if I can just buy the next one after I've finished the last...I've just bought that book without you having to promote, send an email...nothing.

People love convenience.

Actually, let me rephrase that:

People will not go out of their way to buy your book.

I'm sorry, they won't. I LOVE Jim Butcher, Kim Harrison, Patricia Briggs. I consider myself an avid fan of these authors because I actually go OUT OF MY WAY to actively seek their new books...eventually.

You see, I love their books, but do I buy them right away. You see, it's not convenient sometimes to buy their book when it hits the shelves.

I don't have enough money, it's not in the format I want, I don't have time, I'm stuck in Facebook land...whatever.

Don't sneer at me! You don't stalk your favorite author either...and if you do...seek help.

It took me a year to pick up Kim Harrison's latest book and I was waiting for it. But, if she emailed me or if I had a link to the next book when I finished the last--she would've had the sale *BOOM* right then and there.

At the very least link your back log at the end of your latest, greatest novel. The best promotion of a book is a book. Meaning, if you have two, three or sixty-nine books those other books are the best ways to say, hey, I have others...start thinking that your backlog is the payoff and you latest greatest will grow wings, save the world and make it a better place! 

ACTION ITEM: Re-upload your kindle book with 2-5 five of the items listed at top.