Friday you might have listened to me mumble about spinning books and momentum. You can listen to the whole embarrassing recorded message that makes me sound stoned HERE. If you didn't it was about marketing--which is why I'm revisiting it today on Marketing Monday! I think a good push in the beginning is necessary, and every week do a little something to keep the momentum going. When a book comes out we have a week long push and then from there a weekly push and from there a monthly push. Here are my thoughts: Day 1 ☼ R4R -- Give your Advanced readers a link to Amazon to give their reviews. Email your list and let them know your book is out and where. Blog that your book is available. Day 2 ☼ List your book on BookDaily, Librarything, and what ever service that lets readers see your book. Look for some promo/marketing/ad opportunities while you're there. Day 3 ☼ Kindle Nation Daily Ad Day 4 ☼ Kindle Fire Dept. Ad Day 5 ☼ PixelScroll Ad Day 6 ☼ Author Marketing Club Ad Day 7 ☼ Kick off your Virtual Book Blog Tour Day 14 ☼ Take the promo/marketing/ad opportunities you found on day 2 and use them Day 22 ☼ eBook/Print giveaway ~ Give 5 copies away to fans Day 29 ☼ Start at day 3 and repeat every month using your own combination you found that works. Yes, you will spend money but the return on investment requires faith. Who better to have faith in the book than the one who wrote it?
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So, I did another Free Days on Amazon with 3 different books. Hers To Choose got on BookBub and the downloads were amazing!! Of course sales for HTChoose have withered but what made this promotion work is the other two books PAK has out {Hers To Command & Hers To Cherish} that's the real reason I did BookBub. Had I submitted Luke's Tale...I think it would have just been a free book and withered sales with no sequel to propel. Thus, we did the Author Marketing Club Free days submissions as we did before and got a great beginning, a steady middle and a fantastic push from our most awesome PR guru ~ Travis. We scheduled the books to go free at the end of the month and I think that made a huge difference in sales and free download numbers. The third book was not a novel but a short story. It's KDP did as well as a short story would do as if treated like a red-headed step-child. I still believe in short stories, and I'll continue to write them and publish them, but I've noticed a trend in my writing to where I want to write longer and longer stories. So perhaps my short stories will become novellas and then to actual novels. I have two full length novels that are being prepared to come out in 2014 and hopefully I won't pull them back this time. But, what I've learned from this Free days are a few things: 1. Use the big guns when you have at least 2 other books available to buy ~ preferably in the series. 2. Use all the free promotions and a little bit of paid promo to have decent download counts and sales after the free days for 1 or 2 books by an author. 3. Kindle free days works if you use it like a genius {like me~not} and prepare for it ahead of time. 4. Keep the momentum going. <-- more on that later!! ACTION ITEM: Only use KDP Select wisely. You might snort at me and say "what's wise?" Spend money when you have 3 or more books, don't go overboard when you have only 1 - 2 books. It's very easy. Marketing = anything that deals with the book or buying the book. Promotions = anything that allows readers to get to know the author. Social Media/Promotion. Google ad/Marketing. Now that we have that straight, let's get into the pitfalls of mixing up the two. Social media is not marketing. Facebook is where you get to engage your fans. Yes, tell them about your book, absolutely, but Facebook isn't going to buy your book. Facebook is going to be friends with you and it's a great place to be with that rowdy bunch that love you so much! Amazon "others bought.." is not promotions. This is where your readers are going to buy. Not every reader is going to see the same "others bought this book and you should too..." section. You get noticed, but you can't make a personable impression. Promotions is where you can be personable. Marketing is mass wide plastering of your name. So the point I'm getting at is: if you're on facebook/twitter thinking that's where you need to post things related to your book--you're wrong. This is where you post things related to YOU. Things you like. Things you stand up for. Things that make you laugh or make George Takei laugh. Whatever. Marketing can be slightly more tricky because everyone asks -- what sells books? Um... f8 and being there. Meaning being prepared and putting the book out. But what really sells books is a marketing plan, word of mouth, social proof, making it easy to buy the book and good presentation. For those who want to learn more about Marketing plans...here's another blog post that addresses that called: Book Planning 101: Marketing ACTION ITEM: Make a marketing plan and a promotions plan. Marketing fiction and Non-fiction books aren't the same. Yet, they are. I knew I still needed an eye catching cover (yes the cover is part of my marketing strategy). I still needed a great description. I still needed to believe in the book. But where there are similarities, there are differences. Facebook =fiction Google ads=Non-fiction Fiction targets to people who are in a "fun" mindset. Non-fiction targets to people who are in a "work" mindset. Yes, even the metaphysical self-help book is considered "work" on oneself. So we carefully planed a winning strategy. For The Key Class: The Keys To Job Search Success we planned this entire book differently. Yet, the same as Luke's Tale or Hers To Command. We still needed: 1. Reviews 2. Promotions 3. A really good gin and tonic to put them all together. But the difference lies in how we did these things. In some ways the marketing is easier. It's easy to say...this book will change your job searching efforts for the better... than say...this book will entertain you and you must read it! But I looked at: 1. Who will benefit from this book? 2. Where can I find them? 3. What are the author's credentials? Pft. I knew John Daly was an expert in planning events, but his recent endeavor of helping young people find a job? The man was simply not putting it out there. What? My god man! You're changing the world one juvenile at a time and when asked what's new, you give crickets? That changed. When it did, he became know as Santa Barbara's etiquette master. WORD OF MOUTH. That's what it takes. So when you're looking at the differences of Non-fiction and fiction, remember there are fundamental things that each book needs to succeed. But don't think Non-fiction marketing and fiction marketing are too different. ACTION ITEM: Non-fiction writers, look at what fiction writers are doing to market their books. Fiction writers, look at what non-fiction writers are doing to market their books.
Yes, the all-seeing eye sees you!
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.) 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. |
Dear Reader,
My efforts are to make this a learning blog where writers can see the flip side of publishing. If you have comments that will improve your experience or have a certain topic you'd like discussed, please contact me through email - HERE. ~ Sincerley, Your Editor Stephanie McKibben Head Troll Troll River Publications Books on Kindle
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