I have tried a few things over the last year and thought I’d share my views/experience...

[FibonacciEddie]

(For those who have no idea my situation) --- I am a self-published writer who is trying to work out how to promote my work in an effective way… I have written 1 book only (so far) - Emergence

I have tried a few things over the last year and thought I’d share my views/experience.

If all you are interested in is the efficacy of Paid Adverts then scroll down… it is there!

So subject matter marketing + publicity + adverts

I cannot stop myself starting with the tough love
- If you have not finished (really finished) a decent full draft of your manuscript then don’t bother thinking about marketing + publicity + adverts ---- for a newbie/indie/self-published author there is no-one interested in a “great idea”, you need to have a product --- spend all your effort on making your product as good as possible (beat readers, editorial review, copy-editor)

Then… unless you are amazing (and amazingly lucky) your general shop window presence will be as a jpeg (with a few words) on Amazon, Smashwords etc.

So
Book Cover
Make sure the title is readable on a “Matchbox” size image of your front cover, and that it grabs you at that size

Blurb
I will try to have 2 Blurbs (a 50 words one, and a 20 word one) – it’s the elevator pitch. My suggestion is that you write out forty versions of the 20 words one (easy, because you’re a writer!) and then test them on friends

Early Broadcast
My approach is to be shameless but respectful; assuming as a self-published author that no-one knows who you are? And that you have no track record of writing… I had ~150 email addresses of people of people I knew --- I wrote 3 types letters of varying levels on informality/begging

Reviews
Loads said on this subject already on Chronos; I think that on Amazon, having 20+ reviews is very important to give you credibility to casual browsers who come across you… I reviewed my subject, genre, market… and sent ~100 emails to SciFi Bloggers, SciFi Magazines, Book Reviewers… off the back of those I got ~7 reviews on people’s personal Blogs but also on GoodReads and Amazon --- not a big payback, but if got me off and running… it is basically cold calling --- and a 5% conversion is pretty good

After that, it’s just a matter of slow accretion --- I have never paid for reviews --- I have done book giveaways

Frankly, this is a massive subject and not the main part of this post, so I am skipping it

Amazon
For Sales/Distribution my perspective is that Amazon are the only game in town for independent publishers, I know that some people have had success with Smashwords, but of my sales since Oct 2014 (~1,200) about 900 have been from Kindle (and this accounts for pretty much everything sold in the last 6 months)

The key parts I would say are:

Metadata – google this… there are many ways to get onto multiple Amazon sub-genre lists, you will notice that anything published by the Amazon brand are on many sub-genre lists

Author Pages – just do one, and try to make it interesting

Blurbs – already covered

Cover Image – already covered

Sub-genre choice – many many pages on google about this, my sense is that you should be honest but also try not to compete with massive selling sub-genres (like romance…) --- what am I trying to say? Don’t select Alien First Contact as a sub-genre it’s brutal (browse it now to find out)

The received wisdom is that a big factor in increasing sales is having multiple products ---- this is difficult for 1st Time Author --- but something to aim for

Free Marketing

Web Site and Blog - you cannot learn from me… I am dire at this… I made the slight mistake of spending considerable effort branding my web-site with my first (only) book… now I am warming up my second I will have to totally rework it

Facebook – considered useful but I have not really focused on it – neither have I ever used it as a reader

Twitter --- Good for community/conversation … but … I have never seen value of cold call type activity there; however, there are some writing forums that use Twitter as a “meeting place” … so from a perspective of continued connection with your peers it is useful

Book Reviews and Interviews on industry fanzines – you just gotta ask, and hope you get lucky

Overall --- I think you need to do these three things, but just throttle your time to suit your own strengths


Paid Marketing

Banners on Award winning fanzine/blogs – I Paid £50 for a month, it didn’t lead to any sales that I am aware of, but I did this very early in the publishing process when I had only 5 or 6 reviews… poor timing on my part

Adverts in genre magazines (SciFi Now etc.) – I have not done this, I take the view that it has to be click through to work for me

Facebook Ads – I have not done this, I’d like to hear from anyone who has had success

Twitter Ads --- I did use Book Tweeters in May, I paid ~£40 to have them send out tweets of my book with links to the Amazon UK and Amazon USA sites - I got ~10 extra sales over the weekend – not a great pay back and reinforces my view that Twitter is not a good channel for direct sales (- noting that the evidence comes from a sample size of 1 attempt -)

Google AdWords --- I got a Free £100 voucher in April and I have run this continually for 8 months, setting a “cost per click” of ~20p; the click leads through to my web-site, rather than the Amazon site (that is probably a mistake and I shall look into it); but this was my attempt at simple building awareness. This adds up, I have probably spent about £50 of real money, and got my web-ad shown 100,000 times, leading to about 100 clicks through to my web-site, I have no idea how many of those resulted in clicks through to Amazon --- probably not very many at all --- I suspect this is wasted money, but I had a free voucher – which I over spent…….

Amazon Marketing Services --- I have used this, I spent about £10 over June, July, August --- I think that it got me nothing at all… I must learn how it works…….

*** Just to be clear – I price my book at 99p – I do not do FREE – but it is almost free……. ***

Now to the more focused bits ---- Paid Email Campaigns

Most of these will only take you in your discount your book

Book Bub – I did not use these, they are really quite expensive (I know one author who thinks they are good, but that person has a big back catalogue all at £3.99 and so get a lot of cross-sales from this)

Kindle Daily Nation – I did not use these, they are really quite expensive

Background info up to May 2015, my book was selling 1 or 2 or 3 a day combined across USA/UK Amazon site

I took the view that if I could bump up the sales, I would (a) get more reviews, and (b) may get onto a sub-genre list on Amazon (i.e., Technothrillers) and therefore be found by browsers.

Free Kindle Books and Tips – I used these guys on 7th June for $25, they sent out an email with my book in it – I got ~25 additional sales in one day… almost all on Amazon USA

BookSends – I used these guys on 14th June for $45, they sent out an email with my book in it – I got ~50 additional sales in one day… almost all on Amazon USA

Bargain Booksy / FreeBooksy – I used these guys on 5th July for $35, they sent out an email with my book in it – I got ~20 additional sales in one day… almost all on Amazon USA

During July/August, my sales went up to 4 or 5 or 6 per day and I was regularly in the Top 60/70/80 position for my sub-genres --- WARNING! – I have no idea why – it could be word of mouth, it could be Amazon browsing Top 70

At the end of August it started to dip so I went for one more The Books Machine on 30th Aug for $20, I think my sales ticked up 8 on that day

This is all Kindle.

******

That is all the data I have about inputs…
In terms on conclusions… I have no idea what makes things move

 

[ratsy]

Hey Nick, thanks for the post. I was hoping to see you back with an update. It looks like the sales have picked up a bit since last time, which is awesome. Sometimes it's a slow burn but you have some traction and I hope it keeps trending upwards for you.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

thanks Ratsy.... sales have doubled! I am now clearing ~£1 per day of pure profit --- frankly I feel like Smaug at the moment ---

I have been quiet for the last few months... I've been writing :O ... and I (mostly) turn t'internet off when doing so... otherwise... I just don't have the self-discipline

 

[ratsy]

Yeah, well some of us sit here thinking about writing, rather than doing it. Anyways. Congrats on the profits. That will just grow as you get on and get more products to the market. Looking forward to keeping an eye on you.

 

[Dan Jones]

NIck! Good to see you my auld mate, glad you've been keeping your nose to the grindstone.
I'll give your post a proper read tomorrow when I'm less frazzled, but thought I'd drop in and say hi

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Nice info, thank you! I think, sadly, it just takes time more than anything to get a title out there. Keeping it up in any way is the challenge in the early days.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

Hey Jo,

if I was happy to say to myself --- "I will write one book every five/six years for my own personal enjoyment" --- then I could relax and ignore everything else except writing (and taking the constructive feedback from peers and readers)

but my dream is to make a living from writing... less easy... but still the goal
so I have to try to navigate the commercial world

nick

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Hey Jo,

if I was happy to say to myself --- "I will write one book every five/six years for my own personal enjoyment" --- then I could relax and ignore everything else except writing (and taking the constructive feedback from peers and readers)

but my dream is to make a living from writing... less easy... but still the goal
so I have to try to navigate the commercial world

nick

I absolutely agree - what I meant was that we need to give ourselves every chance to let the time/word of mouth equation work by hanging on in the early days - as you did - using promo well etc. If it falls completely out of visibility it's hard to get back.

I considered 99p for Inish but in the end decided on the KDP route - keeping the 70% royalties for the offer week and making it a deal to get it a 99p. What I found with my first one is that I did really well on 99p - enough that the Amazon algorithms seem to like it - but then it died. I was starting to worry a bit but it has come back (UK only, but I expected that with inish, whereas Abendau does well both sides of the pond). But I'm stuffed with categories - all biggies, despite playing around with it. Where Abendau would be in 3 top 100s on the same sales ranking, Inish is in none. (I need to get down to c 16000 rank to get a top 100...)

 

[Jo Zebedee]

So, to add something useful to the thread - I have just been accepted for a Bookbub deal. I'm still blinking in shock.

What is Bookbub? As one highly successful sp told me yesterday - it's like what getting an agent was five years ago. It's the crown of the paid promo sites and one of the few that consistently brings in good sales. They do this by ensuring their titles are vetted for quality so that their large subscriber base click on the daily email. Something like one in five subs to them gets rejected.

It's also expensive - about £300 for a single day's promotion. But to hit the UK only, where Inish Carraig is strongest, is £50 and that's just about within my budget, via reinvesting from my near sell-through of my first (small) print run. So, it's in the UK only and will run during a kindle countdown promotion when the book will be on offer (last time for at least 3 months) but when I still get 70% of the cover price. All in, I probably need about 70 sales to break even. But, even if I don't, a sales spike would be good.

I've applied three times, I think, now. This time I did some research before popping in my application and here's what I did:

1. Reviews, reviews, reviews. You must have a certain amount anyway to be considered. For Inish, my rating numbers are still low (10 Uk, 8 US, 11 Goodreads) but star allocation very high (5 in the uk, 4.6 U.s, 4.9 Goodreads. Goodreads is important - they tend to be more critical reviews than Amazon). I was sure to tell them the book was in its first 90 days, so that small numbers didn't look critical. Also, most reviews are detailed and consistent - pace and characterisation are mentioned in most.

But, also, external reviews are important. I linked to Brian's here on the Chrons - which is a significant sf community, and where a review carries kudos. I also linked to the one on sfbook.com, who are known to be independent in their review policy and fair. All that gives a consistency about the book - more than one vehicle, all saying much the same thing.

2. Your sample. I'm sure it was checked. The acceptance took a couple of days to come through and they are known to be thorough in assessing quality. Error free is what they're looking for. Professional formatting. An engaging start to the book. All the things we share and learn here.

3. Your blurb and Amazon page. They want to make money from this promo and they do that two ways - sales through which they get a small amount from and return authors, meaning the promo needs to do okay so that authors continue to recommend it to each other. So a good cover, an engaging bourb, an Amazon page that draws people in.

4. Track record - anything that makes your sub stand out. In my case, I mentioned I had been on Ellen Datlow's recommended reads list last year. That, more than anything else, says I can write to people familiar with publishing. It says I have been for a while. Gather whatever, anything, you can to support yourself as a writer.

And then hope it's a good time to sub your book to them and go for it.

I'll report back on how it goes. In the meantime, I'll be hoping some more good reviews come in beforehand.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

What is Bookbub? As one highly successful sp told me yesterday - it's like what getting an agent was five years ago.

How? Agents don't charge except out of sales?

Though perhaps it's good anyway. I've been wondering is SP making trad. publishers re-evaluate the role and usefulness of agents. Interesting the various open periods that wanted un-agented writers.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

How? Agents don't charge except out of sales?

Though perhaps it's good anyway. I've been wondering is SP making trad. publishers re-evaluate the role and usefulness of agents. Interesting the various open periods that wanted un-agented writers.

In terms of it kickstarting sales and giving you a chance to do okay.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

Exciting!
Good luck Jo

Hopefully you jump up a few lists and then momentum takes you onward

Make sure you know the dates/times so you can screen shot your book in among the Top 3/10/20 lists

 

[FibonacciEddie]

and, I agree with your reply to Ray
this is all about "giving yourself a chance"

 

[pambaddeley]

Good luck with the promotions @FibonacciEddie. I've been doing quite a bit of reading re people's experience of using advertising sites lately; this is a good post - The Most Super-Duper, Exhaustive, Comprehensive, and Current Listing of Free and Paid Book Advertising Websites and Ideas

Jo, congratulations on being accepted by Bookbub; I've heard that's tough. How did things go or is it too early to tell?

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Jo, congratulations on being accepted by Bookbub; I've heard that's tough. How did things go or is it too early to tell?

I had an incredible week! It was all happening live on this thread:

shoe shopping must commence!

I'm still around the 3000s in the whole kindle store, covered all bar my very early developmental review on the book and am keeping my fingers crossed to go for it again next year, if I get accepted, this time in America too.

 

[FibonacciEddie]

Good luck with the promotions @FibonacciEddie. I've been doing quite a bit of reading re people's experience of using advertising sites lately; this is a good post - The Most Super-Duper, Exhaustive, Comprehensive, and Current Listing of Free and Paid Book Advertising Websites and Ideas

Jo, congratulations on being accepted by Bookbub; I've heard that's tough. How did things go or is it too early to tell?

Welcome pambaddeley
And thanks for the link
comprehensive!

 

[pambaddeley]

Cheers, FibonacciEddie!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Just to mention I've also tried Read Cheaply, bookhippo and fussy librarian and wouldn't rate any of them. Book barbarian are good, though.

 

[pambaddeley]

Thanks. I tried looking at the bookhippo website and couldn't really make head or tail out of what you were supposed to do.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Thanks. I tried looking at the bookhippo website and couldn't really make head or tail out of what you were supposed to do.

They listed me in their new releases but I saw no sales for it.