These are the best and worst of times for authors. We can publish and promote our own books, and there are almost endless ways to go about doing so. The problem is, most promotional methods either don’t work well (or sometimes at all), or they need to be done in just the right way to be effective. How is an aspiring author supposed to know what’s worth trying and what’s a total waste of time? How about we find out the answer together?
Here’s the concept: With your help, I’ll compile lists in this blog entry of the different promoting options now available that people have found do and don’t work. Then I’ll set up a poll at Survey Monkey that people can use to rank the approaches of those that do, in order of their personal success using them.
By the time we’re done, we should have some useful data about which tools and approaches are mostly likely to work for those that try them. If people provide enough input, I’ll follow up with an individual blog entry on each of the top approaches describing what you need to do to make it work.
There are two ways for you to participate:
1. Use the comment box to answer this question: “In my experience, the three things I’ve done that have most successfully resulted in sales are…”
2. Read the lists that I’m generating below, based on your feedback, and then suggest additions to the list, as well as moving items between lists if you disagree with where you see them.
Promotional Tools that Directly Generate Sales
- BookBub promotion
- EReader News Today promotion
- Butterfly Book Promotion (See Lucinda’s comment below)
- [other promotion sites?]
- [any advertising venues?]
- Free and discount sale days [need details on how to maximize effect]
- Word of mouth (in all its forms)
- Having multiple titles available for sale, especially in a series
- Releasing new work often enough to gain, and keep, a following
- Offering free short stories, prequels, anthologies, etc. with links to books
- Building an eBrochure with descriptions and links to books
- Offering free first book so readers can get acquainted
- Write for Kindle Worlds (thanks, Adan)
- Cross-marketing with other blogging authors (reviews, interviews)
- Be in sales mode all the time
Best Ongoing Promotional Efforts
- Contacting reviewers directly to boost review count (2 votes)
- Blog Tours
- Blogging regularly
- Networking with other authors
- GoodReads giveaway/ads
- Social Media (which ones? Twitter/FaceBook/Pinterest/other?)
- Listing your books at any site other than GoodReads?
- Particular features of your author site?
- Email newsletter?
- Personal appearances? (readings/signings/book clubs)
- Back matter in your books (e.g., links to your other books)
Maybe List
- Gorilla, Booksends, Storycartel book promotion sites (JM at ISAG reports lots of downloads, but not many sales at each – have others had better luck?)
- RS at ISAG suggests these book promotion sites: book zio, read cheaply, digetal book today, book sends,indie book of the day..people reads…genre pulse, book readers heaven and OHFB; he only discounts, doesn’t do free offers
- SP at ISG recommends the following free promo sites: bookgoodies, Ereader News Today, and bkknights on Fiverr
Don’t Bother List
- Twitter (unless you take it seriously and do it well)
- Paying for Tweets, inclusion in email newsletters other than BookBub, ERT, or ?
Have you joined The Lafayette Campaign?
Read sample chapters here
Superb idea Andy. I’ve not yet ventured into the realms of any real marketing efforts so will be following this with interest, both here and in the group thread…
Hopefully there will be some good input shared around that we’ll all benefit from. My personal conclusions are in the lists above.
I really don’t have anything else to add. I need to blog consistently is the one thing that stands out at me. Thanks!
Thanks, Kathleen. I’m curious whether blogging leads to sales? At this blog (where I don’t get a huge number of reads) I think it supports my marketing generally, mostly by getting to meet other authors, some of whom might recommend or review one of my books, but probably rarely leads to someone actually click on a link and buying a book (of course, it’s hard to know for sure).
So that’s why I put it in the second category – something that’s a good idea to do as part of an ongoing marketing plan, but not as a direct sales advice. But perhaps you or others are having better luck selling through blogging. If so, I’d love to hear what the secret sauce might be.
Andrew–this is valuable, thank you.
It just seems pretty much a crap shoot to me. But any indie author who wants readers must make choices and do something. I’ve chosen to devote a fair amount of time to contacting book bloggers who review books. Perhaps 10-12 percent have agreed to read and review my new suspense novel, Deep North. It’s due for release on Tuesday, July 21, so the jury’s out on what my efforts will result in. When I stop to think that the reviewers get nothing but a free ebook or print edition, and in return give me the most valuable thing anyone has–their time–I’m very grateful to them, even if they don’t collapse in admiration for what I’ve written.
In addition to the paid-advertising sites you mention, I would also include Book Gorilla. People who know much more than I do think it’s $50 well spent. I’m also told that giveaways at Goodreads can (the operative word) result in decent ROI.
Barry, thanks for the thoughts, and I’ll add Book Gorilla to the list, and add another vote to the review category.
I have a big problem with the idea of selling to some people at one price, and then selling to others at discount or even for free. It doesn’t feel right. I’m sure everyone does it, and I guess those customers who paid top dollar will never know, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. TCF (Treat Customers Fairly). It’ll be full whack for everyone, unless the distributor reduces the price against my will (which might be possible but I can’t be bothered to check the small print right now).
I’m hoping to launch my novel in the next 24 days so may well contribute ideas if I have the time, although I’m starting a new job in September so I will have minimum time for marketing. All the more reason to identify what works and what doesn’t…
Won’t a lot of it be guesswork? How much can we really know what worked and what didn’t, unless a buyer says ‘I bought this because…’
Sean, I think that there is a short list of approaches that really do work. They won’t necessarily work for everyone, but they CAN work for some, and perhaps even for most authors that have written a good book(s) and learn how to go about the approach the right way. Those are the techniques I’m trying to uncover and compile here.
Certainly having more than one book makes a big difference (I should have included that on the list, and have now added it). And discounting does make a book eligible to be included in some of the more effective approaches (like BookBub).
On that note, I can understand that giving a book away might feel over the top, but I can’t think of a single item (other than Bose audio products) that never goes on sale. Why should a book be different (e.g., for a few days dropping from $2.99 to $.99?) I don’t think that a reader would feel short changed, since they’re so aware of the practice.
Should be an interesting list, Andy. I think the two things that’ve worked best for me, beyond simply continuing to write improving works of fiction, would be engaging constructive reviews, and participating in Kindle Worlds, where I piggyback an association with a known writer.
These two have generated the best word of mouth for me.
Lessor efforts include blogging, commenting, various ads, and of course social media.
Thanks for the feedback, Adan, and I’ll add Kindle Worlds to the list – that’s a good one I’d forgotten about.
This is a fascinating initiative, Andrew, and I’m very happy to give it a go. Firstly, a quick disclaimer; I’m spin-averse and don’t set much store in anecdotal ‘evidence’ (particularly my own!).
In my experience, the three things I’ve done that have most successfully resulted in sales are…
1) Word of mouth
2) Word of mouth
3) Word of mouth
Having given the question of promotion much thought for a year or so, my own conclusion is this. For me, what’s the best use of my time? Do I want to flog myself to death trying to drum up sales when, let’s face it, I’m never going to financially break even, let alone turn a profit? Or do I want to enjoy being a minnow in a very big pond, and enjoy my writing even more?
Thanks for another great post (as thought-provoking as ever).
Marcus, thanks as always. And I think that your viewpoint is a very sensible one, given the almost insurmountable odds against any author, no matter how good, actually breaking through. The other problem, of course, is that if achieving success would involve writing a type of book that an author has no interest in writing, well, the penny isn’t worth the cost.
For example, the prevailing wisdom is that to succeed, an author needs to put out several titles a year. I don’t believe I could sustain a pace like that and be happy with what I wrote.
Ditto me too re publishing pace. Some of it, I’ll admit, is my age. Nearing 65, I just plain want to be able to enjoy the creative act of writing in all its phases, initial outline (sparse), first draft, rewrites, weaving in realized-motifs-themes.
Pacing my writing is very analogous to how I’ve found is best for me in fitness.
I’m 2/5th through Frank’s new adventure in politics 🙂 so I don’t know how his fitness initiative will work out, but my own parallels his, and that jives with my publishing / writing speed. And folk wonder if all our activities in life are related to each other 🙂
I don’t see how they can not be related, all the ways may vary. The nice thing about writing and reading is that we get to see exactly how.
Am happy to take part in the survey Andrew and this is a great idea! I can suggest Butterfly book Promotion for $50 they guaranteed 50 sales or pro- rata of your money back. I use FB a lot and I’m not good with Twitter. But I am happy to learn but marketing eg social networking takes up 2 + hours a day at least.
What a great guarantee, great info, thanks!
Lucinda, great to have you stop by here. Thanks for the tip about Butterfly, and on the list it goes. With that kind of deal, I’ll plan on giving it a try myself. And you’re right about the marketing. 27 years ago I left the firm I was working at and started my own firm with two other lawyers. I had never had to market before, but at that time I had no money, no clients and a non-working spouse. It certainly concentrated the mind wonderfully. A bit like jumping off a tall building – your either learn to fly by the first floor, or you’re pizza. Happily, I learned how to fly.
One result is that at some level I’m marketing all the time as things occur to me. I do have to say that trying to penetrate the book market is much harder, and much less good information about what works and what does not (and hence this little project – thanks for being willing to join in).
Wow Andy, I think you’ve really hit on something via this project!
Thanks, Adan. I’ve thought from time to time about doing a web site dedicated solely to this topic, since there’s so much marketing fluff and so many useless diversions out there. If authors share their successes, we could all waste a lot less time.
What a great initiative that I will follow with interest. From my point of view, I have no idea what works, though I suspect word of mouth plays a powerful part.
I’m not sure that (my) blogging results in many sales – most of the bloggers I interact with, though not all, are other writers.
I’m not convinced by Twitter and I don’t use it much – I personally get irritated by the amount of overtly promotional tweets I get. I follow a couple of successful authors and have noticed that they put out few book plugs compared to ‘chat’.
With Facebook, I certainly get far more interaction when I post little snippets about what I’ve been doing, writing-related or not, than when I link to my most recent blog post, for example. Does it result in sales? I don’t know.
When I released my first book, I had some cards printed – sort of author business cards, and I always have a couple about my person. With my second book, I had post cards of the book cover printed and sent/ gave those out. Those did produce sales, though not vast amounts.
I’m not a prolific author, nor do I write to make money (just as well), even though I share the dream of being able to earn enough to give up the day job to have the time to write more. Reading your post and the comments so far has already highlighted some possibilities I may follow as, of course, I’d love more readers to engage with my books. However, as each book emerges word by word by word, I suspect that readers arrive mouth by mouth by mouth.