Julia Goldhirsh's Blog, page 3

Free Book Day (Promoting on a Budget)

My results-

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Hi everyone,

I had been looking into doing free promotion days, but I kept putting it off because I didn’t want to spend the money to promote a free book. When, I used free promotion methods the first time I just posted on FB and unloaded about 18 copies. This time I wanted better results without spending a lot of money so here’s what I did. Promotions are genre specific, so I included my genre. My results this time? 86 copies given away!

Total Free copies download– 100

Paid copies– 1 (I guess because Amazon starts the promo at 8am?)

My genre- YA historical fantasy/fairy tale

What I did to promote-

I did an author takeover with a popular romance author who specializes in diverse romance. Thank you Lyndell Williams.

I had a newsletter promotion with Dracosama (she did it as a free ad on since my first promotion didn’t happen on the correct day)

I promoted it in my newsletter (about 197 people)

I promoted on every book promotion site I’m a part of on FB and on my author page. (This did the least for me)

I got a free promotion (not guaranteed) through Content Mo (They gave me a decent boost/ about 1/3 of my clicks)

I’m pretty happy with how it turned out and have already started setting up free promotions for my next free promo.

 

Here are some other free promotion sites I applied to as well that are free-

Digital Books Today– The requirements for the free Top 100 free book of the day are 18+ reviews, 4.0+ rating on Amazon, and 100+ pages
Discount Book Man– It’s free to start and $15 if you want to be featured as well.
Free Book Gang– Free to start and $10 to be featured. They also list several other free promotion option on their own website. You can even do an author interview and have it posted on their website for free.
My Book Place– It’s free with a paid featured option for I believe $25.
Indie Book of The Day– It’s recommended that you do this well in advance, about 30 days in advance, to better your chances.

If you’d like to hunt for more free book promotion options that won’t break the bank, you can check out this article.

You can definitely promote your free e-book on a budget and for free it just takes more time and patience.

Hope this helps those of you looking to promote your free-book without breaking the bank ^^.

 

Free Promotions and Editorial Reviews for Your Book

Editorial Reviews

Indies Today– They had a realistic view of the pros and cons of the book, and I could tell they actually read it and weren’t making it up as they went. Another bonus is they featured my book on their page and got me some traffic and sales. Definitely worth submitting to. They also will only post and feature if it’s 3-5 stars so you don’t have to take the risk of unwanted negative publicity.

Free Book Promotion

I just recently applied to use these and will give you my feedback after they run on October 1st and 31st. Because these are free, you don’t get guaranteed spots, but for some of these you can pay to upgrade to a guaranteed spot.

Awesome Gang will promote your Free e-book promotion for free. You also get the option to submit an author interview.
Indie Book of the Day also allows you to promote your free e-book for free.
Content Mo- Is a free promo for free e-book days and you can also add on a social media blast for 2.99 if you choose.
Discount Book Man– They’re free to start and for a $15 ad on you can have your book featured.
Book Goodies– Also allows you to advertise for free to start and then you can pay to upgrade.

If you’d like to hunt for more free book promotion options that won’t break the bank, you can check out this article.

That’s all for now. Have fun promoting!

My Book Sales (Including Print) and My Sales Goals

I’m including my in-person and online sales here. My goal based on some online research is to hit at least 250 copies in 1 year. Why? The average traditionally published author sells 250 copies in the 1st year and about 5k in its life-time. I’m self-published and would be happy hitting that many copies in the first year. Obviously I’d love to sell more so that many people can enjoy my book, but this gave me an attainable goal. I will only be counting paid sales since my goal only applies to paid copies.

Online sales (E-book)– 26 copies paid

Anime convention– 30 copies (roughly I’d only recorded 20 but I know there are several I forgot to record from day 1).

Work-   1 copy (a co-worker is also interested)

Neighbors– 1 copy.

Family and Family’s patients/co-workers–  6 copies

Total– 64 copies!

 

Side Note/ Unpaid copies–

For those curious about unpaid copies, I did 3 book swaps at the con. 2 for books, and 1 for art.

I also have 6 copies at Books and Books in Coral Gables which is on consignment.

 

Getting Into Bookstores (Updated!)

Hi everyone,

I’m here to talk to you about getting into your local bookstores. Here are some main points that really helped me.

Have your own ISBN (not the free one).
Have print copies on hand for them to look at.
Ask in-person about getting your book in the store.
Start with local shops.
Bring business cards.
Make sure they know your genre.
Opt-in for events if possible

My In-store presence

Bookstores–

Books and Books–

Alright, now that we covered that. Here are the contacts, costs, etc for getting into the bookstore that I used, Books and Books in Coral Gables, FL.

Stocking fee– $50

Split with the bookstore– 50/50

Managers to speak to– Kathy Steele or Jack.

Event coordinator– Cristina Naste

 

Comic Stores–

I’ve also gotten into a comic store called Loot Games and Comics. They partnered with Otakufest and I was able to get some copies in there on consignment.

Split with the comic store–  50/50  (if store credit)   40/60 if cash.

 

Broward County Library–
Q- Where am I in the process?
A- I’m sending my 1st copy in for review this week.

Requirements (Pulled verbatim from the document I received)-

The author must be a BCL cardholder
The author must be self-published
The author must be a Broward County resident
The book must be a fiction adult, non-fiction adult or children’s book
The book must be in excellent circulation condition (e.g. sturdy bound, sewn, or glued)
The author must agree to donate a review copy

The following guidelines apply to title selected for the BCL local author collection:

The author agrees to donate at least 2 circulating copies
The author will provide a copy of one authentic positive review (e.g. Amazon, Publishers Weekly review)
The author agrees to assist in marketing their book while it is a part of the BCL collection

 

 

 

Getting Into Bookstores

Hi everyone,

I’m here to talk to you about getting into your local bookstores. Here are some main points that really helped me.

Have your own ISBN (not the free one).
Have print copies on hand for them to look at.
Ask in-person about getting your book in the store.
Start with local shops.
Bring business cards.
Make sure they know your genre.
Opt-in for events if possible

Alright, now that we covered that. Here are the contacts, costs, etc for getting into the bookstore that I used, Books and Books in Doral, FL.

Stocking fee– $50

Split with the bookstore– 50/50

Managers to speak to– Kathy Steele or Jack.

Event coordinator– Cristina Naste

 

 

 

Otakufest- Results

Overall, I feel like Otakufest went really well. I got to have some awesome conversations with several people and I sold about 30 copies in person. I even got to meet some other artists and authors and do a few book swaps while I was there. After the con, I also went and got some signed copies stocked in Books and Books.

What went well– I was able to talk to some amazing people and really make meaningful connections with so many. The booth setup attracted a lot of people between the free candy, bookmarks, large popup banner, and bright blue tablecloth. I was able to meet and make friends with several other authors and artists and do a few book swaps.

Mistakes– I mostly messed up with the newsletter. I’m still learning when it comes to email lists, so I ended up unintentionally scaring off some people by sending too many emails at the beginning. I wasn’t fully comfortable with the automated email function for the newsletter service yet, so I had to send them the welcome email with my reader magnet (a free short story) after an email about opting in for author blog updates. A huge chunk of people bounced the blog email and never got to receive the welcome email which left me feeling frustrated and disappointed.

Solutions– I’m hoping to remedy this problem for the next convention by having an online newsletter form instead of a paper to avoid issues with harder to read email addresses and so people can do opt-ins and exclusions when they’re at the convention. I’m also going to work out an issues with the settings for the automated messages to minimize future negative responses.

I plan to come back to add some pictures to this article and total sales later, but that’s all for now.

Why We Buy Books

Take Our Poll

 

So I have various reasons I’ll buy books including that I have a problem and will impulse buy books all of the time because I like books. However, the main books I end up reading are books with interesting covers and blurbs. I usually find my best books from people I’ve met in person, the shelves of a bookstore, or from writing groups. My favorite pieces lately have been really short pieces from writing groups. If it’s under 50 pages I’ll devour it in 1 sitting, but I have a book that I have been nibbling at for over a month now. I’m adding a poll because I want to know what makes you want to buy a book. I hope this will give some good insights for other new authors trying to sell their books.

Ads- What worked and didn’t work

Here I’m going to cover which things worked for me and what didn’t work for me. Keep in mind my options were a little limited because some of the big name advertisers won’t take novellas or only do free promos for novellas.

 

Worth it-

$7-Dracosama (Fiver specifically for fantasy)

$12-BKnights (Fiver)

$20-Book Rebel

Editorial reviews from reputable sources. Mine was through Self-published review.

 

Not Worth it-

Amazon- Both ads got less than 100 impressions and I got 1 click and no sales or page reads. At least it wasn’t expensive to toy around with though.

Bookbubs (not the featured deal)– It was about 1 dollar per click and I received no sales or page reads as a result which was a bummer. It’s also expensive to toy with so you can end up dumping money for no reason.

$10-IBM books- Your book is buried in a sea of books.

$18-Twitter- lots of reach, but no sales and low click through.

$40-FB- High click through but no sales or page reads. Lots of impressions, but very pricey.

 

My Sales Reports

Hi everyone.

I decided that it might be helpful to see my sales report in addition to the record of my ad spend and sales report.

 

So far the only 3 Ads that resulted in any sales were the following-

BKnights

Dracosama

Bookrebel

This is my ranking after the Bookrebel promotion-

Note– All of these promotions had a website AND a newsletter promotion. I also had much better results after I had 3-4 reviews so I would wait until you have a few reviews to promote. 5-10 reviews seems to be the sweet spot.

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Here is my sales report so far-

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Note– My highest sales day was release because those were all of the pre-orders going through.

Ads and Sales- Book Launch

So I unfortunately had to launch with no customer reviews and 1 editorial review on day 1 of the book launch. I’m going to post the results of the book launch regarding ad spend and results for each day.

Note- As of right now I’m launching with a 4 star editorial review from Self-published reviews (a buddy site for Kirkus) and no customer reviews.

Pre-launch day–  The same day as the editorial review, I received 22 page reads and no sales.

Day 1–

Total sales- 1

Page reads- 0

Bookbub–

[image error][image error]Amazon–  No stats showing yet and no sales as far as I know.

Bknights– Looks like I might have gotten 1 sale from this newsletter promo. I spent extra for a bonus service, but for just the newsletter promo it’s about $7.

Day 2–

Note- I got 2 customer reviews today towards the end of the day.

Total Sales- 1 (thank you writing community on Twitter) 

Page reads- 36 

Ads running

Bookbubs

Amazon- only had 8 impressions and no ad spend…weird.

Conclusion so far–  For me the best way to get sales has just been being a part of a writing community and being confident and excited about your story. I will let you know if the newsletter ads work out better, but so far Amazon and Bookbubs was wasted money for me ads wise.

Day 3–

Sales- 0

Page reads- 1

Amazon Ads– 13 impressions/ no clicks or sales

Bookbubs Ads– Spent about 6 dollars so far. 7 clicks and no sales.

Day 4–

Note– I have 3 different 4 star reviews from customers now.

Sales- 1

Page reads- 0

Promotion on Fiver through Dracosama- Ad spend- $7

Amazon- $0 (Not really getting impressions, clicks, or sales from Amazon.)

Day 5–

Sales- 0

Pages read- 0

Amazon ad (with automatic targeting)-

 

Day 6–  (I added an extra couple of days to the launch because this was the earliest I could schedule the promotion)

Note– I just got review #4 today.

Book Rebel–  $20  (Scheduled for August 19th)

Sales: 4

Pages Read: 0

This has by far been the ad that has gotten me the biggest mileage so far. I got 4 sales on the day of the promotion.

 

Bonus launch boost before the convention–

Bargain Booksy- $25 (Scheduled for August 29th)