Sarah R. Yoffa's Blog: -sry's Goodreads Blogosphere, page 3

TUESDAY TIP Bonus: Giving Away ur Gift Horse's Mouth #indie #pubtip #selfpub

A few weeks ago, I ran a Ginormous 30,000 Hit Giveaway. Shortly afterwards, I wrote a Tuesday Tip on the meaning of giveaway and gifting as a result of several authors not actually delivering books their winners could own. Instead, they were emailing files around as though that were "gifting a book" to the winners. In my followup post, I tried to note how self-defeatist this behavior was but I think I was so focused on "reporting the misbehavior" that I forgot to advise in a positive way on why you shouldn't do it.

As I was catching up on my reading of Joe Konrath's blog, I saw he beat this dead horse over the holidays as well. Click through the jump break for more on the self-destruction of not gifting books in a giveaway.



Joe Konrath is a much larger, more-visible figurehead than I. He's read and written thousands (tens of thousands?) more reviews than I. He's got a following ten-fold larger than mine. Even he got whacked by Amazon's recent policy change.

If you haven't read the entire text of Amazon's policy on reviews, do so by clicking here.

The gist of the changes filters down to two facts:

1. If you are not reviewing a "verified Amazon purchase," it's quite likely Amazon will not want your review on their site.

2. If you are related, in any way, shape or form, to the content provider for the product, it's quite likely Amazon will not want your review on their site.

 It's Amazon's site. I've noted before that they can do whatever they like on their site. I can dislike and disagree with their policy; it's still their site, not mine. I might be a content provider and be the source of their ability to sell things but it's still their site and I am in no way "obligated" to allow them to sell my products. I am asking them to sell my products and by doing so, agreeing to their terms related thereto.

Most of us think in terms of "I upload a book to a web site and they sell it."  In fact, when you sell a book through Amazon's Kindle Store, you have to agree to all kinds of other terms and conditions. You really should read the fine print sometime if you haven't already (or recently, as it does change!) Click here to read the December 14, 2012 version of the "Legal Terms and Conditions" but be sure to visit the KDP Community pages to read the half a dozen FAQs which also state terms and conditions. In fact, just keeping up with Amazon's widely-distributed and variously published and constantly-changing "terms and conditions" could well be a full-time job! Kidding--but only half kidding.

So what does Amazon's review policy have to do with you? Well, most authors are trying to get reviews to validate their book's existence and the fact is, reviews do help to sell books. Therefore, we all solicit them and when we get them, our heart will do a little happy dance--even the greatest, most-successful author will do a little internal happy dance when they see positive reviews racking up for their book. They know that means they can expect increased sales next period. Money is always a good thing.

So when you nurture relationships and solicit reviews and finally get a solid collection that seems to be doing you some good, it could really hurt to have a slew of them simply vanish. That's what Amazon's policy does to you.

That's what you're doing to yourself, in essence, when you decline to gift a Kindle book and instead, email a Mobi file to a user's private email address, not even sending it to their Kindle Personal Documents Library! At the very least, you could offer to send it to their Kindle for them. Because you email a file, rather than using Amazon's built-in method for gifting a book, you are basically saying I don't want a review.

If that's what you meant to say, I suppose you're good to go. In my recent giveaway, however, the perplexing behavior was that many of the authors who emailed files also outright solicited reviews. That is, they sent a file, not a book, then had the gall to ask the reader to attempt to circumvent Amazon's policy to upload a review for a product they did not actually own.

If you want a gift of their time and effort, spend the piddling amount (you get 70% of it back, right?) to buy a copy of your own book to gift them with it. You'll be amazed at what the small effort of good will can "buy" you in reader appreciation!

-sry
@webbiegrrl

TUESDAY TIP Creating & Using ur Own EPUB source file #selfpub #indie #pubtip @calibreforum #calibre @GuidoHenkel

Smashwords is my eBook distributor. They also are my means of reaching several of the Great American Library systems. They are my "window to the world" of Digital Publishing and Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords, is my primary source of what options are available to an Indie Publisher who is not exclusive to Amazon (i.e., not enrolled the KDP Select program).

Mark has done a lot of marvelous things and I've thanked him on blog posts, via Twitter and in emails but I think the man is doing a fairly thankless job. I still hear plenty of newbies coming along, villifying Smashwords and the Meatgrinder script (which translates MS Word files into eBooks) as being difficult to work with and turning out terribly-formatted products.

Today I'll address that complaint specifically and discuss publishing and distributing via Smashwords, generally, as well as looking at the idea of using the new (in Beta) Smashwords Direct system with an ePub file to circumvent the Meatgrinder. Click through the jump-break if this stuff interests you. If not, I hope to see you next Monday for more Marketing advice. Thanks for stopping by!



About the Smashwords "Meatgrinder" Script
This is a script, a snippet of programming, which examines a source file (a Microsoft Word ".doc" file or DOC) and checks it for the presence of required elements and absence of forbidden elements. In other words, the DOC file is checked and validated for compliance to standardized guidelines. These guidelines are outlined and explained in the (free) Smashwords Style Guide. The Meatgrinder literally grinds up your DOC, turning out code for a new file or files in whatever eBook format(s) you specified you wanted to get at the end.

Now, let me be perfectly clear: The Meatgrinder turns out precisely the quality YOU turn in. It is a classic case of GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). If your book is prepared in a quality fashion, from the source file in Word, to the cover art JPG file, then you're going to see an error-free, well-formatted eBook. Guaranteed.

If you have no idea how to use Word's built-in formatting tools, or if you use Word as though it is some kind of digital typewriter or if you just don't think any of the instructions in the Smashwords Style Guide even matter, then you're going to see a garbage formatting job come out of the Meatgrinder. That's also guaranteed. Think about it. If you put ground chuck into a meat grinder, you cannot get filet mignon out, can you? Same with your eBook.

I cannot tell you how many people I've seen commenting on how crappy their book looks coming out of the Meatgrinder. My advice to them is to take a better look at the book's content inside Word before even submitting it to, let alone accusing the Smashwords's Meatgrinder. Chances are, they are not using Word "correctly" and that is the problem. GIGO. Everytime.



Using the Smashwords Meatgrinder
So it's not hard to "do it right the first time," but even I had a few hiccups back when I ran my very first book (Dicky's Story) through a very early version of the Meatgrinder. I deliberately published Dicky's Story to be a vehicle through which I could learn, make mistakes and learn the tricks of the trade. I made a lot of mistakes with Dicky's Story and learned a lot of lessons. Hence part of why I haven't yet published another book. I know what I want to do and it will take time I don't have with my other life commitments. It's not just about writing the darned thing anymore!

Like everything out there in the Digital Publishing world, the Meatgrinder has evolved. It's really easy to use now--in January 2013. It was buggy when it started in 2009 and when I came upon it back in November, 2010 through March of 2011. That was nearly two (2) years ago. The Meatgrinder has changed and grown since then. Dramatically. All for the better!

In fact, due to the massive volume of books processed by the Chinese money-laundering thieves who hijacked the Smashwords Affiliates system in the winter holiday season of 2010/2011, Mark redoubled the efforts of the tech team. They were slaving away at refining and honing the code of the Meatgrinder. So thanks to the Chinese for assaulting us and stealing tens of thousands of dollars worth of books (nearly every penny of which Mark faithfully hunted down and retrieved for his Smashwords customers--authors and readers alike!)

If not for the Chinese sabateurs, we might not have had such focused effort applied in such a short time resulting in such a smooth-running Meatgrinder by March of 2011 when I ran my final/release copy of Dicky's Story through. I definitely saw changes in the Meatgrinder across the six (6) months I used it to produce Dicky's Story, but my final/release copy went through with no errors, smooth as could be. Oh, and every book I've submitted since has as well.

The number of books being processed by the Meatgrinder increased exponentially over the summer of 2011 and into the winter of 2012 so the lag time was longer but the errors--or lack thereof--remained about the same. I published two more titles (my two SciFi books) in April and August of 2012. I have not, personally, had a single failure through the Meatgrinder since March of 2011 and 100% of my ePub files out of the Meatgrinder have passed validation first try with zero errors ^_^

If you spend a little time up front setting up your MS Word environment and using it correctly, you can also experience error-free, hassle-free processing through the Smashwords Meatgrinder eBook conversion script.




Alternatives to Smashwords Meatgrinder
Smashwords has just launched a new method, still in beta, whereby you submit an ePub file directly to them. Hence, why it is called Smashwords Direct . In case you don't already know, ePub (locked, DRM'd or otherwise modified) is the format used by Apple, Nook, Kobo and by just about everyone except for Amazon, who has their own proprietary format (AZW has replaced the easy-to-produce and copy MobiPocket format so they can "lock" their files and prevent you from reading anywhere but where Amazon controls it/you--I couldn't even read a book I owned in my cloud reader because I had opened it somewhere else first!)

You should note that Apple, Kobo and Nook all have also created their own proprietary "wrapper" for the ePub files their respective readers use but at least they all comply with one universal ePub standard. It's a standard set and maintained by the International Digital Publishing Forum ("<IDPF>") and they have an "ePub Validator" anyone can use, free of charge (just click here to submit your individual file). If you're an Indie Publisher with several authors and will need to process multiple ePub files, you really should download and install your own validator script - it's also free. Just click here to learn more about it and how to get it for your local administration.




Why ePub
I happen to prefer to read ePub files, but there are even more important reasons than "reader preference." I just love the way a fellow formatter/author/tutorial-writer, Guido Henkel, puts it in his blog on formatting from Sept. 2012:

"...even within the Kindle line of products, it is not possible to really create specialized builds for each platform.  A fixed-format Kindle Fire eBook will inevitably make its way onto a regular Kindle – where it doesn’t belong – because Amazon does not give publishers the possibility to create specialized builds. As a result Kindle owners will look at a book that is horribly mangled and probably unreadable, while it looks mesmerizing on a Kindle Fire. I am not sure in whose best interest that is, but that’s the way Amazon does it."

And he adds in his Oct. 2012 blog "...From a programming standpoint none of the features introduced in KF8 are in any way supercharged capabilities that require special hardware. Let’s face it. eBook reader software is, in effect, nothing more than a specialized web browser."

And yet, Amazon makes their eBook formats more and more restrictive, less and less flexible - less and less standardized.


Because ePub is more universally used by multiple platforms (e.g., Apple, Nook, Kobo, et al.) not just Amazon's proprietary Kindle platform, more hardware manufacturers have had to address ePub standardization and issues of display and formatting; more software writers have had to consider versatility and DRM issues for ePub. By virtue of the sheer volume of people working on making ePub-based books the best they can be, they are more robust, more flexible and more appealing to more people than are the restrictive and limited and inflexible proprietary formats on the Kindle platform(s).

I'm not saying that Amazon's Kindle books aren't popular. Of course, they are. Amazon is still the #1 Retailer in the World and holds (just barely) over 50% of the eBook market.

I'm saying that ePubs are more readily appealing across more platforms. I'm also saying I, personally, think it's a heck of a lot easier to reformat source for display on a ePub platform than it is to figure out Amazon's proprietary platform compliance. Amazon actively resists open source / community involvement while ePub was borne of it and thrives in it.




How to Jump Onto the ePub Bandwagon
If you're an Indie Author, you might be wondering how to exploit this ePub appeal. What is it the new Smashwords Direct offers you? Unless you already know what you're doing, it really doesn't offer you anything but a chance to do more work. First learn how to us Microsoft Word, then worry about getting more sophisticated and using ePub files directly.

If you're already formatting your Word files properly, experiencing no errors with Meatgrinder, and want to format and create your own ePub files (forex, with fully-fleshed out Metadata and prettily-formated chapter headings), then you can try doing so with Smashwords Direct. As Mark Coker noted in his recent blog announcement about Smashwords Direct, there are a lot of tools out there for generating your own ePub files. Personally, I use and love Calibre. It's free, it's easy and did I mention it's free?

Right now, my main use for Calibre is to translate a Kindle file into something more usable--like an ePub ((ggg)) However, you can use Calibre to do a lot more and there are other reasons for using your own ePub file via Smashwords Direct.

Add metadata to an existing eBookReplace a cover image (Check out  my tutorial on how to digitally autograph your eBooks)Use drop caps at the beginning of your chapters or format the chapter titles in a different font/color/style (see HTML Style Guides and CSS Web Standards before you do this kind of stuff).Include a nested NCX navigation system (not currently  supported by Meatgrinder)You may have your own ideas or reasons for wanting to better-control the formatting of the eBook product turned out. Whatever it is, the one thing you need to be sure of is that you comply with the IDPF ePub Validation standards or your ePub won't be acceptable to 90% of the ePub sellers (Apple, Kobo, Nook, et al) out there. Just run your ePub through the ePub Checker and fix the errors, if any, that it notes for you. It's a fairly easy tool to use--and again, FREE!

If you need help learning how to edit your eBook's source "code," there is an outstanding 9-part online tutorial written by the above-mentioned Guido Henkel (@GuidoHenkel). I've mentioned his tutorial before but here are the links to all the parts of his blogged tutorial:

Taking Pride in Your eBook Formatting by Guido Henkel:
Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI • Part VII • Part VIII • Part IX



If you want help doing the formatting (or designing an eBook cover) Guido can do that, too. Email him at bizdev@guidohenkel.com to hire him or one of his talented friends. Or (better?) hire me to do the cleanup, reformatting and design of your eBook interior -- not the cover though. I think Guido's game-design skills are far superior to my ability to do graphic design, as is evidenced by my covers versus his. I really need to just draw a new cover for Dicky's Story from scratch and be done with it! (LOL!)


What's Next....
Next week I'll return to Monday Marketing discussions of PR vs. Advertising. I hope to see you then! Thanks for stopping by.

-sry
@webbiegrrl

MONDAY MARKETING Non-Traditional #Marketing for Non-Traditional Publishing #pubtip #indie #selfpub #indie #branding #publicity

In last week's blog, I defined the Advertising Problem and the PR Solution. Whatever you call the function (publicity, PR, Public Relations, "press") the objective is the same. You need to tell your story, make your Brand Name known, through a third-party outlet, primarily the media. You won't get anywhere by simply "throwing money at the problem" and buying ad space or air time, but that's been the traditional approach. Welcome to the Digital Publishing industry where nothing "traditional" reigns supreme and everything "Indie" is preferred. Click through the jump break for more "non-traditional" ideas.




Whenever I decide to spend money on something important, I shop around for alternatives. A lot of people do this, more women than men but since it's so easy to do online, more and more people of both genders comparison-shop prior to making a buying decision.

What I do is visit a handful of web pages and evaluate or compare various options for the pros and cons of the item I need. The Law of Attributes churns away inside my mind comparing options all choices have in common and filtering out one or more choices from the list.

Because I am just as susceptible to the Law of Duality as the next grrl, I am unable to make a choice--not yet influenced into my buying decision--until I have only 2 or 3 choices left. That's when I pick one based on my "gut" or because "it's the brand name I know."

Comparing attributes to reduce the list of brand choices is common enough, but how does one get that "gut" feeling about this or that choice? The answer, of course, is through branding. That is, due to a marketing strategy of branding and publicity, a consumer like me will have been exposed to the idea that Brand A is "better" than Brand B. I won't be able to say why, but it's that "everyone knows" factor at work again.

I'll do it subconsciously, and consistently, unless or until the branding strategy changes thus making the brand lose its position in my mind. Most people do practice "brand loyalty" and some of us do it for years--even after the brand has changed its product line, simply because the brand maintains its position in our minds.

We simply go with the brand we know because to change loyalty would take effort--a re-evaluation of the market choices--and the path of least resistance has more appeal to the average consumer. That's why the "path of least expectation" works (see Law of Singularity, also discussed in Ch. 16 of my marketing handbook, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (for Indie Authors) available from Smashwords in all popular eBook formats).

In general, we don't really choose to like or dislike things; we simply "know" (or perceive) that Brand A is "better" than Brand B. That perception has been programmed into us deliberately through branding and positioning. The media has saturated us with the message until Brand A enters our minds and establishes a position whereby we choose Brand A over Brand B. We have been influenced to buy Brand A--or possibly, influenced to reject Brand B.

The influence was not instantaneous. We did not see an advertisement and decide, Oh, I want that one! It was a process that took place over time inside our minds--that is, the consumer, not the Brand, controlled the process to the bitter end.




Pros and Cons of PR
So how do you use publicity to effectively communicate this branding strategy? How do you get your positioning message out there for consumers to latch onto and reel in more information about you by their own volition? Let's treat this like I do a purchasing decision. Let's look at the pros and cons of using publicity to influence brand opinion.

When you create a brand, hopefully, you have knowingly chosen a brand identity. You have a specific idea in your mind and have defined your brand in a unique and easy to understand way. Your goal is to make consumers aware of this carefully-crafted brand identity. So when publicity occurs, it's not necessarily the best thing. Or is it?


1. You cannot control the timing of the delivery.
You're not even present when the message is delivered. Even if you purchase a specific time slot for a radio or TV ad to air, you never completely control the exact moment in the consumer's experience when your message will be inserted into their awareness.


2. You cannot control the actual content of the message.
Since you're not the one delivering the message, you're not the one who controls its content. You might pay cold, hard cash to have a specific set of words repeated or a specific banner ad displayed and then the medium through which the message is delivered might inadvertently alter your message.

Have you ever played the game "telephone" where a message is whispered from one person to the next and has completely changed after it's been "delivered" 20 times? This "translation" of your message is nearly guaranteed to occur with publicity.


3. You cannot control the appearance or connotations attached to your message.
As noted above, your message might be altered by virtue of the mere fact that others are delivering it for you. They might not even be aware they are altering the message but humans do tend to "translate" things into terms with which they are more familiar.

You may have chosen the color scheme and shape of your book cover design or you may have co-located your titles alongside like-kind books on purpose and then without your knowledge or consent, all of that could be changed by the provider of the publicity. It is beyond your control. Accept that fact.



For these reasons (and more), you can see how critical it is to be extremely focused in your brand definition and to keep the message as clear and simple as possible, narrowed down to just "one word" or concept if you can. If your branding is focused enough, no amount of "translation" will prevent consumers from positioning you.


Okay, so that's a list of all cons (and let's assume for the moment they are drawbacks), then what are the pros of having a third party do your talking for you? Why risk losing your brand definition--the single-most critical piece of your marketing effort--by using PR?

In a word: credibility.

That one pro outweighs all of the cons. You cannot buy credibility with any amount of branding or advertising and although the brand might be "translated" or "interpreted," it will be communicated and publicized. If your brand is defined in a clear enough and narrow enough or focused enough manner, no amount of "translation" or "interpretation" will lose the heart of your message.

Name your branding concept wisely. This is what will become associated with your Author Brand Name. As an Indie Author, your pen name is your Author Brand Name so be sure you associate the desired idea in the minds of the consumers even if it doesn't "sound" like your pen name. Remember, it's about the brand, not about you.




What's Next....
Next Monday I'll discuss more non-traditional ideas and so-called "alternative advertising."

Tomorrow, in my Tuesday Tip, I'll talk about the new Smashwords Direct beta method for using an ePub file, rather than an MS Word file, as a source file for the eBook distributor's upload method. I hope to see you then!

-sry
@webbiegrrl

TUESDAY TIP Your Permalink at Kobo Books #pubtip #selfpub #kobo #howto #indie

If you're like me, the mere mention of Kobo Books conjurs up a sense of frustration. The Canadian-based bookseller has held such potential and yet cut themselves off at the knees by virtue of incredibly poor execution of their technology.

I'm not referring to their Kobo Reader apps (which are DRM-encrypted, a Very Bad Idea for anyone) but rather the way Kobo Books made it next to impossible to find a book on their web site.

Kobo has had the ridiculous habit of consistently changing the URL of a book on sale in the Kobo Store making it virtually impossible to find--therefore, completely impossible to promote. That is, if the link you tweet is obsolete by the time a user clicks on it, how can you possibly drive traffic to this kind of moving target? Click through to learn more.



Many of us Indie Authors rallied and complained but I think the big thanks go to Mark Coker, the founder of Smashwords, for pushing gently and incessantly at Kobo to implement the incredibly easy technological solution to this problem. Yes, Kobo Books has implemented a search-by-ISBN feature as promoted by Smashwords over the past year.

Finally, it's possible to create permalinks for a book at the Kobo store. Simply form the URL as follows:

http://www.kobobooks.com/search/searc...ISBN

where ISBN is your book's 13-digit ISBN without spaces or dashes. For instance, for my RomCom, Dicky's Story, which has an ISBN of "9781458062734" I would form the permalink URL as follows (click through to see if the book is there).

http://www.kobobooks.com/search/search.html?q=9781458062734

You can buy the book while you're there if you'd like (LOL) Hey, I donate 10% of all proceeds earned to the Covenant House, which works to Abolish Child Trafficking, rescuing trafficked children from the sex slave trade, keeping them from starving and/or freezing to death on the streets of the United States.

If, like me, you're using a URL shortener service such as bit.ly, you should probably create a new, customized version of your Kobo Books Permalink. For instance, I used the above long URL to create a customized, shortened one:

http://bit.ly/KoboDickyStory

Click through that one and you'll see it goes to the same place (and you can still buy a copy *haha*)


Again, huge thanks to Mark Coker for making this happen. It took all of 2012 to get Kobo to understand constantly changing and moving a book's web address does not  help sell books. Now if we could just get them to remove the DRM from Kobo Books, life would be grand!

Happy 2013, everyone!

-sry
@webbiegrrl

MONDAY MARKETING Advertising's the Problem; PR's the Solution #pubtip #indie #selfpub #marketing #branding #pr

Back in the 1960s, there was a popular saying, If you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem. A decade later, this saying got reversed and negated into an imperative, Don't be part of the problem, be part of the solution. In the 1980s, when rehab centers started popping up across the USA for all the drug addicts the 60s and 70s had spawned, the popular saying in everyday life became The first step to solving a problem is to admit you have one.

Finally, in the 1990s, when the "self-help" seminars became a staple in business management training across US industry, the saying was turned again by Stephen R. Covey (my personal favorite self-help guru) into something that was more useful here. Seek first to understand, then to be understood. That was Habit 5 of his 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey went on to note:

We're in such a hurry to rush in and fix things up, we often fail to take the time first to really diagnose the problem. How can we possibly expect to fully-solve a problem we haven't fully-understood?

Rather than simply disgorging solutions, let's take the time to fully-dissect the problem we Indie Authors have with advertising and see why publicity is or can be the solution. Click through the jump-break to learn more.






The Advertising Problem
Advertising is one-sided, all about the Brand telling the customers what the Brand wants them to hear. Advertising is biased, usually describing why the Brand is so great and omitting any mention of flaws or drawbacks. Advertising is self-oriented and rarely considers what the consumer actually needs or wants. Because of these problems, Advertising lacks the ability to give the Brand credibility. No matter how creative the advertisement is, there's no way around the issue of credibility when advertising is the medium.

Creative people who sell advertising design services will often justify attention-getting advertisements saying that they will make the Brand famous. In reality, what becomes famous is the advertisement, not the Brand, so in essence, the Brand or its product made the advertisement famous, not the other way around. The cause and effect have been reversed by advertising.



The Credibility Solution
Publicity is all about the consumers doing the talking--it's practically gossip behind the Brand's back. Publicity is presumed impartial and unbiased because the Brand is not involved in composing the remarks. The consumers come up with the opinions themselves. Publicity is other-oriented, consumers discussing how a Brand or product fulfills their needs or wants--or fails to do so! Whether PR endorses or disclaims, it's assumed to be credible because the consumers believe themselves more than they do the advertisers. In part, it's just the "everybody knows" rule at work. See Immutable Law of Marketing (for Indie Authors) Law of Perception, or Immutable Law of Branding (for Indie Authors) Law of Credentials for more on this "everyone knows" phenomenon. You can also read more about it in Chapter 4 of my marketing book (available in eBook or paperback formats).

Because "everyone knows" already, most consumers don't even pay attention to half the advertisements they see. The ad folks go to great lengths to attract a consumer's attention, using gimmicks and flash-and-pizzazz visuals but the message is still not coming from a trusted source. It's still "just another advertisement" and dismissed as "noise" when it's from an unknown Brand. After all, if this were a Brand I should trust, I'd have heard of them! That's the power of the "everyone knows" effect at work.

The problem with advertising is the lack of credibility and authenticity due to its source, not its message. For a new Brand, credibility has to be built and that takes time. There is simply no short cut to building a reputation.




The Obscurity Problem
That brings us to the problem of an advertisement coming from a Brand no one knows. Due to the Brand's obscurity, the advertisement won't resonate with consumers. What consumer even remembers ads from new and unknown Brands? None. People remember ads from Brands they're already familiar with and already trust. Oh, look, my favorite dishwash soap maker has a new look. Better remember that next time I'm at the store and want to buy dishwash soap.

Either a Brand is famous or it's not. Your Brand will go from obscure to famous "overnight" even though it takes months of hard work for that "night" to be over. If you're launching a new Brand or have already and need to find a better way to get the word out about your Brand's existence, advertising is not your solution. It's a problem that will make readers tune you out even more. Instead, you need to seek out publicity opportunities.





The Publicity Solution
So the problem becomes how to get from the obscure end of the spectrum to the famous end. Publicity--other people talking about your Brand, not you promoting yourself--is definitely the solution. Don't do it yourself; endless bouts of "Shameless Shelf Promotions" will kill your Brand's potential to launch. Even knowing this, I confess to having fallen prey to the allure of doing it on Goodreads. It proves itself to be a fatal choice. Everytime!

Instead, you need to enlist others to start the buzz about your Brand. On Goodreads, rather than posting self-promotional link to your book or "advertisement" asking people to buy your wares, make yourself (your Brand Name) known -- and make yourself known "for" something. Be your brand whenever you talk to anyone anywhere, especially on a site like Goodreads with  10 million potential customers (readers).

What else can you do to get others talking about you? Sign up to be interviewed by others, join blog tours, join author networks. These avenues are already saturated by more members seeking publicity than there are opportunities to provide it but sign up anyway. Maybe your Brand will be the one to attract attention. If you don't sign up and try, I can guarantee no one will know about you. There are groups on Goodreads where book bloggers are actually seeking authors to interview, soliciting content for their blogs. You can be that new author.

If your blog tours and author interviews and author retweets aren't getting you anywhere or you've reached a plateau, try sending out actual press releases. Yes, to announcements sent to real news media. You'll need to learn how to write one, but it's do-able.

A press release is an artform unto itself, the same way a marketing blurb for your book's back cover is different than writing the book, itself. Writing a press release is something you can learn. There are great online resources (some of them right here on my blog!)  Just spend the time learning or hire someone to do a press release for you. I haven't offered my services for copywriting like that yet but I'm considering it, given the lack of choices for Indie Authors to hire someone who "gets" our industry's specific challenges.

Some good sites to find experienced and connected copywriters include my top two favorites: Copyblogger and PR Web. You'll also find tutorials on both sites for learning how to do it for yourself.




The Launch Problem & Motivational Solution
You can never throw enough money behind advertising of an unknown or weak name to make publicity just "happen." You'll go bankrupt trying to generate buzz for a Brand through advertising spots.


Instead, ask yourself what category you can create in which the new Brand can be first and therefore, the leader. See Immutable Law of Marketing (for Indie Authors) Law 1 and Immutable Law of Branding (for Indie Authors) Law 8 for more on Law of Category.

Then ask yourself these questions. Does the new category have publicity value? What slant or angle can you use to motivate consumers to prefer the new category over the one you're positioned in now? This is your motivating factor and without that, launching a new category just moves yourself out of the fast-moving category. Combine the launch of a new category with a strong motivating factor and publicity will follow all on its own.





What's Next....
Tomorrow in my Tuesday Tip I'll be looking at the new "permalink" from Kobo Books and other news from the Smashwords blog. I hope you'll join me then!

If you enjoyed today's blog....

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TUESDAY TIP Giveaway Means Giving GIFTS + Gifts Should be FREE #pubtip #indie #selfpub #marketing #publicity

They say that even bad publicity is good, but I'm sorry, in our Digital Publishing industry this is just not true. If you receive bad publicity, start getting a "bad name," that bad publicity could easily end your literary career (under that name anyway). One thing readers expect is honesty and integrity. It's called the Contract with the Reader when it refers to a plot line and it's called "good publicity" when it refers to those moments authors have to personally interact with their readership.

If you say you're going to give books away and then you don't give out gifts, the result is going to negative no matter how you cut it. Either you are so incapable of knowing the difference between an eBook and a file format of an eBook, or you're making yourself known as a liar who pulled a "bait and switch" -- that is, baiting readers to enter a giveaway and then switching their free gifts for files you had on hand.

Why am I bringing this up on Christmas Day? Well, for one thing, most Americans (in fact, most Christians worldwide) are so completely gift-focused today, it seemed very much a propos to the season. It's sad that the real meaning of Christmas now is centered or giving and receiving gifts, worse is that the meaning of "gift giving" has been lost in someone's translation somewhere.

I just ran a Ginormous 30,000 Hit Giveaway as many of you will know. The terms "giveaway" and "free gift" seem pretty clear to me--and to my readers!--but apparently, some Indie Authors have their own meanings for these terms. Click through to read what happened to make me say all this on an otherwise hopeful and happy Christmas Day.



The Setup and Stats on the Giveaway
A day or two after Thanksgiving, I solicited a handful (literally 5) authors whom I know give books away all the time or were looking for somewhere to give books away this holiday season and offered to add them to my giveaway event planned for mid-December. Then I put the word out on Facebook and Goodreads that I was looking for more books to give away--up to 30 titles. I thought that "30 books for the 30,000 Hit Giveaway" sounded good. Instead, I received requests from 72 authors with 104 titles, some multiple copies so ended up with 418 books that had to be given away and accounted for in this giveaway. I definitely did not know my own power (grin).

That was okay, I thought. I could provide the same free services to 72 authors and their 104 titles that I could do for a couple of dozen. I figured if each author was at least invested in promoting their own book, the event would scale up easily. So long as everyone was honest and played by the rules, I naively thought, my free promotion and marketing services would simply extend to a larger set of authors. All the better for everyone, no?

No. Silly me, I forgot, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy and apparently several of the authors to whom I extended this offer were my enemies, not my allies, in this giveaway effort. They were laying in wait, hidden amongst my supporters and behind my lines, a time bomb ticking away.

There were almost as many readers entered into the giveaway as there were authors, about 69 readers for the 72 authors, but a dozen or so of those readers entered often, daily, as much as possible so as to win as many books as possible. That was all good. The more readers, the better for the authors; and the more books a reader wins, the better for the winners!

So for the setup, it seemed to me that all was going well. I was so trusting in the good will of the thing.



Results and Aftermath
I used the Rafflecopter widget to manually select winners over the course of the 3 day weekend from Dec. 14 to 16. Actually, I started selecting winners at 6:00 pm Eastern Time on Dec. 13 and began sending out notifications to authors right then, providing winner contact details to the first dozen or so authors. I sent the private contact data via private DM (Direct Message) on Twitter since this is what I advertised repeatedly as the process I'd be using.

From November 30th to December 12th I stated repeatedly that all authors needed to follow me on Twitter so they could receive their winner details via DM when their book(s) came up on the list over the weekend of Dec 14-16. I even had a little thread started on the Facebook Event Page for collecting all of the Twitter IDs and as an incentive, I started linking the author's name on the giveaway page list to their Twitter ID, suggesting this might help them get more Twitter followers or at least a thank you in an @mention for the free gift.

Several authors still didn't follow me or reply with their Twitter ID but hurray for Letitia Coyne for going above and beyond by personally going out and finding the missing authors' Twitter handles and then posting them for me to the Facebook Event Page. It was that kind of support from the group that I had hoped for and it was great to see it show up. Letitia wasn't the only supportive one, either, just one of the more active behind the scenes (Walki Tinkanesh, Regan Black, Sessha Batto and Vanessa Wu were all retweet Warrior Gods/Goddesses throughout the two weeks of promo tweets). By the time I had to start selecting winners, I had everyone's Twitter IDs and nearly all were following me back (not quite all I realized too late).

Since several never followed me back on Twitter, I had to resort to using Facebook messaging. Since a few authors not only did not follow back but also restrict/block messages on Facebook, they were actively refusing to be contacted, which left me stumped as to how to contact them. I posted on the Facebook Event Page and tweeted @mentions and eventually, every single author had been notified somehow. All of the authors were notified by the time I went to sleep on December 17th, just one day after the event ended.

Not too shabby for one person working alone, while also working killer shifts at a day job in a retail business during the last big shopping weekend before Christmas! I like my new day jobs, honestly, but this is my first time ever working in retail and my gawwwd, it's overwhelming. It's probably colored my perspective on gifts this season being immersed, as I was, in capitalism at its peak of activity.

Starting on December 18, I began notifying readers of their winnings, finishing up on the afternoon of December 19th. I sent one email to each winner with their list of "free gifts" to expect (listing the author's name next to their title) and asked them to give the author(s) a couple of days, maybe until the following weekend, to be in touch given as some of the authors were already complaining they were too busy to deal with delivery of their prizes right now but they'd "get to it as soon as possible." As though I was annoying them asking them to deliver their prizes to the readers.

That was my first red flag.

It's been 10 days since the giveaway "ended" and I'm still hearing from readers telling me they have never received their free gift. It's really sad. The readers sure understood how the process would work and I'd say about 85% or more of the authors completely understood how it would work. Maybe another 5% were unclear and asked but by December 16th when I'd finished pulling winners' names out of Rafflecopter, I'd re-explained the notification process no less than 16 times in 3 days so I'm pretty sure the last 10% had ample opportunities to read (on Twitter, on Facebook, on my blog) how the process would work--an explanation I had given them at the start, I should note, but was repeating 16 or more times in the course of the 3 days of weekend when I announced hte winners.

Still not a problem for me but as the emails from the readers continued, I grew more and more concerned.

Some authors were not communicating with readers at all. Some wer writing to the readers, as soon as I gave them an email address, simply attaching a file format without so much as a "by your leave," and not even saying much other than "Here's your prize. Write me a review if you like it." Presumably the format these authors decided to send would be one the reader wanted and could use, but it was just too damned bad for the "winner of the free gift" if they couldn't read the book.

What an awful taste just writing that leaves! Glad I don't have to say it aloud! Ugh. I can't believe I included authors like this in one of my giveaway events. It's so completely against the way I conduct business.

Then there's the format issue and here's where I'm going to harp for a bit.

Some authors have asked first but when the reader replies they'd like to receive a Kindle eBook, they do not get a gifted copy of the book . Instead they get a reply email with a PRC or MOBI file attached. Now I'll grant you both of those formats are, in fact, readable by and associated with the Kindle app software on most smartphone and tablet devices and for the most part, the actual Kindle eReader devices (not all of them can read PRC files, given as that old format was deliberately abandoned by Amazon and made unreadable to make backwards-compatibility an issue that would drive sales of newer devices).
 
NOTE: All authors were asked ahead of time and not added to the unless or until they confirmed there were no restrictions on the format of their free gift. In fact, I specifically used the wording "(e.g., Kindle only)" because I know several authors who requested inclusion are enrolled in Amazon's KDP Select Program which requires exclusive rights to the book be granted to the Amazon and their Kindle Store platform.  


Only 9 titles were self-identified as Kindle Only .


Therefore, the authors of the remaining 95 titles should, theoretically, have been willing and able to provide a free gift through some other means. Sadly, however, only the Smashwords Authors are unilaterally providing readers with a free gift of a book--they send the coupon code and allow the reader to (a) decide which format they want at what time and on what device and (b) download the eBook at their leisure, when they have ordered their queue to deal with the book.  The Smashwords coupon changes the price of the book to whatever the author indicates (in this case, hopefully, $0.00 or free).

With two exceptions, the Kindle-only authors are complaining they have to buy a copy of their own book so they'd rather just send the file by email. (Rob S. Guthrie had no complaints and sent a gifted copy to his winner right away - thanks Rob!)

Okay, that means I'm only having this refusal to gift after promising to gift with a mere 7 authors out of the 72 but you know what? I think those 7 have involved more email activity than the other 65 authors combined!! in fact, it is the complainers and story-changers who took up 90% of my time and created 95% of the hassle. One author involved almost 30 emails back and forth--and then she called me names and went away in a huff! She emailed a MOBI file, rather than gifting the book but at least she said up front she'd be doing that.




Kindle Only and Amazon Gifting
Since I had to deal with this half dozen plus authors and the number one complaint was about having to buy their own book in order to gift it, I have a couple of issues with the complaint for these Kindle-Only books.

1) I do not now nor have I ever endorsed Amazon Kindle's requirement on authors to buy our own books nor do I endorse the restrictive Amazon KDP Select Program as a method of choice for distribution of eBooks. Therefore, I have little or no sympathy for someone who has signed up for that program and is now whining to me about how restrictive it is. I know Amazon makes it very hard for Indie Authors to give things away; that is one of many reasons I don't like their KDP Select Program--one of many reasons and not even the worst part of KDP Select in my opinion!

2) Authors were asked, up front, prior to being listed in the giveaway, "Are there any restrictions (e.g., Kindle only)" on giving away your book?" I even asked them to specify if they would or would not be providing a gifted copy of the book (versus a file by email) because I know how some KDP Select authors suffer from "Buyers' Remorse" and buy once, then "regift" the file off their local hard drive. That's not a gift of a book to the recipient and I specifically asked every author who indicated "Kindle only" or even "Kindle" as one of a select list of formats because I know Amazon makes life so difficult for Indie Authors. I wanted to make the distinction between those books that were being offered as gifts and those that were going to be regifted by the author.


3) Amazon requires authors to buy their own books. We all know that, but let's look at the numbers for a second. For a book priced at $2.99 up to $9.99, an author receives 70% of the cover cost in their next royalty report. Under $2.99, they'll receive 35% of the cover cost. So one way or another, an author purchasing their own book is going to get royalties paid back to them on their next royalty report and in fact, only lose the money they are required to pay to Amazon for every sale of their book--the same money they lose to Amazon everytime anyone else buys their book!

4) When an author purchases their own book to "gift" it to a reader, it's recorded as a unit sale. This increases their sales ranking for one unit. Until Amazon caught onto this system, it was a way some authors used to "doctor" sales rank by "faking" spurts of sales, making it look as though a book is "suddenly" popular. A boost in sales rank is a win/win, isn't it? What's really the downside to buying your own book from Amazon and "gifting" it to a reader? The author gets the gift of one more sale on their tally sheet.

5) Amazon no longer allows "just anyone" to post reviews on books and declines to show (or deliberately ranks at the bottom of the review list) any and all reviews by users who are not "Amazon Verified Purchase" reviewers. Many of the authors who are sending files instead of gifting the actual book are also soliciting reviews. This is about as awful as it gets. These authors are not only refusing to actually give the reader a gift of the book in a giveaway event but then they expect the reader to give them feedback. I can't imagine what these authors imagine this kind of reader is going to write in such a review! Well, other than negative feedback for the liar the authors are making themselves out to be by doing this.

NOTE: These authors are being blacklisted by me as never to be included in another Webbiegrrl giveaway because solicitation of a review was expressly and explicitly forbidden--repeatedly--throughout the 2 weeks prior to the giveaway drawings.

This last is the one that really confounds me, too. You see, if the book were gifted, the reader would own it and therefore, could post a review as an "Amazon Verified Purchase." However, because the author is choosing to change the offer after the fact, does not send a "gift" but instead, emails a file, the reader is not regarded by Amazon as a paying customer. Therefore, this reader cannot post a review even if they wanted to do so!

These authors have not just shot themselves in the foot but have shot themselves in both feet!




Return on Investment (ROI) for Refusing to Deliver Gifts
So let's take a look at this in dollars and cents again, for another second. A large number of the authors who violated the terms of my giveaway and sent files instead of gifts have 99-cent books. These books are in the segment of royalties where Amazon only pays 35% of the cover price anyway so the maximum royalty they could have received would be 35 cents, meaning they will lose 65 cents on the sale. Okay, they lose the majority of the money. It's still only sixty-five cents!  It's only one book. I'm pretty broke after 7 years of not working a day job and even *I* would cough up 65 cents to gift a book if a reader "needed" a Kindle gift. You can't even buy a candy bar here in the US for 65 cents. In fact, I don't think there's anything you can buy for 65 cents anymore -- except good will and a potential reader/reviewer of your book!

These authors are deliberately making themselves known to readers as a liar who offers a gift and then changes the offer after the fact by mailing a file (possibly an old format, no longer supported by Amazon).

And these authors are throwing away the chance to show another unit sold on their sales ranking report.

And these authors are throwing away the chance to get a happy reader to write a review as a thank you for the free gift.

All for a measy 65 cents !!

It just boggles my mind. I'm sure these people have a reason for being this penny-wise and pound-foolish (to use the Olde English saying) but I sure do hope laying it out in dollars and sense this way will register with at least some of the authors who mailed files instead of books.



The AfterShow
At the end of a party, it is customary (in my social circles, anyway) to say thank you to the host of the party. After all, they invited you to come have fun and they spent time and effort trying to deliver you that fun, so even if you didn't enjoy yourself, they still worked and it's polite to say thank you.

Out of the 72 authors who participated, about 30 thanked me before we'd even started drawing winners--during the build up for the event. I was complimented on my organizational skills and Speedy Gonzales approach to turning things around when new requests came in.

Another 20 or so thanked me immediately following the announcement of the winners and my delivery of their reader's contact details. So about 50 of the 72 authors were extremely appreciative and polite enough to say thank you for the free gift I gave them. What gift, you ask? I provided free marketing and promotional services as well as a free venue for them to solicit new readers--the latter of whom I brought to the venue for the to interact with freely.

At least 70% of the authors understood this basic polite consideration and thanked me for the effort regardless of their ROI from the event.



The remaining 22 or so authors not only did not thank me for the free services I provided over the 3 weeks, but several were actually rude, insulting or fault-finding with me. It was kind of shocking at first. One or two even posted on my blog and Facebook Fan Page and called me names -- in public, in front of my fans, deliberately attempting to defame me in my own house, so to speak. The name-calling as recently as Christmas Eve (which is when I started composing this blog post) was not from a "newbie" either; that was from a so-called "bestseller" and it really shocked me that he was as rude and crude and crass as he is both in a half a dozen private lashings and in the half a dozen public comments. It's not that I expect a "bestseller" to be professional and polite; it's that I thought I knew most of these authors who were so rude. Apparently, being two-faced is a routine behavior among some Indie Authors. This latest is not the first nor, I expect, will it be the last time a "bestseller" has called me names in a public forum. I suppose I should be happy they feel strongly enough about me to bother coming up with flippant remarks, right?

I also suppose having only 30% of the authors be rude, ungrateful and unprofessional wouldn't be so bad, given this business is a cutthroat business where competitors do mud-sling routinely, but nearly all of those who were rude were also the ones who were either not delivering books, not contacting their readers right away or were simply disinterested in finishing what they started.

These authors were hurting not just me and my personal feelings, but far more importantly, they were hurting my readers! In other words, they were the "problems" I was trying to solve for my readers and the more I tried to solve the problem with these people, the ruder and cruder they got! It was all very frustrating since there was no way I could remove them from the giveaway now that the winners had been announced.

This negative behavior, especially in public but also in private messages, not only makes them look like jackholes but makes me look foolish for having promoted them to my readers. I deeply regret suggesting these people were "worth taking a look at" and even more deeply, I regret not screening more carefully.



What Lies Ahead for Webbiegrrl Giveaways
I wanted to be all-inclusive with this giveaway and not turn anyone away who was unable to comprehend the instructions, who had a new book and needed help getting started, who had an old book and wanted to breathe new life into it, who had a personality I disliked, who had anything going on to set off my "lizard brain" bells that a problem lay ahead.

That won't happen again.

Next time I do any kind of giveaway event, even just for one author, there'll be an in-depth screening first. If the author does not have the technical skills to support their own event, I'll consider charging money to just do all of the work for them, but otherwise, I am no longer interested in providing free marketing and promotional services to the Indie Author community, not for the utter lack of appreciation that 30% showered on me. Not after this negative first experience.

It's hard to believe that my first-ever giveaway event exploded in popularity like this and then turned out to be so negative but I am beginning to understand more and more why readers complain about the Indie Author community. We are represented by these few "whiny little mean girls" (including the men who behave like whiny little mean girls) and the good-hearted, professional, polite and respectful people just don't get noticed next to all that drama.

Perhaps that's what the nasty 30% had in mind. Perhaps they just wanted to shine a spotlight onto themselves to get all the attention and take our focus away from the authors who really are worth watching! Sorry but in this case, bad publicity is definitely far worse than none at all.



What's Next....
Speaking of publicity, next week's Monday Marketing blog returns to the debate on publicity versus advertising. I hope I'll see you then!

-sry
@webbiegrrl

MONDAY MARKETING Devil in the Details (or Attributes) #branding #marketing #pubtip #indie #selfpub #howto

Welcome back to my Monday Marketing blog. Last week, I discussed what makes "divergence" occur. That is, how to tell when the Law of Division (Immutable Law of Marketing for Indie Authors Law 10) is at work. The result is the Law of Category (Immutable Law of Marketing for Indie Authors Law 2 and Immutable Law of Branding for Indie Authors Law 8). At least one new category is born whenever "divergence" occurs and a single brand--the most-valuable brand in the category--will dominate the new category by naming it. Last week, I also started discussing what it is that makes a brand valuable.

Today, I'm looking at the difference between using the Law of Division to initiate "divergence" versus allowing the brand to become diluted or de-valued through line extension. Click through the jump break to read more.



Finding Your New Category
Branding opportunities do not lie in the pursuit of new markets, but rather in the creation of new positions. After all, a Brand is defined as:

An idea in the mind of the consumer whose power lies in the ability to influence purchasing decisions.

Without the ability to influence a purchasing decision, a brand has no power--no value--and a brand that no one has ever heard of before has no influence in any market. In particular, an unknown brand has no ability to spawn a new category. This is why publicity, not advertising, can propel a Brand to a position of leadership (I'll discuss publicity versus advertising again next week). So how do you reach a new consumer if not by advertising or expanding into a new market?

The Immutable Laws of Branding 1 and 2 (Law of Expansion, Law of Contraction) guarantee that "line extension" will simply force your current Author Brand into extinction. Expansion dilutes the message, making your distinguishing attributes unclear in the minds of the consumers. The less you are a unique and special snowflake, the more easily you become lost in the blizzard of choices. In a blizzard, consumers simply clear away a path by pushing aside everything they can. Be the different one and you'll be noticed, not pushed aside. Then present a strong and focused Author Brand that consumers can grasp, recognize and position for future reference.



Evolution of a New Category
A new Category or Genre, like a new species of animal, evolves from the introduction of some new attribute which distinguishes the new from the predecessor. A Brand uses these attributes to create a new position from which to launch a new marketing campaign resulting in the establishment of the new Category.

Using the animal kingdom a metaphor, let's start at the top, with the leader, since the leader determines the attributes defining the new Category. Note that this determination of the defining features or attributes is, in effect, the "naming" of the new Category.

In the animal kingdom, the lion is the King of the Jungle, but they are not the only Big Cat out there. They are large feline creatures and they are descended from the prehistoric "Panthera."  (Hence the generic term "panther" to refer to a "Big Cat.") Somewhere in the distant past, divergence occurred and several new species were spawned which we now call lion, tiger, leopard, cheetah, etc.

Each of these Big Cats is unique and has distinguishing features or attributes to help us simple-minded people file them in context (positioning them in our minds) as different things. Each type of Big Cat is distinct, different and holds a niche position in the food chain. Lions and tigers are both Big Cats but they are not cooperative; they are competitors. You recognize both as Big Cats (similar) and yet you hold them as distinct in your mind. They are in separate categories. You have positioned them in your mind.

Whatever the reason (attribute), you will have stored (positioned) each different species of Panthera descendant with a different connotation attached to them. That connotation or context is their position and their position is their "value" in your mind.




The Power of Narrow Focus
Positioning is a battle for control of the consumer's mind. You can win the battle by doing the right thing (narrowing your Brand's focus) or you can win when your competition does the wrong thing (expands their Brand's focus). If your competition expands and extends and you remain focused, you win and they lose. Narrowing focus will always win over dilution and expansion. Less is always more in this battle.

The consumer has an glut of information thrown at them daily and they will, by necessity, filter and "simplify" the data they store in their minds--and they'll only store a small fragment of the data they encounter! Recall, a position is inside the consumer's "over-simplified mind" so they'll discard and reject any information which does not easily fit into an existing position unless or until you give the consumer a very good reason to go through the pain of creating a new position in which to store your new concept.

The more simple your message, the more narrowly-focused your Brand is, the easier it'll be to enter the mind of the consumer and establish a position (or platform) from which to building your Brand.




The Market vs. the Mind
The one mistake many make, because they are new to the idea of Branding, is to think the battlefield is the marketplace instead of inside the individual consumer's mind. The primary objective of a branding program is never the market for a product, but rather the mind of a consumer. The consumer is influenced by the marketplace--by the full (or over-full) brands there--but the market will follow wherever the consumer's mind leads. The consumer buys things; we do not sell to them. It is a "pull" not a "push" process, like a simply "supply-and-demand" system. Never focus on the marketplace more than the consumer. Without demands from the consumer, there is no marketplace.



What's Next....
Next week, I'll look at how publicity, not advertising, helps launch a new Category and a new Brand with it. I hope to see you then!

If you'd like to read more of my marketing advice, get your copy of my handbook, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing (for Indie Authors) , as an eBook from Smashwords or as a paperback from CreateSpace.

You can also subscribe to the Webbiegrrl's Writings blog via KindleBlogs to get it delivered directly to your Kindle Home Screen for only 99 cents a month. With at least 2 posts a week, that's only 12 cents each--which is really just Amazon's WhisperNET delivery fee. Click here to start your 14-day free trial.

TUESDAY TIP More #Giveaway Lessons Learned #pubtip #howto #indie #selfpub

So the Ginormous 30,000 Hit Giveaway is over, and I'm starting to recover. I've only got one task left: contacting all of the winners to be sure they know what they won and/or have been properly contacted by their donating authors. As I've wrapped things up, I've realized a few more lessons were learned than I'd reported last week. Click through the jump break to learn along with me.




Size Matters
In 2011, I ran a Freebie Fridays feature, where I had only 3 to 5 authors, preferably of like-kind genres, and the handful of us would collectively promote the heck out of the one-day event for up to a week beforehand (no more) using really customized tweets and posts on Goodreads or Facebook.

What'd I learn from this? Well, I had 72 authors (with a collective a total of 418 books) rather than 3 or 4 authors with one book each and the same processes that apply easily to a handful or less decidedly do not scale up. At least, not given that there's still only one of me.

I'm also not entirely convinced that the readers got a better "bang for the buck" worth of effort. Some dozen or so "power players" got a boatload of books but for the most part, individual users just got one or two books anyway. In a Freebie Friday feature, all 3 or 4 the books are free for that one day and all readers can get all of them, no strings attached. They don't even have to enter any information to do it!

I might change that aspect of the Freebie Friday feature when I restart it and use a widget. Why? ROI--for me and for the authors. The entry widget is a nice way to count/track entries by individual users. The bottom line numbers on this ginormous giveaway were about a 1:1 ratio of reader to author, around or just over 70 of each. While that was better than having less than one reader per author, I'd kind of hoped to have a higher ratio of readers to authors. Since I can get the readers here, decreasing the number of authors modifies the ratio as desired.



Return on Investment (ROI)
Usually, my Freebie Fridays were what I called a "win/win/win." That is, readers won because they got free books (check, that happened in spades here) and authors won because they got new readers. As a couple of contributing authors have noticed, the readers during this giveaway were a little different than the usual raffle players. Even the "power players" were new to most of the authors. So that was probably a "win," too.

I haven't solicited any numbers from any of the 70+ authors, but already several have reported sales (as opposed to people just getting the free books with the coupon codes). During Freebie Fridays, about 20-30% of the downloads are for-pay versus for-free, so this is probably the same level of ROI regarding sales.

I won because I got more traffic to my blog and fans on my Webbiegrrl Writer Facebook Fan Page. Typically, I get about 100-150 hits a day and during Freebie Fridays it would spike up to 400-500 hits. During this event, it was spiking up to 600-650 so a bit higher but not dramatically so. Let's look at my results during this giveaway.

My hit count passed the 30,000 mark after 3 days of soliciting authors for books (back on Dec 2 or 3, I think it was) and I'm at just a dozen or so under 36,000 this morning as I write this. I'm not as interested in the hit count as I am in the readership actually reading my content and participating in discussions here. On that note, I got a little over 100 new "fans" on Facebook and about 50 new followers via Networked Blogs, which is all fine and nice, but I wonder if any of those people will read the content. I grimly suspect many will just uncheck "show in newsfeed" to make my marketing blogs go away. Hopefully, my evolving content will interest them enough that at least half stick around. That'd be enough ROI for me to call it a "win."

I don't usually sell any books of my own during a Freebie Friday event and I've sold a dozen or two copies of each of my books during this giveaway without actively promoting myself (too busy promoting the event!) so that was a nice "free win" for me. My promo tweets on Twitter fell completely silent except for the giveaway announcements--and there I lost. I try to keep my auto-tweets going 7 days a week.

I also lost 38 Twitter followers due to the high-traffic level of generic promo tweets. I suppose 38 is not a lot but I don't like to see anyone go due to "noise." I think the useful content was missing because the tweets were not customized to each author's books the way I do during Freebie Fridays. People don't seem to mind a promo tweet that informs as much as one that's an overt advertisement with no other semantic value.




Using the Right Tool for the Job
For Freebie Fridays, I didn't use any kind of "entry" tool--everyone was a winner! Anyone who came to the blog could follow the link to find the free book and having the book priced at "free" ($0.00) on the day of the event was one of the requirements for authors to be featured.

This time, I used a raffle widget from Rafflecopter. As noted, I liked the fact it kept track of who was here and entering but it wasn't a very reliable tool. I think it probably would've been okay if I'd had a small number of prizes (half a dozen) but since I had over 100 titles to enter, it was a fairly unweildy raffle and challenged the widget-code's limits. Added to that was the fact that the makers of the Rafflecopter had (unwisely) "upgraded" the widget a few days earlier--unbeknownst to me! The "upgrade" was causing their regular users one nightmare after another. My new user issues weren't even the worst from what I saw on the Facebook Page (or maybe I just didn't try to do much with the widget...or had low expectations at the start?)

The widget failed to function about 15% of the time. For a reader, that was incredibly frustrating. For me, it was annoying since I only heard about it if/when a reader got frustrated enough to complain to me (about 3% who got a failure did complain privately or via comments on the blog/Facebook event page). It was additionally frustrating for everyone at the end because it really slowed down the process of my announcing winners when I had to keep clicking five to ten times to get one name out of the widget.

For the authors, who were oblivious to any failures of the tool during the giveaway, this ongoing failure decreased their ROI without their even knowing it. I found another like-kind tool called Giveaway Tools (GT) but they are still in Alpha Testing (not even released to the Beta Testing stage yet) so I couldn't use them. I signed up anyway. I might like to try them out in the future but I'll start slowly--for one or two books, not 102 books!



Conclusions and Advice
Bottom line "first" is I'll never do another one of these giveaways. Never.

I definitely do want to reinstitute my Freebie Friday feature, however, and plan to do that sometime in the early part of 2013 (hopefully by March or April!) If you're an author and want to be featured in one, please be sure to follow the blog. I suggest subscribing via email so you can filter/search for messages about it or signing up via Networked Blogs so it'll be in your Facebook newsfeed.

Why do I dismiss doing another humongous one so readily? Because there are a lot of giveaway opportunities available that don't carry the same hassles this one did.  Here are a few examples.

Amazon
If you're enrolled in Amazon's KDP Select Program, of course, you get 5 days for every 90-day period in which you're enrolled when you can give away a Kindle-only eBook. The problem, of course, is that if your book's in KDP Select, it cannot be anywhere else on the internet. That incredibly restrictive "feature" makes the giveaway very limited in terms of audience. As noted above, this giveaway really reached a mixed audience--mixed enough that most authors saw "new to me" readers and most readers found "new to me" authors to try out.

Goodreads
If you have a paper version of your book, of course, there's Goodreads Giveaways. It's unfortunate that they don't have a built-in function for giving away eBooks  but the Goodreads Event function works just great and allows you to invite friends, make updates to the event's text (resending the notice out to anyone who's invited) and you can use the link to the Event to post elsewhere (like on Twitter and Facebook). Goodreads Events are fairly widespread, however, and Goodreads authors seem to have a tendency to SPAM everyone and his brother about their book being on promo, so the usefulness of the tool has decreased as a result of overuse. Sadly.

LibraryThing (informal)
Another place much under-utilized is LibraryThing which has two different giveaway programs. One is author-direct-to-reader and is called a "Giveaway." As an Indie Author you can enroll your books at no cost so long as they are not available for free anywhere else. This is kind of the antithesis of Amazon's KDP Select program -- I love it!!

LTER (formal)
The second method for giving books away on LibraryThing is the LibraryThing Early Reviewers (LTER) program. These books are typically from publishers (traditional dominate but there are some Indies as well) and are selected by LibraryThing's Staff. I'm not exactly sure how to get a book into the LTER program but only because I've never looked. I suspect it's fairly easy--you submit a book and they schedule you.

The great thing for Indie Authors about the LTER program is that the whole point of the LTER program is reviews . That's what we all want and the LTER program specifically solicits them. In fact, "winners" of books in the LTER are obligated to write a review of any book won that is at least 25 words long (and not garbage characters or non-sensical words).  This is the only giveaway program I know of that is open to Indie Authors and will actually provide you with reviews, guaranteed.


Book Bloggers (freelancers)
In addition to Amazon's KDP Select, Goodreads Giveaways and Events, and the LTER program, there is the blog tour or book blogger giveaway. This is totally informal and an ad hoc event--that is, you deal with each one on an individual, customized basis. My Freebie Friday features will fall into this latter category.

To find book bloggers who are interested in running a giveaway for you, I suggest posting around on Goodreads in many of the review groups. I've seen literally hundreds of book bloggers soliciting for authors to give books away on their blogs. It's content for them, remember. They are invested into making your giveaway a good thing. Be sure to treat them with respect, professional and politeness. They're just people like you and can only do so much but they are highly motivated to do all they can for you.


I think the bottom line "last" today is that this was a good event, but probably not worth all the effort everyone put into it--not me, the readers or the authors. I think it was fun while it lasted because the energy was high but that energy could've been just as high for a smaller, more-focused group of books and authors and been more fun for everyone. I also think the readers, even the "power players," won't be able to read every last book they won--but they'll spend time/effort downloading them. They're free, after all! ^)^



What's Next....
Next week's Monday Marketing blog will continue the discussion on Division and Divergence. Be sure to tune in, same bat channel as always.

Remember you can subscribe to Webbiegrrl's Writings  via KindleBlogs. (for a small monthly fee), via Networked Blogs (free but requires a Facebook account) or via email (use the widget in the right-hand sidebar). I believe you can still even add the blog to your Google Home Screen if you'd like. I hope to see you back here however you subscribe.

Thanks for stopping by!

-sry
@webbiegrrl

MONDAY MARKETING Divergence: Parting the Branding Waters #pubtip #indie #selfpub #howto

Today I return to regularly scheduled programming: marketing and specifically, Branding for Indie Authors. I've been reading The Origin of Brands by Al Ries (my favorite "go-to guy" for marketing savvy because he has been and is one of the most-influential in the field in the last 50 or so years) and making analogies to the marketing and branding of Digital Publishing professionals.

Our categories (genres) diverge or split all the time. The Law of Division (Immutable Law of Marketing for Indie Authors Law 10) guarantees that a category will split off...eventually. The Law of Category (Immutable Law of Marketing for Indie Authors Law 2 and Immutable Law of Branding for Indie Authors Law 8) will tell us what makes that happen. Today I'll talk about what to do when divergence occurs around you. Click through the jumpbreak if you want to know more.



The Value of a Brand
There are few things you can count on in life--and fewer still in Digital Publishing--but you can count on a category dividing. Eventually. You may not know precisely when or where the split will occur, or what new subcategory will be spawned when it does happen, or even if your brand will be included in this half or that one. However, you can count on one thing: the split will occur. What happens to your brand depends on its value in the larger context of the category. That, in turn, depends on the placement of your brand in the specific context of the category within the minds of your prospective customers. Recall, the definition of a brand is as follows:

A brand is an idea in the mind of the consumer whose power lies in the ability to influence purchasing decisions.

Without the ability to influence a consumer's purchasing behavior one way or another, a brand has no power--or value--at all. If a brand is immediately familiar and carries with a strong positive connotation, that brand will have a lot of power. It will be a valuable brand. It is one that can drive consumers to buy products.

If the brand carries no sense of recognition or brings with it any kind of negative connotations (note, barring the application of the Law of Candor, Immutable Law of Marketing Law , its value goes down or becomes a deficit to the brand owner.

Think about it. What makes Starbucks valuable? Is it the little green logo or the coffee, itself? It might surprise you to realize it's neither ! Not the name, not the logo but rather, the instant recognition of the brand concept that Starbucks will serve you gourmet coffee (in-store or take-out) however you want it. In fact, Starbucks if famous for the level to which they will customize your order.

In other words, the mere mention of "Starbucks" brings to mind the idea of more than "just a cup a coffee" (like in a diner or "greasy spoon" place). Starbucks coffee is not only expensive, it's "fancy." It's special--like a special snowflake? For some people, yes. It's a treat many people across America give to themselves as a reward. The fact that the mere thought of the name "Starbucks" brings to mind all of this makes the brand name extremely valuable (more so than the products!)

In fact, Starbucks dominates the category of "fancy coffee, made to order." Personally, I really dislike Starbucks coffee, finding it too acidic (it actually makes me sick to my stomach to drink it). I prefer Panera Bread's coffee but they are, by definition of their chosen name, not a brand that specializes in coffee. It was a mistake to call themselves "Panera Bread" and along the way, the word "bread" has gotten smaller and smaller in their logo design but they are never going to be able to overcome the non-association with coffee without giving up the association with gourmet bread, their founding product line. This is the Law of Sacrifice (the Oh, Shiny! effect) at work.

Panera does not and never will dominate the coffee category in most people's minds. In fact, I might prefer Panera but even I think of Starbucks as the "leader." The rebel in me deliberately prefers Panera so as to not support the leader. That phenomenon--the antithesis of the "everyone knows" effect--is also quite powerful. It's the Law of Opposites (Immutable Law of Marketing for Indie Authors Law 9) at work.

Even being the secondary brand, Panera has a value because its position as "not #1" influences my purchasing decisions. Collectively, Starbucks and Panera dominate the coffee category here in the USA. In fact, Starbucks has expanded their reach--while keeping their brand narrowly focused--outside the USA to all corners of the planet. Like McDonalds, there are few places in the world you can go and not find a Starbucks.

Now what would happen to a third brand in the gourmet coffee category if they tried to spawn a new theme--say just coffee at lower prices? Oops, that category is already owned by Dunkin' Donuts! They're trying to undercut the Starbucks market by offering a more affordable but otherwise "like kind" product. To break off some of the Starbucks market, a new coffee brand would have to have some new concept that none of the existing brands offers.




How to Domninate a New Category
When Starbucks first opened, they were the new concept. All they did was serve coffee, fancy gourmet coffee, to order and at a higher price than most other places. They were not a bakery or pastry shop that also served coffee. They made coffee the central focus and named themselves a coffee shop. The fact they only served coffee was all over the news. people were talking and asking what the point was. Starbucks pressed on despite this nay-saying.

The only way to dominate a new category is create it and name it. Just creating it is not enough; you must also name it. This is good news. If someone else has spawned the new category in your genre area, you can name it and "magically," you will become the "leader" of the new category in the minds of the consumers interested in those products.

Starbucks created and named their new concept of a place to just take a coffee break. They promoted the idea of doing nothing else but drinking coffee and relaxing and their customers were curious. They even offered free WiFi as a lure to draw people into the stores for long periods of time. This was the hook that finally caught on and the industry changed forever. Now everyplace wants to be an "internet cafe like Starbucks"--even McDonalds!





What's Next....
Next Monday I'll look more in depth at what makes a new category "new" rather than simply "another."

Tomorrow's Tuesday Tip will be a followup on my "Lessons Learned" from the Ginormous 30,000 Hit Giveaway I'm just wrapping up. I posted a few lessons learned last week, but now that I've ended the entries and am managing the closure, I can share a few more tips. Hope to see you then.

Thanks for stopping by!

-sry
@webbiegrrl

GIVEAWAY Winners Announced for Book 102 by Sarah, the @Webbiegrrl Writer #marketing #nonfiction #business #howto #selfpub #pubtip #indie

The next batch of winners in my Ginormous 30,000 Hit Giveaway have been selected. Refer to the list on the original post for the order in which prizes will be awarded. All of an Author's titles will be announced together, even if this puts the books out of order. New winners are scheduled to be announced every hour on the hour!

(102) Immutable Laws of Marketing (for Indie Authors) by Sarah, the Webbiegrrl Writer (5 copies)

Winners:

Patrick Breen
Brianna Markette
Carrie Pittman Blair
Shelly Hammond
Ryver Morrissey