The Ads Are Out…So What?

Royal Purple, page 2 ad for Flesh Wound

Now that we're in mid-December, the newspaper ads for Flesh Wound have run for two consecutive weeks in the UW-Whitewater and UW-Oshkosh student newspapers, and in the December 2 issue of the Wisconsin Gazette.  The final ad runs in this Thursday's Gazette.  The bills are coming in for those ads, but what has their impact been?

Outside of a marked spike in sales, one way of measuring the impact of the ads is website hits.  The ad directs readers to http://fleshwoundthebook.com, and the ad is the only place that URL is found, outside of the posters I hung up at UW-W and UW-O.  So the activity on the site is being driven either by the posters or by the ads.  Here are the weekly website hits at http://fleshwoundthebook.com since the site went up in early November:

Nov 7:  41 hits

Nov 14: 48 hits

Nov 21:  40 hits (Thanksgiving week)

Nov 28:  47 hits

Dec 5:   85 hits

The week of Dec 5 was the first in which the ads were on the street.  It looks like the initial impact of the ads was to boost web traffic by almost 100%.  This is great!  What I want now is for that increased traffic to translate to book sales, website comments, and return visits to the website, keeping FW and its characters top of mind for readers.  My job is to keep updating the blog there so return visitors will have additional material to read.

The activity on this website http://jonsay.com remains consistent on a weekly basis.  With the exception of Thanksgiving week, the volume has been steady and strong.  Here are the numbers:

Nov 7:  1,278 hits

Nov 14: 1,313 hits

Nov 21:  921 hits (Thanksgiving week)

Nov 28:  1,261 hits

Dec 5:   1,418 hits

Thank you to all the consistent readers of this blog, I hope you continue to find it interesting, informative, and entertaining!  If you have any questions about living as a full-time writer, getting published for the first time, or anything else, leave a comment or email me at jon@jonsay.com.

Enjoy the final full week before the holiday break!  If you're in the Upper Midwest (like me), try to stay warm.  It is currently 11 degrees with a wind chill of -5 (yes, that's below zero), and the low tonight is going down to 1 degree with wind chills approaching -15.  If it stays like this, Santa better wear his long underwear next week.  Read something today that takes you to a location you've been dreaming of visiting!  Thanks for reading.  -Jon