J.’s Comments (group member since Sep 09, 2014)

J.’s comments from the THE Group for Authors! group.

Hi all,
As always thanks for the genuinely useful discussion. I just finished a Kindle Countdown deal, first one I've ever tried, and did some promo ads via email listers. Results were not spectacular but enough that I didn't lose much. At the same time I began to see "pages read" get going even though the book had been on KU for nearly a month with nothing doing. It is actually kind of fun to see that people are reading the book not just saving it somewhere for maybe never. As Jack has noted numerous times, you have to promote your books but do it intelligently.
I am within a month of so of my next new release. Do any of you have words of advise regarding promoting a new book? Not all sites will take on new releases and some of the better ones I've used in the past fall into that category so I'm probably going to have to get other sites to fill in.
By the way I've noticed a number of ad sites that are now offering "sales" so maybe the word is getting around and the indie authors are being more discerning about who gets their ad dollars.

Hi all,
I tried ebooksoda twice with very poor results. I doubt I'll try them again. Choosy Bookworm, same story.
And just to follow up on my moving a book to Amazon only (I delisted it everywhere else) and KU, much as Jack suggested, it made little or no difference in sales and so far hasn't brought in any KU downloads. So it appears that in and of itself has little effect on the Amazon algorithm. Most of you might have already known that. I had to try it.

Hi all,
As always thanks to everyone who posts here. Great info, great help when it is time to run promos. I do not have any sales or promos going right now but I am in the midst of an experiment. Based on what Jack and others have noted, that Amazon is the one place that helps Indies and they seem more interesting in promoting and keeping us with them exclusively (noted the new Kindle Scout offer) I am delisting my best selling book from all other ebook outlets and putting it into KU. My thought is that Amazon knows who is with them exclusively and who isn't and if I'm right things will improve for this book once I am not trying to sell it anywhere else. We'll see what happens but really, it has sold so few copies anywhere but Amazon, what's the point. I've sold more copies of the paperback at book signings than have ever sold on Apple, B&N or anywhere.

Laurel wrote: "Suzette wrote: "Laurel wrote: "I've also compiled a list of over fifty Facebook group pages related to books and reading. I periodically post my books (especially when they're on countdown) and fri..."
I used your website to email my request for the FB groups. Thanks for offering.

L.S. I went to the FB page for Tibit Tuesday using the link that D sent and found a note that said the next one would be March 1. Maybe there are more but that's the note I saw.

D. wrote: "FYI - Today is Tidbit Tuesday on Facebook. You can post a short excerpt from your books. It may find some readers. I posted from my book "Whims & Vices" and have already gotten a sale! https://www...."

Hi D, curious about the FB Tidbit Tuesday. I see that the next one is scheduled for March 1. How did you hear about it? What else can you tell us about it? I put a note on my calendar on March 1 to perhaps give it a shot though it doesn't look like it gets that much traffic. I could be looking in the wrong place for data so maybe it gets more visits than I think. Nonetheless, free promo sites cannot hurt and it doesn't take but a minute to post. Thanks.

Thanks all for the comments. I agree that building readership is the key. On the other hand, I too write what I'm interested in. Fantasy has been on my list for a long time so it is up next. The sequel that is to follow really was at readers request. I hadn't thought of there being a sequel to that book and it has taken some time to figure out what plot might work. Now it is percolating in my mind and with luck and hard work it'll be a good book when it gets done.

Hi all,
I just wanted to thank the group for the continuing posts. I'm not promoting anything this month or probably next month either. Too busy trying to finish my next novel. The same as some of you, my books are all different, not series which likely hurts sales. Still my next book will be a fantasy, a new genre for me. Once it gets released I'll jump back into the promotional side of this business and see if there is a "new release" jump. And based on discussion here I've decided that I need to write something that is a sequel to past published work. We'll see how that goes. So keep up the good work all of you.

J. wrote: "Laurel wrote: "For those of you who have used Booksbutterfly.com, do they really do what they say? Did you get the promised number of downloads for discounted books, and if not, did they give you a..."
Hi Laurel, Not really sure at this point. I think there are some FB groups that focus on either BN or iBooks. She also does a lot with her blog and some fanzines. I plan to ask her when I get a chance and will let you know.

Currently not typing anything though I am jotting notes so I'll have lots to type when I'm back at my computer. I agree with Jack, usually do, about this being a great place to share ideas with people who understand what it's like doing what we do. All my promos have finished and sales have naturally slumped. Ads do sell books. Which ads sell the most books for the money is another question, one we all are trying to answer. The promos I did covered several books of different genre, no series and from my data, there is minimal crossover when one book gets an ad, i.e. sales only jump for that book. Not so much true for series, I just don't have a series yet. I gave up on GR ads after several shots at it as they did little or nothing. I get more from posting on KindleBoards and twitter, all free. Not that either of them boosts sales that much, but a sale is a sale. One last thought, my books are all distributed through a number of outlets and like several of you have mentioned, almost all sales are through Amazon so why have books listed elsewhere and miss out on the KU downloads and pages read. On the other hand, a friend who has several books out sells more through Apple and B&N than Amazon. Why, she promotes places where that's the audience. So, I'm debating whether to release my next book only on Amazon and get in on KU or try to figure out better spots to promote for other outlets. Right now I'm leaning toward Amazon exclusive at least for 90 days and see what happens. Any of you here have insights on selling thru other outlets?
And thanks for all the interesting chat.

Yes, Jack and others have continued to suggest that the best thing we can do is write more books. I'm busy doing just that and run into my own sense of when a book is good enough to publish. Currently working on 3 different novels and 1 nonfiction. I was nearly ready to publish one of the novels but set it aside for a while and thought it over and nope, not ready yet. So more work. But as Jack also mentioned recently, quality will drive more readers to your work whereas poor books will drive them away. In the meantime, I am just coming to the end of several promotions for my published works. The best results to date have been through ENT and Robin Reads. On a cost effective basis Robin Reads came closest to break even. And they were easy to work with.
Keep writing.

I've used CS for several years and found them really helpful. I seldom sell a printed book on line but when I go to author signings you have to have them. And when I do get a print sale, somehow that seems better. My old fashioned don't like ebooks coming through.

This is still a great thread. Hard to keep up with all the things going on. I am in the middle of my December promo experiment, which is to run ads for various books at various sites throughout the month with books all priced at 99 cents. Mixed results so far, which is to be expected, with Robin Reads being the best site that I've used. Even it didn't make me money but almost and with other sales that might have been because of the RR ad, maybe I did.

Thanks for all those sharing here. I check it out often though don't say much. Glad to see what others are doing. I'm trying something different for December. I'm putting 3 books on sale at the same time and promoting all of them through different sites/promo methods. Not sure what that will do if anything to sales overall but thought I'd give it a try since my next book won't be ready to see print until next year sometime and I don't see any real opportunities to create activity until that happens short of something like this.

L.S. thanks for sharing your experience. Glad to hear there is a good side of things at fiverr.

Just a follow up to Will's post. I tried Knights through fiverr once and for me it was the most disappointing version of any ad I've ever done. I decided that based on the experience, the poor, IMHO, customer service I'd never bother with them again. Has anyone had a good experience with them? If so, share details because I know a sample size of one hardly gives you any statistical validity to conclusions you may draw.

Hi all,
Interesting discussion about site traffic. For me it’s more about what Jack brought up a while back, what do ads cost and what sales are produced by that ad site. In that vein, as promised here are the results of my recent promotion. The promotion was for my scifi novel Shepherds with a sale price set at 99 cents. Below are the ad sites used, with cost and number of sales I can attribute to that site’s ad. Mostly they didn’t make money for me.

Day 1, Reading Deals, cost 0, sales 0
Day 2 Fussy Librarian, cost $24, sales 16
Day 4, Sweetfree books, cost $5, sales 6
Day 5, ebooklister, cost 0, sales 3
Day 8, Booksends, cost $25, sales 22
Day 9, Awesomegang, cost $10, sales 3
Day 10, ebookhounds, cost $5, sales 6
Day 11, Book Barbarian, cost $8, sales 19
Day 13, KBT, cost $25, sales 28
Day 16, AskDavid, cost 0 (residual tweet from another ad), sales 2
Day 21, Robin Reads, cost $15, sales 33

In between ads I posted the usual tweets, FB notes, LinkedIN and Pintrest stuff that generally doesn’t do much. There were a few scattered sales on “no ad” days. There were no sales for my other books, which is probably as much due to the fact that none of my novels are connected so hard to get that kind of sales bump.

Not sure how much this helps, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. Keep the info coming.
Jim

Same here with FB, never got sales despite whatever "reach" the post had. I wrote them off my list of ad sites already. That said, I do post on FB just in case but don't boost it or pay for anything.

When I finished The Martian and rated it and entered a review, GR asked if I wanted to follow the author. I clicked yes and the first thing that came up was someone had asked him a question about how The Martian came to be such a success and a movie. I would guess that if you look for Andy's author page within GR you'll find the story. I might not get it quite right so will let those interested search for it themselves.

Hi all,
As always I appreciate people sharing their experiences. Today is the last day for my 99 cent promo and once I tabulate results I'll post the details. It wasn't anything great so not to expect I'll have anything you'd want to duplicate.
I did want to mention one thing about freebies which I don't do. Check out Andy Weir's story about how he got The Martian out there.