Inkshares Community discussion
Promotional Strategy Discussion
>
Top 3 (or more) Ways You Got Pre-orders
Number 1:youtu.be/aDTwO0TlwOUNumber 2: seriously, ask ALL of your friends, family, and THEIR friends and family to buy it. Pitch it like that for a while and you should be able to see at least one person say: "fine. If you shout up about it, I will do it." If not, continue.
Number 3: reach out to other authors in your genre. 1 out of 2 usually responds. If they offers to look at it, great! But 70% of my experience is a big, fat NO. So don't get your hopes up, but sometimes they would check it out and preorder.
-Yicheng
I'm having a lot of trouble finding anything that works consistently, or at all.I did a letterbox drop of several hundred flyers and got no sales.
Asking friends has been like talking to a brick wall, I don't know if it's just too much of a hassle to sign up or if they don't care or what, but that's not happening either.
Reminding prior backers from the S&L comp is proving troublesome as well, I've only gotten back 22 of the 79 people from last time.
Social media has proved almost useless too, even tweets that are being retweeted by Inkshares themselves are only getting clicked on a couple of times.
I tried paid twitter ads last time around which ended up just being a waste of money.
So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm looking forward to seeing what other people are doing that works as well...because nothing I'm trying is...
It really seems like the biggest hurdle in getting people to buy is getting through to them how such little time, effort and money on their behalf could change our lives in such a huge way.
Paul wrote: "It really seems like the biggest hurdle in getting people to buy is getting through to them how such little time, effort and money on their behalf could change our lives in such a huge way."I think it comes down to WHY more than anything else.
Why should those people spent their money to change our lives when they could spend it to change their own? Really think about it...What's their motivation? If this were a story, why would they want to do it?
I think when we figure out what motivates these people we will all see the preorders flow in.
Until then, JF has a good mantra; We're all in this together.
I got some friends to pre-order, but I haven't gotten much more than some likes on my Facebook page. I talked to my sister (she's in HS) which is where I'm aiming towards, but I'm not putting too many hopes there. I feel like YA fantasy isn't nearly as popular as when HP was coming out. It's waned in favor or paranormal and post apocalyptic (not that those genres are bad). Granted a former writer on FP just released her book a few weeks ago and is in the top 5 on Amazon, so it might just be me.
Mod
I'm not sure which of my tactics are working and which aren't. I know my initial facebook blast got the closest members of my circle in gear. And I've been surprised to discover which people needed their arms twisted as opposed to which outliers didn't at all. Definitely some surprises there.
And personal messages are more effective than broader posts, but they're also more time-consuming and uncomfortable. They do get easier, but they still feel like homework.
I wish inkshares would show you where each individual pre-order comes from (if I don't recognize the email, then I don't know who it is). The pie chart is really cool, but the main thing I get from it is that a lot more people visit the page than actually place a pre-order.
Mod
(specifically, a very simple breakdown of my 117 readers by category... not even gonna run the percentages ok it's a holiday)
Other Inkshares Authors:
Pitched: 15
Unpitched: 16
Friends/Fam general: 8
Natalia: 7
Email: 16
FB: 40
IRL Outreach: 4
Art promos: 4
Unknown: 7
Pitched Inkshares authors - I started this whole "pitch" thing only about a week ago, and so far 15/75 people pitched have pre-ordered. 55 of those people (and 14/15 pre-orders) are also in this competition and I pre-ordered their book in return; 20 are authors with drafts (1 has pre-ordered, though I just sent those last night and you have to give pitches a while because who knows when they'll see them?).
TIME vs SUCCESS VALUE: HIGH
Unpitched Inkshares people - 16 people pre-ordered my book without any effort on my part... so maybe this one can be attributed to having a pretty good product? The video? The art? I don't know - but you should do your best to have a kickass project. A few of these were from other Inkshares authors telling their friends about my book, which is strange and awesome and makes me want to blush and punch them gently on the shoulder. Thanks, guys. :)
TIME vs SUCCESS VALUE: LOTS OF WORK BEFOREHAND, LITTLE WORK DURING CAMPAIGN = HIGH
Friends/Fam - For friends and family, there's just a sort of obligation to help me out with this project that I've been working on for years. So 8 of those orders are people I talk to all the time and they just ordered as soon as they knew I was doing this. Not sure how to judge this one...
TIME vs SUCCESS VALUE: HIGH-ISH?
Natalia - The person who told me about the contest, my sister-in-law Natalia, got me 7 orders by telling her friends and family. She's pretty cool. :)
TIME vs SUCCESS VALUE: NO TIME, JUST KNEW THE RIGHT PERSON - V HIGH
Email - I've sent out ~ten emails (two of those were mass-emails to family) and gotten 16 pre-orders out of them. They take a lot of time to craft, but people respond.
TIME vs SUCCESS VALUE: MEDIUM
FB - So clearly FB is the main source of my orders. I just make posts giving the run-down, then other people share them and ask their friends to check out my book. My book has prob been exposed to 5,000+ books this way. 40 pre-orders is awesome.
I also did screenshot updates to freak out and celebrate every time I jumped up in the rankings, which I think amused people. Not every post was asking for readers, but if you mention the name and include the link it's still an opportunity.
TIME vs SUCCESS VALUE: HIGHEST
IRL Outreach - I made business cards and postcards and I hand them out everywhere. 4 pre-orders for prob 75 cards personally handed out... Maybe some of the unknowns are from this???
TIME vs SUCCESS VALUE: LOW
Art promos - Took time to put together the messages. Likely 4 pre-orders, though you can't know if the promos influenced other people's willingness to pre-order.
TIME vs SUCCESS VALUE: MEDIUM
Many of these readers - at least half - received more than one exposure to my book before they pre-ordered. For example, I made a FB post and also emailed them, or sent an email and also talked to them 1-on-1 in person.
I think that's my biggest take-away for other authors: try twice. Some people are ambivalent on the first exposure to something, then they go for it on the second. (Just don't be a pushy jerk about it! Be nice. People like nice.)
Another note: I work hard... really hard... to read other people's excerpts and leave comments as much as I can with a full-time job and family. My kids are on the floor right now playing with each other, and I'd much rather be playing with them than writing this... but what's the point in being a member of a writing community if I only take and never give? If we're not going to win this thing, and most of us aren't, WHY are we doing it? You gotta find a reason besides winning.
UNSUCCESSFUL VENTURES:
- Putting up postcards everywhere - doesn't seem to work. Maybe? Maaaaybe those 7 unknowns? I am doubtful.
- Getting other authors and businesses to promo me - local bike shop, comic book shop, Lindsey Buroker have all promoted me. Nothing, unless some of those unknown 7 are a result.
Future plans:
-joined a local writer's group, will pitch to them
-joined a local group of creative women, will pitch to them
-go to parties??
-table at a farmer's market
-pitch more authors online
:) :) :) Happy Inksharing!
Okay, here's my 3.1) I always have my Inkshares pitch ready.
I don't mean my book pitch, I mean my Inkshares pitch, because it's not convincing people to buy my book that's hard -- it's convincing them to create an Inkshares account (what's Inkshares, anyway?), put their credit card info down on a book that's not published, and understand exactly HOW that is helping me get my book published so they can read it.
On a day to day basis, I talk to a lot of people, and everyone knows I'm a full time freelance editor in my day job (and they all think that's so cool that I make a living from editing books while working from home or a Starbucks of choice), and that on weekends I squirrel away time to work on my novel. For a while I was just telling people when I'd be done ("Soon, it's coming along!"), then I told them I'm with some cool crowdfunding publisher trying to get it published, but that generally just gets nods and interest and nothing more. Then I decided I needed to work on my Inkshares pitch. Here it is (at least, these are the nuts and bolts I throw in):
-I'm with a California-based company called Inkshares
-They are crowdfunding-based, where the let readers decide which books get published instead of in-house editors
-they publish a book on par with books from Tor, Daw, or other publishing houses, and books can appear in Chapters, B&N, and bookstores all across North America
-one of their authors wrote one of the new Star Wars movies and they've hired the artist who did George R. R. Martin's maps to do the maps in his books
Okay, so once these details get dropped, I generally have not just interest, but, "Where can I check this out?" Like last weekend I was getting my hair cut and I told my stylist about this and by the end of my haircut she asked me to write down the URL for where she can come and back me. Same happened at one of the Starbucks where I go to do my work as I was talking with one of the baristas.
So far, I'd attribute about 10 pre-orders to this, but keep in mind I just developed the insight to pitch this way 2 weeks ago.
(I'll add to this: memorize your URL for your project page, because you might be writing it down for someone.)
2) Direct, personal email pitches.
I don't mean mass emails and I don't mean generic cut and paste emails sent out one by one. I mean thinking through who your good friends are and genuinely typing them up and email to tell them about what I'm doing and asking if they can help. About 20 of my backers came from this.
I got a lot of people responding no, but I still got a response and continued with friendly dialog. So, I didn't poison my friend network with a buy my book campaign, but rather came across to these friends as genuinely asking for their help. I also did not email anyone unless I knew they were interested in my writing -- otherwise I'm being a door-to-door salesman.
3) Help other authors in the fantasy genre, especially Inkshares authors.
When the Nerdist Collection Contest started, I saw an amazing potential to network with Inkshares fantasy authors. The idea of working together with authors is a great way to pool readerships together is not a new idea to me, but previously my reach to fantasy authors is those who are published through traditional or Indie
channels. Their readers are not familiar with Inkshares and are mostly looking for books to buy, not books to back (not necessarily an impossible angle -- see #4, Inkshares funnel). So, what about networking with other Inkshares fantasy authors (for me -- if you're sci fi, then the same would go with sci fi authors, or horror, horror). What about reaching out and sharing ideas?
This idea started for me with finding fantasy projects and backing ones I thought were cool. But that was just the start. I then hunted down the author on Twitter or Facebook, or replied to their thank-you email, so I could get the ball rolling on how we might work together. Because I wanted to get the world builders series off the ground, I had an immediate proposal beyond a generic, "Let me know how I can help you." But as the momentum continued, things started to really bubble, then Joe Terzieva had the great idea to create a group for us to work together, rather than disconnected emails. Now look what's happened.
To date I would attribute about 60-80 pre-orders from this process. Many have been from authors who I backed decided to return the favor, many have been from either blog guests from World Builders, or grateful hosts who sent readers my way. It's harder to put my finger on it, but I don't now about 60-80 of the people who have pre-ordered my book, and can only guess from looking at the project they've followed that it's come from this synergistic approach.
4) [still in the testing phase, but appears to work for others]
Create an Inkshares funnel to your project page.
Here is a great example of what I mean by an Inkshares funnel, from our own Adam Vine: http://theadamvine.com/2015/08/05/5-r...
That's one of my projects this week. Adam's post is a great idea -- it got him 30+ backers. Why? Well, I'd be happy for Adam to elaborate here, but my guess is that page does an excellent job of informing the quick-paced, impatient, NOW NOW NOW Internet visitors exactly what he's doing with his book and how backing his book is worth their while (as Paul Inman pointed out -- convincing readers why backing your book helps THEM is of primary importance).
Most people are going to come to your Inkshares page from a mobile browser. This means they likely aren't going to make it to the pre-order box. They're going to land on that page and start reading and think you're show-casing a work in progress or showing them how you hope you'll publish your book. Most people aren't going to read your pitch on your project. They might watch a trailer. But most people are in a hurry and when people are in a hurry they don't want to take the time to explore something new and foreign.
This is just depressing reality. It is not, however, depressing dead end. What helps tremendously is a funnel.
A funnel could be something like Adam's great blog post. I wouldn't recommend everyone write a blog post, because the blog post Adam wrote is entertaining and persuasive and rich with his writing voice. Reading Adam's post I 1) learn exactly what Inkshares is and why he's chosen to put his book there; 2) realize how backing his book is going to help what sounds like a compelling book get published in a local bookstore where I can buy it and tell my friends about it; 3) am entertained and immersed in Adam's writing voice and am compelled to check out just what kind of book would come from someone who writes such an entertaining blog post -- geesh, GOT to check this guy's book out!
I'm thinking of making an informative website page for Blood Dawn on my website. However, since writing engaging blog posts is not my forte, I'm going to make it into more of an infographic, with a link to Adam's post and other useful links. I'll start sending prospective backers to this page rather than to my Inkshares page, and see how this works.
Anyone else got some thoughts on how to make an effective Inkshares funnel?
John wrote: "Okay, here's my 3.1) I always have my Inkshares pitch ready.
I don't mean my book pitch, I mean my Inkshares pitch, because it's not convincing people to buy my book that's hard -- it's convinci..."
Eh... email pitches, Twitter, and LinkedIn have all yielded pretty low results for me. Biggest contributors by far have been Facebook and my blog (alas, it only has a handful of regular readers). The article you posted, John, was featured on the Inkshares blog so that drove me a little bit of traffic. Still, Facebook accounts for more pre-orders than everything else combined.
I think doing in-person promotions could be really effective, such as live readings, a promotion party, fliers at bookstores, printing book marks, etc. Unfortunately, this isn't really an option for me, since I live in a non-English speaking country at the moment.
I plan on doing a post-mortem after my campaign to discuss what worked and what didn't. I'll post the link here, in I expect about a week.
Christine wrote: "LOL to #1, Yicheng!I'm not sure which of my tactics are working and which aren't. I know my initial facebook blast got the closest members of my circle in gear. And I've been surprised to discove..."
Thanks. I stole it from JF. I jut felt like it would work in ANY context related to books. :)
#1 Family#2 Friends (FB spammed them periodically)
#3 Friends of family and friends
I was hoping my blog subscribers would hop on board, but only a handful of them did.
And at the point I was raising funds, Inkshares did not have a pitching platform to other authors. This new system definitely helps.
Jeyna wrote: "#1 Family#2 Friends (FB spammed them periodically)
#3 Friends of family and friends
I was hoping my blog subscribers would hop on board, but only a handful of them did.
And at the point I was r..."
I've done pretty much the same with little results. I'm trying.
K.E. wrote: "Jeyna wrote: "#1 Family#2 Friends (FB spammed them periodically)
#3 Friends of family and friends
I was hoping my blog subscribers would hop on board, but only a handful of them did.
And at the..."
It's hard, I know. Keep the thick skin and keep chasing them.
I'm trying. I keep at it, but I'm just sitting at 16 pre-orders. If I don't meet my goal at least I have a better idea how to re-start things instead. Plus I have this group now too, which I didn't have when I started on Inkshares.
I was blessed to have my parents so gung ho about my project that they reached out to my extended family and their own group of friends. At the point of time I was crowdfunding, most of my backers came from Malaysia. The currency rate kept a lot of people at bay, but many obliged. A week before the end date, I was short around 1,000$ but I had a family friend that covered the remaining amount. (I prayed a lot throughout the whole three months too. Haha!)It's definitely difficult when you're on your own and your existing readers do not have 100% faith in your writing. But nothing is impossible. I thought raising 7.7K was impossible, but I managed to hit the goal in the very last week.
The mechanics of crowd-funding is different now, so I'm not too such how different it would be for me if I started my project this year. The author's spirit is still the same though, simply don't give up.
My Mom pre-ordered my book, but I don't really know exactly how supportive she is of me (she doesn't really see writing as a career). I have some friends who pre-ordered my book, but not many.I reached out to my reviewers on FP (the site I originally posted Silver Eyes to) but I've garnered zero support. I'm trying to deactivate that stupid thing anyways, but FP is slow and stupid about replying.
I've been posting on social media and created a wordpress blog. I'm just going to keep plugging away. I still have 71 days left to fund, so who knows. Maybe I'll have a surge in the second half that funds my novel. If not, I'll restart.
You'll have to prove her wrong then :) And sometimes, a restart might be what you need to gain more traction.
I'm going to keep it up till November, then decide if I want to re-start or maybe try to fund another novel of mine. I'm not loosing hope just yet :D.
Facebook has been the majority for me, I started a website the day before I put my book on Inkshares, tho I don't get too many visitors there yet. I get the feeling that the majority of those who see my posts are 'liking' it but not really reading it, especially if it was shared by a mutual friend. My husband, my mom and about 2 others have continuously posted urging others to the site, while also explaining exactly what Inkshares is. I think the possibility of getting to preorder for free using credits is mainly what drove several. My husband's niece came to visit, and I explained what I was trying to do. She is in college so got a bunch of her friends to preorder, but as grateful as I am for the help, I know they aren't going to read it. In fact I get that impression from most. The biggest surprise are that the friends I do have who are into both reading and fantasy, who knew that this has been my obsession for several years, haven't preordered. One of them has been starting a small comic con so he gets the starving artist issue. I've tried to share about that, but there is only so much I can do living in a different state. I don't know if it's something I'm doing wrong or if Facebook just doesn't really get my posts to those who actually follow me. I've done art fairs in the past with... art, we did well with that, so it got me thinking. I wonder if it would be a huge loss to print some copies using someone like Lulu, and try to sell at a local comic con... You have the type of audience you want walking past in droves... Hmmm... And maybe William Shatner or Nathan Fillion too lol.
I guess I'm in the "nothing has worked" group. After the initial email/Twitter blast through Inkshares I have only received a handful of preorders, and I think those are just from you awesome people.Honestly this Inkshares business seems like a lost cause for me. I understand that you need to find a motivation beyond winning, and until I started talking to other writers I had none. Now I guess it's just about starting to build a reader fanbase and going on with self-publishing since Inkshares isn't going to work for me. I'm pretty down about the whole thing, and the continual email spam about how amazing the other writers are doing seems a little vindictive.
I even talked to a PR guy about promoting the campaign, but he only gave me great advice about promoting the book and then said I was too early in the process to benefit from PR. I've always sucked at self-promotion, which is probably why so few people have preordered. I do feel this is a system where if you're not on the front page of the Nerdist contest there's no way to get on that front page. The books on there get the visibility to get preorders just from being the most preordered books. Those that aren't featured there though, well, we're just outta luck.
Thanks for sharing your experiences. It's nice to see what has worked for others; I just don't see how I can get any traction with this with only three weeks to go.
Hi Amanda, I've felt that way a bit too. Part of me keeps having the thought... If I could go out and find 1000 preorders myself, then why not just use Amazon create space. If I could get 1000 buyers there, I'm bound to get some good reviews that might urge others to buy as well, which would negate the need for Inkshares altogether. But on the other hand, and especially since they've started this group, even if the campaign goes no further for me, at least I'm starting to create my author's footprint. Getting some kind of base to start from, since FB hasn't been awesome for me as of yet. My initial strategy was to get as many orders as possible, even if some are ordering several times. Their first order is the only one that really counts, but the numbers at least got me closer to the top of the page where I'm hoping some Inkshares readers will start noticing. Accept now I'm starting to wonder if it's mostly other writers only, and their own friends who only plan on supporting the one book and disappearing never to glance at any others. This is all so new to me, and I know Inkshares is trying to gain their own foothold too. I have no idea what they are doing to market for other readers outside the writer's tight knit fan base. Other than the Nerdist post to FB I had never heard of them.
Mod
I hear you, Amanda. I'm sorry you're frustrated. You have to remember that pretty much NO ONE sells a ton of books their first time out. And that's with a completed product you can put in someone's hands - and none of us have that.
It takes years to build a following and sell 1,000 copies of your first book. I've been reflecting on the insane spread of pre-orders through the top 10 - I was hanging on for a while, but now I'm out - and I can't comprehend where these guys are getting their readers. I'd love a breakdown of where their readers are coming from, but I suspect we're not ever going to get one.
It's not because their books are 20x better than yours, that's for sure!
Maybe the take-away for you is that the PR guy is right - it's too early in the process for you. There's no shame in that. Don't give up!
Cara wrote: "Amanda wrote: "I guess I'm in the "nothing has worked" group. After the initial email/Twitter blast through Inkshares I have only received a handful of preorders, and I think those are just from ..."Thanks Cara,
It's important to remember this is a marathon not a sprint, and I definitely need that reminder from time to time. There's a reason I never published this novel before now; I always want everything immediately. I hear you about the long time it takes to get to 1,000 readers, but we're supposed to do that here in three months. Does that mean that Inkshares has an unrealistic expectation, or just that most of us go into this process not realizing that there's only a small percentage of books that will reach their goal? I wonder if there's a better way that Inkshares could support its writers and lead to more successful campaigns.
John is also right about the barrier to entry here. I used to have a horrible time with signups for our gaming blog because people hate to sign up for yet another account. Those extra three steps can be an interest killer for sure.
I think I will go through all your suggestions again, this time trying to keep a growth mindset rather than a fixed one. Every preorder is an early adopter after all.
Mod
Mod
Inkshares definitely doesn't have the staff to edit and produce every single book posted, and some books would take waaay more effort than they'd make back in sales. So, yeah, it's unlikely - but they're so new, I think at this point they're still trying to make sure ANY books reach their goal. It is UNLIKELY.
That's why they have these contests, I think - we're doing the work of bringing in people to Inkshares for them. We're growing their site. Also, 5 books will be produced when, otherwise, maybe none of them would have reached their goals. So it's good all around - more people on Inkshares means more people who view all of our books.
But I feel the weight of losing as failure, too. I've always been a perfectionist, so for me I'm either top-notch or I'm nothing. Nothing. I'm trying to stay chipper and positive, but it's hard. This entire process is hard. Life is hard.
Did you ever read "On Writing" by Stephen King? He put a nail on his wall to post his rejection letters, and he had to switch to a stake because the stack got so thick the nail couldn't hold it. I think about that a lot.
Do you love your book? I really, really love my book. I miss reading it, actually. Maybe we should celebrate our favorite parts of our manuscripts, to remind ourselves that even if we don't win, we still created something valuable.
I think I'll start a new thread...
K.E. wrote: "I keep at it, but I'm just sitting at 16 pre-orders."You just got one today from me! This is relevant to mention here because it shows that an order can come from anywhere. This was someone who follows Blood Dawn who responded in my reader update by clicking on your cover. I know this because I put my referral code in the link.
Wow. So much great advice!I've been very hesitant to pitch/reach out through Inkshares, and I honestly can't explain why. I almost never like receiving emails asking me to buy things (with the exception of your books, you lovely people, which I will back, slowly but surely).
I've seen most of my success through Facebook, followed by Twitter. I was blasting my newsfeed with posts about the book every couple of hours, and encouraged my friends to write posts (and use their referral codes) imploring their friends to do the same. In person, many more people than backed told me that they knew about the book and contest, and said they wanted to wait until later in September to back the book.
I imagine that emailing directly and pitching other authors through Inkshares is very effective. Now that I'm back and catching up on everything, I imagine I'll start advertising more heavily again.
Well I've had a bumper couple of days, selling almost 70 copies of Ghosts of War in 3.5 days. Things that have worked in this time:- backing other people's books: I've quite a good response to my goodwill train project, heading back around 35 books and getting about 2/3s of those to reciprocate. I plan on reaching out to the others to try and secure a few more orders.
- direct messages: I reminded all my prior backers about the book and have had an okay response from that. As I'd suspected, quite a lot of them thought their orders from the S&L comp were still valid. Going to do more of this tomorrow.
- I also had a couple of other people really help out, my mum and brother messaged a bunch of people on Facebook and I've had a cousin bring in about 25-30 copies and have had another friend say he'll secure at least another 30 people for me.
So things are picking up for me, I'm over 100 readers and over 170 sales, so the best bit of advice I can give now is to just stick with it.
The vibe I'm getting from this exercise is what I suspected before going into this project: The trick is to have a large network of supporters and contacts BEFORE you launch the pitch.You can get some good hits from other writers on Inkshares, absolutely, and you have to do your legwork with reaching out to people through email, blogs, DM's, phone calls, etc, but in order for that to work you need people to reach out to. You need people you've interacted with online or in person previously. You need people who have read your work before (or know you through some other medium) and enjoy it. You need friends and family members who like you (or at least tolerate you and will give you a few bucks to leave them alone). You need a community - either online or IRL, preferably both - to get behind you.
I know personally I don't have the network to support a project like this. I only jumped in because I was lured by the carrot of the Nerdist contest, as I'm sure many of you were as well. It's been an eye-opening and sobering experience. The truth is crowdfunding a book takes a massive amount of preparation before the project launches, work that I know I didn't do.
Hopefully this experience will bring a lot more eyes onto Inkshares (which I'm sure was their intention) as well as build a community of like-minded authors who will support each other in future projects. There are going to be ALOT of disappointed people when this contest is finished. Hopefully they won't all just go away bitter and resentful, and some will stick around to make a program like Inkshares a legitimate publishing option moving forward.
Sorry, I kinda went off on a tangent, but I've been looking for somewhere to share these thoughts the last few days.
"The trick is to have a large network of supporters and contacts BEFORE you launch the pitch."THIS. THIS right here. THIS is all that matters.
Consider this a jump in and a learning process and a chance to connect and make friends with other authors and start building a community.
Everyone who is successful currently in the contest has a few things going for them:
#1: Has a larger network than anyone is the contest by about double or triple. He also knows exactly what he's doing with crowd funding. It's been fun as hell trying to catch him.
#2: I organize and run large events and Larps. I'm used to getting bitter, apathetic, and broke people into a single location. I also am extremely driven, don't sleep, and I got the majority of my initial preorders from face to face conversations. A lot of work and time, getting 1-2 strangers early on every day. It paid off, because as the contest has grown, they've in turn... gotten a few more.
#3: Teaches at a University. I would not be surprised if he made it extra credit :). Still, access to a very large network.
#4: Is a Chicago Play Writer for a show currently in the theater. Lives in a major city. Knows people who know people.
#5: A very driven person with a community behind him to support him.
From what I've learned: Your friends and family are going to flake out, be annoying, not bother, get jealous, "I'm broke", etc etc. It's your professional network that is the biggest and easiest support network. It's like buying girlscout cookies at the office.
Here is the thing: I'm not going to hit 1000 preorders. It's just not gonna happen. 1000 is a HUGE amount. I just don't know that many people, and I'm not famous enough to actually get that. 90 day deadline? That's insane.
Inkshares needs to become like goodreads, where there is just a massive community of people.
If I fail, and I have to restart: Before I go in the next time, I'm going to make sure I have 500 preorders "confirmed" almost before I begin. Or 50% of that goal.
I think these last two posts really hit on it (and arrived at something akin to the conclusions those of us in the previous S&L contest only got to in a post-mortem look back).Inkshares is a great idea, and a really exciting step in a direction that could be fantastic for publishing as a whole, and the sci-fi/fantasy niche in particular, but I think we're still (to borrow a sportball term) five years away from being ready.
The appeal of contests like S&L and Nerdist are strong, shiny and real, but what the vast majority of people learn once they sign up, gung ho and excited, is that a) you can't count on support from ANYONE - no matter how close you think you are, and b) you don't know anywhere near 1000 people, and c) the assumed mass of people whose eye you might catch with your amazing book just doesn't exist - yet.
Even by the terms of the previous contest (order-based, not reader-based, which allowed bulk/multiple purchases to count toward the goal), only a small fraction ended up within spitting distance of achieving a successful campaign that didn't play out under the rules of a contest (1000 orders).
And added to that, this (lovely, vibrant, amazing) community that has sprung up (hat tip to Joe), didn't exist, meaning that any interfacing between authors only came about late in the game, and the idea of pooling promotion efforts never really came together until the end. (And let's be honest, it only REALLY came up when we were no longer in direct competition with each other.)
So while I definitely think that the ideas farther up in this thread, primarily about doing more real-world outreach and learning to sell yourself effectively, are great, I think we're still short of the tipping point/singularity that we need for Inkshares to take off as a really, truly long-term publishing avenue.
Right now, with the fantastic writer-to-writer support that's building, in no small part thanks to this group, there's been a bump in unique buyers of a wide swath of books as people reach out and essentially trade pre-orders.
But, that's also leading to a lot of homozygosity in buyers (I'm reading Neal Stephenson right now, can you tell?). That's a lot of the same people bumping up unique sales numbers, but realistically that support level has a pretty hard ceiling.
The point that most strikes me is just above, by Richard:
"Inkshares needs to become like goodreads, where there is just a massive community of people."
Goodreads is a frankly monstrously huge community of readers, and hitting even a fraction of that level would be great for Inkshares. Right now, there is a community being built, but the buyer gene pool is too shallow.
Readers need to outnumber writers, 10 to 1, 20 to 1, hell, 50 to 1, before it can be self-sustaining, I think.
What you all, we all, are doing is great, it's building the site and the community, but I think what needs to really happen is for the site itself to take off, and to shoulder some of the burden for bringing in potential buyers that right now is a little too heavily weighted on the author.
Or maybe that's just one socially anxious introvert talking.
No, it's not the introvert in you. You are spot on. Inkshares needs that foundation. We are building it. You sort of need the writers first, before the readers come. Goodreads would not have become goodreads without books to begin with :). I agree with your 50-1 ratio. Ideally, I'd like to imagine a place where active people have just a lot of inkshare credits, and they can basically use them as votes.
I do think they need a forum or a better community portal on their Inkshare website. That, and making payment's easier.
I have lost at least 6 people in person talks because they have to stop and pull out a credit card. A mobile feature that supports apple pay or google pay, would go a long way to running a ground funding campaign.
"Oh you wanna back my book! Great!" ::tap phones:: "DONE!".
I would have double, if not triple individual books sold if I had an easy option like that.
Yes - tasty. Removing impediments to purchase by linking to PayPal or Google wallet - or hell, even Apple Pay or whatever would be clutch.Watching this community grow during this contest is fascinating as well - as Liam said above, we were all very much in our foxholes for the bulk of the contest. It's honestly delightful to see people sharing resources and ideas so freely - even my cynic's heart is warmed.
I'm honestly really curious to see what Inkshares looks like next year as the winners of both contests hit their release dates, the hope as those are all successful it'll start bringing more and more interested readers and writers back to Momma Inkshares. I know I've been really eager to help promote other books being published as it's only going to help my book and the whole community in the longrun.
Sorry -this was a tangent. Blame the coffee.
Mod
Without a following and working off an unknown property, it is very difficult to get readers interested in your concept. You can try to appeal to blogs, podcasts, other avenues that have high viewership, but consider that they get these requests all of the time.
I talked to JF about this about a week ago. I without a doubt want to run my next book through Inkshares, but there is no way I'd do it again with an unfinished draft. I jumped in because of the contest before I was ready to present the material, and it was a stressful wild ride.
The fact that I will now be published is a combination of spit and luck and came down to the final hours of the contest. I consider myself incredibly lucky for the opportunity, one I don't take lightly, and producing a product that will make my backers proud is something that I have dedicated all of my skill.
John is right about the pitch. I will not start my next campaign without a solid pitch and likely some support materials to legitimize the work. The first one wasn't easy, and I hope to take what I've learned from that into the next.
Mod
Inkshares is a grea..."
I've been thinking about this a lot, too - exactly what space Inkshares is making for itself in the publishing world, and how to live well in that space. I'm all about supporting other authors, and I love coming up with ideas to help and promote each other.
Here are some things I like about Inkshares: If your campaign doesn't succeed, you still had a structure through which to expose people to your work. There's an element of fun and competition that doesn't exist when you self-publish and just go around handing out business cards or getting tables at cons. You do the work upfront and hope to split the profits, instead of putting up the money first and hoping there are profits someday. You also get to meet other authors through Inkshares, which happens bit by bit on your own, sure, but there's no comparison - this has been the craziest growth of my online network in my entire life.
It would help, though, if the Inkshares user interface were more conducive to community building. For example:
- The search function does not work for people - you can't find your friends. (At least, I can't.)
- A massive list of recommendations now shows up when you're logged in, but there's no differentiation between what you've pre-ordered already and what you haven't. I keep seeing things that I've already pre-ordered, and it's just clutter. It's a waste of time to even look at that feature.
- There's no organized way to check and see how your pre-ordered books are doing in their campaigns.
- There's no way to hold a conversation with someone.
- There's no easy way to send your readers exclusive bonus content. (That I know of...)
The main challenge I see is that, with very few books in production or available, readers looking to buy and read something immediately aren't really our target audience. They have to wait upwards of a year to get the book. Our friends and family are the people we're bringing in - and they're probably not going to pre-order many other books. So... who's our audience? Is there a better way to do "proof of concept" for books - could we, perhaps, start connecting in an organized way with independent bookstores instead of readers?
I like this last idea, and I'm open to others. No one I know of goes to Penguin's website to check out the books they might be publishing soon - why would we expect our pool of potential readers to act that way with Inkshares?
Mod
Bingo. This is the one area that Inkshares needs to focus on to become a real player in the world of publishing. The no-risk crowdsourcing angle is awesome and exciting to those of us trying to get published, but it needs to appeal to the consumer as well.
A simple forum would be a great start. Adding paypal and other quick pre-ordering options would make a big difference as well. The readers need to be lead through the process as simply as possible, and given an inviting place to share their thoughts as a community.
Mod
YES - what if our angle for the readers is that they get to participate in the creation of a book in the way readers don't get from any other site or publishing house? Is THAT the Inkshares "angle" - author-reader connections before the book is out?
I wrote in my book project summary that I'm hoping people might want input into what scenes I illustrate. What if readers really do have a voice on Inkshares? We could do promotions where readers get to create a new character that gets written into your book. What if THEY get written into your book? I saw someone doing a contest where you, the reader, would get to die in their book. Paul, JF, somebody? I don't remember who, but it's a great idea.
The power to affect a story is enticing power, indeed. I'm going to think more about this...
So far Twitter has been helping me get pre-orders. Also the new recommend button on Inkshares has been helping. I'm almost to 30 pre-orders :D.
Mod
How is twitter helping you? I mostly use it to chat with people; I have no idea how to get pre-orders out of it.
I've been recommending people's novels on there, and occasionally posting about my own novel. In return I've had people promoting my novel on there and retweeting my posts. Now I'm super new to twitter so I'm still kinda figuring things out.
That's the initial wave of mutual author support K.E. It will die down sadly. All of us in this community have been pretty solid about backing each others work. All of us gained a slight surge. Twitter... is extremely fickle. Unless you have secret hashtags or some magic spell.
Ah well, it's helping me, so I'm grateful for any help at this point.
Richard wrote: "It's your professional network that is the biggest and easiest support network. It's like buying girlscout cookies at the office."that's the biggest hurdle I'm having, in that I don't have one. I've been unemployed practically my whole life for health reasons.
It's annoying because I know I'd be bringing in more people if I had 10+ years of work colleagues, but alas, I shall push on without them..lol
That said, I did poke my head into the Top 15 briefly last night which was cool. Back out of it now though.
This is such a great discussion! Just finished reading down the column and one thing that really resonates is Cara's comment about getting us in bookstores / libraries, and the fact that we are on board a great company that's still getting established.I think our faith and loyalty will pay off in dividends. I've been with Inkshares since last April, and when I joined up initially my purpose was not to spear head a campaign that I'd sacrifice my soul to succeed at. My goal? Connecting to readers. The way I saw it, I'm going to take until April 2016 to get a draft in shape to submit to an agent, so why sit here quietly and elusively perfecting it when I have a chance to actively engage with a reader community? The idea that this process of engagement might be the pathway to publication in bookstores seemed awesome incentive, so I went for it. The way I saw it: succeed or fail, I would win a readership I'd never have before.
And indeed, though I am growing at a slow pace, I am encouraged each time I connect with a new reader. I now have people emailing me about what they're reading, talking about my book. I have random people I never pitched to pre-ordering my book. This is all stuff I would never have if I didn't step up and give Inkshares a shot.
Further, I've pushed myself to do things I'd have happily waited until I was published to do. World Builders. That's something I kept on the back-burner, but then I realized I need to get some fantasy lovers on my blog and start building a crowd if I want to reach beyond Inkshares, and tweeting "check out my campaign" just wasn't cutting it. All this push to push myself so much further has really taken me far.
And looks at this? Our great community of authors working together with a common cause. We all want to get published. But we want so much more -- we want to build readerships, to keep writing, to keep reaching more readers. Am I presuming too much to say that ALL of us would gladly quit whatever distracting work is in our way to write FULL TIME for our READERS?
I guess for me I've just come to define success differently, because it is really hard work to make that 1,000 goal. (In my case, I have to make 2,500). Success = exposure, gaining readers, becoming known, building momentum, connecting to authors, building community, growing, learning, becoming better.
As far as I'm concerned, all that we're doing right now is a step toward that future Inkshares we're all envisioning. We're right now on aboard while the growing pains are going on, but we're also defining a great foundation.
(And I'm sure the Inkshares team really enjoys some of the ideas we're throwing down for them as they busily plan and work hard to expand Inkshares into a successful venue for the future of books.)
Mod
This deviates from the initial discussion of this thread, but this is the big one for me. I think offering "pre-order only" content would be a great way to incentivize pre-orders.
Consider if you have a complete draft and a few chapters posted. You could say anyone who pre-orders gets access to the draft. As a reader if there is a book I like, that would appeal to me.
Mod
Re: Professional network - Even for those of us that do have this, if it's not the right type of profession it doesn't necessarily work. I work in a very corporate environment and it would be inappropriate to pitch my novel to anyone I'm not outside-of-work-friends with.
New topic: Has anyone else had an instance where someone told you they placed an order but they actually did not? If so, how did you handle it?
I'm wondering if there's a final confirmation button that people are missing, or what might be going on. And I'm hesitant to say to these people, "Hey, you know that really nice thing you did for me? Turns out you did it wrong, so can you do it again?"
Mod
(Shhh don't listen to him. Different things work for different people, and you might just be a savvier twitter user.)
Mod
Re: Professional network - Even for those of us that do have this, if it's n..."
Christine - YES I have had that happen. At one point I went and walked through the process because it was my co-worker and she was really adamant she pre-ordered, and she didn't want to get charged twice because she entered her credit card information and she was nervous... but she didn't get the confirmation email and I hadn't gotten the order email. So we went through it again, and it turns out she didn't click through to enter her address. She thought she was done and she wasn't.
I think it depends on the person, but if someone wants to support you and says they did, check in with them. If they say they're going to and never do, they might have changed their mind. You could try again with the whole "sign up + I'll follow you and that gives you $10 in credits so my book is free" thing that's all the rage these days, or you could leave it alone.
John Robin, you are our de facto leader and I love it. I bet you're going to see some huge changes over the course of your campaign, and what a privilege it will be to not just observe, but participate in. I feel like we're on the cutting edge of the changing world of publishing.
Joe, if I figure something out I'll let you know... I have some exclusive content to send out soon, so I need to solve this problem.
Cara wrote: "K.E. wrote: "Ah well, it's helping me, so I'm grateful for any help at this point."(Shhh don't listen to him. Different things work for different people, and you might just be a savvier twitter u..."
Haha highly unlikely. I'm still figuring out the thing works. Twitter used to be a lot simpler.
Other than what changes they need to make on their website, I wonder what other things Inkshares is doing to Market themselves to a readership that is interested in supporting up and coming authors and books. Are they out there say, with a booth at a convention, showcasing books that have successfully published, "Oh, and while your here, look at these. Maybe there is something your into? Support them, and you will be a part of something... It's more like YouTube for writers, and less like The Voice. Preorder with these free credits is like hitting the 'Like' button. Now share with your friends!" Are they targeting agents who may want to peruse the potentials? Who are they pointing their ads at? We as writers no matter how many friends and family we have will still hit the same road blocks eventually, that past authors have hit trying to get the attention of big publishing companies. They need to get in front of our audiences WITH us, because they need them as much as we do. Better yet, target personalities that are already in front of our audience: Famous writers, YouTubers, celebrities who are favorites at conventions... Big companies like Apple/iBooks, Amazon, even Goodreads could have a place to showcase Inkshares authors/books that are trying to reach a goal. This Nerdist contest is a start, but there needs to be more. If they rely mostly on us, what we are bringing might only be the one time visitor supporting a friend, who may or may not even read the book, let alone anyone else's. This potential problem could hurt the company. If it's like this all the time, they will be spending all their time paying to print these books so they can ship them for free to 'readers' who don't really want them.For me, I saw these and all the other issues that have been mentioned, early on, and since I don't have the cash or the credits to support all the authors I would like to, I've aimed my focus into this group, to try to help in other ways. Helping with book covers, chatting, and just trying to meet new friends. And if some have come with that fan base already, then maybe they will return the help someday. A pay it forward theory. Especially if some of us choose to use Create Space or iBooks later.
I think Inkshares needs to get more exposure as a whole.
List the top 3 most effective actions you took that led to you getting pre-orders. I don't mean things you did that you think might have helped, but actions you took that you were able to verify led directly to getting a pre-order of your book.
What I'm hoping to do is, after letting this run for a week or so, collect all the comments together and compile a list of 10-20 actions (in the order of which are most popular) to take to increase pre-orders, and post that here for a reference.
Looking forward to reading! (And I'll jump in with mine soon.)