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Hide in Time
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Anna Faversham: Hide in Time - Amazon #1 Time Travel Romance 0.99
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Heather
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Mar 27, 2015 03:39AM
Thanks for sharing your experiences with Amazon advertising Anna, and for giving advice guys. It helps other authors to know what works and what doesn't.
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There seem to be more 'what doesn'ts' than 'what doeses'.
Yes, I must admit, after reading all your comments I might avoid Amazon advertising. :)
I picked the books to link to, Anna. You get two choices when you fist sign up. Can't recall which I went for, but it gave the option to select books. I assume that when customers select one of those books, up pops your advert if you had the highest bid.
I wonder if things have changed, David. I was given two choices and the one I went for was:Targeting Type - Interest-based
and then I picked three genres from a drop down box.
Is that what you mean?
I could see nothing that would allow me to select particular books. Unless that was the other option's drop down box info!
I'm keeping one book at $0.09 and the other at $0.40 (for the moment) as an experiment!
I have the advantage of you guys having reassured me that I'm unlikely to lose too many dollars. Thank you.
Impressions cost nothing. I think you need to raise your bid sufficient to get lots of impressions. People generally ignore ads, so expect in the region of thousands of impressions for each click. Also clicks and sell through will depend very much on how well you targeted your ads and the books you placed them on.Same goes to an extent for impressions - top 100 books are always better (but more expensive) cos they get the traffic. But not much point targeting a book that no one looks at, even if the CPC is cheap...
Thanks Tim, I will do that. But I don't understand why both you and David are talking about placing the ads on particular books. I didn't see anything that gave me a choice to do that.Perhaps that was available on the other option?
Gaff, my Ad account page is showing a message saying that no data is currently available and they'll put it right asap. Is yours saying the same?Frustrating when we're both hoping for thousands of impressions, 100 clicks and 100 sales!
Mine's doing okay at the moment, it's still showing data. They could be updating your stats. It'll catch up. Use your reports to monitor sales in the meantime. If you get a sale, it'll show up there first.
Thanks, Gaff, interesting to know yours is OK. The data message has been showing all day. I'm an old hand at checking the reports, never more than 25 times a day, of course.
It's okay, Anna. My name's Gaff, and I'm a reportaholic . Mine did the whole data message thing a few days ago.
Ah,,, so I just have to wait. Sigh.
Interesting ... Just gone back to check again and now it has a metrics message. Oh well, at least they're keeping things up to date.
Mine's working now for the first time, Gaff. To be blank with a 'we're on to it' message for more than 3 days seemed odd. It said it could take up to 24 hours but... ah well. Now for the interesting bit:
Book 1 at 9c cpc has 9 impressions
Book 2 at 60c cpc had 107.
No clicks, no sales!
Hope you're doing better.
My 1 sale didn't happen till 3 days before the end of the promotion, so hang in there!I think these things are subliminal to some extent - they do say that people need to see an ad 7 times before it "registers"...
I'd feel more confident if there was the chance of having a blurb attached - as I have seen on other authors' ads.I see you have made Wanted free today, Tim. No one can say we don't try! Hope you pick up some good reviews from it as well as sales or borrows.
Thanks Anna. I've only sold 1 copy this year - through the ad - so I might just as well give it away!
Tim, the freebie was so very successful wasn't it? Phew! Very pleased for you.The Amazon ad promo I'm doing for two books shows that the higher priced (60c) one has about 800 impressions whereas the 9c one has about 30. 'Money talks' used to be a saying but I think 'money shouts and grabs' seems more appropriate.
I'm amazed at how well it did, considering I didn't get any of the big ad sites (not that I could afford a Bookbub, but I'm sad that ENT etc didn't run it). I thought I'd only get a few hundred, but I topped 1600 in the end.I still see reports on kBoards of 6000+ downloads, but they've all got the big-hitter ads lined up and several hundred dollars of ad spend. My local newsie only sells broken lotto tickets, so that ain't gonna happen. I spent about $20 on ads. I've had 8 follow-up sales & borrows so far, so I'm about even on the deal.
Gaugrin says you need to shift 5000+ freebies to see anything in the way of subsequent sales pickup, so I guess it's back to the old tumbleweed...
I wouldn't spend hundreds of dollars for a free download ad. I think you got it right, Tim.
Good going, Tim. I've had over 8,000 downloads of the free 'Fuel to the Fire' to date, but follow up sales are still slow to trickle through. I'd take that 5000 figure with a pinch of salt.
The good news is that I've had sales of all my books from this - not many, but sales nevertheless. So it's definitely a success in my view. And I really shouldn't be talking about my promos on Anna's thread!
I really don't mind at all, Tim. It hadn't even occurred to me.I probably should have been talking about the Amazon ads on the ad thread that started somewhere else... Anyway, I changed this thread title to one about advertising and we're all sharing thoughts on promotions of one sort or another so it's all OK and easy to find and follow!
Well all my sales have dropped off. It's to be expected - debut author, yadayada... I still only have 86 impressions with 0 clicks, but the ad runs for another month. From what I can gather, the budget becomes cumulative the less that's spent, so by the end of April, it should be running a lot of impressions. I'm only doing a 10cent ad, because that's my budget, so we'll see how it goes. I did get 100+ downloads from the free promo in the launch week and some good feedback, so I'm not disappointed ... Yet!
One of the problems I find, Gaff, is that if sales don't look after themselves I spend hours on marketing which should be spent on writing.I've been running two books in the Amazon ads and they were very easy to set up. Good ol' Amazon! But the one which has a 9c cpc has only got 35 impressions after 6 days, and the one with a 60c cpc has 1,000+. No clicks, no sales. So I start worrying and think I'll add a KCD. And tweak this, tweak that.
I spent about an hour last night on checking the ads on .com. Some must have huge budgets because they were plastered over everything I opened.
When I stand back and think (!) I know the thing to do is get on with the writing but how can we let our firstborn die!
Anna, can I ask how else you advertise? Have you joined some of the self promo groups on FB? There are some good ones out there. There's also YouTube if you're able to make a 10 - 20 video add that you can link to your profile and wouldn't need to be more than "Book title by ..." (in an engaging font), fade out, "out now @ ...", fade out, book cover picture. You can do it all on windows movie maker. Then you upload and put a link to the video in your book's description and on your author page. I did 3 for the launch week of my own. Alright, they're not wonderful, but it's a free advert and it gets you extra hits on search engines, particularly Google.
I don't belong to Facebook or Twitter, Gaff, as I have to limit social media or I'd never get any writing done at all. It was a conscious decision. A couple of very good Goodreads Friends tweet and FB for me when I have a promotion going on.The video sounds a good idea. My hubby might fancy doing that. I'm copying and pasting what you've written and will put it in my promotions folder to bring out one day when he is twiddling his thumbs or dismantling the car again.
I find the best way is face to face but writers have to write well away from other faces! I attended an all-Kent thingy a week or so ago and I handed out just two bookmarks for HiT and ODN. Sure enough, two sales followed the next day. I suspect it was my targeted people!
I'm too busy with life in general but I can see I need to get out more! Two here and there are not much though!
I think Goodreads produces the most sales.
Thank you, Gaff.
One month along and Amazon Ads has produced no sales and a $20 bill. One thing I noticed was that I could not find my ads on the US site on any of the books I'd requested. Some of those books had no ads at all blocking my way, so I think Amazon must still be working out that this isn't the way to entice us to advertise.
Kindle Countdown Deal starts today for:
It is 1821 and smuggling is rife on the English coast. Lucy Yorton, dragged away from her privileged, comfortable surroundings into this cruel world, finds her problems increase when two men enter her life.
Lieutenant Karl Thorsen, sworn to avenge the death of his father, is a King's man. He is determined to stop the violent smugglers, hang them, and hang and gibbet one in particular.
Daniel Tynton has smuggling in his blood. When he and Lucy witness the torture of a customs' officer, he makes a decision that changes the futures of them all.
99p/99c until next Tuesday, 5th May.
Thanks for the information Anna.Best sales I have ever had have been when I've stood with paperback copies on a table in front of me. Second best is word of mouth with people telling people about them.
I must get out more.I must get out more.
I must get out more.
Good luck with the countdown, Anna. Mine this week has been a complete bust (the Fiverr ad guy actually offered me a refund!)
Hi Tim, as I've got an Amazon Ad running up costs, I've decided not to splash out money or time on expensive ads. KUF and BookHippo, a couple of others and Goodreads posts are all I've gone for.Even that takes up a lot of precious writing time. Or, as Jim suggests, getting out time! And he's right, word of mouth has been good but I need a few more mouths - ooh what a picture!
Sorry to read your bomb. Keep going. I've got a poem on a bookmark entitled "Don't Give Up". I often read it!
Hello Anna,I have just read your comment so nipped onto Amazon and bought a copy of your book Hide in Time.
Advertising works. (Wish it worked better for me though)!
Kevin wrote: "Hello Anna,I have just read your comment so nipped onto Amazon and bought a copy of your book Hide in Time.
Advertising works. (Wish it worked better for me though)!"
What a surprise! It works!
I see your books have excellent reviews, Kevin, that's an advert in itself and the blurbs are interesting too.
I also saw that you are from Kent. I wonder if you'll recognize the place names in Hide in Time. Let me give you a clue, Torwell Bridge is really Tunbridge Wells and the church where Parson Raffles attempts to preach in is the one near the Pantiles.
A big thank you for buying my book - I hope you enjoy it.
David wrote: "Good luck with the promo, Anna."Thank you, David. It's good to have good authors cheering me on.
The support in Goodreads is great from both authors and readers. I can't wait to read One Dark Night. Next on my list, so brace yourself, Anna.
Good luck with your promo Anna. If you can message me the Amazon link I'll give it a shout out on Twitter. :)
Thank you Heather - immediately done!
Julia wrote: "The support in Goodreads is great from both authors and readers. I can't wait to read One Dark Night. Next on my list, so brace yourself, Anna."Yes, we are lucky to find places like GR - I can't remember now how I did but I know that for the first year or two I didn't use it. Silly me.
Julia wrote: "The support in Goodreads is great from both authors and readers. I can't wait to read One Dark Night. Next on my list, so brace yourself, Anna."Yes, we are lucky to find places like GR - I can't remember now how I did but I know that for the first year or two I didn't use it. Silly me.
Anna wrote: "Julia wrote: "The support in Goodreads is great from both authors and readers. I can't wait to read One Dark Night. Next on my list, so brace yourself, Anna."Yes, we are lucky to find places li..."
My son set me up on it, but I was using the computers in the library at the time and didn't really know how to use Goodreads. It all changed when he put me on the internet at home. I do the lot now. Facebook, Twitter etc etc. Ooh, me head's a shed at times.
Anna wrote: "For me, real life eats into the writing time. I can't imagine any publisher saying 'next year will do'.Yet the real life is where I draw my ideas from so it is important for more than one reason...."
I know this is rather late in the day, but I do agree with you Anna and David about traditional publishers and pressure.
I sent my ts off for years and rejection after rejection followed. The thud of those brown envelopes through the letter box made me groan in despair. And it's expensive, since you have to send your ts off on posh paper with return postage.
Finally, I had to say 'enough'. Thankfully, I then discovered I could put my efforts on Kindle and then I found Goodreads.
David, I wonder if I could cope with the stress if I got accepted with a traditional publisher. I might be okay, but it's having all my hard work placed into someone's hands that worry me. It won't belong to me any more and they might want to change stuff that I'm not happy about.
"A great read! I love all the historical detail and I learnt much about smugglers. It's fast paced, and it really grips you until the end. The characters are very well portrayed. I was sorry to finish the book, always the sign of a good story." Amazon reviewer
Last day at 99p/99c - Tuesday 5th May.
I have it, it's in my queueueueue :)
Thanks, Tim, but I bet you can't beat one kind reader who has added Hide in Time to her 'to reads'. She has 93,147 in her queue.
I think there's about 50 in my "A" queue, and something like 700 in the "B" queue.Only books I actively seek out and people I know through KUF/UKAKF/KBoards/real life get into the A queue.
What we need is two heads or, in your case, more!
Anna wrote: "Thanks, Tim, but I bet you can't beat one kind reader who has added Hide in Time to her 'to reads'. She has 93,147 in her queue."Is that right? 93,000 in her queue! I try to keep it to forty and once there, I close my eyes to any adverts. Not easy though.
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