When is a good time to start selling pre-orders?

[Christopher]

Just that: when?

My novel is basically finished. I keep thinking it needs tweaking, but there's probably a limit to that, invisible to the one doing the tweaking. I'm really new to Inkshares, though, and I haven't really built up much of a following.

I'm really anxious to get it funded on the first attempt. I think the best chances of success are at the first attempt, and I don't want to waste it.

[Faith]

Take a look at Exile, Magus by Thomas J. Arnold. He had some really great insights into the process, although there was a depressing fact that people need a ton of followers to be successful in pre-orders. I get the feeling this is like Kickstarter a bit, where you need to hustle in the real-world for backers and assume you're going to get a small number from Inkshares.

"At the end there were 93 orders between 83 readers, and 291 followers. Looking at my order statistics I would also not move forward with a new campaign before hitting at least 500 followers, with a preference for 750 followers."

https://www.inkshares.com/books/exile...

[A.C.]

Oooh, good question, Christopher. This is an important question for all of us to consider.

There are a lot of theories about how many followers you should attempt to reach before you start funding, and I'll try to do a rundown here (people can feel free to chime in).

First, keep in mind that Inkshares is growing and changing. Something that was true for a campaign that started 6 months ago might not be true for campaigns going forward. Take everything with a grain of salt.

It seems like most people who have successfully funded have a ratio of readers-to-followers of around 75% (more or less). I have that ratio, so does Jack Bender (whose readers include friggin' Damon Lindelof and Brian K. Vaughn). This varies, of course, but I think the common theme is that most of the readers are probably people whom we actively recruited, and who came to Inkshares specifically because of our books. This is compared to passive followers who follow us without us asking, and may have no intention of ordering our book.

Joe Terzieva thinks that the conversion rate for passive followers (the percent that actually go ahead and order) is around 10%. That's probably different for everyone, of course, but at least when people are following you there's a chance for you to convince them to order.

So, you could wait until 2500 people passively follow your book, and then when you switch to funding if 10% of them order, you're set with 250 orders. No extra work. I don't recommend that strategy - you might never get that many passive followers.

Or, you can actively recruit followers with the same passion you'd ask for pre-orders, with the expectation that those followers will be the type that are excited to order as soon as you go into funding. With those types of followers, you might only try for... 333 followers.

Of course, the type of follower who follows because they're super-excited about your book, and get really invested before the point of funding, might pre-order even more than 75% of the time. I don't think anyone has done that yet, so there's no way to know.

Or, you can do what most of us did and start funding before you have a large number of followers, and then just recruit your followers yourself, order by order. The days when we post a project, switch it to funding as soon as we're done writing, and immediately get enough orders... are probably not here yet. At least, not for most of us.

Katie C. Mckenna had a campaign that didn't fund, then she regrouped and relaunched and got to 750 orders in just a few days. It was amazing to see. I can't wait until she tells us how she did it, because I have no clue.

My primary advice right now is to be done with your book before you start funding. Have a finished manuscript!! Campaign time is not writing time - it's too much. And if your manuscript is done, you can tell prospective readers that your book will be in their hands sooner, which is great.

Since your book is done (congrats!), you can really experiment if you want. You can try building up a fan base before you start campaigning, or you can start right now! I recommend you have some promotional materials ready to go - maybe some blog guest posts lined up (or even already written), some interviews scheduled, all of your promotional text, art associated with your book, and anything else that will help you sell. Blurbs that are 50 words, 150 words, and 500 words. Character descriptions. Maps. Anything! The more you have ready to go, the less stress your campaign will cause.

And I absolutely, ABSOLUTELY recommend you have a unique, non-Inkshares book cover before you start your campaign. Those covers are just placeholders that make your book blend in with all of the other books that aren't ready to be funding. Even if your cover is one you crowdsource for free from Johnslist (in exchange for offering something else to our community, or for payment, whatever), anything is better than the Inkshares blah covers. Or ask Tony Valdez where he made his free Dax Harrison cover - it's some site where you build it yourself, but you can't actually sell it. That might work for you. Then, when you hopefully get to 750 orders, Inkshares can make an even better professional cover for publication.

Oh, and I suggest you coordinate with Faith A. You'll probably be able to get your audiences to buy each other's books - you could stagger your campaigns and team up on all promotional efforts, or you could just build your own followings at the same time and promote each other. People love reading as many 1920's murder mysteries as they can get their hands on!

And contact Kris Calvin, too - she has a murder mystery series (the Maren Kane mysteries) already going, with one book successfully published and the second on the way. Many of her readers will likely be interested in your book, and the new people you bring in might like her book. Murder mysteries are insanely popular, and it's not surprising that one of the first successful books on Inkshares was a murder mystery. There will hopefully be many more!

We're all interested in how this all works out for you, and of course we all want to see you succeed. I'm glad you're here! :)

[Christopher]

Thanks. I did put together a cover page: just a picture of a morphine kit from the era, that I found online; very very "Penguin Classics" discreet. The difference between the Inkshares placeholder covers and the custom covers was definitely something I noticed!

And yes, I think Faith and I are going to be the Very Best Of Friends for a while, AREN'T WE, FAITH?

For the rest ... I do have a very bare-bones Facebook page set up, though it's not public yet--too bare bones, you see. I'm going to need artwork for that, better artwork that I can make by pulling images off the internet. Your suggestions seem like very good ideas for content, and I'll check out Johnslist for the artwork angle.

I'm also applying for membership with the Crime Writers of Canada, which I hope will help my cause.

[Faith]

Yes, we'll be FRIENDS 4EVA (is that how the kids are saying it these days?)

Thanks Cara for the suggestion, I think combining the campaigns is a good idea and it's not that much more to buy two books. I'd be happy to cross-encourage!

I'm hoping the Thriller Night syndicate will also provide a source of readers who may be interested in the genre.

[Thomas]

I definitely agree with Cara in that you should have your strategy and marketing materials ready before you even try to fund, I know I certainly will before I make another attempt through Inkshares either with Exile, Magus or its sequel.

To further add to statistics, I didn't really get many outside venues to try to promote (one small audience podcast is all I managed to get outside of Inkshares and I gained no followers or orders from that), and I only got a grand total of 8 orders from people I knew before the campaign. The remainder of my orders came from actively pitching directly through Inkshares itself. That requires a high volume of pitches with little response, or at least in my case.

My pitches returned followers at about a 3-5% rate if I recall my numbers correctly, and then only about 1/3 of those who followed also ordered. So pitching directly through Inkshares yielded approimately a 1% pitch to order turnover rate making direct through Inkshares pitching about the worst technique most likely.

That's not surprising since they are still building an active reader base, and also my pitches are not very good so that undoubtedly slanted my number downward. I expect pitching through Inkshares will become a more effective method as Inkshares publishes more books and thus attracts more readers, but for now it should not be your main strategy. Reaching out to other platforms and drawing new blood in should be a major part of your strategy.

[Joni]

Trying to figure it out myself. I would not have masses of orders from the outside .... and the ratio of followers/orders seems pretty volatile...

any further advice?

[Faith]

JoniDee wrote: "Trying to figure it out myself. I would not have masses of orders from the outside .... and the ratio of followers/orders seems pretty volatile...
any further advice?"

From my research even with a traditional publisher, writers are recommended to build up an author base for themselves. Joining local or online book clubs that are in your genre, participating regularly on a social media platform (Instagram, Twitter, FB, Tumblr, GoodReads, YouTube). Local interest might help you too, if there are writer programs or even newspapers that might want to promote you based on where you live or some such.

Wattpad has some writers with thousands of readers - converting those to active buyers is probably really hard but you could get a lot of eyes on your book there.

[Faith]

As an example... my strategy is to be a good citizen on a couple of platforms where I participate, help others, etc. while I continue editing my book.

Inkshares: focus on followers and helping others. I wouldn't start funding without at least 300 or more followers. Even that isn't a big number given the turn-over but I think I could get friends/family to help.

Wattpad: connect with other writers in my genre, comment/support others, and post a chapter.

Goodreads: join relevant groups in my genre, participate.

Local: joined local writing group, attending a conference, and will look for book clubs. I found a few groups on Meetup that are into 1920s but unfortunately that doesn't guarantee they also read mysteries set in that era.

Debating which other platform - not sure if I want to blog or use Twitter or Tumblr maybe. Part of the problem is I don't like to self-promote but I have to get over that.

Another thing I'm considering is paying for marketing help, since that actually seems like the hardest thing to build, but I'll probably try on my own first.

[Billy]

I'll add something that's worked for me — having a small website at the ready. Specifically, a website designed to provide a little buffer for people I pitch to who may not have heard of Inkshares and might not react well to being whisked straight to a pre-order page on a site they don't know.

I added a little FAQ to the front page that explains why it's for sale there (and not, say, Amazon), why it's safe, and what the whole thing entails. The site also gives me more flexibility for promoting the book itself, but it's that FAQ that has given a decent chunk of my buyers the necessary assurance to click on to Inkshares and purchase there.

If you want to take a look, it's over here: http://www.friendsonpolitics.com

Feel more than welcome to lift that FAQ text wholesale if it will help you!

[Thomas]

Great advice from Faith and Billy. Also, awesome FAQ Billy, I probably will be lifting itself some point. It does a great job of giving a detailed yet concise rundown of what Inkshares is, and I struggle at pulling that off due to my tendency to be both overly wordy and rambling.

[Ricardo]

My recommendation is that you do your math before you start. Figure out how many people you know who are willing to support and how many books you think each is willing to buy, see how much that add up to and figure out from there how likely are you to get support from strangers. The most likely scenario is that the majority of the people backing your project will be people you know or people connected to your personal network. The conversion from Twitter followers, Inkshare followers you don't personally know and people following your Facebook page is really small. The hardest part is getting strangers to pay for a book that doesn't have a specific release date. Treat this as a crowdfunding project, the number one rule of crowdfunding is "know you will reach your goal before you even launch" I'm putting together a bunch of inphographs with quick tips for crowdfunding books. Here is the first one, I'm currently finishing one specific to social media . Good luck. http://www.ricardophenriquez.com/#!re...

[Michael]

I love the infographics, Ricardo. I'm glad you can help impart knowledge that way after your campaign. I think items 4, 5, and 6 are the most commonly cited tips by everyone who has completed a successful Inkshares campaign, and worth repeating as often as possible.

The planning is certainly helpful and highly recommended, but if you've pulled the trigger before doing prep work, it becomes a matter of being good at selling yourself and your dream to others. Approach contacts directly (physically or virtually), keep them engaged so they don't forget (because like Ricardo said, no one cares as much about this as you do), and don't give up until you're pretty certain it's a hard "no." I am still working on that approach because I am not good at cornering people, but it's essentially what needs to be done to get the numbers.

I gave up on the mass self-promo tweets and FB posts. An initial mass tweet/post to everyone when you first launch your campaign is okay. After all, you do need everyone to at least know you've written a novel and are looking for backers. All your early adopters will fall in line right away. That will give you an idea of who your biggest supporters are, and who will be a harder sell. From that point forward, the rest of your followers will duck the noise of your mass sales pitches. So that's when you have to seek out the direct approach. Never take anyone's inaction personally, until you've made contact with them and fully understand their situation.

But you can still use social media to keep an open dialogue with your readers. It can be great for keeping them engaged and show you're still around and care if your content is meaningful. It's good to have happy readers. If you ever pre-order John Robin's Blood Dawn, you'll see a pretty good example of how effective John is at keeping all of his readers engaged via his 'Thank You' e-mails. The follow-up from the author goes a long way.

Billy, I really like that FAQ site idea. One of the other hardest parts is explaining Inkshares to someone who is not familiar with the concept of crowdfunding sites. It's easy to draw an analogy to Kickstarter, Indiegogo or GoFundMe if they've already heard of those, but if they're completely in the dark about what crowdfunding entails, it's a little more complicated. It's a good idea to have a page like that as a source of guidance, as the uninitiated can sometimes get lost on an Inkshares page since there's a lot to take in.

I'm still in the trenches with over three months to go and a long climb ahead of me, but this is what I've gathered so far between my personal experience and the advice of those who have succeeded.

Best of luck to everyone who is currently funding or will be in the near future!

[Ricardo]

Thank you Michael, I'm glad you found it useful. I think the hardest lesson for me was not taking people's inaction personal. I did this whole thing through a contest (that I lost, by the way) which is the equivalent of a campaign on steroids. During a contest the time you have to nag people is significantly smaller and you are competing with other authors, so it is super stressful and when people who said "sure, I'll buy a book," wouldn't. I would lose it and swear I would unfriend them and take them off my Christmas cards list lol. But Michael is right, you can't take it personally and that is why my number 1 lesson in the infographic is "nobody cares."

[M. Robert]

Just found this thread. I also really like the infographic. Bookmarked it and will definitely keep it in mind during my campaign. Thanks, Ricardo.

[Ricardo]

M. Robert wrote: "Just found this thread. I also really like the infographic. Bookmarked it and will definitely keep it in mind during my campaign. Thanks, Ricardo."
no problem. I'm glad you found them helpful