How to convert Prospects into Readers?

[R.H.]

After reviewing my campaign dashboard, I notice that I have a lot of people listed as "Prospects" that haven't purchased a book. I have enough Prospects on my dashboard to nearly double my reader count, if they all made pre-orders. What techniques can I use to turn these folks into Readers (and thus have a high reader count and thus remain in the top three for this ever-stressful Nerdist contest)? I implore thee, Successful Authors of Inkshares, to bestow upon me your wisdom.

Thanks in advance for help!

[Alexander]

I'd love an answer for that too.

[Thomas]

Have you pitched to all the prospects yet? If I recall correctly the list of projects is generated for a project, but you do have to then actively contact each person or else they won't necessarily know about your project. With people you actually know on the list you of course can pitch to them outside of Inkshares, but if they're suggestions from the site then you'll just have to click the pitch button on the right to pitch to them. If you've already pitched to them through Inkshares then the button will be greyed out and say pitched.

[Billy]

Some ironic pitching advice that's worked for me, too: If you're pitching another author, use the 140 characters you get to talk about their work rather than your own.

The pitch email is formatted in such a way that it'll show off your book nicely no matter what the message of your pitch is, so using that space to engage the person on a personal level, and demonstrate that the support goes both ways, pretty frequently turns them into a follower. They may not immediately buy the book from that pitch, but once they're following it, you've got a line of regular communication to them through your reader updates. Gradually, that turns into pre-orders.

[R.H.]

I've pitched to all of them and I try to send semi-regular updates though Inkshares. They're all Inkshares readers, so there's really no other way for me to make contact with them to talk to them directly about purchasing.

I don't want to be all "please please pleeeeeeeeaase buy my book" because (despite my Lego collection) I'm not 5 years old. On the other hand, though, I'm not sure what language to use to convey my passion for this novel and convince them to preorder. I was hoping someone had had some success in the past could help me learn.

[Thomas]

I'm going to copy and paste something I posted on another thread here, just because its applicable to this discussion as well. I don't know how helpful it will be, its just the perspective I have gained as someone who had a campaign which failed to meet goal yet did far better than I ever expected.

As far as how to get someone to convert from following to ordering all I can say is I dunno. When my campaign ended my book had something like 290 followers but only around 85-90 of them had ordered 1 or more copies.

What I would say is don't take it personally or as a statement about the quality of your book. I know that I have found so many projects that I want to back, but ultimately I have very finite credits and money which means I can't back most of the projects I want to. I imagine most of the people following various funding books are in the same boat.

My advice is to continually try to bring in new readers from outside of those already on Inkshares, have the patience of a saint, and do what you can to engage with your followers as a person not just a bookseller. You of course want to drop those reminders that you still need more orders and the time left for you to get them, but try to do so in a personable way and perhaps have more conversation points than that.

Also, no matter how much you may want to scream at people for not ordering your book (I know I certainly wanted to at times), don't. None of us are entitled to someone's order, and when someone does order you should recognize that they are really going out on a limb for you and treat it as the generous gift it is. If you're not already doing so, then use the dashboard to send a personalized thank you message to every single person who orders, and if they order again thank them again while acknowledging that you remember their previous order. That willingness to engage directly with a supporter will show them that you truly value what they have done, and it makes them more likely to further support you through recommendations and such which may in turn bring more readers to you.