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Name your most successful marketing technique
message 451:
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Leon
(new)
Sep 12, 2013 04:47AM
Feedback on message 646 - The ad seems to have generated some sales, but since the blog really took off sales are soaring. Blogging seems to be the way to go.
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If you're serious about the success of your ebook, you have to check out this website www.authortrade.comDon't just hope it's going to happen ... make it happen
Philip wrote: "For a future book I have just startedhttp://intergeoserv.wordpress.com/"
Very creative!!! Good luck.
I also have heard about BookBub and will be checking it out. We did a book tour with Beck Valley Books and it gained us a lot of exposure. Sharon was great to work with. You can find her at www.beckvalleybooks.blogspot.comThanks for all the info....need to read the rest of the comments.
I just posted a separate thread about my disastrously successful marketing campaign. Please take a look.
Wilder Mage came out August 27 and so far I have fairly good sales without any free days.I made some excellent rack cards that are suitable for #10 envelopes, can be used as bookmarks and began distributing them to stores, places where we do business, veterinarians, beauty shop, library, repair shops, and diners. My niece owns a business with 1000 employees. Guess what they received in their pay envelopes?
My point is, don't exclusively follow the same online book tours, KDP giveaways. Go with the personal touch, advertise with the car magnets *thumbs up, Tui*, wear a T-shirt with your book cover, do press releases for your local paper. I don't know if I have the guts to do a radio interview *cringe* but it is there if I want to.
Do whatever is necessary to soft-sell your book but no tackling perspective readers please. ;)
C.D. wrote: "Wilder Mage came out August 27 and so far I have fairly good sales without any free days.I made some excellent rack cards that are suitable for #10 envelopes, can be used as bookmarks and began d..."
That seems like wonderful advice. Do you think if you send a card or bookmark someone will look at it and display it without you going to the store or paper? Maybe, worth a shot I think. :)
Great new promotional tool for authors, check it out! www.authortrade.com If you're serious about the success of your ebook, don't let this one pass you by. For a limited time, sign up and get a 1 week FREE trial.Best
Harry Toews
@CarolineI started distributing the cards everywhere I went. At the bank, grocery store, etc. The first time I offered them, the clerks kind of eyed me suspiciously. But the next time I came by, they asked, "hey what is this book about?"
It starts a conversation with ppl who don't follow blogs, have no idea what GoodReads is, and aren't in the publishing business. That is your audience. Not the wonderful bloggers who help promote your novels. I cherish every moment with my followers but they can only do so much. It's the rest of the population I want to get to know.
Get out of the mainstream and plop those cards in front of folks who don't know you. It does work. I'm #3 on Hot New Releases for occult books at Amazon. *faint*
C.D. wrote: "@CarolineI started distributing the cards everywhere I went. At the bank, grocery store, etc. The first time I offered them, the clerks kind of eyed me suspiciously. But the next time I came by, t..."
Lovely story and I shall remember that. I'm pausing til January so I'll start with libraries in my county, etc.
Thanks and continued good luck!
Harry,I think this "Authortrade" idea is crazy. Sort of 'you buy my book, I'll buy yours. And give me five stars and a good review, and I'll return the favour.' That is total nonsense - readers will simply no longer pay attention to ratings and reviews.
C.D. wrote: "@CarolineI started distributing the cards everywhere I went. At the bank, grocery store, etc. The first time I offered them, the clerks kind of eyed me suspiciously. But the next time I came by, t..."
That is such a great idea! I need to compensate for my disastrously successful giveaway with something fast so that I don't completely lose the bump I have this month from successful (22K)part. Going local is a very good idea.
I just checked the first online "rack card" search and it was about $50 for $250 but it will take 5 days. Maybe I can find something faster locally.
@MaryI picked the rackcard size over the usual bookmark because they were bigger. I put the blurb and book cover on one side and my author bio and where to find Wilder on the other.
Okay, take a deep breath. I bought 1750 cards @ approx. $200. Some went east to my editor, 1000 went to my niece, and I kept 500 to distribute in my area.
Sounds like a lot but this is the only marketing cost I've incurred.
Update on my campaigns and effortsProject Wonderful - Paid adds -
232,000 views, 81,000 unique, 51 clicks no attributable sales
BookDaily - featured book in emails two months of cover to 23,000 emails 1500 allegedly read my exert, no attributable sales
Ask David 10 tweets to 19,000 followers each Tweet, no sales one part of promotion to go
Goodreads 56,000 views of ads, 20 clicks no increase on to-read lists, no more reviews and no attributable sales
KDP Select on third book three days used, 82 downloads yes just 82 worldwide.
Lesson is no more advertising no more tweets - just a waste of money better spent on edit so no one will read my grammatically correct book. Maybe give up writing completely other than for fun.
Very dispiriting, so trying a different approach with book four - no I haven't given up. Using an ew blog with a back story, but with blogging, tweeting, website, creating ads, running campaigns this self pub stuff is hard work! Might just try writing instead.
Philip,Don't I just know the feeling.
There just doesn't seem any way in which one can get some wind in the sails (sales).
Doing fairly well - three in top 5% on Amazon.com, but not selling anything anywhere else. (??? Apple, Sony, Smashwords etc - zilch).
Despite excellent ratings and reviews on .com.
How the hell does it work?
Leon wrote: "Philip,Don't I just know the feeling.
There just doesn't seem any way in which one can get some wind in the sails (sales).
Doing fairly well - three in top 5% on Amazon.com, but not selling anythi..."
Good numbers I too have had nothing for other outlets. no iBooks or B&N. Paperbacks are on Lulu with distribution to Amazon, prices seem higher than Createspace which I'm sure limits sales.
Just blogged on advertising
http://phenweb.wordpress.com/2013/09/...
Philip wrote: "Update on my campaigns and effortsProject Wonderful - Paid adds -
232,000 views, 81,000 unique, 51 clicks no attributable sales
BookDaily - featured book in emails two months of cover to 23,000 ..."
And yet if you believe the self-publishing evangelists, all you have to do is put a good book out there and somehow, magically, it will be discovered.
I appreciate your sharing these figures. Clearly getting an ad in front of someone's eyes doesn't translate into sales. Publishers have said the same for ages; they go for reviews and feature articles instead. Have you (and others here) considered taking a different path? After four books, I have to believe you've learned a bit about writing. Why not query agents and try going the traditional publishing route? It seems to me that many of the most successful writers are combining the two modes, including Lorraine Bartlett, interviewed here.http://bit.ly/11pbn4O
Barbara wrote: "Philip wrote: "Update on my campaigns and effortsProject Wonderful - Paid adds -
232,000 views, 81,000 unique, 51 clicks no attributable sales
BookDaily - featured book in emails two months of c..."
I suppose that is the next step, although I may try professional edits first. Judging from some of the comments on various GR forums, even mainstream publishers leave much of the marketing to the author, especially social media. The paid for large adverts are charged back to the authors account and the royalty income gets split. What they do have is access to mainstream media reviewers on the free lunch circuit.
Dianne wrote: "Where did you go to find them on the internet? Would you mind give the site? Thanks!"Vistaprint. Good quality stuff, fast delivery, lots of variety. Can be a little pricey though. Watch for the sales.
Here's what works for me:1. Actively reviewing and discussing books on the site.
2. Being nice and polite to everyone, even/especially if they don't like my books.
3. Making friends and participating in group discussions.
4. Not spamming.
5. Being excited to be here!
6. Not rating my own books.
Philip wrote: "Barbara wrote: "Philip wrote: "Update on my campaigns and effortsProject Wonderful - Paid adds -
232,000 views, 81,000 unique, 51 clicks no attributable sales
BookDaily - featured book in emails..."
If a traditional, aka trade publisher invests in paid advertising for a book, that comes out of their pocket, not the writer's. Unfortunately, they rarely do except for their bestselling writers. It's certainly true that publishers now expect writers to participate in promotion, and having a strong online presence is an asset (though not nearly as big an asset as having written a great book.)But the writer's not on his own. They're there to help. My current publisher, Viking, has a whole online marketing department whose purpose is to market through social media and to help their writers do the same. They eased me onto Twitter; I hated it at first, now love it, having figured out how it works.
Linda,Like every author on this forum, I've tried everything and am still looking for new things to try.
But my most pleasant success comes from a complete Taoist "do-nothing" approach. Here's the story:
Prior to my latest book "KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your Book Description," (http://amzn.to/1evdevT) I treated everyone of my prior releases with kid gloves. Rallying good reviews for them and worrying about their being bullied by some bad reviews. Angry that good reviews do not really translate into good sales number ... I was just like an over-protecting parent.
When "KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your Book Description" was born on Sept. 7th, I was totally jaded. Been there, done that. Plus, it's a technical book -- there is hardly any room for me to glorify it.
So I just let the kid walk out of the door and go play in the neighborhood, thinking, "If he makes it he makes it. If not, it's just a book. I will write a better next one."
Three days passed with three brave souls actually purchased the book, at $9.99. Then a 5-star review kicked in.
What happened next were truly surprising.
1)One buyer who used the book (I will refrain from mentioning her name as she is in the erotica sector) raves about my book in FB indie author groups, driving a few new buyers to my book.
2)A well-known internet marketing expert (shame on me as I did not even know him and his famous newsletter,) by the name of Martin Kerrigan shot out a email blast, praising my book. It reads as follows:
==Quote below===
Two things today.
First KDP's Best Kept Secret. We all know what goes into your Kindle book description. Words. Targeted words designed to invoke a response.
WRONG!
Check this out:
http://amzn.to/1evdevT
Amazing! Videos. Widgets. Images. An iframe showing all your books scrolling past. An opt-in form! Facebook. Twitter. Support via email, skype, phone or drums. $10!
I bought this without a second thought. Love it.
http://amzn.to/1evdevT
==Quote above===
Naturally, that has created some buzz and purchase.
3)Other bloggers and authors start to recommend my book, including one fellow on GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...
And I am sure more are to come. And I've manipulated nobody. I've bribed nobody. I don't even know these nice people who are benefiting from and recommending my book.
That's the mark of a book that fills a consumer's needs well! Those books can sell themselves. By the way, having read a similar book, how recently have you tried embedding a widget in a KDP description? I found last month that you could no longer put HTML in book descriptions. Did you find a way around that?
Judy, seeing is believing. Please give it the benefit of doubt and take one glance at my book page: http://amzn.to/1evdevT. You will see images, videos, JavaScript slideshows, Amazon affiliate widget, Tweet box and Facebook box and Social Share buttons ALL inside my book description, not the least of it is a contact-me form via which I receive dozens of inquiries a day.Basically everything is embeddible. And my methods are straightforward and simple. Anyone can do it. Plus I offer a free 1st-time walk-through.
Take a look and you wont regret it. It is without a doubt (and self-boasting) a breakthrough. Cheers!
To have a little fun, I just dropped my GoodReads box in the "About the Author" panel. When you are at my book page at http://amzn.to/1evdevT, scroll down to the About the Author box and you will see our dicussion thread there.It goes to show you that you can drop anything on the book page and it is super easy using my method.
Dianne, the answer is an absolute resounding yes. One Canadian writer just did this one minute ago -- dropping her YouTube video in the description: http://amzn.to/15eGWDNI know she's not a professional writer (not yet, one never knows.) But her profession has nothing to do with computer coding.
If you know how to copy and paste and know how to follow instruction, you can get it done.
Plus I am good with my promise of a 1st time walk-through. People are normally pretty proud of themselves and plus my book is super descriptive and clear on steps, so far only two people indicated they would like help.
All I ask you is to please read through it. And if you are not comfortable doing it alone for the first time, just grab me for a walk-through.
And once you read it, you will know that I did thorough analysis on Amazon's infrastructure and inter-server communication mechanism. This is not a street vendor's trickery. It's based on profound science and Amazon's system is actually configured to support it.
I mean, come on, just to give your prospective readers a book trailer video to watch will enhance their impression of you as an author by many folds.
Dianne, you can update your book description as often as you want. In fact, you do not need any tools. You do not go through any secret backdoor. You are interacting with Amazon's business-as-usual interface.Purchasing the book entitles you the use of my methods for you as one author (or legal entity.) If you have 17 titles under three different nom de plumes, you are permitted to update those 17 titles as often as you want.
Give it a shot. And grab me after you read it, if you need some hand-holding.
Fascinating concept and makes sense to try. I use video all the time to promote myself and my book thanks to my hubby who is a Web Video Producer. But I never thought of being able to put it on Amazon.
Thank you Shauna, for the comment. It makes even more sense to drop multimedia elements into your book description fields when you are lucky enough to have a professional video producer at your disposal. That way, if the increase of your book sale attributable to the videos inside your book description is not good enough (it's never going to be good enough,) you can simply blame it on your hubby -- he simply needs to generate more compelling videos!
HAHA, Marcus! Concern from the hubby and his cohorts in the field... Will Amazon soon declare these options unacceptable and pull the books because people are being led off their site? Does your plan keep them on Amazon or open the vids up on another page? If they are are imbedded right on Amazon as you suggest that would be excellent!
Well, they have such concerns because they've never read the book. The empire of Amazon is set up that way in terms of the vast infrastructure and inter-server data handshake. The underlying architecture is what renders this possible. You think it is a light switch they can just flip?
Plus, this is a free country. Why do people think like terrorized North Koreans and are eager to exercise self-censorship? I don't get it.
And 99.999% of the authors who enhance their book description have ZERO intention of siphon off Amazon's traffic. Amazon has the most targeted traffic for books and authors want to sell them their books, not to drag them to their narcissistic WordPress rambling.
And of course, a few doosebags may be crazy enough to embed a disguised hyperlink to lead people to their offering of cheap Viagra. But the percentage of doosebags will remain roughly the same, regardless of whether they actually utilize the methods I invented or not. I mean, they can put their phone # there for people to call, for that matter.
The constitution gives us the freedom of assembly. My commercial relationship and transaction with my readers are strictly by Amazon's book. Outside that, I can choose to socialize and interact a little more with my readers. No corporate tyranny can scare me into not doing that.
And on a technological ground, how does Amazon identify book description entered with my methods vs the conventional? There is virtually no discernible difference. All description are blocks of character strings stored as bits on hard disks.
I'm simply following the Web's golden rule of 3-15 -- that nothing should take more than 3 clicks to open and more than 15 seconds to load. If you put your Facebook fan page's url in a plain text description and expect a prospective reader to click to select the unlinked URL, right-click and copy, then paste into a Web browser address bar and hit enter, I'd say "fat chance!" Unless you're Suzanne Collins and your readers are eager to talk Hunger Games with you. Me? I put my Facebook box right there and if they want to post a message to me, it's one easy click.
The same rule applies to your YouTube trailer video. You can repeat the URL in plain text ten times and nobody will ever bother to go there. But if you have the video right there with a Play arrow, 6 of out of 10 people WILL actually start the playing. 2 or 3 may actually watch it to the end.
So more sales as a result. More monetary homage to Amazon's corporate coffers. If we live in perfect world, I'd be tempted to expect a fan letter from Jeff Bezos.
There is a great, but little-known Japanese proverb I'd like to introduce to you: Tomorrow's wind will blow tomorrow. (明日は明日の風が吹く) Make hay while the sun shines. Why bother guessing which way the wind is gonna blow tomorrow?
But one thing is clear: those who have acquired the know-how from my book can do so much more than those who haven't. It's that simple. And if your book's sale could use some improvement, getting the know-how from this book is the least you could do for your brainchild.
There is also a Chinese proverb I'd like to share: The rules are always designed to forgive the mass (法不责众).
I'll spare no effort to market this method to a celebrity author or two, as soon as I can manage.
Come on enjoy the ride, Shauna. Success is never permanent. Your book's ranking on Amazon changes everyday. But this humble $10 investment may just bring you that joy we all crave as authors -- that someone not only buys your book, he also drops you a note about something on the book page that has delivered the fatal attraction to his brain. And that feedback is invaluable to you. It's worth so much more than the $2.99 you are charging for your book, because it lets you know the things you have done right with your book description. And that same gentleman may well loses his impulse to give you his thought of the moment, if he has to Google you, browse to your blog, click on the contact tab and fill out a form just to send you that love note. That is just a lot to ask from a stranger.
The know-hows in my book enables you to make it super easy for your prospective readers to read your mind, see your passion and beauty and, ultimately, reach out to you. After all, you can never improve if you do not hear from the real average readers.
Cheers.
Thanks Marcus for all the info. I will read your book and learn more.
Much obliged and I do hope you will put the know-how to use for your books.M. Eigh, author of the now popular KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your Book Description
I have a question about the good reads giveaway. I have one currently running, and it quite exciting, but what I realize is I may want to run this same book again, just after I publish the next in the series. Am I limited to only one giveaway, or is that under my control?
You sold me, Marcus. Good job. I bought your book and while I haven't tried anything yet, I'm beginning to prepare for a few additions to my own descriptions, per your instructions. The basics seem simple enough - the more complex stuff is beyond me for the moment, but I'll get there.
Rebecca wrote: I have a question about the good reads giveaway. I have one currently running, and it quite exciting, but what I realize is I may want to run this same book again, just after I publish the next in the series. Am I limited to only one giveaway, or is that under my control?I've done three Goodreads giveaways on my book, Rebecca, so you can do more than one.
In the past, I've seen restrictions offered by Goodreads, such as 'a book can only be offered for giveaway during its first year'. No idea how tightly any such restrictions are being observed, but my guess would be that Goodreads will only get technical about it if it becomes a problem.
The guidelines I've seen suggested offering a book a month prior to its publication, then again after it's been published.
Hi K.A.,Thank you for your vote of confidence. And don't hesitate to reach out to me if you have a question. In addition to the basic stuff, social networking widgets (Twitter box and Facebook box )are also super easy to drop in using the re-write formula given in my book Chapter #12. And YouTube videos and Amazon Affiliate carousel.
Based on my own experience, the Affiliate carousel is effective. After a while I start to see the "buyers who viewed this one of your titles also viewed that one of yours," or "buyers who bought this one of your titles also bought that one of yours" type of correlation building up in between my books.
The other one that I find effective is the social share buttons (covered in Chapter 12 as well.) I put the share buttons there just to show off the technology, only to be surprised by the stats at the end of last week showing that a dozen people have actually used the share buttons. And that's great because every share is broadcast, not just "email this to a friend" type of pass-along.
I'm also convinced that visitors to your book page will never make any effort to interact with you unless you make it super super easy. For example, when I just started end of last year -- before I formulated my technology of spicing up book description -- I used to put email address everywhere I can think of (of course, taking some due cautions like disguising it as gmail[dot]com etc. But nobody ever bothered to email me. And now I have a contact me form there and I actually get emails -- roughly 1 out of 6 buyers have dropped me a note. Lots of praise and, surprisingly, no hate mail yet.
I'm sure you will come up with something unique to connect with your readers/buyers and boost your book sales.
Dianne wrote: "Marcus, I bought your book and then had a notice of upgrades on Kindle. Darned if it didn't erase your book and a couple of others on the Kindle Cloud Reader. Grrr!"Dianne, I don't know why they gave you the older version to begin with. I uploaded the newer version two weeks ago. When did you buy the book? If recently in the past few days, it means Amazon has not been giving people the latest version available? That is truly shocking. That's slower than USPS junk class mail.
Anyway, the update contains an added details on iframe usage and two new chapters. Chapter 11 is dedicated to leveraging CDN (Google Drive and Twitter pictures, to name two) to host your resources (iamges and other files.) Chapter 12 is dedicated to embedding social networking widgets.
If possible, you should update to get your money's worth. All books on Kindle are just files on your device's "Docuements" folder, which you can back up onto your PC or Mac. Your books should also be available on Amazon's CloudReader at https://read.amazon.com/. To access one of your book you can just suffix the ASIN. For example, to access my book on the cloud, you will browse to https://read.amazon.com/?asin=B00F23Q9CI
So I am inclined to think that it is pretty hard to lose a book due to an update on a book. But you know better than me. And if you do not want to go for the update, please contact me via the book page's email form. Once I get your email address I will send you a copy of the updated book.
Thanks again!
NP Dianne.Hi K.A., and Dianne, and other people who have bought the book, did you guys see the new review on the book posted by Maria Elizabeth Romana?
She did such an amazing job formatting her book page, after following the instructions in my book. It's here if you want to take a peek (and it is a sales page better off without anything too flashy, IMHO): Little Miss Straight Lace, Book One of The Unbreakable Series
She's definitely got the hang of it. Look at her About the Author box: she's got her picture there, alongside her hyperlinked Website, Twitter page, Amazon author page and Facebook page. Bravo!
It makes me so happy to see people benefit from my discovery. While she praises the book as "well written and organized" and instructions clear, she also said it took her the good part of two days just to get all the basics.
Well, I did not realize it was that hard for non-coders. I did consider -- very briefly -- writing the book out as an Ikea style diagram storyboards without any words. But that did not even pass my own scrutiny.
Would a comic book be a better format for the material contained in this book?
Very nice! The share buttons are pretty small, wonder if they can be made bigger? I plan to work on this during the next two days (my days off) and at least add a couple things to a few of my descriptions.
K.A. wrote: "Very nice! The share buttons are pretty small, wonder if they can be made bigger? I plan to work on this during the next two days (my days off) and at least add a couple things to a few of my descr..."Hi K.A.,
That is the matter you work out with the button providers. The ones I use are from AddThis and you can configure the size, number of buttons etc. You basically get the block of button code and drop it in the description field using the methods an steps explained in my book.
Marcus
Hi K.A.,Just a quick follow-up on the size of the share buttons. The fact is, Amazon actually has its own set right under the box that has the One-click Buy button.
But Amazon's own definitely are not effective. They are had to find and require visitor to precision-scroll and precision-click. But when the share buttons are floating the way I implemented them, they do get used and definitely benefit the authors.
In my opinion, they cannot be bigger. Any bigger than the size I have them right now, they will interfere with the "Buy" or "Sample" action menu on the top right. And if you float them on the left, they will interfere with the "Look inside" action.
My guess is you can size the buttons bigger if float them on the top of the page or the bottom of the page. But I personally think that is a bit annoying to people who are browsing your book page.
M. Eigh, author of the now popular KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your Book Description.
The size you have on your page are fine. I was looking at the other page, with what are probably Amazon's buttons, which are quite small. In fact, I'd never noticed them before! Thanks for the info.
K.A. wrote: "The size you have on your page are fine. I was looking at the other page, with what are probably Amazon's buttons, which are quite small. In fact, I'd never noticed them before! Thanks for the info."I totally agree with you. I only noticed Amazon's AFTER I've floated my own. I only discovered Amazon's because I was searching low and high for them. That's part of the raison d'être for floating our own.
Well I've been playing with M's techniques today with some limited success. Going to do a full blog about it one day! The differences in UK and USA Amazon profiles haven't helpedI have blogged a quick post but a full one to come, anyway the techniques do work it's just Amazon make it very hard
http://wp.me/p3M3g8-4d
Philip wrote: "Well I've been playing with M's techniques today with some limited success. Going to do a full blog about it one day! The differences in UK and USA Amazon profiles haven't helpedI have blogged ..."
Philip, Glad you've got it going. Can't wait to read your full blog. And don't hesitate to msg me if you have an implementation question.
M. Eigh, author of the now popular KDP's Best-Kept Secret Revealed: How to Embed Videos and Widgets in Your Book Description.
I've now done some experimenting on one of my book descriptions, too. First thing: it works! I think I'm going to do more, but for right now I've got one of my websites linked and a trailer added. I want to work on font & share buttons, etc., but I didn't want to get too involved before seeing how difficult it would be.Will it help? No idea, but it's free (other than the cost of the book!) and quick, so it sure can't hurt.
Here's the link to the site where I've done the first experimenting if anyone's interested:
http://www.amazon.com/Stolen-ebook/dp...
You did it, K.A., impressive!It will work. Every little good thing helps, just like every little bad thing damages (typos, grammatical error, sloppy cover design and etc.)
As to the share buttons, I am putting out a new small book on that topic. I will put it up for "Secret" owners to download free on Saturday and Sunday.
I will post the download URL tomorrow.
Cheers,
Marcus
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