Name your most successful marketing technique

[Book]

Building that Author website. Hands down, that is one of the top priorities from day 1. That author website is the foundation for everything else that you do from Social Media to Content Media to an email list. Everything that you do to market books all comes around in a full circle directly to your website.

[Marcy]

I have two sites. One is a blog of general interest writing, and it includes news of my books and book reviews. But it also has rants about world events and motherhood and grandmotherhood and baseball and....you get my drift. The other one is a business website, but it's mostly for editing and ghostwriting gigs. Not much about my books at all. Do you think I need a website dedicated solely to my book publishing?

[[deleted user]]

I am new at all of this tech stuff. Where is your blog? Do you blog from your own web page? I am not sure how it works?

[Marcy]

Both my blogs are on Wordpress. One of them automatically posts on to Goodreads.


http://marcys.wordpress.com/
http://www.marcysbookbuster.wordpress...

[J.F.]

I have a website at jfgarrard.com but I also use facebook and Twitter in order to direct people to the site. The whole idea of building a better mousetrap and the world will come knocking at your door is not true. You have to tell them you have a built a mousetrap and why it's good!

Within the website I have a blog. I wanted a website instead of just a blog as I wanted pages of stuff to stay permanent and be easy to find.

Some people say that they make separate websites of blogs for their books versus other stuff, but I just don't have time to maintain so many things.

If you want to start a blog just open a google account and then search for directions. Google will host many free blogs for you, but it doesn't have a personal "address". For that you have to invest some money and buy your domain name to link the blog to it.

[Celia]

It has been really interesting reading these posts and the comments about advertising and giveaways. I found Patrick's comments on how to promote books through giveaways and a self-serve ad targeted to the write audience very helpful.

[Celia]

Patrick wrote: "Joanne wrote: "Hi Patrick,
Maybe Goodreads could offer an Advice on Promoting blog or one on How to get Professional Reviews. I've been working with an agent to market my new YA but according to wh..."

Thanks for that - good to know and useful information!

[Jan]

I have a T-shirt that says "Writers Do Wit With Words." I wore it today and sold a Leon Chameleon PI book to the vet's assistant. They all wanted to borrow my print copy of The Breadwinners, and the vet's wife has taken it home. She also asked if I had a book suitable for her teenage daughter to do a book report, so I suggested Mystery at Ocean Drive.

I then went to the book shop to deliver some of my print books. The assistant said, "I like your T-shirt' and invited all the other assistants to have a look, and the customers, curious as to what they were looking at, also read it. As the supervisor signed the delivery note I noticed that she was left-handed, so I showed her the cover of my children's book The Race, about a left-handed child, and we had a chat about left-handeness.
I then bumped into an acquaintance who had her friend with her, and this resulted in a discussion about my books. (I had a file with all the book covers in it.)
So a T-shirt works for advertising.

I'm now going to have one made saying, "I'm an author - ask me about my books." It will have my website on the back and also a QR code to the website. I'll see how that works LOL.

[Celia]

Jan wrote: "I have a T-shirt that says "Writers Do Wit With Words." I wore it today and sold a Leon Chameleon PI book to the vet's assistant. They all wanted to borrow my print copy of The Breadwinners, and th..."

Great post! And it seems to be working for you too...

[Marcy]

Gee, I better get wit it! (yes, that's on purpose!) The only customized t-shirt I have says "Born in the Bronx." I got it for when I go to A's versus Yankee games in Oakland and cheer for the NY Yankees! A's fans forgive me when they read that.

[D.]

I like the T-shirt idea. Clever saying. Did you have it printed on a shirt or did you buy it somewhere? ~

[Walter]

I found this t-shirt on Signals.com with a picture of a book on it and the caption, "Ask Me About My Book". Works, too. :)

Here's a link to it: http://www.signals.com/cgi-bin/hazel....

[Eddie]

Fussy Librarian featured a book of my short stories last Monday. It was emailed to their literary fiction list, of about 7,000 subscribers. I figure the short story audience might be 10%-20% of the list. I've seen a blip in sales and estimate maybe 6-8 came from the promotion. To me that's grand...and it was free. I'll be submitting to them again.

[Jan]

D. wrote: "I like the T-shirt idea. Clever saying. Did you have it printed on a shirt or did you buy it somewhere? ~"

It was offered for sale in the US when all the 'it' T-shirts were in vogue several years ago (surfers do it standing up etc). I had my own T-shirt made in SA and it's been sitting in the cupboard ever since. Brought it out for an airing.

[Jan]

Walter wrote: "I found this t-shirt on Signals.com with a picture of a book on it and the caption, "Ask Me About My Book". Works, too. :)

Here's a link to it: http://www.signals.com/cgi-bin/hazel......."

Guess my idea wasn't that original after all, but goes to show that great minds think alike ;)

[Walter]

Eddie wrote: Fussy Librarian featured a book of my short stories last Monday. It was emailed to their literary fiction list, of about 7,000 subscribers. I figure the short story audience might be 10%-20% of the list. I've seen a blip in sales and estimate maybe 6-8 came from the promotion. To me that's grand...and it was free. I'll be submitting to them again.

I got in late to the party ($3.00 via PayPal to list my book as Urban Fantasy), but will be interesting to see what - if any - effect their promotion has on my sales. Bookbub went well, and I earned back my fee to them on the first day, so will see how this goes.

BTW, their site is now claiming 10,000 subscribers.

[Celia]

Jan wrote: "Walter wrote: "I found this t-shirt on Signals.com with a picture of a book on it and the caption, "Ask Me About My Book". Works, too. :)

Here's a link to it: http://www.signals.com/cgi-bin/hazel...."

But if it works...that's the main thing!

[Barry]

Walter wrote: "Eddie wrote: Fussy Librarian featured a book of my short stories last Monday. It was emailed to their literary fiction list, of about 7,000 subscribers. I figure the short story audience might be 1..."

Walter wrote: "Eddie wrote: Fussy Librarian featured a book of my short stories last Monday. It was emailed to their literary fiction list, of about 7,000 subscribers. I figure the short story audience might be 1..."

What other sites do you think have the greatest impact for paid ads? or sales??

[Jan]

Bookbub are supposed to give the best results, but apparently they are difficult to get onto (and can be quite pricey, especially if you consider the exchange rate)

[Barry]

They are very difficult...what others would you put high on the list??

[Barry]

I found the best was Kindle's countdown deal...(but you can only use it once every three months.. that supplmented with a paid add on a blog to boost sales...

[Eddie]

Best promotion I ever did was with Kindle Nation, they seemed to have changed their system in the last while and I'm not sure how effective they are currently. Will check them out & report back

I have a spot on ebooksoda for Borderlines, a collection of 'long stories' on feb 19 ---it's free and also doing a $15 spot for Borderlines on KB discovery promotion.

I'm thinking of trying Bookbub...but hedging because of the price and reality that my genre (short lit fiction/novellas) has a small following.

[Walter]

Barry wrote: What other sites do you think have the greatest impact for paid ads? or sales??

I'll echo what others have said about Bookbub. My promotion around the end of last November went well. The fee was a bit steep, but as I mentioned earlier, I made it back on the first day (my book was listed under Horror, though it could have been listed as fantasy).

The Fussy Librarian put my book out today, but haven't seen any activity yet.

[Barry]

What I really haven't learned to use to promote my book is good reads!

[Kevin]

Has anybody tried Freebooksy or Bargainbooksy?

[Barry]

Kindle Nation is now linked with Book Gorilla--joint promos?? I used it once and seemed effective...

[Leon]

Barry
Right on. I'm in the top 1% on Amazon.com, and totally unable to muster a single comment or mention on GR.

[Barry]

What did you find that worked? What is your book?
.

[J.J.]

I'm always on the lookout for sites that I can post on. Thank you for giving me some sites to look up. I have one title on Goodreads now, but I'm working to get more up.

[John]

I have tried lots of marketing ideas, with mixed success. However, I just participated in a real (not virtual) book club discussion of Book 1 of my "Rose Of Skibbereen" series which meant that the 8 women in the club bought my ebook on Amazon and most of them decided to buy Book 2 and 3 in the series. So, I got dozens of sales from one meeting. I was nervous about going, but the members could not have been more welcoming. I wrote about the experience in my blog: http://mcdonnellwrite.blogspot.com/. Based on that experience, I want to try more book clubs!

John

[Edward]

Leon wrote: "Barry
Right on. I'm in the top 1% on Amazon.com, and totally unable to muster a single comment or mention on GR."

I don't know what percentage I'm in on Amazon, but my novel fluctuates in rank between 10 and 30k overall. (Between 350 and 650 in SciFi.) And that was before it even had reviews.

I've been practically invisible though on GR for a year when it comes to anyone other than my friends looking at my book or blog, so I don't know if there's a way to promote your book on GR.

There are groups that exist for that purpose, but think about it. If you had a commercial channel on TV, would you ever tune in?

It's best to just use GR as it was intended - as a reader. Find great books to read and great people to talk about them with.

I wouldn't advise marketing here.

[K.D.]

Edward wrote: "Leon wrote: "Barry
Right on. I'm in the top 1% on Amazon.com, and totally unable to muster a single comment or mention on GR."

I don't know what percentage I'm in on Amazon, but my novel fluctuate..."

I'm beginning to think you're right....

[Jim]

Hi Barry. I've had mixed success with the Countdown. I think a lot of it depends on how hard you promote it yourself. Here's another group discussion about it where you could share your experience.
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Barry wrote: "I found the best was Kindle's countdown deal...(but you can only use it once every three months.. that supplmented with a paid add on a blog to boost sales..."

[Eddie]

I've a promotion set up for short story collection with ebooksoda on feb 19. Will post the results

[Kevin]

I've never heard of Ebooksoda; I will have to check them out.

[Barry]

One day promotion with BargainBooksy last week brought about 60 Kindle downloads for my book The Watchman's File
And a nice bump on the Kindle mystery list, but only temporary. Doing a couple more promos next week...Have great 39 reviews on Amazon, but still not able to keep sales up...probably am not making the use I should of Goodreads.

[Kevin]

Are you doing more promotions with BargainBooksy or are you using other services?

[Kevin]

Just got approved for eBookSoda in mid-March. :)

[A.L.]

A mix of things. Facebook, goodreads, twitter, blogging, author interviews. A bit of this and that.

[Marcy]

I just visited Fiverr for the first time. Has anyone used any services found there? To me it looks like one great big bakery full of enticing desserts--but then I clicked on one who tweets your book or blog or whatever to her allegedly 358,000 followers, and the writing was so bad, with a lot of missing or dropped words, I realized I couldnt trust someone like that to represent me.

Anyone used anything there?

[Ken]

As someone who earns a living (or tries to, anyway) as a freelancer, I refuse to use sites like Fiverr.

I'm not saying you can't get acceptable quality from them, but it's more a matter of principle for me.

[Carmen]

I have checked out Fiverr as well and it is a real mixed bag. You need to check carefully to assess a provider's promises, language skills, and reviews. Fiverr helps by recommending certain providers. Keep in mind that no provider can ensure a marketing outcome, just that they provide a service and for services like tweeting your book, they could have a zillion fake followers or a badly worded profile. I have used Fiverr services 4 times. Twice the vendor withdrew, leaving me with a credit. I paid for a gig submitting my website to search engines, another time I had an article syndicated. So there are useful gig for authors but set your marketing plan first, then see how a Fiverr gig can help. Be very selective.

[Marcy]

Marketing plan??

Ken, what do you mean, why is this a matter of principle? What is wrong with using such services? Can you explain?

[Abby]

Ereader News Today put me at #1 on Amazon's bestseller list in September, stayed there for two weeks and been in the Top 50 ever since. Best promotion site I've tried. And it's cheap. You need at least ten reviews and a 4.0 star average.

[Marian]

I just had a great promotion with them, and they're terrific to work with.

[Rita]

Great ideas - love the T-shirt one and I'll look in to Ereader News Today, Fussy Librarian and Countdown Deals.

I have a website at www.ritaleechapman.com where I host a different author each week. If anyone would be interested in doing an interview with me, please contact me here by p.m. or thru my website.

[M.]

Marcy wrote: "I just visited Fiverr for the first time. Has anyone used any services found there? To me it looks like one great big bakery full of enticing desserts--but then I clicked on one who tweets your boo..."

Chances are the followers were purchased. You can buy roughly 1,000 twitter followers for about a $1.00. These "followers" come in a few different flavors: they could be inactive and hacked and controlled by some script; or they could be just outright script-generated accounts (web bots.)

I don't think it is wise to reject any bot-oriented marketing strategy, as everyone is using it and if you don't, you simply fall behind. I wrote a book to inform people about the common techniques and the inevitable ethics dilemma related to web bots. You may want to check it out before you step into the tricky territories of bot marketing.

[M.]

Barry wrote: "One day promotion with BargainBooksy last week brought about 60 Kindle downloads for my book The Watchman's File
And a nice bump on the Kindle mystery list, but only temporary. Doin..."

I have a dumb question: Why don't you bump the Kindle price up to $2.99? I don't think you can make any meaningful money unless you keep selling 60 copies a day at $0.99.

If you change the price to $2.99, at 70% royalty rate, minus roughly $0.25 delivery charge Amazon will take from your share, you get about $1.75 per pop.

Using the very last technique introduced in my book "Automated Marketing with Webbots," my estimate is you can sell about 300 copies right after a free promotion (very conservative estimate,) which translate to $525. Your cost for employing that technique will roughly cost you $300. You will net $225 the first 2-3 days after your promo.

And the impact will still be there 2-3 weeks after the promo. The sales derived from the residual impact will be just gravy for you.

[Marcy]

I don't even know what webbot marketing IS, but I love your cover!

Selling 60 books a day? For how long? Do even books by well established authors pub'd by the Big Five sell 60 ccs a day?

Feeling that SIASL thing again.... (Stranger In a Strange Land) Hm...think I'll change my user name.

[Deborah]

I'm having a book trailer made of my new one and I'm doing blog tours, guest blog posts, and cover reveals. First time for all of this, so the jury's still out. I throwing a bunch of stuff out there to see what (if anything) sticks! I'm also placing ads in a couple of genre-related magazines.