This whole indie publishing thing is a daily learning process. Just when you think you've got it worked out, your formula doesn't work. When I wrote "The Christmas Cottage", I did not set out to write a best seller. It just happened. Only I didn't realize that until about two months after its release.
What does that mean? Well, here I was thinking that I was doing something phenomenal with my cheap and free marketing. The truth was that I released a romantic holiday novella at Christmas time and people enjoy a holiday themed book. It was priced at .99 cents as an ebook and so basically, the planets lined up on that one and I had a best seller.
When I wrote the follow-up, "Ever After", there was no hook; there was no holiday that it was tied into and so I was just hoping to ride the coattails of the success of "The Christmas Cottage". I marketed the same way; utilized a lot of the same websites that offered free or low cost promotions. And I got two VERY different results. "The Christmas Cottage" went into the top 100 Best Seller List in the Kindle Store in eight days. "Ever After"? It has never gotten that high on the list.
Well, that's not totally true; let me clarify. The Kindle Store is the listing of ALL Kindle books. Then it gets broken down into genres. So while "Ever After" has (just recently) been on the best seller list, it was in sub-sub-SUB genre categories.
I did the free promo option on "Ever After" and STILL didn't break the top 100 in the Kindle Store. And I did not get the bounce-back sales that I've heard people talk about, either, after their free days.
I have blogged, tweeted, Tumblr'd, Facebooked...everything I could to spread the word about BOTH books and lightning did NOT strike twice. I've come to learn through multiple indie authors that what happened with "The Christmas Cottage" sales-wise, was not the norm. What I am experiencing with "Ever After" is. A month after it's release, some random romance web-site promoted it on their bargain e-book day and I sold almost 800 books on that day alone! That was more than I had sold in the month! That was pure luck.
I'm learning to not obsess about the numbers and to not rely on this income. I thought that I was going to be a bit more on easy-street when I was seeing the sales from "The Christmas Cottage" but have quickly learned that that was a seemingly one-time deal and I was lucky to experience it.
So what makes a best seller on Amazon? There seemingly is no direct answer. They took away the like button so there goes that. You need to get reviews. THAT is a biggie. The more reviews the better (and even more so when they are GOOD reviews). But I've seen well-known authors having to essentially beg for reviews so imagine how hard it is for little ol' unknown me to get them!
I'm going to keep writing. I'm going to keep marketing the way that I do and maybe someday I'll luck out and get noticed by a big review site or by someone who just likes my work and I'll be able to get on and stay on the best seller list again.
Showing posts with label facebook advertising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facebook advertising. Show all posts
Monday, March 25, 2013
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Social Media Marketing Part 2: Fighting for Exposure
It's not even possible to put a number on the ways that there are to utilize Social Networks or the internet to market whatever it is that you do. Basically, any time you put your name or product out there, isn't that considered marketing?
The problem is that with an infinite number of places and ways to get your name out there, which ones are the most helpful and will yield you the biggest response? This is something I am currently trying to work through and let me tell you, there aren't enough hours in a day to figure it out any time soon.
I blog. Obviously you know that because you are here and reading it. I never did the paid posts thing. For a while there was a site called "Entrecard" that was sort of like an "I'll stop by your site if you stop by mine" and it drew traffic to your site and somehow made your site more relevant in search engines.
They went away.
I have followers here but to be honest, I follow a lot of sites that I just don't get around to visiting on a daily basis. Or weekly. Or monthly. Heck, I think I follow some sites that I was only on a couple of times and never went back to again. It wasn't that they were bad sites, but I just don't have the time that I used to.
I tweet. I have almost 600 followers on Twitter. Apparently this is a good number. My son was highly impressed. So I tweet. I put out news about my books, promotions, when I need help and people to go to a site and click LIKE for me (curse you Amazon!) but basically, I'm certainly not getting results from each of those nearly 600 people.
I'm on Facebook. I'm on there as both me and my alter-ego. I have over 800 friends on there. My alter ego has almost 300 likes on the page. Does that amount to anything? Not really. I post all the live-long day about where I need a little help from my friends and you know what I notice? People will click like all day long on a cartoon or a picture of Grumpy Cat but I can't get nearly the same amount to click on a link for me.
I did Facebook advertising. I spent a lot of money and got little to no return. Sure, people looked at my page but that did not equal book sales or likes on the page. They liked my AD, just not my page. Awesome.
The funny thing with Facebook is that in order for a page to be a somewhat successful marketing/promotional tool, you have to have a lot of followers from all over the country/world. If your group is just people who are local to you and you are not getting any help from the locals, don't waste your time promoting anything to these people! WASTE O TIME! I don't have time to waste on sites, pages or whatever that aren't going to support of promote me.
I heard of this thing called laddering. I'm not sure I understand it but it's sort of like the whole Entrecard thing - you like my Facebook page, I'll like yours. Great, your Likes go up but again, if you aren't promoting me or my product and vice-versa, where is the benefit? Stats only mean something if it's helping you to promote your business! You can have 5,000 likes on your products page. That doesn't mean that 5,000 people have purchased your product.
I'm on Goodreads, Google +, Shelfari, YouTube and more. And you know what? I'm spending 3 hours a DAY on getting my name and my book out there and for all of that time and energy (and in some cases, money), it is not equaling book sales.
What am I doing wrong? We're told that getting the word out, getting your Google rank up, getting your Facebook likes up is all what we should aspire to. But what good is that high number when nothing is happening for you?
So here's my thought...why am I killing myself on this? Why am I missing out on family time? There are over 1,000,000 books on Amazon that I am fighting against. I'm in the 20,000's. Not a bad stat after less than a week, right? But when will Amazon fix it's issues to help their author's who are using them exclusively and put the Like button back?
In the case of Amazon, that's a stat that I am interested in! That stupid Like button and the ranking are a very coveted thing! Why won't they fix it? Why won't they help the authors whose money they are benefiting from? Help an indie author out. Please go to Amazon and click on the link for Ever After and leave me a comment on whether or not your see a like button. I would love to present them with some stats.
And while you're there, get your copy of "Ever After".
The problem is that with an infinite number of places and ways to get your name out there, which ones are the most helpful and will yield you the biggest response? This is something I am currently trying to work through and let me tell you, there aren't enough hours in a day to figure it out any time soon.
I blog. Obviously you know that because you are here and reading it. I never did the paid posts thing. For a while there was a site called "Entrecard" that was sort of like an "I'll stop by your site if you stop by mine" and it drew traffic to your site and somehow made your site more relevant in search engines.
They went away.
I have followers here but to be honest, I follow a lot of sites that I just don't get around to visiting on a daily basis. Or weekly. Or monthly. Heck, I think I follow some sites that I was only on a couple of times and never went back to again. It wasn't that they were bad sites, but I just don't have the time that I used to.
I tweet. I have almost 600 followers on Twitter. Apparently this is a good number. My son was highly impressed. So I tweet. I put out news about my books, promotions, when I need help and people to go to a site and click LIKE for me (curse you Amazon!) but basically, I'm certainly not getting results from each of those nearly 600 people.
I'm on Facebook. I'm on there as both me and my alter-ego. I have over 800 friends on there. My alter ego has almost 300 likes on the page. Does that amount to anything? Not really. I post all the live-long day about where I need a little help from my friends and you know what I notice? People will click like all day long on a cartoon or a picture of Grumpy Cat but I can't get nearly the same amount to click on a link for me.
I did Facebook advertising. I spent a lot of money and got little to no return. Sure, people looked at my page but that did not equal book sales or likes on the page. They liked my AD, just not my page. Awesome.
The funny thing with Facebook is that in order for a page to be a somewhat successful marketing/promotional tool, you have to have a lot of followers from all over the country/world. If your group is just people who are local to you and you are not getting any help from the locals, don't waste your time promoting anything to these people! WASTE O TIME! I don't have time to waste on sites, pages or whatever that aren't going to support of promote me.
I heard of this thing called laddering. I'm not sure I understand it but it's sort of like the whole Entrecard thing - you like my Facebook page, I'll like yours. Great, your Likes go up but again, if you aren't promoting me or my product and vice-versa, where is the benefit? Stats only mean something if it's helping you to promote your business! You can have 5,000 likes on your products page. That doesn't mean that 5,000 people have purchased your product.
I'm on Goodreads, Google +, Shelfari, YouTube and more. And you know what? I'm spending 3 hours a DAY on getting my name and my book out there and for all of that time and energy (and in some cases, money), it is not equaling book sales.
What am I doing wrong? We're told that getting the word out, getting your Google rank up, getting your Facebook likes up is all what we should aspire to. But what good is that high number when nothing is happening for you?
So here's my thought...why am I killing myself on this? Why am I missing out on family time? There are over 1,000,000 books on Amazon that I am fighting against. I'm in the 20,000's. Not a bad stat after less than a week, right? But when will Amazon fix it's issues to help their author's who are using them exclusively and put the Like button back?
And while you're there, get your copy of "Ever After".
Monday, December 10, 2012
Advertising on Facebook
In my quest for more social media marketing, I am coming up against some weird options and some that are a little, shall we say, less than forthcoming with their prices and then the ever so popular "Free" advertising that is not anything even remotely resembling free.
I have paid some money for advertising and it's all been relatively small - $5 on one site for 24 hours worth of exposure, $8 on one and $10 on another. I believe they are working because we're doing well on the Amazon charts and that's where I am focusing the most right now because while Barnes and Noble is awesome, I truly believe that Amazon is going to generate more overall sales.
Tonight, I did something that I was kind of confident that I wouldn't do. I created an ad on Facebook. They aren't free, it's $10 a day but with the target audience that I generated the ad toward, I have the possibility of reaching over 30 million people. We'll see. To me, that seems like a lot and really, I'm pretty sure that out of that target number, about 75% of them aren't on Facebook all that much. I'm doing the ad for only two days to see what kind of sales/interest it generates.
The ad is simple; it simply headlines "Samantha Chase Fan Club" and then mentions that the Kindle download is only .99 cents and then the link to the Amazon page. Next time I may do it just to get the likes, I'm not sure. There was a spot for me to enter a coupon code toward the advertising but I could not find any such code. So I'm going to search the web over the next two days and see what I can find because if I can find that elusive $50 in advertising credit code, that would give me more time to keep the ad out there.
We were in the top 30 on the Amazon Best Seller list today and that is always exciting. My goal is to hit the top 25 by next weekend. I'm hoping this little campaign will help me achieve that goal. This is just all so new and confusing to me. Add to that the fact that Amazon hasn't released any of my sales info yet, it would be nice to know that I am actually MAKING some money and not just spending it.
This is why writers need assistants. We cannot possibly write the next best seller when we are continually having to market and promote. Although, from what I understand, the days of the publisher helping with that is almost gone forever so really, whether you are an Indie author or with a publishing house, you have your work cut out for you and you would be wise to have someone helping you. Thank you, Dot, for helping me! Soon, you'll be making more money than me on this endeavor. LOL!
Our final stats for the day aren't great but we'll take them!
# 41 in Contemporary Women's Fiction
# 68 in Contemporary Fiction and # 538 in Kindle Downloads.
If you see the ad on Facebook, give it a click! And if you haven't had the opportunity yet, please click HERE and go to Amazon and "Like" the book - and download for only .99 cents! Help the starving Indie Author!
I have paid some money for advertising and it's all been relatively small - $5 on one site for 24 hours worth of exposure, $8 on one and $10 on another. I believe they are working because we're doing well on the Amazon charts and that's where I am focusing the most right now because while Barnes and Noble is awesome, I truly believe that Amazon is going to generate more overall sales.
Tonight, I did something that I was kind of confident that I wouldn't do. I created an ad on Facebook. They aren't free, it's $10 a day but with the target audience that I generated the ad toward, I have the possibility of reaching over 30 million people. We'll see. To me, that seems like a lot and really, I'm pretty sure that out of that target number, about 75% of them aren't on Facebook all that much. I'm doing the ad for only two days to see what kind of sales/interest it generates.
The ad is simple; it simply headlines "Samantha Chase Fan Club" and then mentions that the Kindle download is only .99 cents and then the link to the Amazon page. Next time I may do it just to get the likes, I'm not sure. There was a spot for me to enter a coupon code toward the advertising but I could not find any such code. So I'm going to search the web over the next two days and see what I can find because if I can find that elusive $50 in advertising credit code, that would give me more time to keep the ad out there.
We were in the top 30 on the Amazon Best Seller list today and that is always exciting. My goal is to hit the top 25 by next weekend. I'm hoping this little campaign will help me achieve that goal. This is just all so new and confusing to me. Add to that the fact that Amazon hasn't released any of my sales info yet, it would be nice to know that I am actually MAKING some money and not just spending it.
This is why writers need assistants. We cannot possibly write the next best seller when we are continually having to market and promote. Although, from what I understand, the days of the publisher helping with that is almost gone forever so really, whether you are an Indie author or with a publishing house, you have your work cut out for you and you would be wise to have someone helping you. Thank you, Dot, for helping me! Soon, you'll be making more money than me on this endeavor. LOL!
Our final stats for the day aren't great but we'll take them!
# 41 in Contemporary Women's Fiction
# 68 in Contemporary Fiction and # 538 in Kindle Downloads.
If you see the ad on Facebook, give it a click! And if you haven't had the opportunity yet, please click HERE and go to Amazon and "Like" the book - and download for only .99 cents! Help the starving Indie Author!
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