C. Gockel's Blog, page 155

So, I’ve come to the realization that for business reasons I really need an anthology. Some big advertisers won’t accept free stories anymore because they don’t get credit from Amazon for referrals to free books.

Anyway, the standard procedure for these things is to combine all three books into one cover…it turns out, orange, blue and green are hard to deal with together.

Also, I don’t know about the circle of fire in the background. I might want to use that for another story—maybe even the final book in the series.

UPDATE: Just added the second anthology cover and put Laevithinn in the background (yes, sword buffs! I realize that is a Japanese sword in a story about a Norse God. But I have a theory about Loki and Japan…)

So it’s 2 weeks and 2 days since my Bookbub promotion. It was definitely a success. For a while I Bring the Fire was in the top 10 for free books, and now it is still hanging out above the top 1000 range.

Even better, Monsters and Chaos have seen a huge boost in sales. 

Still, just as I noticed 2 weeks after I Bring the Fire first became free, 2 weeks after my Bookbub promo sales and downloads have started to decline. Which makes me believe I need to do some sort of promotion every week. 

Fortunately, due to the glories of affiliate linking, some types of promotion are free or close to it.

Want to advertise your ebook? Check out the sites I’ve uncovered to help you meet your goals & budget.

Bookbub (the Holy Grail of book promotion)
Cost: $90 - $1200 (This isn’t cheap—BUT—it’s sort of the Holy Grail of book advertising. It DEFINITELY works).
Choose your own date of promotion: Yes—sort of. They ask for a few dates to choose from.
Restrictions: Yes - they vet all books advertised to their subscribers. A lot of writers complain that their criteria are somewhat random.
Targeted (i.e., do they advertise within your genre): Yes
Format: Email newsletter. Possible Facebook post. They featured me in their Facebook post and that maybe why I got a lot of downloads. That said, it means that people who aren’t typically interested in fantasy maybe picked up the book. Although that’s great, I imagine that means a large percentage didn’t actually read it.
Format of ad: Email, Website, Facebook & Twitter-see above
Results of campaign: Phenomenal. Whoa. I advertised under “fantasy”.

Bella Harte Blog- Saturday/Sunday spotlight.
Cost: Free — just your time
Choose your own date: No
Restrictions: Bella can turn down authors at her discretion.
Targeted: No, but…This site has a LOT of paranormal romance, so I’m sure that’s what her readers expect. However, she also accepts other types of fiction and memoirs.
Format: Facebook and other social media postings linking to a “Feature Book” and “Author Interview”.
Results of Campaign: I’m not sure. I think it helped maintain my rankings—it seemed the slide wasn’t as steep, but the affect was too small to really judge.

 
Digital Book Today
Cost: Free OR $30
Choose your own date: No for free, yes for paid
Restrictions: No erotica. Full length novels. 20+ reviews. 4 stars or more.
Targeted: On the site you can search by genre, but the newsletter seems to be just a long list.
Format: Website, email, facebook
Results: TBD

 

eReadernewstoday
Cost: 0
Choose your own date: No
Restrictions: 4 or more reviews, 4 stars or more, not a lot of sex
Targeted: Yes
Format: Newsletter, webpage
Results: TBD - Though I’ve read good reports about this site.

eReader Perks
Cost: Free
Choose your own date: No…but if you contact the site admin she might help you out.
Restrictions: No
Results: Actually this site featured me on June 4th without me knowing it. My June 4th free giveaway had 7,000 downloads, and it probably had a lot to do with this site. The woman who runs the site also helps with promoting sales. She is very nice and I will definitely be using this site again.

 

Free eBooks Daily
Cost: Free
Choose your Date: Yes
Restrictions:

Submissions are for ebooks that are FREE for everyone, not just Amazon Prime members
No erotica
Prever average rating 4 out of 5
Consecutive day promotions
60 days between same title promotions

Guaranteed: Yes
Targeted: No
Format: Email, Facebook, Blog post, Twitter
Results: TBD

Free Kindle Books & Tips
Cost: $25-$50
Choose your Date: No
Restrictions:

He doesn’t accept many free books
Needs at least 8 reviews
Never promotes #2 in a series

Targeted: No, but the site has 650K subscribers, predominantly women 35-55 (my demographic!) I may create an anthology of the first 3 parts of Fire and promote it on this site. If I can get 8 reviews (although the list operator may accept reviews on previous volumes).
Format: Email, Facebook, website
Results: TBD

GalleyCats new book page
Cost: Free
Choose your own date: Yes
Restrictions: None
Targeted: No
Format: Facebook
Results of Campaign: TBD. (But how could I not know about this? Gah!)

GoodKindles
Cost: $7.95 - $19.95
Choose your own date: Yes — also if you choose the gold plan you are allowed to choose a date 30 days after first promotion to have the site rerun your promotion.
Restrictions: None
Targeted: Yes, somewhat (i.e., not sure the newsletters books are targeted—unlike Bookbub—but books on their site are sorted by genre.)
Format: Facebook, twitter, website, newsletter
Results of Campaign: TBD

Lindsay Buroker’s Blog - Guest post
Cost: Free—just my time
Choose your own date: She will negotiate a good date with you
Restrictions: It’s at Lindsay’s discretion. You need a subject she feels you have authority on to post about but you don’t have to be a big seller. I wrote about using fanfiction as a training ground for original fiction.
Targeted: Yes, she is a rather prominent author in the self-publishing world and she is followed by her fans. She happens to write fantasy, and have a large female following…great for me.
Format: Website
Results: Yes! I didn’t get a huge burst of sales from my post with her, but I did get some, and her readers are extremely engaged and supported. The sales I got from her site led to solid reviews. I’d really like to do more guest posts with her or other authors.

Pixel of Ink (For Free & 99 Cent Books)
Cost: Free
Choose your Date: Yes
Restrictions: No
Guaranteed: No
Targeted: You are allowed to select your genre
Format: Facebook & Webpage Posting
Results: I haven’t been featured yet, so no results as of yet

Wattpad
This is a site where you post your original stories much like you post fanfiction. 
Cost: Free - but time consuming
Targeted: Yes
Read more about Wattpad here.

New Releases are great marketing activities! I will certainly count my release of “In the Balance” as my marketing activity for that week.

More paid advertising opportunities — some are on this list.

Bella Harte interviewed me for her Sunday Spotlight.

Thanks Bella!

First pass at a cover for my novella “In the Balance, it’s sort of I Bring the Fire 3.5.

….I don’t know, Ceres’ boobs are like torpedoes and right above my name.

I think I may use the picture, the statue it represents features prominently in my story, but I might wedge it into the typical I Bring the Fire format and loose the torpedoes. (Ha ha ha, typo! Let loose the torpedoes—in this instance that draws a rather humorous image to mind—but I mean ‘lose the torpedoes’).

Emaleth, Valerie Simpson, Patricia Kenworthy and Stevie Raye your reviews snuck in under the wire when last I did my thank you post.

Just want to let you know I really appreciate them.

Reviews don’t just help convince people to download—they help convince serial downloaders (like me!) to actually read the free books they’ve downloaded.

My beta approved the rough draft! That means the story will probably be released around about October 1st. I’m so excited…It’s taking all my willpower not to post an excerpt!

In total it only comes to about 80 pages, but it features some ideas and scenarios I didn’t think I could fit into Part IV. “In the Balance” isn’t the most happy of my stories, but to make sure the end is uplifting I’ll include a longer snippet of Part IV…which is LOADS of fun so far.

So many reviews lately. Thank you S. Coury, Fifi, Jo Hatton, Dsb, Doris, MomMomMommy, dearn77, Desiree Durant, Gary & Julia, Ivrorx, Lynda J Fernandez, PJSpeck, sandra g, Dragonflynn, and mlogan for your reviews on Amazon for Wolves, Monsters & Chaos. Thank you  Angle, Kimberly, Amee, Mmamatess for your reviews on Goodreads. And thanks so many other Anon reviewers on B&N for all your reviews and positive ratings.

Every review helps another reader decide to take a chance on my ebooks, and I really appreciate all of them…and you’re helping me fulfill my diabolical ten year plan…to be a full-time author in ten years!

Bwahahahahahahaha!

Loki by Hellanim

I love the textures in this pictures. It’s the Loki version of Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See by Eric Carle.

cgockel:

So, in the process of writing Fates I Bring the Fire Part IV I got distracted by a novella—I Bring the Fire Part 3.5 if you will. I’m calling it In the Balance and I think the rough draft will be done by Sunday.

I’m really excited! It will be short, maybe 100 pages if I include a little sneak peek at Part IV. 

I guess one of the nice thing about self-publishing and ebooks and having a real job is that when things beg to be written, you can take the time off to write them.

Okay, back to it!

Ooops…posted this under C. Gockel my personal Tumblr. But yes, it’s all true. Another little bit of I Bring the Fire is coming very soon.

The Unlucky Family by the fabulous Hellanium

Love the angry ravens in the background—great way to show Odin’s displeasure.