Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

So, coming up in the next two weeks is the biggest push I'll probably ever get for any of my books. The list so far reads thusly.

1. It will be free to download for the Kindle the weekend of the 25th.

2. I'm going to a horror convention that weekend where I anticipate a fair bit of personal attention.

3. I'm going to get a plug on a popular Podcast on the 20th.

4. I've paid for advertising for the free promotion.

5. All these details will be mentioned on my weekly blog post.

6. I plan on posting on it around Goodreads, Twitter, and my facebook page.

I'm putting it to you all, now. What more can I do? Suggestions? Ideas?

Email ereaderperks and Pixel of Ink to promote it. You can also ask the blogs that have read and reviewed it to make a post on their sites (FB, Twitter, etc.) for you.

Smile a lot, enjoy the experience and make lots of great memories! Good luck!

Shaun, you could have started by mentioning the name and site of your book in the above post. Never mind, I looked it up on your profile.

PS. Good Luck! Let us all know how it turns out. You're making a good effort.

Doing a giveaway on goodreads of a hard copy of your book generates interest - gets people to put it on their shelves. The winners are encouraged to write a review (though that doesn't always happen.)

On facebook, get involved with groups that are in similar genres or author support groups.

I just found out about rafflecopter, to host giveaways. Team up with other authors and put a big one together and post the heck out of it on all of your facebook pages. It links to your facebook author page (if you don't have one, create one.) and generates interest.

Good luck!!

Wow!!! Good luck! All the best to you ... it looks like you've got a great plan. Have you considered a giveaway? I admit I learned a lot from you and your ideas for future books! Again, all the best!!

All nice ways to promote Shaun. I've done 4, 5 and 6. The horror convention and podcast are really good experiences. Ive done a few things but nothing quite like that.
My book is featured in a showcase on IndieTribe
Will be in a page on the next issue of Sanitarium Magazine.
Have done a giveaway

Im hoping to do more and am always looking for new ideas.

Well, thanks for the kind words. Officially, I suppose you could say the big push starts today. Here's what I have going for the next week and a half.

1. My book is in the Ampersand H. Summer Reading List Poll which went live today. (And doing fairly well so far.)

2. My book will be free for download the weekend of May 25th and 26th.

3. I have enlisted ebookbooster.com for help in promoting the free download weekend. I have also sent an inquiry to the above-mentioned ereaderperks.com to see if they would be willing to promote it for me as well.

4. My book is getting a plug in a popular podcast on Monday, May 20th.

5. I have an author interview which I've been informed will be going live sometime next week.

6. My blog post for next week will be listing all these items and re-iterating the details of it.

7. Starting Monday and going through the week I'll probably be posting the hell out of the free weekend on Facebook, Twitter, and here on Goodreads.

8. On top of that, I'll also probably be telling everyone I meet about it, as well as handing out business cards.

Whew. If there's more I can do than that, I don't know about it outside of getting on radio or tv.

Great effort. Do let us know the results.

Well, it's Monday morning, the free promotion is over. Time to go over the results.

1. The AmpersandH Summer Reading List poll.
- While my book is solidly in the middle rankings and there are still five days to vote. It would have to at least double the number of votes it currently has to crack the top 5 which are going to win. Still, being up there has undoubtedly created some extra visibility I didn't have before. So for the amount of effort I put in for it, I'll mark that as a positive.

2. Crypticon Seattle
- I submitted a short story to the convention's writing contest and was declared a finalist, which meant I was going to be published in the convention's anthology and needed to be present at the con at an awards ceremony to determine exactly where I had placed. I was told to expect a rush of people looking to have their book signed and I also ordered an extra hundred book cards to slip in as bookmarks. Unfortunately, my story was merely an honorable mention and there was NO throng of people looking for signatures. I didn't give out a single card at the convention. To say I was disappointed was an understatement and what I was expecting to be an excellent promotional opportunity turned out to be a complete dud.

3. The author interview, podcast blurb and advertising on Goodreads and Facebook garnered some fair attention, though I can't say how much they contributed to my success this week.

4. www.ebookbooster.com
- Really not sure what to say about this, as I didn't have time, or take, the time to check the sites it requested advertising for to see if they listed my book's free promotion. I got over a dozen confirmations from different sites saying they had received the requests. Some of those I expected not to make it on, as they required books to be 4 stars or better on Amazon and mine is currently sitting pretty at an even 3. I'm also aware that a lot of the free promotional sites require two weeks or more to consider the book, and all the confirmations I received were on the Wednesday before the free weekend. I would consider the effectiveness of this suspect for now, but I would be willing to give it one more chance considering how cheap and time-saving it was to use.

5. Free Weekend.
- Last of all is the final tally. The free promotion for which I worked to wrangle all these attentions for. Over a span of 48 hours during which my book was free for download on Kindle, I managed just 99 downloads. I didn't even break 100 over a two-day span. Wow. Ouch.

Don't feel bad. I had a 2 day free promo for Junie Moon Rising this month and I SPENT $160 for promotional advertising and only got 145 downloads. That's the most effort I've ever spent for the lowest returns. I have never before had less than 500 downloads. Are people sick of free books?

The time of year may be a factor, as I said, it is Memorial Day weekend, people are traveling, having BBQ's, out and about, not really paying attention to the internet. On top of that, it's graduation time so lots of families are spending on graduation gifts and spending time focused on that. At least that's what I hope is going on. My only other scapegoat is my book's current rating. :-/

June wrote: "Are people sick of free book?"

No, they're not.

But many factors influence the uptake of freebies - from genre, ratings, snappy cover art and a blurb that grabs people's attention.

I have a friend who writes contemp romance, her last freebie she had in excess of 30,000 downloads over a couple of days, which then spilled over into paid sales, when her free period ended.

I hear ya Shaun, sometimes you wonder what certain things you do are even worth it for your work and what will pay off in the end.

I write memoir which does not sell as well as fantasy or romance. I feel like putting it under fiction to get more attention. So many memoirs these days are about the author's tragedy. Of course, I won't do that, even though my memoir reads like fiction - despite the temptation

I've done interviews, blog posts, created and posted threads on here, promoted on fb and other sites, purchased a showcase on IndieTribe and just got my book featured in Sanitarium Magazine, its been a month my books been out and im yet to generate a single sale...i know its still early but i was expecting something after a month. You'd think with 233 people adding to read your book on here that someone would be really interested..

Justin have you considered re-thinking your pricing strategy? My published had a sale, dropped my novel to $0.99 and it catapulted me to #1 on Amazon's Top 100 Steampunk list.
Once you have visibility & some traction, maybe you could lift your price back to $4.99? Just an idea :)

A.W. What is Steampunk?
I thought of dropping to $0.99 but they take 0.25 and if the royalty is only 35%, you would have to sell tens of thousands. (Which is of course the goal.)
Also, I've read that it is sometimes difficult to sell once you return the price to normal.

Yes, Amazon take a higher percentage at $0.99, but if you're sales are zero at a higher price, you are no further ahead in the game :)

When I dropped to $0.99 we did it for 3 days, which was sufficient to push my ranking up and give me visibility. Then the price returned to normal and sales have continued.

By doing a short term price drop, you also qualify to advertise with a number of sites who promote discounted sales, which again, hopefully, drives more readers to discover your books.

There are 8,000,000 titles on Amazon, and we all struggle with the same problem, how to attract readers. You need to look at the long term picture of how to build readership. A number of successful authors have book 1 in a series pernamently free, as a tool to hook readers, who then come back to purchase subsequent books.

And to answer you initial question - steampunk is kind of Victorian science fiction/alternate history :)

Thanks for that answer. I did not realize there were as many as 8 million books. Thought it was half that and the numbers do keep growing as every aspiring writer puts their work out there. Guess I'm lucky to average about a 200,000 rating - although I'm far from satisfied with that.
I may try the 0.99 but if so, I will do it for a month and evaluate the results.
Sharing thoughts with others here is a big help.

I think people are still into free books. I had a 4 day free promo last week, and had over 7000 downloads, without paying for any promotion. I put a few hints and tips on what I think contributed to my success (which was way better than my last promotion) on my blog at www.rinellegrey.com, if you are interested. I do write romance, which helps, but blended with sci-fi, which I think does put some people off, so I'm really happy with how it went. Seeing some post promotion sales, will see how they go over time though.

Your blog is informative Rinelle, and I've signed up to follow your posts. Now, back to free promos.
On one earlier 3 day promo I received 9,200 downloads so I do not know why I only had 145 on this month's promo.
Maybe it was because it is a sequel and they don't like the cover as much. Maybe it is because it, being new, has only 3 reviews.
As good as your post on the subject is, I have not found the answer. Which leads me to believe there is a certain amount of luck involved.

This might be a helpful read for those thinking about book promotions. Certainly made me think twice.

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?p=7938

I'm new to publishing and self-publishing, so I decided to launch my book, Dancing With Tulips, on one marketplace. I chose Amazon because the research said they 60% of the market, and then there was the lure of the Prime exposure...a rotten carrot overall.

So far I've used two free promo days, didn't know what to expect, and got 230 downloads. That was the weekend of 18th. Since then, another author told me she had 15,000 in her promo days. She's much more visible across multiple social media; I'm still making the snail look like a gazelle in that regard.

I read an article recently, I think it was by Mark Coker, and one of the issues is pricing. My book is set at $3.99 and by the article it seems to be a good decision.

People are looking for quality reading, and will pay for it, and there is a perceived value issue in play.

One reason why I wanted to start with only one venue was to keep things simple and treat it as a learning experience, and I've learned a lot.

Now I'm waiting patiently for my 90 day sentence to end...today I sold one copy of my book and move up over 300,000 notches!

I'd love some advice on what do to over the next 30 days in terms of getting some awareness. The most frustrating aspect for me is finding places to get reviewed...what a huge bottleneck! On top of that, there is a bias against e-book only authors, although I can appreciate that to a certain extent.

June, my guess is that you may be reaching much of the same people with your announcement of the second promo?

I have heard anecdotal evidence that repeating a free promo does not generate the same response, perhaps it is the law of diminishing returns?

June, what genre are you writing? Not all genres sell the same, and you can't compare apples to oranges when looking at the success of others.

The target audience will impact the level of sales. I write steampunk which is a niche market, and will never propel me to the best seller lists. Alternatively, NA contemp romance is burning up the charts at the moment. I know NA writers who are in the tens of thousands with their free promos and selling several thousands of copies over a short time frame. It's simply where that market is at the moment.

Ultimately I think the best thing to do is to keep writing. Although a few authors will make it big with one book, for most of us we need a catalog of work, with each title contributing to our monthly total :)

Thanks A.W. and Lawrence. The same thing crossed my mind about a second promo reaching the same audience. I am going to work on that.
My genre is memoir which is not the hottest...even though mine is NOT about surviving illness or child abuse as so many are.
Target audience does seem to be the thing but I have not yet learned how to 'target the audience'.

Hi June, that is a strange term isn't it? I mean, I want my audience to be with me, not to shoot them . . . nasty reviewers, well, hmmm!

You know, I have an MBA in marketing, and all I can tell you is that when it comes to the web, target marketing is very exasperating. It's a totally different thing doing it on one's own, with very limited resources, compared to at the very least having a substantial marketing budget, and that's much more than advertising.

Being able to put your fans into identifiable groups is only one step, but from there I suppose it takes a little creativity.

The one solid bit of advice I can give you is that a mailing list of fans of your previous books is your biggest asset. If you have such a list, I wouldn't hesitate to reach out to them with your predicament...if it's genuine, it won't be viewed as spamming.

When I worked at Reader's Digest, one thing I learned about direct marketing is that the most important part of a direct mail package is what was referred to as the "product letter".

This letter is very much a sales tool, but when done well, it is also written very much like a personal letter. Perhaps that is why some very renown writers began in advertising, especially in direct marketing.

I wish you well.

Thank you, Lawrence.

You're welcome, though I don't see that I'm much help. Given your past experiences, I would think you would do incredibly well with your memoirs. I'm really surprised your story hasn't been gobbled up by a major publisher, but then again, I'm not surprised.

Just the other day I watched a movie about Hemingway and Gellhorn. I'd never heard of her before, and by the time the film was over, she seemed much more interesting than he...I suppose that's the problem with being Ernest!

As Martha Gellhorn has been on my mind the past few days, your bio on here reminded me of her in a way.

Shaun wrote: "So, coming up in the next two weeks is the biggest push I'll probably ever get for any of my books. The list so far reads thusly.

1. It will be free to download for the Kindle the weekend of the 2..."

Sorry I didn't catch this earlier.

Discoverability is more important than marketing, to be honest. And, IMO, you've kind of shot yourself in the foot by going with KDP-S in that regard; no one who uses Nook or Kobo can discover you and buy your book for their reader. (BTW, Kobo is the fastest-growing reader abroad.)

I think you have a good list of tools overall. Be sure to do guest blogging and such if you aren't already; social media won't result in huge additional sales, but it will result in additional exposure.

I would recommend coming up with a branding statement. I taught a class on this over the weekend, and it was very popular: a lot of authors don't seem to have considered who they are writing for or what they are promising them. They say things, when asked for their elevator speech, like "I want to be the next [insert name here]." Well, how does that encourage the reader to check you out if you're just aping someone else instead of developing your own niche?

Think of it like this: who you are + what you create + who your audience is + your claim/promise. How can you fill in those blanks to create a branding statement that explains who you are, who your readers are, and what they'll get from you?

Once you develop that sentence, plaster it in the "about" sections of your social media, at the bottom of your press releases ... you get the idea.

Sharon, thank you!! You supplied the key element for the author bio I've been struggling to reshape before the publication of my new book. I don't know if I followed your formula correctly, but that branding statement is now my opening. Whew! I know it's going to prove very useful for me. Here's what I came up with by doing exactly as you suggested:

"Lianne Downey writes books for spiritual truthseekers that help them speed up their personal evolution of Consciousness."

And from there, the rest of the bio magically sorted itself into a much better flow than my week of effort had yielded. I can't thank you enough!!!

I tried a free giveaway for a short story on Amazon and snagged a few hundred downloads globally, but I don't know if it increased novel sales. After a year of experimenting with all sorts of promotions short of paid advertising, I decided my best time and money investment would be to finish writing the book I'm about to publish, to add weight to my "assets" in the marketplace. I stopped all promotions meanwhile, mostly because I couldn't manage to do both!

I'm about to dive into it again, so thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

Lianne wrote: "Sharon, thank you!! You supplied the key element for the author bio I've been struggling to reshape before the publication of my new book. I don't know if I followed your formula correctly, but tha..."

I am so glad that I was able to help! And yes, your branding statement is *exactly* what I'm talking about.

Shaun wrote: "Well, thanks for the kind words. Officially, I suppose you could say the big push starts today.

Love seeing how you posted a list. I've been working on my marketing plan too

I'm sorry you didn't have much luck with your free promo. We just ran one for one of the Summer Reading List winners - Lex Allen yesterday. We got 1500 downloads and 9 purchases in 24 hours. He made #3 in his primary genre and #10 in his secondary genre. #191 was his highest ranking overall. We did not PAY for any promotions. This was solely via our efforts on social media.

Did you work on building up your promotion over the several weeks BEFORE your push via social media? A lot hinges on a good book cover also. A professionally designed cover can really stop people in their tracks. How many reviews does your book have?

There are a lot of factors that contribute to a successful promotion and much of it has to do with preparedness and professionalism.

Good luck on your next promotion!
Tiffani Hollis
www.AmpersandH.com