Modern Good Reads discussion

Authors, do you have top tips that work for you? Let everyone know what they are (unless they are your eleven herbs and spices). What hasn't worked or isn't worth the trouble. Let's talk building your marketing campaign. Looking forward to all the great ideas.

I have found that I really don't do many sales through social media. However, I do believe that I am making impressions and they say that it takes at least seven impressions to make a sale.

My best marketing tool has been finding real life events to work in. I've done everything from local signings at the bookstore to charity auctions for local churches, working with scouts. In September I will be going to my biggest event yet, Geex con in SLC and I am super excited! This is the first time that I have had to pay out prior to the signing (renting a booth) Hopefully I will make my money back!

So far what has worked best for me has been selling my books alongside library booksales. Although I have sold anywhere from nothing to seven books (seven is my best selling record of all time which I have hit twice, once at the library and once at a charity event), it doesn't cost me anything to be there.
I also do a lot of craft/vendor shows. With these I sell as well as I do when I am at the library with the differences being that I usually have to pay for table space and for many I have had to donate a basket for Chinese raffles. Only once did I ever make over the amount I spent on my table, and twice I have made back my money. For most of these, they have been worth attending because they at least do the job of getting the book out there, and at my first craft/vendor show I met someone who was part of a networking group which I later joined and have sold books to them and made more contacts through them than anywhere else which has led to more sales later.
I haven't sold any books online, other than to a few libraries and a teacher of mine, so all of my sales have been through attending events, and a few books sold through family members telling people about it, as well as one that was sold by the owner of the barn I ride at who keeps copies to sell in the tack shop.
So far I did a Goodreads giveaway which got me some reviews but no sales and no reviews from my true target audience. Before I joined Goodreads and found out it was a bad idea I did a Facebook ad which got me a lot of page likes but no sales. I have joined all the main social network sites, which only Twitter seems to be the most active as far as getting followers, my Facebook author page is second, my books Facebook page is third, then Goodreads, next is Google +, and last is Pinterest. Although I keep trying to post fun things besides my book stuff, these pages rarely get any interaction. I even did several polls which got no votes so I'm not really sure if my pages are doing any good. I just have nothing to go on here.
My website doesn't even appear to be selling books, although it does get visitors. On my site I have put information about ever book in my series, not just the first one which is currently out, I have my about the author section, a meet the characters section, a free to read story, a link to 3 different book excerpts, links to interviews with my characters, a page dedicated to the animals who have inspired characters in my books, links to buy my book, book reviews, and more. As far as I am aware my website was only responsible for my selling of 1 book.
I have an author blog which blogs about things related to me and my books occasionally and other times posts book reviews of books I have read, interviews I have given authors, and random stuff too. So far I have only had the smallest bit of interaction on my posts and while it has led to a few people visiting my website over time, it hasn't helped sales any.
I have also taken several author interviews and have done things on other people's blogs, had my book on a few websites that promote indie authors, and without sales I can't tell if any of it is doing anything so I don't know if any of this has helped or not.
Of course, I will probably have better luck selling once my book is in eBook format, which will be happening very shortly. As of now my book has only been available in print and for all I know this is what some people have been waiting for.

I am interested in this topic and would love to contribute, but still learning here. I guess I have had some success in establishing the quality of my book (getting independent bloggers and reviewers through Goodreads to check it out and review it), but I haven't had much luck determining how to sell the thing. Hopefully, I am building a good reputation with a solid first book and praying more books and word of mouth will do the rest. Heidi, I am curious about the renting a table idea - thinking about doing it at a horror festival. I think I will promote a lot more once I have a lot more to promote.

Jason, not a bad plan. As for renting a table, I am attending SLC's Comic con. I plan on having a wide variety of merchandise such as bookmarks, jewelry designed from my book, stakes (I wrote a vampire hunter book!) and I am trying to get some of my other authors to participate. One of my authors wrote a sci-fi series that is based on his son. In the book, the main character is part of a band. Guess who's son's band just released his first album. Yup, hope to sell those there too!

If you don't have other merch, and only have one book, it is a pretty big risk just as Jennifer said. That is why I have waited so long to do it. But con folks save up to spend money on cool stuff. They love being the first to "find" something new and cool, and they love having the merchandise. As long as your prices are reasonable and you have a good range of prices. (My book marks will be a dollar, the stakes will be thirty dollars) then you will get people who "need" to spend their last little bit on anything even remotely cool! Will definitely let you know how it goes after Sept!

Book blogs are a great way to start building a good reputation, and most will do e-books so that is a nice win/win if you have smashwords e-books and create a coupon for it.

As for advertising, I have tried ads on Linkedin, Google Adsense, and another one (see how impressive it was, I can't even remember it!) because I got the $50 free stuff. None have amounted to anything worth anything.

Indie publishing is a grass roots effort, and it takes time. Keep writing, keep publishing, keep getting reviews and eventually *fingers crossed* eventually it will all pay off!

I agree with all the previous comments. My main promotion area is twitter and although it has brought me a few sales of ebooks it is a trickle rather than a flood. I recently did a book event at a local library (see website http://www.sherrielowe.co.uk/book-eve... )and got three or four downloads from that. I think maybe if an event was held say at a city library it might be more productive. I also sold my series of three books at a promotional price, more to publicize my name than for profit. I find attending events in the flesh difficult as I have a health problem and getting anywhere is very hit and miss. I'm hoping to get some tips here on online promotion.

I recently bought a book called How To Market Your Self Published Book Online by Greg Spence http://www.amazon.co.uk/Market-Your-S... I am only a little way into it but it seems as though it might be helpful. If anyone else has any good tips I'd be very grateful.

Something I wouldn't do again is to exhibit in book fairs. I've exhibited both last year and this in The London Book Fair and also in last year's Frankfurt Book Fair and had absolutely no response so I've wasted several hundred pounds.

I think that the price of a self published paperback is not competitive with well known authors who are traditionally published and are able to sell their books for under £5.

At present the odds seem to be stacked against indie authors but I do think that it is the way forward. Traditional publishers have had it their own way for too long and now it is time for the reading public to choose for themselves what they want to read rather than have someone else's opinion decide for them. Since buying a kindle I have only downloaded indie authors and some of them have been superb, far superior to some of the rubbish that is published traditionally, which quite frankly I've wondered what on earth a publisher has seen remotely interesting about them.

I think we will get there in the end but it is a matter of finding a way to get our names known. Any tips welcome!

I had a great month in April, and I still haven't figured out why. This month is the usual trickle instead. ::shrug::

Can relate to the usual trickle :( Bring on the flood I say!!!

Really encouraging Donna, thank you!

I recently found out that Amazon is a beast made of algorithms! I have a kindle version and paperback version of my book on Amazon. First of you need to send people to your book so amazon sees it. You do this by gifting from amazon to reviewer and then you find some silly competition to get people to go and log on to amazon and go look up your book. The more this happens the better you do. Then secondly and more importantly is you get reviews posted same deal as above but with the added weight of a review. Amazon only starts to promote after you hit 50 reviews.

Maryann,

I don't have anywhere near fifty reviews on Amazon for The Hunters, but I ended up in the Urban Fantasy recommendations e-mail two different weeks. One week was right after Kobe and Itunes posted it, the other was after a bunch of bookstores all over the world started listing the paperback in their on-line orders (thanks to that $25 extra I paid with createspace ;) )
Interestingly, their promotion did not seem to directly impact sales either.

I've given up trying to figure out Amazon's analytics. I just do everything I can to get my book out there on as many platforms as possible, and get as many quality reviews through bloggers (many of which will go and post reviews on GR, B & N, Amazon and Shelfari as well as running it in their blog.)

I spend more time marketing on-line, but have found that my promotion work in real life has a bigger direct impact on sales than the work I do online. I'd like to think it is my shining personality ;) but I suspect it is simply harder to say no to a real person with a real product right there in front of you, than to skip a review, ignore a tweet, or bypass a facebook post.

I paid for the extra distribution on CreateSpace also but didn't see anything from it. I only once got my book on the Top 100 Free list for Amazon but that was because I listed the book for free for one day. I'm all about getting my books out there, I just hate "giving" them away. I have been told recently to try library book signings, but since I had never heard of them before I wasn't sure how well they'd go over.

Libraries can be tricky. If you can offer something unique (who would think that offering readers a chance to meet a writer would not be unique! ) then they tend to be more open to having you. I lived in an area with a lot of self pubbers and my local library would not even call me back with the offer of a free book to stock their shelves!

I have had two free promotions by way of KDP Select on my first book. The first promotion (three days) had a little over 7,000 downloads, and the second (the remaining two days) had around 4,000 downloads. It went to #39 in Kindle Free the first time, and #42 the second. I didn't actually see a sharp rise in sales afterward, but I went onto a largely expanded "Also Bought" list--over twenty-five pages, and that has been responsible for stable sales for both my first two books of a series, and a jump in reviews. I recommend KDP Select, at least one 90-day period, for anyone seeking to bump their book's visibility. If you have more than one, keeping one on KDP Select, and utilizing the free Kindle promotion effectively, will cause cross sales to your other books. It did mine. I subscribe to Joe Konrath's method of self-publishing promotion and use of KDP Select, even if for only one cycle. Here's the link to his ongoing blog about achieving success in self-publishing, and he is himself very successful at it:

A Newbie's Guide to Publishing--Joe Konrath

I don't have a paperback print version of my book yet, so I have to rely on the Internet to market Capital D. Since I can only do so much, I have focused my efforts on helping other authors promote their books. So far that has given me a great deal of exposure on my blog, but I am dying to find a way to really boost my sales outside of the social networks. Joining book clubs and online reader forums have not proved to be any more successful than social networks including Goodreads. Any more ideas?

I have to say I've had some wonderful luck reaching readers through social media. Right here on Goodreads, being part of the right groups, ones tailored to your genre helps. And I can't discount FB and Twitter either. I've had readers respond to my posts letting me know they've purchased because of interesting tidbits I've posted. And of course, social media allows me to keep in touch with those readers, to read what they think, and to promote my next books to them. I couldn't live without my social media! :)

Like most people so far I have found social media produces a trickle of sales at best. The most effective way to sell my book is talking to people. I managed to get my book, The Viking's Apprentice, into schools by talking to teachers. I went to my first book festival and sold out in 90 minutes through engaging with people and talking to them about my book, it's genre and why I wrote it. My next task is to talk to the local councils and get my book into libraries. I have also agreed to do a radio interview with an american station and to attend Scout meetings to talk to them. If you choose to self publish you need to self promote and in my experience people respond better face to face than via social media.

I think that the promotion is harder than writing the book! I think like Kevin that face to face is more productive. I've only sold a trickle through social media. I did find though that face to face selling paperback books, as a necessity they are more expensive than books produced by the big publishing houses so I sold them at a loss. I have donated books to libraries to help build up a readership but I don't know how you'd get feedback from that.

I paid a lot for a blog tour which helped me get some amazon reviews (since several of the reviewers chose to put their reviews on amazon too) but I don't think it impacted sales to the degree I hoped. Still, it helped me connect with some bloggers and readers.

There are several promotions you can participate in. Come to https://www.facebook.com/pages/Publis... and participate. Please read the instructions carefully so the site will remain organized. As these fill up, more promotions will be started. Be sure to check out the Mother's Day promo.
Bonnie Ferrante