Sell

Articles about book / author promotion and marketing, and author platform.

Publishing and Bad Publishing Are Not the Same Thing: A Publisher's Response to "An Agent's Manifesto"

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This post, by Peter Ginna, originally appeared on Dr. Syntax on 4/1/12.

The London agent Jonny Geller stirred up a lot of discussion, and a flurry of Twittering, by posting “An Agent’s Manifesto” a week or so ago. Jonny contended that in the “maelstrom” of the current book business, authors are being forgotten, taken for granted by booksellers and, in particular, by publishers. The original post seems now to be behind a paywall but it’s extensively quoted here and here. He writes:

The author is not an object which a publisher has to step over in order to achieve a successful publication. If they have a problem with the cover, blurb, copy or format, then something isn’t right…Remember, we don’t have a job without [the author]. For those of us still working in the legacy business of publishing books, here’s a reminder of the primary mover in this chain.

A great many people retweeted his column or commented on it using words like “fantastic.” And his dim view of publishers was echoed elsewhere. At her blog, the novelist and ghostwriter Roz Morris had even more negative opinions of my colleagues:

It is common, behind the scenes, to hear editors talk about authors with undisguised loathing – not just individual ones who may be difficult, but all of them, authors as a breed. There is a culture that authors must not be listened to.

I have to say that I don’t buy these generalizations about our business.

I have worked at publishers large and small–two Big Six houses, a literary indie, a university press, and currently a house I’d describe as mid-size. Never, ever, at any of them, have I heard authors discussed with “loathing.” At all of them it was fully understood by editors, marketers, and management that the author is, in Jonny’s words, “the primary mover” in the publishing firmament. The whole enterprise would not exist without authors. To put it another way, as one of my colleagues says, “the author is our customer.” I simply don’t know anyone in publishing who thinks of an author as “an object we have to step over to achieve a successful publication.”

At Bloomsbury, we regard the author as a key partner in marketing the book, because as Jonny correctly observes, “the author is the expert” on the subject, setting, and likely readership of her book. We want to tap into that expertise, and use the author to help mobilize the networks of readers who are going to respond to what she’s doing.

 

Read the rest of the post on Dr. Syntax.
 

A Sentimental Education: Sex and the Literary Writer

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This post, by Julia Fierro, originally appeared on The Millions on 3/27/13. NOTE: this piece contains explicit language.

In writing my first novel, Cutting Teeth, when I got to the first scene that demanded dramatized sex — action, sound, smell, taste, the works — I paused. The word that made me lift my fingers from the keyboard was “clitoris.” Was it okay to use this word? What would my fellow literary writers, my former teachers and classmates at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop think of me? I laughed at my insecurity, although part of me loathed my hesitation. Of course it was okay. It’s just a body part, I told myself. I had the same reaction in the other sex scenes I wrote — most involved a man and a woman, one two women. Nipples. Cock. Dick. Balls. Even typing these words now gives me a shiver of fear, as if the literary gods will strike me dead, or brandish me with a scarlet S for writing not only bad sex, but any sex at all.

Today, sex is everywhere — on TV, our computers, even our phones. But in the last two years, since Fifty Shades of Grey became the fastest-selling paperback of all time, the jaws of literary writers have dropped, their shock over the book’s success, despite its unliterary style, echoing over the Twitter-waves. Part of me wants to say I was one of them — if only to be included in their elite ranks — but I wasn’t that surprised. I haven’t forgotten the lusty attraction of my grandmother’s paperback romances, which, as a pre-teen, I had secreted away to read at night by flashlight.

Long before I thought of myself as a writer, I was a reader. I grew up in a house of few books — my father’s set of encyclopedias in his native Italian and a handful of history books left over from my mother’s college education. My mother has a Masters in Education, but she hasn’t read a book in decades. My father was hungry for knowledge, but struggled to read our middle school science and social studies textbooks, the basic English too much of a challenge.

As a child, books were a magical distraction from my anxiety — what, 20 years later would be diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive disorder. At school, every real-life, real-time decision — who to befriend, who to avoid — carried an infinite possibility of catastrophe, but I was safe when living inside a book. The day came when it seemed as if I’d read every book in our small school library, and the librarian was at a loss for suggestions that were age-appropriate. This was the mid-1980s, years before the YA market exploded. I needed the imagined life books gave me — without them it seemed as if real life lost its luster.

I stole one of my grandmother’s Danielle Steel novels. I don’t remember the title, only the pearlescent cover’s gold-embossed cursive that promised diamonds, high heels, and Farah Fawcett-hair — a glimpse into a dramatic adult world. What I do remember are the sex scenes. I replaced the book the next week and stole off with another, and so on, until I had read all in my grandmother’s collection. Those books taught me so much — that you could have sex standing up or even underwater in a pool! Along with the sex came emotion. These men and women were brazenly sentimental, confessing passion, hatred, and envy, and that melodrama kept me glued to the page.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Millions.

10 Winning Marketing Strategies for Your Self-Published Book

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This post, by Robert Bidinotto, originally appeared on his site. on 3/17/13.

Some time ago, I published a piece telling aspiring authors “Ten Reasons You Should Skip Traditional Publishers and Self-Publish Ebooks Instead.” Yet despite the clear advantages of “indie” over “traditional” publishing, the prospect of “DIY” publishing still scares the hell out of many writers. Their most common worry?

“But…how would I market my book on my own?”

That fear is the main reason why so many hold out forever for a traditional contract, then accept lousy ones. They want a publisher to take the burden of marketing off their backs.

Well, let me share a dirty little secret that publishers don’t want newbie authors to know. Despite all their advance promises to give you lots of promotional support, they mostly will leave the marketing of your book up to you.

That’s right: They save their promotional budgets for King, Evanovich, and Grisham—not for struggling beginners or “mid-listers.” So, if you’ll have to promote your book all by yourself anyway, then why surrender most of your royalties and rights to a publisher?

Still, the question remains: How do you market a self-published book?

I spent a long time studying the promotional methods of successful self-published authors before I released my debut thriller, HUNTER. And, as I have described here, their tips helped HUNTER to become a big bestseller in December 2011.

I learned that becoming a successful “indie” author requires two basic things. First, you must craft a book that appeals to an identified target audience. Second, you must make your book “discoverable” to that target audience.

Let me explain what that means, in ten steps:

1. Write the best book you can—then, write your next one.

Crafting an appealing book is 90% of the marketing battle. No amount of marketing ingenuity will help an unappealing book succeed. On the other hand, I’ve seen great books succeed with little or no marketing push. (Hugh Howey’s Wool is an outstanding example.)

Bottom line: Good “word-of-mouth” is the best advertising.

In addition to writing a good book, the next best marketing tactic is to write more good books. Each new title will broaden your name recognition and generate more sales for all your previous ones. That’s because many readers are “binge readers.” They find an author they like, and they then seek out and scoop up every single title that the author has written previously.

Even better, write a series. Books linked together by some connecting theme (think of John Gray’s “Mars and Venus” books), or by some appealing character (think: Harry Potter, Jack Reacher, Stephanie Plum, Tarzan, Sherlock Holmes, Mitch Rapp, Mike Hammer, Scot Harvath, Sean Dillon, Spenser, Elvis Cole, Joe Pike, etc., etc.), will foster a virtual addiction in your fans, who will then eagerly await the publication date for every new installment in the series. Better yet, each new book released will attract new fans, prompting them to go back and buy all the prior books in the series. That’s how bestselling authors expand their audience over time, often geometrically.

 

Read the rest of the post on Robert Bidinotto’s site.

A Perspective On Early Success in Publishing

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I was talking to a friend who was becoming frustrated by all these authors who seem to have only one or two books out and their books are selling like crazy. Or friends of hers [whose] debut books are getting these really big deals with major publishers. And she’s feeling down about it.

So I wanted to talk about this topic because I know a lot of my fellow writers feel this way, and I’ve felt like this too before. I’m not immune to the frustration.

So here we go:

[Publetariat Editor’s Note: strong language after the jump]

You do not know another author’s history. You don’t know how many books they wrote before they published one. You also don’t know a debut author is really a debut author. They may have 50 titles out under other pen names. Whether readers know it or not, and they have the finances from other books to help them launch this one. They have more contacts to help them promote their book. They know what works and doesn’t work for them to get the exposure they need. They know their pricing strategy. They are bringing a LOT to the table that they’ve learned from their previous pen name incarnations.

Most people who “hit big” have put in the time. They have their million words under their belt. They’ve practiced. They’ve learned their craft. In short, they have earned their success.

However, some people will inexplicably hit big with the first book they ever wrote. It may even have a ton of typos. You may think it sucks. But for whatever inexplicable reason it seems to sell like gangbusters.

Everybody thinks they want to be this person. But unless you are E.L. James and become literally rich over a few books, and movies are gonna get made, you do not want “early success” as an author.

One of the worst things that can happen to your career is to sell the shit out of book 1. I know that sounds crazy to you, but let me explain why.

The general public is fickle, they are forgetful, and they have a constant barrage of “bright shiny” in front of them 24/7. (Which explains the other two things.)

If you have one book out, readers who love you right now may or may not even remember you when book 2 comes out.

Early success, unless it is epic is rarely a great thing. And if it’s epic… and you had early success before you put in your million words or 10,000 hours for mastery, then the pressure of continuing to please your readers on book 2 or 3 is something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Unless YOU feel you’ve reached some level of mastery/competence, it’s going to be hell writing all those other books with so many eyes on you waiting.

Margaret Mitchell never wrote another book after Gone With The Wind because she said she “couldn’t top the damn thing.”

Now you know why there are so many “one hit wonders”.

So… what do you want? What do you really want? Here is the best possible scenario in my personal opinion. Your mileage may vary, this is just how *I* see the world:

You write a ton of books, each getting better and stronger than the last. You build a consistent and loyal fan base. Your 20th or 25th book hits BIG.

And then?

All your new slobbering fans have 19-24 other books to read. They will not forget you. You can actually retain those readers.

How many readers do you think you retain if you hit big with book one or two and it takes you 8 months or a year to get the next book out? You can’t write fast enough to keep their attention. Trust me.

Not in the Twitter age.

Think about it.

I speak as someone who had a little bit of “too early success”, but not enough to tip me over into the super safe nearly famous zone.

It makes it more difficult when things slow down a little and you have to start building that net underneath you of backlist.

In fact, today it occurred to me… if I don’t count my short story and I don’t count individual novellas but instead just count the omnibus since it’s “book 1″, I only really have 5 titles out for Zoe. And only 6 for Kitty.

I have a LOT of work ahead of me. Because when I do write that book that mass quantities of people slobber over and miss meals and bathroom breaks for… I want them to have PLENTY of other books by me to read… so I can retain them as a fan for life.

I’m in this for the long haul, and I’m in it to win it. But it’s a marathon, not a sprint.

 

This is a reprint from The Weblog of Zoe Winters.

Are African Writers And Readers Ready For The eBook Revolution?

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This guest post, by Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima (with an introduction by Joanna Penn), originally appeared on Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn on 3/23/13.

This week, the “father of African literature’ Chinua Achebe died, leaving behind a legacy for Nigerian authors. Today I welcome another Nigerian author Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima to discuss the outlook for ebooks in Africa.

Ebook sales are stabilizing in the US and UK, but the rest of the world is out there waiting for our books!

Those of us who can price reasonably, to take into account exchange rate differences, can potentially build a fan-base in countries that may be surprising to some.

Nigeria is one of the fastest growing emerging economies, and with the prevalence of cellphones in Africa it may become a fantastic new market in the next few years, even though there are still challenges right now.

Ebooks are outselling paperback and hardcover books in America and Europe, but not yet in Africa.

Today, Nigerian author and blogger Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima will tell you why the story is different in Africa.

Ebooks are not popular among writers and readers in my country Nigeria, and the rest of Africa, even though millions of people have been using email over the years and are now engaging in daily conversations on popular social network sites like Facebook and Twitter.

The majority of Africans are still living according to the standards of the last century, writing long hand and either paying for word processing or slowly doing so themselves on their desktops or laptops. The exception would be the African writers based in the U.S., UK and other developed societies who have to use the tools their peers are using in the 21st century. South Africa is ahead of Nigeria and other African countries in using smart phones and tablets but only got her first ebook store, Kalahari, in 2010, but the ebooks are overpriced for the rest of the continent.

Why is the penetration of ebooks challenging right now?

Generally, from South Africa to Nigeria, the two main challenges of ebooks are:

  • low level of bandwidth and the low capacity of the data cables making the access to broadband expensive and unavailable to the majority of the populations.

But in spite of the low internet penetration in Africa, there is only one choice left for the majority who are still crawling and lagging behind, if we cannot beat them, we have to join them.

And that is why I give a thumbs up to David Risher who has launched Worldreader to take “1 million e-books to children in the largely English-speaking countries of Ghana, Uganda, and Kenya” and has raised a total of $1.5 million to fund his digital literature revolution in sub-Saharan Africa.

“David is pushing a fundamental conversation: How do you create a culture of reading in a place that hasn’t had one?” said Anne Marie Burgoyne, Managing Director of Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation that supported Worldreader with $300,000 last September.

Is indie publishing the future?

 

Read the rest of the post on Joanna Penn’s The Creative Penn.

Facebook Followed You To The Supermarket

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This post, by Farhad Manjoo, originally appeared on Slate on 3/20/13. While it focuses on consumer products like detergent, authors who use, or are considering, Facebook ads should read it.

Even if you never click on Facebook ads, they are making you buy things.

This is a story about advertising on the Web. Specifically, it’s about ads on Facebook, a hugely popular free service that’s supported solely through advertising, yet is packed with users who are actively hostile to the idea of being marketed to on their cherished social network. Considering all of this, the best place to start is with your primary concern about Web ads. This is what I hear from readers every time I write about the online ad economy, especially ads on Facebook: “I don’t know how Facebook will ever make any money—I never click on Web ads!”

And that’s not all. You’ve checked with your friends and relatives. No one you know has ever intentionally clicked on a Web ad. OK, once, years ago, a co-worker told you about a guy who knows a guy who tapped an ad on his phone. True story! But don’t worry. People close to the situation dismissed it as a one-time deal. The guy wasn’t trying to tap the ad; he just had really fat fingers. He felt really bad about it afterward, too.

So, the question persists: How does Facebook expect to become a huge business if most people you know never click on ads?

The answer is surprisingly obvious. It’s a fact well-known to advertisers, though it’s not always appreciated by people who use Facebook or even by folks in the Web ad business: Clicks don’t matter. Whether you know it or not—even if you consider yourself skeptical of marketing—the ads you see on Facebook are working. Sponsored messages in your feed are changing your behavior—they’re getting you and your friends to buy certain products instead of others, and that’s happening despite the fact that you’re not clicking, and even if you think you’re ignoring the ads.

This isn’t conjecture. It’s science. It’s based on a remarkable set of in-depth studies that Facebook has conducted to show whether and how its users respond to ads on the site.

 

Read the rest of the post on Slate.

Socially Awkward – Why Your Online Friends Don’t Buy Your Book

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This post, by Catherine Tosko, originally appeared on The Self-Publishing Review on 3/19/13.

I have, apparently, 539 friends. Facebook tells me so.

I have a fan page for my book, with over 1000 likes. My Twitter is a healthy 600 odd and I have over 50 mentions on Google for the title. But you see, I know that not everyone rushed over to Amazon and picked up their copy the day it went on sale. I know this because I sold 23 copies on the first day. That was it.

So how the heck do I get every single one of those people to buy a copy of my book? Glibly “liking” my book page seems to be the done thing, a nod to my efforts, and a polite if awkward obligation by passers-by, as if I am at a cocktail party handing out flyers, a scenario something like this:

“Hey guy, do you know about my book? Here’s a flyer!” I cry, with my Facebook page.

This person, an acquaintance from 1997, who mostly likes kittens and memes about feeling positive, is kind of hampered to have to respond, but takes the flyer based on me two years ago, “liking” his band page (terrible band), and says simply ” Um, I’ll check it out.”

This is how my Facebook Likes seem to manifest. They are not what you call ” convertible” , i.e. they do not equate to a sale.

In the same effort, I respond to others. I write them encouraging messages, using emoticons. I hate emoticons. But if someone I think may buy my book, even out of sympathy, if I use them, I am all for the smileys.

Then I have my real life friends and family. Probably about 100 people on there.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Self-Publishing Review.

Authors Unplugged: Smart Book Marketing Includes Going Offline

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Most of us who sell our print books through CreateSpace or other print on demand vendors, and our ebooks through Kindle Direct Publishing or other ebook retailers and distributors, usually focus our marketing online.

This make sense. A lot of business and marketing happens online these days. Many of us are also bloggers with territory staked out in the digital world, and with lots of connections on social media.

In fact, social media marketing is often the beginning and end of authors’ marketing plans. From blog tours to Facebook contests to Pinterest pin parties to online press release distribution, we digital authors attempt to fully exploit the domain in which we operate.

But are you missing something?

Going Offline for Book Marketing
If all the marketing you’re doing is online, you may be missing out on lots of excellent opportunities to market your book.

Remember that our biggest effort in marketing is simply getting our books in front of enough people to give them a chance at success. You can’t get people talking about your book and, hopefully, referring it to other people in true word-of-mouth promotion, if they don’t know it exists and have never seen it. So awareness and exposure are really our biggest goals when we launch a new book.

But there are still lots of ways people get together, network, and learn about new things in the real world.

To help you think about this and get started, here’s a brief list of offline opportunities that might work for you. Even if you only use one of these suggestions, you’ll see results you couldn’t have gotten online.

8 Ideas for Offline Book Marketing for Indie Authors

  1. Print books vs. eBooks—While it’s difficult to sell ebooks at an event or book signing, many people will buy a print book if they see them stacked up in front of them. After all, a book is something you can pick up and handle, and that’s often a powerful buying incentive. Print books also act as mementos of the occasion, or a way to further explore a topic that has ignited your interest.
  2. Social media vs. in-person contact—I love social media and use it every day. But it’s really quite different to have a conversation with a colleague or a reader or a prospective client in person, where the centuries-old conventions of human interaction come into play and the levels of communication are much deeper. If your aim is building trust in your readers, interacting with them at events will be helpful and instructive at the same time. For instance, just recently a friend told me about something that needed to be fixed in one of my products. But I doubt she would have taken the time to write to me about it because messages like that usually seem like complaints. In person, she could deliver the message with exactly the right intonations, smiles, and gestures so the communication was nuanced and effective.
  3. Giving presentations to build your platform—If you become a subject-matter expert, you’ll start to get invitations to speak to groups within your industry or field of study. These are terrific platform-building opportunities. Not only do you get to meet people you may not have known about before, you also get the implicit endorsement of the group that’s putting on the program, as well as the positive expectations attendees at your event will bring with them. Combined with this is the name recognition and awareness you’ll get from the promotion for the event that will reach many more people than will actually attend. (Check out my own appearance schedule.)
  4. Back-of-the-room sales—Did I mention you can sell books at many of these in-person events? Well, you can, and these sales may be your most lucrative. In some cases, you can sell your books for the full retail price, so a $15 book might yield you $12 profit. In other cases, event organizers or bookstore hosts will want a 40-50% discount. But they will handle the sales transactions for you, and people at these events often buy books written by speakers as a way to remember the presentation or the overall experience they had at the event.
  5. Writing for print—Remember newspapers and magazines? They are still out there, and they still have an unending need for good quality content to fill up those pages. For many people, reading an article by you in a respected industry magazine may carry a lot more weight than reading the same story on your blog. Since you’re developing content, submitting story ideas to editors at local papers or trade magazines can only multiply your readers and your exposure.
  6. Offline review media—You undoubtedly included those local papers and trade magazines in your review program, right? You didn’t just rely on bloggers and online media for reviews because you know millions of people rely on these print media to make critical buying decisions and to learn about new trends in culture. Don’t overlook them.
  7. Repurposing your expertise—Some authors have found running live events to be highly profitable. You might write about a subject that lends itself to workshops, where you can teach the same ideas you’ve written about, or try out new ideas to see how they work in the real world. Fiction authors do this, too, leading trips abroad and organizing writing workshops in vacation destinations.
  8. Developing media contacts—Part of your job as an indie publisher is establishing media contacts, too. For fiction authors, this might involve the local papers, where you can expect to find some natural interest. For nonfiction authors there are niche publications or media outlets related to your topic, and if you write on their topic, they’re likely to be open to an approach.

Notice that I haven’t mentioned book launch parties or book signings, traditional events many authors include in their launch planning and which happen offline. But I knew you would think of those yourself.

Where would your offline marketing fit in to your book promotion plan? Or do you have some suggestions I haven’t included? Leave a note in the comments to share it with other authors.

This is a reprint from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

What Should I Do About a Bad Review on Amazon?

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It’s frustrating to get a bad review, but it happens to most authors sooner or later.

My advice for authors is to try not to take it personally and to remember that books (especially fiction) are subjective – some people will love your book and others won’t. And many book buyers realize that most books will have some negative reviews, even if most of them are positive.

If a review contains factual errors (for instance stating that a nonfiction book was missing important information) you can click the “comment” button on the review and leave a note. But be very careful not to sound defensive – just state the facts. (e.g. Perhaps you missed chapter 6 where I discussed that topic in detail.)

If you think a review was really unjustified, you can also click the “no” button next to “Was this review helpful to you?”

If a review violates Amazon’s terms you can ask Amazon to remove it. Amazon will not remove a review simply because it’s unfavorable or you think it’s unfair, but they sometimes remove reviews that are reported for violating their terms.

Also focus on getting more good reviews to offset the bad ones.

And finally, take an objective look at negative reviews and see if there are any legitimate comments that you might use to improve your writing.

For in-depth advice on getting book reviews and profiting from them, see How to Get You Book Reviewed, available in paperback, Kindle, Nook, and PDF format.

 

This is a reprint from Dana Lynn Smith‘s The Savvy Book Marketer.

Don’t Panic: KDP Select Still Works, You Just Might Have To Work It A Little Differently

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I haven’t posted for awhile on any topic, including on indie publishing, but that is because I have been working steadily on writing Bloody Lessons, the third book of my Victorian San Francisco Mystery series (if you want an update on my progress go check out my Facebook page.) I also felt I had pretty much exhausted what I had to say on the ins and outs and pros and cons of using KDP Select.

However, with the change in Amazon’s rules for Associates, a whole discussion has erupted about what this means for indie authors. See this balanced review of some aspects of the discussion. See, in addition, this good overview of the issues around free as a selling strategy and Amazon. One result of this change and subsequent posts about it is I have had a number of requests to comment on whether or not this means that free promotions and KDP Select won’t work as well any more.

The short answer is, how in heaven’s name do I know? But that isn’t very helpful so what I am going to do is remind people what I have written on this subject already, do a brief recap of how my last free promotion went, and try to predict some of the ways in which the most recent changes might require tweaking of my own (and other’s) strategies for using KDP Select. I also decided it was time to publish a list of Promotional Links, which I will try to keep up-to-date.

Posts I have already done:

If you want to know everything I have written on this subject––put “KDP Select” in the search bar at the top of my website. Otherwise, go ahead and click on these posts I have done on selling on Amazon, the importance of Categories, and an update on this post, how to have a successful KDP Select promotion, and factors you should consider when deciding whether or not to enroll in KDP Select.

Update on my most recent KDP Select Promotion:

I put the first book in my series, Maids of Misfortune up for free through KDP Select for three days, February 23-25. This was two months since the last promotion, which was December 29-30 (where I put both of my books up for free). This time I didn’t put Uneasy Spirits up for free, although I did pay for a Digital Book Today 7-day promotion for this book for the week after the Maids of Misfortune promotion was over.

I signed up with eleven sites that promote free books (only two cost anything, Book Goodies and BookBub.) I have been trying to rotate through the free promotion sites with each promotion so as not to saturate their specific markets. Maids hit the magic top 100 Free List by noon the first day at #73. By the end of the first day I had reached #26 in the Free List and had over 8,000 downloads. On the second day, by 3:15 pm, when the BookBub email went out, the book was at #11 In the Free List and already had 22,000 downloads. By the end of day two it was #3 and had 28,000 free downloads. It stayed at #4 throughout the third day, and the total number of free downloads for the promotion was 37,086.

As you can see by the data below––the promotion was successful––in boosting my sales and borrows, even of the book that wasn’t promoted.

Maids of Misfortune / Before / After

Average sales per day (over two weeks) / 7.9 / 77.4

Overall Rank / 20,000s / 2,000s (18 days after)

Uneasy Spirits / Before / After

Average sales per day (over two weeks) / 6.1 / 22.3

Overall Rank / 26,000s / 6,000s (18 days after)

Average Borrows per day (over two weeks)

Both Books combined / 16 / 59.9

The Future of KDP Select:

While I am not clairvoyant, I often pretend I am (something I share with my protagonist in my Victorian San Francisco mysteries), and I will say with some authority that KDP Select will not go away anytime soon, and Amazon will continue to work with and encourage self-published authors. While Amazon may have turned to indie authors (first with KDP, then with KDP Select) because they realized that depending on public domain books and traditional publishers wasn’t working, it was the indie authors themselves who proved to Amazon that they were both an outstanding source of the product Amazon needed and nimble innovators in the rapidly changing world of publishing.

Indie authors not only began to produce books at an amazing rate (as backlists were republished, manuscripts like my own were taken out of drawers, and genre writers began to pump out 2-4 books a year), but we also proved leaders in the changes that were going on in publishing, proving the viability of new short forms of fiction (novellas, short stories, serialized novels) and experimenting with new marketing techniques (using discounts, free promotions, blog tours, giveaways, twitter, facebook author pages, etc). Our books and our innovation helped fuel the heady growth of ebooks in a short period of time.

For example, from the beginning, Amazon’s royalty structure, which gave the 70% royalty rate only to books priced between $2.99 and $9.99, was challenged by indie authors like Amanda Hocking, who proved that the volume of sales you could make at 99 cents could make up for the lower 35% royalty rate. Amazon made money (and kept a bigger chunk of the money), and Hocking got her traditional contract (and paved the way for the idea that traditional publishers––including the new Amazon imprints––might find their next bestselling authors from among the ranks of the self-published.)

Then came KDP Select. If you will all remember, when Amazon introduced its first Kindle Fire, one of the selling points was that if you were a member of Amazon Prime you could download one free book a month. Initially Amazon had targeted traditional publishers (who––as with the whole ebook thing––ran away, screaming bloody murder), so once again they had to turn to indie authors to provide the product they needed to make the Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL) effective. However, while this is pure speculation on my part, by the end of 2011 (when KDP Select was set up) they were beginning to be concerned by the way that other booksellers (Barnes and Noble, Kobo, etc) were tapping into the ebook market so they came up with the exclusivity clause. If a book is in KDP Select it can not be sold anywhere else.

They needed a way to induce indie authors to go exclusive, and, besides creating the pool of money to be shared by KDP Select authors whose books were borrowed, they threw in the 5 free promotion days, having learned from indies that free promotions could sell books. In fact, a growing number of authors who had now published their back lists (or were very prolific in self-publishing lots of books a year) had discovered that if they made their books free on Smashwords, Amazon would price match. They had also proven that a free book that was the first in a series, or a free short story, could drive up sales for their other books. No doubt, seeing this trend, Amazon thought that the chance to put up your book for free, for a limited time for promotional reasons, would be a good inducement to get indies to sign up. Which we did, to great success in the first months of KDP Select’s existence.

But there was an unintended consequence. New kindle owners loved free and were gobbling these free books up at an amazing rate. And, since initially a free downloaded copy counted as a sale, the books that had been free dominated the best-seller categories, pushing the traditionally published books into invisibility. I am sure the traditional publishers complained, and I suspect that since indie books are by-in-large cheaper than traditionally published books this was not seen as a good thing in terms of profits for Amazon. The truth of the matter is that KDP Select and free promotions pushed the ebook environment from a level playing field for indies to giving them an unfair advantage within the Kindle store. Hence the changes to the algorithm counting downloads as sales and other tweaks to the formula that determined where a book is ranked on the popularity lists.

This was not the first time that some indie authors rent their garments and claimed that Amazon had turned its back on indies, and it certainly discouraged some authors from using KDP Select. However, while it became more difficult to translate your free promotions into high enough visibility to sustain sales afterwards, indies and those who supported indies again innovated, and a whole bunch of facebook pages, book bloggers, and websites popped up to advertise free promotions. The data above, from my last promotion, shows that KDP Select promotions remained a viable way of improving visibility and sales.

Again, however, unintended consequences caused Amazon to make the changes to their Amazon Associates because they were shelling out substantial amounts of money to websites that were primarily promoting free books. Again, the goal wasn’t to discourage indie authors, or even free books, but to direct the Associates program back to its original goal, encouraging people to go to Amazon to buy things.

So what does this mean for the future? First of all, a few of these promotion sites will go away, a larger percentage will start to charge for promotions––like BookBub.com does (to make up the revenue loss if they stop using Associates links), and others will begin to promote primarily cheap and discounted books rather than free.

If you look at the Promotional Links I have listed, you will see that there are still a significant number available, even after the Amazon change. And, one of my friends just put her book, A Provencal Mystery, up for free in KDP Select (breaking through into the top 100 by noon the first day and getting over 24,000 free downloads in two days) so I think we can safely say these promotional sites are still doing their job.

However, I do think that as indie authors we need to continue to innovate. Here is what I plan to do––I would love to hear from the rest of you what your strategies are.

Have free promotions less frequently. I had already noticed a growing tension between my reliance on free promotions to keep my books visible (agonizing when 30 days from the last promotion had passed and my books began to drop in the rankings and then lose sales) and the law of diminishing returns (if I offered the book free too frequently, the promotions were less successful.)

Then the success of BookBub.com (as the promotion site that has been delivering the highest number of downloads) forced me to make a change since they won’t feature a book more than every 90 days or an author more than every 30 days. Because of these limitations, my most recent promotion of Maids of Misfortune came two months after my last promotion (and three months after my last BookBub promotion.) I don’t think it is a coincidence I had more downloads than ever, with the strongest post sale bump since last March (and the infamous Amazon algorithm change.)

Longer promotions are safer. I used to suggest that authors not put their books up for free for longer than two days at a time (based on the idea of doing several promotions in the three-month contractual period under KDP Select.) But now that you need to get more downloads to achieve a post sales bump (see the amusing post by Elle Lothlorien), you need to consider how long it is going to take your particular book, in its specific genre, to reach enough downloads. I would do at least a two-day promotion if you have been able to get accepted by BookBub, three days if you don’t but have your book in categories that do well in free promotions and have a strong number of reviews, and maybe the full five days if your book is new, doesn’t have a lot of reviews, or is in a tiny niche market.

Schedule promotions near the end of a month. I started to notice that my borrows are always the strongest the first few days of every month so it is helpful to have my books as high as possible in bestseller lists at the beginning of the month. March 1-3 (three days after my last promotion ended) 394 of my books were borrowed. This helps maintain visibility as well since the borrows appear to be counted as sales.

Do more 99 cent promotions. For awhile, 99 cents was considered ‘dead’ as free books began to dominate as the main method of promotion, but just last week, for the first time, a self-published book hit #1 on NYT Bestseller list (with a 99 cent book). What I plan to do is experiment more with combining a 99 cent sale with a free promotion, or doing a 99 cent promotion to help maintain visibility during those longer times between free promotions.

Experiment more with promotions that are not tied to free or discounting my books. I don’t know for certain whether or not having a week-long promotion of Uneasy Spirits on the heels of the Maids free promotion has helped keep its sales up, but as more of the sites on the list I have compiled switch to non-free promotions, there will be certainly some of them that will turn out to be successful. BookBub can charge high rates they have demonstrated that they consistently deliver enough post promotion sales to more than make up for their cost. I expect that new marketing strategies will emerge in the next few months that are not dependent on free promotions.

Write more books and short stories. I know, I know, this is not a new strategy. But I know that the time I was taking to do free promotions every month was taking away from my writing time. The launch of a new book or short story (like a free promotion), if done correctly, can bump up sales and visibility of your other books, and it can take the sting away from those months between free promotions when your sales drop.

In short, I predict that as long as free promotional days in KDP Select deliver increased post promotion sales and borrows, Amazon has no reason to get rid of them, particularly if this is the main way to get authors to sign an exclusivity contract. And, as long as indie authors continue to produce books and stories that sell and provide new innovative ways to promote those books, the partnership between KDP Select and indie authors will continue.

What do you think?

 

This is a cross-posting from M. Louisa Locke‘s site.

The Benefits of Running a Goodreads Ad

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This post, by Jean Oram (introduction) and Judy Croome (post) originally appeared on Jean Oram’s The Helpful Writer on 3/9/13.

Last week I introduced you to Judy Croome whom I met while working on “The Fall: Tales From the Apocalypse.” When “The Fall” was released, Judy rocked a Goodreads giveaway, getting “The Fall” added to many Goodreads reader’s shelves. Curious about the ins and outs of holding Goodreads giveaways as well as the Goodreads ad she ran at the same time, I asked Judy to share her knowledge with the readers of The Helpful Writer.

Last week’s post was about the how, why, and benefits of holding a Goodreads giveaway. This week, Judy Croome is sharing the benefits of running a Goodreads ad at the same time as your giveaway. I wasn’t completely convinced that running an ad alongside a giveaway made sense, but after talking to Judy I am a believer. Here’s what she had to say:

Interview with Judy Croome on Running a Goodreads Ad with Your Goodreads Giveaway: How to Reach the Right Readers
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I’ve heard Goodreads ads help create awareness for Goodreads giveaways. Would you run a Goodreads ad again?
Definitely! I did my first Goodreads giveaway without an ad running concurrently and the number of entrants was a significantly reduced, compared to later ads that I ran at the same time as a giveaway.

You ran an ad on Goodreads at the same time as your giveaway of “The Fall: Tales From the Apocalypse.” Can you tell us a bit about why you decided to do that?
An advantage of running an ad at the same time as the giveaway is that you can target specific audiences with Goodreads ad campaigns. If someone enters the giveaway from the ad link, the chances are increased that the free books have a higher chance of going to a reader who is actually interested in the genre, rather than someone who just enters every giveaway irrespective of whether they’re really going to read the book or not.

What else do you feel authors can do to boost their visibility – either on Goodreads, or other places online?
Marketing and promotion is a voracious beast – as much as you do, it’s never enough! There’s always one more trick or one more tip you can follow to boost your visibility. When I first started promoting my books, I was so busy running myself ragged trying to make myself as visible as possible, I lost valuable writing time and exhausted myself for little visible return.

Read the rest of the post on The Helpful Writer.

Readin’ o’ the Green: the Anatomy of a Free Book Promotion

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This post, by Elle Lothlorien, originally appeared on Digital Book World on 3/14/13.

Welcome! This is an informal blog that will chronicle a book promotion for my novel The Frog Prince taking place March 14 and 15, 2013. If you haven’t done so already, I encourage you to read my blog “THING 3. Prostitute Your Book: The Art and Science of a Becoming a Successful Free Book Pimp on Amazon.” A lot of this will make more sense if you do.

Feel free to post questions, make comments, or just poke around to see if you can find anything useful. I will be reporting numbers and rankings and commenting on the other various aspects of the free promotion as it is ongoing.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.

Beginning Saturday, March 16, 2013, I will provide a post-promo analysis to let you know how things look once the book is moved back into the Kindle Paid Store. Let’s get started. First a few entries of backstory…

February 28, 2013: Contacted Bookbub via email:

Can you tell me what availability you have for March for The Frog Prince?

Settled on March 14th ad placement and a promo to run two day through midnight, Friday the 15th.

Filled out and submitted online forms for both Pixel of Ink and eReader News Today, asking if they’d be willing to feature The Frog Prince on March 14th. Received a verification of receipt email from Pixel of Ink:

Thanks for telling us about your upcoming promotion! Please note: Due to the high volume of submissions, we may or may not be able to feature your book during the time it is free.

March 1, 2013: Received Bookbub invoice in the amount of $190 for 190,000 subscribers. Paid it.

March 13 8 PM: Designed logo and tagline for promotion Since it is so close to St. Patrick’s Day and the Frog on the cover is green, I decided to superimpose the frog lying across a shamrock. Named promo “Readin’ o’ the Green.”

Author FB screenshot9:45 PM: Posted first notice of promotion on both personal-ish” Facebook page and official Author Facebook pages. Noticed Author Facebook post immediately going viral (see red circled portion of graphic on the right).

March 14

1:30 AM: Total books downloaded: 2. Whoo-hoo! Going to bed. See you tomorrow!

8:45 AM: Reposted promotion information on Facebook. Received notification from Twitter that BookBub had tweeted about the promotion as well.

 

 

Read the rest of the post on Digital Book World.

Fun with Twitter for Authors

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This post, by Steven Ramirez, originally appeared on his Glass Highway site and is reprinted here in its entirety with the author’s permission.

Okay, here’s the deal. Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at Twitter profiles. Why? Because I pretty much decide whom to follow based on the profile. Currently, I am interested in following other authors. And I will say that many make it very easy to just say no.

I don’t pretend to be a social media expert. For that kind of expertise, you should check out folks like Brian Solis, Jeremy Owyang, Charlene Li and Guy Kawasaki. But I have learned some things, and I’d like to offer you a few tips to get you going. Note that there are many other things you should be thinking about, but we’d be here all day. Anyway, let’s get started.

Protect Your Brand

It’s you out there on the Internet, and you don’t want anyone or anything messing with how people perceive you. Furthermore, you don’t want to take it lightly yourself. Social media is powerful—but it’s also kind of dangerous. One mistake can have horrible consequences, even if it wasn’t your fault. Just ask McDonalds (see “#McDStories, McDonald’s Twitter Hashtag Promotion, Goes Horribly Wrong”).

So what do you do? First you make sure that your online persona is consistent across the various social media sites. This does not mean that you need to sign up for every single thing out there! Who would have the time to manage all that? No, what I mean is that you should ensure that those sites you are active in are consistent in what they say about you—your profile—and what you look like—your photo.

While we’re at it, at a minimum you should be on Twitter, Facebook and Goodreads, and have an updated Author profile on Amazon. Anything else—like Pinterest and Instagram—are optional as far as I’m concerned.

Make sure that all of your links are current. The last thing you want is for someone to hit a dead end. It makes you look like an amateur.

You Are a Business

That’s right. I am making the huge assumption that if you are a writer, you would actually like for someone to buy your books. If that’s indeed the case, then you must act like a business. That means having a “good” photo on Twitter.

This is something that continues to befuddle me. I can’t tell you the number of authors who choose pictures of their cat or their gimlet-eyed dog for their profile. Seriously, people! I’m not interested in following a cat. Look, if you love your pet that much, then create another Twitter account devoted exclusively to felines.

Another thing that annoys me is grainy or out-of-focus photos that look like they were taken at Aunt Minnie’s house back when you had hair and wore plaid pants. I realize that photographers are expensive. But at least try to get a decent photo. This also goes back to protecting your brand.

Finally, make sure your bio is relevant. Like the photos of the cat or dog, many authors do not actually lead with writing! They talk about such interesting topics as windsurfing and mountain climbing and hot dog-eating contests and any number of other pointless hobbies. You’re an author, right? Why isn’t that the first thing in your bio?

The ABCs of Engagement

Getting back to Twitter, there’s a well-known acronym that every good salesman knows—ABC. It stands for Always Be Closing. In other words, you should always be selling something to someone—convincing them that they need to buy your product.

Well, guess what. That doesn’t fly in social media. I have seen writers who spend a great deal of Twitter bandwidth hawking their books and little else. Look, it’s fine to advertise. But you should be giving back to the community. That means providing information that people can actually use.

I spend a good part of my Twitter time curating, which means that most days I scour all the blogs I follow and look for interesting posts I feel might be of benefit to others. Sometimes I add what I hope is useful commentary. And I don’t just focus on writing and publishing—I also like to find things related to movies and television.

Twitter is a strange and interesting creature. It forces us to think in 140 characters or less. In many cases, that’s enough to do something really great. I’m not saying that my Twitter profile is perfect. But I am always happy to share what I know with anyone who cares to listen. Good luck, and feel free to add your comments.

 

If You Struggle With Plot, Here’s How to Think About It Differently

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This post, from Stuart Horwitz, originally appeared as a guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog.

One thing I hear from writers a lot is, “My work has always been more character-driven, which I think is why I struggle with plot.”

I’m not sure what character-driven means in this context. Does it mean that their work is more about what people think and feel than about the things that happen? Maybe. But it may also simply mean, “I like to write really messy first drafts, and the only way I can find my way through the material at all is by identifying with a character or two.”

But guess what: First drafts are supposed to be a mess! And the notion of “plot” is a misconception that leads too many writers to get confused and focus on all the wrong things. In fact, the best way to produce a first draft is to produce a large pile of pages and avoid trying to organize anything at all. At first.

Upon hearing this, writers may ask, “How do I know when I’ve finished my first draft?” In a sense, first drafts are never finished; where you stopped writing is the end of the first draft. Then it’s time to step back and see what you’ve got. And the way I recommend doing this is by using the unfamiliar, plot-free concept of series.

What is this series I speak of?

A series is the repetition and variation of a narrative element within a story, the process of improvement or deterioration which creates the narrative arc.

The repetitions and variations of an object, for example, is what creates a symbol. A series can also be seen in the repetitions and variations of a person (or if you prefer, their identity and change), which is what creates a character.

 
Read the rest of the post on Jane Friedman’s blog.

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Stuart Horwitz is the author of Blueprint Your Bestseller. Find him on Twitter at @Book _Arch.

Atlantic Guy Continues To Mansplain Why It’s OK To Work For Free

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This post, by Kris E. Benson, originally appeared on Wonkette on 3/6/13.

Well, well, well. First, let us all take a step back and appreciate exactly where we are right now: we are in a place wherein paying people for their work has become a topic worthy of debate and discussion. Let’s just let that soak in for a second: paying people for their work has become a topic worthy of debate and discussion. See, for example, Alexis C. Madrigal’s frantic tweets wherein he tries to defend the system at the Atlantic and explain to us what it is like to work for a digital newspaper. Thanks Alexis C. Madrigal, it is duly noted!

[Publetariat Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

Shall we examine this long post wherein Alexis C. Madrigal talks about why it is OK for other people (not him) to not get paid for their work? Sure, let’s do that!

When Nate Thayer published emails with our newest editor (second week on the job), I can see how that might happen. How you might finish writing your last email, “No offense taken,” and then staring at your blog’s CMS that night, decide, you know, what? I’m tired of writing for peanuts, because fuck that. And if a young journalist in her first week on the job was part of the collateral damage, hey, the world just isn’t fair, kid. Pay it forward.

I get it, but it was still a nasty thing to do.

[Publetariat Editor’s note – follow the link to read the Nate Thayer post, it will clarify what Wonkette’s post is about (and it will open in a separate window). Essentially, Nate Thayer was offered, and turned down, a non-paying gig at The Atlantic which was offered to him by a newish Atlantic editor named Olga Khazan.]

To be sure, this is not Olga Khazan’s fault; it is the fault of the Atlantic for putting her in the crappy position of having to ask people to work for free.

Still, what NATE THAYER did was a “nasty thing to do”? It isn’t “nasty” to imply that Nate Thayer’s work has no value? And then defend that position on Twitter and on the Atlantic website?

Whatever, anyway, moving on (and we are going to skip a lot because Alexis C. Madrigal’s post is really a whole lot of nothing. Maybe someone — another editor, perhaps, if he can find the budget? — should have taken a look-see before he posted it, but that’s another story). Did you know that it’s ok to defend not paying people for work because Alexis C. Madrigal got paid NOTHING or NEXT TO NOTHING when he first started writing? But man, he did his best and he worked really hard and wrote for free here and there and now, well, look where he is! See? Maybe if YOU write for free and suck it up, YOU can be an editor at a major publication too!

 

Read the rest of the post on Wonkette, and also see People Writing for Free on the Internet Is an Enormous Boon to Society and Writing For Free Part II, both by Matthew Yglesias on Slate.