Scattered

One thing that’s struck me over the past few months is how easily scattered marketing can be if I let it, especially when it comes to ads. I see a strong temptation to try Google ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, Instagram ads, Amazon ads, and on and on. The thing about ads in all those places is that they take a little something I like to call “money.” I’ve seen a couple of columns on advertising for books and they tend to say something similar: target your audience. Yes, I know that’s Marketing 101. But the pull is strong to spend money several different ways without really figuring out who uses those social media platforms and who will see your ad and hopefully click through. It all sounds good when they say your ad will reach ten thousand people, but how many will actually take action? A depressingly small number. Sorry to say it, but it’s true. I don’t know what the real industry average is, but from what I’ve seen so far with Google ads is if you get five people out of a thousand to click on your ad, that’s actually pretty good. Next time around I’m not sure I’ll do Google ads again, but I sure won’t scatter ads all over cyberspace. I’ll have to think about it.

The Long Game

With all the hubbub of the book launch behind me, I’m now in the long game. I read a story yesterday, albeit in a marketing email, about an author whose book sales took off more than two years after release. I think First has done reasonably well for an independently published book and hope it continues to do so. If it’s still selling well in two years, I’d be okay with that. Which means I will continue promoting it and trying to stay consistent, even after publishing more books that will take away my time from this one. I guess what I’m trying to say is that marketing doesn’t end a few weeks after the book comes out. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. And as a runner, I definitely know how to run a marathon.

Holidays

Time to start planning for some holiday promotions. I’ve been reading and watching various sources, and what I need to do is map out how it’s going to look and the timing. Apparently, it doesn’t stop the day of Christmas since people have new devices and plenty of gift cards. The holidays actually extend into January.

Another thought I read that I found interesting was how book sales in summer actually eclipse the holiday sales. Both are huge, but that means I shouldn’t put all my eggs in the holiday basket. Regardless, the time for the pending holidays is fast approaching.

Reporting

It’s interesting to me that I can’t yet see how many copies of First have been sold. Or maybe I just don’t know how to see it. There are three things I’ve been able to find out thus far: 1) The company that published my book reports on eBook sales weekly, apparently. That must be the frequency they get their reporting from Amazon and other partners; 2) on Amazon I see graphs showing trends, which are the separate rankings of the paperback and eBooks against all other books. It’s interesting but doesn’t actually say how many copies you sold. and 3) on the Amazon pages, again separate for the two versions, I can see the category ranking, which is how your book fares against others in the same genre.

All pieces of the puzzle that provide very little actual information. I understand it takes longer to report back to the publisher on paperback copies, although in this connected world you’d think data flow would be much faster. The rankings are interesting from a comparative standpoint but it seems they’re a nice way to distract you without telling you anything concrete.

Signing

Held another book signing last night and it went well. Nice to see friends come out and support my new book. I even wore a sweater vest and smoked a pipe. Now I need to find ways to get some additional book signings and outreaches since the effort will continue for several more months, at least.

In the meantime, yesterday morning I worked on some lists for the series I’m considering. I have the basic concept down but I’m trying to come up with a twist to the big idea. My thought is that the concept is entertaining enough on its own, but adding that little extra is what makes it worth reading. I already have some wrinkles for subsequent books in the series, which is a good sign, I think.

Series

I’ve been pondering an idea for a series again. I had a conversation last week about Kindle Unlimited that made me think. When I published First, I did so by casting a wide net with the eBook version. The deal is that you kind of have only two choices: 1) Place your book on Kindle Unlimited, which allows people to check it out like a library and you, as the author, get paid by number of pages read. The downside is that it’s exclusive. You can’t sell your eBook anywhere else; or 2) Sell your eBook everywhere, in which case it’s not available on KU. To be clear, it’s still available on Kindle as an eBook purchase, but not for check-out.

The reason I bring this up is because in last week’s conversation we talked about how a series is better for KU than one-off books. In the universe of KU, the author gets paid by how many pages a reader reads. It doesn’t really pay off, at least as I understand it, unless the book is part of a series where the reader can keep going and going and going. That makes sense to me and actually matches my own reading experience with KU. I’ve talked about it here before to some degree. In the couple of years I’ve had KU, I’ve read series of 20, 15, and now reading one where I”m on book nine. The series model makes sense. I put some brainstorming ideas in a document on Saturday and will be working on hashing those out.

Fun

It’s been kind of fun to get back to writing this week. I’m working on the sequel to First and as I mentioned previously, I didn’t like how some of it was going. so I drastically altered part of the storyline. That resulted in a loss of 3-4,000 words from the count, but that’s okay, it’s about the story, not the word count. I like the revisions better but I still feel like I need to spark the fire earlier in the story, but I don’t know what that is yet. If you’ve been reading this blog at all, you know that means I probably need to go for a run to clear my mind and let the good ideas hit me in a moment of inspiration.

TIming

I believe I’ve written previously, at least a little, about the timing of the next book. I’d originally wanted to get it out before the end of the year but now I think it’s best to wait until 2024. That gives First some time to breathe, to gain traction, to get some reviews, etc. If I immediately put out another book two months after First’s release date, well, that kind of stomps on it and the attention focuses to the new one. I never knew I’d have to think through all these marketing options.

So, what am I thinking about the timing for the next release? Originally, I was going to shoot for right after the first of the year, then thought about moving it to Valentine’s Day. After all, Next Time is a love story. Now I’m more inclined to go for April or early summer. That allows me to enter First in some award competitions and with any luck, collect some hardware I could use to continue building sales for it. Will this timing change? Likely. Will it be to an earlier date, or later? Only time will tell.

More

After a little more reflection over the weekend, I think some overhaul is necessary with the new book. I didn’t go into detail in the last post, so let me do that in this one. Several chapters involve the kidnapping of a major character followed by a quick return, creating a mystery as to who would want to kidnap this person, and why? Intriguing, but I don’t think it works.

This is some of what I learned from having another person edit First. Specifically, if part of the story gives me an unsettled feeling then there’s likely something amiss. I don’t buy this particular plot point. It has its moments, but that’s not what I want a reviewer to say about the book. If I feel uneasy about it then so will a reader. What does this mean? Figure out a better storyline, trash several thousand words, and write something better. Simple, right?

Ongoing

The effort for marketing First will be ongoing. In other words, it didn’t stop with the book launch. I have a podcast interview scheduled for late November and hopefully I can snag a few more. I’m thinking about what to do with the holidays approaching and maybe combining some sort of promotion with Amazon ads.

While I’m thinking through some of these ideas, I read through what I’ve written in the sequel to First. I didn’t realize I’d already written about 18k words and forgotten some of the details. Not writing on it for a few months will do that. I like it so far although I think it needs more of a bite to the conflicts I’ve set up. Yes, that’s incredibly vague of me to say but I don’t want to get too deep into it here. Just some random thoughts, like most of what I post on this blog.

Book Launch

I told my sister yesterday that “release day” sounded like I was getting out of prison. So, I’m going to go with “book launch” instead. I’m glad I took off work since there was a lot going on behind the scenes. From the initial posting of info across social media to the book signing at night, a lot happened. I don’t know how successful it all was yet, but I do have a funny story about the evening event.

Hopefully this is one we can all laugh about later on. Let’s start by saying it was nice of my friends to have me at their pub to kick off the book. I’ve known these guys for about eight years and am grateful for the opportunity to launch the book there. I stayed for a couple of hours and sold all of two books: one to a family member who I’d originally planned on giving a free one to, and another copy to a person who wasn’t even there. My daughter had told her friend she’d get her a signed book. Other than that, we hung with our kids and enjoyed some dessert. It was good exposure but as we all know, people don’t go to the local pub to buy a book. Oh well, it was a fun day.

Release Eve

Tomorrow is the official release date for First, which makes today Release Day Eve. It’s a big day, but like I’ve said before, the marketing and work will continue. I have several things planned tomorrow and I took the day off work so I’m not distracted from the job that pays the bills. I have a book signing in the evening, among other events. It promises to be a busy day.

First Review

This week I received the first review of First and I couldn’t be happier. The reviewer did a nice tour of the book and pointed out lots of goodness. Once it’s available online I’ll link it. They also provided two pieces of artwork I can use with blurbs from the review. I’ll probably go ahead and add those to the main page of the site.

On the same day I received the review I also received a good review from someone who bought a copy from me last week. When I saw him on Wednesday he went on and on about how much he liked it and read it in two days. I should have recorded him so I could use his feedback in my marketing materials. It helped pump up my writer’s ego just a bit. Four days until release date!

6 Days

Less than a week away from the release date. I’m already starting to think about the holidays and what I should do promotion-wise. I guess part of it will be deals for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. What that means, I have no idea yet. I’ll need to figure out how to provide either discount codes or checkout deals, especially for the eBook version. Does that mean people should wait to purchase the book until then? Gosh, I hope not. But everyone should do according to their own budget. I listened to a podcast recently that talked about getting into holiday book catalogs. That seems like an angle I should consider, too. It might be tough since we’re already in October, but hey, it’s worth a try.

8 Days

We’re eight days out from the official release date of First. I’m glad I haven’t tried rushing Next Time into print as well since it’s taking a lot of effort for this release. I’ve been thinking about the next book and when to release it, but haven’t settled on a date yet. Maybe Valentine’s Day since it’s a time-traveling love story? That might work.

As I’ve mentioned previously, the work on this release is going to extend beyond the release date itself. I’m going to continue my attempts to get on podcasts, garner reviews, and enter contests. Plus, additional book signings. And selling movie rights. Let’s not forget that.

Collecting

I’m up to Day Nine of posting Twenty Questions in Twenty Days. So far I’ve been posting to Facebook, both my personal and author’s page, and LinkedIn. I’ve also mentioned it on X/Twitter but due to a smaller audience there I doubt that’s driven much, if any, traffic to the posts.

I also added a page to this site which collects all the Q&A. I’ll keep that updated and for posterity once I’m through all Twenty Questions. One of my co-workers and LinkedIn contacts suggested adding a hashtag to all the posts, which sounds like a good idea. This weekend I’ll go back and edit the posts to include a hashtag so people can find them easier through LinkedIn.

Feedback has been positive all around, although from my perspective it seems like I’ve been doing this longer than nine days so far. Maybe because I’ve been very involved in writing and editing the answers prior to the first post. Plus, I want each one to be worthwhile, and I’ve edited them like I’m editing a book. Awkward or just plain bad sentences have no place in this exercise.

Poster

Yesterday I created and ordered a poster for book signings. It was actually easier than I expected, and also turned out better than I thought with the resolution of the book cover. I was able to create the poster online, even adding a QR code to this site so if people want to follow me or buy the eBook, they can. During the creation process the site kept reminding me the resolution of the image might cause it to be blurry. Late afternoon I received an email saying the poster was ready, so The Wife and I headed that way, ate dinner, and picked it up at a store whose name rhymes with Naples. Overall, an easy process and minimal cost. And I took care of it two weeks in advance. That doesn’t usually happen.

A Few More

Only a few more weeks until the official release date of First. I feel like there’s still a lot left to do. However, I don’t think it all has to be finished by that date. The promotion will go on beyond October 10th, and in fact probably through the holiday season and beyond. I’ve committed to publishing Next Time in 2024 in order to give First time to breathe. And by that, I mean I don’t want to release a new book at the expense of another. Coming out in the last quarter of the year means I can do some promos for First during Black Friday and through the end of the year. Then I can concentrate on putting Next Time into the hands of readers who hopefully liked the first book and know my name.

When does that leave time to write? For the moment, it doesn’t. I expect the promotional efforts will continue past the book release in October and then I can ration it to part-time, taking some time back for writing. After all, if I’m going to keep publishing books then I have to have books to publish.

20 Questions

My idea from a couple of days ago has taken flight. I posted the first of twenty questions in twenty days yesterday to social media, including Facebook and LinkedIn. I can’t post them on X/Twitter without a subscription or verification, whatever they call it, since otherwise the word limit is throttled. That’s fine. I just posted the link to my Facebook Author’s Page instead.

Believe it or not, the greatest exposure I’m getting on my posts about the upcoming release date are on LinkedIn. My original post, which included a picture of me with the author’s copy of First, got over 9000 impressions and a ton of comments and likes. On October 10th we’ll see how much of that translates into people who want to read the book, but quite a few people commented that they’d pre-ordered it. It’s good to have friends who are happy for you.

Idea

Yesterday I came up with another idea for building anticipation all the way to the release of First. Probably not an original one, but something that should at least keep people engaged.

Tomorrow on social media I’m going to start a Twenty Questions countdown, all the way to #1 on October 10th. This’ll give me something to post every day and it’ll be material I can collect into a whole post when it’s done. It’ll be like an extended interview. I don’t have twenty questions in mind and it’ll be fun to ask people to submit their own. Let’s see what we get.