Ad Variety

I’m trying different ads and formats on BookBub to see what works. The site tracks impressions and CTR (click-through rate), showing what percentage of people who see the ad click on it. It’s interesting to see what’s going well and what doesn’t. For example, I have one version of the ad that has done fairly well and another I tried yesterday that has produced no clicks so far. Fortunately, they encourage you to experiment and see what produces results. Lord knows I’m not a marketing expert so this is somewhat of a painful process. At least they make it easy.

Promos

Upcoming promotions will be for last-minute gifts and post-Christmas to people who received gift cards. We’re in the home stretch for the holidays but as I’ve noted previously, a lot of book sales happen after the holidays. It makes sense as people look for ways to spend funds they unwrapped on Christmas day. What better way to spend money than on books?

Next Year

Hard to believe but it’s time to start planning next year’s activities. I know up front a few things I’d like to accomplish. I’m already in the queue for a podcast, I’m going to publish Next Time, and I want to finish and publish at least the first two books in a series I can roll out to Kindle Unlimited and keep going for several years. I’d also like to write the sequel to First, but that might be a bit of a stretch while publishing other books. I’d also like to figure out how to advertise more effectively, but wouldn’t we all? I have a few weeks still before the end of this year to accomplish some things and plan out 2024 in more detail. It’s been a good year and I have a lot do in the new one.

New Ad

The ad I used for BookBub started off decently, getting a few dozen clicks over several days, but seemed to lose momentum. I created a new version of the ad, using the free version of Canva so I could be a little more creative than the built-in ad generator of BookBub, and lo and behold! It went live yesterday and I’m already seeing a lot more clicks on it. Interestingly, it seems a good number of them are in the UK. By the way, it took me a day to come up with the ad copy that I thought worked, and looks like persistence paid off to some degree.

BookBub is an online bookstore for eBooks with quite a selection. For authors they do a lot of promotion with ads and featured deals. I’m pondering the featured deals option since they project how many downloads or purchases you can get based on the price of your book. For SF they predict ~22k downloads if you make your book free to download. If it’s 99 cents (USD) then the usual range of buyers is from 100-4200. I’m pondering this for after the first of the year, but I don’t know yet which option I’d do. Both cost money on my part, of course, and the low number of that range in the latter option wouldn’t be worth it. The possibility of 20 thousand people reading my book is pretty cool, even if it’s for free. I’ll ponder this some more.

More Ads

I’m trying ads through a new source, a site called BookBub. I’ve been running Amazon ads for a month or so with extremely low success, which means I need to try a different ad or change my bid. The problem with the bid is that if you make it too high then you lose money. I prefer not to lose money. The results through BookBub are already better than Amazon and I know they’ve resulted in at least some sales. Clicks on an ad don’t always translate to sales but with this new way of advertising I can tweak the ad and try different things to see what works.

3-Star

Right on the heels of the 5-star review of First, I got another that was mostly good in the review itself but only 3 stars for the rating. It’s interesting since the reviewer thought the first half of the book didn’t have enough excitement and the method of travel stretched her credulity. I can understand both of those, I think, although I’d disagree on both counts. I’ve heard from numerous people how they liked the emphasis on the characters instead of science and the first half of the book took the time to develop those characters. As for the science, those same people have told me they enjoyed the simplicity of the space travel and how it seemed to make sense. I read an article a few years ago that gave me the inspiration for the electromagnetic drive but didn’t save the link to it. I did some digging and was able to find it again, finally, and while my invention might not fall directly in line with the science in the article, it’s not that far a stretch, either. Anyway, nice to stay grounded - I guess not all the reviews can be 5 stars.

5-Star

Monday afternoon I received an email that a review for First had been posted on the Reader’s Favorite website. I entered their annual contest in mid-November, and the entry fee includes a posted review. I was very pleased to receive a 5-star review! I added the link to the main page of this site along with the 5-star seal they provide. Today I’ll socialize it in the usual places to share the good news.

On the same day another email notified me that First has been picked up for review on Reedsy Discovery. That’s excellent news since I’d submitted to them back in August, hoping for a review by the book’s release date. Instead, First seemed to languish in their queue. If no reviewers pick it up, then the review period expires. I think it was renewed at no extra cost a couple of times. Somewhere in the last 1-2 months I added the first chapter to the profile so potential reviewers could get a taste for the book. No idea if that’s what finally made the difference, but happy to have another review on the way.

More Chaos

I wrote several weeks ago about adding chaos to the story I’m writing. Now I think it needs even more chaos. Also, could be that I’m not getting a good sense of the overall story yet since I’m writing in bits and pieces between the marketing and other activities with First. I think that’s a feeling of lack of investment so far in writing it. When I wrote Next Time it just kind of spilled out in a hurry. It might be that the chaos so far is all in my head due to activities other than writing. This is kind of new territory for me: how do I take the uncertainty of each day and translate that into conflict within a book I’m writing? Books are a product of the time when the author writes them and right now it’s a little chaotic in my writing life. Not sure what to do about that yet other than concentrating on each piece of the pie in turn.

Friday

Finally, Friday. I haven’t done much writing this week, focusing instead on marketing plus all the other stuff going on. My podcast interview went live on Wednesday, the review from Independent Book Review went live on Monday, and I’ve been busy pushing and following up on signed gift copies. I also lowered the price on the eBook version of First and tried to figure out how to enable the ‘Look Inside’ option on Amazon. Still haven’t figured that one out and will probably have to call the publisher. Also, running the discount on the paperback on the publisher’s site with a coupon and will have to see if that’s producing any results. I’ve been researching other marketing options and sites, knowing I can’t do it all but still trying to find the most effective. So yeah, all in all a busy week.

It’s Out

My podcast interview on Hump Day Calls is out today. It’s available on Spotify and YouTube and there will be clips on some of the social media sites that I’ll share. It’s Episode 13 of the podcast, and as I’m listening to it from this side it sounds pretty good. It’s a wide-ranging conversation and it seems like I did all right. It’s funny to listen to yourself and think about different ways you could have answered a question or said something. Oh well. I’ll put the links on the main page.

Return

Here we are, post-holiday in the US and returning to the regular schedule of work and school. I know people say it all the time, but it really does seem like the past week went by fast. And not completely how I would have liked it but oh well. Overall it was good and this morning I”m back to posting here and doing other tasks, such as publicizing the coupon code for the paperback edition of First. My timing is a little off as I was going to do the same for the eBook, but I wanted to lower the price of that version overall while leaving the paperback the same, just with a discount code for this week. The coupon only works on the publisher’s site, whereas the lowered price of the eBook should reflect everywhere it’s sold. Plus, I’m still marketing signed books. Let’s see how it goes now that Thanksgiving is over.

Black Friday

I guess this is where my lack of marketing skills comes into play since I didn’t put discounts or incentives into place for Black Friday, which happens to be today. I have some promotions planned over the coming month and beyond but let’s be honest, I don’t think a lot of people are shopping for Black Friday deals on books in general, and more specifically like mine. Sounds a little like rationalization for my lack of preparation, doesn’t it? I don’t think I’m wrong, though. At least on Amazon, the biggest bookseller, they’re doing sales but also lists like best of the year, etc. Maybe I’m wrong but I don’t see a lot of upside in my putting a bunch of effort into Black Friday sales at this point.

On Air

The podcast went great on Monday, and many thanks to Ross from HDC (Hump Day Calls). We talked for over an hour and I felt like it was a great discussion. The episode will go on the air a week from today on YouTube and Spotify, and Ross will also put out some clips to social media. He said normally he’d do the clips before the launch date, but he’s traveling for the holidays. It was a wide-ranging conversation, and I even learned something new. He said he thinks of pets when writing personalities in his story and I think that’s a fabulous idea. It’s hard, at least to me, to incorporate people you know into your writing, but pets? That makes sense. They won’t recognize themselves in our book and get offended at the portrayal.

We also talked about poetry, running, and inspiration. Looking forward to the finished product.

Podcast

I’m doing a podcast interview later this morning and looking forward to it. This’ll be my first and my biggest worry is setting up video and audio. I have a microphone I bought several years ago when a friend and I talked about doing our own podcast. That hasn’t really panned out and the mike sat in its box until yesterday. It should have good sound quality. Video? Well, that’s going to be the ol’ laptop camera. Nobody really needs to see my mug in detail anyway so no reason to go into bankruptcy for a top-end camera. The chance to talk about my books and the writing process for an hour should be fun.

Zing Zang

For those who don’t know, Zing Zang is a tomato-type juice, mainly used for Bloody Mary cocktails. I have some friends who occasionally like to add it to their beer. Personally, I’m not a big fan of that mix. I think beer tastes just fine on its own, and if you have to add some Zing Zang to it then you’re probably drinking crappy beer.

Why am I spending time talking about jazzing up a beer with a spicy jolt of Zing Zang? Because even after figuring out the chaos thing (see previous entry), I still feel like the overall concept is good but it needs some Zing Zang. If you’re following along with the analogies, yes, I just said the story is like crappy beer. It needs a jolt. I still don’t know what that is and yesterday afternoon’s run didn’t provide any epiphanies. Time for more brainstorming.

Chaos

I did some more thinking about the new stories/series I’ve been brainstorming. I thought some ideas would come to mind when I went out for a run Tuesday, but instead hit me as I was going to bed that night. You can never tell when the muse will visit. The thought I had was this: chaos. As in the way I envisioned the start of events was too smooth, too…expected. I realized I need to throw in a lot of the unexpected. And what’s weird is that my original intent was to put characters into random settings, to let some element of chance prescribe how their initial scenes will unfold. Instead, the chaos needs to be less random, something planned out by a person behind the scenes. I know that sounds odd, to invoke chaos by plan instead of chance, but the more I think about it, the more I like it. I’d avoided the idea because I thought it would be more chaotic to have people encounter random conflicts, but the real conflict will be that it was all planned. That should cause plenty of chaos.

Gifts

One of the things I’m thinking of doing for the holidays is signed books. Not a novel idea (see what I did there?) but a good one, I think. I have a few dozen author copies and this’ll help me reduce the inventory while hopefully making some people happy. One question that popped into mind is how that’ll work if I discount the paperback and eBook for the holidays. I’ll have to put some thought into that. My intent is to offer a signed book, wrap it in Christmas paper, and mail it. How the order would work also needs to be worked out. I don’t have a store on my web page and my publisher doesn’t offer it either. I think this will be through a direct contact with a bit of manual work. In future years I’ll have to figure out a better way to do this.

Gel

Some thoughts are starting to gel on the new book I’m brainstorming. I’ve written a few chapters to test out ideas and format. This one is vastly different in narration and perspective than anything I’ve written so far. If it ever sees the light of day you’ll understand. I’m still mulling over the storyline as well as how best to organize the telling of that story. Overall, I think it’s a good idea that would be a great series, but I feel like I’m missing that little spark that’ll take it from good to fantastic. As I continue turning ideas over in my brain I’m hoping for that flash of insight. Hmm, maybe I need to go on a run since that’s where I routinely experience inspiration.

Accounting

Bet you didn’t know I have an accounting degree. Okay, some of you probably did. But wait, you say, isn’t this a site about writing? Yes, it is. And all things related to writing, including keeping track of writing income and expenses. Sad to say it’s necessary and a part of the writing life.

How do I keep track of those things? In a spreadsheet. It’s not glamorous, but it serves its purpose. And that purpose is to keep info about what income I get from my books and what expenses I’ve paid. At the end of the year I can total those and plop them right into my tax return. What about stuff like expense categories, e.g., editing services vs. marketing? Indeed, when I enter a new item into my list on the spreadsheet I give it a category. When the time comes, I can sort them or even get real fancy and create a pivot table.

Do I need a juiced-up, expensive accounting program or a real bookkeeping service to take care of this? Not in my current state of publishing. When I sell a LOT more books then hopefully the answer will be yes. I can see how people who make a living off their writing wouldn’t want the distraction of doing their own accounting work. I get it. I studied it for four years. For now, a simple spreadsheet will do.

Waiting

Another thing I’m coming to realize four weeks after publishing First is how much waiting there is. Duh, say experienced writers. The flurry before the release date is real, and immediately thereafter. Beyond that, it turns into somewhat of a waiting game. For example, I’m waiting on a review to hit a site so I can link it and share with the world. I’m waiting on later this month to do a podcast interview. I’m waiting on actual sales statistics to flow back to the publisher so I can see number of books sold as opposed to trends. I’m waiting for several months before I start the process of publishing my next book. Like I said last week, this is a marathon. I’m sure there will be segments where I pick up the pace, including the next few months where I work on holiday sales. In the meantime, as TP said, the waiting is the hardest part.