Book Sales and Marketing, It's a Numbers Game

Today is the fourth day of the Trick or Treat for Ebooks promotion. But I want to talk about what happened on the second day, when the lovely and wonderful people at The-Cheap.net who also own Kindle on the Cheap sent out the link to a potential audience of 10,000+ (based on their Facebook likes). Within one hour, the clicks on my link went from 59 to 126! Our total linky tool exposure grew by 1,000 views.

There's more data. I'm a geek and track as many things as I can. I happened to reconfigure my Google Analytics right before the hit, so this was fascinating. In the span of 1 hour, 67 people visited my Madame Elizabeth's Fortune Tent. The average time spent was :45 seconds. :) So, even the people who did not buy the book were exposed to my plot line. The main blog for the promotion had a total of 191 visitors in that one hour time frame. Now, my link received 67 clicks, but the links appear in a random order to each visitor, so some links were clicked a little more, some fewer. All of the links are disguised, so a visitor can't say "Oh, I only want Elizabeth's book."

191 visitors to main blog. 67 clicked my link. That's a 35% conversion rate. Many ad programs would kill for a third of viewers to ACT (convert). In this case, they clicked my link (and they also clicked the OTHER links, so really it's compounded exposure). I also happen to know how many sales I received. According to my statistics on eawestwriting.com, 8 people clicked Madame Elizabeth's crystal ball taking them to my Amazon purchase page. How many bought the book? 2 on Amazon. I had two other sales on BN and the link to my book there was featured on the blog post on The-Cheap.net.

This was one hour and a fluke to tap into such an established network of readers. But, the 35% conversion rate tells me that this was a great match up of what our promotion was offering and what the people clicking the links were looking for. And some authors might be upset about 2 sales for 67 clicks. I'm not. Remember 8 people went to my Amazon site, so that's another potential 6 later sales if they downloaded a sample. 2 people bought right away, so that's 25% of the people I got to click three links and finally land on my Amazon page impulse bought my book. Not too shabby.

Huh? 3 Links? Yep, a reader had to click the link on Facebook or blogs promoted by The-Cheap.net. This took them to the main page of the blog hop (ebookpromotions.blogspot.com). Then, the reader had to decide to click on one of the links in the blog hop, and each reader had a random configuration of the links. Then, once they landed on my blog post, if they wanted to buy my book, they had to click another link to get to Amazon. Generally, the fewer links you can have between pitch and purchase page, the higher your conversion rate.

This is why it's a numbers game. You can't feel bad about low conversions, MOST ad campaigns do not have high conversion percentages. I know this because I just came from working in the SEO/online marketing area of writing. There's a reason why advertisers even calculate CTR (click through rates)/ 1000 visitors. It's because it's such a small percentage. You can Google information on conversion rates, but this was a great article about conversion rates from 2010. 10% is usually an over-the-moon ad campaign. This is important if you're putting money into advertising. You need to have an idea of how many people will SEE the ad, calculate 10% of them will click on it, and then only 10% of that number buying the book. And you'll probably see this roughly time and time again.... a review site with 300 followers, 30 probably check out your book, 3 probably buy.

So the more you can promote your book and put yourself out there in front of new audiences the better. This is key--flogging on the same venue or channel won't help. Definition of insane: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This is how it builds and the more blogs and tweets you have going out about your book from all different directions the more you'll get RTs and invites to other blogs. It's kinda like a snowball rolling down the hill, you pick up more snow with each rotation. Most of us start with a single snowflake though, so be patient, it's a VERY tall hill. :)

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I wrote this on Tuesday night, and thought an update might be in order. 2 things have happened... when the promotion was featured on the-cheap.net, other groups became willing to share our link with their readers. Exactly. Snowball. :) Our total page views of the Linky Tool has risen to 5400, and every blog participating has had over 200 clicks. A few are approaching 300 clicks! Oh and my sales? I went from 2 sales Tuesday night to a total of 7 sales on Amazon (19 for the month) and another 11 sales on Nook (14 for the month). :) I have officially sold more books this month than I did last month, and I didn't pay a single penny for this promotion. I am over the moon on a broom about how successful #TrickorTreat for #Ebooks has become.

A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby. CANCELLED is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.  WIP: PAST DUE A nurse, crippled by debt, takes a part-time job in medical investigation only to find the man she's dating is a fraud!  (status: outlining)

#ROW80 Check in, Striking While It's HOT!!!

This check-in I get some snazzy, silver stars! I didn't get much done on my outline, but I did talk about it. It's part of my process...I talk my story line out with trusted friends and family until the story is very clear in my mind. I finally feel I'm in that place. I am surprised by how the romantic story line is already taking a a bit of a step back. But I don't think it's a bad thing.

I also received some AMAZING news!!!! I am officially part of the cloud of Mark Williams International Direct Publishing. It's a new company run by authors, for authors. The idea is that Mark Williams and his core group of authors have done very well in the UK markets. By authorizing them for temporary distribution rights in the UK, France, and Germany markets for a 80-20 split in my favor, it gives my book more of a chance in those markets. For example, Mark can list CANCELLED with Waterstone's, the UK equivalent of BN (and I actually looked into listing there last month until I realized I could not). There are many other benefits as well in pooling with a group of such fabulous authors of Tonya Kappes (who has a NEW RELEASE today, Happy New Life), Cheryl Shireman, and Sibel Hodge just to name a few in the cloud with me! Economies of scale is a very real thing, and I'm learning we all do better when we put our books together, instead of acting like we're all competing for one reader.

Now... the FUN! This past weekend remember how I took the long weekend off to spend it with my kids? Well here's some photos from out Apple Picking Adventure!
   I feel so refreshed and recharged! I also did not check my sales figures to the point of neuroses these last few days, so again making progress there.

Now, about STRIKING WHILE IT'S HOT. My writing tip for this week is about making things happen right away. Got time to write? Take it. Receive an invitation to guest blog? Write it. By immediately seizing the opportunities before you as soon as they become available, a couple of amazing things happen:

• Instead of feeling weight from tasks you have to do and haven't done, you feel momentum from the small things that are done and rocking and rolling.
• Immediately jumping on an opportunity might make the difference between being a part of it or missing out. Sometimes, a deadline or interest level is unknown to you, so the sooner you get in the better. This past week, JA Konrath asked for guest blogs. I didn't worry if I'd get in or not, I just wrote one. Now, it turns out the response was so big that they might be turned into an ebook. Now, there are people wanting to know if it's too late to submit. See? I may or may not be in the ebook, I may or may not be selected as a guest blog post. But I KNOW my best work is in the pool of submissions, so I've at least got a shot. THAT'S STRIKING WHILE IT'S HOT!

So I plan to be on fire for most of the rest of the week. I'm taking the weekend off again because my husband is finally joining us in Connecticut after we've spent more than a month apart. Hmm, maybe this whole work my butt off, take the weekend off is a good idea!

A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby. CANCELLED is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.  WIP: PAST DUE A nurse, crippled by debt, takes a part-time job in medical investigation only to find the man she's dating is a fraud!  (status: outlining)


PLEASE VISIT AND LEAVE SOME COMMENT LOVE FOR MY FELLOW #ROW80 FRIENDS!

Delivery: MY BUSINESS CARDS :)

There are times when you love the mailman. Today, I got my business cards, canvas bags, and decal for the car. I bought all of these through Vistaprint and splurged a little. I paid extra for another 500, so I bought a total of 1,000 business cards and I also splurged for glossy and a picture on the inside. Back in July I knew I was going to do this, and here is the execution...

I LOVE THEM!!! I spent about $85 on 1,000 (I got a deal when I ordered 500 to get another 500 for $9.99). I have lowered my book price to $.99 through the holiday season, so to recoup the costs, I would need 242 sales from this batch of business cards. That's one way to calculate the ROI. Another is this....

If I give out the cards to qualified people, people I've talked to about my book, they might buy my book. They might not. But I'm almost certain they will tell someone else "Oh, I met this author the other day." "Oh, who?" And maybe if they have the business card, there is something to jog the memory. Now two people see it. Or, let's say I give my business card, explain the book is $.99 through the holidays, and they buy it. If they like it, they will tell at least one other person. We just do.

So the cards may not result in 242 direct sales. But it helps to get my name out. And if I can leave them in the local Starbucks or library, even better. :)

This is what the inside says:

From the First Chapter of CANCELLED

Tastes of roof tar and rotten fruit filled Johnathan Michaels' mouth. A swish of his tongue couldn't remove the hangover breath from last night. Next to him, an unknown woman slept. Carefully, he nudged her, but she didn't move. Nudging a little harder, her body rolled to the left and liberated his arm. He sat up with mint green sheets tangled between his legs. Definitely naked.

Double checking her identity, his eyes followed past her mop of bottle-blonde hair, down the dip of her lower back, and finally rested on the pleasing rise of a fleshy curve. She looked familiar, but he couldn't place her. He settled on brushing his teeth and taking a shower.

Clean and fresh, he shook a sand colored towel over his head and broad shoulders. Ready to wake her up, yet another surprise awaited him: an empty bed.

A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby. CANCELLED is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.  WIP: PAST DUE A nurse, crippled by debt, takes a part-time job in medical investigation only to find the man she's dating is a fraud!  (status: outlining)

New Book Release: 3 Things I Wish I Had Done

We all have regrets. This post is not about that. I do NOT regret publishing CANCELLED one bit. The feedback has been great, though I know the less-than-stellar feedback is going to have its own season. This is about sharing the knowledge I learned from my two-weeks of being a published author and what I wish I could have done differently for a better release.

1. I Wish I Had Trusted My Resolve

Book reviewers schedule month in advance. They have to. It takes so much work to volunteer to review book, even free ones. There's time invested in reading, writing the review, uploading the review, running the blog, and promoting the post. For this alone, even if I ever get a bad review, I will NEVER be anything less than eternally grateful to anyone who takes the time to review my book.

I didn't 100% trust myself that I would make my deadline. I wish I had. If I had known without a doubt I was going to publish in September, I would have scheduled my book reviews in August to make October. Right now I'm struggling to get dates in October and a few popular places can't review my book until January! But I'm turning that lemon into lemonade by promising to have a sneak peek at my next book for those reviews (I'm releasing PAST DUE in February). Here's the thing, I could have even scheduled my blog tour a month past my release date, giving myself a month cushion. Now I know I'm a writer that can push myself to kick a deadline's butt; I will be less fearful about making commitments.

Results of Free Ebook Giveaway

I have a bunch of news and one little blog post to get them out! I apologize for taking a mini-break, but last week was insane for me! I began scheduling my blog tour, and I will have dates posted soon. I am mainly going for October/November, so if anyone has any dates, let me know!

Last week I had my FIRST author interview on A Book, A Girl, A Journey by @J_A_Bennett. This Friday will be my first ever review, from the amazing @SusiBorath on her blog. I'm hoping my friends and I can kill her traffic numbers for the day. We did it for @J_A_Bennett! We can do it for @SusiBorath!

So let's talk some shop. :) Anyone out there have a FREE book as about the extent of their marketing plan? Yeah. I know how you feel. Back when I was writing CANCELLED I thought, erroneously, that I would just give coupons, tell people my book is FREE and Wham! Bam! I'd have sales coming in hand over fist. Well, we all know I can freely admit when I was wrong....

Building a Blog: The Real Nuts and Bolts

This information is the story of one author, but being brand new, my experience might be very applicable for other new authors. :)

This morning on the Writer's Guide to Epublishing we're talking about platforms, and author blogs. The mantra of "have one" is pretty well disseminated from just about every marketing guide for authors, traditional or self-published. But a comment from Sarah Ross asked this question:

Well this is the perfect opportunity to “Ask the Experts”, so here goes: How do you market your blog? I am creating one now so that when my book is published I have a readership, but how do you get your blog out there for people to see (besides my friends/family from FB)?

I didn't want to hijack the comment section because I already gave a lengthy comment, and while I'm a regular visitor to The Writer's Guide to E-publishing, it's not MY blog, or grog (group blog). But, I think this question is very important, and while I've read many marketing guides, very few give practical, anecdotal evidence of what to do to build a blog. So I'm going to try to do that.

A little about me: I decided in January of this year to write a novel. On September 13, 2011, I released my debut novel and sold 17 copies in 6 days. That is not intended to brag, I honestly don't know if it's brag worthy but I'm proud. It's just to give realistic data on what I accomplished. In addition to that, my blog presence and network here garnered me three interviews, two guest posts, and many referring links.

But how did I get there? Well one thing I can tell you is it doesn't happen over night! I began this blog way back on March 29, 2011. And I posted the link on my Facebook for friends and got maybe 5 page views. Yep, 5. And that's how most of my posts went, 5-10 page views. And they weren't other authors or readers, just people who love me that wanted to see how my "she's writing a novel" project was going. I don't blame them for being curious and somewhat suspecting I wasn't going to finish. I didn't even know for sure I was going to win.

Early on, I got lucky with a little more traffic with my Day 2 post, March 30. To date, this post is my third most viewed post with 146 page views. Why? When I uploaded the image of my storyboard, and I don't have a clear idea how I did this exactly, it got picked up by Google images as an example of a storyboard. I get traffic from people who have searched storyboarding or storyboard, even if they don't necessarily mean a self-published author.

But in April, I began to comment on other big author blogs and my page views per post started hanging out in the 10-15 range. I also redesigned the blog so that it featured the blogs I follow, and made the most out of my comments in a polite way (that's a separate post). Unless it was VERY pertinent to the blog topic, I didn't include a link to my blog. For example, one of my highest referring link comes from a post on Dean Wesley Smith's blog about Math and Royalties. If you do a Ctrl-F of my name, Elizabeth, you'll see how I formed my comment in July. I didn't just flog my blog, I explained why I was sharing the link, how it added to the conversation, and most importantly, showed that I was a regular reader (which I was) by talking about other topics DWS regularly talks about and how it helped me. And I thanked him.

I did NOT go around every day and find a "big blog" to share my link. Here's the thing, we ALL read the top blogs around. If you share your link on a few day in and day out, you'll get labeled as a spammer. You do not want that. By being courteous, adding to the conversation, and being PATIENT, traffic will slowly increase. How slowly?

Here's my stats:
March, 4 posts, 79 views.
April, 14 posts, 385 views.
May, 12 posts, 448 views.
June, 12 posts, 585 views.
July, 17 posts, 1252 views.
August, 11 posts, 581 views.
September (to date) 10 posts, 948 views.

What happened in July?


In July, I joined A Round of Words in 80 Days. This is a great group if you have a genuine interest in participating. I say genuine because there are thousands of writing groups, federations, co-ops, you need to find the one for you. I am a regular reader on The Writer's Guide to E-Publishing. But A Round of Words in 80 Days is a blog hop. Each 80 day round, the participating authors (and it's free to participate) make individual goals for those 80 days. These are any goals you want. Some people have weekly word goals, weekly posting goals, I had the goal of editing and publishing my novel. Round 3 is ending this week, and Round 4 starts Oct. 3. Each Sunday and Wednesday we check in by writing a blog post about our progress, and we include a Linky Tools at the bottom that shows everyone's blog links. This bumped my traffic a great deal on a consistent basis and my followers grew from like 10 to 35, and I get about 30 page views per post.

I also had a post featured on a big blog called The Passive Voice Guy. This month I had another post featured there, and it has skyrocketed. How did I do that? Again, through genuine interaction. I started reading The Passive Voice Guy's blog and commenting appropriately. I tipped him off when I saw content that would interest his regular readers. I started following him on Twitter. In July, an expose on Amazon's self publishing "junk" was spreading like wild fire and there was a lot of nastiness towards self-published authors. Apparently, we were destroying the world. :) I had just finished my first draft and became very angry. Not usually a good thing. I wrote a rant and shared the link through a DM on Twitter to him. Holy crap, he featured it on his blog! I didn't ask him to do that, he just did. I have since, roughly once a month as you don't want to abuse an online acquaintance, clued him in when I saw important information going out about the self-publishing world. For example, this was the post in September. Notice he introduces me as a regular commenter and visitor? That post on my blog has 302 views, or 7% of my total page views of all time.

Now, I am NOT advising that everyone run out and send The Passive Voice Guy DMs on Twitter. Remember, it's not WHO, it's HOW. The HOW is start a relationship, through regular visits, thoughtful and respectful comments on a handful of other blogs. Then, and only then, can you approach them about swapping links, and always, always make sure there is something in it for them. I knew from reading The Passive Voice Guy's blog regularly the ebook formatting was a topic that came up and was mostly a mystery. It was really neat to see suddenly people coming out of the woodwork, who hadn't felt like they needed to comment before, talk about their ebook formatting solutions! My blog post over there started a conversation, and that's always good.

But a word of caution. Writing blog posts to start a conversation are important, but being controversial for the sake of being controversial isn't good. My rant for example was a big gamble. Those words will forever be associated with me. I used some pretty strong language in it, but I didn't write anything I wouldn't defend. You can defend a blog post, but you don't defend writing you sell. That's a line between amateur and professional.

So I know this is long, but this is the recap:

• Post consistently and try to make your content exciting. Use whatever networking abilities you can, Facebook or Twitter and share the link. Do this for a number of months.
• Be present in other online communities. If you want people to come to your house (blog) for a dinner party, you have to go to some other dinner parties (blogs) and make friends.
• Use back door communication (Twitter DM, email) as appropriate to HELP another blogger find scoops and content. Trust me, it will be returned in kind eventually.
• Kill everyone with kindness when you can. And remember, when you leave a comment, put a link to your blog in that form you must fill out. This will make your name a link and if a reader likes your comment, chances are they will click your name to see more about you.

Time+good manners+interesting things to say = growing blog audience.

A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby. CANCELLED is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. 

Why The Hardest Part Is AFTER Your Publish

My #ROW80 Round 3 goals was to publish. I did that!

I heard in a couple of places that writing is the easy part, it's after you publish where things get tough. I secretly laughed. HA! I have marketing experience. HA! I love talking and networking with people. That's going to be the best part!

I was incorrect.

I won't say wrong, because I AM enjoying marketing. But I'm also starting to look forward to writing over marketing. Here's why:

1. I make mistakes out of my control to fix quickly. Even when I wrote non-fiction, the first few times you are using an uploading interface, you're going to mess up. It's inherent. Either the form instructions aren't worded correctly, or your browser makes a funky refresh half-way through, or you just have so many fields the chance of error is very high. I uploaded the wrong file to Amazon and Barnes and Noble at first, and didn't realize it takes 48-72 hours to fix that! Read that again, if you upload the wrong file, it takes 48-72 hours to fix it. You have to wait 24 hours for the wrong file to populate just to get access to change it, then you upload the right one and must wait another 24 hours to upload the new file. No big deal right? Except that the book is available for sale BEFORE the KDP or PubIt interface gives you access to fix it! Smashwords is MUCH quicker, and once I realized my mistake, I fixed it there and then made sales on the other sites and I didn't have access to fix it. 
2. Every interaction counts. I was still a little too high off my publication and stopped by Konrath's blog because he was getting down on himself and I wanted him to know his blog educated me, and now I was self-published. I didn't include a link to my book, I wasn't there to flog my book (that would be very bad manners). He gets a bunch of flak from people entrenched in their ideals, and I figured a thank you, even from a small author, would help. I explained that 6 people bought my book. He responded back "Make that 7, I just bought it for my wife." CRINGE. The file was wrong! Yep. Even worse, there were typos in my comment! Now, even just a comment can be a big deal. Part of me is hoping his wife never reads it, but the other part of me hopes she does and likes it. All of me hopes she doesn't read it and hate it. Dislike, okay. I dislike many books that aren't poorly written, they just don't appeal to me. 
3. Cliques are everywhere. I am working on a new paradigm in indie marketing: inclusive. There are so many books of the day, book of the month, today's review, today's deal promotions, increasingly more that you must pay for. Remember in school when we got the Scholastic book fair sheet? There were dozens of books. It was fun to read about all of them and circle the ones I wanted. If the teacher passed out a sheet with only one book on it? One book on it? Most of the class wouldn't be interested and Scholastic wouldn't make any money. Even B&N and Amazon when they email to me include numerous books in the newsletter. So I'm working on building http://ebookpromotions.blogspot.com for ALL authors of ALL genres to run monthly promotions that have traction because of the sheer number of authors participating. As a reader, which circular are you going to read? These 5 products are on sale...or...Over 50 products, now on sale! I know which one I'm going to spend my valuable time on because there is a greater chance there is something I will want. October we're putting together virtual Trick or Treating for Ebooks and every author is invited to join.
4. It's no longer the me show, but the us show. Marketing as an indie requires help. You have to get over asking for help pretty quickly. Then, once it's offered, you sure as heck better pull through on your end of the bargain. I asked for help and received 4 offers to guest blog. I have two entries due tomorrow for this week. I had to put two more on my calendar so I do not forget that I promised to contribute. 

So that's just the tip of the iceberg I'm sure. I'm also thinking about my next novel, wondering when/if I can let CANCELLED run on auto-pilot. Probably never. But things sure do seem a great deal simpler when I only had one book I was working on writing...

A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby. CANCELLED is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. 
WIP: SERVED A single father learns moving on with his life bring out the worst in his daughter's mother. (Sequel to CANCELLED)

My A ROUND OF WORDS IN 80 DAYS Friends: Visit their blogs and leave some writer love. This is our last week!

Trick or Treat Signup

Here's where people can comment their ideas. Sorry, didn't realize the page doesn't allow comments. Whoops!

Week 1 of Being Published, Recap

This is my first week of being published as a fiction writer (I'm previously published in non-fiction). My book published haphazardly on 9/14/2011, and as of this morning sold 9 copies! My first day I sold 2 copies on Smashwords, and 2 copies on Amazon. On the second day, I sold 1 more on Smashwords, and 1 more on Amazon. And this morning, I woke up to see that I finally sold a copy on Barnes and Noble and 2 more copies on Amazon. I also received my first 5 star review on Amazon yesterday morning! (I will confess, *I* don't think my book 5 stars, more like 4.5, but I'm a very harsh critic on myself).

I also sent out the call for opportunities to guest blog. This was difficult. Deep down, we all wish others would just think us so fabulous, that we get requests and invites without having to ask. But like everything in this world, you have to ask. No one can read your mind. And if they can, get a helmet like Magneto.

So I asked. I figured it wouldn't offend me in the least for someone to ask me for help; I love to give help! So why should my writer and book reviewer friends be offended that I ask them for help? So far the wonderful J.A. Bennett, J.L. Campbell, and Nathan Lowell have answered my call! I will be featured on J.A. Bennett's A Girl, A Book, A Journey next Thursday and Nathan Lowell's Nathan Lowell Presents sometime next week. I will be on J.L. Campbell's The Character Depot in October. (I also just started reading J. L. Campbell's book Dissolution and it is very interesting to see marital discord in a Jamaican culture setting. I even have learned new words!).

I am also a member of Darla Shine's Happy Housewives Club and put out a call for the kick-butt moms there to read a gratis copy and review it. So far, one member there has taken up the request and she's even a part of a reading group on Facebook! Again, you just have to ask.

Finally, I had a brilliant idea to do a Blog Trick or Treat for Books. I am going to solidify that program and put together a sign up with Linkytools. The basic premise is we put together a "neighborhood" of author blogs willing to give a coupon for a free or discounted ebook for comment leavers who "trick or treat." If I can put together a decent list by the end of September of participating authors and get it out to book review sites, it just might go viral. Then we can promote it the month of October, and run it the last weekend of October, with coupons expiring Nov. 2.

Last night my super helpful 11-year-old watched his little sister so I could get major work done on my next novel's outline. It's finally fleshing out and I'm ready to start story boarding it.

All in all, a great week! I am still looking for other author's books to the recommended reading on my reader site, guest blog opportunities, and anyone who wants to be a part of the Ebook Trick of Treat game.

A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby. CANCELLED is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.  WIP: PAST DUE A nurse, crippled by debt, takes a part-time job in medical investigation only to find the man she's dating is a fraud!  (status: outlining)

Ideas For October: Need Participants

We've all heard about the Amazon Sunshine sales, right? Amazon worked with the Big 6 and collectively, prices went down, and their sales went up.

I have two ideas on how we indies can make October OUR sunshine sale. The first is very straightforward, not nearly as fun... Trick or Treat Books. We all work together to make a list of the writer blogs in the neighborhood that are participating, and on Oct. 31 people can visit the blog to get a coupon for a free book, maybe leave a comment that they were there for fun. We'll all be handing out candy and checking our email/blogs at the same time! We can even make it fun with links so say my reader blog once they leave a comment, they click the link at the bottom and go to the next blog. Make it a circle. We can promote a list of authors the week before on who's participating, but that way readers just click a link "On to the next house..." and have no idea where it will land them and so on. (okay they can right click and read the source, but it's the spirit of fun). Another idea would just be a 50% coupon if authors don't want to do free.

That's probably the best idea for a first go around.

Another idea but would need to be a month long promotion, maybe best for November (giving thanks) has readers start with any free book they want from the participating authors. Once they rate the book or leave a review somewhere, even a bleh one, they contact the author's blog and get a special coupon for a free ebook of the next author. This would probably work best on a smaller scale. It'd be giving thanks back and forth, free books from the authors thanking the reader for rating the book and thanks from the reader for getting the book for free.

I know I am but one small little writer with a blog, but I have mighty friends who are book reviewers and other authors that kick butt. If we all work together, we can get this done, and make October or November, or both, OUR month to make the sales go through the roof!

A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby. CANCELLED is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. 

Starting My Author Career, I Need Help

My debut novel has been out for two days. I have 3 sales on Smashwords, and 3 sales on Amazon. This release is a bit haphazard. I planned a week for formatting, and it took me an hour with Jutoh. I built that all important platform before I published; I have 50 subscribers of this blog and over 500 Twitter followers.

I have a few marketing efforts in the works, but I didn't organize a blog tour because well, I wasn't 110% sure I'd ever publish. I had the publishing date of 9/22/2011, and I beat it by 8 days, but with the move, the start of school, potty training my toddler, and living a month and half without my husband, there were doubts. The last thing I wanted to do was organize this big blog tour and have no book to deliver. Now that the book is out, it's a relief. I know it will get some good reviews, and some disappointing ones, but that's okay. I need the experience and it's my first book.

I'm working a little on my next novel, and for this project I am using Writer's Cafe. I like how it has all of the tools I need. I even wrote down my dream last night in the Journal because it was interesting.

So far my marketing efforts are:
* My book is in the hands of Theresa at the League of Extraordinary Women. I'm hoping she likes it enough to give it a review on thelxl.com.
* I've given out a handful of free copies, and I hope I can get my first review soon.
* I made my first personal post on my reader site, The Great Banana Bread Disaster, in an effort to let readers get to know me.

If anyone has room for a guest blogger, I would love to tell the story of publishing my book in the middle of a move, or talk about how I'm taking advantage of the technology available to serve my readers with my reader site. I would also be happy to return the favor once the reader site is getting decent traffic.

I know I can't do this alone, and hope I don't have to. :) A huge thank you to every one of my writer friends who encouraged me and helped me along the way. I hope some are willing to help me a little more.

Always Smiling,
Elizabeth Ann West

A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby. CANCELLED is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords. 

Tour of My Reader Site

My READER SITE is an answer to the problem I see of writers mixing their audiences with writer blogs. The only cost we've spent on the site is hosting space on Go Daddy. I am using Wordpress. My logo I created with Gimp. You just go to File, Create, Logo, and this is a Glossy with purples and pastel gradients. 


Features
I picked a very simple design because as I add pictures, links, and posts, the simple design will help minimize the clutter. I am using ZeeCorporate for my theme.


CHAT: I installed the plugin for Chatroll and signed up for an account at chatroll.com. It's free for up to 10 people chatting at a time. I want to offer a weekly chat with readers as a modern day update of the Meet the Author events. You can pick the color and size of the chat window, as well as if people can share links. What's nice is people can log in with Facebook, Twitter, or their own Chatroll log in.


Extras: I installed the plug in Pages Post to allow me to create a page that shows posts of a certain category or tag. I created the category Extras: Behind the Scenes CANCELLED. Each book will have their own page under the parent of Extras. You have to create the page first, then go into the Pages Post setting to say designate the page as a display of posts with a certain category. Pre plan this out to keep things organized. To password protect the posts, I just changed the Visibility (it's a setting in the top right corner) to Password Protect, then picked a password and saved.


I didn't want my password protected posts to show up on the front page. They're supposed to be kinda secret for people who have read my books. So I needed another plug in. Front Page Category lets you check mark which categories you want to show on the front page of your site, the main area. I just unchecked Extras and the child categories underneath it, and voila! No posts of extras on the front page.


I will add more to this as I develop the site. But this is the under the hood walkthrough for any other writer who wants to create a reader centric site.


"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

Free Advertising On My Reader Site

I just overhauled my reader site because we changed to Go Daddy for hosting. I have 4 spots for 125x125 ads on http://eawestwriting.com. I would love to feature other indie authors/resources for readers. This site is NOT for writers, so if you are trying to sell a book about writing, this isn't the right venue. I know one spot will be taken up with a spot for the paupersbookclub.com. But I am open to other suggestions. I will be leaving up the first set at least through the middle of October. 


For individual books, I would like to read a copy first (and no, it doesn't have to be free, if your summary grabs me, I'll buy it and read it). I am making this site personally for my readers and don't want to recommend books I myself did not enjoy. It's nothing personal. I am not charging for these ads, and my site will be a link at the front and back of each of my ebooks. There will also be weekly chat. The ads do show up on every page. Also coming is super secret behind the scenes information for my readers to access via password in the ebook.


If you're interested, please email me with the information on the contact page.


"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

If Everyone Is Offering Free eBook Contests, Are They Still Novel?

Every thirty seconds is another Tweet of "free ebook" and it's a drawing for people who leave comments on an author's blog. I don't click these links anymore. 


First, I see a fundamental problem with most of these sites: they aren't FOR readers. They are the personal blog of the author and most of the posts are about writing, marketing, being an independent author, etc. Occasionally, there are features for a reader, such as book reviews, background information about a character, etc. I have authors I love. As a reader, I don't care about their daily goals, word counts, or their marketing plans. 


As a reader, I care about their personality, what they're into, what's the latest project they are working on (just that, not daily updates about it), other authors they can recommend, sales on their books, and maybe where I can discuss their book with them. Most of that is not addressed on an author's blog.


My next dilemma is what is the point of a "free ebook" contest?


Get more comments/followers on a blog? Are they really good comments? Do you need to give away a book for an extra ten or twenty comments on your blog, or would it be better to just write content that encourages comments? What do the extra comments get you if the blog is not even geared towards readers?


Increase exposure for the book, maybe the people who don't win will buy it! This is probably not likely. First, readers who follow an author's blog probably already BOUGHT the book. Second, anyone entering the contest is probably just willing to get a free ebook, not waiting with bated breath to WIN your specific book. Especially books priced at $.99. I mean, it's not a commodity people save up for. Like a car. Or an ereader....


But wait, every day one comment gets my ebook free and then at the end of the month/week there will be a drawing from every daily winner/everyone who entered for a $25/$50/$100 gift certificate/ereader of their choice.... ::slaps forehead:: Let's do the math shall we? Assuming a $.99 ebook and the cheapest $25 gift certificate grand prize, and even just a week long contest. Overall, the author gives away 7 ebooks, for a loss of $2.38 ($.34 commission on each book) and $25 in a gift certificate. Grand total author cost = $27.38


To break even on this promotion, for a $.99 novel, the author would need to sell 81 books as the result of this promotion alone. If your contest see a sales spike that large, I'm impressed, but the ones I've seen have maybe 10-20 people leave a comment to get a free ebook. For a $2.99 novel, it's 20 sales. Not 20 comments/entries, but 20 sales. And if you don't make up the difference? Well take how much money you are out and divide it by the number of entries you received. That's how much you paid per comment. Ask yourself, if someone spammed you on Twitter and said "Free comments on your blog, just $1 a piece!" would you buy it?


Lesson? Give away your book for free, don't add a grand prize. And if you aren't getting traffic/sales to make up for the free ebook giveaway? Find a better way to market. 


Oh and contests with like 6 things a reader must do to "enter?" Like comment here, add link on their blog, like you on Facebook... and so on. Give them the book for free.


I think these contests were very effective originally when the idea of winning a free book from the author was exciting and new. Today, with nearly every indie author/reader blog throwing a free ebook contest, it's just a spam thing. If you're doing an interview somewhere, give a free ebook to everyone in the audience (the people who leave comments). Oprah did it, and look what happened to her ratings? LOL. 


Put yourself in the reader's shoes. What makes YOU want to buy a book? This is probably the answer: an interesting cover, great hook, and a decent price. If a book doesn't have an interesting cover, you aren't going to read the hook. If the hook is exciting to you, you won't even look at the price. And if the price is too high, you're not going to buy. This is why digital advertisements work on reader blogs to spike sales. Readers know the book will fit into their price range (whether it's $.99 or a under $3 blog etc.), the print ad with the cover grabs their attention and then it comes down to the hook. 


Advertising and marketing that plays to these strengths -- a visual image of the novel, a great hook, and decent price -- those are the marketing campaigns worth the money. Intent is just as important with advertising as it is in writing. Intent can be increased sales, exposure, or both, but make sure the effort and money is worth the results. 


"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

Indie Authors: How to Beat the Agents to the Punch

The buzz around the indie world this week is agencies offering self-publishing services. Worries about ethics and what this means for the agency's current traditionally published clients abounds. However, one very important component of this deal isn't talked about, and that's the lower cost of doing business on a larger scale. This is what is meant by the term "economies of scale" that has been thrown around on a bunch of blogs here and there. If you're like me and slept through most of your 8:30 AM MWF Economics class, here's a good practical example....


NetGalley.com


NetGalley.com is a digital galley distribution system. Publishers pay a monthly fee, and professional readers can request galleys of the latest books to come out for their review sites. I learned about this site by reading popular book review sites when I was performing marketing research. I have a list of blogs I would like to ask to read my book and review it, and many of them have on their About page how they use NetGalley.com to get free copies of new books. 


So I began looking into NetGalley.com myself. Turns out, for publishers it's a dream. Not only is your manuscript listed for review, but the interface keeps track of who requested it, when, and where the review is. 


I became excited. I wanted to be a part of this. After all, looking at the lists of publishers, it's all the big names! If my book could be put into the pool for professional readers with the traditionally published books, it might help break down just one more wall between the two camps. So the next issue was cost.


Per an email from Susan Ruszala, Director of Marketing, there is nothing preventing a group of independent authors from signing up under one name and splitting the costs. Currently, for 2-5 books uploaded, it's $225 per month. I looked at that number and sucked in my breath.


Then I did some math. Let's pretend I made a loose co-op with three author friends in my genre. We decide to call our account "An Independent Romance" because that is the genre we all write, and I would insist we start with an "A" so we are at the top of the publisher list alphabetically. So under "An Independent Romance" professional readers can find books independently published with a romantic theme, though actual genre might be paranormal, cozy mystery, women's fiction, chick-lit, etc. 


Author A has been in the game the longest, she has 6 books out and publishes 2-3 per year. She wants 2 spots for book reviews. The rest of us are happy with one spot (and we can all change out the book to be reviewed at any time). The breakdown would be $45 a month for the three of us only wanting one spot, and $90 for the person with two books up for professional reviews. 


For one author using only one spot, that's $540 a year. NetGalley.com does require a year subscription. Now, Netgalley.com isn't just good for advertising, as in just for professional reviewers to stumble on your book. You also get a widget to put in emails or on websites and you have a strong interface to let readers read your book and review it for free. You still have to approve the requests, so that prevents just anyone from getting a free copy. It also builds a listing of reviewers, so when your second or third book comes out, you have a list of reviewers interested in your work to email blast. Maybe they don't review your second book, but I'm sure they'd like the news that an author they positively reviewed before is releasing a new book...


Here's what it comes down to: if we don't want agencies to crop up and confuse new authors by providing self-published services for 15% and fees, then we need to do a better job of working with each other. We all complain about collusion in the publishing world, how coincidentally the "boiler plates" all look the same...If we're all in this together, we will be stronger for it. 


If I can find 3-4 writing friends to create a NetGalley.com membership with me, I'd be interested in joining in September or October. $45 a month for advertising, I would only need 23 sales each month to be the result of reviews to make up the money. The exposure is harder to quantify.  


If anyone is interested in banding together to create a NetGalley.com account, let me know. I think it's a great way to start taking the mystical professional review process out of the hands of a select few and putting in the hands of authors straight to readers. I also think it will be a great value in time-saving, as the professional reviewers come to us, giving authors more time to write and edit.

"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

Rethinking the Paperback's Place in Self-Publishing

I will be a self-published author. I have 0 designs of selling a paperback version of my book in book stores. First, it would never be on the front displays, it would be lost somewhere in the lengthy Romance fiction shelves, near the end, under "W" for my last name. No one would even find it back there, unless they were looking for it. If they were looking for it, they probably heard about my book online, which means they can buy it from Amazon directly, or read the ebook version.


Now, this doesn't mean a paperback version of my book is worthless. Far from it. But, it is more likely that the people who want a printed version have already read the electronic version and enjoyed it. Or, they know someone who read it and don't own an e-reader. In the first situation, I've already made my royalty off the reader, I don't care if they get the paper version for the lowest price possible. In the second situation, they're trying me out on the recommendation of a friend, so again, I'd like them to get a hold of the book for the lowest price possible. And, I'd like to encourage them to adopt e-reading as that helps grow author-centric publishing for all of us. 


SO HERE IS MY PLAN:


I am not in favor of long-term $.99 pricing for my ebook. That is just me, and I understand other authors will have different strategies for their works. That's great! For my plans, I will price my ebook at $2.99. This will net me roughly a $2 royalty per ebook sold.


My printed books with be POD through Createspace. I will sign up for the ProPlan for $39 a year, so that this plan can work. My paperback will be 6x9, 300 pages. Included in the purchase of the paperback will be an offer for a free electronic version (probably in PDF). I should preface all of this with I do not believe in DRM. My paperback price? $7.99. 


Royalty-wise this is roughly $.34 if a reader buys my paperback book through Amazon's website, and $1.94 if they buy it from my author site. 


This is how it would look:


Reader who wants BOTH e-book and paperback copy: Buy it from my site for $7.99 and get both. (I make $1.94)


Reader ONLY wants ebook: Buy it for $2.99. (I make $2.00)


Reader stumbles on my paperback on Amazon.com: I make $.34, but did 0 marketing for that sale, and hopefully the reasonable price makes the reader more likely to recommend it to someone else. Also, there will be an offer for the reader to email me and get an electronic copy for free.


I think the number of readers in the last category will be very small. This idea started from reading on another's blog (I honestly do NOT remember who's blog it was) that they offered the print version mainly as a service to their readers, they didn't expect major sales. Yet, the paperback version was priced at $12. 


This got me thinking...what does the paperback version as a SERVICE to readers really look like? And this is what I came up with. I'm happy to hear comments and concerns from others. Maybe there is an angle I missed. However, I think pricing the paperback as low as possible will be better for readers overall. 

"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

#ROW80 Cinco de Fun

Careful, it's school supply season out there..... :)
I have a new system for sanity: three simple composition books. I've had a binder with plastic sheet protectors and loose-leaf paper, but my 2-year-old thinks it's fascinating to take the paper out of the plastic and crumple it. Composition books she opens, but the threading keeps the paper pretty safe. I'm not surprised, remember in elementary school trying to rip a piece of paper out of one of these scarce school supplies? It was the grade school equivalent of ripping a phone book in half!


Book 1: WRITING JOURNAL :  This was recommended on Twitter, but it's mostly a log of things I did on a certain day (when I started, what I accomplished, and a short list of what I want to get done). I cross off items I get done, leave the ones I haven't so they can carry over. 


Book 2: MARKETING : I have been doing a little research into marketing, solidifying my marketing plan. One post that really helped this was a discussion on The Passive Voice Guy's blog about where do readers find books to read? The answers were very surprising, and I made sure to write down all of the blogs and sites listed that suited my genre. The conversation continued here, as well. I LOVE the design and functionality of The Pauper's Book Club, and the creator Damon Courtney is very open to suggestions from other readers and writers about how to improve. He is also looking for ideas on curating the shelves. 


I also researched into advertising on Mommy blogs/family savings blogs. Federated Media (go to marketers) looks very promising as they are professional bloggers with validated traffic and some sites are very affordable. For example, there is a site I'm interested in advertising on that is women's health, beauty, technology, and geek culture. THAT is one slice of my audience (I have robots in my book :) ). They get 170,000 page views per month, and a leaderboard 728x90 for 10,000 impressions (or views by a reader) will give me a 26% voice (meaning my ad would be every fourth one, very good), and I could run it from Oct. 1-13 for only $42.50. I would need 22 sales from the 10,000 people who see the ad to break even. 


So this is what my marketing book is for, I can't act on all of this right this second, but I am looking at various channels and planning the most effective way to use them.


Book 3 : EDITING: Right now I am working on my editing checklists, and I haven't used this book yet. I can't edit CANCELLED for another week, but I already have ideas swirling in my head about places where I know my manuscript is weak. I am going to have to really work on characterization, for example. I know my storyline is strong, and that's a good backbone to have. However, crying my eyes out last night at the last Harry Potter movie (not because the movie was goo, I thought it awful) I was crying for Snape the character in the books, not Alan Rickman's portrayal. In fact, if I hadn't read the books, I would have thought "What the hell is going on?" 


I have a strong place in my book where I cried as I wrote it. Buckets. But that's because I KNOW these people I'm writing about. I need to make sure I can make my reader feel sympathetic, too.


Oh, I also forgot to mention, book 2 officially has Chapter 1 finished. It will probably get cut/be an extra scene. All in all I feel VERY successful this week, and I'm looking forward to this last week of break from CANCELLED before rolling up my sleeves and taking no prisoners!

"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.


OTHER AWESOME A ROUND OF WORDS IN 80 DAYS WRITERS...CHECK OUT THEIR BLOGS!!

#ROW80 Check in #3 SOUVENIR!!

This is too cool. This has me elated on the inside. This is so simple, it's scary.


My "souvenirs" on my Round 3 of a Round of Words in 80 Days is working on my reader website, eawestwriting.com, and man did I just find a bargain!


My goals for my reader website are here. One idea I feel very passionate about is behind-the-scenes information. As a reader myself, I go bananas for the author's notes/insights into what's coming next, etc. But I also wanted to make the information secret to people who haven't read the book. Yet, not require all of my readers to "register" with a site (the server space alone would be difficult to manage if my books do well, which is the ultimate goal here). 


Enter password protected posts. This is not a feature available on Blogger, but it is available on Wordpress. Thankfully, my reader site is powered by Wordpress (.org install on my home server). Check this out: http://eawestwriting.com/index.php/news/super-secret-information-about-alex

You can't see it, can you? Put in the password Pumpkin


Ta da! (Funny Freudian note.... Pumpkin is my nickname for my stepson, funny how that was the first password that popped in my head.)


Here is a little author's insight on my character Alexis Rodriguez. I might put in a stock photo or something of how I imagine Alexis to look like. Not sure if that's a good idea.... unless I maybe add the caption "Here was my inspiration for Alexis Rodriguez" 


I also added a SPOILER at the bottom, a small detail I know happens in the second book. I tried to make the text the same color as the background, so you have to highlight it to read. This way, people can still read the behind-the-scenes, but choose not to read the spoiler if they don't want to (I don't know anyone who would).


Keeping the Fun Going


Obviously there will probably be someone who tries to ruin the fun by giving out the password. But I'm one step ahead of them. First, I will politely ask that people preserve the fun for others and not spoil the surprise. That usually thwarts the people who will work around the system, if you just roger up that they can and the password is just for fun. Second, I plan to change the password either monthly or quarterly (I'm leaning quarterly). 


For my ebook readers, I will have a Note to My Readers where I will profusely thank them for reading and leaving a review if they so choose to do so. Explain the game of getting to the sneak peeks, and put in the password. On a quarterly basis I will update the ebook file with my distributors and also give a way for them to email for the current password/join a mailing list. By updating, I can also update my reader letter to reflect what is currently going on. I.E. first quarter is just "thank you thank you, here's the game....."
second quarter is "thank you thank you, hope you check out my new book (link) and here's the game....."
third quarter is "thank you and thanks to all of you my sales are X,Y,Z beyond anything I could ever imagine. So glad the book is reaching people, here's my other titles. Here's the game..."


And so on. 


In the print version, I will use the email listing. They give email, they get password in a quarterly Elizabeth Ann West newsletter.


"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.

Unpublished Author, How Can I Negotiate?

Why a high five and not a typical handshake?


Remember when we were kids at the lunch table and a Twinkie traded for like two Fruit Rollups? Both kids happily eating the snack they prefer, Moms never the wiser?


True, successful negotiation is teamwork. Everyone gives a little to get something they want, all parties left generally happy. In self-publishing, negotiation skills are a must, and nobody wants a party to feel "shafted." Why? Because "So-and-so screwed me over" travels much faster in the link sharing, social networking universe we live in than the other side of the story.


When will a self-publishing or unpublished author need to negotiate? ALL THE TIME. Blog tours? Usually a quid-pro-quo situation. Advertising on reader blogs? Negotiating is the only way to get a reduced rate.


There are a number of skills an author should use in negotiating. Throw out any ideas of playing hardball. This is about bringing people on your team, and you joining theirs.

1. Be nice and professional, even when the answer is a "No." This is just a counter offer. By being courteous back, you never know when someone will say "Oh, alright." Especially if they think you are walking away. Don't be fake, but being polite makes any offer much sweeter.
2. Give a reasonable offer, not a low-ball. If you don't have much of a marketing budget, that's okay to say so, but don't expect to buy a $50 image ad on a blog that regularly charges (and gets) $300 for the same ad. Now, maybe ask for a $50 text ad, or offer to buy 2 image ads for $250 each. 
3. Only make promises you can keep. Don't say your blog has 100 visitors a day when it only gets 20. Remember how fast bad press runs? It's okay to trade for a future favor, but make sure you are 100% prepared to deliver, or go above and beyond (and most likely inequitable) if things fall through.
4. Expand beyond yourself. Becoming friends and acquaintances with people in other professions, and with other skill sets, you can help people find each other to trade services. It might help you get a discount, or bump you up in the line later on.

Negotiation is about being real with expectations, what you can deliver, and how it will help both of you. Finally, the most important part is to remain mum on the details of a negotiation, unless the other party has given you permission to disclose the terms. A reader blog might not want it widely known it will take two guaranteed ads at a discounted price (there might have been income shortfalls that month). 


"CANCELLED" arriving SEPTEMBER 2011. A robotics engineer asks his business partner to marry him, but a previous one-night stand is having his baby.