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Category: books and novels
The Most Bang for the Buck in Successful Book Marketing
I’m a statistics girl. I can, by the numbers, tell you what works and what doesn’t. I can’t tell you who your target market is, though, because I haven’t read your book…and probably won’t. What I can do is, in a nutshell, tell you what does NOT work. You promoting your own novels and books via social media DOES NOT WORK. Further, you don’t need a Facebook page, you don’t need a Google page, you don’t need Tumblr, Pinterest, Linked-In, or Instagram. You need to buy advertising targeted to your demographic market. FB advertising works. Amazon advertising works. Goodreads advertising does not. Your newsletter might generate some sales, but, anymore, if you’re late to the party, which most of you are, then, no.
Will your work catch fire? That’s completely dependent upon luck and the ever-fickle tastes of the mobs.
Good luck.
Self-Promotion Does NOT Work. Really.
How many of you self-publishing authors see repeated promotions of one author and the latest book by that author coming out of publishing’s Big 5 in your social media streams? I’m guessing ‘not’. You might see a few pre-release promo-s and one or two during the book’s release week, but that would be it.
On the other hand, how many of you self-publishing authors see repeated promotions by some one or another self-publishing author about their books in your social media streams? I’m guessing ‘a lot’ …unless that self-publishing author happens to be highly successful. Then, you rarely see promotions from them. What you WILL see are others sharing the news that that successful author has just released another book. And therein lies the key.
The most effective promotions are those proliferated by fans of the author, not by the author themselves. And they don’t flood your streams.
Take a clue and stop flooding your streams with self-promotional posts. It doesn’t work, and, in fact, it’s counter-productive. It just turns potential readers OFF.
Popular Misconconceptions Purposely Contrived and Cultivated
I can be a controversial irritant. I know this. Still, I have a lot of people who, while afraid to admit it out loud, totally agree with me. And, privately, they applaud me for saying what they feel they can’t. That they won’t publicly support my saying it isn’t necessarily a sign of cowardice. It is a sign of fear–fear of crowd scorning, of cyber bullying, and of ruining their smiling, online, positive images purposely designed to try to gain market traction.
Yes, I do get groans from some of them, too, even the ones who agree with me. I get outright disfriending and snarling responses, private and public, from those who don’t. But you know what? The groaners and the muck slingers don’t bother me and don’t deter me. That I irritate them tells me that I cracked the plastic veneer.
Occasionally, I get a response that bears attending. One such came from my old publicist, who still, it seems, keeps tabs on me. Lately, he sent me applause with one hand while lecturing me about inadvisability with the other hand, admittedly typing with his thumb from his Smartphone, “so I’ll make this brief.” Since I’m “in business” to sell my books, he suggests, “Wouldn’t it be prudent to rein in posting [my] opinions,” opinions that are, as he puts it, “often counter to popular misconceptions purposefully contrived and cultivated?”
That one made me blink. I immediately noticed the lack of qualifiers and quantifiers–normal. But for him to outright say what he did was astounding to me. This is a man who is, at all times, cautious in his every action, deed, and word.
‘Popular misconceptions purposely contrived and cultivated’–yes, exactly.
And why are misconceptions purposely contrived and cultivated in the public at large? Profit and power.
Sad, isn’t it? The public, the people, are being purposely fed artfully contrived misconceptions, and they swallow them whole. It’s ‘whole cloth’, completely fabricated and false, completely contrary to their best interests, proliferated by the blind who have been sold on the process. And I ain’t talking about U.S. or world politics, here, though the same applies. I’m talking self-promotion, the selling-my-book business, the World Wide Web, social media. and effective marketing strategies.
The sighted blinding the credulous.
How Not to Sell Me on Your Novel
Authors, really.
Do I care that you’re having a “huge sale”?
No. I’m not a bargain basement book shopper, willing to spend my time on anything that comes my way because it’s cheap or free.
I also don’t care if you’ve won some award or contest with your book. I know how contests and awards work from the inside, so I know that, chances are, the only reason the book won is for reasons that have nothing at all to do with its actual quality and value as good reading. Likewise with professional reviews.
Next on my list of “I don’t give a damn” is whether or not you made some best seller’s list or, worse than that, some “pop” list voted on by Joe and Josepha Public. BS lists are just that–bullshit lists–manipulated by skill and subterfuge, and “pop” lists rank even lower, being manipulated by cliques and back-scratchers.
What will convince me to buy your book? Good hook, good writing, and a riveting story I can’t put down, written in a genre I like…which is most anything that, A, doesn’t dwell in the dreary, disheartening, perverse, stupid, insipid, banal, and/or trite and, B, which lacks any descent into gratuitous sex, gore, and/or violence.
How do you catch me? First off, a good slag-line. Second, a good description. Third, a first page that makes me want to read on…and that continues to pull me along all the way through the excerpt provided by Amazon. Then, yes, you’ve just made a real sale, and, despite being a KU member, I will actually pay you your full asking price…because I believe GOOD writers should be paid.