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So there's a lot of talk lately about whether or not this sponsorship or that sponsorship is "worth it." The latest prime candidate is Pixel of Ink, as some people have seen very good results from buying a sponsorship, and some folks question the value of the sponsorship versus the cost. Obviously that is something that every has to decide for themselves, but I wanted to drop a few conceptual tidbits out here for consumption. Let's start with my facts - I am not a marketing professional, but I have spent the last fifteen years in sales. I've run various businesses and worked for several more. One thing everything in my work experience tells me is that you can almost never tell if advertising is "worth it."
Advertising and marketing is not about selling $200 worth of ebooks in 24-72 hours. It's not about seeing your ranking jump 20,000 spots, no matter how rewarding that is. It's not about making it onto your genre bestseller lists, no matter how cool it is to see on your book's page. It's about getting eyes onto the product. It's about building a platform, and giving people information about you, about your books and about your writing.
This is not something that you can do in a day. It's not something you can do in a month, or even a year. Building a platform is truly long-tail work, the work of years. I don't have much platform AT ALL, and I've spent five years working on my blog and writing poker articles translated into 22 languages and seen in 27 countries. And I'm still a nobody! So how in the world do you think you can catapult from nobody to Stephen King on the back of one or two sponsorships on websites that might on a good day reach 5,000 people?
You won't. Pixel of Ink isn't going to make you a successful writer. Neither will Kindle Nation Daily, Joe Konrath's comment section, or anything else that looks only at a short term. That's not to say that buying sponsorships to these sites is worthless, it's to say that you need a plan. You need to think further than the end of your nose, and look at the whole forest, not just the tree in front of you. Did I mix enough metaphors there for you?
We talk all the time about "marathon, not a sprint," but then we turn around and say "so and so is great, my ranking shot up to 1,500 and stayed there for eight hours!" Seriously? You're all smarter than that. Nobody knows what piece of marketing made anyone's sales shoot up. What we do know about the people around here with sales figures to be jealous of is this - they wrote and continue to write good books. You want Dalglish money? So do I. So I'm trying to make sure my books are as good as his. Frankly, I don't want Dalglish money, or Hocking money, or Konrath money. I want them to want Hartness money. So I write, every day, as well as I can. And I have a plan for marketing all my work. And so far, that plan is increasing sales across the board. I may have things that don't work, but it won't be judged in a week. The success or failure of any marketing efforts will be judged in months or years, not days or weeks.
Be patient. Write the best books you can. Promote with a plan, don't just jump on the latest bandwagon to roll through town. And don't make long-term decisions with only short-term data.
I'll get off my soapbox now and wait for the rotten tomatoes to come in. I do still love you guys! (ducks behind soapbox)
Advertising and marketing is not about selling $200 worth of ebooks in 24-72 hours. It's not about seeing your ranking jump 20,000 spots, no matter how rewarding that is. It's not about making it onto your genre bestseller lists, no matter how cool it is to see on your book's page. It's about getting eyes onto the product. It's about building a platform, and giving people information about you, about your books and about your writing.
This is not something that you can do in a day. It's not something you can do in a month, or even a year. Building a platform is truly long-tail work, the work of years. I don't have much platform AT ALL, and I've spent five years working on my blog and writing poker articles translated into 22 languages and seen in 27 countries. And I'm still a nobody! So how in the world do you think you can catapult from nobody to Stephen King on the back of one or two sponsorships on websites that might on a good day reach 5,000 people?
You won't. Pixel of Ink isn't going to make you a successful writer. Neither will Kindle Nation Daily, Joe Konrath's comment section, or anything else that looks only at a short term. That's not to say that buying sponsorships to these sites is worthless, it's to say that you need a plan. You need to think further than the end of your nose, and look at the whole forest, not just the tree in front of you. Did I mix enough metaphors there for you?
We talk all the time about "marathon, not a sprint," but then we turn around and say "so and so is great, my ranking shot up to 1,500 and stayed there for eight hours!" Seriously? You're all smarter than that. Nobody knows what piece of marketing made anyone's sales shoot up. What we do know about the people around here with sales figures to be jealous of is this - they wrote and continue to write good books. You want Dalglish money? So do I. So I'm trying to make sure my books are as good as his. Frankly, I don't want Dalglish money, or Hocking money, or Konrath money. I want them to want Hartness money. So I write, every day, as well as I can. And I have a plan for marketing all my work. And so far, that plan is increasing sales across the board. I may have things that don't work, but it won't be judged in a week. The success or failure of any marketing efforts will be judged in months or years, not days or weeks.
Be patient. Write the best books you can. Promote with a plan, don't just jump on the latest bandwagon to roll through town. And don't make long-term decisions with only short-term data.
I'll get off my soapbox now and wait for the rotten tomatoes to come in. I do still love you guys! (ducks behind soapbox)