[Sam Landstrom]

I was thinking of dumping what money I make off of my Kindle sales back into advertising. My target is relatively specific-- sci-fi readers who own a Kindle. I assume this means advertising on the Amazon website.

Has anyone tried this? Was it effective? I'm not talking about a budget of thousands of dollars, more like a few hundred.

Thanks!

-----------------------------------------------
Sam Landstrom
Author of acclaimed "MetaGame", sci-fi novel for 80 cents
http://www.amazon.com/MetaGame-ebook/dp/B002AJ88LC

 

[TiffanyTurner]

I have tried advertising my book on Facebook. It can add up fast depending on how much you put in for a bid per click. But I'm still waiting for my sales to be posted by my publisher. Sometimes the Amazon sales can take up to 6 months to be paid. The Kindle reports come up pretty fast though. I can also tell what sales happen by the product sales # rating. But that doesn't count the book sales for other on-line sellers and book stores. I have to wait months for those sales numbers.
It's like some things are becoming lightning fast, except royalty payments.
*Sorry, author humor*

 

[Sam Landstrom]

I have tried advertising my book on Facebook. It can add up fast depending on how much you put in for a bid per click. But I'm still waiting for my sales to be posted by my publisher. Sometimes the Amazon sales can take up to 6 months to be paid. The Kindle reports come up pretty fast though. I can also tell what sales happen by the product sales # rating. But that doesn't count the book sales for other on-line sellers and book stores. I have to wait months for those sales numbers.
It's like some things are becoming lightning fast, except royalty payments.
*Sorry, author humor*

Thanks for the reply Tiffany. Why did you choose Facebook? Did you consider a more "book specific" site such as Amazon?

I remember advertising with Google for a website I co-created and the costs added up fast! I'm not doing that again. If I'm going to do advertising at all, it has to be very targeted so that there's a good chance the person seeing it will actually be interested.

-----------------------------------------------
Sam Landstrom
Author of acclaimed "MetaGame", sci-fi novel for 80 cents
http://www.amazon.com/MetaGame-ebook/dp/B002AJ88LC

 

[TiffanyTurner]

I chose Facebook and now I've branched out to Adwords on Google. Both together are driving traffic to my website. I found the secret is in the keywords both on Adwords and Facebook. With Facebook, you can target your landing site to be the Amazon.com page with your book. I found this gave me the most sales. I'd actually built a landing site page and the Amazon.com page link gave me more sales.

Adwords gives me lots of traffic to my website, but I'm still waiting on numbers from my publisher to see if sales went up last quarter. The only numbers that are instant right now are Kindle sales.

I'm waiting right now for a special $0.99 cent sale to get readers interested in my first book. My second book will be coming out end of summer. So, I want to get as much as a reader base to lead into the new book.

You can control your budget per day too on either. But it does cost some to keep it all going. I tend to target times when pay checks are given out. Usually mid-month and end of month seems to be the best since people wait to buy things when they get paid.

Hope that helps a bit to get you started. Post on the thread how things go. I'd be interested in anything you find out about advertising on Amazon.

 

[jawar]

Some of the best ways to advertise your Kindle Book are often the simplest and most overlooked, here goes...

1) Have a great title, tags, description and cover.
2) Constantly create new titles within the same genre. Readers will want to read more of your material.
3) After success with several books in the same genre you may want to write/publish new books in a sub or related genre.
4) Ensure you exhaust all of the free resources to brand, market, promote, publicize and advertise your business before investing new money.
"THINK, PLAN, EXECUTE!"™

 

[Jason Kristopher]

Jawar is right.

There's plenty of free resources out there. Here's some things I've learned. Some of these I picked up myself, some I got from a very close friend who also just happens to be the Director of Marketing for one of the biggest accounting firms in the country (and just won Marketer of the Year). So, she knows what she's talking about, mmmkay?

These are some of the things that have gained me my 144 sales in just 3.5 weeks:

GoodReads

• Get on Goodreads as an Author (make sure to check the box or ask them to switch your profile) and make sure your book in all its editions are listed. If not, add them manually.
  
• Run a giveaway, if the book is soon to be released or has been out < 6 months. I'm giving away 5 copies in my *free* giveaway (sign up until the end of June here). It costs you nothing other than shipping (or email if you choose the ebook). 340 people have requested a copy in this giveaway. How many of the ones who don't win will buy it? A good %, I'm guessing.
  
• Start a Q&A board. Post some topics, and wait for people to respond to them (it's slow).
  
• Do an ad campaign. Mine's had over 10,000 views and cost me $0.60 so far, with 15 clicks and 65 people adding it to one of their bookshelves.
  
• Upload your ebook and price it the same as on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. People can buy it right from GR.
  
• Become fans of the authors you like, and accept friend requests from whomever adds you (within reason).
  
• Post a GR widget on your website to drive traffic.

SOCIAL MEDIA
This is a *big* one. Learn them, love them, use them.

Twitter

• LEARN THE LINGO. READ. Figure out what hashtags are and how to use them CORRECTLY.
  
• Never go over 140 characters. EVER. It's annoying, and people will end up just scrolling right past you.
  
• Don't inundate your followers with only tweets about your book though. The ratio should be 1:10 at most, 1:15 is better.
  
• Post anything and everything you think of about writing. Links to others' blogs. Giveaways (yours or others). The occasional review of your book. A good one you read. GoodReads can help with this if you link it to your Twitter, for status updates including reviews.
  
• Don't overflow your follower's twitter feeds, either. Use a site like Timely.is to spread them out and get the most effective and productive timing. Load up the queue once per day, then all you have to do is check/respond to your mentions.
  
• DON'T re-tweet everything you see and hear. DON'T ask for a RT, ever. DO RT things that are cool, funny, or mind-blowing. Too many RTs in a day though and you'll look like a copycatter.

Facebook Pages

• Use an Author page, not a personal page. There is a HUGE difference in credibility if you do this.
  
• Get as many people as you can find to "Like" your page until you have 25 likes - then choose a PROFESSIONAL-SOUNDING "name" for your url. facebook.com/JasonKristopher was already taken, so I chose facebook.com/Author.JasonKristopher. See what I mean?
  
• UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES LINK YOUR TWITTER FEED TO YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE. This is LAZY. Hashtags mean nothing on Facebook, and just annoy your fans. The @ symbol should be used to tag your fans or cool pages that you like - not to mention someone on Twitter. Don't be that guy. And that guy also just copies and pastes the exact same tweet to his status instead of doing a basic rewording. Mix it up some.
  
• Follow the same rules as Twitter in terms of content. 1:15 ratio, remember?
  
• REMEMBER THIS IS YOUR PROFESSIONAL AUTHOR PAGE, not your personal page. So no going off and liking "Chicks with low-cut shirts" or similar. Dig?
  
• Respond to every fan who posts on your page personally, until you have so many postings a day that you can't keep up. And you won't have that many for quite some time, ok?

CONVENTIONS

These things are ubiquitous. Wiki "Convention <YOUR STATE>" to find some. Or use your Google-fu, man.

• Most of the time, it costs about $50 - 200 to get a table in an Artist/Author Alley. Get a table, and get one all to yourself. You don't want to have to talk about your table-mates book instead of your own.
  
• HAVE SOMETHING TO SELL. Yes, this means printing a copy of your book. Go to CreateSpace. Unless you get the Pro Plan, it costs ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to sell your book on Amazon. Even with the Pro Plan, it's $39, and you nearly double the royalty and halve the cost for copies for yourself. Order a bunch of copies, then sell them - autographed of course - at the convention.
  
• Package Deals. For my conventions, I offer the book, the ebook, and (while supplies last) a limited edition signed and numbered print of the excellent cover art. All for $10 - 12. Unbeatable deal.
  
• MAKE IT AS EASY AS POSSIBLE FOR THE CUSTOMER TO BUY YOUR STUFF. Visit Square, a website with an associated free app you can download for the iPhone/iPad (and maybe other devices, not sure). This app lets you accept credit/debit card payments through your phone. They'll even send you a card reader, FOR FREE. Plug it into the headphone jack, and you're off! "Why yes ma'am, I do accept plastic. Even AMEX."
  
• Have freebies. Check out PrintPlace and have 1,000 bookmarks printed and shipped for $35 - 50. People stop at your table, maybe they're not interested - tell them to take some bookmarks, as many as they want "I've got a thousand of them". They'll use them and maybe change their mind - or a friend might pick one up and get the info. Put all your contact info and the book blurb on the back. If you can't fit the blurb on the back in 8 or 9 pt font, IT'S NOT A BLURB. Cut it down.
  
• See above, and do the same thing with business cards - what I call "author cards". The book's blurb, some contact info (TWITTER, FACEBOOK, EMAIL). Use different front sides, and believe it or not people will collect them. I've seen it.
  
• Talk to people. Have a friend watch your table and walk around the con. Take some of your freebies and hand them out - but don't accost everyone you see. Be friendly. Be open. BRING HAND SANITIZER.
  
• Have an "elevator pitch". A ONE sentence blurb about the book that tells an interested person everything they need to know. SUPER-important.
  
• Trade with other artists. Swap a book for a piece of awesome art, or a photo, or another book. The point is to get the word out. Just be careful - sell more than you trade, and only trade for good stuff, not for the crap some guy made in his mom's basement that LOOKS like he did it there. Understand?

And the single most important thing you can do to sell your book:

REVIEWS​

If they've read it, they need to review it. More reviews = better rankings = more sales = more writing. See how that works?

That's just my $2 (it's a bit more than $0.02, lol). Feel free to ask questions if you have them.

 

[Lisa Scott]

Wow, Jason.  Lots of great stuff there.  Thanks!

 

[Jason Kristopher]

I realized after posting that it doesn't all apply directly to the kindle, but the simple fact is that most of us are going to see more sales on kindle than in any other format. Just the nature of the beast now. So the whole point of your marketing (notice I didn't say advertising) should be to get your name or the name of your book (preferably both) in front of as many people as possible, without appearing to be forcing it down their throats.

Be active. Answer questions and ask them. Give books away for review. Always say yes to interviews. Write a blog and guest on others (I haven't done this yet but it's a great way to do it).

Do all of this stuff until you think you can afford not to. And then do it for another six months to a year. Only then should you even consider tapering off. But always leave a way for your fans to connect with you directly, even if they know you can't always respond.

And above all: never, ever, EVER be a dick to a fan. We all make mistakes, but never do it intentionally. The will kill your fanbase faster than anything. Remember, without them, you're just another person with an idea who might make it as a writer someday.

Remember, thou art mortal.

 

[herocious]

@Sam: Thanks for starting this thread.

@Jason: Your list is quite comprehensive. I'm so happy sales have been good for you lately. That's always great to hear. I've gotten on Goodreads and really feel like that's something I could market with. What kind of ad campaign cost you only 60 cents? I didn't realize you could upload your book on GR.

I've been doing the interview/guest post thing, and I've gotten several elegant reviews. But I haven't tried selling my novel in person yet, and I wouldn't say sales have continued strong as they did after I first released it earlier this year, but I'm confident this will change mainly because I believe people will treat you with compassion so long as your treat them in kind.

If you'd like to do a guest post over at TheOpenEnd, which I edit, please submit something

submissions [at] theopenend [dot] com]

Even this list you made would be most useful!

 

[nomesque]

Hehe - this thread took me back! 2009?? I was wondering why on earth Sam was asking for marketing help - and claiming that Metagame's 80c! - when he's been with Amazon Encore for yonks now.