How to Sell More Ebooks at Smashwords

Posted on July 2, 2011 by Lindsay

Sell Ebooks at SmashwordsIf you’re like many indie authors, you’d like to sell ebooks through Smashwords since there are quite a few perks:

  • They pay a higher royalty than Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the others (85% and there’s no dip in your cut for titles priced under $2.99).
  • They offer all ebook formats so you don’t have to worry about directing Nook people to B&N, Kindle people to Amazon, etc. etc.
  • They have a more flexible affiliate program, meaning you choose how much to offer affiliates (people interested in promoting your ebooks so they can make some money too).

There are lots of reasons Smashwords should be appealing to authors, but their marketplace doesn’t get nearly the eyeballs of Amazon or even Barnes & Noble and Apple, so it can be a challenge to sell ebooks there.

That doesn’t mean you can’t make some sales at Smashwords though. Here are a couple of things that have worked for me:

Doing periodic giveaways via their coupon program

I don’t bother with half-off coupons or anything like that. I do 100% off and make the coupon good for a few days. Then I’ll publicize it in the Mobile Read forum.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve sometimes had bloggers pick up on those giveaways and write them up on their sites. This ends up helping me with promotion, and sometimes the folks who get the freebies go on to pay full-price for other ebooks (just recently, I gave away some free copies of Emperor’s Edge this way, and I had quite a few sales of the sequel, Dark Currents, as a result. Some people picked up Encrypted too).

Talking up the affiliate program

I admittedly haven’t done much with this since I wrote up my “How to Make Money Promoting My Ebooks (and other people’s too)” post back in January, but I do see sales from affliates now and then on my Smashwords dashboard. Quite a few came after that post, which makes me think I should probably put a permanent link to it over in the menu somewhere so new readers can find it.

But, anyway…

We can talk about book promotion techniques all day, but ultimately your fans are the ones who are going to be responsible for your career taking off. If they like your stories, they’ll talk about them regardless (because they’re awesome like that 🙂 ), but you can give them a further incentive to talk up your books by offering a percentage of the earnings via the Smashwords affiliate program. The default for affiliates is 11%, but you can give away your entire cut if you want (I have my ebooks set at 75%, which is close to the max). These are sales you wouldn’t have gotten if someone else wasn’t promoting your books, so there’s no need to be stingy.

If you do decide to participate in the affiliate program, let your readers know about it. Even folks who shop at Smashwords might not be aware of it, and writing up instructions that let readers know how to add affiliate links to their sites can be helpful for those who are new to the idea.

Advertising

I’ll be the first to admit, advertising tends to be more misses than hits when it comes to book sales (meaning you’ll probably spend more than you make), but, as I’ve mentioned before, I have had some luck with Goodreads pay-per-click ads.

Also, if you have an entire series out, and it’s common for readers to go on to buy the rest of the ebooks after they read the first, it may be worth taking a loss on Book 1.

While Smashwords lacks the name recognition of an Amazon or Barnes & Noble, it’s not a bad place to send people who click on an ad since they do have every ebook format available. You don’t have to worry about wasting money by sending Nook people to your Amazon book page, for example. And, again, since you’ll make the largest cut at Smashwords, there’s another reason to direct people there as opposed to other venues.

Well, there are three ways to get a sales boost at Smashwords. Do you buy there, or have you done well selling there? Do you have any tips for other authors?

Posted in Book Marketing | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Dealing with Procrastination by K Gorman

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Lindsay

Ah, procrastination. A word every writer knows. Sometimes in multiple languages….

Today, we have a guest post on the topic from K Gorman, author of “The Star-Eater,” a short story in a for-charity 12-tale anthology: Twelve Worlds (science fiction and fantasy anthology)

Dealing with Procrastination

Procrastination. I’m sure it is familiar. A growing nag at the edge of the conscious that, naturally, we ignore. The trouble is that little nag was caused by ignoring something in the first place.

I did a lot of research on this post. A lot. In fact, I was aiming to have this post done sometime in May. The beginning of May, to be exact—after all the shenanigans with final exams were finished, but before I left for my vacation.

But then I had a bunch of work that gave me overtime. So I didn’t get it done. Poop.

So I decided to get it done on the plane. I’d have eight hours to kill, right? Well . . . turns out that it’s good to sleep during those eight hours to kill jet lag. And besides, there were movies. And the Rockies were very pretty. And I’d never seen Nunavut before. Or Greenland. So I only wrote a few paragraphs.

Double poop.

Well, there’s the trip back, right? The jet lag is reversed this time, so it’s better to stay awake! But they were playing Black Swan—and I’d been meaning to see it—so that took up an hour and a half. And food. And then there was Iceland. And . . . you get the idea. I actually did write a bunch, just not this.

So I’m probably not the best person to talk about fighting procrastination.

Here are my tips, anyway.

Don’t look it in the eye. Got a project that needs doing? Some despicable task? Sneak up on it. Don’t let yourself know that you’re going to do it for real. Come home (or wherever), whistle a guilt-free tune, and attack that thing like a… a… well, I don’t know. I never was one for violence. Maybe just dust it off and, in cleaning it off, notice how unfinished and desperate for attention it looks. And then—and this is the tricky part—decide you’ll do something about it right then. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Then*.

*This really only works if you have some time to kill. If you’re sneaking around and have a dentists appointment or a hot date, this is probably not a good idea.

Schedule it in for real. Another tricky one. This is mainly for the writers out there, myself included, that still can’t quite believe that this is a job. A bonafide, nine to five (or whatever block of time), working job. That baby (and by baby I mean that project novel that, by this time in its gestation, might as well be a two-year-old child. See what procrastination does?! Think of the children!) could have been written and published and you could have been making money!

So. Take a look at that schedule of yours. Plan out your time. Don’t forget to account for little things such as eating and sleeping. They are important. And, for heck’s sake, don’t schedule it in for breaks at work. Breaks are for exactly what the name implies. Breaks. Presumably, your other job (some people mistake it for a ‘real’ job, but that implies that writing is somehow not a ‘real’ job, and we don’t like that attitude here. We’re very professional.) is stressful, laborious, and mentally taxing. During breaks, you should chill. And probably eat.

So, plan a block of time. Make it a big block of time. Ten minutes is good for freewriting exercise, but just won’t cut it for serious writing. You can’t write a novel during that time, no matter how good you are. For some reason, one hour won’t do it for me. I have to have at least two. Otherwise I’m looking at the clock all the time and thinking about how I have less than an hour left.

Procrastinate something else. Since we’re so good at it, why not use it to our advantage? For writing, I usually find some schoolwork I should be doing. Usually something big, like a research paper—the bigger the better. Makes it easier. Then you simply procrastinate the one project by doing the other project. Sounds silly, doesn’t it? But trust me. It works.

Have a deadline. It has to be a real deadline, or else you’ll just ignore it. I find this is easier done when you have a large or important audience—not that your current audience isn’t important. But if, say, you have an essay for school due tomorrow and your teacher is far from lenient, you tend to get that done. Done last minute, probably, but done. And then you date it for a few days ago. While last-minute stuff isn’t ideal, it will work. So if you can get that done for your teacher, you can get it done for, say . . . your cover designer. Or your editor. Get some nice guilt going about how they are losing money because you haven’t finished the story/novel—I don’t care how. Got beta readers? Cool! A looming work schedule? Vacation? Awesome!

Whatever floats your boat. Got something that works? Do it. And maybe tell us about it in the comments so we can try it, too. Unless it’s really embarrassing—in which case I think we definitely need to hear it.

Visit K Gorman on the web or on Twitter.

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Should Authors Be Amazon Reviewers?

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Lindsay

If you’re an author, you may be aware of a couple of small promotional opportunities you can make use of by leaving reviews on Amazon.

First off, your reviewer profile can include information about you so you can sneak in a plug for your work. You can also include your website or a link to your Amazon author page (which should list your books).

Second, you can customize your reviewer handle to use your author name (and you can even add on “mystery author” or some such).

Amazon Author Reviewer

If you’re a prolific reviewer, this can be a way to get your name out there and perhaps entice a few Amazonians into checking out your work.

A few suggestions in case you want to try promotion through reviews:

Try reviewing books that are similar to yours (similar but more popular, eh?), so it’s likely your target audience will notice you.

If it’s possible to be first, then go for it. I’m not positive how Amazon chooses which three reviews get to show up on the main book page, but it seems to be a combination of being early and posting something substantial.

Don’t expect too much out of this. If you already love reviewing, then this promotional strategy makes sense (as long as you’re leaving reviews, they might as well help you sell books), but reading and reviewing is time-consuming so if it’s a job and not for pleasure (i.e. you’re reading popular books you might not otherwise try because you want to be the first to leave a review…) then you’ll probably find the whole process tedious and not particularly rewarding.

Caveats

Personally, I don’t do many reviews and not any with the idea of promoting my own work. There’s an art to writing good reviews, the kind that entertain and inform, and if you’re not publishing that kind, you’re probably not going to get folks clicking your name to check out your profile.

I tend to be too critical (a common faux pas amongst writers — some of us think we know everything 😉 ), and I can’t imagine my overly analytical reviews winning me any fans. I’ve known other authors who leave short 5-star reviews praising everything they read. Again, that probably wouldn’t get you a lot of profile views, especially if it’s not even clear you read the book.

I’d be leery, too, about leaving harsh reviews for other indie authors if you’re an indie author. I’ve stumbled across some clearly retaliatory reviews on Smashwords, and I suppose they exist on Amazon too. A one-star review probably isn’t going to matter when you have ten other four- and five-star ones, but I imagine that could be a real sales buzzkill if that’s your first review.

Do you guys have any thoughts? Do you review on Amazon or not?

Posted in Amazon Kindle Sales, Book Marketing | Tagged , , , , | 24 Comments

Faith Carroll Offers Editing Advice and Tips for Finding an Editor

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Lindsay

Editing CartoonIt’s interview day and I wrangled up someone to answer your editing questions today. Faith Carroll from Have Faith Proofreading worked on The Emperor’s Edge, Flash Gold, and my Goblin Brothers short stories, and she’s helped a lot of other indie authors too.

If you have questions about editing, please leave them in the comments section, and I’ll try to get her to pop in to answer them.

Would you like to tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into editing?

Hmmm . . . me . . . I am a reader.  A hopeless bibliophile.  I began reading while I was still in diapers, and have never stopped.  I have a 2,000+ paper-and-glue book library and a 300+ ebook library—99% have been read at least once; three-quarters more than twice.  I say 99% because I recently acquired several more reads and am in the process of digesting them . . . My husband and son call me GEB: the Giant EyeBall, and swear that, at night, when the moon is full , they hear me murmuring, “Feed me books; feed me books . . .” in my sleep.  They’re a bit frightened of me, I believe.

It was my love of authors, and a desire to communicate with them that led me here.

I found my true vocation, and so began the schooling and the training.   I interned for a small boutique press as their Project Coordinator, copyediting and proofreading all fiction titles released under their imprint, as running interference b/t the publisher and authors. I was promoted to Editorial Director and, as the publisher says, I have a stranglehold on the fiction department, a position of which I guard jealously.

I started Have Faith Proofreading as strictly a proofreading service, but, much to my utter delight and amazement, it grew into an editing company, as well.  I am so very lucky.  “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”  Author unknown.  Folks, I haven’t worked in years and years.  🙂

What are two or three reference books every writer should have on the shelf?

Without a doubt, all writers should invest in the latest unabridged dictionary.  The big one.  I make sure it has the British/UK spellings as well, due to the nature of my job, as well as a style manual in the back and the New Words section.  I replace mine every seven years in order to keep up with the ever-dynamic English language.

A style manual is a definite plus to a writer’s arsenal, and a Thesaurus.  Take advantage of online resources, as well.

Ideally, every indie author would hire an editor, since it’s impossible to catch all of one’s own mistakes, but some folks just can’t afford that when they’re starting out. Do you have any tips for people who are editing their own work?

Walk away and read something else.  Get up, grab a cup of coffee, grab your favorite book, and step outside; breathe deeply of the fresh air.  Think about anything pleasant other than the novel you are writing for several minutes.  If time allows, walk away for a few hours.  Now read something that will take you away from here and now, most importantly, from that novel you are trying to clean up.

Those “it’s” look like they should be “its,” but you know that’s wrong.  And let’s not get you started on those “there” vs. “their” issues, or em vs. en dashes . . . !  Bottom line is do something to refresh your brain.  That manuscript will be there when you return; don’t sacrifice quality for speed.

For those who are looking for professional help, what should they look for in an editor?

Hmmm . . . this isn’t fair 🙂 .

Editors should be indiscriminate readers, and they should always be reading something. They should be servants: ultimately, the author has the final say, no matter how strongly we suggest a revision, the author has the absolute authority to ignore it or incorporate it into the manuscript. Editors should be adaptable, but firm in their assessments; no-nonsense and definitely not pushovers.

Open-mindedness is a must. The editor must have the author’s best interests at heart, and not sacrifice deadline time so the author can be published early.  An editor must have an excellent eye for detail, a firm grasp of the language in which they are editing, and must realize that language is dynamic.  It’s quite okay to allow an author to use “C’mon” in dialogue, as opposed to writing out “Come on.”  We speak this way!  As a matter of fact, depending on the character who is speaking, I may suggest this type of abbreviation.

An editor should never be condescending, and never, ever be arrogant.  Hubris should never be accepted by an author when dealing with an editor—and vice versa.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, an editor must love writers.  Not merely like them, but have a healthy dose of respect and admiration for authors in general—this is a must-have if one is considering editing as a profession.  Authors, being an intuitive bunch, can feel out who is editing because they truly derive joy out of it, as opposed to those who edit for less noble and arrogant reasons.  And let me give my fellow editors out there kudos: the latter of the two groups I mentioned above are few and far between.   All of the editors I know are devoted to their profession and the writers for whom they work.  We are such a lucky bunch!  AUTHORS RULE; OTHERS DROOL.  That’s the motto on my office door.

Thanks for answering these questions! Why don’t you tell us about your services and where folks can find you?

Lindsay, I can’t thank you enough for having me on your popular Ebook Endeavors!  The pleasure has been mine, I assure you.

Have Faith Proofreading offers Editing and Proofreading services for all genres.  I have a special love for short stories and horror.  I have had the honor of working with some amazing individuals, such as you, Lindsay!  (How are my fine little green friends, Malagach and Gortok?  Please give them my regards, and inform Gortok I’ve a rather large pot of spaghetti with whom I have no one to share . . . would he be interested?) With the editing package, I make four passes: one reading pass, two editing passes (Substantive/copy edits and line/copy edits) and a proofreading pass.  The proofreading package has one pass with the option of an additional pass—this is the author’s choice.  Depending on the size of the project, I usually ask for a four- to eight-week deadline with the Editing package, and four to six for Proofreading.

A note: I am in the process of adding an Author Showcase page and an Author-of-the-Month Spotlight page to my website.  Please check back once in a while to see some of the talented authors with whom I have had the honor of working.

Thanks, Faith! And that spaghetti? Are you sure it’s not already gone? Goblins are good at sneaking in on the sly, you know….

Posted in Interviews / Success Stories | Tagged , , , , , , | 15 Comments

High Level vs Low Level Book Promotion Techniques

Posted on June 27, 2011 by Lindsay

MarketingI’ve been contemplating a post on time management for authors (I know, scintillating summer reading), but I thought I’d define a couple of book-promotion ideas first so I can reference them in the later post. The ideas are high and low level promotion techniques. I made those terms up myself, so no need to head to wikipedia.

I decided on dividing the various marketing methods after reading a couple of forum posts to the extent of, “my sales tanked when I took a week off promoting my books.” To my way of thinking, that shouldn’t happen, not if one is employing high level techniques as well as low, but let me define my concepts before I get too in love with using them.

High Level Book Promotion Techniques

These are marketing techniques where you’re using or creating systems that do promotional work for you whether you’re at the computer or not. While they might not sell books for you indefinitely, they can chug on, working in your favor even if you take a week or two off from being an Internet Presence.

Examples:

Giving away free ebooks (as I’ve mentioned before, short stories can work fine)

The more work you have out there, easily accessible, the more chances there are for someone to discover you. Don’t stop at putting free work up on your website, which gets an infinitesimal amount of traffic compared to an iTunes or Barnes & Noble. Have a cover made, and use Smashwords or another distributor to get your work into the major ebook stores.

Publishing a podcast/podiobook

This gets your name and your work out there in another medium, one where there’s less competition because there’s more work and a higher learning curved involved with production. If you choose to make the effort, people can continue to stumble across your name for years to come. I recently downloaded a podcast that started and ended in 2008 (It was good too…. They should have stuck with it!).

Starting a blog*

This gets an asterisk because every author starts a blog. Buuuut most of them aren’t anything that’s going to sell books for the author. (They’re the kind of blogs people would only find if they already knew about the author and were specifically looking them up.)

A blog that is informative and/or entertaining is far more likely to grow into something that helps an author create name awareness. Once that happens, you start getting people checking out your books because they’re interested in what you have to say as a blogger. If you want to start this kind of blog, consider learning about keywords and link building, as these practical tactics can increase the likelihood that people will find your old blog entries via the search engines months and even years after you publish them.

Running an advertising campaign*

This one gets an asterisk too because not everybody has a lot of success with this, but, if you can make the math work (my preferred platform is Goodreads though I’ve heard of a few having luck with Facebook and Google Adwords), it’s a fantastic promotional tool because it requires so little of your time. You set it up once, tinker a bit over the first couple of weeks (to tweak ad performance), and then let it run on its own.

Your time is a precious commodity so any marketing method that can work without regular input from you is worth exploring, even if the tradeoff is money (though I don’t believe in trading off more money than you’re earning back, so watch your bottom line carefully).

Low Level Book Promotion Techniques

If you look at my examples of high-level promotion, you’ll see they’re all about doing work today that continues to have a payoff down the line. I believe you can “make it” pursing nothing but two or three of those techniques, but most are the sorts of things that take time to build momentum. If you’re like me, and have the patience of a three year old, you may want to try some low level techniques to help sell books right now.

These methods require less work up front, but generally don’t have a lasting impact. They’re popular because they worked for enough authors early on that everyone holds out hope that they can still have a huge impact and rocket you up the bestseller list. There’s more noise out there today, though, and I’m skeptical that these techniques alone will work for most people.

That said, I certainly use them (usually when I don’t feel like working on something more demanding), and they can sell books in the interim. You may find a combination of techniques from both categories works well.

Examples:

Posting on Facebook/Twitter

Fairly self-explanatory. Most authors who have success mix up their promotional posts/tweets with entertaining chatter and links to interesting articles, videos, cartoons, etc. Readers don’t join these services to be sold to, so you’ll probably get farther acting like a real person instead of a 24/7 sales pitch (who knew?).

Posting in Forums

While blatant self-promotion will get you “flamed” on a lot of forums, there are many places where you can hang out, chatting about books and e-publishing and the like, while including a “signature” with links to your books and/or author website/blog. If you’re into e-publishing, check out MobileRead.com, The NookBoards, and The KindleBoards. You may also try popular forums related to your genre (i.e. for fantasy authors, there are a couple of big steampunk ones out there). Make sure they allow a promotional signature.

Commenting on Blogs

Commenting on popular blogs where your target audience hangs out might get some folks to click on your name, which will lead them back to your website (or whatever link you leave — I’ve seen authors send people to their Amazon author pages).

The more interesting/relevant your comment, the more likely people will check it out. There’s also a lot to be said for being one of the first few to leave a comment (if you’re on a popular blog that regularly gets dozens of responses to posts), as most folks aren’t going to read through all the comments. On Blogger blogs, you can embed links (ie. to a blog post you wrote) into your message, though the site owner may be less likely to approve comments with self-promotional links.

That’s probably enough for today (congratulations if you’re still reading!). Do you have any thoughts on high vs. low level techniques?

Posted in Book Marketing | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

Earn 75% Promoting My Ebooks and Other Random News

Posted on June 26, 2011 by Lindsay

I’m back from a week-long trip where the bears, moose, and killer geese were many and the internet connections were few. Thanks for checking out the book promotion tips I put up last week, courtesy of fellow indie authors from the Kindleboards (if you’re thinking of e-publishing, pop into the Writers’ Cafe over there, as you can learn quite a bit!).

I’ll be back to regular (written by myself) blog posts tomorrow. For today, just a couple of tidbits related to my stories:

First off, if you’re a book blogger and have reviewed my ebooks (or you’re thinking about it), why not see if you can make a couple of bucks for your efforts? If you join the Smashwords Affiliate Program, you can grab customized links at the bottom of any book’s page in their marketplace. If you include the link in a blog post (or anywhere on your site), and someone clicks it and ends up buying the ebook, you’ll make a little money.

11% of the cover price is the default affiliate rate, but you can find authors who have set the rate much higher. I have all my ebooks set at 75% because 11% of a $3 ebook is…lame. At least at 75%, you’ll get $2 and some change.

You can be an affiliate at Amazon too (since it’s a familiar brand and tied in with the Kindle, it tends to be easier to sell their ebooks), but authors don’t have any control over affiliate cuts there, and you’ll only make 4%-8% (the percentage increases across the board if you sell more item).

For more on making money with affiliate programs, you can check out the series I did a couple of months ago: How to Make Money as a Book Blogger (no promises of great riches, but, given time, you might be able to pay for some of your book purchases anyway).

In other news….

It’s been a little over two weeks since I released Dark Currents, and it’s already sold 300-odd copies on Amazon and some on Smashwords and Barnes & Noble as well (it’s still waiting on approval for distribution at Smashwords, so it’s not out for Sony, iTunes, etc. yet).

Sure, Amanda Hocking probably sells that many books in three minutes, but I’m tickled with the response so far, so many thanks if you’re one of the folks who grabbed a copy!

Last tidbit…

For the steampunk-Yukon-loving readers who have been wondering if there’s going to be another Flash Gold story, the answer is definitely yes.

I’m close to having a rough draft completed (that was the vacation project), and it looks like the second story will be in the 20,000-25,000 word range (the first was just shy of 18,000 words). As you can probably guess, I’m planning to stick with novellas for these characters. It takes a long time to write a 100,000-word novel, so it’s nice to be able to put these shorter adventures out in the interim. I don’t have a title for the sequel yet, but I’m hoping it might be ready by the end of August.

As always, thanks for reading!

 

Posted in Ebook News | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

More Book Promotion Tips from Indie Authors

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Lindsay

Here we are on Friday, the last day of my blog vacation. For today’s post, I’ve put together some of the shorter tips I received. If you like what these folks have to say, check out their blogs and their ebooks. Thanks!

Our first piece of advice comes from Ronnell D. Porter, ebook cover artist and author of The Trinity Saga:

Porter Cover Art

One word: charity

Spread the word that you’re going to donate all of the money you make during book sales (be it a designated day, or an entire week’s worth) to a charity organization of your choice. For example, all of the money I earn in July is going to Breast Cancer research, and all of the money I earn in August is going to Save The Children. I think that people really respond to you when you’re trying to earn sales without making a dime from it. Food for thought.

Our next tip comes from Shirley Elmokadem, author of Body Trapped:

Body Trapped

With my book, Body Trapped, I started a blog written by the main character Lee. This has now become a sequel to Body Trapped. It’s gradually building up followers. Make the titles of the blogs as interesting as possible.

I don’t know why but the blog entitled ‘I’ve cut myself shaving’ has had the most hits.

Another idea is having a competition. I have one on my blog. Write a film haiku, the best one will win a free copy of my Ebook.

Next up is Sean Bridges, author of Roll of the Die:

Roll of the Die

I’ve never found any short-cuts in the creative game.  I know if X marks the spot, you can probably find somebody who hit it from every different direction, so there is no one right way to do this.  But I’ve broken it down into six traits that every writer has to have in order to find success (and I understand that goal is different for everybody).  Persistence, patience, luck, timing, talent, and connections.

Now I understand that everybody has various degrees of each, and I don’t know what the ingredient mix is, but I believe, in a never say never industry, if you’re missing any of these, you won’t make it.

The following advice comes from Colin Taber, author of The Fall of Ossard:

Colin Taber Ebook

Are you using Twitter?

I’ve only started on Twitter, but already found 600+ followers, and the list just seems to grow by itself!

I’ve also built the basis of my readership, not through Kindle (I’m new to Kindle), but through Facebook adverts. Maybe you could look at carefully targeted advertising that promotes you on Faceboook (to build a following), but that splits the cost of (or covers the cost of) advertising by selling ‘sponsorships’ to authors to feature them in weekly interviews or such. You can set Facebook advert budgets very low from a few bucks a day.

Facebook advertising has delivered me thousands of readers!

* * *

That’s it for the week. Thanks for reading, everyone. I’ll be back with the usual e-publishing posts on Monday!

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged , | Comments Off on More Book Promotion Tips from Indie Authors

Book Promotion Tip: Try Indirect Promotion

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Lindsay

Yes, I’m still out in the wilds of Idaho. But I have two more days worth of book promotion tips from fellow indie authors, so read on….

Today Alain Gomez, author of the Jimmy Cochran Series Collection offers his advice on indirect promotion:

I tend to be highly experimental when I’m figuring things out. People will give me advice and I’ll believe them. But the advice doesn’t really solidify in my brain as “good” or “bad” until I’ve tried it for myself. That said, I’ve tried just about everything a independently published author can do to promote their work on a modest budget. I have done Facebook ads, Google ads, Goodreads ads, I have made fanpages on Facebook and posted my links there, I have made a blog, I have paid to have my stories featured on various high-traffic blogs, I have submitted my stories to be reviewed by dozens of bloggers… the list actually goes on. Not too long ago, I came to realize that there is a difference between direct and indirect promotion.

Direct promotion is a flat-out “Try my book!” type ad. This rarely (if ever) works. What I’ve found to be far more effective is indirect promotion. Think two or three steps beyond the initial direct promotion tactic. For example, you can go on the Amazon Kindle fanpage and plug your book. In about one hour, your post will cycle off of the newsfeed and most people will have ignored your post. What’s far more effective is to go on the Amazon Kindle fanpage and interact with people. Make comments yourself or reply to others who have questions. Chances are good that someone will click on “you” out of curiosity. If they see you’re an author, they may “like” your page or even go so far as to click on the book links you have listed.

Point being, direct promotion is not effective on a smaller scale. An indie author usually does not have the millions of dollars it would take to really push a product on to someone. You have to make contact and then let the reader come to you.

JimmyCochranSeries1

Posted in Guest Posts | Tagged | 2 Comments