While the main point of my Web site and blog is to promote my own work, it occurs to me that there may be other writers who are looking for information and resources on how to improve their visibility. With that in mind, I’m going to share my ongoing adventures in this arena.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, one of my goals for this year is to do a better job of marketing my books. While most of the feedback I’ve received from readers has been positive, my sales haven’t been as high as I’d like.
When I’ve talked to people about this challenge, the universal feedback I’ve received is that I need to do a better job of promoting myself. I absolutely agree, and the challenge is to figure out where best to spend my money and time.
I’ve made quite a few attempts at getting my name out there. Since The Wannabe Vampire was released, I’ve tried:
- Free and discounted book giveaways through Amazon’s KDP program
- Book review sites and guest blogging
- Paid Facebook advertising
- Paid Amazon advertising
So far, I haven’t been completely happy with the results of any of these efforts. While Amazon’s KDP program helped me to distribute thousands of copies of my first novel, it didn’t translate into all that many sales for any of my titles.
Submitting my books to review sites and guest blogging didn’t generate sales either. Granted, it helped gather more reviews, which was great, but at the end of the day most writers are interested in earning revenue from their work. While that might make me and other writers sound like money-grubbers, the fact is that we all have to make a living.
My targeted ads with Facebook helped generate a few sales and increased the number of likes on my Facebook page, but they turned out to be very expensive, relative to the value they returned. For ever dollar I spent on advertising, I received only about 21 cents in revenue. Clearly, that’s not a sustainable, long-term business model.
Amazon’s advertising program isn’t working for me either. They have a rather oddball way of selling ads through an auction, which is probably worth a full review on its own at a later date. The upshot is that my campaign has been running for a month, my ad has been displayed 1,025 times, and it’s been clicked on exactly once. The number of sales resulting? Zero.
To be fair to Amazon, they charge for clicks and not impressions. So far, according to the reports, I owe a whopping 13 cents for advertising. In order to increase my ad’s visibility, I’d need to increase the amount I’m willing to pay for each click. Still, the click through ratio of 1,025:1 seems pretty abysmal. On Facebook, where you can target your ads to age groups, gender, interests and even geographical location, I was getting a click through ratio of about 25:1.
After realizing that my marketing efforts are pretty much a failure, I started Googling, looking for ideas on how to do better. I found some free advice, most of which I was already doing, and lots of places where I could spend money to get help. Most of it I deemed too expensive or too cheesy. Sites that promise riches after delivering a marketing guide for $39.95 just don’t appeal.
Finally, after rummaging around, I ran across the two companion sites Books Go Social and The Book Promoter. One site, for readers, advertises all sorts of books in various genres. The other, for writers, allows you to list your titles for a fee.
Since the cost of entry wasn’t too terribly high, and the annual subscription includes tweets and mention in a newsletter sent out to about 335,000 readers, I thought it might be worth a try. My promotion starts this Friday afternoon, and The Wannabe Vampire is already listed on their site.
I’ll admit, I’m somewhat skeptical. While The Book Promoter seems to have good reviews posted on their site, my attempts to get any response from the people who wrote such glowing reviews hasn’t worked out. I sent several e-mails out to those authors, and didn’t receive a single response. Could it be these authors are now too busy to respond to requests for references, or could it be something else?
Clearly, that remains to be seen. I will, obviously, post updates as things unfold.