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| How I'm feeling now after another month of book marketing. (Sorry to be a downer this week!) |
Background for Those Visiting for the First Time
In April, I quit a contract job that was paying most of my bills to finish a novel I plan to send to agents next spring. At the time, I also vowed to boost my author platform by reading books and blogs, attending conferences, talking to people smarter than me, and following the advice of the experts.
Executive Summary
Since my five-month progress report last month, I've had small but measurable increases in page views and followers for my blog, but negligible increases in new connections on social media. During the course of a week, I spend about two days on book marketing and promotion.
Upshot: I'm getting just enough encouragement to keep going, but not enough to pay for a bag of groceries. Will you throw a quarter in my cup when I'm out on the street?
What's Working and What's Not
1) Blogging
What I'm doing:- Blogging once a week, spending four to six hours on each blog. (Weekly seems to be fine. I couldn't do it daily. How can anyone with a full-time job blog daily?)
- To drive traffic, I'm posting links to new blogs to Social media sites (Linked in, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and bookmarking sites like Reddit, Digg, Stumbleupon.)
Results:
- Page views in June: 2,292
- Page views in July: 2,428
- Page views in August: 2,977 (most recent month)
- Blog subscribers in June: 24
- Blog subscribers in July: 48
- Blog subscribers in August: 71
Best finds:
- Groups on Facebook. I've been posting writing tips to writing groups and travel stories to travel groups. (My novel involves travel.) Note: to post to Facebook's groups, you have to use a personal account, you can't do it from your Fan Page account.
- In July, I added a sign-up box to the end of each blog post and it continues to encourage people to sign up. (To provide some benefit to subscribers, I started posting my blogs for them first and, a week later, posting to the various groups and forums. Does anyone care? Unclear.)
Biggest waste of time:
Posting to the bookmarking sites. The posting process is generally convoluted and the sites haven't produced much traffic. I no longer bother with them.
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| Search for Facebook Groups by entering a topic in the search box at the top of the page. The arrow on the left, shows the groups I've joined so far. |
2) Social Media
a) Facebook Fan Page
What I'm doing:
- I post less frequently, maybe three times a week instead of daily.
- I quit participating in Likefests and other programs in which people agree to Like you if you Like them. Adding people who aren't really interested in my content doesn't really interest me. Also, if they don't interact on my page, Facebook will stop showing them my content, anyway.
Results:
I'm adding Fans at a much slower rate. I've added six fans in the last month and now have 2,032 and reaching 300 to 400 people per post. (Same as last month.). Facebook's Reach statistic measures people who interact with your page, people who are interested in what you're doing, people who might actually buy a book -- once I have one.
b) Facebook Personal Page
What I'm doing:
- Nothing, I don't have time for this.
- But as noted above, I use the page to post to Facebook groups, which generate traffic to my blog.
c) Twitter
What I'm doing:
- Abandoned Tweetfests and other programs in which you Follow people who agree to Follow you.
- Posting blog links and related news once a day to Hashtags frequented by travelers.
- Commenting on and Retweeting other people's Tweets.
- Still using Hootsuite to prepost and save time.
- Following more people and Unfollowing if they don't follow me back.
Results:
- Added 17 Followers in the last month. (Now have 717, which is not a whole lot.)
- I'm getting Mentioned and Retweeted by other people a few times a week.
- Twitter is not generating a whole lot of traffic.
- Why bother with it? It seems to be a key contributor to my Klout scores. My Klout score is now a respectable 47. Does anyone -- like perhaps a prospective agent or publisher -- care about Klout scores? In case they do, I'll keep up with Twitter.
Best Find:
-I use Tweepi and its Flush feature to remove people who I'm Following who aren't Following me back.
d) Linked In
What I'm doing:
- Still posting links to my book marketing blog to author groups every week.
- Began posting links to my travel stories to travel groups. (These people are travel professionals, who I imagine influence a lot of travelers -- or that's my fantasy.)
- Using Hootsuite to post important Web news to certain groups more regularly. (The free version of Hootsuite allows me to post simultaneously to Twitter as well as four Linked In Groups.)
- Using my Web analytics tools to see which groups are generating the least traffic and dumped them. (Linked In only allows you to join 50 groups at one time.)
Results:
- Busted! Linked In no longer allows me to connect with people for whom I don't have an e-mail address. (For a couple of months I was able to connect with people from groups I belonged to. As a result, I only added 15 new connections last month. (Currently have 1,105)
- Linked In groups continue to be my biggest source of traffic. If I write a book on bookmarketing, people might be interested. Would they buy a novel I wrote? Probably not.
- Continue to connect with some nice folks. Also, nice comments from readers keep me going. (OK, so I'm another lonely, pathetic wrier -- but I've got company!)
- Links posted to travel sites are not getting a whole lot of traffic. Unclear if these folks would buy my book. Also, some weirdos: I posted two unflattering pieces about Venezuela and each time the same guy writes me in broken English and calls me a coward. Will give it another month and then move on to another target market: Erotica. (My book has some sex scenes.)
- Was contacted on Linked In by a guy running a social media business. We spoke on the phone. He seemed to know his stuff and offered some good advice. We may be able to work together in some capacity in the future.
- Was contacted by a woman who needed some editing. I don't have time, so I forwarded her to the woman who edits my stuff. Unclear what came of that.
e) Goodreads
What I'm doing:
- Adding friends as I have time. But they are mainly other writers, as opposed to readers.
- Posting links to the book marketing forum and getting some clicks. In the future will post to travel and erotica forums.
- Question: Are there any readers on Goodreads or is it just authors flogging their books?
3) SEO
What I'm doing:- I optimize my pages using keywords related to my posts.
Results:
- My blog appears on the first page of Google for searches on "Book Marketing," "Travel Humor," "Erotic Humor," and "Humorous Erotica." (My blogs are all optimized for these terms.) So, if I were to publish a book on one of these topics, people would find me. BUT not a lot of people search on these terms.("Erotic Humor" generated a total of 35 page views for me in August.)
4) Publications (another way to get noticed)
What I'm doing:
- Using duotrope.com plus a listing of top literary journals ranked by Pushcart awards, I sent six of those stories to about 100 different publications. (Submitting online doesn't take that long.) Out of about 70 publications who have responded so far, I got two acceptances from small journals. (unfortunately, none were ranked in the top journals.) But I'll take it! One is going to pay me $20 for a piece.
- Guest posting on other blogs: I've had four of my posts republished in a daily blog by Grub Street, a writing school to which I belong; two blog links appeared on Carnival of the Indies -- it's easy to submit; and another appeared on a writing/editing site called Style Matters. These guest posts generate some traffic, but more importantly they create links back to my blog. Backlinks are supposed to be important for SEO.
5) Best Advice I've Gotten on Book Marketing
- Find stuff you like and become good at it. If I didn't enjoy fiddling with computers, I'd have bailed on a lot of this stuff by now.- Online marketing can be a slow process. I've set aside time and money to finish my book, so I'll keep at this.
- Serendipity is an artist's best friend, so getting your work in front of as many people as possible is a good thing.
- Finishing your book is job one!
For More of My Book Marketing Tips, See:
- How to Measure Book Marketing Success
- Is Book Promotion a Waste of Time?
14 comments:
Misery definitely loves company. I guess we can't ever know how many people are out there doing just the same thing and feeling just the same frustration and having just the same results.
I agree with you, if I didn't find the tech side of writing fun or at least educational, I would be very very depressed. I look at it as a challenge and keep on plugging.
Thanks for comments, Rona. I don't know how non-techies do it. Or maybe they don't and spend more time writing...
Hi, Randy,
Thanks so much for posting updates on what you're doing and how it's going. They're so useful and helpful!
Are you sure LinkedIn won't let you add people without an email? I've had it ask for one, but also had it not seem to care one way or another, and the one thing the behavior ain't is consistent, as far as I can tell. I do know that if I find someone on a page of "people you may know," it doesn't even seem to ask me for anything at all--it just sends the invite. (It's been a little while since I've done that, though, so perhaps the behavior there has changed, too?) Anyway, just wanted to mention it in case there's a loophole somewhere!
Something I have found quite useful is to get book reviews. If your book is out now, start submitting as soon as possible to book reviewers. Once you get a review, share it with all your sites! Here is a great article on how (not) to get your book reviewed http://catherineryanhoward.com/2012/08/15/how-to-get-your-book-reviewed-a-practical-lesson/
I am working hard to compile a list of reviewers, especially indie/ self-pub reviewers for my books release *fingers crossed* in October.
Marketing is tricky and there are so many people out there who want to scam authors into giving away money we haven't even earned yet. If you've got a bit of extra cash, find a reputable company to set up a virtual book tour. If there's no cheddar, create your own! Best of luck with this joyful thing we call marketing ;)
Hi Nancy,
I believe Linked In will let you add just so many people without an email and then it takes away the privilege. I was adding a lot of people, got a warning that I would lose the privilege, and sure enough I lost it. I need to check into how to get it back or if it will come back on it's own.
Chickangell,
My book isn't out, but thanks for good advice on reviews -- I know nothing about the process, but will need to get up to speed. Marketing is very tricky and I'm not sure how best to tie it to sales. I saw a figure somewhere that said that you can expect about 1 percent of your Web traffic to turn into a sale. (Historically, junk mail has produced about 3 percent. So 1 percent sounds about right. Not sure what those marketing businesses guarantee -- but you're right a lot of can scam with you with useless traffic and useless followers.
Interesting article. I'd say you're definitely making progress. Love your little boy image!
How did you create your sign-up box at the end of each blog post?
I have the same amount of monthly viewers on my blog, give or take a few hundred and the same Klout score. Since I'm pre-marketing for the last two years and don't even have a book out yet I was under the delusion this was all good. Thanks a lot, Randy! LOL. Oh and a journal paid me $25 so I'm one-upping you by five dollars. Success is the best revenge. :)
I have several books out, and have found similar results as you in trying to generate sales. Biggest attention getters for me were offering my kindle books free for a limited time on Amazon, which got them both in the top ten list of their categories for the length of the giveaway. Facebook ads generate traffic, but my bid is tiny and my budget is miniscule, so the results reflect that. Sales are VERY slow. I even went to Amada Hocking's first public presentation to try and learn some marketing techniques, but it seemed to boil down to writing the write stuff (YA supernatural romance) at the right time (right after the Twilight mania and before Hunger Games) And while online reviews and amazon and goodreads ratings CAN be helpful, there are those out there who live to trash indie work. I learned a lot about that, and other publishing nightmares by reading "Alice in Writerland" which I highly recommend. And yet, I persist :) Good luck to us all!
Deb, you can create the sign up box by copy some code from your Feedburner account. (Feedburner allows people to sign up for you blog.) Here's a link that explains how
http://blogtechguy.com/63/how-to-add-an-email-subscription-box-to-your-blog/
Thanks for the work you are putting in on this - we need some light shining in these dark places. The cost-benefit seems to be bad. Newbies keep hearing how crucial all these platform-building tools are supposed to be and never mind how much time is eroded from the actual writing. I've always been dubious. How can publishers realistically assess a new writer based on "Like-swaps" and faked reviews? Sigh... Pseudo-scientific justification for their lack of ability to assess quality, I guess.
Thanks, Andy. The light is being shown on how little publishers know about their own business. Blogger Penelope Trunk had an interest piece about how bailed on a deal with a publisher because the publisher knew nothing about online marketing.
http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2012/07/09/how-i-got-a-big-advance-from-a-big-publisher-and-self-published-anyway/
Who has time to write? Seriously, though, this post is a huge service to your fellow writers and reluctant self-promoters. And yes, there's a book in it. But I bet it won't be nearly as challenging and fun to write as your novel. So there.
Great discussion on http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?view=&type=member&gid=1927932&item=173848160&commentID=99434655&trk=eml-ntf-hero-like-my-discussion-cmt-view&ut=2DF8RarFtOsBs1
Jim
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