Post by ChrisLAdams on Jun 2, 2017 7:12:00 GMT -8
Marketing, for many of us indie authors, is the most difficult part of the process. It certainly has been for me.
I've written before as to the difficulty of writing the short but infinitely difficult synopsis - this being the second most important part of your marketing eye-grabbing strategy after your cover.
I have rewritten my blurbs and re-crafted and modified my covers til I'm sick of 'em. I'm sure many of you have also if you're really making a go of it.
At this time I wished to share my experience I had with another stratagem - paid advertising.
This was a first for me. I've kind of been hoping a grass roots movement would kindle, resulting in umpteen thousands of downloads of On a Winter's Eve or The Valley of Despair. Not happening.
Although these and a few of my other works get consistent downloads almost daily (as in 1-5 if I'm honest about it but with occasional spurts that are higher) it's just not the level of downloads I'd like to see.
Anyway, so I recently purchased one of the paid promotions from Books Butterfly, the Silver Eagle which is for free books. (Note: pick the price range of your eBook from the tabs at the top of the page.)
This particular promotion guarantees 500 downloads, runs for 4-days, and is for free eBooks.
To be fair, I figured some folks might not act on the promotional material during the promotion (which comes in the form of tweets, Facebook posts, emails and the like) so I counted sales for one full week. Although the promotion ran from May 20-23 I counted the downloads from May 20-27 instead, Sat-Sat. I reached 499.
I have to say during the course of a couple of correspondences with a Books Butterfly spokesman (because I had neglected to pick a start-date) I became very impressed with their customer service. The fella was top notch.
As to the results, I am happy. Only 1 sale short of the guaranteed 500 and to be honest, I can realistically probably attribute downloads beyond that first week to this promotion which would certainly have resulted in exceeding the goal. After that week I have seen days with 6-7 downloads, higher than average, and am guessing these to be some coming late to the party. After all, we've all gotten 'sale fliers' ourselves and waited a few days before going to the 'sale', am I right?
So, that was how it went for me this time - my first time. Very happy. As a result I have already seen a few ratings pop up and a couple sales of the sequel to the story I was promoting. A look at GoodReads shows many have marked the promo-story as To Read. I'm already considering doing a similar promotion for my short horror yarn which sees the most downloads of any other of my tales. If I do I'll post back results of that promotion here as well.
Anyone else try tried this site before and have results you might like to share?
Happy writing, folks.
And good luck with your marketing end of things!
I've written before as to the difficulty of writing the short but infinitely difficult synopsis - this being the second most important part of your marketing eye-grabbing strategy after your cover.
I have rewritten my blurbs and re-crafted and modified my covers til I'm sick of 'em. I'm sure many of you have also if you're really making a go of it.
At this time I wished to share my experience I had with another stratagem - paid advertising.
This was a first for me. I've kind of been hoping a grass roots movement would kindle, resulting in umpteen thousands of downloads of On a Winter's Eve or The Valley of Despair. Not happening.
Although these and a few of my other works get consistent downloads almost daily (as in 1-5 if I'm honest about it but with occasional spurts that are higher) it's just not the level of downloads I'd like to see.
Anyway, so I recently purchased one of the paid promotions from Books Butterfly, the Silver Eagle which is for free books. (Note: pick the price range of your eBook from the tabs at the top of the page.)
This particular promotion guarantees 500 downloads, runs for 4-days, and is for free eBooks.
To be fair, I figured some folks might not act on the promotional material during the promotion (which comes in the form of tweets, Facebook posts, emails and the like) so I counted sales for one full week. Although the promotion ran from May 20-23 I counted the downloads from May 20-27 instead, Sat-Sat. I reached 499.
I have to say during the course of a couple of correspondences with a Books Butterfly spokesman (because I had neglected to pick a start-date) I became very impressed with their customer service. The fella was top notch.
As to the results, I am happy. Only 1 sale short of the guaranteed 500 and to be honest, I can realistically probably attribute downloads beyond that first week to this promotion which would certainly have resulted in exceeding the goal. After that week I have seen days with 6-7 downloads, higher than average, and am guessing these to be some coming late to the party. After all, we've all gotten 'sale fliers' ourselves and waited a few days before going to the 'sale', am I right?
So, that was how it went for me this time - my first time. Very happy. As a result I have already seen a few ratings pop up and a couple sales of the sequel to the story I was promoting. A look at GoodReads shows many have marked the promo-story as To Read. I'm already considering doing a similar promotion for my short horror yarn which sees the most downloads of any other of my tales. If I do I'll post back results of that promotion here as well.
Anyone else try tried this site before and have results you might like to share?
Happy writing, folks.
And good luck with your marketing end of things!
