Previously, I talked about a chapter from the "Self Publishing Checklist" book that I had requested just for ending up on website which had an ad for the book as a freebie.
Obviously, this book is geared toward folks who use Bookstand Publishing as their publisher. In the paperwork that was included with the book, the cost to self publish includes 48 copies of your book. So there is a chapter titled "Promoting Your Book What Do I Do with 48 Books?" and so I thought I would share what they recommend doing with these books as a followup on the marketing plan postings.
For me, I don't have 48 books lying around to use for promotion but that is my choice. I order books when I can to keep on hand for any upcoming events. The most I've had of any one title at a time was 50 but technically there were some copies already sold from that 50 and I had to purchase those from my publisher at a very high cost to me. I'm trying to keep about 15 to 25 of each title on hand at any given time which all depends on the events coming up and the title itself. I don't have any of my Passport Across America book on hand but will probably order a few for the SCASL coming in March, just to have a few available. I will only keep 5 or less of this title on hand. "Train of Clues" will be used as a giveaway and what I read from at school visits and other events where a reading is required. The JGDS state books and Finally Home are slowly building to have a nice supply available. What I do, when I can, is order 5 or so copies of several titles at once.
So if I weren't paying for my 48 copies of books (okay, yes I'd have paid for those copies on the publishing end by way of whatever the cost of the package was) and needed ways to promote my books, this is what "The Self Publishing Checklist" suggests:
15 copies - for family and friends in exchange for reviews
13 copies - to send out for reviews to various places
(bookreview.com, midwestbookreview.com, lightwordreviews.com and oncewritten.com; local newspapers w/press release, targeted magazines with press release; targeted websites with press release)
5 copies - distribution to local bookstores or gift shops (on a consignment basis)
15 copies - for sales at signings or speaking engagements
I've not sent books to the review sites and this may be my next project, after the fact of course - since the books are already published and have sold a few copies.
Personally, I'd rather my family and friends purchase a copy and when the expense of book promotion is all on your shoulders, you tend to be very picky about who gets free copies, because either way you have to pay for those copies some how.
Hope you all have many reviews on your books and that in turn is bringing the sales to you. Keep on writing and see you all in the postings. Until next time - E :)
Showing posts with label book promotion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book promotion. Show all posts
Monday, February 20, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Promoting your book: A 10-step marketing plan Part 3
Steps 8 through 10 are featured in today's posting. Reading through these, I already will fail since these require being outside the home job wise, et cetera and having access to places that would possibly carry your book.
8. Business Tie-Ins. The summary of this is that if you have an existing business and your book ties in with the business that you can use your business to sell your books. The other way to do a tie-in is requiring customers to purchase your book when they register for whatever service you offer (the example the book gives is white water rafting and if you offer classes on white water rafting, you could have the book tied in to the course or you could raise the cost of the course and give a copy of book for "free" (that is the hidden fee of the cost of the course)).
For me, this step isn't very doable because I work at home and the business I'm associated with, medical transcription, has nothing to do with my books. I would love for someone like NatGeo Kids to pick up my state books either as a sponsor fund wise (to cover expenses associated with publishing the books) or by ordering several hundred copies (okay thousands would be super great) to place in schools around the United States. I don't see either of these happening. So, yes, if you can tie your book into your business or if you are an instructor, then this would be something to help boost sales.
9. Sell to local bookstores, gift shops, and other local vendors. Easier said than done when you live in a small town.
I did have my books in the local bookstore for a time but after a while with no sales and with me running out of certain titles and having to take them out of the bookstore to sell at whatever event I was doing at the moment, the bookstore owner and I decided it wasn't worth it for me to put books in the store, keep taking them back and replacing them after the fact. So I no longer have my books sitting in a bookstore. Getting to other stores and places that would possibly carry my books is not doable either since I basically don't go to many towns or cities unless I'm doing an event. I also don't feel my state stories have much use in the bookstores since they really were written as a supplement to a social studies curriculum in upper elementary schools. So, this is a fail for me - something that doesn't work for or fit my books or something that I can't really do as part of the marketing plan.
10. Advertising. Recommended to start with on-line advertising, specialized print publications, and book trade catalogs.
This is the most costly of the marketing plan, but then again, no one said everything would be free or inexpensive in the book business. Again, that old adage "you've got to spend money to make money" comes to mind in that I totally agree that advertising has huge advantages. I've been contemplating a FB ad and may do a trial run when I have some funds, but for now most of my money has to go to cover upcoming events - the SCASL conference, the SC Book Festival, the Decatur Book Festival and several others along the way.
Do I think this is the only marketing plan available? Of course not. Do I believe these steps are tried and true methods and results are readily apparent? In a way, yes. Not every step will work for everyone and from my previous postings, you can see that I've been trying several of these steps and haven't seen mega results yet. But that is the name of the game, perseverance. I'll keep trying different methods and see what is working and what isn't. When I hit a decent monthly sales, I'll definitely be doing the happy dance and posting about it. I reposted J.A. Konrath's posting about him doing $100,000 in earnings in a 3-week period of time not too long ago. I would be very happy to see between $1000 and $2500 earnings a month every month. That would be a turn around for me.
So I ask my readers who are authors, what is working for you? What kind of marketing plan do you have and are you staying pretty close to what you laid out? Have you seen a spike in sales from one method or another or have sales been pretty even regardless of which method you use? Leave a comment and let us know what's working for you. - E :)
8. Business Tie-Ins. The summary of this is that if you have an existing business and your book ties in with the business that you can use your business to sell your books. The other way to do a tie-in is requiring customers to purchase your book when they register for whatever service you offer (the example the book gives is white water rafting and if you offer classes on white water rafting, you could have the book tied in to the course or you could raise the cost of the course and give a copy of book for "free" (that is the hidden fee of the cost of the course)).
For me, this step isn't very doable because I work at home and the business I'm associated with, medical transcription, has nothing to do with my books. I would love for someone like NatGeo Kids to pick up my state books either as a sponsor fund wise (to cover expenses associated with publishing the books) or by ordering several hundred copies (okay thousands would be super great) to place in schools around the United States. I don't see either of these happening. So, yes, if you can tie your book into your business or if you are an instructor, then this would be something to help boost sales.
9. Sell to local bookstores, gift shops, and other local vendors. Easier said than done when you live in a small town.
I did have my books in the local bookstore for a time but after a while with no sales and with me running out of certain titles and having to take them out of the bookstore to sell at whatever event I was doing at the moment, the bookstore owner and I decided it wasn't worth it for me to put books in the store, keep taking them back and replacing them after the fact. So I no longer have my books sitting in a bookstore. Getting to other stores and places that would possibly carry my books is not doable either since I basically don't go to many towns or cities unless I'm doing an event. I also don't feel my state stories have much use in the bookstores since they really were written as a supplement to a social studies curriculum in upper elementary schools. So, this is a fail for me - something that doesn't work for or fit my books or something that I can't really do as part of the marketing plan.
10. Advertising. Recommended to start with on-line advertising, specialized print publications, and book trade catalogs.
This is the most costly of the marketing plan, but then again, no one said everything would be free or inexpensive in the book business. Again, that old adage "you've got to spend money to make money" comes to mind in that I totally agree that advertising has huge advantages. I've been contemplating a FB ad and may do a trial run when I have some funds, but for now most of my money has to go to cover upcoming events - the SCASL conference, the SC Book Festival, the Decatur Book Festival and several others along the way.
Do I think this is the only marketing plan available? Of course not. Do I believe these steps are tried and true methods and results are readily apparent? In a way, yes. Not every step will work for everyone and from my previous postings, you can see that I've been trying several of these steps and haven't seen mega results yet. But that is the name of the game, perseverance. I'll keep trying different methods and see what is working and what isn't. When I hit a decent monthly sales, I'll definitely be doing the happy dance and posting about it. I reposted J.A. Konrath's posting about him doing $100,000 in earnings in a 3-week period of time not too long ago. I would be very happy to see between $1000 and $2500 earnings a month every month. That would be a turn around for me.
So I ask my readers who are authors, what is working for you? What kind of marketing plan do you have and are you staying pretty close to what you laid out? Have you seen a spike in sales from one method or another or have sales been pretty even regardless of which method you use? Leave a comment and let us know what's working for you. - E :)
Monday, February 06, 2012
Promoting your book: A 10-step marketing plan Part !
A few weeks ago I was on a website and there were some ads there. One of them said get this free "Self-publishing checklist" book. I clicked on the link and was taken to Bookstand Publishings's site but decided it can't hurt to request the free book.
Although I have now been self-publishing for almost two years now, it doesn't hurt to make sure I'm really doing all I can to get the most benefit from self-publishing, especially if some new ideas are there to market and promote my books.
A quick preview of the chapter contents made me realize that they advice they are offering seems to be pretty much where I am in my self-publishing endeavor. There is one chapter dedicated strictly to promoting your book, the 10-step marketing plan. So a glance through and I'm trying to figure out where I'm going totally wrong or took the left turn when I should have taken the right turn, because it seems everything suggested here is where I seem to be promotion wise. The problem with some of these suggestions is getting the readers' responses to some of them in order to make sales.
Part 1: Steps 1 through 3 in the marketing plan as outlined in "The Self-Publishing Checklist":
1. Always be selling: In a nutshell, you should be talking your book up, displaying your book and offering free copies in exchange for reviews. Common sense. There are some mini steps suggested in #1 to include creating or getting business cards and/or bookmarks, tell everyone you know that you have a published a book, create excitement (see above statement about giving books out in exchange for reviews), and creating an effective sell sheet. I've done all this except creating sell sheets. I did have sell sheets when I was first published for the first two books in my series which were part of the media kit put together. Not much came from the sell sheets at all.
In January, I offered 100 ebook copies to anyone who would request them from me in exchange for reviews. Did I receive 100 requests for any of the nine titles available at the time? No. I received two requests, one person in England whom I met in an online class and who is familiar with my state stories requested a copy of Finally Home, "The Proposal" and "The Tulip Kiss". I know he is busy and as of this posting, I have not heard back from him regarding reviews on any of the titles. I did have another lady who requested a copy of "The Proposal"; she has posted her review on her blog and amazon, B&N, and Goodreads. She also does reviews for children's books on another blog and so I asked her if she would take a copy of one of my state stories and do a review on it. She agreed to do so. She also informed me that it would take a bit longer to read and review that story since she had a few books in front of me. No problem. At least, as far as I'm aware, she will post a review when she gets a chance.
Maybe I need to go back to the drawing board on coming up with creative ways to "sell" my books since apparently no one wants free ebooks to read in exchange for reviews.
2. Get Book Reviews. The book says that Reviews sells books. Duh!
I can't afford to pay people to post reviews and was hoping by offering free ebook copies of the titles available ("The Proposal" and "The Tulip Kiss" are only available as an ebook, and all the state books are only available in print but I do have PDF files for them that can be used for review copies) that I would gain a handful of reviews. Two, in my opinion, does not equal a handful of reviews and thereby does not sell books. Although looking through the list, it may be a good idea for me to consider sending print copies to several of the review places that are not a fee-based entity.
3. Your website.
In my opinion, this actually should be something created long before your book is published whether you get a "website" from the publisher like bookstandpublishing offers or not. There are several free or low cost sites out there. Yolasite.com is one of them; weebly.com is another. I advise upgrading to the pro side since this will allow you to do more with your website. With weebly.com, by paying the yearly fee (I think I'm paying like $42 and some change a year - or maybe less; I think it works out to about $2.95/month when I renew my upgrade), you can add videos and have more the ability to upload more files on a page. This is a big advantage for me since I've got a whole page dedicated to the accompanying study guides for my books and I'll have 50 when the series is completed. I think before I upgraded to pro I could only upload like 10 files on the page, which would have been 1/5 of my study guides being on the page. Now, I can upload all 50 and not have to decide which few I'll keep up or how to switch them out. I also think with the pro upgrade you get more pages; with the freebie side on weebly.com I think you are limited to only five pages, but if you don't have a lot going on, five pages may be just right for you.
You can create your website and add, take away, change as you progress in your publishing endeavor, but I highly suggest you start a website before you are even published.
I have two websites, both through weebly.com and both have been upgraded. You can find all my non-state related book information here and my JGDS, 50-state series here. I try to make them look as professional as possibly and have included buy now buttons on the book pages as well as the necessary information. I created my JGDS site first and then created my non-JGDS site but didn't really publish it until last year when I started thinking of my other stories that had won contests and could be republished and about the time I finished Finally Home.
Heather, my illustrator uses yolasite.com for her graphic design business. You can check her out here.
Tune in Thursday for part 2 where I'll cover steps 4 through 7, which all seem to be related to in-person or online promotion. See you in the postings - E :)
Although I have now been self-publishing for almost two years now, it doesn't hurt to make sure I'm really doing all I can to get the most benefit from self-publishing, especially if some new ideas are there to market and promote my books.
A quick preview of the chapter contents made me realize that they advice they are offering seems to be pretty much where I am in my self-publishing endeavor. There is one chapter dedicated strictly to promoting your book, the 10-step marketing plan. So a glance through and I'm trying to figure out where I'm going totally wrong or took the left turn when I should have taken the right turn, because it seems everything suggested here is where I seem to be promotion wise. The problem with some of these suggestions is getting the readers' responses to some of them in order to make sales.
Part 1: Steps 1 through 3 in the marketing plan as outlined in "The Self-Publishing Checklist":
1. Always be selling: In a nutshell, you should be talking your book up, displaying your book and offering free copies in exchange for reviews. Common sense. There are some mini steps suggested in #1 to include creating or getting business cards and/or bookmarks, tell everyone you know that you have a published a book, create excitement (see above statement about giving books out in exchange for reviews), and creating an effective sell sheet. I've done all this except creating sell sheets. I did have sell sheets when I was first published for the first two books in my series which were part of the media kit put together. Not much came from the sell sheets at all.
In January, I offered 100 ebook copies to anyone who would request them from me in exchange for reviews. Did I receive 100 requests for any of the nine titles available at the time? No. I received two requests, one person in England whom I met in an online class and who is familiar with my state stories requested a copy of Finally Home, "The Proposal" and "The Tulip Kiss". I know he is busy and as of this posting, I have not heard back from him regarding reviews on any of the titles. I did have another lady who requested a copy of "The Proposal"; she has posted her review on her blog and amazon, B&N, and Goodreads. She also does reviews for children's books on another blog and so I asked her if she would take a copy of one of my state stories and do a review on it. She agreed to do so. She also informed me that it would take a bit longer to read and review that story since she had a few books in front of me. No problem. At least, as far as I'm aware, she will post a review when she gets a chance.
Maybe I need to go back to the drawing board on coming up with creative ways to "sell" my books since apparently no one wants free ebooks to read in exchange for reviews.
2. Get Book Reviews. The book says that Reviews sells books. Duh!
I can't afford to pay people to post reviews and was hoping by offering free ebook copies of the titles available ("The Proposal" and "The Tulip Kiss" are only available as an ebook, and all the state books are only available in print but I do have PDF files for them that can be used for review copies) that I would gain a handful of reviews. Two, in my opinion, does not equal a handful of reviews and thereby does not sell books. Although looking through the list, it may be a good idea for me to consider sending print copies to several of the review places that are not a fee-based entity.
3. Your website.
In my opinion, this actually should be something created long before your book is published whether you get a "website" from the publisher like bookstandpublishing offers or not. There are several free or low cost sites out there. Yolasite.com is one of them; weebly.com is another. I advise upgrading to the pro side since this will allow you to do more with your website. With weebly.com, by paying the yearly fee (I think I'm paying like $42 and some change a year - or maybe less; I think it works out to about $2.95/month when I renew my upgrade), you can add videos and have more the ability to upload more files on a page. This is a big advantage for me since I've got a whole page dedicated to the accompanying study guides for my books and I'll have 50 when the series is completed. I think before I upgraded to pro I could only upload like 10 files on the page, which would have been 1/5 of my study guides being on the page. Now, I can upload all 50 and not have to decide which few I'll keep up or how to switch them out. I also think with the pro upgrade you get more pages; with the freebie side on weebly.com I think you are limited to only five pages, but if you don't have a lot going on, five pages may be just right for you.
You can create your website and add, take away, change as you progress in your publishing endeavor, but I highly suggest you start a website before you are even published.
I have two websites, both through weebly.com and both have been upgraded. You can find all my non-state related book information here and my JGDS, 50-state series here. I try to make them look as professional as possibly and have included buy now buttons on the book pages as well as the necessary information. I created my JGDS site first and then created my non-JGDS site but didn't really publish it until last year when I started thinking of my other stories that had won contests and could be republished and about the time I finished Finally Home.
Heather, my illustrator uses yolasite.com for her graphic design business. You can check her out here.
Tune in Thursday for part 2 where I'll cover steps 4 through 7, which all seem to be related to in-person or online promotion. See you in the postings - E :)
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Finally Home, a YA paranormal mystery
I've not talked much about this story but I think it's time to bring it out of the closet and get it published. This is the story I wrote for NaNo (National Novel Writing Month) in 2008, although I didn't really write it during the month of November (I started late, about the middle of November and wrote through the middle of December, so it was still in that 30-day period that I wrote over 50,000 words on a novel; Finally Home came in at about 56,000 words.). I've already done some behind the scenes things like sending it out to several readers to get some feedback, and supplying Heather with info for cover and layout (although the ms is not in final draft yet). I also sent a copy of the document to my kindle to make notes and do some basic editing as well. So far I've received one person's comments back. Jess, who helps me sometimes during the summer with events, is reading but with her starting school this coming week, I'm afraid she won't have time to finish editing it. She did verbally give me some feedback this weekend, so I hope to at least get a partial back from her so that I can use the info to edit the story. Heather is working on a cover for Finally Home as we speak, but she too will be starting college soon and so I know her time will be limited as far as being able to work on my stories and all. I'm anxiously awaiting the cover so I can share with all of you. For more info on other stories previously published or in the works, please visit my website. I will be self-publishing and the book will be available in print via amazon, createspace and directly from me, as well as an ebook through smashwords, Kindle and Nook. I'm looking for a publication date of about the middle of October so that I will have copies on hand for events in November, namely the Savannah Children's book festival.
Stay tuned for some upcoming contests and giveaways with the release of Finally Home.
Stay tuned for some upcoming contests and giveaways with the release of Finally Home.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Mari Taylor - author of Surviving Unemployment series
My guest today is Mari Taylor, author of Surviving Unemployment Devotions to Go and her newest book - Girlfriends on Surviving Unemployment. Please join me in welcoming Mari for a quick interview and more info on her books.Mari, why two books on the same subject?
The reason my publisher wanted two books was because the first was a devotional. Not everyone is going to connect with that type of book. So Girlfriends On...Surviving Unemployment is a “girlfriends having tea, cookies and a heart-to-heart talk about surviving unemployment” book. There are some stories and advice here that weren't included in the devotional. And I think the voice is very conversational, just as if I was sitting across the table from my reader. I absolutely love the cover she chose for it. It plays right into the feeling of the book. I'm hoping it reaches those the devotional book might have missed and solidifies a relationship with those who read the devotional.
What's next after these two books?
I am currently under contract for a holiday book. The working title is Celebrating Frugally Elegant Holidays. It will release in 2011. The theme of frugal elegance is one that will run through the majority of my books with See Media, Inc. The holiday book will release under the Simple Joy imprint. The first two books were purse-sized so that readers could slip it in their purse and read it “on the go”. The holiday book will be a full size book. I'm really excited about it!
What exactly is frugal elegance?My definition of frugal elegance is concrete, simple ideas for maintaining or infusing elegance into your lifestyle without having to “beg, borrow and steal” from other areas of your household budget/spending plans. I know, I hate the “b” word and the “sp” combo as well! But lets face it, in today’s economy, they truly are a necessary evil. This type of lifestyle leads to less stress, more joy, less cash outflow and a life that looks and feels rich, classy and elegant. The bonus to this lifestyle is more time and energy to be extravagant with the relationships in your life. After all, it is quality relationships that truly make your life rich anyway, not the stuff!
So will this year's holidays be “frugally elegant” for your family?
They will. My goal is to test everything in the book before it goes to print. Most of it are things that I've done over the years, but some are new ideas. Those are the ones I want to test drive with my very picky family! I don't want to offer any advice that I haven't used myself. I am also hoping to get a friend or two to join me in using the ideas for the fast approaching holidays. I think it will add more dimension and authenticity to the book.
MARI'S BIO:Marietta (Mari) Taylor resides in Raleigh, NC with her husband of seventeen years and her two teenage daughters. The move from Chicago, IL to Raleigh proved a breeding ground for dusting off her dream of writing. Mari is the author of Surviving Unemployment Devotions to Go, released March 2010 and Girlfriends On…Surviving Unemployment, also scheduled to be released in 2010. Mari was also published in Penned From The Heart VOL XV, a devotional anthology. Her column, Frugal Elegance, appears in Girlfriend 2 Girlfriend, an online magazine published by Extreme Diva Media.
Mari strives to show women how to manage the critical aspects of their lives elegantly, frugally and cohesively. Now if she could just get her two high maintenance daughters and one high maintenance husband on board. That ultimately will be the true test of her skill!
Mari has a bachelor’s degree in Biology and currently works in Healthcare IT. She loves forensics and Cafe World on Facebook. She’s a work in progress and ever evolving. The most important thing to her is that through her writing, others would come to know, accept and adore the God who has created such a crazy jumble of things that make her who she is.
To find out more about Mari, check out her sites:
Mari's blog Her personal blog is a hodge podge of book reviews, inspirationsl posts, family and personal news nad whatever else I might think of on a given day
website Her website explains more about my life philospohy of "frugal elegance". You can also find book release information and links to follow me on Facebook and Twitter
twitter account
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