by Ben Zackheim | Apr 8, 2014 | Book Promotion, Digital Identity, Sell your book, Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest, Writing |
You hear the one about the two authors who walk into a bar? One has a mailing list. The other one has zip. Nada.
Mailing List: “I saw that tweet about your book sale the other day.”
Zip Nada: “Yeah. I got two whole sales after a week of prep, a $50 ad spend on Goodreads and 28 tweets.”
Mailing List: “Wow. That sucks.”
Zip Nada: “Thanks. That’s really helpful. I got your newsletter about your book last month. Looked nice.”
Mailing List: “50 copies sold. Not too bad. Why don’t you use your email list to promote sales?”
Zip Nada: “I don’t have one.”
Mailing List: “Oh man! It took me seven years to build mine! You’d better get started, like yesterday!”
What’s the punchline of the joke? Zip Nada punches Mailing List in the face.
If a writer doesn’t have an email list, does he make a sound when he falls in the forest?
Many writers experience dismal sales from Twitter/Facebook/[enter social network name here]. A common complaint is, “My followers are family, friends or fellow writers who don’t buy other writer’s books.”
We’re told that we should have an email list. That way we can reach the highest quality, most targeted audience possible.
Uh. I’m afraid all the above is true.
But…
Here’s some great (and little-discussed) news. If you use Twitter then you can reach your target audience. No matter what the “quality” is of your followers!
How?
Twitter Analytics, is a spectacular tool for finding people to buy your book.
You could say, “but that assumes my social network followers care about my books and they demonstrably do not.” This is a big misconception,and probably one of the most damaging to authors who blog, tweet and share online. We’re told by a lot of smart people out there that people who follow us, Like our posts or share our tweets aren’t necessarily fans, or even readers.
That’s a glass half empty (and incomplete) perspective.
Here’s mine:
The Twitter connections we’ve made online with non-fans and even non-readers are valuable enough to sell books.
How can that be? Because Twitter has learned so much about them!
Here’s what I mean. This is a breakdown of my Twitter following.
Is that a marketer’s ten thousand dollar breakdown of potential audience?
No, it’s Twitter’s free report on my followers.
Yup. They actually tell me what interests my followers have, even broken down by favorite genres! So for all my Twitter struggles and misses and successes over the years, in the final analysis it was my mere presence that gave Twitter the data it needed to say, “Hey, good job reaching out. Here’s who you have. Now go have fun selling your book to them!”
How does this help you? If you look at your own follower breakdown you’ll spot interests and terms that you can tweet about. For instance, using the data above, I just brainstormed a new tweet that I’m going to try:
Tweet: How do teenagers learn #leadership skills? Shirley gets crash course in #mystery Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest http://ctt.ec/n4z2o+
In that book, my heroine (Shirley Link) gets a lesson in leadership when she tries to get her two best (and bickering) friends to work together. All while dragging her dad around so he can help with the case.
So I’ve used two terms that I know (from solid Twitter data) will resonate with a huge part of my Twitter following: “mystery” and “leadership”.
But it doesn’t end there. You could apply this data to find terms for your book description, your book metadata and even blog posts about your book. Then when your audience clicks on the tweet they’ll see their favorite subject brought up again and again as they decide if they want to buy or not.
Conclusion: Get signed up for Twitter Analytics to find your target audience
So the lesson here is, you might not have a big enough mailing list yet. But as you build that up, don’t fret. Use Twitter and some common sense and you’ll find your readers.
Sign up for Twitter analytics here.
by Ben Zackheim
If you liked this post, give these a try!
WordPress for authors and writers (part four)
WordPress for authors and writers (part three)
WordPress for authors and writers (part two)
WordPress for authors and writers (part one)
Top 5 writing contests
by Ben Zackheim | Mar 26, 2014 | Book Promotion, Writing |
Goodreads giveaways are a wonderful way for authors to reach potential readers. Why? Because when you give away your book on Goodreads, you’re placing all of your hard work in the hands of someone who wants your book and wants to enjoy it. That last part of the sentence is important. Everyone knows that Goodreads is filled with readers. But one of the unspoken benefits of Goodreads is that people on the site are predominantly kind and supportive. Yes, there are exceptions. But people want to enjoy the books they read. This means you’ll find readers and they’ll be on your side from the get-go.
When you give away a book it’s different than giving away an app, for instance. Books speak to our hearts, minds, senses, emotions. By giving away our story we’re already ahead of the mad rush for people’s hearts that other businesses strive for.
The second biggest benefit of Goodreads giveaways is powerful. If you’re giving away a pre-release book, Goodreads will email many of the contest entrants with news of your book launch. More on that below.
Before you can tackle any of the steps here, you’ll need to sign up to be a Goodreads Author.
This requires you to have a book in their system. You can add your book easily. Just make a simple request to a Goodreads Librarian.
So once you’re an author with work on the site, here’s how you set up Goodreads giveaways:
1) Go to www.goodreads.com and sign up or sign in
2) Click on Explore in the upper right. Then select “giveaways”.
3) You’ll see a list of current giveaways. If you’ve signed up as a Goodreads Author you’ll see “List a Giveaway”. Select it.
4) Here’s the listing page at last!
Look below the image to get the run-down.
The “gotchas” and best practices are as follows:
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Be sure to make the contest last a full month. Any less and you’re missing out on potential readers. In general, you’ll see the hugest spike in entrants as the contest deadline approaches, so fret not if things start slow!
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Try to do the contest a full 2 months before the book launch. So when the contest ends you’ll still have a month to get feedback and reviews from your winners. And they’ll feel special that they got a book a month before it came out.
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Enter your ISBN or ISBN13 in the field. If you only have an ASIN (Amazon’s ID format) then click on the “Switch to Book ID” link on the right side of the text entry field.
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Make the description a kick-ass, direct pitch. The better the description, the more entrants you’ll get, guaranteed.
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Goodreads likes to have authors give away 50 books. I agree that it’s a good number if you can afford it. I’ve done 10 and been happy with the results. However, I plan on following their advice with my next giveaway for The Camelot Kids. 50 copies, here I come!
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If you don’t have a publisher then just enter your own site’s url. If you don’t have a site, please build one.
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Choose the countries where you think your book will resonate. It’s a pain to send books internationally, but worth it if you can grow your global readership.
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Tags are a whole post unto themselves. Enter terms that you believe apply to your book. You can use genre terms (horror, scifi), popular terms (Sherlock, Chicago Bears) or whatever comes to mind. The tags will help entrants choose the book that’s right for them.
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The contact info is just asking you for basic info. Don’t worry about it. Just write something like “[Name], [email]. I’m the author of the book, [book name]
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You can include an excerpt of your book for entrants to read. I’d advise doing this because the more people who enter who really WANT to win your book, the better your buzz will be.
Agree to the terms. They’re perfectly reasonable. Here they are for your convenience:
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You agree to supply the indicated number of books on the date the giveaway ends.
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Goodreads will list (for free) the giveaway book on the giveaways page.
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Goodreads will collect interest in the book, and select winners at our discretion. Our algorithm uses member data to match interested members with each book.
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After the giveaway stop date, click the name of your giveaway (listed under “your giveaways” on the main First Reads page) to see the list of winning addresses. You will also be emailed a list of winners. You are responsible for shipment of the books. Failure to do so will result in us not inviting you over for cake ever again.
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You agree not to store the winners’ mailing addresses and not to use the winners’ addresses for anything other than sending them the indicated book.
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Winning members are encouraged but not required to write a review of the book they receive.
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Ebooks are not allowed. Every winner must receive a physical copy of the book.
Once you’ve started the contest you can retrace Steps 1-3. Notice the area on the right-hand side of the page that reads “Giveaways You’ve Created”? That will give you quick access. You can also find the contest listed on your Goodreads Dashboard
Now here’s the wonderful part. Everyone who enters your Goodreads giveaway will be opted-in to receive an email from Goodreads on the release date. That’s why they ask for the launch date of your book on the form above! In my experience about 75% of the entrants stay opted in.
That’s it! Now you need to promote the contest. That includes posting the Goodreads giveaway on linky (contest) sites and, yes, leveraging Goodreads advertising. I’ll post about that soon.
The final bit of usefulness comes from Goodreads itself. This slideshow is gold.
You might also find the following posts useful:
Does advertising on Goodreads work?
by Ben Zackheim | May 16, 2013 | Book Promotion, Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest |
Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest, the third book in my Middle-Grade Mystery series, is out.
But the real good news is that today and tomorrow it is
FRREEEEEeeeeeee
eeeeeeeeeee
….
So go to Amazon and download your own copy. If you like it, give Shirley a review! And spread the word.
Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest clocks in at twice the size of the two previous books. I wanted to dig into the three teen characters some more, and reveal why they are such a great team. Shirley, Wylie and Marie are like the perfect storm. Between them, their loyalty, intellect, strength, bravery and faith in each other makes them the best sleuthing team of all time.
I look forward to writing more about them in the years to come.
Next up in the series is Shirley Link & The Black Cat. It should be a doozy.
Look for it this summer!
From Amazon (Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest):
Shirley Link loves pirates. Well, she loves the idea of them. She wouldn’t like them if they were running up the street stealing bikes, but digging for treasure and swashbuckling adventure are on the top of her to-do list. So when a clue pops up that there’s a hidden pirate treasure under her hometown, Shirley gets to work.
In Shirley Link & The Treasure Chest, the third volume in the critically-acclaimed Middle-Grade Mystery series, our heroine takes on her toughest challenge yet. But this time the stakes are bigger than ever. If she fails to find the treasure, or if it ends up being a hoax, then Shirley’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Smiley, will lose her home to the bank.
More Shirley, Dad, Wiley and Marie than ever before. That’s right. Even Mr. Link gets to join in the adventure!
Reviews:
Emily Neuburger, Everyday Fun blog, Parents.com
“Shirley Link is a new girl detective series that my daughter is crazy about. This is an amazing series, my friends! Your kids will be hooked and you’ll feel really good about it.”
Edward Hemingway, Author/Illustrator, Bad Apple
“This Virginia Mars for the tween-set is funny, smart, and full of preternatural wisdom.”
PopBop (Top 1000 Amazon reviewer)
“There are early middle grade mysteries out there, but most of them have sketchy characters, and a lot of them plod along fairly predictable arcs. This series has an engaging heroine, a lot of attitude, and a much snappier overall feel.”
by Ben Zackheim | Mar 19, 2013 | Book Promotion, Writing |
To read about how WordPress can help writers, see Part One!
In my experience, authors are hesitant to sell. That’s okay, as long as they do it anyway. (Tweet this instantly!)
I’m not going to tell anyone what their site should be. Only you know what you want to get out of it. You may just want to tell stories. Blog. Podcast. Post pics of cats. But if you want to use your site to highlight you and your books then I have some pretty strong, and well-tested, opinions. After years at Viacom, Sony, ESPN and AOL, building games and game sites, I can tell you that selling something requires focus.
With focus in mind, here’s what every fiction author website must do:
Highlight the books
Have one or two strong calls to action (sign-up for newsletter, buy, download)
Include blogging, video, illustrations, SOMETHING to keep folks coming back twice a month.
What does an author website need to have? BaB!
I call these fundamentals, BaB, which stands for Books/action/Blog.
Why BaB? Because it wraps up what your book site is all about. Selling yourself and your books.
Think about it for a moment. If you stumble on a site that’s selling something, you’ll visually scan it and, whether you know it or not, you’re making a lot of judgments in a split second.
- Is it pretty? Assuming you don’t go with a puke pink palette, Wordpress will help make that first impression go well. That’s one of WordPress’ biggest advantages. You need to work hard to make it look bad.
- What is being sold and does it look good? Get the best book cover you can afford and highlight it with a WordPress product page. I’ll cover the top themes with product pages in a later post.
- What else is here for me? News? Advice? Videos? Contests? Podcasts? Ways to share? Which social network is important to this writer? Is the site worthy of bookmarking?
By executing on the above three points, your site will do the most important thing it can do for you …
…show the reader what your priorities are…
You know how biz folks are always talking about how smart people remove all obstacles to buying a product? The same holds true of site design. Don’t make me think! Do not assume that I found your site because I wanted to see your book, or you. Odds are I did a search and stumbled on you. Now it’s up to you to convert me. Yeah, it’s like sprinting from a standstill. It’s hard, but you have to try.
Want to see what I mean? Okay, go to Jay Asher’s author page.
I’m not nuts about the overall design, but all the elements of BaB are there, and they’re in the right place. Notice the big honkin’ Buy Button in the upper left, which is where most eyes land when they first look at a page. I’m asked to buy before I even know what the product is! But that’s okay because, lo and behold, there’s the pic of the book. Now I know I’m on an author’s site. Jay gives more prominence to News than to Reader Reviews, which is odd, but they’re both really obvious from the get-go.
In the top menu I see there are a whole bunch of reasons for me to come back to the site if I like the book. There are links to his blog and to videos that tie in with his books. The site is bookmarkable. I would also follow the site, which I’ll explain in a later post.
So, yes, Jay Asher’s site has BaB! The books and buy action are tied at the hip on the top of the page, which is how it should be. And there’s content to keep the reader coming back to see what he and his characters are up to next.
Maggie Stiefvater‘s site tackles things in a different way. But let’s check out what she does and (maybe) why. Does Maggie have BaB?
It’s a design-heavy site, with a long load time, but when it does load it intrigues (just like her writing). She knows her audience (young adults) and her pub has made a judgment that the design of the site must capture her audience’s eye and let them know they are definitely in the right place. Since Maggie is busy building a very potent brand, where she is the product, she’s very prominent. Still, notice the biggest words on the page? “Welcome Reader”. She knows that she needs to let folks who don’t know her well that they’re on a writer’s site. Books are here. If you navigate to the books, you’ll find a very succinct and pretty presentation. You can also get fresh content if you come back to the site for her blog.
But this is where things fall apart. Where can I buy her books? Nowhere. I need to either search for the books manually on my site of preference, or go to one of the books’ official sites. From there I can find a Where to Buy section waaaay down on the page. Maybe the publishers figure she has a big enough name so they don’t need to worry about losing sales. But even the slightest bump in the road to purchase is lost money.
I’ve noticed this weakness in a lot of big publishers’ author pages. Maybe they know something I don’t know, but I’d say a design that hides the buy button isn’t doing anyone any favors. Including the readers.
So enough with the studies. How can you take this simple concept of BaB and apply it to your site with WordPress? We’ll explore the answer in the next post.
See what a good landing page needs to have to get the job done. And read part three of my series on WordPress for authors and writers.
You may also like:
WordPress for authors and writers (part one)
WordPress for authors and writers (part three)
WordPress for authors and writers (part four)
by Ben Zackheim
by Ben Zackheim | Aug 21, 2012 | Book Promotion, Writing |
Book promotion is an imprecise science, which is why I’m delighted to have actually succeeded at something! I had great success with my free promotional day on Amazon. 3000 people downloaded Shirley Link & The Safe Case and the book shot to #1 in Kids Mystery ebooks, and #113 in all free ebooks. The key to success appears to be simple.
Get the word out.
Who’d have thunk it, huh?
To that end, you have a friend in websites that promote free ebooks. It’s the perfect relationship — your free ebook is their content! They don’t succeed unless they have your book listed.
Author Marketing Club is a site that includes a single page where you can submit your free book for promotion on a number of great destinations around the Web.
While using the submission page above may be the easiest way to go, it may also send you to dead or unresponsive sites.
Below, I’ve broken down which sites I submitted to that are still around (I’ll update often):
Good luck! Please let us know if you’d like to add a site that did well by you.
