In the first half of this post on online book promotion, we talked about what doesn’t work, and I shot down a lot of people’s marketing plans (yeah, sorry about that). Today, let’s talk about what does work.
Again, I’ll be the first to admit that there’s no guarantee that what’s worked for me and for others will work for you, but, hey, it’s better trying things that have a positive track record. It’s also good to do things that have lasting results, as opposed to things like tweeting and posting in forums, things that quickly disappear from public view. (You might also want to read my post on high level vs. low level book promotion tactics.)
In the end, no amount of promotion will matter if the writing and the packaging aren’t there, so, of course, make sure your stories are as good as possible and make sure your sales page looks good too (professional blurb, cover art, etc.).
Building up a blog
I’ve done numerous posts on blogging and mentioned that I sell several copies of my ebooks through my blog each week (I use affiliate links so I get credit – and a few extra pennies – for each sale, and this helps with tracking the effectiveness of my blog posts too). Its true that “several” a week is a small drop in the bucket when you’re selling one or two thousand (or more) ebooks a month, but I suspect the number of sales resulting from my blog is actually higher.
As an Amazon affiliate, I only get credit for sales that happen within 24 hours of someone clicking a link (so if someone downloads an ebook sample, goes back two days later and buys the book, I won’t get credit for that). Also, I’ve had any number of people say that they checked out my work after first reading my blog.
Also, remember I’m still in my first year of self-publishing (next month, I’ll hit my one-year anniversary). With blogging, the longer you do it, the more momentum you build (i.e. meaning more visitors every month), particularly if you post regularly and work on getting links to your site. A little search engine optimization helps too.
Starting a newsletter
Once you have fans, you want to make sure to keep in touch with them. It’s true that some will, of their own accord, subscribe to your blog’s RSS feed, check your site regularly, sign up to receive your reviews on Goodread, follow you on Twitter, Facebook, etc., but others won’t be that connected.
Also, if you’re a self-published author, Amazon isn’t going to send notices out to readers to let them know that you have a new book out (something it will do with traditionally published authors), so it’s up to you to grab your fans’ emails, so that you can send them a note when you have news-worthy announcements.
More on starting a newsletter here.
Getting involved in a reader-oriented community such as Goodreads
Many readers from your target audience are already hanging out here, so, unlike with Facebook and Twitter, you don’t have to search quite as hard to find them. You can add potential readers as friends, syndicate your blog there, join communities and post in forums, and start author Q&A discussions.
I haven’t done a lot on Goodreads yet myself, but I do have my blog syndicated there, and I’ve done a paperback giveaway with the first novel in my high fantasy series. Having your book listed amongst their giveaways offers you some added exposure, since lots of readers surf through those books, hoping to win freebies (I had 900+ sign up to enter my giveaway, and I write high fantasy, not the most popular genre out there!). Note: Goodreads doesn’t do ebook giveaways, so you have to have a paperback copy that you can mail out.
Guest blogging
I’ve written about guest blogging on numerous occasions before, so I won’t go into details here, but this basically allows you to appear in lots of places around the web. The more places you’re out there where people can stumble across your name and your work, the better.
Something I didn’t do in the beginning, but which I’m careful to do now, is to carefully pick and choose the sites where I do this. It takes time to write up a good guest post, so you want to make sure you’re getting something out of it. Appearing on a low-traffic blog won’t do much good, but popping in at a popular site is another story.
Make sure to include links to your website and your book pages when you guest post. That’ll help with search engine optimization for your own sites.
Giving away freebies and promoting them through social media
Of all the things I’ll talk about, this has done the most for me, and I’ve seen it do even more for others (taking people from one book sale a day, for example, to dozens). It seems to be most effective if you give away the first book in a series and hook people, but I’ve used short stories myself and have had some success that way too.
I like promoting freebies too. It’s a win-win for all interested parties.
Nobody wants to be spammed on Twitter or Facebook, but there’s a difference between tweets that take someone to a sales page where they have to buy something and those that offer something for free. People are more responsive to checking out freebies. These can be novels, short stories, excerpts, your blog posts, etc. I’m even doing a podiobook (a cross between an audiobook and the old radio shows where people get a chapter a week to listen to) of my first novel, and listeners can enjoy the entire story for free that way.
While being successful at online book promotion involves chugging away and trying a lot of things, I do think the surest route right now is something like this:
- Have something you can give away for free
- Include links and maybe excerpts to the non-free stuff at the end of the freebie
- Promote the free stuff
Taking the road less traveled
There are a lot of marketing things that you can do, a little bit here, a little bit there. Things like posting on Facebook and Twitter aren’t that hard and don’t take much time. Participating in forums, commenting on blogs, buying advertising, etc. are similar. They’re relatively easy to do and don’t take much time.
That’s why everybody does them.
It’s hard to stand out when you’re doing what everybody else does. You’ll notice, too, that there are a lot of unsuccessful authors (in regards to book sales) doing these things.
If you haven’t read The Purple Cow by Seth Godin, it’s worth a look. The idea is that if you’re driving through farmlands, and there are typical black and brown cows in every pasture, you won’t see any of them, you’ll just see the herd. But if one of those cows is purple… you’ll probably drive off the road because you’re so busy gawking at it. You’ll never forget it.
In that vein, think about things you can do that help you stand out. I can’t necessarily tell you what these things are because I haven’t thought of them yet myself! One example, though, is something I already mentioned, doing a podiobook of your novel, or maybe an entire series.
This is something I decided to do after interviewing science-fiction author Nathan Lowell over on my blog. A few years ago, he started podcasting his books (he hadn’t even polished them up and written everything down yet), and he ended up doing an entire series of six or eight books this way. Because there’s a lot of time and effort involved in creating a podiobook, not many people do it, but there’s a huge audience of readers who also enjoy listening to books on tape (or, in this case, podcast-style books that people can find and download through iTunes). And, as a listener myself, I can attest to how few really good free podiobooks are in the iTunes directory.
You may be thinking that it can’t be worth it if you’re giving away the episodes for free. Well, let me tell you the rest of Nathan’s story. After he’d spent all this time giving away his work for free and finding listeners, he released Book 1 as a $4.95 ebook. Practically overnight, the guy was making more than he’d ever made at his day job. How? He had a loyal fan base that rushed out and bought the ebook to support him. All those sales propelled him up to the top of the SF bestseller list at Amazon, and the rest was history. I believe he has three books in the series out now, and they continue to sell well.
You can read about my own experiences with doing a podiobook here. I just started in August, and I haven’t finished publishing all the chapters yet, and I know it’ll take time before I have lots of reviews in iTunes and it’s easy to find my work there, but I’ve already got a lot of subscribers, and I’ve already had lots of folks let me know that they bought the first novel (and some went on to grab others in the series) because they wanted to read the whole book at once! (In case you’re interested in listening, here’s my book at iTunes and at Podiobooks.com.)
Not everybody will want to do a podiobook, but that’s just one example. If you have good stories that people will enjoy, and if you can think of a way to stand out, to take the road less traveled, you’ll be well on your way to success.
Do you have any other strategies you’d recommend that have worked for you?
Great post, Lindsay! Haven’t tried the podiobooks before but am definitely looking into.
All great advice. I think we all just have to keep plugging away until people find us.
I’ve also been thinking of creating a podiobook (didn’t know it was called that until now though) for a project I’m working on. It’s about life in China and I was thinking of also adding in street sounds and everyday Chinese dialogue to give it a bit more flavour.
My plan was to release chapters of it on my website, and then sell the complete version as a download.
In your experience, is it better to view the recording as a means to advertise the book rather than a saleable item in its own right?
That sounds fun, Jessica!
You can do both with an audiobook. I’m releasing my chapters for free in Podiobooks.com/iTunes, and eventually I’d like to put together one big file that people can buy, maybe with a few extras and such. I’ll be looking into Audible too. I have no idea if indies can get their books listed there or not, but it’d be great to try.
I’ll be interested to know how you go with Audible and selling the complete file!