How Much Do You Promote?

[Philip Overby]

I know this is a question that haunts a lot of writers, but I'm just curious because once I release a novel, I want to promote it enough. For those who have books released, do you notice any sort of correlation between how much you promote (or how you promote) and book sales?

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I don't promote. I just put the book out there and move on to the next one, hoping that each book will work as it's own add. But I'm probably in the minority, and my sales aren't spectacular,

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Philip Overby]

I know writing the next book is a form of promotion, but I figure at least letting people know you have a book out seems pretty basic.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Unfortunately I'm even more basic! Sometimes I have made an announcement here and there. Not always.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Svrtnsse]

My thinking is that once I finish (or get close to finishing) my first book I'll look into the promotion thing as a sort of learning experience. I'll check what options there are and perhaps try some out, but I'll try not to go overboard with it.

Then I'll start on the next one.

 

[Devor]

I don't promote. I just put the book out there and move on to the next one, hoping that each book will work as it's own add. But I'm probably in the minority, and my sales aren't spectacular,

Hey psychotick, that's good to know.

Would you be willing to share a little more information about what you do? Like how many works you have published and how many it took before it started working out for you? And do I remember right that you're in Australia? Do you get regional information about where your books are being sold and if it makes much of a difference?

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I currently have nineteen books out, a dozen of them novels. It was my second book Maverick that first took off. Published in 2011 - nearly a year after my first it's sold about 5k copies now - as I said not spectacular but I'm happy with it. Since then it's been up and down, usually relating to genre. My epic fantasies usually sell around 2k copies in the first year after they're published, my sci fi's about half that, and my Christian fiction less again. Short stories and novellas sell very few copies.

And actually I'm a kiwi. But yes, on the dashboard Amazon provides authors, you get a series of sales numbers which tell you which Amazon store sold how many of which books. Currently it's the US first, the UK second at maybe a quarter of US sales, then Australia and Canada have to duke it out for the bronze medal at maybe ten percent of the US numbers.

The other stores, France, Germany, Italy and India have to settle for "also rans". I don't think I have had a month from them where any have sold more than a dozen copies, but English is not their primary language so that's to be expected.

One of the things I am considering is getting translations done for these countries.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Devor]

Awesome stuff, psychotick. Thanks a ton for sharing that.

 

[deilaitha]

Derek Murphy over at CreativIndie has a lot of good advice about marketing and promoting, especially utilizing social media.

creativindie.com

 

[Jasonstatham]

Without proper promotional strategies and without implementing them i don't think so there might be some possible chances of getting to some where at the world wide web. Being precise and by sharing quality content at your business website could have definitely leads toward great results.

 

[Mark]

I mostly just focus on writing more. I've started using writing contests as a way of promoting my work, and having fun. Perhaps I'll enter the next one on this forum. On social media only about 20 minutes a day: Twitter's getting easier, but Facebook is still hard for me.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

For those who have books released, do you notice any sort of correlation between how much you promote (or how you promote) and book sales?

I've done a bit of promotion lately - the 2-week launch of my second book (The Fire Mages), and a discount week for the first one (The Plains of Kallanash). Broken down by weeks, you can see the effect of the promotions on sales (numbers are sales AND borrows for both books):

Pre-promo: 23 per day {pre-orders plus 3 days of social}
Jan week 2: 13 per day {Fire Mages Promo - free and cheap sites}
Jan week 3: 30 per day {Fire Mages Promo - big hitters}
Jan week 4: 23 per day
Feb week 1: 16 per day
Feb week 2: 11 per day
Feb week 3: 30 per day {Fire Mages 10/day; Kallanash 20/day via a Countdown promo}
Feb week 4: 13 per day
Mar week 1: 11 per day
Mar week 2: 10 per day

You can see that the promotion increases sales dramatically at the time, and then tapers off quite quickly. ETA: I should add that before the pre-orders for The Fire Mages kicked in, sales of Kallanash were basically flat-lining - maybe 1 or 2 sales/borrows per week. So the promos made a huge impact.

I pay for ads on websites that advertise free or discounted ebooks (eg Ereader News Today, FreeBooksy/BargainBooksy, etc). The Fire Mages promo used a dozen or so sites and cost $171. The Kallanash one used 4 sites, and cost me $55. I don't do any other kind of promotion, apart from announcing new releases, sales, etc., on Twitter, blog, mailing list, and a few forums.

I've said this before, but absolutely the best resource for this kind of information is the Writers' Cafe over at Kboards. Or read David Gaughran's books, Let's Get Digital and Let's Get Visible.

 

[Philip Overby]

Thanks, all this is really helpful. It's nice to see things broken down like that and how it worked for you. Good luck!

 

[skip.knox]

I'm astonished, psychotik, that you have sold five thousand books without doing *any* sort of promotion. You just put your work on Amazon and walk away?

I can tell you right now, that definitely did not work for me!

-= Skip =-