I really wanted to make Stan be an acronym but couldn't make it work. I'm starting this thread as the marketing parallel to the threads in the Writing forum. A couple other folks have talked about their own Adventures in Advertising, but I wanted to do my own.
First the background. I have four books on Amazon available for purchase--three novels and one novelette--all set in Altearth but none a series. I have a handful of reviews (12 for one, 11 for another, and those are my leaders), generally good. I have a newsletter with about 70 subscribers, with maybe 70-80% being one-timers, but I don't really know. I have a website that looks good and contains a fair amount of content. Book sales are as anemic as you'd expect with these numbers. The books have come out roughly one a year.
Nearly all advice on how-to-sell-books is about launching a new book or selling a series. There's next to nothing on how to promote books that are far down in the slush and three years old.
Which is why I'm starting this thread. I'm going to promote my books this year, while I'm writing The Falconer. I'm going to post in this thread exactly what I do and what sort of metrics I get. I don't even know yet what metrics are available! I'll get more detailed in subsequent posts. Here's the overview.
Take a two-month period to promote a specific book. Then do the next, and the next. No (planned) gaps in between; back to back. Start in February.
Promotion will include ads on Amazon and Facebook, promos using services like Booksy and Book Barbarian and The Fussy Librarian. Promoting in my subscriber list. That's pretty much it. I've done a fair amount of research on all this, and it's all still fuzzy. It feels very much like how I felt at the front end of my first self-pub book. I've studied the maps, but I haven't actually walked the trail.
Anyway, all this is by way of hoping others find something useful in the notes and rants to follow.
First the background. I have four books on Amazon available for purchase--three novels and one novelette--all set in Altearth but none a series. I have a handful of reviews (12 for one, 11 for another, and those are my leaders), generally good. I have a newsletter with about 70 subscribers, with maybe 70-80% being one-timers, but I don't really know. I have a website that looks good and contains a fair amount of content. Book sales are as anemic as you'd expect with these numbers. The books have come out roughly one a year.
Nearly all advice on how-to-sell-books is about launching a new book or selling a series. There's next to nothing on how to promote books that are far down in the slush and three years old.
Which is why I'm starting this thread. I'm going to promote my books this year, while I'm writing The Falconer. I'm going to post in this thread exactly what I do and what sort of metrics I get. I don't even know yet what metrics are available! I'll get more detailed in subsequent posts. Here's the overview.
Take a two-month period to promote a specific book. Then do the next, and the next. No (planned) gaps in between; back to back. Start in February.
Promotion will include ads on Amazon and Facebook, promos using services like Booksy and Book Barbarian and The Fussy Librarian. Promoting in my subscriber list. That's pretty much it. I've done a fair amount of research on all this, and it's all still fuzzy. It feels very much like how I felt at the front end of my first self-pub book. I've studied the maps, but I haven't actually walked the trail.
Anyway, all this is by way of hoping others find something useful in the notes and rants to follow.