Stan the Plan

[skip.knox]

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.

 

[skip.knox]

First up: Into the Second World
This one has more reviews (12) and is also my most recent book. I figure if I'm going to make some mistakes, this is a good one. Plus, the reviews give me some copy for the ads--not a small consideration.

The Stan Plan as of today is this:
Send my newsletter out in late January. Among the content will be an announcement that a sale is upcoming, so my subscribers are the first to know. I have to switch over to MailerLite from MailChimp, so this is the time to do that. I'll have a link to the actual sales dates and prices. MailerLite will let me track the number of people who actually click. This is Step One is figuring out who in those 70 subscribers are really fans and who just signed up for the free story and never unsubscribed.

In February (specific dates are not yet set) run a Sponsored Ad on Amazon. Also run a Facebook Ad. Both will promote a Countdown Deal. In addition, book at least three promo services to promote the same.

Adjust and repeat for the other books.

Seems simple enough.

Except.

Everything you read about Amazon ads suggest running the ad for at least a couple of months. Plenty of advice says run it permanently and just tweak it. Now waitaminit. I plan to run an ad to promote a sale. You don't keep running the ad after the sale is done. So, what? Is there some other sort of Amazon ad to run? Or do I just rely on the promotion inherent in the Countdown Deal itself? Then what the bloody what is the Sponsored Ad supposed to advertise?

Facebook is even weirder. There's Boost This Post, but a post is a weak sort of way to advertise. There are other options, none of which seem quite the right sort of thing.

The only part that's unambiguous is those Booksy et alia services. You pay a few bucks and your ad goes into their newsletter for one day. The only trick there is booking. You have to put your marker in for a particular day and hope against hope that all three or five services you go to all give you the same day. Because in a Countdown Deal, each day (or two) has a different price. Yeesh.

If anyone knows of a resource that actually deals with these questions, I'd be glad to hear of it. Otherwise, I'm just going to journal my experiences and we can all assume they're completely typical and reproducible. Hah.

 

[skip.knox]

Of course, before I can do anything I have to get the next issue of Altearth Chronicle (my newsletter). This means not only do I have to write the copy--I put rather a lot into a newsletter--I also have to do it in MailerLite, which means learning the new interfaces, making lots of design choices, etc.

Of course, that also means I need to create a new Welcome email sequence as well, which might mean creating a landing page or a form. More learning.

Of course, I have to import the subscribers from MailChimp.

Of course, I have to figure out how to change the signup link on my website so new subscribers to to MailerLite.

Of course, I did watch Rain Man a few days ago.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I'm definitely following this topic with interest.

I think measuring everything to see what effect it has is the way forward. Try little things, learn a lot and try some more things. Some will work and others wont. And some things that worked for others won't work for you and vise versa. I recall reading somewhere (I think on lindsay buroker's blog, which has a lot of resources on self publishing) that the person used affiliate links to track the effect of marketing attempts. She used specific links for specific ads etc so she knew where buyers were coming from. So that might be something to look in to (and of course, just getting some extra moneys from Amazon is a nice bonus).

I think for smaller authors there's very little difference between promoting a book that just launched and promoting an existing book. Books don't go bad (yes, writing styles and reading preferences change, but not that much in 2-5 years). And no one was waiting for the book launch or giving it much attention. The only difference is that you're not showing up anymore in the launched in the past 30 days filter on amazon. But since no one was looking for your book in the first place that matters little I feel. So you could just try marketing it as you would a new book.

A few other thoughts:
- If you're only on amazon at the moment, you could launch it as new everywhere else. If being Amazon exclusive is not getting you extra sales why not give it a try.
- You could bundle a couple of books as a promotion. Yes, they're not a series, but they are all set in the same universe.
- For ads, it can be worth checking out the "also bought" list for your books and see if targeting readers of those authors gives you effective promotions.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Small note, countdowns don't have to countdown. The ideal route, assuming a 0.99 deal is to do that for a week, hit bargainbooksy day 1, fussy librarian day 2, bookbarbarian day 3, but with only 12 reviews you might have some issues getting barbarian. Book Barbarian has been the best non-Bookbub I've run, and I've only used them at $2.99. Anyhow, the first promo is tricksy because you don't know who the hell is going to accept your promo, I had mine all planned the first time around and only got half the ones I requested! But the good news is after you get them once, and pile on reviews, they become automatic. And the first time through I ended up with 2 promos on one day, so I couldn't measure them well since they get sent straight to Amazon.

There's been so many changes to Amazon ads since I did this, I'm curious to see what happens with those. For the most part, I've focused on FB ads.

Another note, Bookbub ads... probably wouldn't be cost effective, but, with so few reviews, a 0.99 sale would be the time to test run them even if you did a $1/day just to see. And, do CPC there.

 

[skip.knox]

Thanks for that. I was intending to aim for something like what you describe, but the issue of availability and then acceptance looms large. With a Countdown, you're saying I *could* leave the price steady over the whole span. So it's just an ad, yes? Anyway, even if no third-party ads come through, there's still the promo inherent in the Countdown.

I still haven't resolved which book to promote when. All at the same time? One ad for all? Separate ads for each? All at once or in sequence? usw. There's no guidance in the guide books. It's possible it doesn't matter.

As for FB, the more I look, the confuseder I get. They don't seem to map over to promoting books at all. There's one that alleges it's for driving traffice to your website, but it looks pretty much the same as other forms. And I appear to have very little control over how the ad appears. It doesn't help that I'm pretty much ad-blind now; I never look at FB ads and hardly even notice them except when they annoy me.

 

[Devor]

Very loosely speaking the purpose of an ad is to convince someone to click on it the next time they see it. The first ad might have a click through rate of .1%, but each time they see it that number is supposed to climb a little higher. That's the difference between marketing and sales. It's the long game.

You can't think of it as running a single ad. You have to think of it as an ad campaign. You do that by running three very similar ads across the same group of people at the same time. It's far better to get 1k people seeing three ads than to get 3k people seeing one. The challenge of course is to make a case for reading the book across all the ads.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

The countdown still counts down to the end of the sale, but the price stays the same. Honestly, I’d do it this way, makes life easier. And yup, the countdown has its own promo value, AND any FB or BB ad will pull better with a sale price. On the day Terry Jones died, I’m being Ron Obvious.

I would promo one at a time because like when I had the BB Featured deal at 0.99 on Eve, Trail sold about 30 copies at $9.99. Your books aren’t a direct series, but you still might pick off some buyers at regular price. Spread the deals, long game. Plus, you promo Book #1 and people see your name... promo book #2, and people might see your name again, and it all builds. The more people see your name, the better.

Okay, don’t get too bogged down in the FB weeds... Run your ad for traffic. If you run your ad for “clicks” or “likes” or whatever, FB will attempt to target people who will “ciick” or “like”. I mean yes, the ultimate goal is a “conversion” but... Traffic is your best bet for the time being. Keep it simple:

1: Traffic, down the road you can play around, for now... Traffic.
2: FB Newsfeed ONLY, screw everything else. down the road, you can play around.
3: Go advanced and set your bid limit to like $0.50, this will keep FB from doing stupid shit with your money. And oh, they will!
4: Get your ad image
5: Short headline: you have a Sale going on, that’s a good headline
6: Primary text: tell them what the books about, or give them snippets from reviews... whatever. In your case, if you can slip in the history guru! Go for it.
7: Link straight to Amazon unless (maybe) you have an affiliate account with Amazon, then you could send them to your website. I have Eve of Snows wide, so I direct to my own page, but when exclusive to Amazon, might as well be direct UNLESS you want to track them with FB’s Pixel... which isn’t a bad idea.
8: This is where playing around gets interesting. Targeting. It’s best if you can target specific authors, but you can also target High Fantasy, try out historical fantasy, and other things that might work for your books. Get yourself a pretty good sized target, then as you’re on Amazon, Narrow the Audience to Amazon Kindle. For instance... if I am targeting George martin readers, I target George RR Martin and then narrow the audience with Goodreads or Books, to make sure they aren’t just HBO fans.

9: Shop Now Button... that way anybody who clicks expects to be shot to a sales page.

Thanks for that. I was intending to aim for something like what you describe, but the issue of availability and then acceptance looms large. With a Countdown, you're saying I *could* leave the price steady over the whole span. So it's just an ad, yes? Anyway, even if no third-party ads come through, there's still the promo inherent in the Countdown.

I still haven't resolved which book to promote when. All at the same time? One ad for all? Separate ads for each? All at once or in sequence? usw. There's no guidance in the guide books. It's possible it doesn't matter.

As for FB, the more I look, the confuseder I get. They don't seem to map over to promoting books at all. There's one that alleges it's for driving traffice to your website, but it looks pretty much the same as other forms. And I appear to have very little control over how the ad appears. It doesn't help that I'm pretty much ad-blind now; I never look at FB ads and hardly even notice them except when they annoy me.

 

[skip.knox]

In one post Demesnedenoir gives more useful advice than six books and six hundred blog posts. Thank you for this!

 

[Demesnedenoir]

There are people trying to make things complicated because they need hour-long seminars to sell, heh heh. Truth is, what you need to know about FB ads is easy... it’s making them work thats the real Bee up the wazoo. The graphic is important... my God is it important!

Quick question: when you had the covers done, did you have the artist throw together versions that would fit into an FB ad? Or, the paperback cover might be able to be adjusted. The other key is honing that primary text message at the top... When you get those, then you will drive traffic... then! They actually have to click buy! Believe you me, you will lose money, LOL. It is a long haul and a lot of trial and error. But the good news is, with 4 books sitting there, hook a reader and the money will make its ways back.

Okay, here’s some other points, things to look at down the road for what is or isn’t working... If your ad is running over $0.30 Red Flag! If an ad stays over 0.25 for a long time, this isn’t terrible but mmmm... you wanna do better. 0.20? This is relatively livable, especially for a landing page view. If you get to 0.15? Great. Under that is gravy. A lot of this is going to vary by the cost per 1k, before Christmas? Yikes! So, another way to look at is, how many reached in order to get a click? Again, the magic number 20. A reach of 600 and 30 clicks is reasonable. 600 and 20? Mmm, those days are there. Worse than that you start looking to improve. When look at per 1k cost,you’d really like to run under $10. But, some of this will do with how well your ad is running... it gets crazy. This time of year the cost per 1k is lower most of the time.

Now, on to Boosted posts... don’t poo poo them straight off, they aren;t great for immediate sales but they get you cheap views and clicks and you can invite them to follow you, this all builds and give you and FB’s algorithms to learn people and what is and is not working.

In one post Demesnedenoir gives more useful advice than six books and six hundred blog posts. Thank you for this!

 

[skip.knox]

I did not. It cost extra and I knew I wasn't going to be tackling ads until I had at least three works out. I had no idea how fast I could work, or even whether I had multiple works in me. But I'm ready now. Some time fairly soon I'll be going back to the artists (Deranged Doctor Design) and I'll ask them about social medial graphics. That way, I'll have social media images ready to go when I finish The Falconer. Meanwhile, I was just planning to use the book covers for the graphic. The Altearth logo is good, but not quite right for running an ad.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Yeah, sizing for an ad can work pretty well. I cobbled together some graphics that killed it for a while, but with the award won and the editors pick to work with, I’ve gone back to the main graphic from the artists. That and I think the old graphic wore out... it’s been a while, I should run some ads with the odl graphic again, LOL.

I did not. It cost extra and I knew I wasn't going to be tackling ads until I had at least three works out. I had no idea how fast I could work, or even whether I had multiple works in me. But I'm ready now. Some time fairly soon I'll be going back to the artists (Deranged Doctor Design) and I'll ask them about social medial graphics. That way, I'll have social media images ready to go when I finish The Falconer. Meanwhile, I was just planning to use the book covers for the graphic. The Altearth logo is good, but not quite right for running an ad.

 

[skip.knox]

Update on the Plan
Stan said he would send the newsletter out in late January. Much to my surprise, this is done.
Stan also claimed he'd move from MailChimp to MailerLite. And that's been done as well. Who knew?
Thirdly, Stan was going to get set up with promo sites, but that hasn't been done. Clock's a-tickin', Stan.

Still, Stan's batting .666 which is stellar, but it's early in the season. If he can finish at .333 it'll be a record-breaker.

Per major league advice from Demesnedenoir, I'm going to concentrate first on having the Amazon ad done and scheduled. It will be an ad just for the one book, Into the Second World. Secondly, schedule promos with three services.

Then do the same for A Child of Great Promise (which has received almost no attention), but start running FB ads as well.

Then Goblins at the Gates, which will receive the benefits of any tweaking. I'm estimating about a month to six weeks for each phase. I'm not sure if I'll keep running ads for each book individually. Won't know until I look at ROI. You all remember ROI, right? Great guy, but when he's down he can ruin a good party.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

ROI will probably be a party pooper to begin with. He tends to bring clouds and rain. Watch out for the lightning.

 

[skip.knox]

I have an Amazon Sponsored Product ad set to run Feb.4. But the creation dialog only lets me enter one book at a time, so it's an ad for the paperback, at full price. I want to advertise the ebook as well. Is that a separate ad? And I want to run a discount on the books (paper and e) later in February. Would those be two other ads, presumably suspending the initial two?

And why do none of the highly-touted guides address questions like this? Seems like it's what any novice would encounter. Stan is feeling grumpy.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Hmm, here's the deal. A paperback sale is you manually dropping the price, the countdown deal is ebook only and that is the big one to schedule. The ad should run at the book in general, most likely keying on the ebook, and anyone who clicks gets the options as the normal sales page. The paperback is a bit like having "gone wide" I just have to Say there is sale in the description, but Amazon will in no other way indicate it is a sale. You can only do so much, not sure exactly what you're shooting for.

I have an Amazon Sponsored Product ad set to run Feb.4. But the creation dialog only lets me enter one book at a time, so it's an ad for the paperback, at full price. I want to advertise the ebook as well. Is that a separate ad? And I want to run a discount on the books (paper and e) later in February. Would those be two other ads, presumably suspending the initial two?

And why do none of the highly-touted guides address questions like this? Seems like it's what any novice would encounter. Stan is feeling grumpy.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I have an Amazon Sponsored Product ad set to run Feb.4. But the creation dialog only lets me enter one book at a time, so it's an ad for the paperback, at full price. I want to advertise the ebook as well. Is that a separate ad? And I want to run a discount on the books (paper and e) later in February. Would those be two other ads, presumably suspending the initial two?

And why do none of the highly-touted guides address questions like this? Seems like it's what any novice would encounter. Stan is feeling grumpy.

I'm getting a feeling that your expectations of what an Amazon ad is and how it should work doesn't match with the way they're designed to work. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm the right person to give a proper explanation.
Have a look and see where Sponsored Ads appear and it might give you a better impression. Click them and see where they take you.

For what it's worth though, my understanding is that Amazon ads are things you keep running over time, and you'll generally have several of them running at once, in parallel. That way, you can analyse which ones do well, and which ones do not. You'll collect data over time, and will be able to fine tune and set up new, better ads (and terminate the ones that don't work).

If you're open to recommendation, there's a book called Mastering Amazon Ads, written by Brian Meeks which I quite enjoyed. There's also a facebook group that goes with it where the author regularly answers questions.

One thing to keep in mind is that can take some time before an ad starts delivering impressions (showing up to people). In my experience, it usually happens within the first 24 hours, but it's sometimes more. The ad also needs to be approved by Amazon, and that too can take some time.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Yeah, if unfamiliar with AMS ads DO NOT rely on them for a sale, they are long term. The countdown and FB ads will serve much better. Amazon ads will take some getting used to. Hell, I'm still not used to them.

I'm getting a feeling that your expectations of what an Amazon ad is and how it should work doesn't match with the way they're designed to work. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm the right person to give a proper explanation.
Have a look and see where Sponsored Ads appear and it might give you a better impression. Click them and see where they take you.

For what it's worth though, my understanding is that Amazon ads are things you keep running over time, and you'll generally have several of them running at once, in parallel. That way, you can analyse which ones do well, and which ones do not. You'll collect data over time, and will be able to fine tune and set up new, better ads (and terminate the ones that don't work).

If you're open to recommendation, there's a book called Mastering Amazon Ads, written by Brian Meeks which I quite enjoyed. There's also a facebook group that goes with it where the author regularly answers questions.

One thing to keep in mind is that can take some time before an ad starts delivering impressions (showing up to people). In my experience, it usually happens within the first 24 hours, but it's sometimes more. The ad also needs to be approved by Amazon, and that too can take some time.

 

[skip.knox]

I am not relying on any of them for sales. I'm looking to raise visibility, serenely confident that if people have the opportunity to look around Altearth, through books and short stories and website, they'll come back for more. It's getting noticed that's the trick. I haven't made this move before because I didn't want to get noticed only to have people find there wasn't much there. Now there is.

So, I'm fine with the long game and fine with bumbling around a bit. But I'm looking to cut the bumble (sounds like a bit of 1920s slang) as much as I can. I do have Meeks' book but it doesn't speak to these specific mysteries.

I'm not really looking for specific results yet, being well aware there are approximately 1.42 zillion variables involved. Just looking for any sort of logic in a beginning strategy. Pick a book to promote. Great! But then, er, Sponsored Ads lets me choose ebook or paperback but not both, as if these were separate products. That seems screwy to me, but I'm willing to be schooled if there's a logic. That's the sort of specific mystery that the guide books don't appear to address. Which also seems screwy.

Given the dynamics, it almost seems like I would use Ads to promote the website (which has a fair amount of content) or maybe my Author Page--a product that is relatively steady, and use deals or even manual price drops to promote specific books at specific times. As for FB, that's for a later date.

Stan's going to have a busy year.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I ran across a post that might be interesting to you: Does Discount Size Matter for Ebook Promotions?

If you want even more information, there's also this series of blog posts: https://kriswrites.com/business-rusch-publishing-articles/discoverability-series/