I've been setting up book promotions with a number of companies for my first in series for the festive season. Today I take you through the process of each of these companies, explaining the prices, the reasons for doing the promotions and what you can expect.
I've been setting up book promotions with a number of companies for my first in series for the festive season. Today I take you through the process of each of these companies, explaining the prices, the reasons for doing the promotions and what you can expect.
Hi, and welcome to the writing and marketing show brought to you by author Wendy H. Jones. This show does exactly what it says on the tin. it's jam packed with interviews, advice, hints, tips and news to help you with the business of writing. It's all wrapped up in one lively podcast. So it's time to get on with the show. And welcome to episode 98 of the writing and Marketing Show with author, entrepreneur Wendy Jones. It's a pleasure to be here again. And it really is a pleasure. Because I got my voice back, I literally had no voice whatsoever last week, I couldn't even cook anything out. And I was a book festival and literary festival and I literally could not get a word out. It was hard work as they say, somebody had to stand in Chris Long your student and did one of my presentations for me, which was very good of her. She ran my workshop. And I'm very grateful to her. And as you know, the lovely Sheila Robinson, aka se Skillman student for me last week, and I am very grateful that she did so. And she prepared and gave that session with very little notice. And I'm extremely impressed with how she did to be honest. So well done, Sheila and people have helped me out for the last two weeks. So this week I we've been talking about writing a lot. And I thought it was time we went back to doing something about marketing. So I'm going to talk about book promotion companies. And I'll tell you why I'm talking about that in a moment. And firstly, I would like to say it's an absolute pleasure to do the show every week. I love doing it. And it's a pleasure to do it. However, it does take time out of my writing. If you would like to support that time, you can do so for as little as$3 a month, which is the price of a tea or coffee a month. And I would be very grateful that would let me know that you're enjoying the show. And you want me to continue with it. And I do want to continue with it because I can't believe that before I know where I am. I'll be up to two years of the show is just flown past. And we started practically just before the pandemic and to the whole show. There's been a pandemic on really, but we've still continued to write. We've still continued to bring books out and that is great. And my latest book is out. That's killers curse the seventh book in the DI Shawna Mackenzie mysteries, I do have copies, too, that I can sign for you. And if you would like to get a copy, then you can do so art Wendy, Wendy jones.com. Or you can get them from any bookshop or from any ebook retailer as well. And any online or offline as they say physical High Street bookstore. They're available everywhere. I'll make shoutouts to the book house and money feet. No, they're not in money feet anymore. I'm lying that in Broughty Ferry No, they move during the pandemic, the bookcase and brought a fairy who are stocking it and have copies available. So that's killers curse the seventh di Shawna Mackenzie mystery. And today as I record this, we're coming to the end of NaNoWriMo. And it's been a great fun writing for the month, although I did have to take time out because I was I was busy with various book events and book signings. So it's been a really busy month for book signings, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I've met some lovely people. And I've sold lots of books, which is nice. However, today I want to talk about book promotion companies. Now, the reason I'm doing this is twofold. First of all, I want to help you guys, but secondly, I am actually doing a lot of book promotion with these book promotion companies at the moment. Now why am I doing it? Why is it so important at the moment for me to do this? Well, firstly, it's because it's because it's coming up for Christmas. And what happens at Christmas, people end up getting people end up getting Kindles, Kobos, Nooks, tablets, various eReading, devices, phones, all of which are electronic, and all of which you can read ebooks on. So this is an important time for people stocking up ebooks. The other things that happens at Christmas is that people get book tokens. They'll get book tokens for Amazon, they'll get book tokens for Kobo, they'll get book tokens for all sorts of things. So using book promotion companies for your ebooks makes a lot of sense at the moment because calm It's 26th. So on the 25th, but mainly on the 26th of December, for that week, people will be chopping up their ebook devices, and they will be buying ebooks in their droves. So it's important to capitalise on this as an author, it's important to let people know that your books are available. So because of this, I am doing a lot of book promotion. And I've had a great time during the book promotion. And, and I thought that I would let you know the sites that I've used, how I've used them how much they cost, how much I'm spending in total, and how you can do it. So I'm going to give you a rundown of all the ones that are used. Now I know there are others available. And but these are the ones that send out newsletters with books. And, and and I start I'll start with, oh, first of all, what I wanted to say was for all these sites for all of the sites, they expect your book to be on a promotion, either free or on a promotion. Now I don't give my books away for free, I do them on a promotion. So what I've said is I'm going to put my killers count down, and antiques and alibis. So that's the first in each series, I'm going to put them on special offer at 99 pence. So they're on a promotion for 99 pounds or 99 cents, because most of them work in cents, so 99 cents, or 99 Pence on all of the various book promotion sites. Now that sort of deduction from $2.99, or two pounds 99. So it's a third of the usual price. Most of them expect you to have them at least 50% of but they prefer them to be 99 cents. That's because readers are more likely to buy into new authors, or to pick up a book at 99 cents. Now if I sell a book for 99 cents on Amazon, I make about 32 cents or 32 Pence paired book on it. So later on, we'll do the maths, and we'll work out how much I will need to sell in order to make my money back. But it's not just about making money, as I will discuss later in the show towards the end. So I planned on reducing my book to 99 cents from the 26th of December to the 31st of December. That takes in the week when people are actually looking for discounted books, when they're looking for books to stock up on their on their devices. So the first place I tried is one that I have used before. It's called fussy librarian. Now the fussy librarian, and the prices vary depending on your genre. There are some there for nonfiction which are $25 there are some which are basically I've done mine in mystery. I've done two categories. I've done female sleuths and I've done mystery police procedural so mystery female slits and mystery police procedural and that's for my detective inspector Shawna Mackenzie mysteries killer countdown, the first book in that series. And in total, for two books, I spent $44. Now the two books that I did were, firstly, I did colours count down. When I got to the end of it, it was $27 I think it said you will get a reduction in the price. If you actually promote a second book. And I thought well, I will do the same for antiques and alibis for the sake of the fussy librarian for the sake of the fussy librarian promotion, which is what I did. Sorry, I got a bit distracted there because I was trying to switch off my notifications because the notification distracted me in the first instance. So I took advantage of the 20% discount for the second one. And so I did antiques and alibis. And I put that in, humorous on also, mystery female salutes, no solid, mystery, police procedural. Now the reason I did those two as opposed to any other mystery ones, first of all the suit my book, but the second reason was I actually wanted them to be done on the 26th of December. And I couldn't do it for one of the categories on the 26th of December. So I tried a different category. And I think it's good to try different things anyway because you can find out if your book sells better. So I did it in two different categories, and I had to change it to humans. Are for antiques, and alibis. No antiques and alibis is a humorous laugh out loud capita of a book. So it would work well. But I obviously couldn't do that for my category of you know, for that for my categories for Killer's countdown, I couldn't do that at all. So I had to just change tweak the categories in order to get the both categories on my day. So I have four chances of people looking at my books because it's for promo efforts for $44. So that's $11 per category, which I think is a very good deal. And it's not expensive at all. And so that was fussy librarian and what I did was I re promote them because I've already got them done. So it was really easy to read promote them because I already had them in there. If you didn't have them in there. It is very, very simple to sign up on. fussy librarian. What you will need is you will need an Amazon link, a Kobo link, an apple link a nuke link if you have one and a Google Play link if you have one. So all of those links you will need you will need a short description you will need the description from the back of your book as well. Although I've got the description from the back of my book for the sake of the promos, the way they wanted a shorter description as well. I just said for killers count down the streets. The women are dying and the streets of Dundee are running with blood. Only one woman can save them Will she succeed? That was what I said for Killer's Countdown just a short, punchy, grab the attention of the people who are reading the newsletter. Remember that a lot of people will be reading the newsletter but a lot of people will also be promoting in the newsletter. So it's important to get a punchy title that might grab the attention. So that was fussy librarian. The second one I did was book cave. And Book Cave. I did one book in that was Killer's Countdown. And Book Cave was $30. And it asked about my book in detail. And it said was there any swearing? And you have seven categories about swearing to tick? And then it asked was there any crude language that's crude language is different to swearing? This is crude language, toilet humour, things like that. And again, you had five categories to tick the one off, I did this bottom for all of them, because there's none of that in my books. Again, was there any sex again, five categories? And was there any nudity, five categories? And was there any violence and again, five categories. So I ticked all of those, I put all my links in to all the various different sites. So again, Amazon, Kobo, Nook, Apple, I did all of that. And then after you've done all that, it then will give you a content rating. And my content rating, despite the fact it has violence was, was classed as mild. And this was because the violence didn't involve sex, didn't involve nudity, etc, etc. So, it asks if there's a lot of really violent scenes, gang clashes, all that sort of thing. They asked all of that, and mine was classed as mild. I don't know what the other categories are, because my books don't cover that. So I can't help you there, I'm afraid. But it was very easy to do. It took me about 10 minutes I submitted. And I was done and dusted very, very quickly. The next one I tried to do was ereader news today. Now ereader news today have no I have no slots. There are no featured book deals for the remainder of the year, or any other normal book deals for the remainder of the year. So I missed out on that because I didn't start early enough. Now it's important if you are doing Christmas promos to think about things early. I didn't because I've been ill for several weeks now with various different things. So I didn't think about doing it. So I've missed out on that. So that has taught me a salutary lesson and one that I can pass on to you that you need to plan ahead and do things early probably maybe August for your Christmas promotions. And BookBub was another one but I didn't look at BookBub know BookBub you can either ask for a feature BookBub featured or you can do an ad with them. I didn't do either. They're extremely expensive. And I'm not completely up to date with bad so I didn't want to add Another layer and at the moment, but BookBub is one, you can look at another two or three books see and bargain Book Seat. Now my book obviously wasn't three. So, I didn't use Free Booksy. But if you have a book that's going to be free and you're using it to build up your back list to sell your blacklist, then or you know the next in series, then it can be very good. But I did use it sister newsletter, Bargain Booksy. Again, as I say, I reduce my book to 99 cents, and it was $65 for the mystery category. Now, I was also offered a thriller mystery cosy Deal of the Day, for $150, I decided not to do that. And I want to try and see what it's like on Boxing Day without adding another layer into the mix. So I'm also using this as a way of looking at my promotion, and a way of looking at how effective they are. And if I added in another layer, then it might be a bit more complex. So I didn't do that at the moment. But it is something I would consider in the future, when I've got a bit more time to think about what I want to do in terms of my promotion and don't want a specific day on the 26th of December, which is Boxing Day. And they send everything out and a daily email us does fussy librarian and book cave and all ereader and BookBub, they all do that free Booksy. So they send it out in a daily email, and they send it out to 100,000 different readers. So 100,000, readers will get eyes on my book. And I mean, for example for the librarian was 57,000 readers. They're the people that will get eyes on your books, so it's worth doing these things. So you will also get as well as being on the email, daily email, you will get featured on bargain booksy.com. And it will be on the front page front and centre. So you will get really good exposure there as well. And I couldn't actually do the 26th for this, but I made the decision to go for the 27th. Now the reason I did that was if people don't read it on the 26th, then they're likely to do it, they're likely to look on the 27th. Because the 27 is still a public holiday here in the UK at the moment, because Christmas days on a Saturday. So they're four days off. So people by the 27th might be looking at these newsletters, so I decided to do it. On the 27th, I made the decision not to just stick to the 26th. But that one. And I was offered Facebook ads for five days as an add on for this for $150, which is actually excellent. But I guess I didn't go for that this time, I'm going to try that another time. And then I can look up whether it it improves my chances. Because this time, I just want to see how it does with the newsletters. Next time I will do the two offers the five days of Facebook cards, and also the featured Deal of the Day and see how that goes. But again, I'm going to do that at another date. And then I can compare them both and see if my money is well spent doing that or not. Another one that you can use is Robin Reads. I wanted to go on Robin Reads. I have done them before, they're very good, I got a very good return on them. However, they have absolutely no availability for December at all. So I just left it this time. And if I had done it, it would have cost $65. And I was going to do all of these every single one of them apart from BookBub and Free Booksy. And because of the court, I was going to do them all to see how they work to see how i What happened in terms of my reach. So again, that's $65 it's one to consider. It's actually a very good site. They do a good job. I get the newsletters every day. By the way, I'm signed up as a leader to all these newsletters, so I know what that like it's well worth signing up as a reader first of all, you will get free in bargain books. But you will also get to see how they work what they look like and things like that. I then went to Book Doggy which is one I haven't used before. However, I have been meaning to use it as it's very cheap. I did mur er mystery. It was $20 for mur er mystery and they also prom te the series link if you ave one on Amazon, so I took ad antage of that it was free, i was an extra. So I took advan age of promoting the serie links. So people can see hat there are seven books in th series. And they can actuall sit look at the other b oks as well. So it's well wort doing, I think it's well w rth $20. The next one I did wa book sense. Again, I've neve used books since before, i was very easy to do it was co t me $50. It was just as easy as the others, you needed. The l nks to all the different platf rms, you needed the descri tion of your book, you ne ded the book name, the price, it was reduced to the price that usually is. At the end, they off r to expand my audience to e eader IQ and took runes for $3.20 $5 respectively. Again, I turn these down, because I'm wan ing to see how things work. t's a bit of a blind test, real y, I suppose, to see how th ngs work just using the newsl tters. And then the next t me I do it, possibly about Apr l, maybe around about my bir hday, I will do it again. An I will you know use all the dded extras that they're offeri g me, you're probably thi king oh my goodness, this is costing Wendy an absolute fortun at the moment. But I'll ell you how much it cost in a m ment. Another one that I wante to try was pixel of ink. ixel of ink, when you go to adv rtise with them are saying t ey're currently not accepting ny advertising. So you cannot d anything with pixel of ink at the moment. And they're not seei g when it's opened again. So, I hope that's given you an overview. Now, I'll tell you how much I spent in total, I spent$215, which came to 162 pounds and eight pence don't forget the pence, and 162 pounds and eight pence. Now you're probably thinking that's an awful lot of money, Wendy. But that's an awful lot of readers that are getting people eyes, getting their eyes on my books on my offer. And I may pick up an awful lot of new readers. If I pick up an awful lot of new readers and you know, 90%, 50%, then like the first book, and they go on to read the whole series, then my read through rates are higher prices will be good. And I've got a very good read through rate, I have to say if people buy my first book, I they tend to read the whole series, which is which is good, I'm really pleased with because they go on and they buy others. So you're not just looking at how many you've sold of those 99 cent first in series, you're looking at it over one, maybe 234 week period, maybe longer to see what the read through rates, the sales of your other books in your series are. Now I've done this for a few reasons. First of all, I wanted to capture as I said right at the very beginning, I wanted to capture the audience from Christmas from the Christmas book sales. And the other thing I wanted to do I have a seventh book in a series out. So obviously I want people to start reading the series because it will then lead on to the seventh book selling even better than it already is. It's already selling extremely well, which I'm very pleased about. But it will also do that. The other thing that can happen is if you are doing an e book, promotion, and you do get a lot of sales, then you can find yourself getting that coveted orange sticker. Now I'm very fortunate that all my books have hit Amazon bestseller status. But getting that coveted sticker again or getting up into the top 1000 of the overall Amazon store is a good thing. And it helps drive sales because the higher up you are in the charts, the more likely people are to see your books, the more likely they are to purchase them. And the more likely you are to sell your read through on your series, which is what you want. This is this is all about getting more eyes on your books, and getting more readers to buy into your books and liking them. Now you're probably wondering why I did antiques and alibis. Well, I'm hoping Blood and Bones will be out before Christmas. You know fair wind and fingers crossed as the saying goes and a lot of prayers going heavenwards. I'm hoping it will be out before Christmas and then people will be able to buy Book Two in the series as well. So, it's three reasons just to recap three reasons Christmas sales, read through, new books coming out. And it will help the new book sales if people like your earlier in the series books, and they get them at a good price. So I've really pleased, I will give you an update on this process possibly at the beginning of February, I will let you know whether I made my money back how my sales went, and whether it was worth doing. At the moment, I think it is worth doing when I've done them before, I have done extremely well, which again, which as I say I'm very pleased with, and it will always help and it's part during these book promotion deals are part of my advertising portfolio. The problem is that in my arsenal, and I use them periodically, I don't use them all the time. But I do use them periodically. And I do pick up new readers. And I find that my read through is extremely good. So I'm always thinking of ways to promote. And I hope I've helped you to consider these sites and to consider these different places. And if you're listening to this on the date, it comes out which is Wednesday, the first of December, you should still be able to get Christmas deals and that fabulous week between Christmas and New Year where sales are actually good. Because people are wanting to get to use gift cards and they're wanting to use new devices. So I would advise you to take a look today. If you as I say if you're listening to it on the first or even if you're listening to it in the next week, there will still be spaces left, you may need to tweak the genres a little bit. But you will find something that suits you eminently well. And you will be able to promote your books. So I wish you all the best with it. And if you do do it, please let me know. And you can contact me at Wendy at Wendy H jones.com. Or you can contact me through my website, Wendy H jones.com. If you want to buy any of my books, any of the books in the series, they are available on Wendy jones.com has signed copies. That's my adult mysteries, my books for writers and my children's picture books. They are available, as are all my courses that I run for authors. So you can take a look there. If you want to look at your marketing for the new year, then I run a marketing course. And it's well worth having a look at that for the foreseeable and seeing if that will help you in January, because what better time to get your book sales off to cracking start. So thank you for listening once again. And I wish you all the best with your writing with your book promotion. And if you've been doing NaNoWriMo, then hey, well done to you. I hope you've met your NaNoWriMo goal. And I look forward to seeing you next week when I will have an interview with someone and I will still have my voice I'm hoping so all the best with everything. And I'll see you next week. That brings us to the end of another show. It was really good to have you on the show with me today. I'm Wendy H Jones and you can find me at Wendy H jones.com. You can also find me on Patreon where you can support me for as little as $3 a month which is less than the price of a tea or coffee. You go to patreon.com forward slash Wendy H Jones. I'm also went to H Jones on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Thank you for joining me today and I hope you found it both useful and interesting. Join me next week when I will have another cracking guest for you. Until then, have a good week and keep writing keep reading and keep learning