Which book to “root for” in the marketing game? Which to throw the time and the money behind? How fierce is the competition between each installment for funds and attention?
Now that I have two installments of my trilogy out, and the third set to release sometime between August and October if I keep on schedule (and I will!), it’s time for me to really consider my marketing strategy: which books to promote through which venues.
I’m a little torn: obviously the best plan would be to heavily promote the first book. After all, I have the first chapter of the book to follow attached to the end of it, to hook people in to the sequel. The problem is that at the moment, being unemployed, I don’t have real money to throw behind marketing, so I’m relying on free promotions more than anything else. There’s only so many times you can promote the SAME book for free before you kind of wear things out. I’ve run a number of free promotions for book 1 already, and only one for book 2.
Like I said yesterday, I’m really determined to do ONE more promo for the first novel and really, really push it as much as I can to get some attention. After that…. I think the promos need to be for book two. Which doesn’t mean I still can’t promote book one…. And of course, I’ll need to promote the new release when I have a date set. There’s only SO many tweets and facebook posts and press releases to send out before you’re just spamming people. I refuse to be a spammer.
BYE BYE KDP SELECT?
It might be time to take “The Crimson League” (book one) off the KDP Select program and make it available for Nook and other e-readers. It would be nice to put it up on Smashwords, because I’ve heard Smashwords is just great, and it’s been recommended to me by people who know what they’re talking about. Of course, the tradeoff for KDP Select’s benefits is that you give Amazon exclusive digital rights for a 90 day periods: which means no Barnes and Noble, no Apple, no Smashwords or anything else.
Of course, releasing my first novel for other e-readers means formatting it for them. That means the time to it, or the time and money to find and pay someone to do it. I feel like I should have a job and move back home and get things settled a bit before I do all that. So I have lots of things to think about…. I might keep “The Crimson League” in KDP Select until all that falls into place. And who knows: if this last promo does well, maybe I’ll consider another in the next 90 day KDP Select enrollment. As long as I keep seeing an upward trend in downloads during promos, does it really make sense to unenroll? Maybe I should do a second after this next one to compare results.
Victoria….Smashwords has been great and you might want to look into it because I’m pretty sure Marshall didn’t need to format for each kind of e-reader….I think Smashwords does that. The other day I sent an e-mail to Mark Coker who started Smashwords with an idea and a question. He responded either that day or the next. They really want their authors to succeed. Good luck to you. We’re trying to get the word out about The Guiamo Chronicles too.
Wow, Tracey, thanks for that information. I have heard really good things about Smashwords bringing in profits, but nothing about how well they they treat their clients. That’s wonderful to know! I will have to look into them when I leave KDP Select!
You’re welcome. Working on getting the print version done through createspace right now. Not sure what the next step is after that whether createspace automatically puts it on Amazon or what…so much to research.
Createspace does automatically put it on amazon. They’re an amazon.com company. My only thing has been, I’ve had to request them to link the ebook and print versions. That doesn’t happen automatically.
Thanks! Smashwords does send the e-books to Amazon but something about Amazon’s ability to receive all they have prevents them from sending all the books over. Hopefully once the createspace version is on they will also list the e-book. Thanks for the information!
you’re welcome!
Smashwords takes care of all the various formatting for you, once you upload a clean version of your ms. They also check that version and point out things that 6 pairs of eyes never caught (Chapter Fiveteen *ahem*). If you haven’t yet, take a look at their free formatting guide and use the “nuclear” method. What I liked about that, is then I also had a super clean version for any other format I had to put it into. I’m doing Smashwords and KDP (not select) for now, plus print version.
Thank you so much! I had no idea Smashwords handled formatting, or offered a free guide like that! That’s so useful!!! Beyond useful. THANKS!
Most welcome.
I have done virtually no promoting of book 2 in my Quinn series and it’s selling consistently at about 2/3 the sales of book 1. There have even been times where it was almost 1 to 1. I promote Solomon’s Throne a lot and it’s in its 2nd KDP Select enrollment, although I’m not re-upping after this (they got me with the extra money they put in for Dec-Feb). Unfortunately 99% of my sales come through Amazon, although the other 2 books are on B&N, Apple and Kobo directly, and then Smashwords for the other formats (doing those directly rather than through Smashwords gives you more control and more royalties. Smashwords can take awhile to get changes made or get the book off their affiliate sites if you decided to try KDP Select again later). I’d like to do more on those sites, but there’s almost no advertising that targets them. Everything is geared to Kindle/Amazon at the moment.
Wow, Jennings, thanks for all that info. That’s awesome to hear your book 2 is selling so well with only promotion of the first. That’s great…. and it’s good for me to hear that when considering how strongly to promote my book 2. definitely something to keep in mind….
If you are interested in formatting your files yourself, take a look at Calibre if you haven’t already.
Thanks Michael! I haven’t heard of Calibre at all! Definitely good to know…. I’m always trying to make the formatting look nicer. Don’t know if I”ll pay someone or do it myself, but if I choose the latter course I’ll need all the help I can get
Hi Victoria. Have you considered Goodreads? There is as thread on there for book promotions. Also, another thought that crossed my mind, since you will have your complete trilogy when this third book is ready, have you considered doing a boxed set, maybe for a reduced rate for a few days? This would promote all three at the same time. I’ve seen quite a few on there that are doing this, and the response seems good from all I hear. Another thing, are you a member of ASMSG? That is Author Social Media Group. I am a member and the group members help promote one another’s books to their followers. If you are interested, I can get the information for you. It is a group on Yahoo, and they send out newsletters all the time with promos. Just a few ideas. Hope it helps!
Thanks Rebecca! I am on goodreads, and I utilize it for sure. Hadn’t considered the box set idea, but it’s a good one. I know other people who have done that. And I’m not a member of ASMSG yet. Would love to learn more about it. Thanks! You’re awesome!