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How Do I Cost Effectively Market My Book Online?


Online Marketing for Self-Published Books

Comparatively speaking, writing a novel is the fun, easy, first step of the self-publishing process.  The second step, creating an attention-getting book cover, offers its own unique set of challenges.  However, the most intimidating and difficult undertaking, to most authors, is the third step—Online Marketing.  These words strike terror in many authors’ sensitive little hearts because they want as little to do with the outside world as possible.

The most intimidating marketing question is: “Where do I begin?”  In this blog, I’ll let you in on some of the advertising methods I’ve tried and the results I’ve had.  I’ll save you time and money.  I’ll guide you through the marketing process from the completion of your manuscript to the final strokes of your marketing plan.

Before we begin, bear in mind that more than a million books are published every year.  Therefore, we have to be good at marketing.  Damn good!

After completing your final rewrite and the inevitable tweaks that come afterwards, it’s finally time to upload your book to online retailers.  Next, you announce it on your blog, your author website, your Facebook page, and your YouTube channel (optional).

Now what? Gulp…

This is the seriously hard part—driving people to these outposts in cyberspace.

Let’s take a look at what has worked for me and what hasn’t.

Upset young beautiful woman writer mad at slow work of software and computer. Charming young student was upset because of poor grades on test. Gadgets and Technology Concept. Difficulties and troubles

Book Covers

The first step in marketing your book online or ANYWHERE is to create a relatable, attention-getting cover.  We’re taught  not to judge a book by its cover.  Ironically, this principle doesn’t apply to actual books.

I’ve read that the cover of a book needs to be genre specific.  By this I mean your reader can quickly identify the subject matter inside, whether it be Romance, Action/Suspense/Adventure/ Thriller, Espionage, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and so on.  The trick is to make your book genre specific without making it look like every other book in the space.  The idea is to stand out from the crowd, not get lost in it.  If you are an accomplished graphic artist, go ahead and do it yourself.  Just be sure that you follow the specifications of your print on demand supplier.  If you are not a great graphic artist, like me, go ahead and shop for an artist who can turn your cover vision into a commercially viable package.

Please choose an artist with a specialization in book cover design.  This person can have other specialties, but they must also be fully versed in the art of book cover design.  If you are creating the book cover, make sure to research the subject.  There are many pitfalls, just as there are with writing a book.

I used three different artists to create the covers for the three novels I published.  Besides the fact  that I get bored easily, there may have been a method to my madness.  Each of my novels is in a different genre.  Some artists have genre preferences and do better work in those genres.  There is no set rule.  Some artists are good in any genre.  They may be more talented and expensive than others, but you won’t have to go through the angst of breaking in new ones.  And you may get a better overall result.  Or not.  Choose carefully.

If you have an idea of what you want in your book cover, great.  If you don’t, that’s okay.  Just be sure you choose a capable artist who you can communicate with.  Don’t be guided solely by cost.  Choose someone who knows what they are doing; who inspires your confidence, and “gets you.

Blogging

Blogging is a great way to get yourself and your work “out there.” It’s not hard to create a blog, even for graphically challenged people like me.  WordPress and Wix are two of the most popular sites now.  You don’t have to be an expert at coding to make a nice looking blog.  You can also choose an upgrade plan that will give you more customizing options.  I believe the upgrade plans are worth it.  WordPress has a premium plan for only $99 per year.

Once your blog is created, don’t let it just sit in Cyberspace. Take a little time each day to read and comment on blogs by folks who write about subjects that interest you. Those people will then read and follow your blog if your content is good.

Take note of how other people promote their work on their blogs.  I’ve found that the subtle approach is the best way to do it.  Keep in mind that content is king.  What you have to say and how you express it will ultimately determine your degree of success.  And, make sure the template you use to create your blog is Smart Phone Friendly.  I finally woke up to the fact that most people read blogs on their phones. Duh. I dumped my old templates and replaced them with new, easy to read, phone-friendly ones. Now,  I’m attracting more followers than ever before, and I’m making many new friends.

Facebook Ads

I’ve experimented with ads on Facebook.  I’ve racked up tons of likes and very few sales.  In my humble opinion, paying for ads on Facebook is a total waste of time and money for self-published authors.  I have an author friend who is running great ads on Facebook, but he’s not selling any books.  I’m not saying ads in general don’t work on Facebook.  They do.  But you are an up-and-coming author struggling to find an audience.  You aren’t Macy’s.  You aren’t selling specialty items currently in demand like face masks.  See what I mean?

Facebook Pages

A Facebook page isn’t essential, but I strongly suggest that you put some time and effort into making a good one.  If nothing else, FB pages add credibility and overall impact to your marketing campaign.  And they are FREE.  You might even sell some books from your page using the SHOP NOW button.  Pick a glowing book review and pin it at the top of your posts column.  This little maneuver has increased views and engagements on all three of my Facebook pages.

Instagram

Upload a JPEG of your book cover with a link to your Facebook page.  If you have lots of friends who spend half of their lives on Instagram, you might get lucky.  I don’t use Instagram.  Don’t ask me why.

Press Releases

I’ve created and distributed press releases on PR Web with a target audience of 30,000 journalists and bloggers. The idea is to drive traffic to your websites and generate publicity on major news sites and search engines.  You can participate at various cost levels starting at $99.  The more you spend, the bigger the audience.  I participated at the second highest level at a cost of $289 per release.  (The highest level currently costs $389).  To add interest to the releases, I created a book trailer video. (A simple book trailer without actors will cost anywhere from $250 to $300 from a reputable company).

Bottom line: I could not relate any book sales to my press release adventures.  Save your money.

Book Trailers

Book trailers are nice to have but they aren’t essential to your marketing campaign.  When I first started marketing my books twelve years ago, the pundits all said that you were dead in the water if you didn’t have a book trailer.  As it turns out, this is baloney.  Book trailers are a nice addition to your marketing package, but they aren’t powerful generators of sales.  I made trailers for my first novel, Three Days to Darkness, and my second one, Scarlet Ambrosia–Blood is the Nectar of Life.  I had fun making them and they didn’t cost too much. Recently, I used the first trailer I made as the cover photo on my Facebook page. (Note: The video has to be two minutes or less to be uploaded to the cover section). To my amazement it worked. More than a thousand people visited my Three Days to Darkness page in the span of two weeks. I made some book sales at the rate of two percent of the visits. I’m still getting views.  But here’s the thing: if you have a limited budget, use it where it will do the most good.  I’m getting to that.  Stay with me.

Audio Books

If you can swing the cost, make an audio version of your book.  As you are no doubt aware, people don’t read as many books as they used to.  Audio books are getting more popular every day.  I used ACX to make the audio book for my third novel, Micromium: Clean Energy from Mars.  I liked using ACX and they are part of Amazon.  I signed an exclusive agreement with them, which means I get a bigger royalty (70%) on each audio book sale.  With this agreement, your book is automatically uploaded to Amazon, Audible, and iTunes.  The downside is, you don’t get exposure on sites like Hoopla, Overdrive, and Bibliotheca, which serve libraries.  If you don’t go exclusive, ACX offers a non-exclusive agreement wherein you can distribute to any platform and get a 25% royalty.

If you hire a narrator for your audio book, which you can do through ACX, a good one will probably cost you between $100 and $150 per finished hour.  Your narrator does the narration and all of the production work.  You direct them and approve the finished product.  I had a great time making my audio book with an amazing woman who did a fabulous job.  I’ve done reasonably well with my audio book.  I’ve noticed that having an audio version available has increased my overall book sales.

Paid Reviews

When you launch your book, you want to have a sufficient number of positive reader and editorial reviews available on retail sites and Goodreads to convert browsers into buyers.  Unless you have twenty friends and a handful of book critics ready, willing, and able to post glowing reviews, it makes sense to purchase a few of these.

There are a number of sites available for these services.  I have found the best and most reliable site for reader and editorial reviews to be indiereader.com.  Check out their website.  I bought reader reviews and an editorial review from them. I’m 100% satisfied with their service, reliability, and results.  I’ve also used midwestbookreview.com for fair, reliable, and less expensive editorial reviews. Readers Favorite is an excellent site for FREE reviews. Check it out.

Amazon Advertising

Sponsored ads on Amazon.com are the most effective marketing tool I’ve used so far.  If you have a limited budget, this is where to spend it.  The ads are easy to create. You set your daily budget, write your copy, set your campaign dates, and off you go.  If the ad doesn’t work, you can scrap it and try different keywords.  You can see which keywords are working and which are not and adjust accordingly.  Best of all, you can see how many books you’ve sold and how much it has cost you to sell those books.  There’s no baloney and no guesswork.  And, let’s face it, most of the books people buy are sold on Amazon.  To create a campaign, sign in to your KDP account, select the book you want to advertise, click on the three dots to the far right of the book, and select promote and advertise.

I hope you will find these tips helpful.  I wish you all the success in the world, and keep writing.

Writing Fiction as a Profession

David Gittlin has written three feature length screenplays, produced two short films, and published three novels.  Before quitting his day job, he spent more than thirty years as a marketing director building expertise in advertising, copy writing, corporate communications, collateral sales materials, website content/design and online marketing.   For more information, please visit www.davidgittlin.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Fang-Tastic Author Interview


Blood Is The Nectar of Life

 

This interview and a spicy  excerpt from an early chapter appear at Fang-Tastic Books; a well-known book review site.

Can you tell readers a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to write in this particular genre?

I believe it started with my struggle with the forces of darkness and light within myself. A year after writing Scarlet Ambrosia, I see the story through a different pair of eyes.  At the core of the novel is a young man’s struggle with the forces of good and evil within himself and the world around him.  The vampire archetype, I now realize, is a metaphor for my heart’s dream to realize its divine nature.  The supernatural powers and ramped-up energy level Devon acquires as a vampire make him half-human and half-god, something like the mythological Greek gods.  He can choose to use his new powers for good or evil purposes. 

I believe everyone has the potential to become a divinely human being.  I’ve been a ‘spiritual seeker’ for most of my adult life.  Awakening isn’t easy, but I’ve found it’s worth the effort.  What happens for Devon is happening for me in a much subtler way without the super-human powers, but happily, minus the need to drink human blood.

What is it about the paranormal, in particular vampires, that fascinates you so much?

I’m fascinated by the supernatural powers of my vampire characters.  They are very powerful beings with the capacity to dramatically impact the world around them positively or negatively.

Please tell us about your most recent release.

My latest release is Scarlet Ambrosia.  I’m working on a sequel because I love the characters.  Scarlet Ambrosia is the second novel I’ve published.  The first one is a humorous Science Fantasy thriller titled “Three Days to Darkness.”

Do you have a special formula for creating characters’ names? Do you try to match a name with a certain meaning to attributes of the character or do you search for names popular in certain time periods or regions?

In most cases, I try to make a character’s name show something about the character’s personality and traits.  I try not to make it too obvious.  At other times, a character’s name just comes to me and I trust that the name is the right one.  It’s interesting that the name often corresponds to a character’s traits by coincidence.

Was one of your characters more challenging to write than another?

The antagonist of the story, Egon Schiller, was the hardest for me to write.  This is often the case in the stories I write.  There is always a tendency to make the villain two-dimensional rather than a three-dimensional person with some good traits and intentions.  I feel that the most believable villains are people who have, for one reason or another, given in to their dark side.  A good example of this is Darth Vader.

Is there a character that you enjoyed writing more than any of the others?

Of all the characters in the story, I most enjoyed writing the female love interest, Mathilde de Roche.  Her strength, heroism, and magnetism came naturally as I created her and as I wrote her throughout the story.  That came as a surprise.  I am, after all, a guy.  Like most men, I find women unfathomable in the real world.

Do you have a formula for developing characters? Like do you create a character sketch or list of attributes before you start writing or do you just let the character develop as you write?

I participated in several online screen writing and novel-writing courses offered through the writers program at UCLA.  Professional writers taught these courses.  The teachers stressed that the most successful stories have memorable characters in them.  I learned to create my characters before writing the story using a detailed character template.  I’ve found that knowing what makes my characters “tick” helps make them more interesting and believable.

What is the most interesting thing you have physically done for book related research purposes?

I spent a week in Sedona, Arizona exploring the town’s art galleries, architecture and the energy vortexes.

When did you consider yourself a writer?

When I stumbled into my career in marketing communications, I found writing was the most enjoyable part of the job.

Where can readers find you on the web?

The best places to find me are at my main website www.davidgittlin.com and my blog www.davidgittlin.wordpress.com

Would you like to leave readers with a little teaser or excerpt from the book?

Here’s a spicy excerpt from Chapter Two:

This woman was beyond beautiful.  She was exquisite—no signs of breast implants or a nose job and no tattoos or piercings marred the natural beauty of her face and body.  Her creamy skin felt like the finest silk to Devon’s probing hands.  He unclasped her bra.  His loins tingled at the sight of her full breasts.  He caressed her erect nipples.  She moaned. 

The foreplay had started slowly with exploratory kisses and caresses.  Now he could barely wait to enter her.  Devon removed the last fragments of clothing from their bodies.  The smell of her perfume, the feel of her body, and the sensation of her soft hands on his buttocks almost made him explode prematurely.

Being inside this woman was like nothing he had experienced before.  Devon lost all sense of physical boundaries.  The sensual pleasure of joining with Mathilde seemed to fill every cell in his body.  He was only vaguely aware of moving inside her.  Their rising passion consumed him.  She kept repeating something in French.  His back arched.  He climaxed.  The pleasure was too intense for his senses to bear.  He lost consciousness.

He woke up next to her on the bed.  She stroked his hair with one hand, propping up her head on one elbow.

Feeling embarrassed, Devon shook his head, unable to comprehend the reason for his lapse of consciousness. 

“I’m sorry if I scared you.  It’s the first time I’ve ever passed out during sex.”

“You didn’t scare me, ma chère.  It only confirms what I was afraid of.”

“Which is?”

“If we go on having sex, it will kill you.”

He laughed nervously.  Had the sex been good enough to cause a blackout?

“I can think of worse ways to die,” he said, covering up for his discomfort.

She kept looking at him studiously.

“You kept whispering something to me in French.  It sounded like: ‘Vous êtez celui que j’ai choisi.’  I think that means: ‘You are the one I chose’”

A whisper of red colored her cheeks. 

“Your French is better than you admit.”

“I don’t understand.   We’ve just met, Mathilde.”

“Don’t worry.  It’s just a game I play with myself.  You remind me of someone I once knew: a handsome, high-minded young man with a sensitive heart.”

“I’m flattered, but it sounds a little more like a fixation than an innocent game to me.”

“Please don’t play the amateur psychologist.”

She pushed him off the bed with a movement almost too fast to see.  One second he lay facing her.  The next thing he knew, he lay on his back on the floor.  Her sudden display of uncanny strength and speed frightened him.  Clambering to a sitting position, he began to collect his clothes from the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I wasn’t thinking.  I didn’t mean to alarm you.  Are you injured?”

“I’m still in one piece.”

“I actually do study martial arts, in answer to your earlier question.   Sometimes I forget my own strength.  Let me help you with your things.  Are you sure I haven’t hurt you?”

He had the impression she was lying. 

“I’m fine.  I just think it might be better to leave now.  Who knows what could happen if you toss and turn in your sleep?”

“I apologize for leading you on,” Mathilde said.  “I only intended to meet you in the bar and talk with you.  I thought of it as a minor indulgence, to take my mind off things for a while.  I let my curiosity about you cloud my judgment.  Then, meeting you face to face, you had much more of an effect on me than I anticipated.  I lost control of myself.”

“Is that something that happens often?”

“No,” she answered curtly.  “I’m not that shallow.”

Devon’s thoughts and emotions spun like pinwheels.  Part of him wanted to bolt out the door and finish dressing in the hallway.  Another part, the accountant, needed explanations; wanted to analyze and quantify Mathilde de Roche.  In the end, his own curiosity coupled with her charisma kept him rooted by the bedside.

“I’ve studied martial arts myself.  I’ve never seen anyone move as quickly as you just did.”

She continued to regard him with a serious expression for a full minute before responding. 

“You should leave now, Devon.  I won’t be offended.”

 

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Something Different This Way Comes*


 

Blood Is the Nectar of Life

A year after writing Scarlet Ambrosia, I see the story through a different pair of eyes.  At the core of the novel is a young man’s struggle with darkness and light.  The vampire archetype, I now realize, is a metaphor for my heart’s dream to realize its divine nature.  The supernatural powers and turbo charged energy level Devon acquires as a vampire make him half-human and half-god, something like the mythological Greek gods.  He can choose to use his new powers for good or evil purposes.

*Blog title inspired by Ray Bradbury’s 1953 novel “Something Wicked This Way Comes.”