The Great Big Thread Of Marketing Tips!
Sept 27, 2018 4:35:27 GMT
Jeff Tanyard and thatwritergal like this
Post by K'Sennia Visitor on Sept 27, 2018 4:35:27 GMT
I found this article whilst browsing, today.
insights.bookbub.com/book-marketing-takeaways-bookexpo-2018/
It appears to be aimed more at trad authors than indies, but it still has some good info, and it gave me an idea for a thread. So here are the marketing tips given in the article, plus some other stuff I have added from my vast fountain of "never used, but heard it's good" chest. Don't take anything as gospel. Use, consider, discard, and share your own tips!
Use keywords is obvious. I still have evenstar's humongous keywords thread saved to my XD. The biggest advice with this is to fill up those seven boxes they give you on your book submission page on KDP. Don't use commas in between any of the words you use in the box, just fill each one up with as many words as you can that are relevant to your book. Use exact phrases, and maybe put those phrases at the beginning of each box. Then add in the less relevant single words. You may or may not want to repeat words, but if you're using specific search phrases like, "sci-fi military history" then you may want to use that phrase and then repeat each one by itself. Or if you have a lot of great keywords, don't repeat to save space. I never have enough, so I do. I believe the consensus in that thread was that you didn't need to repeat, but that word order did matter.
You can find keywords by using the amazon search box like you do google. If you write space opera. Type that into the box and see what other words amazon suggests for you. Try space opera a, then b, c, etc, all the way through the alphabet. Try the keywords you are using already or that you have thought of, see how many books show up that are relevant. If you've already published this can be a good way to see how your book is doing, and how far down the search results you are for each keyword, or if you're showing up at all.
The best way to do keyword research is through an alternate browser that you have never used to surf amazon before. This way they won't have any cookies saved for you and they won't be showing you stuff based on your own search history. Just logging out and clearing your browser history may be enough, but it's safer if you can appear as a brand new entity.
Of course lots of people don't use the search box because it has gotten a lot less user friendly, so keywords are not as helpful as they once were. But it's still something you can do to make your book as findable as possible. And it only costs you time.
According to the article above, 67% of readers choose books based on the plot, the rest by word-of-mouth or familiarity with author. So you will likely get the majority of your buyers through your fans. This is tough when you're first starting out and don't have any yet. But it is good news for the future! Think positively now.
Audio books can be a great way to increase your market reach if you can afford it.
Have a marketing plan and roll it out early. Most indies don't contact the media or schedule TV or radio interviews, but I bet some of us could, if we wanted to.
There are tons of podcasts out there that would be happy to interview you. Especially if you write on a topic that's a bit fringe or hobbyish.
I liked the idea about trying to connect your book to holidays, or using holidays to generate more buzz. Like if you wrote a cozy mystery revolving around a cupcake shop you could release your newest book on cupcake day, or give out a bunch of copies of an older book in your series out for free on that day, and then have your pre-order for the next one up.
Having an author website is obvious. Check out the websites of other authors in your genre to get ideas for how yours should/could/might want to look. You can start out with a free one on weebly or wordpress, but do try and purchase your own domain name as soon as you can afford it. But don't worry overmuch if you can't. Also none of these tips are obligatory. You don't have to have an author site. It's just a good idea to have one because it makes you look more legit, and it allows potential readers to have an easy place to find you and get more info from your books.
FB author pages, FB author groups, subreddits, etc also work. You're just going to be at the mercy of those companies. If they go down and you don't have an alternate place already your fans could lose you. or if the TOS changes on you, or you get kicked out because a competitor complained about you, etc. But as long as you have an email address in your books, or an email list, even better, you won't have to worry too much even about that happening. Being entangled in the next squidoo collapse would be annoying, but not devastating.
Sending out arc copies/reaching out to reviewers/street teams. Goodreads seems to be a good place to start when you're looking for arcs. Does amazon still have the top reviewers program? Bloggers who review books, but they get inundated with requests, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too high. Amazon doesn't want any personal connection between you and reviewers, so perhaps using a third party arc service like instafreebie is the best way to get clean reviews that amazon won't censor.
Bottom line, getting reviews is a lot of work, and takes a lot of time, in the beginning. That's why a lot of authors get frustrated and decide to cut corners by paying for reviews, or getting involved in scammy contests and scammy review groups where any sort of compensation is offered for reviews that is not the book they are to review.
Another big no-no are author swaps. I'll leave you an honest review if you leave me an honest review. Amazon doesn't like those at all, and no matter how often the word "honest" is bounced around, you are leaving a review for the compensation of another review. Even if it's not a one-to-one swap, and peeps are allowed to choose the books they want to review, you are still treading on dangerous ground.
Only use the social media outlets you love and feel comfortable with because your followers will know if you're just there to hawk your book and will ignore you.
Pay attention to each of the social media platforms you're on and determine which type of content works best for each audience. You might find that your twitter followers are mostly x-files fans and they engage the most with pics of scully. While on Instagram they're all about reports of real alien encounters, or something like that.
When you create ads target fans of competitive authors. If you're doing Facebook ads you can also target anything else you find that a large number of your fans are into, like music, TV shows, sports, celebrities, politicians, etc. (I have never done a Facebook ad so let me know if I'm wrong here.)
I know some indie authors who do book signings and library readings, so it is possible, if you're into that. Children's authors should definitely do school visits and try and get into libraries for story time.
You could also try writing articles on medium.com to try and develop another audience that way. If you write about real world witchcraft, for instance, even if your books are fiction, but you try and get it right. You could write articles on the subject. The truth about the Salem Witch Trials. Why Wiccans are not evil and make the world a better place, etc. You get to link to your author site at the bottom of the article. You could also try and guest post on relevant blogs.
Guest blogging and article marketing can be a time consuming slog, so only do it if you're super passionate about your topic, and find it fun! Engaging on related forums and answering questions on answer sites like quora or yahoo answers can also help. Don't go in and spam your book. Just interact like a user who enjoys helping others and spreading knowledge. Then have an unobtrusive link to your author site or to a relevant book on amazon, whichever you feel is best.
All of the twitter WSO's I have read say to create a new account for your niche/kink. Go in and follow all of the influencers in that niche. Then follow all of their followers. Follow like 50 a day so you don't get deleted for being a robot or something. Then start tweeting interesting relevant content on your niche. keep tweeting, keep following. Some of those you follow will follow you back. Engage, always answer back, and tweet out your books occasionally, during the times you have noticed are the most active for you. Use hashtags. Try and create your own, if you can get others to use them.
Some peeps spam all of their followers inboxes automatically with a link to their freebie. You will annoy a lot of people, but you will also get signups and downloads. The decision is whether this is something you feel comfortable doing or not. If you would feel scammy and awful, then don't. If you feel chill and think, "if they don't like it, they can unfollow," then do it.
Personally, whenever I get sent stuff like that I critique it. I comment on their messaging and tell them how they could do it better. Sometimes I give them points.
You can tell I get a lot of them!
These twitter tips will basically work on any social media platform. Just switch out the lingo for each platform's, and you're good to go. And like the article said, only use the ones you genuinely like and enjoy using. Try and make your goal to share knowledge, make people smile, make friends, etc. Selling should be last on the list. Or it can be first, if you're not really into the whole getting close with strangers thing.
And those are all the tips I have. Your Turn!
insights.bookbub.com/book-marketing-takeaways-bookexpo-2018/
It appears to be aimed more at trad authors than indies, but it still has some good info, and it gave me an idea for a thread. So here are the marketing tips given in the article, plus some other stuff I have added from my vast fountain of "never used, but heard it's good" chest. Don't take anything as gospel. Use, consider, discard, and share your own tips!
Use keywords is obvious. I still have evenstar's humongous keywords thread saved to my XD. The biggest advice with this is to fill up those seven boxes they give you on your book submission page on KDP. Don't use commas in between any of the words you use in the box, just fill each one up with as many words as you can that are relevant to your book. Use exact phrases, and maybe put those phrases at the beginning of each box. Then add in the less relevant single words. You may or may not want to repeat words, but if you're using specific search phrases like, "sci-fi military history" then you may want to use that phrase and then repeat each one by itself. Or if you have a lot of great keywords, don't repeat to save space. I never have enough, so I do. I believe the consensus in that thread was that you didn't need to repeat, but that word order did matter.
You can find keywords by using the amazon search box like you do google. If you write space opera. Type that into the box and see what other words amazon suggests for you. Try space opera a, then b, c, etc, all the way through the alphabet. Try the keywords you are using already or that you have thought of, see how many books show up that are relevant. If you've already published this can be a good way to see how your book is doing, and how far down the search results you are for each keyword, or if you're showing up at all.
The best way to do keyword research is through an alternate browser that you have never used to surf amazon before. This way they won't have any cookies saved for you and they won't be showing you stuff based on your own search history. Just logging out and clearing your browser history may be enough, but it's safer if you can appear as a brand new entity.
Of course lots of people don't use the search box because it has gotten a lot less user friendly, so keywords are not as helpful as they once were. But it's still something you can do to make your book as findable as possible. And it only costs you time.
According to the article above, 67% of readers choose books based on the plot, the rest by word-of-mouth or familiarity with author. So you will likely get the majority of your buyers through your fans. This is tough when you're first starting out and don't have any yet. But it is good news for the future! Think positively now.
Audio books can be a great way to increase your market reach if you can afford it.
Have a marketing plan and roll it out early. Most indies don't contact the media or schedule TV or radio interviews, but I bet some of us could, if we wanted to.
There are tons of podcasts out there that would be happy to interview you. Especially if you write on a topic that's a bit fringe or hobbyish.
I liked the idea about trying to connect your book to holidays, or using holidays to generate more buzz. Like if you wrote a cozy mystery revolving around a cupcake shop you could release your newest book on cupcake day, or give out a bunch of copies of an older book in your series out for free on that day, and then have your pre-order for the next one up.
Having an author website is obvious. Check out the websites of other authors in your genre to get ideas for how yours should/could/might want to look. You can start out with a free one on weebly or wordpress, but do try and purchase your own domain name as soon as you can afford it. But don't worry overmuch if you can't. Also none of these tips are obligatory. You don't have to have an author site. It's just a good idea to have one because it makes you look more legit, and it allows potential readers to have an easy place to find you and get more info from your books.
FB author pages, FB author groups, subreddits, etc also work. You're just going to be at the mercy of those companies. If they go down and you don't have an alternate place already your fans could lose you. or if the TOS changes on you, or you get kicked out because a competitor complained about you, etc. But as long as you have an email address in your books, or an email list, even better, you won't have to worry too much even about that happening. Being entangled in the next squidoo collapse would be annoying, but not devastating.
Sending out arc copies/reaching out to reviewers/street teams. Goodreads seems to be a good place to start when you're looking for arcs. Does amazon still have the top reviewers program? Bloggers who review books, but they get inundated with requests, so I wouldn't get your hopes up too high. Amazon doesn't want any personal connection between you and reviewers, so perhaps using a third party arc service like instafreebie is the best way to get clean reviews that amazon won't censor.
Bottom line, getting reviews is a lot of work, and takes a lot of time, in the beginning. That's why a lot of authors get frustrated and decide to cut corners by paying for reviews, or getting involved in scammy contests and scammy review groups where any sort of compensation is offered for reviews that is not the book they are to review.
Another big no-no are author swaps. I'll leave you an honest review if you leave me an honest review. Amazon doesn't like those at all, and no matter how often the word "honest" is bounced around, you are leaving a review for the compensation of another review. Even if it's not a one-to-one swap, and peeps are allowed to choose the books they want to review, you are still treading on dangerous ground.
Only use the social media outlets you love and feel comfortable with because your followers will know if you're just there to hawk your book and will ignore you.
Pay attention to each of the social media platforms you're on and determine which type of content works best for each audience. You might find that your twitter followers are mostly x-files fans and they engage the most with pics of scully. While on Instagram they're all about reports of real alien encounters, or something like that.
When you create ads target fans of competitive authors. If you're doing Facebook ads you can also target anything else you find that a large number of your fans are into, like music, TV shows, sports, celebrities, politicians, etc. (I have never done a Facebook ad so let me know if I'm wrong here.)
I know some indie authors who do book signings and library readings, so it is possible, if you're into that. Children's authors should definitely do school visits and try and get into libraries for story time.
You could also try writing articles on medium.com to try and develop another audience that way. If you write about real world witchcraft, for instance, even if your books are fiction, but you try and get it right. You could write articles on the subject. The truth about the Salem Witch Trials. Why Wiccans are not evil and make the world a better place, etc. You get to link to your author site at the bottom of the article. You could also try and guest post on relevant blogs.
Guest blogging and article marketing can be a time consuming slog, so only do it if you're super passionate about your topic, and find it fun! Engaging on related forums and answering questions on answer sites like quora or yahoo answers can also help. Don't go in and spam your book. Just interact like a user who enjoys helping others and spreading knowledge. Then have an unobtrusive link to your author site or to a relevant book on amazon, whichever you feel is best.
All of the twitter WSO's I have read say to create a new account for your niche/kink. Go in and follow all of the influencers in that niche. Then follow all of their followers. Follow like 50 a day so you don't get deleted for being a robot or something. Then start tweeting interesting relevant content on your niche. keep tweeting, keep following. Some of those you follow will follow you back. Engage, always answer back, and tweet out your books occasionally, during the times you have noticed are the most active for you. Use hashtags. Try and create your own, if you can get others to use them.
Some peeps spam all of their followers inboxes automatically with a link to their freebie. You will annoy a lot of people, but you will also get signups and downloads. The decision is whether this is something you feel comfortable doing or not. If you would feel scammy and awful, then don't. If you feel chill and think, "if they don't like it, they can unfollow," then do it.
Personally, whenever I get sent stuff like that I critique it. I comment on their messaging and tell them how they could do it better. Sometimes I give them points.
You can tell I get a lot of them!These twitter tips will basically work on any social media platform. Just switch out the lingo for each platform's, and you're good to go. And like the article said, only use the ones you genuinely like and enjoy using. Try and make your goal to share knowledge, make people smile, make friends, etc. Selling should be last on the list. Or it can be first, if you're not really into the whole getting close with strangers thing.
And those are all the tips I have. Your Turn!
