Don't Give Up Too Early

Do you have a story or a blog that seems hopeless? Perhaps sales are low for your book(s). Or your blog seems like the loneliest place on the planet. You feel like giving up, at least on that particular project.

Why throw away time and/or money on promoting that book? Why waste time on that blog?

Don't. Not without trying new things and giving it fertilizer.

About a year ago, a little palm tree I had planted looked dead. It was just an ugly, pathetic brown stick in front of my house. I almost pulled it up and threw it away. But then my daughters and I decided to give it another chance. We gave it new soil, plant food, and watered it daily.

Although it didn't sprout a new frond the first day or even the first week, it revived after a few weeks. Now it's a beautiful, healthy palm tree. This is a picture of it below. Pretty, right? Healthy, right?

Maybe you have a blog that isn't getting much traffic. Few people if any are signing up for subscriptions even though you put the nifty RSS feed in the top of your side bar. Or maybe you have a story that isn't selling well and you want to throw up your hands in defeat. You figure your time is better spent elsewhere on a new project.
 
Ask yourself first, have you given the project a fair trial? Have you tried new things? Does your blog need a face lift? If a blog, are you advertising it sufficiently? Are you posting good content? Is it aesthetically pleasing? Does it take too long to load? Have you posted links to your former posts to increase your page views? Do you post regularly? Do you answer comments and interact with your community? Do you ever give gifts to your readers? Do you help your readers or do you focus on yourself? Do you bore the shit out of them? Do you analyze your blog?

There are several analysis programs available, some free. I use StatCounter. To register at StatCounter click here. Once you're a member, you can view your daily and weekly summaries which includes how many new visitors, returning visitors, and page views your blog has had for this time period.

There are several links on the left sidebar that allows you to check which keywords people use to google your posts, show you where visitors surfed in from and how long they stayed, which links they exited on, etc. I found it quite interesting to see that people surfed into my site the most after using the search terms "naughty" and "nympho".  

Hmmm...

Perhaps I should use these keywords as labels more often. A lot of people surf in from Twitter. The times correlate with my posts that include my blog links. Surprise surprise.

As per book promotion and sales, I recently read that half of all marketing works but unfortunately you'll never know which half.

What does this mean?

It means to try many types of advertising and promotion then keep doing them. Try new things but keep doing the old ones, too. Most authors build a readership over time. It's a process. Few people are overnight successes.

Keep going.

Don't give up.

Former posts you might like to read also:

Snippet Saturday: Kick Ass Heroes and Heroines
Nudists on Strike
Kudos to Harlequin  (It's their anniversary month - lots of free books if you hurry)
Kenzie Michaels Guest Interview
Twitter Works Do You Really Want To Post That?

 

You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook,
Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch,
Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape
are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

How much is too much?

How much promotion is too much? I've heard that the marketing formula to get a buyer's attention is that they must see your promotion a minimum of 7-8 times for them to think about buying your product (book). But lately, I've also heard that potential buyers get tired of seeing too much of the same promo from an author. Have you ever felt that way? Is there an author or company you're sick and tired of hearing about? Or a product? Instead of making you want to buy their product, seeing another commercial or ad makes you want to throw up? Or at least click off and tune them out? At first I thought the Geico gecko was cute. But he was rammed down our throats so much, I got sick of seeing him. I wanted to cancel my Geico coverage. So, how early should we start promoting our new books? And how much? Is it okay to send out a lot of different promos and ads as long as we don't repeat the same thing ad nauseum on several sites or the same loop? Or will repeating the same thing compel people to at least check out our books? You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

I Want To Be McDonald's!

I want to be McDonald’s. Or Dunkin’ Donuts. Or Burger King. Even in this tough economy they’re raking in the dough. Don’t take my word, look for yourself. I stopped at Burger King this morning to grab my morning Diet Coke and the cars were lined up around the building. Yesterday, my hubby decided NOT to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts because the line was too long. While we were in the Burger King line this am, I asked my daughter, “What are they doing that I can do to better sell my books?” We kicked ideas around a bit, had no real spurts of marketing genius, and finally I asked, “Because they’re edible and tasty?” Then, my sweet and innocent 18 year old cracked a wicked grin and said, “I was just thinking about your books…” I laughed and said, “Well, yeah, I try to make my books edible and tasty.” Most of my books are in ebook form. This means, they’re inexpensive, like McDonald’s. They can be acquired fast and easy – even easier than McDonalds as readers can purchase and download them from any computer with Internet at any time of day or night – thus they’re even more convenient than McDonald’s. Have I thrown as much advertising and advertising money at my books as McDonald’s? Advertising bucks, is a definite, resounding NO! Time? Lately, most of my available time has gone to blogging and writing articles, so yes, in comparison. But it’s still a big NO, as McDonald’s has been doing this for years, since I was a kid. They’ve also got departments and marketing firms with many people who do nothing but market them. I can’t begin to compete with that. Luckily, I’m not competing with McDonald’s. But I am competing with every form of entertainment and media, not merely other books. Sooooo, as a little guy in the grand picture, how can I follow in the marketing giants footsteps? Is there a prayer? One thing I’ve read and seems very true, we have to promote ourselves, more, not less, in this economy. It’s a dilemma for sure when we have less $ to advertise, and no more time, maybe less since we’re working longer to try to make up for our decrease in spending dollars. What do you think the big guys’ promo secrets are? Are they secret or is it just that they’ve been at it so long, we’re addicted to them now?

"Naughty Boys", my M/M Christmas story is available at: http://www.total-e-bound.com

You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Signature Lines

I just joined a new authors' promotion group which I found through Shelly Munro's blog. At the moment the group is discussing guest blog spots (I'll post about that tomorrow) and signature lines. I almost always use a signature line except with my friends. It seems too pretentious. Even at the day job, I erase all the "manager" crap even though it comes up automatically when I pull up a new email, when I email my friends or my department. I only keep it when emailing other departments, mainly because our organization is getting to the point that managers only accept emails from other managers and directors only from other directors. My staff's not supposed to email other departments but funnel questions through me. Sometimes it's a pain but it's usually a help. Anyway, I'm more concerned with signatures for my other career, my writing career. On many loops, promotion is a no no, but signature lines are allowed. I'm shy of saying too much so I usually don't say too much on mine, but sometimes, when I have a new book to promote or when I'm trying to overcome my shyness, I'll get a bold moment and build up my email signature. At the moment, my main signature looks like:

"Ashley http://www.ashleyladd.com http://www.ashleyladd.blogspot.com http://www.myspace.com/ashleyladdromancewriter http://twitter.com/ashleyladd Heart and Soul - an MMF with a lot of heart newly released at http://www.total-e-bound.com"

I didn't add a quote about my book, "Heart and Soul" as it already seems so long. I have been advised to do so in the past. Should I now? Should I delete some of my links? I've seen some sig lines that are way longer than the one I have above. At times I've advertised my contests in my sig line (it worked pretty well). I've also had several different signature lines, one each for my different books. I have between 20 and 30 books still in publication so I'm not going to to make one for each - in fact, my aol email signature picker only gives me five automatic signatures, not that I couldn't save them in Word and just cut and paste. But I figure the rule of advertising is that a consumer has to see a name or product at least 7 times before it sinks in. If they keep seeing a different book, it might not sink in. I hope that if they visit my publisher or one of my websites, they'll see my other books available for sale and then check them out if interested. I haven't put covers in mine, mainly because I don't know how. So, what are your thoughts about signature lines? If you're a published author, do you think they help? (I'm sure they can't hurt at the very least.) If you're a reader, do you ever check out a book or an author's website because of a signature line? I know personally, that as a reader, I have visited some author's websites because of their signature line. I also visit new blogs when their blog links are given. I often send a friend request on My Space or start following someone on Twitter if given a link? What about you? You'll also want to see what Amarinda Jones, Anika Hamilton, Anny Cook, Barbara Huffert, Brynn Paulin, Bronwyn Green, Dakota Rebel, Kelly Kirch, Molly Daniels, Sandra Cox, Regina Carlysle, and Cindy Spencer Pape are up to, so make sure to visit them also. :)

Promotion - what works?

Promotion...the bane of a writer's life. At least it's the bane of my life. Well, that and tooth aches. Pissy donors, chocolate outages, fighting kids... I've spent a lot of time researching how to promote effectively and trying to promote my work. Is it working? Hell if I know. I haven't really thought about it much lately beyond blogging and MySpacing (which is mainly blogging on MySpace in my case.) But I just read two blog posts today about promotion and both ask what type of promo we think helps. One of the articles if by Marcia James posted on Shelly Munro's blog at: http://www.shelleymunro.com/blog/2008/07/16/promo-with-marcia-james/ The usual rule of promotion (for our readers - other authors know this already) is that it either takes a lot of time or money. If you have a lot of money, you can pay someone like Marcia James to do our promoting for us. We can buy full page glossy ads in RT and other magazines. We can buy radio spots. Conversely, when money is scarce or if we're too thrifty to spend our hard-earned money, then we have to spend a lot of time to do our own promotion. Unfortunately, I don't have much of either, not with much kids still at home and working a full time day job. Over the years I've tried many avenues of promotion and I still can't tell you what works and what doesn't. I can, however, tell you what works on me as a reader. So if other readers are like me, then I have a good idea. Although I love to get free pens that so many authors give out at conferences with their website addies (because I write a lot by hand), I rarely visit the sites mentioned on the pens. I mean to when I pick them up, but then I get busy and don't think of it later. Unless a bookmark is really spiffy, and I mean extremely professional looking and pretty, I don't pick them up. I don't need more bits of paper to clutter up my house. I'm fine with dog-earing my pages and I'm so used to doing this, I dog-ear them out of habit even in the rare occurrence I use a bookmark. Now I love the book thong I got from Lori Foster and the Power of Love authors. However, the book thong has no promo on it to lead me to any of their sites or books. I love to get magnets to post things on my fridge. Again, however, I usually don't go to the authors' sites. My computer is not in my kitchen. Magnets do not play well with computers and thus since the magnet with the author's website addy is not near me when I'm on the Internet, I won't think to visit the author's site. Candy or food items with the author's name and url. Honestly? I eat the candy and the wrapper is history. It goes in the garbage. Free cookbooks with recipes from authors. This I would actually keep and use. When I'm not too tired to cook after a long day at the day job (Oh! I answered that on Shelly Munro's other blog post, not here. Well, visit Shelly's blog for that discussion. Or maybe I'll post my own article about that in a bit.) But again, would I go from the kitchen to my computer in the other room? Maybe if there's an interesting blurb in the cookbook. And since it's not magnetic, I could lay it down by my computer. So this is a maybe promo item in my opinion. Articles: blog or otherwise. I love to read articles when I have time. If the article/blog really interests me, I might actually go to the author's website to read more about her books. If I like the blog, I will go back and sometimes I become the blogger's fan and maybe even build a friendship. In this case, I am much much much more likely to buy the author's books. So I think this is the best method so far. Post cards and promo by snail mail. I will usually glance at it and pitch it. Again, I have too many bits of paper around already. I'm trying to eliminate clutter in my life. Excerpts: Should I get as far as the author's website/blog/publisher's site/dead tree book, the blurb and excerpt is what will draw me in if the author is not already a friend or on my auto buy list. I rarely read a bunch of excerpts or single chapters compiled on CDs or floppy disks. Covers: A bad cover will not draw me to a book. On the other hand, a good cover might lure me to read the book's blurb, but not to buy the book on the strength of the cover alone. But at least it got me to pick up the book. Attending readers' and writers' conferences. I think this is a great way - if you have time and money. I'm lucky if I can attend one a year and most years, I can't afford either time and/or money to go. This year I attended Lori Foster's Readers' N Writers' Get Together in Cincinnati. I met a lot of nice people, pitched to several agents and editors, and hopefully got some promotion. Frankly, there were so many other bigger named authors then me, I don't know if it was really a big promo opportunity for moi. Participating on email loops f0r book lovers or other interests you have: This would probably be good if you have time to devote to it. Unfortunately, with a day job, kids, and the need to actually write my books, I don't have time to hang out on loops all day, every day. If you don't post pretty often, people don't answer or worse, they answer and accuse you of drive-by postings. That's worse than not posting to the loop at all. Press releases: I've heard they work. I've only done a couple, and I didn't notice any spikes in my sales. I'll have to try this again. Book signings: Ugh! I hate sitting at book signings where only a couple people stop by to see me. It's demoralizing. Worse, I feel like I'm wasting time. Worse yet, I'm shy and it's excruciating to try to lure people to me. It's really demoralizing if you're with a group of other authors and they're selling and you're not. That said, there still may be promotion value because, of course, you would have posted this news to your blog, your loops, in press releases, etc. so your name still gets out. Internet chats: This is a lot like book signings in my opinion. Rarely do many readers show up and you're spending time to be there. However, these can be archived so hopelly later readers will read it. Also, like book signings, you have a reason to post announcements. Free radio/internet radio interviews: In fact, I'll be the interviewee on Yolanda Renee's Internet Radio show Thursday, July 31st. This won't be the first time I've done this. Now that there's Internet "radio" and podcasts, it's a lot less expensive or free to have your voice heard and archived for later replay. Again, I'm not positive how much this helps the interviewee. I think it helps the interviewer the most as their name is promoted by their weekly guests over and over plus they promote themselves as they promote their guests. If I had time (and a quiet house), I'd start my own Internet radio show and help promote other authors. Someday, in the future I just may do this - when I retire from the day job or at least when all my kids are grown. We'll see. But then again, this is probably like being a chat host and if no readers come to the chat, then that seems like a waste of time and energy. Paid advertising: Banner ads and magazine ads. I've dug deep in my pocket to pay for ads, even RT ads (not a full page unfortunately - my pockets don't go that deep yet), but again, I haven't noticed any increase in sales after an ad. I'm sure I've forgotten other ways of promotion. I really hope there's ways to promote that I've never heard about that are sure-fire or at least that propel my books to the top of the New York Times and USA Today best seller lists. So, how do you promote if you're an author? What prompts you to want to buy a book if/when you're a reader?