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October, my favorite month is almost here, and with it I have a free ebook promotion scheduled. So today’s episode is about the freshening up I like to do to get ready for a promotion. It’s a mild stretch out of my comfort zone, more of a getting things done I’ve been putting off, but there is a bonus stretch out of my comfort zone I’m going to mention at the end.
I decided to try out the new Hello Books promotion service from Mark Dawson and James Blatch—I’ll let y’all know how it turns out after it runs. For those who aren’t familiar, this is a newsletter ad. Basically, like similar services of Bookbub or Fussy Librarian, they have an email newsletter that readers subscribe to and choose the genres that interest them, and they sell spots to authors and publishers to feature a book in a particular category.
I didn’t get to choose my date, but I got approved for my first historical cozy mystery on October 1st. So I set up my five free days from KU to run Sept 30.-Oct 4 (you can choose 5 days to make your ebook free per 90-day period or 7 days of a discount period). I made my second historical cozy 99 cents using a Kindle countdown deal for 7 days to encourage readthrough.
I also set up other ads around this one, a process authors often call ad-stacking. I set up a Freebooksy ad and a Fussy Librarian ad. I intentionally left Sept. 30 for only my own reach, my newsletter, any newsletter swaps I’d set up with other authors, posts to my social media and in appropriate groups, plus whatever visibility Amazon gives me. Basically, I’m testing my nonpaid reach.
I also wasn’t able to set up a newsletter ad for Sunday Oct. 3rd, so I’ll be running a Facebook ad to keep bumping things up. Basically, the idea is to get lots of visibility for the series by giving away lots of the first book. Hopefully I’ll get folks reviewing and reading through to other books in the series and perhaps my other series and/or my mailing list as well.
Naturally with this big push, there was some cleaning up I wanted to do. I had a few minor errors to fix in book 3, along with a historical note I wanted to add. I needed to clean up the backmatter for all three books, to make sure it had accurate information and listed the other books in the series. I needed to reevaluate the seven keywords Amazon gives you to help readers find your book. Some keywords are more useful than others, so I did some research using a tool called Publisher rocket to find keywords that described the book well and were something folks were searching for…and that had books ranking that actually sold decently. I also needed to email Amazon and ask them to put my books in additional categories. Amazon only lets you list two categories when you upload a book, but you can be in up to ten per book. You just have to ask. You may need to do this more than once. I’d emailed about this in the past and still not been added. I tried to choose a mix of larger and smaller categories. Larger categories have more readers, but it’s harder to rank. Smaller categories are easier to rank in, but they have fewer readers. Finally it was past time book 3’s paperback copy got launched.
Now, because I didn’t pick my date for Hello Books, of course most of this fell during a time I’ll be out of town, but luckily I can set up most things in advance, and while I’m traveling, I’ll only need to check in from time to time, see where my rankings are, take screenshots, and post when I get high in the charts, fingers crossed.
Now for the bonus real stretch. I’d been wanting to experiment with video for a while, and I’d decided on a project a while back as a treat for my email list if nothing else. Once a month, at least for the fall, I’ll be reading a classic mystery and trying an activity from that novel. This month, I baked seed cakes from Agatha Christie’s Bertram’s Hotel.
This is a bit of a stretch and some out of the box marketing for me. I will of course be plugging my books and putting the video on YouTube. It was very fun to record. I don’t know how useful it is as a marketing thing—I don’t have much following on YouTube and may actually start a new channel for Connie Tries a Mystery—but I’ll let you all know how it goes. If anything, I’ll have some fun, give my subscribers a treat, and learn some video editing skills.
So with all of these plans detailed, if you’re traditionally published or you are a lower income author, you may be wondering how you can adapt some of these promotional strategies to work for you to create a similar big push. Let’s dive into that.
First, for traditionally published authors: You won’t be able to change the price of your books or do a free run so easily—those things will be up to your publisher—but if you have a lower priced ebook, you can still run these newsletter ads. Some services will allow you to list ebooks up to $4.99. You can also run Facebook ads and, with some workarounds, even Amazon ads to your books. You can also arrange to cross promote with other authors and do a big push through your own channels of newsletter, social media, and elsewhere.
For lower income authors who can’t afford to spend much on advertising services, you might give Hello Books a try. The other sites I mentioned are a bit pricier (and Bookbub, the elephant in the room, is the priciest of all) but right now Hello Books is only $25. The price is probably going up from there. My experience has been that lower priced services didn’t give much of a return. Because it’s backed by Dawson and Blatch, I have more hope for this one that the price is just because it’s new. Now, I haven’t tried. I don’t’ know. So maybe wait until next week, when I can give you all a rundown of the experience.
But promoting to your own channels and coordinating with other authors only costs time. Double down on that.
And all authors can try a new out-of-the-norm marketing strategy. Maybe it’s experimenting with video. Maybe it’s hopping on a podcast if you have never guested before. Just be careful of spending too much time or doing something you just dislike or has a huge learning curve when it’s an experimental tactic rather than a tried and true method. Keep it fun. That way, even if nothing comes of it, you’ve had a good time.
As I mentioned, I’ll be giving you all a rundown of how this went next week before we jump into our October theme: the spooky side of publishing, both in writing scary stuff and in avoiding pitfalls as an author.
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