Kindle
I've scheduled some promotions for the next month.
January 11-15 the ebook of "Shooting Stars: A Teenage Vampire Love Story from a Boy's Perspective" will be free on Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S98RVO8/ref=series_dp_rw_ca_1
January 25-29 the ebook of "Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age" will be free on Amazon.com
February 1-5 the ebook of Shooting Stars 3 "Blue Moon" will be free on Amazon.com
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CTDZKFQ/ref=series_rw_dp_sw
I've been using some Kindle advertising recently to see if I could generate some sales.
There are different ways you can use Kindle ads, though they all use targeting on Amazon.
One way is to target groups. For instance, I've been using "Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age" for my ads. Here's my blurb:
He always wanted to fit in but never had the skills. Now he has the moves, confidence, and the opportunity to choose. Will he be a superhero or a villain?
You're limited for the number of characters, so you have to spend a lot of time refining your blurb to say exactly what you want, very concisely.
Then you choose your target. You can target interests or products. Interests are like, Reading: Fiction: Young Adult. There are not a ton of them to choose from, so it's really hard for me to create a target group that is successful.
The other way is to choose products like books by Bryan Cohen or Brandon Sanderson, or any other author or series that is similar in some way--that an audience for that product would be interested in your book, read the blurb and buy.
On the page of that target group or product, a little picture of my book shows up as a suggested purchase, with the little blurb next to it.
The final step to reach people is that you must name your price, the amount you are willing to pay to have your ad 'clicked'. Others may be out there bidding higher than you and will have their ad placed before you, but I've found for $.60 I get a lot of 'impressions' (the ad being placed on a page.)
Here are the results of three ads I placed for Flypaper Boy.
The first was based on groups, such as that mentioned above. I got:
110K impression
54 clicks at an average of $.49 per click and a total for $26.66 spent
0 sales when I stopped the advertisement.
I saw that was going nowhere, so I stopped it and changed my approach. I picked three different authors and targeted about fifty books.
I only got 35K impression and 11 clicks over four days for a cost of $5.95, but I had 3 sales for $6.20 in profit. Kindle shut down my ad because they said, "It lacked relevance." I realize I wasn't getting hundreds of thousands of view and clicks, but I actually turned a profit.
I beefed up the same ad but added a about 700 more specific books to target. That got me really relevant. I got 233K impressions, 101 clicks and spent $52 to get $16 in sales. (That's about $10 in revenue for a loss of $42.)
What is my take away from these three trials?
The ad that is relevant to Kindle Direct Publishing is one that makes them money fast.
What's Happening Now.
So. In trying to find out if writing a blog every day was something that would help me sell books, I found out that it has no short term effect. I found I would only get new people reading my blog if I advertised it on twitter. The only person who came to my website and read my posts consistently was my daughter. Thanks, Lisa. Maybe longterm blogging will have an effect. Trying to come up with an idea every day was too hard. Maybe once a week.
In the last week I have finished editing the text of six episodes for the podcast novel, "The Pariah". I've recorded the first episode and I'm edeting it right now. I want to have at least three episodes completely done and ready to play at the end of the month (January). I want to post my first episode on Feb 6th.
I've signed up for the Grape Con, in Lodi, California for the 8th of Feb. It's a pretty small comic con, but it's a place for me to get used to taking to people about my books.
I got 25 copies of "Shooting Stars" to add to the 23 copies of "Flypaper Boy" to have at the con and I'll sell them for $9.99 instead of the regular $12.99. I ordered a iPhone credit card reader for Paypal, that I will have there so I can take credit card payments. I'll also have flyers about the Pariah Podcast and the Patreon.com compain for it.
"Shooting Stars" launches on January 26th. It's really already on Amazon, but I'd like to have people buy it on that day if at all possible. I have a Kindle Countdown starting on that day for "Flypaper Boy" so it will be selling for 99 cents. It will be 99 cents until Wednesday, when it will change to $1.99 and then back to $2.99 on Friday.
I paid for an advetisement for the first three days. I also paid for an ad for "Shooting Stars" whichi will be 99 cents for those first two days as well. I'm hoping the two books cross pollinate each other and boost sales over all. I'm also doing a book giveaway for Shooting Stars at good reads from now through launch day.
Finally, I'm giving away a Kindle Fire HD7 through a website that will administer the drawing and collect email addresses for me from an opt-in form they fill out while entering the give away and generating likes for my author's page on Facebook.
I added an author page on Amazon.com.
Trigger Warnings is still will the editor. The picture book idea sounded too risky for a publisher I talk with about it. I may try doing it for the Kindle with an application they have developed for picture books on the kindle.
pec
Kindle Direct Publishing Select - Didn't work for me.
In a nutshell, this is how KDP Select works. You promise to publish your eBook exclusively through Amazon and they promise to make it worth your while. Specifically, you can have five promotional days each ninety day contract period. This may be in the form of Advertised Free days or a Countdown promotion. You can only do one of these during your contract period, so I can't speak to the Countdown promotion, since I chose the other.
The idea with the Free Promotion days is that so many people will download your book for free that you will top the Kindle Free charts and be able to brag about having a "Best Seller". By reaching that level, Kindle takes notice of you and starts promoting you book at other times, and you suddenly become famous. Well, that's how it has worked for others, and in the past. There are sites that say they will promote your book for free on the days you are running your promotion, though most won't guarantee they will run it unless you pay them $5 to $25 to push it.
The first time I ran this free promotion was just over a month after I released, "Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age". I used the two days after Thanksgiving. I had 180 people download it the first day and about 65 the second day. The highest I got on any list was Kindle/.../Adventure/Romance and I got to #5. On Kindle/..../Superhero I only got to #10. After that initial promotion I got three people downloading the book from the Kindle Online Lending Library. Initially you get nothing, but if they read more than 10% of the book, you get your regular royalty payment. I had one person buy at the regular price as well. All this within the week following the promotion.
The second time I ran the promotion was for three days. I got 40, 41 and 5 downloads for those three days, respectively. I had no followup sales. I ran this promotion the three days before Christmas.
I don't know if the days or time of year was bad to run these promotions. Since I only had ninety days to choose from, I went with what I thought would work for me.
So, as far as I can tell, every member of my extended family and the few friends I have have purchased my book, either as an eBook or Print on Demand (POD) through Create Space, and not a lot of others.
I will run one more KDP Select period and try the Kindle Countdown promotion as I'm releasing my next novel, "Shooting Stars: A Teenage Vampire Love Story from a Boy's Perspective". (Hopefully by the end of January.) We'll see how that works. Hopefully there will be carryover from the free promotion to generate awareness for the new book.
pec
I was working on my Character Motivations this morning. I finished my outline yesterday and ended up with over 7K words.
David Farland's Daily Kick in the Pants yesterday talked a bit about writer's block for him was usually that he hadn't fleshed out his characters and their motivations. I figured since I had another day before the madness would begin, I would do just that.
My story this year is called, "Shooting Stars 2: Drawn into the Mist". "Shooting Stars 1: A Teenage Vampire Love Story from a Boy's Perspective", will be released in early to mid-December. I thought it would be good to get started on the second in that "Trilogy", in the odd chance that someone, other than family and friends, actually buys in and looks forward to the next in the series. I will admit, up front, that the first book ends, but it is obvious that a second must follow. And I'll clue you in now, it will take a third to resolve. I will probably write that book in the summer, just as soon as I get #2 published.
So. Back to the Character Motivations. I know my primary characters well and am pretty clued in on what they are after. It's the secondary characters that they interact with in this book that I wanted a better clue about. While I was working on the motivation of these background people, and what brings them into contact with my primaries, I fell upon the plot for the fourth novel, (in this trilogy). (I know that jokes been used, but I like it to much to not apply it to my own story.
Look for Shooting Stars on Amazon in early December. This has been a favorite story of mine since I began it and all the feedback I've gotten from beta readers has been equally as positive.
Check out "Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age" available for Kindle and Print-On-Demand at Amazon. And get on my mailing list by sending an email to norvaljoe@gmail.com.
Thanks.
I'm extending the time period to get an extra two entries.
I didn't realize how many people would choose to buy the paperback. Since it took almost a week to get the copy, I'm adding an extra week to get the review in to Amazon.
So, any reviews on the Amazon page by October 12th will get the two extra entries.
I've already mentioned I'm giving away a Kindle Voyager to some lucky reader/reviewer who buys my book and writes an Honest review on Amazon.com.
To recap: The first person to review gets five entries into the pool. Anyone who gets an entry in the first week, that's before Sunday, October 5th at Midnight Pacific time. And after that, anyone who gets a review in before October 31st at midnight will get one entry.
Sweetening the deal: I like my book. I edited it five times before sending it to Jen Hendricks, and editor, and edited it again after she sent it back. I think I've made the effort and taken the time to make it the best I can, so far.
I will give another giveaway entry to anyone who is first to find an error and post it as a comment to this post. Misspelled words, misused words, and contradictions of myself, and whatever else you can find that is a legitimate error, add it below and I will tell you if I think you are right and if you are first.
Thank you for helping me make Flypaper Boy a better book.
Philip Carroll
I started this on Twitter yesterday and added to it on Facebook. I thought I'd put the list of them here for anyone of you non-existent followers to read in the future.
Burgerslovegan Fun Facts:
Burgerslovegia is a fictional country within the boarders of Ukraine.
Considering actual recent events in the eastern Ukraine, they moved their fictional borders as far west from Crimea as possible.
Their primary export is fictional wool products.
Their fictional sheep have a absurdly soft wool which commands a fictionally high price internationally.
Their fictional form of government is Socialism.
Vladamort Krompkitch is the fictional dictator or Burgerslovegia.
Vladamort believes his fictional daughter is safely hidden at Rosencranks.
Rosencranks is a fictional exclusive prep school north of Santa Belinda on the Southern California coast.
Rosencranks was named for a fictional General who retired near Santa Belinda after the Mexican-American war.
Esmeralda Flinch of the Women's Trade Federation knows the Krompkitch girl is at Rosencranks.
Here's the invitation I posted on Facebook. Everyone is welcome. Please come by and like my author page. It is: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorPhilipCarroll
Facebook Friend:
Please forgive this spam. It's the only time I will ever spam my personal friend list on Facebook. But, right now, you're the only friends I have and I really need your help.
You may have seen that I've been working on publishing my first novel for about the last year. Well, "Flypaper Boy: Coming of Age" is finally happening on September 29th on Amazon as an eBook for Kindle and as a publish-on-demand paperback through Createspace.com (An Amazon company).
If I can get enough sales on September 29th it will push my book onto other lists which will make it more visible to people I don't know.
The eBook for Kindle will be just $2.99. If you don't have a kindle there are free Kindle apps for every kind of phone and tablet in existence (probably. . .the big names for sure.) The POD paperback will be $12.99 and if you purchase it, you can get the eBook for free for the next thirty days.
What I need you to do:
1) Like and follow my author page. (This way I can spam you when my next book comes out.) That's https://www.facebook.com/PhilipCarrollAuthor.
2) Share this with your followers, your friends, enemies, family members, anyone with a pulse and an internet connection.
3) Stop by Amazon on Monday, September 29th and purchase a book. I should have the link up on my author site no later than Sunday the 28th. (You could just search for Flypaper Boy. I searched it on Google and didn't get any hits with those two words together. . .Big surprise?)
And that's it! Simple, huh?
The story is about a sixteen year old boy with a lame superpower. . .he sticks to things. He gets manipulated into believing he's actually a supervillain and agrees to help kidnap the teenage daughter of the President of an Eastern European nation called Burgerslovegia.
If you've read this far, thank you. I hope you'll join me on the 29th. If you have any questions or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.