Questions like that of Kim’s, is something I get on a weekly basis, and other authors too. I want to give the same advice I gave
@A. White who reached out to me, and explain what took me a good month and a half of campaigning, and a lot of conversations with other authors, as well as Jeremy the former CEO, to learn.
I’ve honestly tried every strategy on the face of the planet trying to raise orders, many of my strategies failed, but eventually some succeeded. Here’s what I’ve learned, take some of it or not at all, at your own discretion. I’ll also repeat stuff that excellent campaigners and authors such as @Tal M. Klein and @Ricardo Henriquez said in older threads - I don’t have the links but it’s worth searching for their posts, they taught me a lot.
I won’t survey the tactics that failed for me such as book stores and book clubs, as they did work for others. So I’d encourage you to think outside the box no matter what.
First of all, Facebook and Twitter should be considered with a touch of scepticism, IMHO. While they are imperative to make sure people you know hear about your book, the chances of converting "likes" & "RT"s to actual orders are very slim.
These are the most useful tactics I did manage to work with.
(1) Actual Social Networks - not just your own! Ricardo said wisely that you are selling yourself and not your book. What’s 10$ for family and friends to support YOU ??
My wife & mine social network alone banked about 150 orders, and yes that meant nagging people on WhatsApp numerous times, and emailing the world (I found that a bulk email gets dumped by 8/10 people while personal email gets dumped by few). Don’t be shy of reaching out to old college buddies. Nobody is off the list - was what we said - unless they had a recent misfortune or death in the family.
Then move on to friends and family friends’ social networks. Write them a generic email that will support yourself and your cause. Pledge a sum of the orders to charity if you think that may tip the scale for people who don’t really know you.
My top referrer in this campaign is my 70 year old aunt - she sent an email I’ve written for her to all her friends, which incidentally are not poor and are readers, that alone banked about 55 orders! top referrer.
(2) Reach out for Inkshares authors - ask for their orders, whether with credits they have or actual money. If people are active and like your work - they’ll order. But the bulk of orders won’t be them, and you need to give people here time. I have a day-job and two kids ages 10 month and 2.5years - do u honestly think I can read every book I am being sent on the spot. I do listen and try my best to read books of anyone who reached out to me or DM’ed me, eventually.
(3) Support fellow authors - Find an author who’s in same stages of the campaign as you and preferably same genre. Compare notes. Maybe he’ll have a few friends that will look into your book - worth asking. I know some people here don’t like it when authors ask their base to order another author’s book and vice versa, but if the genres match and people aren’t held back to keep bugging their crowds with requests, this can be legitimate to a small scale.
In all honesty, I doubt more than a handful of people would allow you to bug them to order multiple books, so nurture these gems that do and make sure you choose wisely.
I have a friend that asked me to explain to him how to stop Inkshares emails, and another who told me, after ordering my book, that he was at a point where he’d do just about anything to stop getting my texts. message conveyed? Nag nag nag.
(4) Landing page - I found this landing page I did useful. This was advise by Jeremy, who’s been following Tim Farris, a Kickstarter guru. Look, it won’t bring orders but it’s a nice gimmick.
This is a good time to say that a website is pretty imperative, IMO.
(5) Create a buzz - A movie, a givaway (cups for top referrers is a concept I copied from Tal Klein but made original ones for the campaign), charity pledge, anything that will zest your campaign a bit and can create a buzz amongst your friends. I got the marketing department in my firm to step in, especially when they heard about my charity pledge. They sent a pitch about my book in the company newsletter and portal. OK true, this banked ’only’ about 40-50 orders from a company of 4,700 people (percentage-wise it’s not impressive), and not everyone is working in a big firm, but I am sure colleagues would help. Buy them a beer as a reward, or go on a coffee run (I only bought 5 coffees so not everyone would jump on that)
(5)
Goodreads - This was probably the most unrewarding channel. I reached out to 300 people, and asked them to read my preview , bundled in PDF for their convenience
http://www.jondbooks.com/download-pdf/ remember work under the assumption that people who are not on inkshares will not click into Inkshares straight away - would you?
Make sure the PDF has a link to preordering. Admittedly the response rate was disappointing with 40 Yes, and only 12 orders... but I got in touch with some great people.. Oh and make sure you don’t spam too much there, I got an official warning from them at the time :-)
A couple of notes:
Thank you’s are very important. You are not J. K. Rowling. yet. if somebody ordered your book - please thank them. It will come across down to earth and very polite.
Targets - make sure you work with targets. if you need 5 orders a day until the end - you need to know that you can rest when you hit 5, or stay up when you didn’t. The dashboard is not accurate and doesn’t know what you know and expect. Count out national holidays and days off for you, you’ll need it to keep sane and save your relationship/marriage if you are in one. But it’s important to keep track of the figures and not be left in a situation where u suddenly need 17 orders a day - much less feasible.
These are my "words of wisdom". I hope it will help some of you. People here are great and can be very helpful, personally, while I didn’t order every book tossed my way, I made time for anyone who asked me for guidance.
This will be the last thread I participate in for the time being, lack of time and the urge to work on a sequel and copy edit my book are too time consuming. But feel free to email me at ydital gmail address or DM me here - I promise I’ll reply.
remember the most important thing is not to let anyone tell you that you cannot do it. And also, if you fail - don’t miss out on the lesson - and make sure to better prepare for the next campaign.
