Self-Publishing Book Marketing Tactics Discussion Thread

[Roz Morris]

is there a popular platform where a novel can be permanently free?

There is! Smashwords/Draft2Digital will let you do this. So will Kobo Writing Life. You can then email Amazon and point out that the book is free on those platforms and they might then price-match so you can offer it free on Amazon as well.
That's not always 100% reliable but Smashwords/Draft2Digital and Kobo will cover a lot of outlets. And I think Smashwords/Draft2Digital can put books onto Amazon as well.

 

[Roz Morris]

Ah, but if you give your freebies away with something like Bookfunnel, it doesn't go onto the algorithms and you can require the person to sign up for your newsletter in order to get the freebie. There will still be people who get the free book and immediately unsubscribe from your newsletter, but if they don't do that, you've got more chances to connect with them.

Only offer a freebie when you have other books available for readers to buy. There will always be people who'll hoover up a freebie and then never think about you again, but hopefully there will be others who'll smack their lips and think, ooh, I'm ready for more, so you want to have something ready to sell. A freebie should have a purpose - to get new readers and keep hold of as many as possible.

And speaking of newsletters, don't forget they're also chances to showcase your writing, expertise, vast and interesting experiences. If you don't want to create a free book, your writing in your newsletter or blog can also gather readers, though you have to then find ways to promote the newsletter or blog so that people discover it.

 

[Roz Morris]

Silo series Dystopian novels

I've monitored this author’s work since 2012 when he had only a handful of sales on Amazon, but look what’s happened since! (Matt Schofield mentioned that his own marketing created sales which then slowed or stopped when the marketing stopped, I believe) Howie has been Very active with his push and with creating a series. Now they are filming a tv series, will star David Iowelyo.

What to Know About the Books Behind Apple TV+'s Silo (TIME, May 5, 2023)​

Terrific results. But a looong slog of internet drives for sales. To Carol's point: do I have the drive, energy, skills etc. for this additional effort to gain an audience for my work? That is our conundrum.

You can track his very successful efforts. For myself, we get into bewildering rabbit trails of platforms, blogs, content creation, cross-posting, hosting, etc. Read article:

Writers Digest How Hugh Howey Turned His Self-Published Story "Wool" Into a Success (& a Book Deal) Feb 23, 2014​

It’s not just an amazing success story, it’s a new precedent for authors everywhere: Thanks to Hugh Howey, you don’t have to choose between the allure of self-publishing and your dreams of big book deals. You can have both.

Howey’s trilogy of novels, Wool (2011), Shift (2013), and Dust (2013), originally started as a standalone short story titled “Wool” that Howey self-published in July 2011. Reviewer demand led Howey to release four more installments in the Wool saga over the next six months. The Wool novel combines these first five stories into a single volume. Shift includes stories six through eight, while Dust is the ninth and final chapter in the series.

The secrets of the Silo and the characters who seek to know more about its mysteries drive the books and the TV series. Residents of the Silo are told to stay put and those who express curiosity about the outside world get to go there—to clean the Silo’s external sensors. No one who chooses to leave ever returns.

Hugh Howie is certainly a phenomenon (and a lovely writer and a sweet guy). But his big break came in the early days of self-publishing on Kindle, and it's a very different world now. Back then, there was hardly any material available for Amazon to sell to people with ereaders, and selfpublishing authors were usually pricing their books much lower than trade publishers, so selfpublishers who got good reviews could really get a good start. Now there are thousands of books being released every day - a very crowded market.
Also, Amazon's recommendation algorithms worked in a completely different way. They recommended books that other people with similar tastes were buying, so you could get good exposure to new readers. Then Amazon started allowing authors to advertise, and that made them shedloads of money. Now if you look at the recommendations, they're all sponsored. They're adverts.
Bottom line - if you're reading about marketing and hoping to learn about the way the market works now, make sure you're reading articles from 2022, 2023 and 2024. Not 2014!

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Only offer a freebie when you have other books available for readers to buy. There will always be people who'll hoover up a freebie and then never think about you again, but hopefully there will be others who'll smack their lips and think, ooh, I'm ready for more, so you want to have something ready to sell. A freebie should have a purpose - to get new readers and keep hold of as many as possible.

Yes, anyone who signs up for my newsletter to download a freebie then immediately unsubscribes, and does this multiple times, goes on my blacklist. Once is totally fine--you read my freebie, didn't like it and unsubscribed--no worries, thanks for giving it a go. But when you do that five or six times ... nah. Don't need you.

 

[TimRees]

There is! Smashwords/Draft2Digital will let you do this. So will Kobo Writing Life. You can then email Amazon and point out that the book is free on those platforms and they might then price-match so you can offer it free on Amazon as well.
That's not always 100% reliable but Smashwords/Draft2Digital and Kobo will cover a lot of outlets. And I think Smashwords/Draft2Digital can put books onto Amazon as well.

My problem with marketing full stop, is organisation. I'm pretty disorganised in my everyday life as it is, but when I'm writing I get so absorbed that everything else is brushed to one side.

Marketing requires a plan and then it is an everyday commitment to that plan. I've tried, but the plan always falls to pieces because I'm committed to completing the latest novel or script.

Also, my novels don't fall into a particular genre. My novels are always cross-breeds (mongrels). This was a problem when I did start a course on Amazon advertising. The course required me to download software that would dredge the keywords of similar novels. Firstly, I struggled to find similar novels and secondly it all became just too boring and time consuming. I've spent thousands of hours and money on Amazon ads. There was a time I was getting a million impressions a day, but it was costing me a small fortune with few sales.

I'm currently trying to create a platform by adapting the novels for TV and the Big screen. Currently I have one screen play out with the BBC (they received 4,988 submissions during the recent window), and two pilots with independent producers. The two pilots are backed-up with a completed series of episodes and I've just finished a third pilot, but have decided to hold back on writing the other episodes until I've sold the pilot. Next week I will start another pilot with the target of finishing that by the end of Feb. The TV series market is saturated at the moment, but I intend to bomb it. If I can get my foot in the door with one producer, I can begin networking on the inside. We'll see.

So I do have a plan and I have a back-up plan in the effort of creating a platform. I have two novels of a series finished and I'm ten thousand words into a third (which is shelved at the mo as I focus on scripts), but once I can brush everything else aside I will finish the third quickly and then I will release the first novel for free. I feel very confident that once a reader has read the first they will want the second and then the third.... It will become a series of novels that will simply go on and on... I'll never get tired of writing this character(s) stories. Again, we'll see. Fingers crossed

For me now, it's about writing material. If I can get one to take root then the rest will follow.

 

[CarolMS]

This is my strategy for a trilogy I'm currently writing (two novels completed and still trying to secure a traditional publisher or agent). But on Amazon you can't have a book permanently free, can you? I was going to put book one up for the lowest price and take advantage of all the free windows I can use. But is there a popular platform where a novel can be permanently free?

What about some of the sites that you can serialize novels on, such as Kindle Vella, Wattpad, Royal Road or Radish? I've wondered about posting chapters or scenes on one of those platforms as a means to start developing reader interest and a potential following.

 

[Rachel Caldecott]

My problem with marketing full stop, is organisation. I'm pretty disorganised in my everyday life as it is, but when I'm writing I get so absorbed that everything else is brushed to one side.

Marketing requires a plan and then it is an everyday commitment to that plan. I've tried, but the plan always falls to pieces because I'm committed to completing the latest novel or script.

Also, my novels don't fall into a particular genre. My novels are always cross-breeds (mongrels). This was a problem when I did start a course on Amazon advertising. The course required me to download software that would dredge the keywords of similar novels. Firstly, I struggled to find similar novels and secondly it all became just too boring and time consuming. I've spent thousands of hours and money on Amazon ads. There was a time I was getting a million impressions a day, but it was costing me a small fortune with few sales.

I'm currently trying to create a platform by adapting the novels for TV and the Big screen. Currently I have one screen play out with the BBC (they received 4,988 submissions during the recent window), and two pilots with independent producers. The two pilots are backed-up with a completed series of episodes and I've just finished a third pilot, but have decided to hold back on writing the other episodes until I've sold the pilot. Next week I will start another pilot with the target of finishing that by the end of Feb. The TV series market is saturated at the moment, but I intend to bomb it. If I can get my foot in the door with one producer, I can begin networking on the inside. We'll see.

So I do have a plan and I have a back-up plan in the effort of creating a platform. I have two novels of a series finished and I'm ten thousand words into a third (which is shelved at the mo as I focus on scripts), but once I can brush everything else aside I will finish the third quickly and then I will release the first novel for free. I feel very confident that once a reader has read the first they will want the second and then the third.... It will become a series of novels that will simply go on and on... I'll never get tired of writing this character(s) stories. Again, we'll see. Fingers crossed

For me now, it's about writing material. If I can get one to take root then the rest will follow.

I can identify with everything you say. (Although I am not as far down the road of scriptwriting - having just finished my first feature, which is too big a budget to be interesting for most producers). But I have heard, and seen, that releasing the first in a series of books for free is a very good - and usually successful- plan to hook new readers.

 

[TimRees]

I can identify with everything you say. (Although I am not as far down the road of scriptwriting - having just finished my first feature, which is too big a budget to be interesting for most producers). But I have heard, and seen, that releasing the first in a series of books for free is a very good - and usually successful- plan to hook new readers.

Congratulations on completing the feature. Don't get too hung-up about budget. Producers are ambitious people. If they love a script it's their job to put together a budget. I cut my teeth in the BBC where we didn't think about budget, but now I am learning that I need to make it easier for producers to say yes by keeping the budget down....

I've made two big mistakes in the last couple of years. One, I had a meeting with producers where I failed to ask what their budget was and two, I failed to ask if they were targeting mainstream cinema or the arthouse circuit. It was later I learned the planned distribution was arthouse. We've parted company because I'm not going to make a film that will be viewed by a few then forgotten. They argued they would target various awards. Admittedly it may look good on my CV, but I'd never heard of any of the awards they'd mentioned and the script is special to me and I want a big audience for it...

I need to be better at asking questions...

 

[Pamela Jo]

Well, I suck at marketing, so don't have much to add to a marketing conversation. LOL! However, after banging my head against paid advertising for way too long, with little success, I've decided to focus on something completely different. Something that uses my excellent natural history interpretation skills, rather than relying on my appalling ad-writing skills.

So this year, I'm creating a series of short mockumentaries about the dragons of New Zealand, highlighting the dragons I've created for my Dragon Defence League series. I'll use the videos as a hook to get reader interest. I'll do press releases when I release each video--the idea is quirky enough that I expect local (and quite possibly national) media will pick it up.

My hope is to not only drive sales, but also encourage more teachers to book school programmes (which are my best marketing tactic, by far--a good school visit can net more income than a year's worth of sales on Amazon).

I've just finished the first video and am testing it with my target market this week. So far, it's been a hit. Hoping to release it soon.

As a corollary project, I'm working with an illustrator to create a fictional non-fiction book--Dragons of Aotearoa New Zealand. Trying to build that Dragon Defence League 'brand'.

Brilliant! May the luck of dragons fly with you.