Where’s the Money? Ideas on Book Promotion docx

Where’s the Money?

Ideas on Book Promotion

Ruth Ann Nordin

*****

Where’s the Money? - Smashwards Edition
Published by Ruth Ann Nordin at Smashwords
Copyright © 2010 by Ruth Ann Nordin
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the copyright owner.
This is a work of nonfiction. The contents are based on the
author’s experience. There are no promises that what worked
for me will work for someone else. The hope is that other
authors will benefit from the information provided.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes:


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Cover Photo © Copyright Photo Getty Images. All rights
reserved – Used with permission.

*****

Why Should You Listen To Me?
Who am I to offer any advice on book promotion? Well, I’ll let
my sales record speak for me because when it all comes down
to it, the proof is in the numbers.
In 2010, I reported about $18,600 from book sales as income on
my taxes. About $15,500 came from Amazon (US), about $40
came from Amazon (UK), about $2800 from Smashwords,
$160 from paperback sales, and $45 from my old books with
vanity presses. The total books I sold came to about 110,000.
Keep in mind over half were free, and for most of the year, I
asked $0.99 on them. So 110,000 may no longer be as
impressive, but free and $0.99 (from the past) has led to a nice
start this year.
At the time I am updating this ebook (March 7, 2011), I have
earned the following and sold these many ebooks:


January
Amazon US Kindle $1350 at 1800 books sold.
Amazon UK Kindle $40 at 110 books sold.
February (when I published a new book in mid-Feb.)
Amazon US Kindle $1890 at 4865 books sold.
Amazon UK Kindle $965 at 4320 books sold (3044 copies
being one book that took off all of the sudden)
Smashwords: I got a check for $9260 (not 100% sure how many

books were sold and I don’t want to take the time to find out,
but you get the point—things are going up)
March (so far)
Amazon US Kindle 1720 books sold.
Amazon UK Kindle 1732 books sold.
*And as for paperbacks, I sold about 10.

Now, I’m a simple stay-at-home mom who is not even exactly
sure how she got to this point. I never expected it, to be honest,
and I wasn’t a big promoter with my books as far as going out
and telling other people my books existed. I’m an introvert who
loathes the chance to talk about my books, except to my readers
or author friends as we discuss what we’re working on.
So I’m hoping this ebook will help other introvert authors like
myself who hate going on social networking sites and


mentioning their books more than once or twice.
something in here can be useful to those who read it.

I hope

*****

Promotion Strategy Ideas for Authors
I've been mentally going through and thinking of everything
I've done since I got serious about book promotion back in
March 2008, weighing things that worked (both in the short and
long run), and trying to decide what I would do differently
today if I were starting out all over again. This is what I came

up with...
1. Get familiar with networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.
Kindleboards.com is a nice place too, but I don’t get a chance to
hang out there as much as I’d like.
Some people like to hang out on Goodreads and the Amazon
forums, but I suggest hanging out there first to get a feel for
how receptive people will be when you mention your book.
Some forums are more author-friendly than others.
2. Try to make your ebook and/or paperback as professional as
possible.
a. Tell a good story and polish your content.
A good story covers up for the minor errors that might pop up.
I’ve discovered that no matter how much you edit your book,
someone won’t think you did a good enough job. So what do
you do? The very best you can. No book is perfect, and you


can’t please everybody. Just do your best and write your next
book to improve your overall work. You can hire an editor or
proofreader or barter for these services. I barter. But I’ll tell you
even if you have another person look at your book, you might
miss something anyway. I’m not saying to shrug off mistakes.
I’m just saying when you become aware of them, change them,
learn, and move on.
I also think it’s better to have a compelling story that will sell
well than a perfect book that doesn’t. (This is my opinion, of
course.) Just do your best. I know I keep saying that, but it’s
really all any of us can do. When you mess up, be merciful with
yourself. You’re only human.
b. Formatting.

When formatting your interior file, I suggest looking at a
popular ebook or paperback. For paperbacks, I look at
traditionally published romances because I write romance.
Things I look at are the title and copyright page to see how they
look. Unless I’m doing a Smashwords version, I copy the
copyright out of a traditionally published book.
For your paperback, you may want to look at other books in
your genre to determine where the page numbers go. Top or
bottom? Left, center, or right? What do the chapter pages look
like? What do the scene divisions look like? Are there *** or
~*~* ~ or some other symbol separating scenes in a chapter? I
also notice that all margins are justified.
If you are going to upload to Smashwords or to the Kindle, you
will not have to worry about page numbers and headers, but you
still want to use a page break between chapters and make sure
your paragraphs are adequately spaced. However, if you can
manage to figure out those tabs, then you’re way ahead of me.


I’ve given up long ago and opted for a space after each
paragraph. This is so that the manuscript is clean and easy to
read. It also gets me into premium distribution.
c. Get a good cover.
I used to laugh at the idea that a cover will make or break a
book, but it is so true. My best selling books are the ones with
the best covers. You can buy royalty free stock photos for as
cheap as $10 on places like shutterstock.com or
dreamstime.com. I bought a book cover software program for
$200, and that was the best investment I ever made. I just tell
the program the number of pages my book is, insert the picture,

insert the text, and presto... Five minutes later, I have a front,
back, and spine paperback cover ready to upload to
CreateSpace. Here's the software cover program I bought:
I upload the cover as a jpg, not a pdf
file. Now, I keep it simple. I use one picture for the front cover.
I do have a couple of friends who have used their fancier picture
programs (not sure what those are), and blended pictures for
me. But you know what? The one picture option I've done
actually sells more than the fancier covers I got up. So you don't
need to get complicated. I suggest browsing the bestselling
books in the genre you are writing. Which covers catch your
attention? Why? Then go buy a picture that falls along that
same line. You don’t want the exact same cover, but I think
something with the same feel can work for you.
If you’re making a paperback, I suggest carefully inspecting the
cover of a traditionally published book. Notice the spine. There
is usually the title of the book, the author's name, the publisher's
imprint, and a picture of the front cover (without the text on it).
Check the back. There is the publisher's imprint again. Where is
it? Are there any other graphics on the back? Where? Where is


the book summary and author bio? Where is the price located?
What are the font sizes? All of this will help you have a
professional cover.
I do recommend getting a "publishing symbol" that represents
you, and put that publishing symbol on the spine and on the
back of your paperback. If you only do ebooks, don't worry
about it. I think these are just fun and attractive to have on the
cover.

d. Get a catchy title.
As for titles, browse some of the top selling titles in your genre.
I like to take an adjective from one title that I like and match it
with a noun from another title that caught my attention.
Sometimes I even ask my readers for title ideas.
Now you're wondering, what does all of this have to do with
book promotion? In my opinion, it is an important part of book
promotion.
Now, here’s what I did to get my target audience to find me:
3. Get a Facebook Author Page and a first draft blog.
I wish I had done these sooner. It will take time to build up and
attract people, but go ahead and set the stage. This is where you
can make announcements about your book and interact with
your readers. Interaction with your readers is the most important
thing I ever did. Why? I get feedback from my readers, the
people I write for. It’s also been a nice way to build
relationships with them. When I get stuck, it’s helpful to bounce
ideas around with people interested in my work because (to be
honest) my family and most of my author friends pretty much
don’t care about my books.


As for my first draft blog (a WordPress one) where I write 500
words a day, I have discovered this to be the single greatest way
to meet my target audience. They read my posts and leave
comments. After awhile, I get to know some of them well
enough to send personal emails back and forth where we
discuss my books. I also have a Facebook badge on the
WordPress blog, so now my readers can friend me on
Facebook. It’s a great feeling when 70% of the people on your

friends list are your fans. Then they join your Facebook Author
Page and can get an inside look into your work (say cover
ideas) that no one else will get.
My point to all of this is that a first draft blog has been the most
effective tool when it comes to interacting with my audience.
What’s best about it is that they find my blog and website
through my free books, so I don’t have to go find them; they
find me. Perfect for the introvert. And what better way to give
your readers what they want than to post a first draft look at
your work? If you’re not comfortable writing a first draft and
posting it immediately, then I suggest taking one of your
already completed first drafts and posting it up a little at a time.
But if you don’t want to do this at all, then it’s fine. I’m just
saying this has been the biggest way I’ve found my readers.
4. On Improving
My work has been so much better since I took into account
what my target audience loves and doesn’t love about my work.
Also, when there’s criticism, my readers usually state it so
nicely that I realize they say it to help, instead of being mean (as
is the case of some reviews I’ve gotten). I advise you to not
worry about feedback from people who aren’t your fans because
you don’t write for them and you can’t please everyone.
5. Free works.


Choose a short story or novella to offer for free in its entirety. I
am not a fan of excerpts because I like to see that you can start a
story and finish it while resolving all the plot points. But you
don't have to make every single book or novella free. Choose
which one(s) you'll make free. Free does work for you, and I

still believe in it. Choose one of your best works because free
attracts a lot of people. Put them up on places like Obooko, your
first draft blog, your website, Smashwords (and make sure you
opt to distribute your freebies through the Smashwords
distribution system for additional exposure).
What is not worth the investment in the long run is making
every single thing free. That only works short-term. Yes, I
learned that one the hard way.
6. Pricing your books.
I think the $0.99 asking rate might still be to your advantage
when you're starting out, especially on Amazon where they
don't let you offer anything for free, at least yet. Someone said
they’re going to start offering the option, but I’m not sure about
that yet. I'd wait until I started seeing a significant rise in book
sales before upping the price, if that is what you want to do.
You might want to leave one book at $0.99 for a year or two, or
maybe forever. Your choice. I chose the forever route after I
priced most of my books at $2.99 and lost a ton of sales—as in
an 85% drop. I have opted to price my new full-length novels at
$2.99. I figure since the book is new, I have a better chance of
selling better than pricing my older books at $2.99. We’ll see
how that plays out in time.
Pricing, of course, is subjective. You need to do what feels right
for you.
7. Distribution matters.


For sure, I’d use the distribution channels Smashwords has
connections with. Even if you don’t make as much money, each
place you can sell your book is one more chance for exposure. I

upload directly to Amazon but use Smashwords for everything
else. It’s starting to get to the point where I am making more
through Smashwords than through Amazon, though I guess the
UK store is now starting to pick up.
8. Patience.
I can’t explain why a book can sit and sell one copy a month for
half a year and suddenly take off to sell 3000 copies in one
month. It’s the weirdest thing, but I’ve noticed that my books
(at least) will sit there for months and do nothing but then they
just take off. So I suggest being patient. Some authors sell
better sooner than others. I started serious book promotion in
early 2009 by listening to The Creative Penn
(www.thecreativepenn.com), and it’s taken me this long to get
to where I’m at.
9. Periodically set up good deals to reward faithful fans and
encourage potential ones to check you out.
You know that Facebook Author Page and first draft blog idea?
Well, here's a great place to let everyone know you have a
special "sale" going on. Or you can give them a coupon for a
free download of your latest book on Smashwords.
While I will never again offer another full-length book for free,
I can see offering a future short story or novella for free.
However, I only plan to offer free downloads of my full-length
novels to my dedicated fans on my Facebook Author Page and
in my newsletter (which they have to sign up for). That's where
incentive to join your Facebook Author Page and signing up for
your newsletter comes in handy.


10. Keep Writing and Publishing More Books

Every time I publish a new book, my sales on all my other
books go up. I love having a new book out for this reason, but
you don’t want to rush the next book. You want to make it as
good and fresh as possible. Will you look back on previous
works and think, "Gee, I think I could have done better?"
Maybe. I know I do. But should you go back and rewrite them?
I'm going to say no. Instead, I suggest taking care of easy
things, like typos and moving on. Just keep going because no
matter how many times you rewrite a book, there will always be
someone who hates it and someone who loves it. I have enough
1 to 5 star reviews to prove it.
11. Ads
I didn’t try an ad for two books until this year. I tried one for
my pen name and one for my real name. My pen name didn’t
make enough to pay for the $35 ad. My real name made
probably an extra $150 off Kindle at the Amazon US store for
the month it’s been up. I put my book cover on Coffee Time
Romance (since I write romance), and it worked great. Eye of
the Beholder is typically my third bestselling book on Amazon,
but while the ad was up, it sold the most copies.
Like I said, my pen name yielded a loss. I paid $35 and only
sold 20 books. This was at $0.99. So from this, I think ads are
more effective for authors who have gained some recognition
with their name. For an unknown author, kindleboards and/or a
free read might be better. (Again, my opinion.)

*****


Author’s Note

I co-administer the Self-Published Author’s Lounge at
This is a joint effort
between myself and other authors who have a desire to help
authors out. Recently, we established a forum to go in
conjunction with the blog. Feel free to stop by. I think the best
way we can learn is by sharing what’s worked and what hasn’t.
If it weren’t for other authors sharing their tips, I wouldn’t be
where I’m at today.