SFFMP 184: Marketing Wastes of Time, Covers for Newsletter Magnets, and Selling Quirky Stories
This week, Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay answered listener questions–a lot of them! We went for an hour and a half so brace yourselves!
Here’s the list of questions we addressed:
Benjamin: I’d love to hear opinions on where the stuffing stuff (see anything from @DavidGaughran lately) meets back-of-book sequel previews, ML magnet previews, and promises of free stories in return for ML signups. Seems murky to me, not sure if I should be worried.
Roland: What do authors worry about that are really a big ol’ waste of time when it comes to sales and marketing? Getting into stores? What else?
Jim: I often hear that the first book takes the longest. My first epic fantasy has taken me years. I’m doing revisions now, and I’ve been working on the book since 2015, making it firmly a loss leader. What did you learn that made you faster?
Kirsten: Pros and cons of a pen name? Especially if you plan to write sci fi and non-fiction (as a psychologist).
Finn:
I have a query/topic for discussion. As self-pub authors, should we be moving our websites over to https?
I saw this headline and started getting a bit concerned: Effective July 2018, Google’s Chrome browser will mark non-HTTPS sites as ‘not secure’
K Vale Nagle:
How crucial is a cover for the newsletter reader magnet? Fantasy covers cost a good chunk, I can’t really afford to get another novel quality cover for a freebie, but I worry that I need to.
I’m considering combining the first three novel covers in a graphic design stylistically pleasing way and having it be a three short story reader magnet. I’m probably over thinking this.
Holly:
Any advice for being successful while writing something a bit quirky and not quite to market would be interesting.
How to find your readers and keep them, rather than targeting more broadly would also be great.
Dale: For each of you, how much do you commit to a particular series before beginning it? In other words, do you plan for so many books in advance, or do you wait and see how the first few do first before writing more?
Devyn: Also, I think one of you said (pretty sure it was you) that it’s best not to name your series after the first book in the series. Can you shed more light on why it’s not a good idea? I feel like I’m missing something.
Devyn: Is it better to launch 2 books in a series on the same day or wait a week/10 days in between publication? I’m going to launch a new series in June & not sure which is best approach.
S Usher: Do you think email newsletters are hitting their saturation point?
Jon: What kind of content have you seen in author newsletters that was unique/interesting/worth implementing in your own newsletters?
Lon: Do you think that even a trilogy, as a starting point for a series launch, isn’t enough?
Stephan:
Are you purchasing your own ISBNs for ebooks? While obviously not required for Amazon, it’s needed for Overdrive and other platforms. If you get free ISBNs (from Smashwords, etc), did it happen that you got 2 ISBNs for the same ebook?
Amazon has suspended lots of accounts recently for fraudulent activity, like they seem to do every year. Were any of you affected by the substantial loss in page reads, reported on kboards and fb?
Joanne: Not sure if it was Jeff or Jo who pulled out of KU, but could we get an update on how it’s going?
Stephan: Have any of you thought about publishing “self publishing help books” like Joanna Penn or Mark Dawson?
Sky Gate Tale: Currently writing sci-fi, and my chapters are coming out longer than usual. At around 4K to 6k each. Longer or shorter chapters which is better?
Ayan: What’s in the bottles behind Jeff? Could be beer but on phone portrait mode they look like sauces or potions.
Felicity: I would love to hear each of your writing inspiration stories. When did you know that writing was the career for you?
Benjamin: My question is: what word will each of you now be trademarking?
William: What’s your perfect Sunday?
Cookie Brain: Tell the story of how you three got together and started the podcast, please.
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Thanks so much, folks. Not only did I stay with the show until the end, but I’m relistening to it and taking notes.
These master episodes are so useful.
Blessings,
E
We appreciate you listening to the end, Ethan. Glad it was useful!
I just wanted to address a few things mentioned in the show.
SSL – If you gather any personal data, like an email address of a newsletter subscriber, your site should be in SSL. It’s actually REALLY EASY to set up SSL if you have WordPress. I bought my SSL certificate from my hosting provider. Once I had it and it was installed on my domain (they did that for me), all I had to do was download and use the Really Simple SSL plugin for WordPress. It takes care of all the SSL redirects and you’re done. I set it up on my site in less than 30 minutes.
Naming your book after the first in the series – Yes, don’t do this because also Amazon won’t display the series name if it’s the same name as the book (been there, done that.)
Another great show!
Thanks for the tip on the SSL certificate, SJ!
Hey, I shuddered a little when i heard the SSL advice, and SJ’s comment is right on the money.
My background (outside of writing) is in web dev and online marketing. You have to think of SSL not about something being enforced by Google and other browsers (yes it is, but for good reason) but about protecting your audience.
Reasons for https:
– protect your readers/customers private information
– search engine marketing
– it’s a trust signal – very important in the marketing to purchase cycle
– there’s potentially legal implications
– make your site secure (reduce the likelihood of malware on your site)
– because it’s best practice
All of our marketing effort for our books is as you say about helping convert people into spending their money and time on the things we make, so you need to make sure you don’t breach that trust simply from it not being something you want to do.
Most author sites at a minimum ask for a newsletter signup, and while the destination site might be secure, if you have fields on your site that a user enters data into before submitting and your site isn’t secure then you are not protecting that users information.
Other insecure elements on sites include; the wordpress login page, contact forms, entry forms for competitions, shopping processes etc.
It’s actually easier now to become secure than have selective secure elements.
All ‘good’ hosting companies offer secure Free SSL, commonly from Let’s Encrypt, and open SSL platform, but there are others.
You don’t need to buy a certificate at the level of most author sites, and the cost you pay for a certificate would justify moving to a better host, so you don’t have to pay year on year.
You can use a plugin like SJ suggested to tidy up your site or there’s a fix that needs to occur on a site to make it fully secure.
Note Jeff and Jo, your sites while having https they aren’t ‘fixed’ so they have insecure content as well as secure content, which technically marks the site as insecure. This is a common issue, where the theme calls out to google fonts (or other plugins) using an old http call and not https – you probably need to update the theme.
Also mentioned in the chat during the episode is the impact https is having on organic search rankings. It is a signal used in search ranking, it’s not the only one but it’s as important as speed and mobile.
It’s all about trust, and whether we like having it pushed on us, our job in marketing is to appeal to our audience and if you want to make them trust you, so that they will buy into your as a provider, then taking the time to make your site secure should be a no-brainer.
With GDPR and Cambridge Analytica being in the press of late many users are actually taking their privacy much more seriously. Consideration should also be about any legal implication as more and more countries bring in stricter privacy legislation. If you refuse to protect your site and you get caught up in a breach, there may be ramifications.
IMHO.
Thank you for the information, Darryl!