Tag: advertising

SFFMP 198: Mastering Amazon Ads with Brian Meeks

Author Interview, Podcast

Jo and Lindsay talked with the famous (not infamous!) Brian Meeks today, author of Mastering Amazon Ads, as well as thrillers, satire, and science fiction (under a pen name). He started tinkering with Amazon ads a couple of years ago when they first came on the scene, and they turned into a game-changer for him, allowing him to sell a lot more books and eventually quit the day job.

Now, he spends a lot of time in his Amazon ads Facebook group helping other authors, and he’s also got a course you can sign up for if you want more than is in his book. If you want to check it out, he’s offering our listeners 30% off — throw in the coupon code of SFFMP30.

Mastering Amazon Ads: An Author’s Course

Here are some specifics we covered in the show:

  • The basics of Amazon ads and how they work.
  • The difference between product display ads and sponsored product ads (and why Brian is a big fan of the former even though most people jump on the latter).
  • How long you should wait to see if an ad is going to catch and run well.
  • How recent changes to the ad system (August 2018) have got everyone bidding higher right now and authors may want to wait until things settle down again.
  • Why you should be patient and give everything time before raising the bid or selecting the new option to increase your bid up to 50%.
  • Whether it makes sense to advertise books that are wide and that can’t make money from page reads in Kindle Unlimited.
  • Whether it’s possible to pay for ads on a free ebook and come out ahead (i.e. when it’s a series starter).
  • How good copywriting is important, not just for the ads but for your book description.
  • Having an effective hook and drawing the reader to click more on Amazon.
  • How much time it really takes to get Amazon ads to move the dial for you — it’s not a quick fix or a set-it-and-forget-it method.
  • Once you get some success, scaling it.

Don’t forget to check out Brian’s Mastering Amazon Ads book, and you can also take a peek at his fiction. He’s written some scifi under Arthur Byrne starting with The Magellan Apocalypse.

 

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SFFMP 175: The Rapid Release Strategy, Getting Reviews as a New Author, and Where to Spend your Advertising Money

Group Discussion, Podcast

This week, Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay answered listener questions on a variety of topics such as how to spend $1,000 on advertising to get the most out of your launch, how to get reviews as a new author, whether we use review or street teams, and how often to release books if you’re banking them to do a rapid release. We also answer the question Jeff always asks our guests… if you knew then what you know now, what would you have done differently?

Here are a few of the more specific topics we covered:

  • Writing and publishing in multiple sub-genres at once, yay or nay?
  • Advertising strategies for a book launch.
  • Street teams and whether we use them.
  • Amazon closing its submissions to Kindle Scout.
  • Selling boxed sets at more than $9.99 and still getting a 70% royalty at Kobo.
  • Doing hard cover omnibuses and large print editions of your books.
  • Going wide with audiobooks or staying exclusive with Audible.
  • Jo’s experience with Kindle Worlds since they started including KW stories in Kindle Unlimited.
  • Whether it’s worth maintaining an author presence on Facebook even if you’re not planning to spend money on ads.
  • When you’re doing a rapid release strategy for a series, how often you should get those first few books out there.
  • Where to invest $1,000 on advertising for the launch of a new series.
  • How long to let Amazon AMS ads run.
  • Our previous podcast on Amazon AMS ads with Tom Corson-Knowles.
  • Will people do newsletter swaps with you if your list is small?
  • Finding fantasy and science fiction authors to swap with via the SF/F Cross Promo Bulletin Board Facebook group.
  • Whether single-author boxed sets are still useful to put together.

If you have better answers to any of the questions than our venerable but not infallible hosts had, feel free to chime in below!

 

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SFFMP 169: Writing Across Genres, Getting New Books to Stick, and Epic/Military Fantasy with David Estes

Author Interview, Podcast

This week, David Estes–author of dystopian fiction, children’s fiction, and epic fantasy (with more genres on the way)–joined us to talk about jumping into epic/military fantasy last year, how he managed to launch well into a new genre, and how he’s kept his books in the category top 100s on Amazon for the last year. We also discussed how he got his books picked up by Podium Publishing for audiobook versions and some of the challenges of marketing audio.

Here are some of the specifics that we covered:

  • The various subgenres of fantasy and science fiction that David has written in and whether it’s been harder or easier to find success when he’s been “genre hopping.”
  • The relatively recent addition of “military fantasy” as a category on Amazon.
  • Common tropes or what readers expect from military fantasy as a subgenre.
  • Having audiobooks produced through a publisher verses producing your own through ACX.
  • Some of the challenges of marketing audiobooks and the importance of finding a good narrator.
  • How much better longer books often do when it comes to audiobooks (due to the Audible credit system).
  • Why David rapid released his first three epic fantasy novels and if he’ll do it again for his next series.
  • Keeping the momentum and publishing regularly even when you’re working a day job and writing long novels.
  • The advertising and group promos that helped David with his launch into a new genre.
  • How much he’s spending on advertising and what’s working best for him (hint: Bookbub’s pay-per-click ads) to keep his first book in the Top 100 for epic fantasy month in and month out.
  • Whether people are willing to tolerate a higher price point on longer novels.
  • Adding bonus content such as short stories to the end of novels (especially those in Kindle Unlimited) rather than selling them as 99-cent stand-alones.

Visit David’s website to see what he’s up to or check out his books on Amazon. You can also visit his Goodreads fan group, which he talked about during the interview, or follow his progress with his new Patreon page.

 

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SFFMP 168: Mailing List Tips and The Three-year, No-bestseller Plan for Making a Sustainable Living from Your Fiction

Author Interview, Podcast

Return guest Patty Jansen, who continues to make a great income from her fiction without being a mega seller, joined us today (live from Lindsay’s office) to talk about different types of mailing lists we can run as authors, organizing group promotions, and using a global approach to marketing that will gain you fans on all the platforms and all over the world. (She may be one of the few of us with a big fan-base in South Africa!)

Here are some of the specifics that we covered:

  • How Patty invests more into her series that are proven sellers with an 80% read-through rate.
  • What kinds of advertising she’s doing to keep a steady stream of new readers trying her books and signing up for her newsletters.
  • The Kboards post that led to her writing three books for authors, talking about the tactics she’s used to grow to a full-time income even without being a huge seller on Amazon or “sticking” there with new releases.
  • How she has found luck targeting markets that most people don’t advertise to because the countries don’t have Amazon stores (she specifically mentioned South Africa and sending people to her newsletter signup page where they could get free books).
  • Gauging trends and what’s working when you have more of a “long tail” approach.
  • How Patty is going to approach selling ARCs on her site of a series she will later release into KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited to give that a try.
  • Whether she is worried about pirate sites or not.
  • The different types of mailing lists Patty has (one is her author one and one is more of a promo mini-Bookbub style list) and how she goes about acquiring subscribers and making both profitable.
  • Which mailing list host you might want to consider — if you’re going to grow a list as large as you can, perhaps with group promos and Instafreebie, you’ll definitely want to get set up with a provider that’s cheaper at higher numbers of subscribers (she recommended MailerLite).
  • Some common mistakes that authors make in regard to mailing lists.
  • How she gauges success with her mailing lists (open rates, link clicks, etc.).
  • Whether authors need the mailing list hosts with higher tiered plans that offer more bells and whistles.
  • How often authors should email their subscribers.
  • Different types of auto-responder series that Patty has tried.
  • Using the WooCommerce WordPress plug-in for managing sales and email.
  • Whether it’s a good idea to ask questions and invite fans to email back.

You can visit Patty’s website for information about her books, the promo page there to be notified when she does her big 99-cent multi-author promos, and join the SF/F Cross Promo Bulletin Facebook group to link up with other authors wanting to do newsletter swaps.

If you’re interested in her non-fiction, the first book in her series is Self-publishing Unboxed (The Three-year, No-bestseller Plan For Making a Sustainable Living From Your Fiction Book 1).

If you want to try out her fiction, check out the first book in her scifi Ambassador series or fantasy fans can check out the first book in her Icefire Trilogy for free.

Also, check out the earlier shows that Patty was on:

 

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SFFMP 164: 2018 Marketing Predictions, Our Author Resolutions, and When to Advertise What

Group Discussion, Podcast

Happy New Year! The guys chatted amongst themselves on today’s show, talking about some of their predictions of where book marketing is going in 2018 (what’s making a return and what’s falling by the wayside?) and some of their own author resolutions. They also covered a number of listener questions on topics such as whether to advertise later books in a series, Facebook videos, and whether readers cross over to other genres and pen names.

Here are a few more of the specifics we talked about:

  • Jeff moving to Phoenix and leaving the day job to write full time.
  • Lindsay’s recent fantasy book launch and a few things that didn’t go as well as hoped.
  • Why Lindsay started a Patreon campaign for fans that want to get her books early.
  • When should you switch to advertising the newest in a popular series rather than the first book?
  • Some of the guys’ easiest and hardest sells when it comes to their own books, and what they leaned from the experiences.
  • Making sure not to continue to throw a lot of money at books that just aren’t able to sell on their own.
  • Why Jo and Lindsay are both planning to put out more free fiction (short stories) for their fans.
  • Whether it’s better to write and release more short novels or if longer novels give you an advantage.
  • Predictions that more authors will work to lessen their reliance on Amazon in the coming year.
  • Diversifying your author income.
  • Will we see a return of some popular book marketing tactics from a few years ago?
  • More and more authors writing in the same genre forming groups to help each other with promotions.
  • A possible return to an emphasis on finding your true fans and building a relationship with them rather than just worrying about scoring big with the Amazon algorithms.
  • The pros and cons of cross-over when you’re writing in multiple genres.
  • Whether video on Facebook ads will continue to grow and if there’s any use for authors.

If you want to check out your hosts’ work, you can try Jeffrey Poole’s first Corgi mystery novel for free right now, or get his first Tales of Lentari fantasy novel for 99 cents.

You can try Jo’s first steampunk novel, Free Wrench, for free. You can also check out his new fantasy short story Entwell Origins: Ayna.

Lindsay’s Dragon Storm is out on Amazon, and her Dragon Blood boxed set is free everywhere for another week or two.

 

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SFFMP 47: Our Book Launch Processes and Author Websites (what to do and what not to do)

Group Discussion, Podcast

This evening, the three of us shared what we do to launch new books, and then Lindsay went through the list she’s making for when she gets a new website designed (by no later than 2017, really!). Here are some of the highlights of the conversation:

  • Newsletters and social media announcements, staggering for launches
  • Recruiting reviewers before the book is released
  • Possibly getting more sales by using pre-orders
  • Updating back matter in earlier books with links to new books
  • Sharing preview materials with readers
  • Facebook boosted posts (the only advertising we do for launches)
  • Updating Goodreads and Shelfari when you release books, especially if you’re a new author — nobody’s going to do it for you!
  • Making sure you have an Author Central profile at Amazon and then claiming new books.
  • Domain names: your author name vs. your world/universe/book series name
  • Using WordPress as the backbone to your website
  • Getting author websites up and running inexpensively
  • Putting newsletter sign-up forms “above the fold” so people don’t have to scroll
  • Having a “new readers start here” kind of section for people who visit your site for the first time
  • Static home pages versus having your blog on there with the latest updates
  • Some of Lindsay’s WordPress plug-ins: Shareaholic (makes your blog posts easily shareable on social media sites), ContactForm, Google Analytics (tracking stats to the nth level), PrettyLink (free version — shortens and tracks links), Subscribe to Comments (lets those who comment get notified when people respond), WP-Polls (poll your readers in a blog post), WP-Postviews (at a glance, see how many times your posts have been read)
  • Avoiding too much clutter, making it hard for people to find the links to check out your books, using ads on author websites, forgetting to have links to all stores, not having a list of your books, and getting into posting schemes with other authors

 

 

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SFFMP 46: Getting More from Your eBook Advertising with FreeBooksy’s Ferol Vernon

Author Interview, Podcast

Tonight, after Lindsay tripped her way through the introduction (talking *and* pressing buttons… too much pressure), she and Jeff interviewed Ferol Vernon from Written Word Media. He and his wife are the founders of such sites as BargainBooksy, FreeBooksy, and New in Books. We wanted to know what he could tell us from the point of view of someone running one of the sites where we authors like to advertise.

Here’s some of what we talked about:

  • What are the Freebooksy and Bargainbooksy sites, and why should readers and authors be interested?
  • Ferol’s thoughts on what makes one book perform better (more clicks and sales) than another for any given genre.
  • The importance of good cover art and whether there are any genres where cover art doesn’t matter quite as much.
  • Authors getting more bang for their advertising bucks by stacking promotions.
  • The blog post Taylor (a Written Word Media employee) did on “How to Price Your eBook to Gain Readers and Maximize Author Earnings“
  • Are free books still effective?
  • Is it possible to promote a mid-series book or are series starters always going to be more effective?
  • Do certain genres have a higher percentage of click-through?
  • Should you write different blurbs for these sponsorships than you do for your book on Amazon?
  • Can putting a book’s accolades (i.e. USA Today Bestseller or winner of such-and-such award) help get more clicks and sales?

For more information, or to submit your book for an advertising slot, check out BargainBooksy, FreeBooksy, and New in Books (the last one is a new site of theirs that features new releases, so no minimum review requirements and no need to put the book on sale).

 

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SFFMP 43: Bestseller Joshua Dalzelle Talks Space Opera and Selling Books Without a Website

Author Interview, Podcast

Tonight we interviewed hugely popular space opera author, Joshua Dalzelle. The guy doesn’t have a website, an Amazon bio, and he’s only recently started a mailing list, but he sure sells books. Here’s some of what we discussed tonight:

  • How Joshua got this far without a website, and are websites/social media/mailing lists really needed, or are they overrated?
  • The state of space opera right now (is it more popular than ever?)
  • What makes space opera space opera? Versus some other type of science fiction?
  • Light-hearted sci-fi adventures versus darker, techier sci-fi–is there room for both?
  • Cover art that portrays the tone of the book as well as branding the series
  • AskDavid.com for getting reviews
  • Advertising sites that Joshua hasn’t gotten much mileage out of
  • Are multi-author bundles still useful for getting the word out?
  • How having multiple series going can help feed the sales of both
  • Pricing for novels — is $2.99/$3.99 a good bet or are you leaving money on the table?
  • Incentives for readers to get them onto a mailing list–especially if you get started with one late!

You can find Joshua on Facebook and Twitter, and check out his Omega Force books and the Black Fleet trilogy on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

 

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SFFMP 19: Making Books Permafree, Where to Buy Sponsorships, and Tumblr with C. Gockel

Author Interview, Podcast

We interviewed C. Gockel this week (don’t tell anyone, but we found out that C stands for Carolynn), urban fantasy author of the I Bring the Fire series (the first book is free, so go check it out!). She hasn’t quit her day job yet, but it sounds like she’s getting close to making “professional income.”

Here’s a summary of some of the questions we asked her:

  • How did writing fan fiction lead to a career as a successful indie author?
  • Are there any advantages to starting out with fan fiction? Any lessons a new author can learn?
  • When you start thinking about publishing (and making some money!), is it better to modify a successful fanfic to make it an original story, or are you better off starting something new?
  • How has having a permafree Book 1 affected the sales of later books in your series? Is it still effective, even though your first ebook has been free for quite a while now?
  • What do you do to promote your permafree title and keep the sales of subsequent books rolling in month after month?
  • Have you tried discounting other books in your series, or do you stick with the first?
  • Are any advertisers more worth it than others, or do some charge too much? (Carolynn wisely did not want to dis anyone, but she gave some tips for evaluating whether a sponsorship site is worth it.)
  • You use Tumblr for your blogging platform — does it offer any advantages over more traditional spots?
  • Do you ever get fans offering to help “edit” your books or offering other advice? How do you deal with that?

Looking for the free resource spreadsheets we mentioned in the show? Here are Carolynn’s links:

Sponsors Who Advertise FREE Ebooks
Sponsors Who Advertise 99 Cent Ebooks

 

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