THE PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING

 

That's it, that's my book! 

I received my first proof recently, from Blurb. Even though I've been professionally published a bunch of times already in actual books, it's always nice and a little surreal to hold a physical object with my words in it. 

The proof was really handy, too, because I could see that the back blurb needs resizing a little so it doesn't cross the crease, and the interior font is a little too big at 12pt. 

I've spent the last week or so making tweaks to these things and reuploading files to the various sites I'll be using to publish/sell the novel, so that's going to delay getting fresh proofs/copies to send to ARC readers. 

But, I accounted for this with a lengthy marketing period - this month has largely been soft reminders, and in I think two weeks I've managed to get 6 people interested in getting an ARC copy, and that's okay with me. 

BOOK REVIEWS

My idea is to use some related sites/services (such as BookSirens and Readers' Favourites) even though the former is apparently more suited to romance books. Both are cheap so I figure it's worth a shot - $10 a month for BookSirens and $2 for every reviewer, unless you send your own ARC readers to the site. 

RF is free, but you're not guaranteed reviews. You can pay $60+ for guaranteed reviews, although they're not guaranteed to be favourable. However, each paid plan DOES include a month in the 'Book Rotator', which shows book details across the site in a specific ad. THAT seems worthwhile to me.

In any case, that's all stuff I'll be looking at doing in August, which is also when pre-orders will start (doesn't seem much point in getting reviews/drumming up interest unless there's an actual product to get all that attention).

AMAZON ADS

I've been digging into Facebook ads and the general consensus seems to be they're a waste of time/money. Amazon Ads, however, can be targeted to Kindle users, with things like 'lock screen' ads. ie. when someone turns their Kindle back on, the first thing they could see is your book staring them in the face. I'll definitely give these a try, once the book's live (October onwards). 

Seems that you 'bid' for ad space, and if your bid is higher than someone else, your ad is the one that's shown in or on a particular area/part of a site, etc. For example, if I bid $10 to get a lock screen ad, and three other people bid $9, $5 and $2, mine would be shown. Those other people would then not have to spend any money, whereas I would be charged $10.

GO WIDE OR GO HOME

I'm also looking into ad space on horror sites, since that's my target audience. I don't actually have a marketing budget, since I have two kids to look after and general life things to pay for (like rent and a new resident permit for Slovenia), so I'm looking to spend as little as possible in ways that, hopefully, achieve as wide a reach as possible. 

That seems to be key: going wide. It's an accepted fact that, certainly for self-published writers, Amazon is the main source of income for many, but that doesn't mean all advertising should be done there. Nor should a book only be sold on there, especially when it doesn't cost any money to get it listed on a ton of other sites! 

One marketing 'trick' I've seen mentioned a lot is using Amazon's Kindle Select option some time after release - ie. let your book be bought from as many different sites as possible, then see how many reads/sales you get solely through Kindle Unlimited. It's risky, but I'm curious. 

And that's where I'm at. Baby steps. Having the patience to build up interest in an organic manner. For instance, when I posted the pics of the proof copy on Facebook, THAT got a ton more comments and interaction than a normal "here's my cover art and blurb" post. I guess people like to see an actual product, know it's a real thing they could also have.

You could, too! Check out This Sentence Is Haunted for deets, or click HERE.

NEXT TIME: I'm looking at writing a killer blurb that hooks readers straight away AND gives them an idea of what the book is actually like.