by Jill Amadio
How many of us buy site ads to promote our books?
Grinding my teeth at low sales in August I was able to ask a couple of successful authors how they manage to keep their titles before the public. Brenda Novak, who writes the Dr. Evelyn Talbot thrillers, said that one of the publicity tools she uses are book marketing sites. Although her wallet is somewhat fatter than those of many of us with four million copies of her books sold, Brenda still sends some of her personal advertising dollars to these sites.
Among her tactics: Organize your own book group on Facebook. It’s free. Offer inexpensive swag such as commemorative pins in exchange for downloading only your book titles from her web site – not the books themselves.
Add a shopping page to your own website to sell T-shirts, mini-totes, Christmas ornaments, etc. Brenda said that it cost her $2,000 initially to set up her online shop and now it is hugely successful.
Another tactic she uses is to create a Foodie Friday recipe which she cooks and posts on her Facebook and Instagram accounts, including a video.
Book trailers are one of her favorite ways to attract attention although she cautions that changing it regularly is key. To keep costs low (still expensive!!), the video company she contracts with uses stock video for much of the content.
Another tip: offer giveaways – one of her most popular was on Facebook Live in which she read from her books.
Find a company that sells “scrap” advertising which are spots in major magazines discounted at the last minute. But don’t let the “scrap” description fool you. Brenda says that even discounted, it can cost a bundle. Nevertheless, one she found available was in People magazine, and she is always on the lookout for deadline deals with women’s magazines.
“Not all marketing endeavors achieve the same goal. Some are more about brand building,” she told me. “I look at marketing my books like a farmer might his fields – it’s what I put into the soil before planting that makes the biggest difference in the end.”
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Away from Brenda’s heady, enterprising and pricey ads are the less expensive and free methods used by some of us Writers in Residence and by our colleague, psychological thriller writer Sheila Lowe. Like Brenda, Sheila subscribes to www.BookBub.com, a web site that sends out daily emails advertising books to millions of readers, although costs can be high.
Here’s how it works: you set a maximum price you’ll pay for the exposure, say $100. When someone clicks on your book cover you get charged a certain amount of money for the impression. After your stated maximum budget, the $100, is reached, BookBub takes down your ad. You can choose which readers and audiences you want to target by genre, interests, retailers, and location, and you can monitor your campaign on the site’s dashboard. Extremely popular, the site has a waiting list of authors eager to sign up.
While Sheila takes advantage of the benefits Facebook offers including its Authors Page, she likes affordable subscription sites such as www.BargainBooksy.com and www.RobinReads.com. The latter is a free author promotion service affiliated with Amazon and you don’t have to be part of Amazon’s Prime/Kindle Unlimited yourself to use it. The site focuses on promoting eBooks which are now enjoying a massive surge. RobinReads buyers pay for discounted books if they choose to buy them only on Amazon. However, the deals are swift, lasting only 24 hours before they are retired for fresh offers.
At BargainBooksy with around 3,000 subscribers, advertising for eBooks is also king along with print books. After a buyer clicks on a link to a specific book they are taken to Amazon’s web site, where the book can cost 0.99 cents or less, while pricing is based on your genre. This, of course, affects your royalties, so unless you are only targeting publicity you might want to reconsider. However, the site also links to your books at Kobo, Apple, and Nook, and to your own web site.
To splurge, you can buy a $50 BargainBooksy Deal of the Day promotion on FreeBooksy, a specialized-genre readers’ site designed to boost your click-through rates and purchases with free books that are not available on the main site.
So, there you have it. A few costly as well as reasonably-priced ideas. Raid your piggy bank!
Jill Amadio is from Cornwall, UK, but unlike her amateur sleuth, Tosca Trevant, she is far less grumpy. Jill began her career as a reporter in London (UK), then Madrid (Spain), Bogota (Colombia), Bangkok (Thailand), Hong Kong, and New York. She is the ghostwriter of 14 memoirs, and wrote the Rudy Valle biography, “My Vagabond Lover,” with his wife, Ellie. Jill writes a column for a British mystery magazine, and is an audio book narrator. She is the author of the award-winning mystery, “Digging Too Deep.” The second book in the series, “Digging Up the Dead,” was released this year. The books are based in Newport http://www.jillamadio.com
Books: Digging Too Deep, Digging Up the Dead
Non-Fiction: My Vagabond Lover: An Intimate Biography of Rudy Vallee; Gunther Rall: A Memoire, Luftwaffe Ace and NATO General
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This article was posted for Jill Amadio by Jackie Houchin
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The Writers in Residence 
Through the years I have watched the cost of advertising go higher and higher, but sales seldom follow suit. I am sure the marketing folks like the money they make, but authors are not benefiting all that much. But we never know when one strategy will work, so we keep trying… until we run out of money. Thanks for some new ideas, Jill. You never know what might actually help sell a book or two.
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Great ideas, Jill, but a lot of time could be involved as well as money. I used to work in advertising and public relations but don’t use much in my background to promote my books!
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Some great ideas, Jill, thanks!
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Excellent suggestions for reaching a broader audiences, Jill. Authors whose sales are in the dozens, not the thousands, may wonder if paying to promote their books will make a significant difference. I know several writers who’ve gambled with promotional ads and give-aways and never recouped the cost in sales. Perhaps they picked the wrong strategy, or ran out of money before it became effective. Or maybe their books didn’t appeal to enough readers. However, for those who have a way to pinpoint their audience and can afford the investment, it would make sense to research and follow your examples. And for writers who harbor a touch of the Cinderella fantasy, that some literary or Hollywood Prince(ss) Charming will happen upon and fall in love with our book…?
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Some great ideas, Jill. Who knew this could get so expensive and time-consuming? When does one find time to write!
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