The two Facebook ads I posted a couple of days ago have been selling books like gangbusters! And making a profit? Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves… It’s the best pay-per-click ad response I’ve ever had. My targeting is nothing different from what I’ve done before, just the ads are different. I’m targeting US and UK, to similar authors mostly. Yesterday I sold 18 books, including one reader who bought the whole Last Mayor series in one go – 9 books. Normally I sell 1 or 2 a day. From Feb 1-5 I’ve spent 65 pounds on ads and …
Why am I not a millionnaire author yet?
This question popped in my head the other day, and hasn’t been far from my thoughts since – begging to be turned into a full-bore navel-gazing blogalysis (blog analysis) of all my past books in summary and why they didn’t go large. I’ve done this before, in bits. For instance, I’ve blogalyzed in detail all the book covers I’ve ever had – and come up with the unsurprising conclusion that they were always bad. So chalk that one up: Bad book covers The Saint Ignifer covers were illustrated and weird for the epic fantasy genre. The Ruin books were just …
International bookbub day!
Today The Saint’s Rise is having it’s International Bookbub! It’s too early to talk about results – but the FB campaign reached a high of 8 copies sold already today, so that’s a nice starting point. Here’s the copy BB used: They call the Rot a black lava, which it’s not, but it doesn’t really matter because I suppose it could be. Otherwise it’s pretty nice. Maybe I’ll use it, or the structure of it, for future ads! Also Sen is a boy at the start, a teenager later on, but probably ‘man’ converts better with this audience…
1 day before International bookbub – Marketing Report
My Facebook ad for The Saint’s Rise continues to deliver, though the price of clicks has increased. I was getting them for less than 20p, now it’s closer to 25p. Tomorrow is the Bookbub, and I think I’ll just switch the FB ads off for the day – then maybe turn them back on in the aftermath, to try and maintain rank. On the 7th, 8th and 9th I spent 32 pounds on FB ads. I switched off the Bookbub ads as I got nothing. On those days I sold 15 copies of The Saint’s Rise on Amazon uk and …
3 days before International Bookbub – marketing report
My ad on Facebook continues to perform pretty nicely, in the last 4 days since ads started it has sold 8 copies on amazon, half of those at the full 4.99 price, half at 99p, and 4 copies through iTunes, half at full price, half at 99p. So I’ve made about 20 pounds, for an outlay of 40 (at 10 a day). A 100% loss of 20 pounds. So why so chipper? These are better results than I’ve ever really had with a Facebook promo before, and my goal here is not to make momey (yet), it’s to juice the …
New ads for The Saint’s Rise
With my International Bookbub on The Saint’s Rise coming up in 6 days (Jan 10), I’ve started up a couple of new ads focused on the UK market (my biggest market after the US) to try and juice the ranking ahead of time. Here’s the FaceBook ad: I’ve never tried putting all retailers links in the body of the ad before, or leading with the major audiobook headline. I also rewrote the story summary – before it was primarily about the bizarre world, but now: All Sen’s young life he’s been hunted – by the pitiless King and his nightmare …
Podcast time!
I’m gonna be on the Fantasy Fiends podcast Dec 20 with Andy Peloquin and Steve – pretty excited as it’s my first time to be interviewed live. They send a preview kit which I just filled in – and of course I put forward my days as an adventurer as my topic. Yeah. I don’t talk about my ruins exploring days much – but of course I still know all this stuff, and remember all the adventures. I suppose I carry it all around with me, and even though I’m not actively exploring/adventuring anymore, it absolutely drives who I am …
Trying my damnedest…
For the past couple of days I have been trying my damnedest to join Amazon uk’s marketing scheme. My word, they don’t half make it difficult. First I signed up for an Amazon Advantage Account. Then I used that to sign up for the AMS Marketing account, waited a day, and got rejected! In the rejection they sent me a link to the Amazon US marketing scheme with the advice that I ‘re-register’ with a new email. But my US AMS ads are working fine! I want to be in the UK AMS! I emailed their contact person. We have …
Writing Update 2018 week 47
Yesterday I took my heart in my mouth and sent a message to one of my favorite thriller authors – someone I’ve corresponded briefly with before. I just finished one of his books and loved it. There was much in common with the thriller I’ve just written – human trafficking, white supremacists, a hero damaged in childhood now pursuing a Dexter-like vigilante revenge. So in my message I asked if he’d be willing to take a look at my book and maybe offer a blurb. Unfortunately, he replied within minutes with a considerate but firm no. He was busy, which …
The Rot’s War in audio Dec 18!!
Book 2 of the Ignifer Cycle – The Rot’s War – is coming in a month (December 18) as an audiobook! Podium are releasing it to follow up their August launch of book 1, The Saint’s Rise. The promotional effort for this looks to be epic. I am going to push it to my list and hopefully via Bookbub. They are going to push it to their phenomenal list for the first time. I’m thinking it’s going to be huge. Here’s the cover for audio. More on this as we get closer!