Shamelessly (& Endlessly) Promote Your Blog/Website/Review site - Page 27

NickSpalding · 06-29-2011, 10:54 AM

Having had a a pretty boring day at work, I thought I'd finally get round to learning how to use Twitter properly... rather than just somewhere my blog posts get slapped up onto.

I now know what hashtags and trending are, and I feel at one with the social network...

Can anybody recommend good book resources to follow?

I'm @spalding_author if you fancy following me... and I promise not to tweet about the contents of my earholes or how much I hate cabbage.

Well, not every day anyway...

tubemonkey · 06-29-2011, 11:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NickSpalding

I now know what hashtags and trending are, and I feel at one with the social network...

Does your life have meaning now?

I don't Twitter or Facebook. Sometimes I wonder if I'm missing out on something important; most times, not.

NickSpalding · 06-29-2011, 12:18 PM

If by 'meaning' you mean an excuse to tell everyone some asinine information about my day, complain about the weather and spam celebrities with my opinions on their fashion sense... then yes, absolutely!

Nyssa · 06-29-2011, 01:08 PM

I don't Twitter, but I do Facebook and it has come in handy...Show reminders...free books...free music directly from iTunes...and of course keeping up with friends and family not where I am.

I enjoy it, and can ignore it when I want or need to.

tubemonkey · 06-29-2011, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NickSpalding

If by 'meaning' you mean an excuse to tell everyone some asinine information about my day, complain about the weather and spam celebrities with my opinions on their fashion sense... then yes, absolutely!

LOL

tubemonkey · 06-29-2011, 01:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NickSpalding

Can anybody recommend good book resources to follow?

Have you considered following the tweets of a general purpose ebook blog like GoodEReader?

NickSpalding · 06-29-2011, 03:01 PM

I'll give it a go

Oh, and I have no idea why this has been moved to self promotion... I didn't think talking about Twitter would constitute it? Oh well... you live and learn!

Frida Fantastic · 06-29-2011, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NickSpalding

If by 'meaning' you mean an excuse to tell everyone some asinine information about my day, complain about the weather and spam celebrities with my opinions on their fashion sense... then yes, absolutely!

I actually only started using Twitter to get more readers for my book review blog, and what's great about it is that you can reach people in your blogging niche. With the people I follow, I read the best Twitter feed around. It's just science fiction/fantasy news, indie book news, rants from comic book writers, and crazy webcomic people. It's kind of a never ending nerd party. I love it.

My Twitter is @FridaSF, if anyone is interested.

Oh yeah, for general ebook news, I seem to get a lot of interesting tweets from @BooksAndPals (yes, of the Jacqueline Howett infamy)
And @GoblinWriter (Lindsay Buroker) tweets about a lot of different stuff, but she has links to her Ebook Endeavours posts.

Crusader · 06-30-2011, 02:47 PM

A quick post on two books I received for review:

http://worldsinink.blogspot.com/2011...eat-books.html

Dodge · 06-30-2011, 11:16 PM

New book covers are up on the homepage (http://www.bookbarista.com) for the month of July. Thanks to those who participated in the marketing of their work. If you wish to have your book advertised for the month of August then please email us at contact@bookbarista.com after 07/05/11.

First come, first serve!

It's FREE

Frida Fantastic · 07-01-2011, 02:43 AM

New review! Good Fences by M. H. Mead http://fridafantastic.wordpress.com/...s-by-m-h-mead/

Genres
Science fiction, short story

You might like this if you like…
Character development, hackers

SidneyW · 07-01-2011, 06:51 AM

I've started posting Book Trailers on my blog and doing occasional interviews. PM me or contact me via the contact link on the blog with any info:

Sid Is Alive

Crusader · 07-01-2011, 03:29 PM

Latest post: Review of Neal Asher's Line War

GoblinWriter · 07-02-2011, 02:01 PM

Hi guys,

I just wrote-up a blog post on How to Sell More Ebooks at Smashwords, and I thought you might be interested. I'm not a mega bestseller there, and my Smashwords sales don't compare to my Amazon sales, but I do seem to sell more there than many. Here's the bulk of the post:

A couple of things that have worked for me:

Doing periodic giveaways via their coupon program

I don’t bother with half-off coupons or anything like that. I do 100% off and make the coupon good for a few days. Then I’ll publicize it in the Mobile Read forum.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve sometimes had bloggers pick up on those giveaways and write them up on their sites. This ends up helping me with promotion, and sometimes the folks who get the freebies go on to pay full-price for other ebooks (just recently, I gave away some free copies of Emperor’s Edge this way, and I had quite a few sales of the sequel, Dark Currents, as a result. Some people picked up Encrypted too).

Talking up the affiliate program

I admittedly haven’t done much with this since I wrote up my “How to Make Money Promoting My Ebooks (and other people’s too)” post back in January, but I do see sales from affliates now and then on my Smashwords dashboard. Quite a few came after that post, which makes me think I should probably put a permanent link to it over in the menu somewhere so new readers can find it.

But, anyway…

We can talk about book promotion techniques all day, but ultimately your fans are the ones who are going to be responsible for your career taking off. If they like your stories, they’ll talk about them regardless (because they’re awesome like that

), but you can give them a further incentive to talk up your books by offering a percentage of the earnings via the Smashwords affiliate program. The default for affiliates is 11%, but you can give away your entire cut if you want (I have my ebooks set at 75%, which is close to the max). These are sales you wouldn’t have gotten if someone else wasn’t promoting your books, so there’s no need to be stingy.

If you do decide to participate in the affiliate program, let your readers know about it. Even folks who shop at Smashwords might not be aware of it, and writing up instructions that let readers know how to add affiliate links to their sites can be helpful for those who are new to the idea.

Advertising

I’ll be the first to admit, advertising tends to be more misses than hits when it comes to book sales (meaning you’ll probably spend more than you make), but, as I’ve mentioned before, I have had some luck with Goodreads pay-per-click ads.

Also, if you have an entire series out, and it’s common for readers to go on to buy the rest of the ebooks after they read the first, it may be worth taking a loss on Book 1.

While Smashwords lacks the name recognition of an Amazon or Barnes & Noble, it’s not a bad place to send people who click on an ad since they do have every ebook format available. You don’t have to worry about wasting money by sending Nook people to your Amazon book page, for example. And, again, since you’ll make the largest cut at Smashwords, there’s another reason to direct people there as opposed to other venues.

Thanks for reading, and good luck with your sales!

simonroyle · 07-02-2011, 08:52 PM

IndieView with Thea Atkinson, author of, Formed of Clay.

06-29-2011, 10:54 AM	#391
NickSpalding Addict Posts: 270 Karma: 1041222 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: UK Device: Kindle	Twitter... good book resources? Having had a a pretty boring day at work, I thought I'd finally get round to learning how to use Twitter properly... rather than just somewhere my blog posts get slapped up onto. I now know what hashtags and trending are, and I feel at one with the social network... Can anybody recommend good book resources to follow? I'm @spalding_author if you fancy following me... and I promise not to tweet about the contents of my earholes or how much I hate cabbage. Well, not every day anyway... Last edited by Dr. Drib; 06-29-2011 at 02:19 PM.

07-02-2011, 02:01 PM	#404
GoblinWriter vizsla wrangler Posts: 73 Karma: 120000 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Seattle Device: Kindle 3G	Tips for Selling More Ebooks at Smashwords Hi guys, I just wrote-up a blog post on How to Sell More Ebooks at Smashwords, and I thought you might be interested. I'm not a mega bestseller there, and my Smashwords sales don't compare to my Amazon sales, but I do seem to sell more there than many. Here's the bulk of the post: A couple of things that have worked for me: Doing periodic giveaways via their coupon program I don’t bother with half-off coupons or anything like that. I do 100% off and make the coupon good for a few days. Then I’ll publicize it in the Mobile Read forum. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve sometimes had bloggers pick up on those giveaways and write them up on their sites. This ends up helping me with promotion, and sometimes the folks who get the freebies go on to pay full-price for other ebooks (just recently, I gave away some free copies of Emperor’s Edge this way, and I had quite a few sales of the sequel, Dark Currents, as a result. Some people picked up Encrypted too). Talking up the affiliate program I admittedly haven’t done much with this since I wrote up my “How to Make Money Promoting My Ebooks (and other people’s too)” post back in January, but I do see sales from affliates now and then on my Smashwords dashboard. Quite a few came after that post, which makes me think I should probably put a permanent link to it over in the menu somewhere so new readers can find it. But, anyway… We can talk about book promotion techniques all day, but ultimately your fans are the ones who are going to be responsible for your career taking off. If they like your stories, they’ll talk about them regardless (because they’re awesome like that ), but you can give them a further incentive to talk up your books by offering a percentage of the earnings via the Smashwords affiliate program. The default for affiliates is 11%, but you can give away your entire cut if you want (I have my ebooks set at 75%, which is close to the max). These are sales you wouldn’t have gotten if someone else wasn’t promoting your books, so there’s no need to be stingy. If you do decide to participate in the affiliate program, let your readers know about it. Even folks who shop at Smashwords might not be aware of it, and writing up instructions that let readers know how to add affiliate links to their sites can be helpful for those who are new to the idea. Advertising I’ll be the first to admit, advertising tends to be more misses than hits when it comes to book sales (meaning you’ll probably spend more than you make), but, as I’ve mentioned before, I have had some luck with Goodreads pay-per-click ads. Also, if you have an entire series out, and it’s common for readers to go on to buy the rest of the ebooks after they read the first, it may be worth taking a loss on Book 1. While Smashwords lacks the name recognition of an Amazon or Barnes & Noble, it’s not a bad place to send people who click on an ad since they do have every ebook format available. You don’t have to worry about wasting money by sending Nook people to your Amazon book page, for example. And, again, since you’ll make the largest cut at Smashwords, there’s another reason to direct people there as opposed to other venues. Thanks for reading, and good luck with your sales!

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06-29-2011, 12:18 PM	#393
NickSpalding Addict Posts: 270 Karma: 1041222 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: UK Device: Kindle	If by 'meaning' you mean an excuse to tell everyone some asinine information about my day, complain about the weather and spam celebrities with my opinions on their fashion sense... then yes, absolutely!

06-29-2011, 01:08 PM	#394
Nyssa Series Addict Posts: 6,180 Karma: 167189477 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Florida, USA Device: Kindle Paperwhite (2nd Gen)	I don't Twitter, but I do Facebook and it has come in handy...Show reminders...free books...free music directly from iTunes...and of course keeping up with friends and family not where I am. I enjoy it, and can ignore it when I want or need to.

06-29-2011, 03:01 PM	#397
NickSpalding Addict Posts: 270 Karma: 1041222 Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: UK Device: Kindle	I'll give it a go Oh, and I have no idea why this has been moved to self promotion... I didn't think talking about Twitter would constitute it? Oh well... you live and learn!

06-30-2011, 02:47 PM	#399
Crusader Space Cadet Posts: 1,180 Karma: 4030536 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: South Africa Device: Sony PRS-T1, Cybook Opus, Kobo Glo	A quick post on two books I received for review: http://worldsinink.blogspot.com/2011...eat-books.html

06-30-2011, 11:16 PM	#400
Dodge Sparks fly off my pages! Posts: 123 Karma: 250002 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: San Francisco Bay Area Device: Kindle	New book covers are up on the homepage (http://www.bookbarista.com) for the month of July. Thanks to those who participated in the marketing of their work. If you wish to have your book advertised for the month of August then please email us at contact@bookbarista.com after 07/05/11. First come, first serve! It's FREE

07-01-2011, 02:43 AM	#401
Frida Fantastic SF/F book blogger Posts: 270 Karma: 502030 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Vancouver, Canada Device: Kindle 3	New review! Good Fences by M. H. Mead http://fridafantastic.wordpress.com/...s-by-m-h-mead/ Genres Science fiction, short story You might like this if you like… Character development, hackers

07-01-2011, 06:51 AM	#402
SidneyW Zealot Posts: 117 Karma: 852542 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Texas Device: Kindle	I've started posting Book Trailers on my blog and doing occasional interviews. PM me or contact me via the contact link on the blog with any info: Sid Is Alive

07-01-2011, 03:29 PM	#403
Crusader Space Cadet Posts: 1,180 Karma: 4030536 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: South Africa Device: Sony PRS-T1, Cybook Opus, Kobo Glo	Latest post: Review of Neal Asher's Line War

07-02-2011, 08:52 PM	#405
simonroyle Addict Posts: 309 Karma: 500370 Join Date: Aug 2010 Location: Bangkok Device: kindle	IndieView with Thea Atkinson, author of, Formed of Clay.