Effect of MR Promotion, or not?

[M T McGuire]

Originally Posted by Steven Lake

I've treated all my promotions on MR as just "one small stone on the road to success". There is no "one thing does it all" promotional method. In fact, there's so many that you are required to exploit that it becomes rather difficult to keep up with them all, or in some cases even do them. It used to be that there were only a handful of things that you could do to get noticed, and those were usually all you needed. Now the list is hundreds, if not thousands of items long and growing.

This is very true. I come here because MR is full of information, good advice and useful links for an author. It also contains lots of other authors who have been around longer and are generally experienced than me.

I have two problems, one with time and one with money. That means that the only way my book will sell is on recommendation. So... I try to give it a mention wherever I can, on or off line. I get regular hits to my site from here and it's the same (small) number each month, it fluctuates a little but not much. I see that as a bonus I reckon. I visit a few other fora and I look at any benefits I recieve from those the same way. As I understand it, if my work is good, it'll get there because people will like it and tell their friends. When it comes down to it, that will sell more of books than anything else. On fora, if people like what you write, or you, they may do the same thing.

Cheers

MTM

[greencat]

Originally Posted by ASparrow

In fact, a red Toyota Prius actually has a cameo role in one of my novels set in a medieval world. Resonate that.

I wouldn't mind betting there's a small niche of Prius obsessives out there who would read your book just to see how it how their favourite car fits into the story.

Should your book marketing only cater to them? - of course not. Is it worth spending lots of time in Prius forums trying to get the book noticed? Probably not. But it might be worth tagging your book with it (a guy on another forum found his book sales went up after someone tagged it tron). Or finding a bunch of Prius obsessives and asking them to read that chapter to see if you got the description right.

I guess it is about being open to the possibilities. And your mention of a Prius in medieval times has got me sufficiently intrigued to download your book and add it to my reading list. So how do I find your book again?

Edit: Found you on Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/arc
I have to admit your books look really good (and you have some brilliant reviews).

[ASparrow]

Originally Posted by greencat

I wouldn't mind betting there's a small niche of Prius obsessives out there who would read your book just to see how it how their favourite car fits into the story.

Should your book marketing only cater to them? - of course not. Is it worth spending lots of time in Prius forums trying to get the book noticed? Probably not. But it might be worth tagging your book with it (a guy on another forum found his book sales went up after someone tagged it tron). Or finding a bunch of Prius obsessives and asking them to read that chapter to see if you got the description right.

I guess it is about being open to the possibilities. And your mention of a Prius in medieval times has got me sufficiently intrigued to download your book and add it to my reading list. So how do I find your book again?

Edit: Found you on Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/arc
I have to admit your books look really good (and you have some brilliant reviews).

Interesting advice. If only the Prius had a bigger role in the first book. It mainly figures into Book #2.

I went from driving a Jeep Cherokee to a Prius, so part of my Prius narrative regards its inadequacy as an off-road vehicle, though it does better on the ground clearance front once certain parts fall off (like the front end air dams).

My lead character does yearn for a Toyota LandCruiser, though, in Book 1.

I suppose I could go after the AK-47 aficionado market as well, as these figure into the story almost as much as the Prius.

Thanks for downloading. I hope you enjoy them.

[DavidRM]

Originally Posted by greencat

I wouldn't mind betting there's a small niche of Prius obsessives out there who would read your book just to see how it how their favourite car fits into the story.

I had an afficianado of antique Bowlus campers find a short story on my blog. One of the characters in the story lives in a 1936 Bowlus camper. This reader was quite excited to see the Bowlus reference, and even contributed a photograph from a recent Bowlus meetup for me to post in the comments on the story.

You can see it here:
"Nostalgia Part 2" comments

So, yeah, product placement can be a type of marketing. If unintentional sometimes.

-David

[ASparrow]

Originally Posted by DavidRM

I had an afficianado of antique Bowlus campers find a short story on my blog. One of the characters in the story lives in a 1936 Bowlus camper. This reader was quite excited to see the Bowlus reference, and even contributed a photograph from a recent Bowlus meetup for me to post in the comments on the story.

You can see it here:
"Nostalgia Part 2" comments

So, yeah, product placement can be a type of marketing. If unintentional sometimes.

-David

Product placement can be taken to extremes, I suppose. My latest WIP features an Abraham Prescott upright bass, of which only 207 were ever made. Talk about a niche market!

(I don't have one, I just wish I did. I occasionally ogle the bass that resides in a local church, and I got to touch (not play) one in a nearby music shop.

The character who owns it, by the way, drives a Nissan Sentra and it's a POS so I won't have any Nissan aficionados running to read my book.

[JSWolf]

Steven, I think the reason your eBooks are not selling better is that the links you have to the eBooks on your web site are not working. That and the fact that you only have ePub available. No Mobipocket for Kindle owners.

http://www.realmsofimagination.net/destinys_mission

When I go there and then click on the links for Goodreads or EZRead, neither link actually works. On Goodreads, I was able to find out how to buy the eBook. But it's not easy and most people won't bother or figure it out. So making sure the links work, having more outlets to sell your eBooks and in Mobipocket as well as ePub should help.

What some people do (myself included) when the first eBook of a series is given out for free, is to check out the rest of the series to make sure it is complete, in the format needed and not too expensive.

Destiny's Mission is $4.99 at Goodreads and $8.00 at EZRead. Homeworld is $8.00 at EZRead and not available at Goodreads. But the direct links to EZRead you have on your site are broken. So that means that the third book is a bit more expensive then the second book.

On your site, you have the print version listed at $11.99 yet at Amazon it is selling for $15.99. The Oort Perimeter is free in ePub and Mobipocket. But the rest are only ePub. Kindle users won't be buying the rest of the series.

Now, if this series was available easier in eBook in both ePub and Mobipocket and both at the same $4.99 price, I do think they may very well sell better. Also where these are available for sale, The Oort Perimeter should also be there and free.

[JSWolf]

I've read books that I've found via MR that I may not have read otherwise. So don't give up on MR. Just treat MR like another place to get the word out. Don't treat MR like the be all and end all for your sales. It's just another place like advertising on the radio vs. TV vs. newspaper vs. any other form of advertising.

If you are selling via Smashwords, download all the different formats and see how the meatgrinder has ground up your eBook. Did it do a good job? If not, redo it. Check the sample (if there is one). Is it formatted well enough that people might bother at read it? I've gotten books from Smashwords with mixed results. One book I got was all underlined. Some had no proper ToC. It's a crap shoot there. So please make sure you don't get crapped on.

If you sell via Amazon and no place else, be prepared not to have as many sales because those of us without Kindles won't buy.

If need be, sell via your website featuring hand crafted versions. Start with ePub, fix that up nicely and then go MS Reader & Mobipocket from there. And (I hate to say this) but if you want to make it easy to go to eBook from the manuscript, stay far away from MS Word. The best editor to use is actually Notepad++. You can use the standard text markups such as *words* for bold and _words_ for italics and sort that out later on. You could run the text through Word if you wanted to use the spell check. But the HTML out of Word is more work to fix then writing the book.