I Hate Marketing: Goodreads Giveaway

At the end of August, I announced that I was running an eBook (Kindle) giveaway on Goodreads during the month of September. They were running a special (only $99!) whereupon I could give away up to 100 eBook copies, and they would handle everything: picking winners from those who signed up on Goodreads and sending out copies. I recently had acquired a debit card for switching ISPs, so I decided to go for it.

I chose Armistice Day for the giveaway in hopes that if people liked it that they would go on to buy Gateway to Empire.

I was a bit nervous come launch day. What if no one signed up for my book? I've never had a problem giving away things for free. I've given away couches, stairs, books, tapes, toys, 3D printed models, a door, and many more things, but still I worried that somehow either the book cover or the blurb would turn potential readers off.

Silly me. Never underestimate the power of free.

I had 75 people interested by lunchtime, and 120 people signed up by the time I went to bed. What a relief! Over the course of the month, the pace of signups slowed, but by the end of the month I reached 953 entrants! I was psyched!

Now most people don't go through the trouble to write reviews, so I figured that if I got five reviews, it would be a success. So I sat back and waited.

Three months later, I'm here to tell you what the results are.

Ok, there's no way to sugarcoat this. Things didn't pan out the way I'd hoped: I only got 1 review and 3 ratings. The review was good, and the reviewer gave me four stars. The other two ratings were three stars, which I'm completely fine with. And no, it hasn't led to more sales for Gateway to Empire.

The most recent rating came on November 15th, so what happened to the other 97 winners? Shouldn't I have received a bunch of ratings by now? Based on my GR experience, most people at least rate a book even if they don't review it. GR always wants to know what you thought of a book (so that it can recommend other books to buy read). It'll leave you alone if you rate the book. It won't nag you to review it. So my guess is that the bulk of the winners are voracious readers who enter giveaways because their appetite exceeds their wallet. They collect as many books as they can for free. They'll read them all eventually. Or not.

Just to clear, I don't blame GR at all. They handled everything professionally, didn't treat me any different than trad pub authors, and provided me with the statistics I requested.

Am I bummed about the poor review/rating to books given away ratio? You bet! But that's the way it goes. Would I do it again? Maybe, but not until I've had a chance to explore other methods first.

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I Hate Marketing - Getting Reviews

I hate marketing; I really do. But I know that "publish it and they will come" is not an effective strategy. I've tried it; many many indie authors have tried it.

So we try to get some reviews. Maybe we ask a friend or they just do it without asking because they realize how difficult it is to get reviews. But that quickly dries up, so we move on.

We submit our ebooks and physical copies—only if necessary—to those few review sites willing to actually read and review indie published books. There aren't many, and so for every book they review they have to say no to a hundred more. I know this firsthand as that's what we had to do here when we were open to submissions—something I hope to do again someday. And after a couple of years, well, you get burned out, or there just isn't time as real life gets in the way. Something has to give, and writing free book reviews is an easy choice to get the ax.

Now some entrepreneurial types figured out how to keep writing book reviews for indie authors. You could pay someone to give you a five-star review on Amazon. Maybe they had a few sock puppets to give you several five-star reviews. Some people did it themselves. Once it got out of control and reviews on Amazon didn't mean shit, Amazon cracked down and only allowed verified purchasers to write reviews. Does it still go on? Maybe. I don't know. But it gave paid reviews a stigma. How would you know if the review was honest?

Well, some people figured out how to do it the right way. I think it might be the norm now. I recently went through the list of reviewers at the Indie View, and there were a lot of paid review sites. But I wasn't ready for that yet.

But the free indie reviews list for sci-fi was short. There were plenty that were MIA or closed to submissions. I did manage to come up with a list of several sites and submitted my requests. That was July. Only one person has replied to say that they're interested. One site auto-replied to tell me to watch their site. Maybe they'd review it; maybe they wouldn't. The rest of them didn't respond at all. I'm not surprised by it really, nor can I blame them. They're probably inundated with requests and don't have the time to reply to them all. I get that. Sometimes people can be rude when you reject their book review request.

I realize that I'm going to have to open my wallet. I've got a debit card for switching my ISP and commiting to an extended period of time. It's found money. But I have to be smart with how I'm going to spend it on marketing. A few indie authors have shared how fast that ad dollar disappears. So I'm going with the biggest bang for the buck. Goodreads (owned by Amazon) is having a giveaway sale. I can give away 100 ebook (Kindle) copies to GR readers (that know to look for giveaways) for $99. The impression I get is that if I get five reviews out of that, it's a success. It runs for the month of September, so I'll report back to let you know how I did.

Want to read Armistice Day? Visit this page during the month of September to enter for a chance to win.

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How to Thrive as a Writer in a Capitalist Dystopia by Russell Nohelty

Full disclosure: I backed the Kickstarter for this book, and even though I have a fair amount of negative things to say, I don't regret it. I found it to be an educational read.

thrive: verb (used without object)

1. to prosper; be fortunate or successful. Synonyms: advance
2. to grow or develop vigorously; flourish.
   The children thrived in the country.

Russell Nohelty is a successful writer, and he wants to share what he's learned about marketing with you. But after reading this book, I've come to the conclusion that "thriving" is not what this book is about. It's about how to survive as a writer in a capitalist dystopia.

survive: to get along or remain healthy, happy, and unaffected in spite of some occurrence.

She's surviving after the divorce.

After reading through all of the health issues (both mental and physical) that Nohelty shares with the reader, his suggestion not to strive for happiness in order to avoid falling into negativity, and the constant drumbeat of how exhausted he is from promoting his brand (blog posts, interviews, podcasts, strategizing his advertizing budget, evaluating what promotions are working, etc.) leads me to believe that he's deluding himself into thinking he's thriving; he's merely surviving.

But "survive" isn't as marketable a word as "thrive." And it's clear to me after reading this book, that Nohelty knows marketing.

And that's where this book has value. Right from the start, Nohelty gives his readers a reality bath. If you have any illusions about your chances of success after publishing your book, then he will wash those illusions away. Once he's done that, he works hard for you to accept things as they are. It's not your fault. Capitalism is a rough system with many evils; it's difficult to conduct commerce in such a system, but it's what we have to deal with. Nohelty doesn't want authors to let the system damage their mental health.

Once that's out of the way, he shares his business experience, matters of personal health, his experiences with social media, makes suggestions about automating your workflow, explains arbitrage, agonizes over the size of his mailing list, crunches the numbers on advertizing ROI, drowns you in marketing philosophy, and tries to get you to focus on what works for you. There's even a clever bit about author archetypes which he and his partner have dubbed "biomes." There's plenty more, but it can be repetitive at times and rambling, and I found myself wanting him to get on with it. But he has to get it all out there because he's trying to make a point and, IMO, he's burning the candle at both ends.

There's a workbook—emphasis on work—that goes with this book that could prove useful. But if you need a guide you can sign up for the service that he and a fellow successful marketer have devised. Nohelty goes into some detail about that in the book, and it stuck in my craw. I don't fault him for monetizing his experience, but I do feel like he's trying to upsell anyone who bought this book. And I don't really appreciate that, but hey, we live in a capitalist dystopia, so it's all fair game.

So if you're an indie writer, should you pick this up? If you've got a routine that you're happy with, then no. If you're content with your writing as a fun hobby, then also no. But if you've got at least three books under your belt, you've sold less than 100 copies (like 99% of us), and you're looking to find out what may or may not be required of you to grow your brand, then yes. It's a sobering look at one man's efforts (one who already had experience with sales and marketing) to grow his brand. Maybe you'll find something in it that works for you.

And Mr. Nohelty, if you're reading this, H.P. Lovecraft never lived in Los Angeles, much less had a salon there.

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Advice From a Prolific Author

Hi all. Yeah, I know that it's been two years. Can't say that I've been reading any indie, hence no new reviews here. From time to time though, I grow curious about some of the authors that I've reviewed here and wonder what they're up to. Most get waylaid by life and their writing endeavors are stuck in the proverbial muck. I can't recall why, but I was curious about Scott Rhine today.

Scott was one of our most prolific submitters—I think he's up to two dozen books. While I didn't review anywhere near the number of submissions we got from him, I did read and review four of them. I wanted to know if he ever finished the series that I'd been reading here, so I took a spin over to his blog to find out. It took a while to find, but sure enough, he did.

I snooped around some more and stumbled across a post from two years ago entitled "5 Years in the Writing Business—Revised Advice." It really is a must read for all indie authors. Scott shares his experiences with book sales, ads, tags, series vs. standalone books, giveaways, and much more. No matter what you write, it's worth checking out just to see if he's already tried out your marketing ideas. See what's worked for him and what hasn't, then see where it fits into your plans.

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Should Book Reviewers be Paid for Promoting Your Book?

Over on the Tenka International blog, Michael Norton wrote a post entitled "Book Reviewers Don’t Charge Enough, And Why You Under-Appreciate Them". In it, he explains the importance of book reviews in promoting one's work. While on the surface that seems like a no-brainer, he emphasizes the importance of book review blogs and how they help to spread the message about your book.

Book reviewers are the people who take the time to set up a website and cultivate a dedicated audience. They are under-appreciated by most independent authors, because most writers have no idea how to effectively market their work, and thus fail to see book reviewers as what they are: hubs, trusted by pre-established audiences, that directly influence awareness and conventional opinion of a writer’s work.

Norton then attacks the idea that book reviewers should be giving it away for free.

Many reviewers read and write for free, under the insecure belief that admitting that they’re professional critics detracts from their credibility—but I think this is the wrong mentality. As written: time and energy are resources that reviewers deserve to be paid for, especially if that reviewer is going to be a critical factor in determining whether or not a writer’s work sinks or swims in the market.

He acknowledges that there will be charlatans, but we all know that they already exist. But he emphasizes that if a reviewer is completely honest and transparent, then there's no reason why one shouldn't proceed in this direction.

Paid reviews are still controversial. The members of the Podler Staff debated it via email a few years ago, ultimately deciding not to do it. And a few years before that, Podler wrestled with the idea of doing it. He later rescinded that decision, but the dissenters on his staff had already quit.

Besides the complications brought up by money versus integrity, there's the problem with indie author budgets. Indie authors typically don't have a lot of money to spend on their book—although some don't spend anything. The smart author will hire an editor to proofread her work and a designer to handle her cover. Even if she finds affordable options, she's likely to spend a few hundred dollars (typically more) on those two. Coming up with money for marketing, whether it be for banner ads or book reviews, may be asking too much. As most indie authors sell less than a hundred copies of their book, getting that return on their investment may be a tall order.

From a reviewer's perspective, I appreciate Norton's acknowledgement for what we do. In just a few years, I've seen many a "labor of love" run its course. The blogosphere is littered with dead book review blogs. People burn out. The demands of family and work and other real world matters take priority. Free books are wonderful, but you can't redeem them for diapers or use them to pay the electric bill. Of course, only a select few might be able to review enough books to make any sort of living from it. I'm not one of those people. Still, I wonder if some kind of hybrid system could be achieved.

I think that the Self-Publishing Review has a good system in place. They offer a variety of packages based on one's budget. From my perspective it looks like a lot of work, but it seems to be working for them.

What if this blog offered "fast track" book reviews? I admit that we're slow; we're down to one book per month. It might go a little faster if I didn't take on 500+ page behemoths. But if I were to be paid to review books, then I'd have justification to spend my whole day reading. I do that now with proofreading and editing. The turnaround time would be vastly improved: 4-8 hours/day reading instead of 1. We'd churn out a lot more book reviews. For those not willing to pay, I'd leave the free option open, but they'd have to wait the usual month or so for their review.

But what about integrity? No one complains about The New York Times reviewers. Is it because they're paid by the newspaper and not by the publisher? Probably. In general, we don't like to give out bad reviews. We pre-screen books, hence the first three chapters request. Books that have major grammatical and structural issues automatically get rejected. That wouldn't change. We only read books in genres we like; I wouldn't start reading paranormal romance novels even if you paid me. We point out the flaws, and we'd have to still do that. Ultimately, you would have to decide if we retained our integrity.

We have no immediate plans to adopt a paid reviews program. This is just me thinking out loud. After 5+ years, I'm burning out on reviewing indie books (my traditionally published TBR pile is now too big and I've missed out on a lot of good books), and I know others here have as well (Note the shrinking "current contributor" list). We can't seem to attract new reviewers despite our flexible rules. Why join someone else's blog when you can start your own? We've had people do both, which I see as a value add. Maybe a cash incentive is in order. Or is it a slippery slope? I don't know. I do know that there's a good chance that we're going to go on long term hiatus, and based on other blogs that have done that...well, they tend to make that hiatus permanent.

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Image Credit: boydlogan.wordpress.com

Blog It and They Will Come

Last week I received an email from a reputable indie publishing blogger inviting me to a webinar where I could learn how to double my sales from a successful indie author. It sounded too good to be true, but since this was a reputable indie publishing blogger, I decided to give it a shot.

The webinar was packed full of writers, and many went around introducing themselves and where they were from. Judging from the introductions, many were either new writers working on their first book or veterans struggling with limited sales of their first book or two. You can put me in the latter category.

The successful indie author hosted the webinar and (surprise) primarily spent his time plugging his new book, which featured ways that indie authors everywhere could double their sales. He started off relating what he did and gave case studies demonstrating how so-and-so applied the techniques from the book and saw their sales blossom. But every example he gave involved a non-fiction author. And our successful host was a non-fiction author as well. I complained in the audience chat that all we were seeing were non-fiction examples. Anyone with a clue about publishing knows that selling non-fiction is completely different from selling fiction. Several other attendees agreed with me.

People buy non-fiction for a very specific purpose, and it can be anything. You can look up books on shade gardening in New England, building websites for mobile devices, Theodore Roosevelt's childhood years at Oyster Bay, or meatball recipes. People buy fiction just to be entertained, but the specifics are limited. It typically isn't anything more than "alien invasion sci-fi", assuming that "sci-fi" isn't as far down the genre tree as one can go. Nobody looks for "alien invaders from Barnard's Star with trilateral symmetry who choose Africa as ground zero". And even if they wanted to, they couldn't as that level of detail in sub-categories doesn't exist.

I'm not sure how much of the webinar I can relate here without trampling on someone's copyright, but I'll try anyway. One major suggestion was to convert readers into fans. The thinking was to sell product to the fans like how projects on Kickstarter offer tiers of rewards to people who donate more money to their projects. It's an interesting idea, provided you already have a readership, and someone willing to spend $50 on your 3D printed figurine of the half-elf heroine from your epic fantasy.

Fortunately for successful non-fiction indie author, he already had a readership when he applied this method. I consider that an unfair advantage. Indie fiction authors want to know what they can do to make their first paranormal romance novel, for example, stand out from the thousands of other paranormal romance novels. How does one build that initial readership?

The suggestions for fiction authors were limited. We're supposed to give away short stories for free on our website, and we should blog about the writing process.

That was it.

Don't sell your short stories to zines, give them away for free on your website. But the real kicker was: Blog it and they will come. Because people looking for books to read really want to just read the random thoughts of some random person.

Now blogging has been incredibly successful for some people, though they tend to be journalists and pundits. John Scalzi sold his first book to Tor because one of its editors read his blog (He didn't even have to bother with the indie scene). But how many of these success stories are out there? And why was that gentleman reading that blog in the first place? There has to be some sort of connection to the blogger and his/her readership. But if I had a dollar for every blogger that fizzled out, or never got past a dozen readers (like my old blog), I could pay off my mortgage (and then some).

I don't have an answer for you. I'm certainly not a best-selling author. I'd say keep trying your hand at social media. Make sure your work has been edited and hire a professional to create your cover. Whether you view it as art or product, it's important that you produce your best work. One option to try is to keep writing. Maybe if you have enough books out there, someone will stumble into one and it'll start a chain reaction.

Anyone who's found a technique that works should feel free to share it in the comments. Please, share it. Though we've hoped and tried, book reviews aren't enough to help your fellow indie authors (there might be a couple exceptions). We don't mind you plugging your success, so long as you don't try to sell us a book claiming that it will make us successful, cure baldness, have us waking up every day feeling rejuvenated, or help us lose ten pounds without dieting or exercise.

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Expanding Your Brand: A Guest Post by John Vorhaus

Normally I'm a sci-fi and horror guy. While I do venture outside of these genres from time to time, a story has to have something that grabs my attention. We didn't receive any sample chapters for Poole's Paradise and the blurb didn't have a firm grip on me, so I was on the verge of passing on it. But before I did, I checked out its author, John Vorhaus. I was impressed by what I saw on Amazon and his website. It was there that I got hooked. He had so much going on with novels, poker guides, Twitter, and videos that I was sold on reading Poole's Paradise. And I'm glad I did.

In the publishing world, an indie author has to find a good editor for their manuscript and make sure it has a professional looking cover. But even with those two things set, there's still the matter of marketing. There are some rudimentary things an indie author can do to self-promote, but sometimes that's not enough. Recognizing that John sold himself more than the book, I asked him if he would write a blog post on self-promotion.

Without further ado, here's John offering advice on "Expanding Your Brand".

I understand my problem exactly.

On one hand, I have a lot of how-to books (on writing and on poker) which sell their asses off because they have just exactly the information that certain people need, just exactly when they need it. On the other hand, I have all these terrific novels that struggle to find their audience, because reading a novel is a recreational activity; in other words, it’s a want to, not a need to proposition. How-to books sell because they meet the needs of a specific need-to proposition. Novels compete against other forms of recreation because they don’t have that urgent gravitational pull. And they face fierce competition, not from other novels but from other forms of recreation. I, for example, read books quite happily and enthusiastically on my iPhone—once I can get past my email and twitter and the baseball scores and all the dang games. I know I’m not alone in this. Never in human history has the act of picking up a book had to compete so hard against the act of picking up something else.

Okay, so that’s where we are: need-to books sell easily; want-to books sell hard. How should we, as cottage-industry entrepreneurs, respond to this? One thing we could do is write a lot of need-to books. This is simply a matter of looking around, saying, “What am I good at?” and knocking out 15,000 words on that subject. Did I say 15,000? Yes, 15,000. That’s not much, nowhere near the 70,000 words, minimum, that you need to call a novel a novel. Is 15,000 words enough for a how-to book? I can tell you from personal experience that the answer is an emphatic yes. Because, you see, a function of all those short attention spans out there, and a function of the competition of all those games, websites, downloads, videos, and social media, is that people would rather spend less – less time and less money – even for information they know they really need. My two small reads—the little book of SITCOM and How To Write Good—routinely outsell my whole novel catalog combined. They earn. They earn consistently and reliably, month after month, year after year, and they (and titles like them) allow me to call myself a working writer—a consummation devoutly to be wished.

So why don’t I write how-to books exclusively? I sure could if I wanted to. I know enough about enough things that I could write how-to books till I die and never run out of subjects. But I wouldn’t be satisfied, because my heart lies in my fiction. Perhaps yours does, too. And even as I’m here saying “expand your brand through non-fiction,” you may be thinking, Nah, not so much. That’s really not for me. I feel ya, dawg. I do.

But here’s the thing: these books cross-sell. Someone discovers my poker books or writing books. They drop me a line to say how much they enjoy my writing style. I write them back and say, well, if you like my style, you’ll love my novels. Having already become fans of my way with non-fiction words, they’re ready to love my fiction words as well. I’ve reached them. I’ve used my non-fiction works as a bridge between my novels and my audience. That’s the argument for expanding your brand: The more people who approach you—from whatever direction and for whatever reason—the bigger your audience will be for the stuff you really want to sell.

So where, in this pantheon of titles, do we put such odd frivolities as my book, A Million Random Words? It contains, as the title promises, exactly a million random words, arranged in random order, and offered either as a one-note joke or as a sneaky-useful random reference book for writers or other creative types looking for new ways to trigger new thoughts. But what exactly is this book? It’s not fiction, certainly. It’s not non-fiction, certainly. It’s something altogether else. It doesn’t fit within my brand.

Which means that it expands my brand.

It brings other people to my work from a wholly different direction. Vorhaus? Isn’t he the guy with the wacky random words project? Indeed he is. And if you got the joke of that, you’ll probably like some of the other items in his catalog as well. This is how I think of cross-selling. I want my brand to be broad and deep and interesting, with many points of entrance for many different kinds of readers or users. I want to welcome them into my world, and once they’re there, I want to have many intriguing things to show them. And that’s everything from a million random words to the latest novel I have so lovingly birthed.

If you choose to adopt this model of go off in all directions at once, there are a couple of mental adjustments that will help you. First, be willing to try anything. Don’t worry about how esoteric or random or silly your book idea seems. Get it out there. Put it up on Amazon where any conceivable buyer could conceivably buy it. Second, think strategically about your brand, and about expanding it. You may now be known as that yodeling-cowboy-mystery guy. Could you be known as that and also as that history-of-yodeling-cowboys guy? Of course you could. And if you walk that road, you’ll be making a broader invitation to a broader audience. You will be expanding your brand. Third, yep, you’re going to have to put in the marketing time, and that’s everything from social media to the promo cards you hand out on the bus. Fourth, don’t be too precious. Yes, it would be great if we could all be the Oprah-guest novelists of our wildest dreams, but if you don’t have that luxury then you have to do the work. That’s the bad news. The good news is you get to do the work, and I don’t care what that work is, if it involves putting words on the page, it’s bound to teach you something about something.

I’m a wacky guy. I have a wacky brand. It now extends to the fringes of rationality (or beyond—some people who hear about A Million Random Words do think I’m quite demented). But that’s my approach. It’s working for me and I’m striving to make it work better still. So how about you? What steps can you take, now, today, to expand your brand? Think strategically, and think long-term. If your goal is to be a working writer, the conversation certainly doesn’t begin and end with the novels you might write.

One final thing: Many writers find self-promotion distasteful at best or odious at worst. I used to think that way. I used to regard it as a necessary evil. But then I decided, hey, my work has value—why should I be shy about saying so? If you stand behind your work, there’s no shame in self-promotion. Feel good about it. After all, what’s the point of writing if no one’s going to read?

Buying book reviews: Valid marketing tool or false advertising?

First, let me emphasize that New Podler Review of Books does not and never has charged money for book reviews. The only payment we get is a copy of the books we review. So the following article and questions are simply posted for conversational purposes.

The New York Times has a story on the rise and fall of GettingBookReviews.com, a service owned by Todd Rutherford where, for a fee, authors could commission several dozen 5-star reviews and get them posted on Amazon and other online markets.

“I was creating reviews that pointed out the positive things, not the negative things,” Mr. Rutherford said. “These were marketing reviews, not editorial reviews.”

In essence, they were blurbs, the little puffs on the backs of books in the old days, when all books were physical objects and sold in stores. No one took blurbs very seriously, but books looked naked without them.

One of Mr. Rutherford’s clients, who confidently commissioned hundreds of reviews and didn’t even require them to be favorable, subsequently became a best seller. This is proof, Mr. Rutherford said, that his notion was correct. Attention, despite being contrived, draws more attention.

The system is enough to make you a little skeptical, which is where Mr. Rutherford finds himself. He is now suspicious of all online reviews — of books or anything else. “When there are 20 positive and one negative, I’m going to go with the negative,” he said. “I’m jaded.”

GettingBookReviews.com went out of business in 2011 due largely to Google suspending its advertising account, and Amazon removing most of its reviews from their site.

Authors, would you pay for book reviews? If so, would you pay extra for 5-star raves knowing their honesty was dubious at best?

Originally posted at Quarkfolio.