Jessica Russell's Blog - Posts Tagged "ads"
The Weird World of Advertising
Like many authors who are not yet well known, you probably have made a monetary investment into advertising. However, it’s important to understand that you can’t always immediately judge whether or not an ad was successful. It’s easy to fall into the trap of looking at stats the minute an ad commences and making an instant judgment on whether or not it was worth it. A friend of mine did this very thing recently. She ran an ad on twitter to get some clicks for her new book and as soon as it was finished, she went to Author Central and checked out her sales stats and said “That was just a waste of time and money!”
That was not necessarily true. Here’s the reality: a lot of readers see interesting books or ads for books they think they might like, but they don’t immediately click and make an impulse purchase. Maybe they don’t have time to do that right away, maybe they want to read some reviews about the book first, or maybe it’s just not a priority that second for any number of reasons. I retweet Whizzbuzz book ads a lot, for instance, and while I love to support fellow authors, of course I can’t buy them all. Sometimes I just make note of some that looked interesting and jot down the titles on a scrap paper on my desk. Those titles might lay there for a month before I ever get around to checking them out on Amazon and making a purchase. Then it may take me even longer to actually get the book read and reviewed. So never assume that if an ad doesn’t result in an instant sales boost that it was a total failure. You may have a lot of return yet to yield in the future from that very ad. It’s important to not get anxious and remember that slow and steady wins the race! Write on!
That was not necessarily true. Here’s the reality: a lot of readers see interesting books or ads for books they think they might like, but they don’t immediately click and make an impulse purchase. Maybe they don’t have time to do that right away, maybe they want to read some reviews about the book first, or maybe it’s just not a priority that second for any number of reasons. I retweet Whizzbuzz book ads a lot, for instance, and while I love to support fellow authors, of course I can’t buy them all. Sometimes I just make note of some that looked interesting and jot down the titles on a scrap paper on my desk. Those titles might lay there for a month before I ever get around to checking them out on Amazon and making a purchase. Then it may take me even longer to actually get the book read and reviewed. So never assume that if an ad doesn’t result in an instant sales boost that it was a total failure. You may have a lot of return yet to yield in the future from that very ad. It’s important to not get anxious and remember that slow and steady wins the race! Write on!
Money, Money, Money...Always Funny
Marketing is very important for a book, especially if you are not yet known. However, many new writers make the mistake of jumping the gun with this issue and they lose all their marketing dollars in one fell swoop. They hurry up and launch a large-scale marketing campaign only to discover that they are getting a lot of clicks, but not a lot of sales. Otherwise known as the Kiss of Death.
This is usually an indicator that the book does not have enough reviews yet. I know many writers feel frustrated, because most people simply will not leave a review for a book, no matter how good they thought it was. That means it may take a while to get legitimate reviews. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about that. Just keep attending events, going to book signings whenever you’re invited, and pushing your book on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and anywhere else you have a social media account.
When you get approximately 20 reviews, and believe me they will come, that’s the time to start advertising in earnest.
This is because a minimum of 20 reviews takes away that feeling in the customers mind that he or she is a “guinea pig” for this new author. Once you hit the magic 50 reviews, you will start to rank higher on Amazon, but 20 at least gets you out of the gate, so to speak, and it is definitely the magic number for marketing. Therefore, once you have that many, you should immediately launch a marketing campaign and advertise as much as your budget will allow.
After that, the sales will come, and reviews will begin to take care of themselves (albeit slowly, so keep that in mind and have patience.) But never jump the gun and spend money on marketing before you have any reviews. It will just be money wasted, and nobody wants to do that! Write on!
This is usually an indicator that the book does not have enough reviews yet. I know many writers feel frustrated, because most people simply will not leave a review for a book, no matter how good they thought it was. That means it may take a while to get legitimate reviews. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do about that. Just keep attending events, going to book signings whenever you’re invited, and pushing your book on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and anywhere else you have a social media account.
When you get approximately 20 reviews, and believe me they will come, that’s the time to start advertising in earnest.
This is because a minimum of 20 reviews takes away that feeling in the customers mind that he or she is a “guinea pig” for this new author. Once you hit the magic 50 reviews, you will start to rank higher on Amazon, but 20 at least gets you out of the gate, so to speak, and it is definitely the magic number for marketing. Therefore, once you have that many, you should immediately launch a marketing campaign and advertise as much as your budget will allow.
After that, the sales will come, and reviews will begin to take care of themselves (albeit slowly, so keep that in mind and have patience.) But never jump the gun and spend money on marketing before you have any reviews. It will just be money wasted, and nobody wants to do that! Write on!
Naivety is Dangerous
Don’t be naïve with advertising! If you’ve recently published a book and you’re anxious to get it in people’s hands, rest assured there’s hundreds of thousands of authors who feel the exact same way. Nevertheless, it is extremely important to avoid falling for solicitations that promise you the moon and stars. Let’s just clear one thing up from the beginning: no one can rank you in the top 1000 on Amazon. The only entity who can do that for you is Amazon. An unknown author is not going to suddenly catapult to top ranking on a monster merchant site. Slow and steady wins the race.
However, as soon as your book is out, you will get solicitation after solicitation telling you how people used this service or that service and were suddenly catapulted to stardom. They’re not telling you the truth. Advertising is important, but it’s up to you to make sure you’re using legitimate services. You can buy Amazon ads, twitter ads, Facebook ads, or pay to have your book added to the “shelves” of legitimate services such as BookBub. You can also go on podcasts, hold local events, or go through any other legitimate avenue to get your book in front of the best eyes, but one thing all those methods have in common is that you are paying for a specific service.
Solicitations that show up from merchants with whom you’re unfamiliar should be regarded as suspicious and ignored. This is because legitimate advertising sources don’t have to spam new authors with personal messages through Twitter. Writers go looking for THEM because they have a reputation.
Facebook doesn’t send you a message from a personal account saying “Hey, I’m passionate about helping other writers succeed, for only XXX dollars we can rank you in the top 100 on Amazon, give us the money and we'll show you the “secret.” Can you imagine Amazon doing that?
No, you have to go looking for THEM. Unsolicited messages telling you about “wonderful opportunities” should always be ignored. You’re just going to lose money if you trust them, and even if there is one legitimate one in every 50, it’s not worth playing the guessing game to figure out who’s who. Stick with trusted advertising sources you know, even if they're more expensive. It’s better to pay more money and get something for it than to pay less and end up with nothing. Write on!
However, as soon as your book is out, you will get solicitation after solicitation telling you how people used this service or that service and were suddenly catapulted to stardom. They’re not telling you the truth. Advertising is important, but it’s up to you to make sure you’re using legitimate services. You can buy Amazon ads, twitter ads, Facebook ads, or pay to have your book added to the “shelves” of legitimate services such as BookBub. You can also go on podcasts, hold local events, or go through any other legitimate avenue to get your book in front of the best eyes, but one thing all those methods have in common is that you are paying for a specific service.
Solicitations that show up from merchants with whom you’re unfamiliar should be regarded as suspicious and ignored. This is because legitimate advertising sources don’t have to spam new authors with personal messages through Twitter. Writers go looking for THEM because they have a reputation.
Facebook doesn’t send you a message from a personal account saying “Hey, I’m passionate about helping other writers succeed, for only XXX dollars we can rank you in the top 100 on Amazon, give us the money and we'll show you the “secret.” Can you imagine Amazon doing that?
No, you have to go looking for THEM. Unsolicited messages telling you about “wonderful opportunities” should always be ignored. You’re just going to lose money if you trust them, and even if there is one legitimate one in every 50, it’s not worth playing the guessing game to figure out who’s who. Stick with trusted advertising sources you know, even if they're more expensive. It’s better to pay more money and get something for it than to pay less and end up with nothing. Write on!
