By Kristy Tate //
Last September, I took an awesome marketing course from a writer whose career I really admire, Anne Marie Meyer. I’ve also taken a number of courses and follow (more like stalk) Elana Johnson. Both are indie publishing rock stars, and I wanted to be like them. (Notice the past tense.)
Since taking some of their courses and reading their books on marketing (which I highly suggest/endorse) I came to a few conclusions. I’m not Anne-Marie nor Elana. I can’t write 40-plus books a year, nor can I train my brain to monitor ads. I can definitely work harder than I do now. I can absolutely develop self-discipline and learn organizational skills. I can work a calculator and do math (if I must…) But I need to develop my own marketing plan. I can’t try to mimic someone else’s.
Also, if you follow this column, you might remember I posted a marketing plan last August. This wasn’t working for me. It was exhausting and distracting from what I really love—writing. So, I’m in the process of rolling all of my books out of the Kindle Unlimited program. I have three reasons for this decision.
- I used to rotate my books through the KU free promotional days. I believe that by doing this regularly I trained my readers to wait for my books to be free.
- When a book is in KU, I get paid for pages read versus just getting paid. This makes it really hard to tell whether my PPC (pay per click) ads are working.
- Revolving the freebies meant I was constantly changing gears.
Here’s my new plan: I currently have three freebies. By the end of the year, I’ll have three freebies and one 99-cent box set. The 99-cent box set is a series starter comprising the first books in all my YA books, so that one 99-cent sale will lead to the sale of nine books. I carefully considered my freebies, and here are the decisions for each of them.
All are books my readers love. Elana Johnson talks about recognizing the racehorses from the donkeys. I’m betting on my racehorses.
Stuck With You and The Little White Christmas Lie are stand-alone novellas, although they both feature the first chapter of another book in the back matter. The Billionaire’s Beagle is the first book in my popular Misbehaving Billionaires series. It’s also relatively short—about 150 pages. By making the freebies short and yet complete, my goal is to whet the reader’s appetite and leave them hungry for more.
The box set is a different strategy: 500-plus pages for only 99 cents. Although, when and if I get a BookBub featured deal, I’ll make it temporarily free.
That’s it. Three, sometimes four, freebies which I’ll promote the heck out of each and every day. I’ve heard multiple podcasters say that once their podcasts had 100,000 downloads a month, their careers took off. So, even though I know it’s a different format, I have an audacious goal of giving away 100,000 books a month. How will I do that?
I’m not sure yet, but without telling anyone other than my newsletter subscribers, I’ve given away 83 copies of Stuck With You.
I’m in the process of creating social media posts. I heard someone say each book should have five to ten. So far, I’ve made six each for Stuck and Beagle. My goal is to post these on social media daily. Here are a few:
I’ll experiment with Facebook, Amazon, and BookBub ads.
I’ll also use these newsletter blast services on a rotating basis: two a month so that each book will be featured on that service no more than once every six months. I didn’t include BookBub in my lineup because it’s a unicorn, but I will apply for a BookBub every month with my box sets. (I have a few of them, and I’ll mark them down specifically for BB featured deals.)
- Robin Reads
- E-Reader News Today
- Fussy Librarian
- Freebooksy
- Book Barbarian (my speculative YA books)
- My Book Cave
- EBook Betty
- Book Rebel
- Book Doggy
- Hidden Gems
- Author XP
- Freebie sites (there are quite a few)
Will my plan work? Talk to me in a year. If you have a better, simpler, less expensive plan, please share.
KRISTY TATE is the Social Media Director for O.C. Writers and a USA Today bestselling author. To date, her newsletter subscriber list is edging toward 15,000. www.KristyTate.com.