Worth every sausage roll

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Amazon, e-book, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, marketing, promotion, research, self-publishing, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat

I mentioned last week that I was inviting a couple of friends around for a “Plank marketing brainstorming”, and I promised to report back.  Well, it was a terrific success, and I can highly recommend the concept.  Not much to organise: I bought some nice sausage rolls and crisps from M&S (rule one: never poison guests with own mediocre cooking), selected some wine and juice, propped our old cork bathmat up against the wall in the lounge, and wrote down each called-out idea on a sticky and stuck it on the bathmat.  The key rules of brainstorming are that all ideas – no matter how impractical or batty – are recorded, and that no idea is assessed or judged at this stage.  What you want is free-wheeling free association of ideas.

And that’s what we got.  I introduced the books and the concept of the series very briefly and then, in just over an hour, we generated 58 separate marketing ideas.  I have now transcribed them all into a document, just listed without ranking or sorting.  I will mull them for a couple of days, and then start planning.  Some will naturally group together – for instance, “contact online book clubs” and “contact overseas book clubs” will require similar research and approaches.  Others have a date-specific element to them, such as “take stall at Cambridge Folk Festival”.  Ideally I would like to take one idea (or group of ideas) a week and see what I can do with it.  Some will prove impractical (is it likely that Amazon would share any information it has on the profile of the buyers of my books?) and others might turn out to be batty – but if I get even a fifth to lead somewhere, well, that’s  dozen more exciting marketing ideas than I had this time last week.

Eggs, basket, etc.

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Amazon, bookshop, e-book, Fatal Forgery, marketing, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat

Other self-published authors will know that marketing and promoting (well, I suppose it’s selling really) our books is in many ways the hardest part of the whole process.  I used to be shy about telling people that I had written my novels, but now I blab to everyone – and so do my family and friends, which is jolly decent of them.  Through one of these connections this week I received a request: could I tell someone where to buy my books (she wanted the paperback not e-versions) that wasn’t Amazon.  She is boycotting Amazon because she thinks they are being immoral with their tax arrangements – their head office is in Luxembourg and it seems that there might be a fiscal reason for this.

In my other life I am of course very interested in the tax issue, but as an author, it has reminded me of the importance of getting my books “out there” in as many formats and venues as possible.  Thankfully I was able to point my potential buyer to the Book Depository, and if she had been interested in e-books, I could have offered at least four non-Amazon options.  Physical bookshops are more of a problem, with the big chains concentrating only on known authors and those they can source through wholesalers like Gardners and Nielsen, but I shall battle on.  Ironically, when I am trying to persuade bookshops to stock “Fatal Forgery” and “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”, I have to make reference to the excellent reviews that they have received…. on Amazon.

Canada? Really?

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CreateSpace, e-book, Fatal Forgery, Kindle, Kobo, marketing, Samuel Plank, The Man in the Canary Waistcoat

As I have mentioned many times before, I have to be quite strict about allowing myself to check online for sales figures for “Fatal Forgery” and “The Man in the Canary Waistcoat”.  If I didn’t control it, I would waste time every day just clicking and refreshing all the sales reporting channels – it’s terribly addictive, especially for a low-volume author for whom each and every sale is a cause for (Jaffa Cake-shaped) celebration.  So I permit myself to check CreateSpace (for the paperback edition) and KDP (Kindle) once a day, and Kobo, Smashwords and Gumroad once a week.

These three are less exciting because – in total combined sales of both books – until the end of last week they represented four copies.  And then, on Monday of this week, I checked them as usual – and sales have doubled!  Eight copies!  The additional four were all on Kobo, and – wait for it – two in the UK and two in Canada (a copy each of “Fatal Forgery” and “Canary”, bought on the same day).  Canada?  I’m mystified.  That’s the problem with all statistics, of course – they tell you exactly what happened, but not why.  While on holiday in Greece a couple of weeks ago we did meet some Canadians, but we didn’t mention my books (or indeed my surname) at all, so unless they were mind-readers it’s not them.  We don’t have any friends in Canada; my husband has some cousins, but we haven’t seen them for years, and my surname is not his, so they wouldn’t have stumbled across me and bought out of family loyalty.  So why now, and why Canada?  But I’m not one to look a gift reader in the mouth, and if they like Sam and tell their friends, all the better.

Commercial realities

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e-book, Fatal Forgery, Good Housekeeping, marketing, publicity, review, self-publishing, Susan Grossey

I was reading “Good Housekeeping” the other day, and I suddenly stopped and slapped my forehead: of course!  They have a Reader Recommended scheme for books (mainly novels, but not exclusively), where they feature each month a selection of books enjoyed and endorsed by GH readers, and promote them in various ways.  I know, thought I: I shall get “Fatal Forgery” submitted to their panel of readers, and see if I can get a GH Reader Recommended rosette of my own.  Oh what an innocent I was.  It turns out that, in order to be considered, you have to:

• Supply 150 copies of your book to readers selected by GH – they can be e-copies, which would be cheaper, but still, 150 copies
• Pay a “reading fee” of (wait for it) £3,500
• Keep your fingers crossed that more than 100 of the 150 readers like your book – if they do, you’re in
• If you’re in, you then have to pay a further fee (they couldn’t recall offhand what this is) for using the GH Reader Recommended rosette on your book and publicity material.

So it’s well and truly beyond the reach of all but the big publishing houses – who get all the three-for-two publicity in the bookshops as well.  Grinding of teeth!  I know it’s the same in all walks of life – nearly everything is easier if you have money to start with – but still a disappointment.  Working out the sums, supplying and posting 150 copies of “Fatal Forgery” would cost me about £900, plus the £3,500 reading fee, then (let’s guess) another £1,000 for using the rosette – that’s £5,400.  With my royalty of £1.27 per copy, I’d have to sell 4,252 extra copies just to break even.  I think I’ll have a lie-down, and try to think of another way to get people reading.

A slave to the numbers

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Amazon, e-book, Fatal Forgery, Goodreads, marketing, publicity, self-publishing, Susan Grossey

A while ago I wrote a post about how – just after publication – I was obsessively checking sales figures for “Fatal Forgery”.  I also resolved to check the numbers just once a month.  Well, you can imagine how long that resolve lasted…  I try not to check more than once a day, and to be fair to myself, it’s not just “Fatal Forgery” at stake here.  In total I have now published fourteen books via CreateSpace – thirteen connected with my day job – and so I figure that if I check each of them once a month, that means I have to login to CreateSpace’s sales page fourteen times a month, which is about every other day, so by checking daily I’m really not that wide of the mark.  Come on: I bet you can’t get through the day without at least one juicy rationalisation!

But as I was cycling to town this afternoon (Saharan dust? industrial pollutants? I cough in their face!) I had an epiphany.  Always worrying about sales is making me miserable.  I’m in the enviable position of not having to rely on book sales to pay my bills, so really I should see every sale as a little bonus, a few pennies that I don’t actually need for essentials and so can enjoy and spend on fripperies (good word, that).  For “Fatal Forgery”, I am going to remind myself to focus on the lovely things that (without exception) everyone who has read it has said about it; I have printed out the fabulous reviews from Amazon – including a lovely new five-star one from the Kindle Book Review (http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B00DW5K76W/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1) and Goodreads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18195411-fatal-forgery?from_search=true) and stuck them on the wall by my desk.  And as for the work-related books, I need to do them anyway, for profile-raising and -maintaining purposes (isn’t it academics who say “publish or die”?), so the level of sales is secondary to the mere fact of their being.

Of course I still hope in my little secret heart that somehow word will get out and “Fatal Forgery” will be a runaway bestseller, but me refreshing the sales page every ten minutes is not going to help it on its way!

And the results of the Smashwords promo are…

Tags

e-book, Fatal Forgery, marketing, publicity, Smashwords

A little while ago I told you that I was participating in a Smashwords promo called “eBook Week”, where publishers of ebooks could be listed in the special “eBook Week” catalogue in exchange for offering a discount on the price of their book for that week.  Having literally nothing to lose – I have never managed to sell a single copy of “Fatal Forgery” through Smashwords – I signed up.

A bit of background: Smashwords is (in its own words) “the world’s largest distributor of indie ebooks”.  Writers like me (we’re known as indie publishers) can simply upload our books to Smashwords in as many formats as we like, and then Smashwords distributes them to the appropriate sales channels.  I went for the whole lot, formatting “FF” so that it could be sent to (wait for it) Sony, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, Diesel, Page Foundry, Baker & Taylor, Flipkart, Oyster and Scribd.  As part of the deal, you allow potential buyers on all those channels to download a sample of the book, a bit like Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature.  Since I signed on with Smashwords in June 2013, my sample has been downloaded 38 times, and the book bought not once.

(Things have not been helped in the UK by WHSmith.  They have a Kobo shop on their website, and when they were told that some Kobo books are x-rated, they removed all self-published books from their Kobo shop.  I have been in touch with them several times, asking when non-naughty self-published books will be allowed back in, and apparently – I kid you not – they are reading them one by one to check.  So don’t hold your breath.)

So how has the Smashwords “eBook Week” promo worked out for me?  How many books have I sold?  None.  How many sample downloads have there been?  None.  Well, I did promise I would report back.  I just wish the news were better.

The unvarnished truth

Tags

e-book, Fatal Forgery, fraud, Goodreads, marketing, publicity, Samuel Plank, self-publishing

When you last bought something online, I bet you looked at reviews from other buyers before making your final decision.  It’s one of the strengths of the online community, from TripAdvisor to M&S.  And for the self-published author (by which I mean me) reviews are extremely important.  After all, very few of the people who might stumble across “Fatal Forgery” will have heard of me, and therefore they cannot judge how reliable or talented I am.  “FF” is my first novel, so they cannot rely on any previous books by me that they might have enjoyed.  (I have written others, but I doubt many of you have taken “The Money Laundering Officer’s Practical Handbook” on holiday with you, for light poolside reading.)  And so reviews by other readers are the best indication.  Getting such reviews therefore is essential for me.  I have mentioned before that I am now quite active on the Goodreads website; I have listed two giveaways, and have been lucky enough to get a review from each.  One came out last week, and it’s lovely.

I have also been searching determinedly for appropriate book bloggers.  There are thousands of them, and many offer to do reviews, but you have to pick carefully.  Some charge for reviewing, and so I disregard them; somehow it loses objectivity if money changes hands.  Others refuse to review self-published books, so they’re out too.  And of the rest, most specify the types of books that they will review, so there’s no point contacting someone who is not interested in historical fiction.  I have finally pinpointed three possible bloggers, and they have all very kindly agreed to take a look at “FF” and, if they like it enough to read it all, to review it.  Fingers crossed, and I’ll keep you posted – after all, reviews are meant to be shared.

Trying a Smashwords promo

Tags

e-book, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, fraud, marketing, Samuel Plank, Smashwords, Susan Grossey

As regular readers will know, I have tried to get “Fatal Forgery” published in as many formats as possible.  I did the print-on-demand paperback and Kindle versions myself, and then turned to Smashwords to create several more.  It’s not been a huge success – in fact, not a single copy has sold through Smashwords.  But this week I had an email from them advertising their “e-Book Week”, and I’m giving it a go.

In essence, I offer a discount on the price of my e-book sold through Smashwords (several formats on offer).  I have chosen to offer a 25% discount.  They then list my book (along with doubtless hundreds more) in their “eBook Week Catalogue” – you can see my catalogue listing here.  If you buy during this week and use the special code at checkout, you get 25% off the normal price.  I have no idea how successful this will be – it rather depends on the Smashwords promotional efforts, and the number of other books in the catalogue.  But I have maths A-level, and I know that 75% of something is better than 100% of nothing, so it’s worth a bash.  I’ll let you know.

A full set of e-versions – I think!

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e-book, Fatal Forgery, financial crime, Kobo, marketing, publicity, self-publishing

A little while ago I explained that I was publishing “Fatal Forgery” through Smashwords, in order to create lots of different e-versions for all different e-shops (to complement to Kindle version published through Amazon).  Thanks to Smashwords, “FF” is now available as a Sony e-book, an Apple iBook and more – although I have to admit that it has not sold even one copy through any of these routes.  (On the other hand, it cost me only time – not money – to publish through Smashwords, so I’m not feeling too worried.)

Another format that Smashwords offered was Kobo, and I was particularly keen on this because our largest chain of newsagents here in the UK – WHSmith – sells Kobo e-readers and e-books.  But even a fortnight after “FF” was listed on Smashwords as having been shipped to Kobo, it still wasn’t appearing there, so I did a bit of sleuthing.  It turns out that Kobo now offers its own (free) e-publishing route, called Kobo Writing Life, and the rumour is that they are prioritising books published through that over ones coming through Smashwords.  So I did the obvious thing and went direct through Writing Life, and now “FF” is listed on the Kobobooks website (you can see it here).  Again, no sales yet – but it did only appear there yesterday.

What this has all shown me is that it is terrifically hard to keep up with all the options – there are probably dozens of other e-book formats out there of which I am totally unaware.  It almost makes you yearn for the days when the only two options were hardback and paperback – although I course I wouldn’t have been published at all without all the new self-publishing routes!

My plan for world domination

Tags

bookshop, e-book, Fatal Forgery, marketing, publicity, self-publishing, Smashwords

I mentioned a little while ago that I was distributing “Fatal Forgery” through Smashwords, and I can give you a little update.  I uploaded my e-book file to Smashwords on 6 October, and on 15 October (after one nudge from me, and a very friendly return email from Smashwords) “Fatal Forgery” appeared in the Smashwords Premium Catalog.  This means that it had been checked for basic errors (lack of ISBN, peculiar styles, etc.), had been converted in the various e-book file formats, and could be automatically distributed to all the sellers that I had selected – and of course I chose the whole lot.

As of today:

• It has been distributed to iBooks and can be seen here (that clever link automatically goes to your local iBooks store – fiendish!)
• It is now available as a Nook book and can be seen here
• It is on sale in Barnes & Noble (as a Nook book) – you can see it here
• It has been sent to Kobo, but is not yet appearing in their bookstore
• Likewise, it has been sent to the Sony eBookstore but has not yet appeared.

No sales so far through any of these channels, but it can only help – I’ll keep you posted.