August 11th, 2011 | By Ovi Demetrian Jr | Posted in PromotionSales
You’ve probably heard about Google AdWords. Companies use the tool for getting what they call ‘leads’ for their products or services. But you probably never thought about how this can work for selling your book. All you need to know to get start is the basic concept behind how it works.
Adwords is a small ad in Google search results which consists of a short headline and a sentence. You specify which keywords you want the ad to show up for when people search and set your budget. That’s it really! The cost for the ad comes in the amount you’re willing to pay for the keywords you want. The tricky part is optimizing your ad and measuring your results to make sure you’re getting ROI, which is a fancy business term for actual sales based on the amount you spend.
Tips for using Google Adwords
There are quite a few options when setting up an ad with Google Adwords. The best way to figure out what they do is by experimenting and fine tuning what works and what doesn’t. Here are a few tips to get you started:
- Set a daily budget for your new campaign so it doesn’t exceed that amount, you can start with just 2-3 dollars
- Set a low cost per click limit to get the maximum clicks for your money and give you room to play with
- Make keywords very specific, don’t be afraid to do 3-4 word keywords
- Include ‘book’ or ‘ebook’ in the ad to set proper expectations for people clicking through
The goal of your ad should be to target exactly the kind of people you’d expect to read your book and since you’re paying for each click, you want to get your money’s worth by making sure you get just the right people. The exact way this works is based on how you word your ad and what keywords you decide to target. You probably won’t get it right the first time so make tweaks as you start getting some hits going.
Optimizing your landing page
Once you start getting clicks for your ad, make sure the clicks go to a page that leads people towards your goal, which is selling you book. This page should include the following:
- A good description of your book
- An excerpt from the book or link to it
- Reviews of your book
- A prominent button to buy the book
- Links to your other work
- Info about you, the author and how to keep up with your updates
At this point we’d like to toot our own horn a little and let you know that our story overview page was designed with all these aspects in mind. We also make the order process as painless as possible to encourage return visits.
Now you’re ready to give it a try. The worst that could happen is you lose a few dollars you experiment with, a coffee out of your Starbucks funds. You’ll definitely learn something from having done so though! If do try it out, let us know how goes in the comments below. And for more marketing tips, have a look at our new self-publishing promotion guide.
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May 31st, 2010 | By Ovi Demetrian Jr | Posted in PromotionSales
Photo by JohnKit on Flickr
I went to this year’s Phoenix Comicon which was much bigger compared to last year’s and better organized. Besides having a great time talking about comics and stories, I noticed that for indie comic creators and book authors being part of the Con was a great way to promote themselves.
Even from all the panels I went to, the common advice successful comic creators and authors had for promotion was to go to various conventions and talk to people in person. From getting a booth to participating in panels, being active at various events is one of the best ways to interact with fans.
It’s all part of the community-building process. It’s the same reason using various tools like Blogs, Twitter and Facebook, works well. Simply put, to let people know about what you do, interact with them.
Here some other tips I kept hearing discussed during panels:
- To get your work talked about, put effort into getting reviews, even if it means tracking down bloggers who might be interested in your work and sending them review copies
- Making your work a series released on a shorter-term basis could be an easier investment with some quicker results versus spending years on the perfect novel
- Think of ways to create merchandise around your work since that’s what can sometimes make you more money than the story itself
Comicons and other conventions revolving around stories and the worlds they create are everywhere now and there’s more of them starting up than ever before. If you haven’t been to one, you’re missing out on some great fun!
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March 5th, 2010 | By Ovi Demetrian Jr | Posted in DistributionPublishingSales
In a recent New York Times article, the author tries to make sense of the math for the cost of a traditional book versus an ebook after the recent $13-15 price tag set for ebooks. Based on their numbers, I’ve attempted to compare how the old retail model compares to the new ebook model in a couple of simplified graphs:
Retail Bookseller
Average cost: $26 (Hardcover)
Digital Bookseller
Average cost: $13
Author
Publisher
Bookseller
Printer
In the Retail model, on a $26 hardcover book an author would get $3.90 (15%), the publisher would get $6.80 (30%), the bookseller would get $13 (50%) and the printing and shipping would cost around $1.30 (5%). In the Digital model, the retail bookstore is essentially eleminated along with the printing and physical shipping costs and in their place are online shops like Amazon.com. In this model, the author gets $3.25 (25%), their publisher $5.85 (50%) and the online shops $3.90 (30%). These are rough numbers, but they give us a good idea of how costs breakdown.
Ultimately, the biggest difference in cost is for the customer which will greatly incentivise digital sales in the years to come as the technology for reading ebooks becomes more accessible. And while the amount made by authors appears to be about the same, a lower cost to the customer means more sales longterm and more going to the author. The biggest thing to take out of this is that the author’s piece of the pie has increased and as the market continues to evolve there’s opportunity for it to increase even more!
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