Saturday, November 19, 2011

Marketing Update for Off Leash

On October 8 I launched Off Leash as two books. I sold 4 copies in total at $2.99 with 70% royalty rate. I also quickly realized this angle was not going to work. Offering the book with two endings selling it as two different books was saturating my market and sales. So a few days later I reworked both books into one book –Off Leash: Bonus Content and tagged the nitty gritty ending on as the 2nd ending all in one book. My stats at this point remained about 80,000. I also changed the price to .99 cent which meant a drop in royalty to 35%.

Marketing: Fired off queries to about 10 YA blog sites asking if they’d read an e-Arc of Off Leash.

Three YA blog sites responded. Again good exposure but no increase in sales.

Blog: I attempt to be more active with blogging and reading more YA books.

Twitter: I made it a point to really up my tweets and start following more YA authors/bloggers. Not sure if this increased sales but this is something I enjoy and again it’s tied into exposure. I also make it a point to always respond to 4-6 people when I log in. Whenever someone starts to follow me I also send them a note of thanks.

Goodreads: I joined and added a number of YA/Indie groups. I confess here I find it hard to utilize this site for promotion so would welcome any helpful hints. Even getting my book listed on Goodreads was hard.

Digital Book Today – On November 7 Off Leash was posted. In order to get posted you need at least 5 reviews (this can be very hard to get for an Indie author), but once I got them I fired off a note and they agreed to feature it. This was free.

The Frugal E-Reader – Launched Off Leash on Nov. 6th – the double exposure really helped to move Off Leash up to the Top 100 Amazon Kindle list. In terms of sales all together that day 6 books were sold.

The Kindle Daily Deal – This was my first paid ad at $59 (US). It was worth it. I sold 23 books and moved as high as #13 on the Top Amazon Kindle List for Best Children’s Books for Boys and Men. Four days later I was still ranked in the Top 100. This was great for exposure. A lot of new people on twitter started to follow me also.

Total sales todate: 38 books

What’s next?

I booked a Pixel of Ink ad for Off Leash which is about $119 (US) and I’m slated for Dec.10, 2011 – this is perfect timing. My second book, Off Limits I hope to have live on Dec 5th and I’ll be keeping that priced at $2.99 with 70% royalty in the hopes of making more sales.

Goodreads – goal is to better utilize this site

Facebook – attempt to get more exposure about the series through my Renee Pace site

Twitter – continue doing what I’m doing

YA reviews sites – research more and attempt to get more reviews – nice to have 20 reviews so I can approach other Kindle Nation sites that require this.

Locally – Mail my print copy of Off Leash to local Teen Magazine so they can have one of their teen reviewers read and post a review – aim is January.

Emailed my local library asking them to purchase a copy for their collection. Also emailed library to see if they’d be willing to host a local YA Indie group workshop – still waiting for reply.

12 comments:

Jo Ramsey said...

Sounds like you're really working hard at this. Marketing and promoting is one of the hardest parts of writing, in my opinion, whether you publish yourself or are with a publishing company.

I have trouble figuring out how to promote myself on Goodreads, too.

Trish said...

Thanks for the info Renee,

I just booked a Frugal Ereader ad. I'll probably do a Pixels of Ink sometime soon too. My goal is to keep Forged in the top twenty RS as long as I can, at least into Januaury.

I've been considering the Kindle Nation one too, but that one seems so hit and miss for so many people.

Frugal ereader and Pixels have had great results for everyone I know who did them.

Wilson James said...

I'm really impressed that you're sharing this, Renee. This is great information, and very helpful to all indie authors.

I really like what you've done with Off Leash...putting the books together. I'd seen the double listing, and this is much better.

I hope you find the right combination of marketing to make it all work. Good luck!

Wil

Bev Pettersen said...

Thanks, Renee. Sounds like a good plan and excellent timing with your second book coming out. Look forward to it!

Unknown said...

Renee, enjoyed reading about the marketing of your book.Fascinating Stuff. Sounds like you have a good plan moving forward.

Edie Ramer said...

Good for you for trying so many things. Thanks for sharing!

Renee Pace said...

Thanks everyone for those comments. I think as an Indie author the key is to help each other be successful. I firmly believe I wouldn't be doing this without the support of Bev Pettersen or Julianne MacLean's very helpful emails.

PJ Sharon said...

Great info Renee. Thanks. I'm curious with only 38 copies sold how you made the Kindle top 100 list. Was that 80,000 sales or #80,000 in the rankings?

Cathleen Ross said...

Thanks for posting this, Renee. It was very comprehensively done.

Stephanie Queen said...

Great plan, Renee! Well organized and good response to feedback.
I'm now inspired!

Norah Wilson said...

Renee, it sounds as though you're doing everything right! Keep swinging!

Suzanne Pitner said...

I share PJ Sharon's question. Did you move from 80,000 ranking to top 100? Or had you sold 80,000 copies? I was confused while reading your post.

This is a fantastic success story of promoting yourself. Now that you've laid the groundwork with Off Leash, the next book should shoot even higher. Congratulations!