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Hi Sharon, thank you for taking the time to do this interview.
1. How did you begin writing? Did you intend to become an author, or do you have a specific reason or reasons for writing each book?
I have been writing fiction since I was fifteen. I clearly remember when my English teacher pulled me aside and told me I was talented. That gave me the motivation to keep writing and getting better. It has always been my dream to be an author.
2. How did you come up with the title of your book or series? Tell us a little bit about your book series.
Destruction is book 1 in The December People Series. The December People Series revolves around the Vandergraff family, a family of dark wizards living in Houston, Texas. There will be four books in the series, in honor of the four seasons. The series is called “December People” because wizards are classified by seasons, with winter being the darkest. “Destruction” refers to the destructive quality of dark magic.
3. Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?
Every time I’m asked that question, I chuckle a bit. My life is chaotic. I have a full time job and also have two small children. I don’t have dedicated time to write and just squeeze in it whenever I can.
4. Do you read your reviews? Do you respond to them, good or bad? Do you have any advice on how to deal with the bad?
I wrote a blog post on this topic called, Why I Read My Book’s Reviews. So, yes, I do read them! I often thank people for their reviews, but I never argue or make comments other than “thank you.” As for dealing with bad, I recommend looking at the big picture. It’s amazing how much one scathing review can hurt, even if you have 50 others that are glowing. Do you best to look at the overall star rating and remind yourself that ALL successful authors get bad reviews!
5. Is there any marketing technique you used that had an immediate impact on your sales figures?
99 cent sales always work for me, especially if well-promoted. On the day I reached the #1 spot above, my publisher had put Destruction on Book Bub. It was certainly the one single marketing tool that had the most dramatic effect. If you can make it in, and can afford it, I highly recommend it.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family._________________________________________________________________________________________________________
After months of analysis, research and effort we are pleased to present to you the new Freado website today. Extensive user testing has improved the aesthetics of the site and given rise to an easy to navigate interface. We’ve focused hard on making it easy for first time visitors to understand what the site is all about.
What’s changed?
1. Freado is Now for Book Reviewers and Book Bloggers
In order to attract A-list book bloggers and top Amazon reviewers to the site, we’ve now clearly defined the tag line of the site as “Giveaways for Reviewers and Book Bloggers”. While we already have a number of book bloggers and Amazon top reviewers using the site, we believe that by clearly articulating who the site is for, we will be able to become more attractive to them. And by attracting more of the power reader types to the site, we expect to be vastly more useful for our participating authors and publishers.
2. Larger Book Cover Images
We also spent a significant amount of time reviewing how readers discover new books – both offline and online. What we learned should come as no surprise to you. Readers typically look at the front of the book including the title, then if they are interested, they look at the back of the book and finally they flip through a few pages of the book.
In order to accommodate this behaviour, we’ve made the covers that show up on the site much larger than any other book site out there. Also in most places a mouse-over flips the book over to show a description of the book.
3. Improved Endless Scroll for Giveaways Page
After the success of Pinterest, the idea of an ‘endless scroll’ has taken hold on the web. A number of sites have used the concept successfully. We realized that this would be a useful way to show the giveaways available in our system. Visit our ‘giveaways page’ to see this in action.
Take a spin and let us know if it works for you.
If you are blogger or book reviewer, click here to enjoy the amazing giveaways on Freado.
If you are a publisher or author, get in touch with us to create buzz and get reviews for your book.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family._________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Congratulations JC Herz. We’re so excited to have you here with us. To start with, can you tell us a little about yourself?
I started writing professionally as a teenage rock critic for The Boston Phoenix, while I was a Harvard undergraduate. It was my scheme to see bands in bars (they don’t card people on the press list). Every time I wrote an album review I got $50. I thought it was amazing. In my senior year I stumbled into this thing that not very many people knew about, called the Internet, and wrote a book about it, published in 1994 (the white hot year of “cyberspace” – that book was published in ten languages). Next book was a history of videogames, which led to writing a column about computer game design for The New York Times. I didn’t find a book topic that intrigued me as much as the Internet (when no-one knew about it) or videogames as a formative experience for Generation X, until CrossFit. Hopefully my cultural antennae are still well calibrated.
I also co-wrote a children’s e-book, A Dark & Dismal Flower, just released on iTunes and Google Play. It’s a gothic fairy tale filled with animated illustrations, published by Coliloquy. The illustrations are stunning – our aspiration was to create one of the first works of classic children’s literature for a tablet device.
2. How did you come up with the idea for ‘Learning to Breathe Fire: The Rise of CrossFit and the Primal Future of Fitness’?
My husband found CrossFit after a serious back injury (ruptured disc – the result of a stupid bootcamp workout at the Y) made him swear to make his core so strong that he’d never have another back injury. He drank the Kool-Aid and started talking nonstop about CrossFit (The First Rule of CrossFit is, Always Talk About CrossFit). It was boring and annoying. So I figured, I had to try CrossFit for the sake of our marriage. If I liked it, I’d enjoy talking the same gibberish and it’d bring us together as a couple. If I didn’t like it, at least I’d get credit for trying, and I could start to draw some boundaries around Workout-of-the-Day dissertations at dinner time.
Unlike my husband, I am not a stellar athlete – I’m an excellent example of what you can do with zero genetic potential for sports. But the experience of CrossFit was so primal, and the tribal quality of the box was so powerful, that I realized something really interesting was going on, that deserved a book-length treatment. What makes CrossFit fun to write about is, it’s mythic – the sportswriting passages in Learning to Breathe Fire are present-tense, but also have an epic quality (barbells at the gates of Troy, sort of thing). Connecting the modern to the ancient – today’s throwdowns to the genesis of sport in ancient human society – was revelatory. And it got me back in touch with some amazing classics scholars who have some mind-stretching perspectives on athletics.
3. How did you feel when you discovered that your book was #1 in the Sports Psychology category on Amazon? Did you go out and celebrate?
It was a fantastic surprise, and I immediately posted it to Fire’s FB page! I did celebrate at the book’s DC event, which was also the grand opening of a CrossFit box in Northern Virginia. But beyond that, getting #1 in a category was helpful because I’m not sure booksellers were sure where to shelve this book. With sports literature? Anthropology? Epic chronicles of mountain-climbing and other “extreme” adventures? Pop culture? It’s a cross-cutting book, which sounds good but creates an uncomfortable ambiguity about how to categorize the title. Seeing the book go to #1 in Sports Psychology grounded me, so I could say, OK, Sports Psychology, that’s an awesome category full of really interesting ideas – let’s own that.
4. Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it?
I’d never done sportswriting, and it’s a blast. On a deeper level, as a younger writer I think I was caught up in being clever, and having a smart-ass take on everything, and writing Fire taught me to write un-ironically about experiences that are primal and mythic, and to weave science and business strands into those character-driven narratives. I grew up and found a deeper, more mature voice. As a human being, I learned a lot from the athletes who shared their stories. Am especially indebted to Greg Amundson, “the original firebreather,” for his wisdom about how to handle tough situations. In some ways, the reporting for this book was like interviewing a series of samurais and warrior monks – people who are unbelievably kick-ass, and at the same time very wise. Lastly, reporting on active duty military CrossFitters gave me a new appreciation for the fortitude of our men and women in uniform (and the contractors who work with them, in hot and dusty places). These are people who lived in shipping containers stacked on top of each other and jumped out of bed in the morning ready to hit some insane CrossFit workout or dodge mortar fire (or both simultaneously). Crown sent an advance copy of Fire to every military CrossFit box we could locate (the APO/FPO mail service is amazingly reliable) – notes back from military CrossFitters were incredibly humbling and gratifying.
5. Did you make any marketing mistakes or is there anything you would avoid in future?
I feel like my biggest mistake is not doing everything that people do on social media – there’s too little time and attention to do it all. Fire has a great and very engaged community on Facebook (I love having the Bookbuzzr excerpt there). I don’t do a lot of long-form blogging, and I have a guilty feeling that I should be posting a lot more to Instagram. I’m “micro-excerpting” the book on Twitter (i.e. posting the “zingers” that make people laugh or reminisce) but sometimes Twitter feels like a million people howling into the wind. I’ve been AWOL on GoodReads. I wish some wise man or wise woman of publishing could tell me what’s actually worth an author’s time, in terms of social media.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family._________________________________________________________________________________________________________
BookBuzzr author James Shipman’s book – Constantinopolis recently hit the #1 spot on the Amazon. We reached out to James Shipman to learn more about his story.
The screenshot below was taken on May 9, 2014.
1. Hi James, thank you for agreeing to this interview. Tell us a little about yourself and your background?
Thank you for the opportunity to respond. I am 44 years old and live in the Pacific Northwest with my three children. I am a local attorney and mediator that likes serving on community boards and involving myself in local issues. I do a little pottery and even less guitar. I’m engaged to be married this upcoming January 2 to a wonderful teacher, mother and companion.
2. When did you decide to become a writer?
I’ve always enjoyed writing. I took a number of creative writing courses in high school and then at the University of Washington. When I was in law school I published a couple of short stories and poems and I wrote my first novel. I had an agent for some time after law school but I couldn’t find a traditional publisher to publish my book. My writing took a hit in my 30’s because I was so busy with raising a family and my law career. When I turned 40 I started writing ‘Constantinopolis‘ and ultimately published it in 2013.
3. What was the hardest thing about writing your latest book?
My newest book is ‘Going Home’, a civil war novel based on a true story. Going Home will be released September 15. The most difficult thing I found about writing this book and also Constantinopolis is making sure all the research is as accurate as possible. It is also a challenge to write dialogue that is believable for the time period without making it so stodgy that modern readers will lose interest.
4. Do you have a strategy for finding reviewers?
With each book I have a group of ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) members who have agreed to read my book before it is released, then buy it on Amazon and give the book an honest review. I also find that giveaways on such sites as Freado.com or Goodreads will get your book in the hands of people who hopefully will give you a review. Obviously, the more books you sell and the more books you distribute, the more reviews you can expect.
5. Do you have any advice for other authors on how to market their books?
I would start with what is free. Reach out to friends and family and on Facebook. Build a Twitter following and join an authors group like ASMSG where members will tweet for each other. Tweet something every day and post on Facebook everyday, BUT very important, don’t just advertise your book. People will get very tired of that. Share real things about yourself or interesting content that relates to your writing. Do this more often than you communicate directly about your book. Seek out discount promoters like ENT, Bookbub, etc., to run promotions about your book. Do giveways on Freado.com, Goodreads, etc. The key is to market a little bit every day, even if it’s just 15 minutes a day. Be very very patient, this is a long term process. If you obtain an agent and a big publishing deal that’s great for you, and discard all this advice, but for the rest of us, it’s all about consistency and patience.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family._________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hi P. O. Dixon, thank you for taking the time to do this interview.
1. Congratulations on the success of ‘Pride and Sensuality’. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your journey as a writer?
I think of myself as a writer as well as an entertainer. Historical England and its days of yore fascinate me, particularly the Regency period with its strict mores and oh so proper decorum. I credit my ardent appreciation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as the impetus for my writing career.
When it comes to my writer’s journey, I often remark that I arrived late in the game. It was only after I published my first story and later confided to someone in the “real” world what I had done that I was reminded I had written and shared stories with others during my teenage years. Indeed, the pursuit of advanced business degrees and professional career objectives literally had relegated my earliest writing endeavors to the furthest recesses of my mind.
Even after publishing my first book, I never supposed I would one day write for a living. My professional career meant too much to me to even consider such folly. By the time my fourth book was published, I could not imagine any other life for me.
Although it likely will not always be the case, all my books have been Pride and Prejudice adaptations. I love knowing that my readers are so passionate about a story written more than two hundred years ago and frankly can never get enough of it, for I feel the same way. Once I discovered the world of Pride and Prejudice fan fiction, my fervent passion for all things related to Pride and Prejudice took hold, and I was not truly satisfied until I began sharing my own stories.
2. What’s your latest book ‘Pride and Sensuality’ all about?
Pride and Sensuality is my thirteenth Pride and Prejudice adaptation. Everything that occurs in Jane Austen’s timeless classic leading to the last days before Darcy and Elizabeth are married, serves as the backdrop of this “what-if” story. It is a warm and diverting account of how Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennet, a young engaged couple violently in love, might have spent an evening at Longbourn mere days before their nuptials.
Its sultry title begs the question: If Pride and Sensuality were a film, what rating would it be? One reader said, “It is sensual, but does not cross the boundaries of what is tasteful.” The reader went on to say, “PG rated for actual events, but PG-13 for the thoughts it puts in your head.”
Well said.
3. Do you have a special time to write or how is your day structured?
As an author and publishing entrepreneur, countless activities consume my every waking hour. Though I would love to say I write every day, that is not the case. I devote as much time to education and training aimed at perfecting my craft as I spend on social media networking dedicated to building true fans. I have a growing library of writing and editing books as well as marketing books. If it’s a bestselling Kindle marketing book, I have read it at least once or twice. I also make it a priority to stay abreast of the ever-changing publishing landscape in order to tweak my strategy accordingly.
With so much to keep up with, I find working with a Master Writing plan essential to achieving my annual writing goals and delivering planned releases on schedule. It’s a helpful tool in allocating my time among all my writing priorities on a weekly basis.
4. Do you have a strategy for finding reviewers?
My most effective strategies for getting early reviews are reaching out to select bloggers who have enjoyed my work in the past as well as offering Advanced Reader Copies to my newsletter subscribers, upon request. In addition, at the end of every eBook, I ask readers to consider writing a review. Beyond that, I tend to rely upon the process of gaining reviews to unfold organically.
5. What are some of the activities that you do to market your book?
I believe it is important to have an online presence wherever new readers are likely to find my books. In addition to my website which has a landing page for each of my titles, I have two blogs: one is used solely to inform readers of exciting milestones for my books, and the other is meant to be more engaging with genre related posts and giveaways.
By the third round of story edits for each new release, I start paying close attention to parts of the story that will form the basis for the book’s marketing campaign. Then, while the manuscript is in the editor’s hands, I focus upon developing the release marketing strategy and preparing marketing materials.
I actively engage my readers on Facebook, using both my personal and author page. To make my Facebook posts more engaging, I provide lots of pictures often with inspirational quotes drawn from the books themselves. I especially like to use BookBuzzr’s book widgets on my website, and I take advantage of the Book-tweeter feature. My favorite technique is incorporating excerpts from reader reviews in the scheduled tweets. Tweets that include the #Bookbuzzr hashtag are regularly retweeted, are often flagged as favorites and are featured in various Paper.li editions; hence serve as effective passive marketing.
Other things in my Marketing Toolbox are the use of free press releases, which I then promote to targeted Facebook users, an up-to-date Goodreads Author Page with new release book giveaways, regular Google + updates, and Pinterest boards for each book.
As important as all the other marketing techniques are, I’d say my most important strategy is increasing my newsletter subscriber base with true fans. I credit my newsletter members with Pride and Sensuality landing the #1 spot on Amazon’s Best Sellers in Historical Fiction Short Stories on the day of its release.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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A few days ago, we enrolled our book – 2014 Facebook Marketing Guide for Authors – onto the KDP Select program. This would give us 5 KDP free days during which time we could promote our book and achieve our goal of reaching out to more authors.
We decided to set the dates between March 11th and March 15th 2014 as our KDP free day period. Partly because of constraints of time and partly because we wanted to ‘eat our own dog food’, we decided to rely primarily on Facebook marketing to bring up our numbers.
We also sent out about 100 emails to authors who had shown an interest in the ARC’s of the book. These emails would have also had a substantial impact on the ranking of the book. Best selling author Libby Hellmann also made a post titled ‘BookBuzzr Facebook Guide is Really Good’ on GoodReads which may also have played a significant part in our results.
The net result was that within 2 days we got a #1 rank in the Amazon store in the fairly competitive ‘Advertising’ category giving us much needed visibility with authors.
The rest of this post analyzes what we did so that you can attempt to replicate our results with your own book.
Here are the types of ads we setup:
1. Dark Post to Audience of Authors
We are big believers in dark posts. These are unpublished posts that don’t appear on your Facebook fan page’s timeline. We’ve used these in the past to promote BookBuzzr products on our Facebook fan page – www.facebook.com/bookbuzzr.
For the KDP Free Day, we first set up a post using the following steps:
There we clicked on ‘Create Post’ and followed the onscreen prompts to create a new post and chose the ‘This post will be used as an ad’ option.
This resulted in a post that listed with a half-moon beside it.
The post looked like this:
Next we navigated back to our ads interface by clicking on our account number on the drop down on the top left:
There, we created a new campaign called ‘KDP Free Day Dark Post US, UK and Canada’ and an ad under that campaign (note: we usually set up one ad under one campaign because of the way Facebook handles your ad budget.)
We set up a life time budget of $50. Initially, we made a big mistake with our targeting and clicked on a suggested audience called ‘Self Publish and Be Happy’. After a day, we realized that this audience was not actually not authors and was completely unrelated to publishing. This may have made our cost per click more expensive than needed.
We also went against our own advice in our book and targeted over 540,000 people (in our book we suggest that you don’t target more than 5,000 to 10,000 people with each ad. Our ad targeting details were as under:
We also played around with different pricing models and finally settled on a bid per click at 80 cents per click.
The results were as under:
We had a really abysmal click through rate of .337% (most of our other posts have click through rates of between 1% and 3%) This could be because of three reasons:
1. The mistake that we made initially by targeting the ‘Self-Publish and Be Happy’ audience.
2. The fact that our audience size was really large at over half a million people!
3. Some other error in our targeting.
At any rate, this resulted in 73 clicks (54 unique) and we’re guessing that most of the people who clicked through and went to Amazon downloaded the book. We have no way of knowing what percent of the people we sent to Amazon downloaded our book since Amazon does not provide any kind of analytics in this regard.
2. Dark Post to Custom Audience
We also promoted the exact same post to a ‘Custom Audience’. This is a list of email users of BookBuzzr authors. In this case, because we knew that the size of our audience was capped at just 2,800 Facebook users, we decided to opt for the CPM (cost per thousand impressions) model.
These ads performed far better than the other ads. We had 23 Unique Clicks and over 31 clicks. Again, we’re guessing that most of the people who clicked through ultimately downloaded the book.
And we spent just under $3 to get these clicks.
3. Ad on Right Side of Page (Failed and Stopped)
Again, we went against our own advice and set up an ad on the right side of the page. This was a complete disaster with thousands of views and very few (nearly zero) clicks. We were not spending any money but we were also not getting any results. So we abandoned these ads within a day.
4. Ad Promoting a Post on our Facebook Page
We also made a post on our Facebook page when the book hit #2 on the charts thanking them. We pinned this to the top of our page.
But this time we took our own advice and did not use the ‘Boost Post’ feature. The primary reason for our decision in this instance was that we could not advertise only to the authors who had liked the BookBuzzr page. Instead Facebook was forcing us to advertise both to our authors and their friends who may or may not be authors.
So we advertised this post by going back into the Power Editor, creating a new campaign and choosing the page post engagement feature.
This has given us about 6 unique clicks for a total spend of $2.62 and will probably continue to help our cause over the next 2 days.
Current Status
Overall, we feel pretty good about having achieved a number one ranking on Amazon with less than $80 of ad money spent and a little elbow grease.
Pending Facebook Marketing Tasks
We still have not gone out and contacted group members on Facebook informing them about the availability of the book. We’re hoping to do that today. Of course it will be harder to document the results as we will not be able to track the clicks.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
BookBuzzr author – Lorhainne Eckhart’s book – The Forgotten Child recently hit the #2 spot on the Amazon Kindle store. We reached out to Lorhainne to learn more about her story.
The screenshot below was taken on February 28, 2014.
Hi Lorhainne, thank you for taking the time to do this interview.
Thanks for having me.
1. Congratulations on the astounding success of – The Forgotten Child! Can you begin by telling our authors your story?
I am a 2013 Readers Favorite Award winner and author of 24 titles which includes novels, collections, and short stories. I write three genres, western romance, romantic suspense and military romance and have sold more than 200,000 eBooks since my bestseller The Forgotten Child has landed on the Amazon #1 Bestseller list for Westerns and Western Romance. The German Foreign rights for The Forgotten Child have since been acquired by a major publisher and will be released March 18, 2014. I live on sunny Salt Spring Island with my family where I am working on my next book.
2. What’s a typical day like in your life as a self-published author?
Well, first I have a crazy busy schedule, which I am completely responsible for only because having a successful career as an author is a driving force for me and I don’t allow much to stand in my way. I am extremely proactive, after I get my kids off to school, I spend my mornings writing, and I try to do at least ten pages a day. I don’t always succeed, but I write every day. Procrastination is not in my vocabulary and I have become really good at shutting out all distractions. I spend my afternoons focusing on promotion, social media, writing blogs and getting caught up on emails.
I manage my time and rarely schedule anything in the mornings. Only after I finish a book and ship it off to my editor do I take a few days off.
3. Some reviews can be harsh. How do you deal with negative reviews?
Honestly, some negative reviews can be personal attacks on an author. I’ve seen some horrible ones that make me questions why would someone say something so nasty. The first time you get a bad review it bothers you, but I have learned to ignore them. There will always be negative people in this world and when you give any attention to that you just feed it. I focus on my good reviews, I have a lot of good reviews from my readers and they always put a smile on my face. Sometimes getting a really bad review can be someone who bought your book thinking it was another type of book. And when this happens, I do go back and look and make sure all the appropriate warnings are there, for language and content.
4. Your book is priced at less than a dollar at the moment in the Kindle store. Have you experimented with different price points? How does price affect sales?
I have experimented with different prices. Generally, my eBooks are priced at 2.99, my collections at 3.99 and up. The .99 price point is when I am running promotions or I want to boost sales for a book. The Forgotten Child has done very well, and the price has been reduced for promotions I am running through until the end of March.
5. What are some of the activities that you do to market your book?
I advertise on many online sites and direct eBook newsletters. Every week I have several ads running for any one of my books. I also write two blogs, and participate in free e-book giveaways.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Rachel Thompson (aka RachelintheOC) is a bestselling author and social media/author marketing consultant. Her three books, A Walk In The Snark, The Mancode: Exposed and Broken Pieces are all #1 Kindle bestsellers! Midwest Book Review and two Amazon Top 10 Hall of Fame reviewers all gave Broken Pieces five stars.
When not writing, she helps authors and other professionals with branding and social media for her company, BadRedhead Media. Her articles appear regularly in the San Francisco Book Review (BadRedhead Says…), 12Most.com, bitrebels.com, and BookPromotion.com.
1) Hi Rachel … thank you so much for doing this interview and for your willingness to share your experiences and knowledge of book marketing. Can you tell us a little more about yourself?
Sure. I’ved in California most of my life, though I was born in Florida. I did try out the east coast for about four or so years in the early nineties, but had enough of the crazy winters! I’m a wife, a mom (two children, a boy and a girl), and when I’m not working on books or articles, I’m running my social media marketing business. Let’s not discuss laundry.
I did the corporate thing in the pharma industry for over 15 years and quit in 2004. I’ve always been a writer, since the age of ten, and a lifelong avid reader. Books and words are my addiction.
2) You’ve got a humongous following on Twitter. Can you share some tips which authors can begin implementing right away to improve their Twitter presence?
I’ve been on Twitter since early 2009, so I’ve had time to build a targeted following and have learned a few tricks.
Be authentic. Many authors say they just don’t know what to talk about on Twitter, and I tell them they should talk about what they always talk about in real life! If you’re completely stumped, start with your genre, share books and authors you enjoy, quotes, first-lines, etc. I do suggest going beyond that as you become more comfortable since none of us is one-note.
Don’t spam. It’s tempting to get on Twitter and do nothing but talk about our books and share links to our books, but that puts most people to sleep or worse, you annoy them and they unfollow or report you for spam. Connect with readers, discuss topics that interest them (how do you know? Ask them!), and provide information (resources, unique info, visuals) they may not see elsewhere. Avoid the ‘hard sell.’ Build relationships instead.
Understand Twitter rules and guidelines. Not sure what hashtags are? Read about it in the Help section. Virtually any question someone has about Twitter can be found there, or ask me. I’m at RachelintheOC (my author account) or my business stream BadRedheadMedia.
It’s not quantity, it’s quality. I’ve been reseraching fake followers, spammers, and bots for an upcoming article. I’ve tried a few ‘buying’ services to see what they offer, if the followers are real (no), and why so many people seem to look at quantity. I’ve learned this: clear out any fakes, bots or spammers (I use ManageFlitter.com daily to both follow and unfollow); follow readers – too many authors only follow only other authors; retweets and interaction count more in the eyes of Twitter and Klout when it comes to influence.
3) How do you reach out to readers and engage with them on Facebook?
Facebook requires that an author have a Page (as opposed to using our Personal Account) to sell. That said, I interact more with people on my personal account, sharing articles, pictures, and funny visuals. Same concept applies to Facebook as Twitter: ask questions, promote others, provide great content and sales will follow. And don’t forget Google+! It’s a Google product and not difficult to use. In fact, using it can increase your Google ranking.
4) You’ve got quite a few reviews for your book on Amazon… some of them from top Amazon reviewers. Do you have any advice to authors about reaching out to reviewers on Amazon?
I didn’t do a special rain dance or anything to get my book in front of key people. I did, however, build relationships with them online – sharing posts, interacting, talking about life, whatever. Book bloggers and reviwers are our friends but treat them as such – too many authors throw books at these kind folks (most of whom do this review and blogging thing as a nights and weekend thing), so respect them and their time. Always, always be polite. Ask politely and don’t be upset if they decline.
For the reviews that come organically from readers, I’m forever grateful because someone took the time (I hope) to read my book. That should be any author’s goal, even if the rating is low.
5) What are some of the simple things that authors can do to take control of their book marketing?
If you don’t understand what branding or marketing is, ask someone, read blogs and sites, buy books (Amazon has a ton). No author can live in a bubble – visibility and exposure are word of mouth now, as are book bloggers and book reviwers. And use tools like blog tours, advertising, and BookBuzzr to help achieve those goals!
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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The new BookBuzzr blog widget has been favorably received by authors. Key features of the new version include the ability for readers to preview the excerpt without leaving the author’s website, custom sizes (from versions that fit on your blog sidebar to those that can act as a stand alone book website) and 10 different color themes to complement most book cover designs.
Here are 5 widget installations to inspire you:
1. Rachel Thompson – Broken Pieces
Best selling author Rachel Thompson has the widget for her book -Broken Pieces – set up on the side bar of her blog. The black color background also highlights her book cover.
2. K. Llewillin – A Candle Amongst the Stars
Artist and science fiction author – K. Llewillin has a sidebar widget for the book ‘A Candle Amongst the Stars’. The artwork of the exploding sun on that page is also mesmerizing.
3. Jim Musgrave - Pat O’Malley Historical Steampunk Trilogy
Jim Musgrave has opted to embed the orange themed BookBuzzr widget inside the body of a blog post to promote the consolidated edition of his best-selling historical steampunk trilogy .
4. Adam Francis Raby – A Circus of One
Adam Raby has used a similar orange themed widget for his memoir – A Circus of One. The theme of the widget matches the unusual book cover and shows up on the sidebar of his blog.
5. Helena Harper – Pep, Polish and Paint
Children’s book author – Helena Harper has used the BookBuzzr widget in a completely different way. She has taken a much larger version of the widget and devoted an entire page to the widget to highlight her book.
We’d love to hear from you! Share how you have used the BookBuzzr widget by leaving a comment below or by sending us an email to support at bookbuzzr.com.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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1. Can you tell us a little about yourself and your journey as a writer?
I was born and raised in New Zealand, moving to Western Australia with a single suitcase when I was nineteen years old. Since then, I’ve packed a lot into my life, working hard in predominantly accounting, IT and management roles, but also spending a year touring the world. I‘ve lived in the central business districts of large cities, suburbia, idyllic seaside locations, rural areas, bushland, and remote desert mining camps.
Mid 2002, I quit my high-pressure management job and moved with my husband to a farm about ninety minutes north-east of Melbourne to write fulltime.
My writing journey is typical of the Australian debut writer: write book, have manuscript assessed and edited, query the three Australian agents accepting unsolicited submissions in your genre, write another book, query the same three Australian agents… rinse and repeat.
But that’s where my story changes. Realizing that the chance of securing Australian representation was next to none, I started querying US/UK agents. More rejections followed. One agent, however, went to the trouble to explain his reasons. When I completed the next novel, Thin Blood, he was the first agent I submitted the manuscript to. Robert Fleck of The Fleck Agency in Coppell, Texas, now represents me.
One small problem: Many US publishers refused to even look at the book. “Americans don’t want to read Australian mysteries,” he was told. I wasn’t about to give up, though. I continued writing and Bob continued pitching.
In October 2009, with nothing to lose, we decided to release Thin Blood electronically on Smashwords. That received such a good response that Suspense Magazine selected me as their featured New Author for April 2010. At the end of April, we made the novel available in Amazon’s Kindle store. Taking Bob and I both by surprise, it rocketed up the charts to #1 in Kindle mysteries and peaking at #6 in ALL paid Kindle books. (It was also named an Amazon Best of 2010 Customer Favorite.)
Was it the cover? The blurb? The book itself? I still have no idea what the catalyst was, but I firmly believe luck played a large part, being in the right place at the right time. That and a sprinkling of fairy dust.
Since then, I’ve released four more novels and I’m working on my next.
2. Who designs your book covers and what kind of a process do you follow when you design your book cover?
I design my own book covers. (In addition to writing, I also work as a freelance web designer. My father was a graphic artist and I was fortunate enough to inherit some of his artistic genes.)
When it comes to my covers, the bulk of my time is spent searching for the right image, something that is not too complex (remembering that it’s important that it views well in thumbnail size, as that may be the only image your potential reader sees). With Thin Blood, I opted for a title layout (across and down) that was a bit different to the norm. Because Thin Blood sold so well, I decided to continue this format through each of my novels, in effect branding them each as Vicki Tyley mysteries.
3. As an indie author, how do you divide your time between your writing and promotional activities?
My plan at the moment is to write in the mornings (my most productive writing time) until early afternoon, leaving the afternoon and evening for answering emails and various other writing-related activities. However, as is often the way, something happens that throws that all into disarray.
When a book is released, I devote as much time as necessary on promotional activities, but conversely, there are times when I neglect marketing and only write – those lucky times I can escape the Internet.
Bitter Nothings is a psychological whodunnit with a dysfunctional extended Australian family at its core. It’s slightly darker than my previous books, but there’s no violence or gore and the children’s deaths are only touched upon.
Book blurb:
Half her family have been murdered in their beds. Her father is the prime suspect. And things are about to get a whole lot worse…
Graphic designer Dervla Johns wakes one morning to the news that her father, Warren, is missing and her stepmother and step-siblings were found dead in their beds. While the police hunt for Warren, Dervla searches for answers. Could her father really be a killer? Refusing to be warned off by police threats, or intimidated by the reporter who appears to be following her, she delves into her family’s past.
But as she uncovers one shocking secret after another, Dervla’s world is rocked further by another murder – and she finds herself desperately trying to untangle a web of illicit love and betrayal. Soon, Dervla must face her greatest fear… or suffer the same deadly fate as her stepmother.
5. You are in the happy position where it’s not too difficult for you to get reviews for your book. At the time of this interview, your books have anywhere from 25 to 66 reviews. Do you have any tips for a new author looking to get more book reviews?
This is a tough one for me, because I’ve never asked for reviews. Readers don’t owe authors anything, so I’m always thrilled when someone takes the time out from his/her day to write and post a review. If I could, I’d like to shake the reviewer’s hand and say a big thank you. (I occasionally get an opportunity to say thank you when a reviewer emails me, which is fantastic. I love connecting with readers and receive far more emails than I do reviews.)
I know some authors leave a message at the end of the book thanking the reader and asking them to please consider leaving a review. I see nothing wrong with that – it’s polite and doesn’t impose on the reader.
As a reader and reviewer myself, if there is one tip I could give it would be please don’t use the Amazon reviewer list to spam reviewers. It won’t earn you any brownie points and indeed may put you on the reviewer’s blacklist. I used to send a polite reply to review requests I received from people I didn’t know but stopped when I started getting snarky responses back. Please don’t alienate your potential readers. They have friends who have friends and so on.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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The new BookBuzzr Flipper Widget has just been released.
The video below gives you a quick tour …
The following are the key features of this new release:
Retain your visitors on your site: The full screen view opens on your blog or website itself. The earlier version would open up a new tab or window with the new link leading to Freado.com
Customize the size of the widget: Make it small and fit it on the side bar of your blog or make it big and use it as a stand-alone website for your book!
Multiple colors: We have multiple colors for the widgets in order to complement your book and website / blog.
Available in multiple colors to complement your book / website theme
Yes
Yes
No
Also, if you would like to get the new widget for your book, please login to your BookBuzzr Book Marketing Home page and click on the ‘Book Widget’ icon (in the ‘Get Widgets’ section).
Here is the widget in action:
What do you think? _______________________________________________________________________________________________
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Can you tell us a little about your personal background and how you became an author?
I was 13 when my first article was published in a local newspaper. I was beyond excited and realised that this was my calling. I wanted to be a journalist. Over the next few years, I had several other articles that were published in newspapers and magazines. I went on to study for my degree in Mass Communications at Curtin University and majored in Journalism and Film & Television. After graduation, I was all set to be a journalist but was diagnosed with Benign Intracrannial Hypertension which changed the course of many things in my life. Between lumbar punctures and other medical complications, journalism took a backseat and I worked in corporate communications for at least two international hotel chains. In May 2010, it was confirmed that I would have brain surgery to insert a VP Shunt in my brain that would help drain the excess cerebrospinal fluid. I was a wreck. Brain surgery was fifty-fifty and I had to prepare myself. Excuse Me, My Brains Have Stepped Out was written in these early days as I prepared myself for this surgery. Yes, it’s not your regular fiction book, but it wasn’t a book to me. It was mental preparation to meet with death, to deal with the fact that life would never be the same after my surgery. A publisher approached me for the story and the book was published in April 2011. I would have been happy to sell 100 copies of the book. Now, more than 90,000 downloads later, I am beyond blessed that I was able to become a published author. In October 2011 when I parted ways with my publisher, I sort to market my book and founded Orangeberry Book Tours to help other authors with more affordable means of doing so.
2. What is a book tour and why should an author go on a book tour?
A book tour helps an author get bloggers and readers to notice their book. In most cases, a book tour will not generate thousands of sales, but it will get reviews for your book and if done correctly, it can generate buzz on social media about you and your book. Most tour companies offer a variety of packages. A book tour can range from 5 different blog stops to 60 blog stops. Some stops will include exposure on Twitter and Facebook. Authors will need to be prepared to answer author interview questions and write guest posts. Some tour companies and blogs only accept original posts so an author will have to be prepared for this. Others will opt to reuse posts. This is entirely up to the author. Do what works for you. But you cannot go on a book tour and not do anything. Just like if you are going on a real life book tour, you will still need to make appearances at bookstores or seminars.
3. What are the benefits for an author who uses your service (Orangeberry Book Tours) and how is Orangeberry different from other book tour outfits in the market?
We offer very affordable solutions to promote an author’s book. Our prices start from as low as $3 to $5 a day. For some of the higher priced tours, we don’t stop promoting your book once the tour has finished. We’ll continue to promote an author’s book via Twitter, Facebook, our website, our virtual book expo and on GoodReads. In December 2012, we signed up to work with the Quality Reads UK Book Club and some of their members review the books that go on tour with us. What this means is that the book is discussed in their weekly district meetings and is then shared with other members of the book club in the other districts who will purchase the author’s book. We are still looking at more ways to enhance this working relationship to promote more authors, for longer periods.
4. What are some best practices that authors should follow when they go on a book tour?
Make sure your book is edited and well-formatted. Some authors tend to miss this step and by the time the reviews come in, they become discouraged when the reviews are not positive. Be sure to read and understand what a book tour is. Most authors go on a virtual book tour because of the hype but don’t understand what it actually is. Each tour company does things differently so an author needs to understand what the elements are to ensure their book receives the most exposure. For instance, what is the difference between top posts and high traffic. While some book tour companies can guarantee you top posts, these blogs may not be high traffic blogs. High traffic blogs may not be able to give you the first post in the morning which usually gets the most traffic and may not be able to give you top post because they post more than once. Does a good Alexa rank mean the blog gets high traffic? High traffic, yes. Good traffic for your book, that’s a different story. A good Alexa rank but little or no social media interaction is also not good for your book. You need bloggers who have a high number of readers which can be assessed via RSS feed, GFC or Google Plus and GoodReads. The other thing to look for is bloggers who are able to review your book. Admittedly, most have a high TBR pile and on most tours, blog hosts know that the review must be up by the end of the tour. If authors are setting up their own book tours, this is something that they need to look at as well. If a blog gets high traffic but can’t review your book the instant you want it, be patient. Unless your book is badly edited, most blog hosts will post their reviews as soon as they finish. In other words, if you are planning a new release, an author must take all this into account before releasing his or her book. For any book tour, new release or not, an author needs to plan at least 3 weeks in advance.
5. What are some common mistakes that authors make when it comes to marketing their books online?
Unrealistic expectations, is the top of my list. Most authors attempt one marketing effort be it advertising or a book tour and that’s it. When book sales don’t improve, it’s written down as disappointment or a failed attempt. Let’s look at self-published authors like JA Konrath, Rachel Thompson, Bob Mayer, Terri Giuliano Long and Melissa Foster. They all have varied social media interaction levels. But the one thing that they all have in common is at one point or another, you cannot be in the blogosphere and not hear about them. Be it through their blogs, Twitter, Facebook, GoodReads, online advertising, events, new releases or articles on other websites. Point – they are always doing something. Yes, they are not screaming “buy my book” but when you see them enough, you will go buy their books and you will tell others who will also buy their books. That’s marketing. Harassing people to buy your book isn’t. Reminding bloggers every day to review your book is not marketing. Sending private messages to 100 people on Facebook to say you’re “unfriending” them so they can like your FB page and get instant updates about your book is not marketing. Even if you are not writing full time and you have a day job, set a marketing budget. Monthly or quarterly and use it wisely. We usually recommend a budget of no less than $100 a month. This is about $3 a day. Some authors go as low as $25 a month, this works as well and is better used for an ad on GoodReads. Utilise the giveaway option on GoodReads. Interact with readers. Don’t talk about your book all the time. Look at websites like BookBuzzr, Kindle Nation, eReaderNews Today, Book Bub and Author Marketing Club who have affordable marketing options. Some high traffic blogs have opted for blog advertising. When you sign up for advertising via their sites, you are able to view stats on how frequently your ad will be viewed. Try different tour companies as each tour company uses different bloggers. Maximise these options. You can’t do all of this in one go but you can do it one at a time or progressively try what works for you and your book. Choose dates wisely and expect the unexpected. We once had an author who was having a KDP Select promotion for her children’s book. The first day it went free was the same day as the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. Despite her marketing efforts, her book was downloaded less than 100 times for the entire three days. Anticipate that things beyond your control can and will go wrong. Plus, each marketing effort produces different results for different authors and different books. Irrelevant of what some books will say, there is no fast track to increasing book sales. It takes effort, money and time. Marketing your book is not a race and it does not have a finish line. In the words of JA Konrath, “eBooks are forever”.
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Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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This guide shows you how to setup a Facebook fan page (aka a Public Profile). This is a very basic guide and is meant for authors who are just getting started with Facebook marketing. This guide is relevant to you even if you are not a BookBuzzr author.
Note:
A Facebook page is different from a Facebook private profile. The best way to see is if you can see tabs like Timeline, About, Friends etc., you are on your private Facebook profile. If you can see things like an ‘Admin Panel’, ‘Likes’ etc. you are on a Facebook fan page.
A Facebook page is not the same as a group. Facebook Groups are places for small group communication and for people to share their common interests and express their opinion. Your Facebook page, on the other hand is a place for your fans to get together to get updates from you.
So let’s get started. Make sure that you’re logged in. Also, use the guide below as a starting point. Facebook changes many things often and things may be different in a little while.
1. Go to https://www.facebook.com/pages/create/. This should bring you to the ‘Create a Page’ page. Then choose ‘Artist, Band or Public Figure’ and choose the Author option. Follow the on-screen instructions and fill up the form. Then click on ‘Get Started’.
2. This should bring you to the setup screen. Add a description for yourself (copy-paste the description from your Amazon profile) and add in your website, blog or Twitter address. Make sure that your address starts with ‘http://’
3. Add in a Profile Picture.
4. Claim a unique URL for your page. This can be your name or some variation thereof. Bear in mind that most common name combinations are already taken. So you can try adding the word ‘author’ either before or after your name to see if it works (ex: ‘janeauthor’). URL’s are not case sensitive (i.e. www.facebook.com/JohnMandarin is the same as www.facebook.com/johnmandarin)
Note: While Facebook says on this page that setting up an address is permanent, we’ve found that it is possible to change the URL later. You can change it once here.
5. Add a Cover. To do this, scroll down the page until you come to a button that says, ‘Add a Cover’ (above the ‘Like’ Button.) This can be a portion of your latest book cover or other image that reflects the theme of your writings. Once you upload the image you can drag the image around to show up in the limited rectangular space provided by Facebook. In case you want to replace your book cover, put your mouse over the image, a ‘Change Cover’ icon appears. Then click on it to either reposition your image or upload a new image.
Note: If you want to access your newly created Facebook page in the future, simply go to the top menu bar and click on the gear icon and then select your page. You can also select the page from the left menu bar on your Facebook home page when you first login.
Once you’ve got a Facebook fan page setup you can use various BookBuzzr features such as:
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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This directory is intended to help Romance authors find other authors in their genre and network with them on Facebook. If you are a Romance author and you have not been featured on this page, please let us know in the comments section we’ll be happy to add you in. Please provide name and Facebook fan page or public profile URL. Also, if you’ve got suggestions to improve the usability or usefulness of this directory, please let us know in the comments.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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We’d written earlier about doing book giveaways on Freado here and here.
On Freado, readers win points and use those points to win books through an online auction. Sometimes the bidding reaches a fever pitch with plenty of bids and counter bids. When a reader finally gets the book of her choice, she is much more likely to read through the book and even leave a review if the book appeals to her. The screenshot below shows the kind of enthusiastic bidding those readers indulged in for author Folami Morris’ book – The Exemeus: Hyalee’s Story.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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How BookBuzzr’s New, One-Click-Win Feature is Different from Amazon Free Day Promotions
Reviews!
You can love them or hate them. But you can’t ignore them. All your marketing efforts will come to naught if your readers land on an Amazon page with just 1 or 2 reviews which look like they’ve been written by your friends.
One way to get reviews for your book is running an Amazon free day promotion. This works well for many authors although I’ve read on a few forums that the efficacy is going down over time.
At BookBuzzr, we’ve been playing around with a number of solutions for this problem. One of them is the “One Click Win” feature on our reader site – Freado.com
The idea is that a reader can get a copy of your book with just one click. This works great for ebooks since you can give away hundreds of copies at a very low cost which may translate into a handful of reviews for your book.
Here’s how your book shows up on Freado in the prize listings section:
And here’s how it shows when a reader clicks on the prize details page:
How this is Different from an Amazon Free Day Promotion?
The chart below gives a quick comparison between the two:
Amazon Free Day
BookBuzzr’s One Click Win
Promotion is limited to only 5 days every 90 days.
Promotion runs until the number of giveaway copies you’ve setup runs out.
Causes readers to download first and think later about whether they really wanted the book in the first place … hence the ratio of books read to books downloaded is likely to be low
Since there is no pressure of time, and since readers are limited to a maximum of 6 free books per month, readers tend to really think about whether they want a particular book or not
A giveaway can happen only in Kindle format on Amazon
You can do a giveaway in all formats – ebooks, PDF, Kindle, even paper backs
Amazon does not share the names of people who download your book. This means that your 10,000 downloads are nameless, faceless entities with whom you cannot follow up.
With BookBuzzr’s One-Click Win feature, you can build a relationship with your readers and follow up with them for reviews or feedback.
This feature is available only for subscribed BookBuzzr authors. So if you’re a BookBuzzr subscribed author, log in to your BookBuzzr Book Marketing Home page, click on the Book Giveaway section (below Build BookBuzz) and add your book. If you’ve not yet signed-up for a BookBuzzr subscription, why not take a look? Plans start from just $4.99 per month with a one month free trial.
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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In life, we all need a horse to ride. Without the horse, we are a small fraction of what we could be.
When I was 13, my parents took me to a motor museum at a grand country house. Big yawn. Happily, there was a donkey derby alongside it, and they agreed to let me ride a donkey. Being bigger and heavier than the other kids, nobody backed me and the bookmakers pushed my odds out to 66-1 against. Whereupon my dad surprised them by plonking down a fiver on me – after a moment’s hesitation, the bookie took the bet and rubbed out 66-1 and put 25-1 instead.
When the race started, I was so terrified of falling off that I stuck my heels into my donkey and held on for dear life. The donkey was terrified too – he moved up three gears and we won drawing away. Dad was £330 richer – a fortune then.
I tried to get the same donkey in the next race but the ring manager directed me to another one, perhaps feeling that two rides from me would be hard on the beast. This time I was less scared but I couldn’t galvanize the nag and we finished a distant third, even though the punters had piled their money on me and we had started odds-on.
Guess which donkey won? The one I’d been on the first race.
It was a sign!
We are all less important than the donkey – or preferably horse – we get to ride.
Life is not just you or me – it is the vehicle (or vehicles) we find to develop our skills and express ourselves that counts. And even then, perhaps our skills matter little compared to the destiny of the horse.
When I was 30, I was more-or-less fired from one job (with the Boston Consulting Group) but talked my way into another with a smaller rival, Bain & Company. But the thing was – Bain had a great business formula and was growing much faster, at 40% a year. Yes, each year the firm got 40% bigger. You can imagine the opportunities presented by that growth rate. From being a failure I turned into an overnight success – doing exactly the same job. It wasn’t me, it was the growth rate. I was stretched, learned a lot, and became so much more confident. I even started to enjoy what I did.
The horse, not the jockey.
When I became a writer, I pondered the 80/20 principle. I had long known its value. I was not the only one. The Principle was well known to economists and in business circles and was much discussed on the web. But no-one had written a book about it. Now that book has sold over a million copies.
The book, not the writer.
The horse, not the rider.
Have you found your horse yet?
The horse could be a college or firm that transforms you. It could be an idea. It could be a new business venture. It could be a church, a club, or a cause you make your own. It could be a group of friends banded together to do something great.
If you want to transform your life, Find Your Horse. But how?
How to Find Your Horse
The horse, you will recall, is something with inherent power to propel you. It could be a college or organization, a job, a new business venture, a cause, an idea, or a group of friends fixated on one specific aim.
These horses are rare. There are three secrets to tracking them down.
The easiest give-away is that the horse is young, yet fast and powerful. It is growing rapidly. Its time has come, but only just.
If the horse is a business, it will be growing by more than 10% a year, and probably between 30-50% a year, maybe even more. Such firms are very unusual – somewhere between one and five in a hundred. Yet if we you keep your eyes open, you will find such a firm.
The firm must be growing under its own steam. Firms that grow by merger or acquisition do not count.
What does it mean if the business is expanding fast? It means it has created a product or service that people really want. It means the firm has a formula or business model or knowledge that other firms don’t have. It means the business is a winner.
Every very large and profitable firm started life like this – initially it was tiny, and then it went through several years of incredibly quick growth. If you go to work in such a business, you will benefit enormously because there is more opportunity in the firm than experienced workers. You will spread your wings and learn to fly like an angel. You work will be fascinating and you will get promoted rapidly. If you can get stock options, you may end up with a fortune. Ask the first 100 people into Microsoft, Google, Amazon, e-Bay, Twitter, Facebook, or any other mega-success. They are all millionaires, centi-millionaries, or billionaires; not because they are smarter than you or me, but because they were there at the start or shortly after.
It’s the same for a cause, a social movement, or even a qualification. If it’s not growing very fast, it won’t push you forward. In the 1960s and 1970s it made sense to get an MBA, because there weren’t many around and business schools were mushrooming. Now it’s futile to do an MBA – there are far too many already and the currency is devalued. Instead, look for the next big thing. Get in early, while the growth is exponential.
The second clue to finding your horse is that it excites you. The idea, the cause, the organization, whatever it is, must turn you on and have meaning for you. You must think, “I love the idea of this”, or “I am going to grow to love this.” Animation, enthusiasm, and genuine fervour are peculiarly human attributes. They too are rare. Most people are not excited by life and what they do. The few who are, have a tremendous edge. They are tens, hundreds, or thousands of times more likely to succeed – and they will have a ball doing so, not least because every day they will collaborate with people who are as excited and motivated as they are.
The third pointer is that the horse has integrity. Everything about the horse hangs together. The horse is beautiful. The horse is admirable and excellent. The horse is generous. The horse doesn’t have bad breath, a gamy leg, or a hidden disease. If the horse is an idea, the idea is true and constructive. If the horse is a firm, it has a mission to improve the world in some well-defined and narrow way, and everything about the firm is designed to fulfil that mission. And if the horse is a cause, the cause has to benefit society at large, not just its proponents. With any beautiful horse, there is always some deeply satisfying insight behind the idea, the firm, or the cause – an insight that is unusual or unique, and thoroughly worthwhile.
In large parts of Europe in the 1920s and early 1930s, there were two horses growing faster than any other. One horse was the Communist Party and the other horse was the Nazis. Both horses excited their devotees. Both horses were immensely strong. But neither of them had integrity. The ideas they espoused were simply not true. The horses were speckled with evil. It is the same with every get-rich-quick scam, every witch-hunt, every mean and nasty movement. One of the most amazing and hopeful things about the universe is that evil does not last, because it cannot embody the spiritual longing of humans, the thirst for truth and beauty. Only ideas, firms, causes and people with integrity can build something wonderful and enduring.
So there it is. To find your horse, recall three words – growth, excitement, and integrity. Finding your horse will not be easy. But if you think hard and look hard, if you really are consumed with desire for such a horse, it will come to you. You will attract it. You will recognize it immediately, with overflowing joy. The horse will change your life, and that of many other people.
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Richard Koch is a former management consultant, entrepreneur, and writer of several books on how to apply the Pareto principle (80/20 rule) in all walks of life. Richard has also used his concepts to make a fortune from several private equity investments made personally. Richard’s investments have included Filofax, Plymouth Gin, the Great Little Trading Company and Betfair. Previously he had been a manager at Boston Consulting Group and later a partner at Bain and Company, before leaving to start management consulting firm L.E.K. Consulting with Jim Lawrence and Iain Evans.
I’ve never understood this. The message becomes more difficult to decipher, and more than half the time I quit reading due to the complexity of the article/blog/novel. Why wouldn’t you want a more simple message, that could target a broader audience?
Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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