Book Marketing: Pay (a lot) to Play

Earlier posts here have documented my navigating the world of book marketing.

On the one hand, not that different from marketing any product.

You have to increase awareness of what you are selling among potential buyers, hoping a large enough number of them will buy it to cover costs.

When it comes to book marketing, what is different is how you accomplish that.

You could pay for TV and/or radio ads. You could do mass mailings of printed material. You could attempt to get book stores to host you signing books in their store.

You could, but you won't do any of that.

Radio/TV ads and mass mailings would be incredibly inefficient. The cost per sale exorbitant!

Instead, you have a plethora of online marketing tools specifically relating to book marketing, available to you. You will be able to afford many, but not all of them.

The challenge is  determining which will work best for you. I'm at that stage now two weeks ahead of my book launch.

I'm narrowing down the list of possible ways to place my marketing "bets" (an analogy to gambling is very appropriate.) The best I can say is, it will be a case of trial and error.

I will update you on what does and does not work for me as it happens. For now, consider the math of me spending my money to market my book sold on Amazon, both digital and print versions.

The starting price for a digital Kindle copy of The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn will be $6.99 in the US, somewhat more or less in countries outside the US. For each book sold at that price, I will receive $4.84, also more or less as the price varies.

The starting price of a paperback print copy will be $14.95 in the US, again, more or less elsewhere. I will receive $4.80 that sale. 

(Why less than the digital copy? A large part of it is $4.17 cost to print. When it comes to marketing, creating, and producing your book, nothing is free.)

I can run ads in a number of places including Amazon, GoodReads, LinkedIn, Facebook, Apple, and many, many more sites too numerous to name here. Lets just pick an anonymous advertising platform as being indicative of what they'll all be like.

I decide how much I'm willing to spend; $400 over 10 days, $40 a day on average. My ad will be competing with those of others selling their books. Some will spend more than me, others less.

The ad platforms tell you how many impressions you can expect for the amount you are willing to spend. In old school advertising lingo that's "reach". They will also tell you approximately how many times your ad will potentially be seen, which is old school "frequency".

What they can't tell you is how many books you can reasonably expect to sell. No one can; that depends on a number of unknowns not the least of which is how good your book is.

But we can make some assumptions.

There are four "moving parts".

1. The number of people who see your ad, referred to as "impressions".
2. The number who click on your ad, called "engagement".
3. The number of those who engage and buy your book.
4. The ratio of those who buy the digital version versus those who buy a print copy.

Assume the ad generates 3,000 impressions (people who see the ad). Of this, assume 300 people will "engage" (they click on it to learn more).  And finally, assume 10% of the 300, 30 people, will buy the book, 75% a digital copy, 25% print.

I'll spare you doing the math. My example $400 advertising investment would produce $144.90 revenue. That's sales, not profit, which in this example, is a $255.10 deficit.

Do you think the number of impressions is too low, maybe the engagement and purchase figures as well? Spend a little time with Chris McMullen.

There are other mitigating factors to consider.

​If you run a campaign over time, things might improve. So too might they if you are actively recruiting people to marketing material you've created, such as that on the book's website, your mailing lists, and contacts on the sites where you advertise.

So what does this mean to you?

If you are overly optimistic, if you do not have reasonable assumptions regarding costs and sales before you start spending money, if you do not have a plan, your chances of success will be significantly less than if you do.

Write the best book possible, have it professionally edited, read by beta readers whose recommendations and suggestions you seriously consider.

Make a plan to support it investing in marketing including such things as a video blurb, professionally designed cover, advertising, advanced reader copy distribution, and public relations.

​Do honest math regarding what all this will cost relative to reasonable expectations for sales. 

If you can accept what that tells you, you've done all you can.

I wish you and your book, me and mine, the best of luck!  ​

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