 Disclosure: Another post for those thinking about or who are writing a book.
You need a book marketing plan, one that includes essential marketing mix elements that apply to selling books:
You might get some traction with just that last one, but it's unlikely that many people will be looking to interact with you unless you advertise. Other than friends and family, they won't know that you or your book exists. How you do that is covered in some of the previous posts in this blog. If you have questions, message me; I'll be happy to help you however possible. Once you're doing that, there are two metrics you want to follow closely:
The graphic in this post is a month-long website traffic summary for The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn book page on my website. An upward trajectory for both page views and unique visits, with a slight drop in the average number of pages visited on my website. So was June bad, mid-July onward, good? If so, what made the difference? For starters, there wouldn't have been a 'trajectory' had I not advertised. I did, and both Views and Visits were relatively flat from June 28 to July 16. Seeing that, I reviewed my advertising, turning off underperforming ads completely, reducing budgets for those that were doing okay, reallocating the money to ads that were performing well above average. The result is an increase in traffic with sales trending upward as well. An oversimplification, but you get the idea. You have to pay to play. Just make certain that what you pay for is producing.
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 Previous posts have been about comments I get from people, most of whom have not read the book. They're reacting to an ad and simple description about the book.
As George M. Cohan, Mae West, or maybe it was P.T. Parnum once said, (no one knows for sure who said it): "I don't care what the newspapers say about me as long as they spell my name right." That might have been true back in the day, but not now in this time of instant mass awareness of people and the things they do based on "alternative facts" and outright lies. Negative reaction to anything having to do with the Unlived books will hurt. So far, the majority of comments have been positive. But I do watch out for a "Mandela Effect" taking hold. You'll find a good explanation here of what that is if you want details. For the rest of you, it has to do with a large group of people sharing a false memory based on facts, true or not, and/or events that never happened. How might that relate to the Unlived ads? A significant minority commenting on an Unlived ad inviting them to think about ('visit') their own unlived lives, assume that means they must first give up the life they do lead. A minority of that minority gets pretty heated, making it clear they want no part of that. Fortunately, others defend Unlived ads pointing out that is not what they say. The book is fiction; no one can literally visit an alternative life whether or not they are willing to give up the one life they do live. I write them. They come from my imagination. Those who read them can use their imaginations to decide what, if anything, they mean to them. Just one more thing I never imagined I might have to deal with when I began writing the Unlived series. I initially thought I would use a company in the US to produce a video blurb. The one I chose offered tiered pricing ranging from $500 to well over $2,000. I was planning to go with the $1,000 level.
But after asking questions their contact would not answer ("We can get into that after you sign up and provide payment") I looked elsewhere. So glad I did, and that I found Pranay Bhagwat. (https://fiverr.com/s/R7qz71w) If you're not familiar with Fiverr, become so. There is a lot of talent there to help you with many of the things you need to do in support of your book, video blurbs included.  Most of what I'm posting here is about the process of writing, publishing, and marketing a book. The first two being relatively easy, the last, confusing, difficult, and expensive.
Once published, if you decide to read my book, "The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn, great! But that's not the point. Most of these posts, this one included, are intended to provide information that may help others write, publish, and market their books. Maybe your book? That said, I don't want to completely ignore what drove me to attempt fiction. Raymond's story is somewhere between fantasy and science. He is KIA in Vietnam, but believes he is living an unhappy life 46 years later. He meets a stranger who tells him he has been dead for 46 years, and is "living" a life in a universe parallel to the one in which he was killed. Fantasy because the concept of parallel universes is, at best, just a concept. Science because one day their existence may be proved. Do I care? Not really. Science will have to hurry with that proof to beat me dying. But I can and do speculate what it would be like to encounter myself in a universe parallel to the one in which we all believe we live. Raymond is my fictional "guinea pig". I have put him in situations that may one day prove to approximate what our alternative lives would be like. It's been fun, I'm glad I attempted it, but now Raymond has become much more a part of me than I expected or wanted him to be. He's not real, dead or alive, but that doesn't stop me from thinking about him a lot, awake and in my dreams. I began his story wondering what life in a parallel universe would be like. I'll end it questioning whether I'm already in one. After a long career in marketing and strategic planning, I wrote The 7 Keys to Change: A New Approach to Managing Change to Live Better and Work Smarter. A book for people who want to see more positive results from personal and professional change initiatives. Nothing odd about that. Now I'm preparing to publish a novel about a man who is given the opportunity to visit some of the lives he would have lived had he made different choices. Who wouldn't want to do that? The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is a big leap from strategic planning. At first, I planned to publish under a pseudonym. Did I really want my clients and other business contacts to know about my fiction writing? People I trust said, "Hell, yeah!" So I started publishing updates on LinkedIn and I'm planning my book promotion. I'm going full monty as a fiction writer. Well, at least metaphorically. |
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