Ah… sales!

Yeah! Sales are increasing! My blog is now averaging about 75-100 hits an hour. My Facebook Fan page has almost 3,500 “likes” and my Authors Den profile is averaging 100 hits a day. So, here’s the breakdown of all my promotional and marketing efforts so far. The newspaper article scheme did nothing for sales but probably exposed me to a few new people. I would recommend against it. The ads I paid good money for, like the Litopia and YA Reads.com did almost nothing for sales. Perhaps, I got a dozen from them. They’re still running for another week so I guess we’ll see. The programmers I hired to code in my blog, well, you can see the results on my stats bar. I have a few really big promotions coming up. First, is my online publicist’s promotion, which starts in two weeks. This should blast sales according to her. I also have a few interviews coming out that I’ll announce. And the biggest plan of all is the one causing me the most trouble. I’m trying to place an ad campaign on Kindle Nation Daily, and bought the space, but it’s nearly impossible to get a hold of them because they have been swamped with authors after a national story on them exposed how powerful a sales tool the site is. They said I’d be in sometime in the next month. An ad on Kindle Nation Daily does wonders for sales and Amazon ranking, so it’s worth the wait. Also, most of my back link encryptions won’t affect sales for a few weeks. So, as it goes with my available books, things are definitely moving. As for books in progress. I’ve paused on IMAGINATION after 20,000 words written. The book is getting very ethereal and complicated, and I need the quiet of January to concentrate on it. Until then, I’ve been doing a final read on SILENT INVASION, the final book in a series and an updated rewrite of my 2003 release TIM MADISON GALACTIC WARRIOR. I’ve been thinking that the book is so good (in my biased opinion) and my author’s platform getting so much attention, that I might try and get another agent with it. Getting an agent is purely for my ego, I could probably make more money doing the book myself. We’ll see. Here’s the links to my latest ad’s that only cost me five dollars each to place. As I’ve said before, blog ads are a great, and inexpensive way to get exposure.

http://www.vaughnonmovies.com/

http://hollywoodteenonline.com/2011/12/28/dream-traveler/#axzz1h0Qmiv6J

Excited to wake!!

As some of you may have noticed the counter for my blog has exploded. For the last week, I’ve been averaging about 600 hits a day and it’s going up. Yesterday, I got 1,700. It seams the search engine optimization is kicking in after all, and it will only get better over time. It’s a bit overwhelming to think that so many people are reading my posts and checking out the kinds of books I write. Every morning I jump from bed, come down to my office, and check my stats on my various sites. It’s all very exciting, but… truth be told, sales are not nearly increasing like my traffic. They have gone up a little, but not in comparison to the amount of traffic my blog and other sites are suddenly getting. I guess when you optimize you’re getting everyone in the world to take a look at you; readers, non-readers, people who don’t know how to read. Very few will actually make a purchase. I’m assuming as the months roll by that the number of people visiting my sites will be so large that even if just a very small percentage buy a book, and an even smaller percentage write a review or tell their friends, I’ll still be in business doing what I love. My advice to novelists is to get your books search optimized, and then throw a few cheap blog ads out there, along with getting on some book forums and commenting. If you’ve followed this blog you know what I’ve done to start getting these kinds of numbers. Please feel free to check my blog hits daily and keep track of what’s happening. And hopefully these will translate into sales.

Please “like” my Facebook fan page.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Facebook-Page-of-Author-Neil-D-Ostroff/124794694205967

Come on readers!

The first ads of my winter campaign are live. The combined cost for both was $100. They will run for the next two weeks right on the home pages of these sites. This should give the ads about 100,000 views at least.

http://litopia.com/

http://www.yareads.com/

Now, I’m not expecting to sell 250 books because of these ads, which is what I’d need to break even, what I’m looking for now is exposure, plain and simple. As I begin to place ads all over blogs and writers sites, I’m hoping my covers will become familiar and sales will increase steadily as a result. I’ve got more ads coming and several interviews which I will post.  I’ve also been hiring programmers on that great site Fiverr.com that I had mentioned in a previous post. Each task is $5 and I haven’t been disappointed yet. I even had one auto-program a response every time someone follows me on twitter. Give it a try: https://twitter.com/NeilOstroff

If everything they’ve done is true (and they show you links to verify their work) then in about three months I’m going to be receiving tens of thousand of hits a day on my blog and Author’s Den site. I’ve hired about thirty of these programmers at a cost of $150, who do everything from setting up search engine optimization, to pinging, to programming tens of thousands of back links, and seo links, and placing my URL’s into directories… I don’t even know what the heck they’re doing, but supposedly, I should get crazy traffic in a few months. All I know, is that there are a lot of out-of-work programming geniuses out there with nothing to do all day but code.

I feel very set for success and I am already getting impatient for the results. This should be a very interesting year ahead. Merry Christmas to all who celebrate!

Facebook Fan Page

I just put together a Facebook fan page for Author Neil D. Ostroff.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Facebook-Page-of-Author-Neil-D-Ostroff/124794694205967?sk=info

I sent out a bunch of notices through social marketing and guess what? I already have almost 2,000 likes. The internet is just amazing! Anyway, I’ve got everything in place for my winter marketing blitz. I’ve got programmers and search engine specialist listing my book sites, I’ve got a an internet book publicist, and I’ve got ads and interviews galore in January and February. The only thing I don’t have right now is a professional website. Neilostroff.com still exists, but it is outdated and useless to me. I’ve been directing traffic to this blog and my Author’s Den site, but I know that looks unprofessional. I tried building a site on Godaddy, but found the applications complicated and haven’t set one up yet. I don’t understand how I can set up all these sub-websites like Author’s Den and Goodreads, but I’m having so much trouble with Godaddy?

As far as my experimental marketing efforts scored; the writing article did nothing to boost traffic. The Goodreads ads are generating some clicks and traffic, but not many sales; though the campaign is still in its infancy. Everything else I’ve done takes time for the search engines to get my sites into their systems. There should be a slow but steady increase in traffic over time, hopefully bringing in more sales.

Please visit and “like” my new Facebook fan page. Thanks.

Starting now!

It’s done! I’ve just put money into promotion. A pretty good chunk, actually. I’m starting with Kindle Nation Daily site. I’ve done some research and heard a lot of positive things about this site and what it can do for your sales. They even have a statistics page that shows you all the books whose ranking went down after placing ads. I signed up for two campaigns. One, the bigger one, won’t start until March, which is fine because hopefully there’ll be many more Kindle owners by then. The second should hit sometime next week. I’ll announce it. I also bought my first fiverr.com promotion. For five bucks this guy says he’ll place my blog link on his sites and utube channels that have 50,000 followers. I mean, for five bucks why not. I’ll know instantly if my page views go up. Next up, is contacting Substance books and getting that search engine optimization underway. Then, if off to update and work on my Facebook author page and Amazon Central page. Gotta get all the new reviews and descriptions in. I also bought three ads on the Goodreads pay-per-click. We’ll see how that works out. I was also thinking of contacting a newspaper to see if they’d like to do an article on all this I’m doing. Who knows? So, my credit card is a little hot right now, but my soul feels good. If this doesn’t work out at least I can say I tried my best in the golden age of indie publishing.

Just a quick update. I’m at 12,500 words for IMAGINATION. And here’s a link to a review that I discovered it by accident. It’s not too bad.

http://rt19writers.blogspot.com/2011/12/e-books-for-eragon-fans-andre-norton.html

Going for it!!

My brother sent me an article the other day that inspired me beyond belief. I’ll attach it at the end of this post. Basically, it’s the story of a self-published success. I know, I know, I’ve read a thousand of them, also. But this one struck me different, mainly because this author did everything I have done to market and promote with one exception. She used the pay promotion on her sites and I have not. See, I’ve been mistakenly foolish with my numbers. I was putting book sales in perspective to an advertising budget, stupidly thinking I’d have to sell a Hell of a lot of books to recoup my investment. And that is a true fact. I’m gonna need a lot of sales. However, and even more important, I didn’t think about exposure and what that exposure could do to my sales in the long run. So, I’ve decided to ‘go for it!” and put a pretty large chunk of money into my promotional efforts. I feel I’m in a good place for this investment with eight novels available for sale and a strong network of author sites that I belong to. I’m ready to explode. I’ve decided to go with three different programs to begin right after Christmas when everyone has a new Kindle. The first is Goodreads click advertising. The exposure is huge with Goodreads since they have over 6,600,000 members. They will place your ad on appropriate genre pages and expose you to @ 150,000 readers. The drawback is that it costs per click. We’ll see how this goes. I’m going to invest a few hundred in it. The next is Substance Books. They have to accept your work to begin promoting it. I’m not sure exactly what they do because it has to do with search engine optimization and getting your book found on the internet. I research them heavily and discovered that they’ve been around for more than ten years and I found no negative comments. So, they must be doing something right. The last thing is a site I recently discovered call fiverr.com. It’s a mega list of people that provide services for $5. I’ve never used it, but for a hundred bucks I can get twenty services. These include people putting hundreds of likes on a book or Facebook page, writing reviews, and posting your links to hundreds of people. This is more a novelty of ‘see-what-happens’. My experiment with the article hasn’t shown any significant results. I’m still getting about fifty hits a day on Author’s Den and my blog hasn’t acquired any mass numbers, either. There’s still a few days left of its circulation so we’ll see what happens. And as for my latest novel IMAGINATION, I hit the 10,000 word mark and the story is beginning to write itself. Love when that happens.

Here’s the article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204770404577082303350815824.html

my site

http://www.authorsden.com/neilostroff

Love the interview!

Been doing the interview thing a lot lately and I think it’s starting to pay off. Not only does my name come up more often in search engines but I’m noticing visits to my blog and website are increasing. Of course, this could also be the result of my article experiment, which I’m waiting for the final stats. Speaking of my Author’s Den website, I recently signed on with GoDaddy to build a website myself that I can update, and let me tell you, it’s not nearly as easy as they claim. I spent several hours putting together something that remotely looks like a site, but doesn’t compare to what I have now. A call to customer service is in order.

One thing happened yesterday that I think is a little strange. I check Kindle sales daily and I noticed yesterday that someone bought AFTER on Kindle and then returned it. I find this a little unsettling. For all my books, you can read the summary or look inside the book and read the first few pages. If it entices than you must spend $1.25, that’s right, a whole $1.25 to read the book! Why would someone go through the trouble of buying it and then the hassle of returning it when they have every opportunity to sample for free and then decide? I just hope it doesn’t the book suck, because I’ve had some pretty good reviews so far.

Anyway, here’s my latest interview. Hope you enjoy it and take a look at my books.

http://alilofdisndat.blogspot.com/2011/12/interview-with-author-neil-ostroff.html

Writing is easy

Do you know if you write a page a day that within one year you will have written a book? How many times have I heard that one? If that one book takes a year to write then the revision process would have to take many years. Truth is, writing a first draft is the easy part. I can usually belt one out in a few months. But the revision; forgetta’bout it. That’s the time consuming stuff, though I am getting better at it as I get older (and hopefully wiser). I’m also getting better as a writer. Ideas come more easily after so many years of living in my ideas and the process of getting them on paper is less time-consuming. For my new novel, I’m finding the plot twists are coming naturally and I’ve had quite a few ‘aha!’ moments in the last few days. Here’s a little secret about starting a new novel. Don’t worry about the perfect first chapter or getting that perfect first line. Just start jotting down a story. Through most of my books, I’ve completed about half of the novel when I usually go back and write new intro’s that incorporate the original intro’s, if that makes any sense. For instance, I thought I had the perfect intro for my latest. A shocking, get-right-into-the-action first chapter, when a few hours ago I came up with a much better start. One that the reader won’t be able to not turn the page. My original beginning is now chapter two. But, that intro catapulted me into the story so I could build a base. As of this post, I hit the 10,000 word mark and have a pile of notes about how the novel will progress. But since I don’t outline, I’m not sure what exactly will happen. The fun of this project is that with IMAGINATION anything can. 

Getting it done

Hit 6,000 words today on my new novel. It's an easy and exciting write because anything can happen in a world that isn't real. I see the book getting a little deep in the philosophical area once the characters begin to realize the nature of their existences and how it all could just disappear. We'll see where the story takes me. Right now, I'm still developing characters and relationships and setting the scene for a wild ride through the possible and impossible.

Starting a new book

As some of you know I started a new book a few days ago. The title is IMAGINATION and it’s the wildest concept I’ve had yet. Here’s the preliminary tagline: (What if everything around us, our friends, our surroundings, the universe, what if all we experience is just a figment of someone’s imagination? And what if that someone is dying?) I’m very excited about this one as I’ve been thinking about this possibility for a long time. The book will be written in the style of one of my earlier works DEGENERATES. Five different characters and their sub-stories will all merge into one plot as they all come to gradually realize the truth about their existence. I will post updates on my progress. Right now, I’ve been averaging about two pages single spaced a day. I’ve got thirteen pages written. My block is usually ten pages, if I can write past that the book gets written. You’d be surprised how many books I’ve started that have gotten to eight pages when I decide it’s no good. So, this one looks to be a keeper.

In other news, there are a few sites that are promoting me at the moment. The first is an interview I did a ways back that is getting some online time now. It’s at:

http://booktown.ning.com/profiles/blogs/insectsinvadebooktown?xg_source=msg_mes_network#

The other is a featured excerpt from INSECTLAND. It can be found here:

http://erinoriordan.blogspot.com/2011/12/excerpt-from-dream-traveler-by-neil.html

All in all, the books are starting to sell and the new one is being written. So far so good, looks to be a productive winter.

Shot in the Dark!

Okay, well… here it is. The $55 article written for me. Now, the next step is the company will send this to three hundred article submission services, and people, and companies looking for content. My Blog address and Author’s Den address will be attached to the article so readers can connect with me. I reset my site stats to zero and will closely monitor that over the next ten days (the run I was promised). I average about twenty-five bio hits a day on my AD site and fifty to seventy hits a day on my Blog. I’ll let everyone know if these suddenly inflate. So, here’s the article with the keywords highlighted that I gave the company. You decide if it was worth it.
 

A Science Fiction Writer Keeps The Reader Hooked!

Readers worldwide have always yearned for an exciting adventure in the science fiction books and an expert science fiction writer does not disappoint them. They use their amazing imaginative powers coupled with an excellent knowledge of science in order to create the greatest works in fiction. There are many fans of these books out there waiting eagerly for the next big release. There is great curiosity among the readers whenever a science fiction novel makes headlines or receives critical acclaim. All the books based on this genre leave the reader in a completely different world while reading and sometimes transport them to the future.

It is not always easy for fantasy thriller author as the subject of the book needs proper handling.  Authors always reach the zenith of success by giving the right treatment to their stories. It takes tremendous power of imagination to write about aliens invading the earth, travelling beyond earth and the protagonist being in the possession of paranormal powers.  Books that have created successful television series or movies are a result of the imaginative thinking and the right placement of words by a science fiction writer.  These authors can keep the readers hooked on to their novels right from the beginning till the end.

Writers who author fantasy thrillers use many concepts that most of the people across the world cannot imagine even in their wildest of dreams.  Science fiction and fantasy thrillers are closely associated as both of them use fantasy, horrifying images, mysterious circumstances and superhuman capabilities.  A science fiction writer has to be convincing when writing about these abnormal characters and unbelievable adventures.  Even a slightest mistake while explaining a particular situation or character can take away the interest of the reader.  Thus, it becomes extremely necessary to plan everything well before putting all the imaginations into words.

The greatest challenge of those who author fantasy thrillers is to imagine something which is unbelievable and writing it in such a way that the audience do not doubt it while reading.  In a science fiction novel, a future is explained by keeping touch with the past and present simultaneously.  Most of the times a particular character or situation seems illogical, but it is explained in such a way that the reader is convinced about the superhuman tasks being performed by the protagonist.  A science fiction author takes utmost care to make sure that the reader lives every moment of the book.

While there are many reasons for the success of science fiction novels, a major one is the author himself.  A science fiction writer is solely responsible for the visualization and accurate presentation of ideas in the book. Critics also play a major role in publicizing the book as all their reviews are read curiously by the ones who are in need of a science fiction masterpiece.  The story and concept is the backbone of any science fiction novel and they must be well-planned before writing the book in order to keep a perfect flow of the novel.