Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Websites all writers should be on!



I’ve been doing a lot of marketing/promotion lately for my books and have come up with a “must-be-on” list for writers who want to promote their books. These website provide free services that can really get your books noticed. There are many other sites out there but I highly recommend you concentrate your marketing efforts on these. If you check their Alexa rankings you’ll see that they far higher than most free writers sites.

Between finishing my latest novel and marketing and promoting my other books I haven’t tim e to explain what each site is like and how they work. The instructions for signing up are simple and if you take time to fill out your profile information you will get noticed. My books are on all of them and so should yours.

One other thing. If you have a website or blog add it to http://www.pingomatic.com. It is a free service that lets search engines know your site is active.

Also check out my blog: Always Writing  http://www.neilostroff.blogspot.com  for tips, inspiration, and personal experience on selling ebooks in today’s publishing world.
Did I mention all the sites below are free?















Sunday, February 23, 2014

Great book selling results!



The Ereader News Today http://ereadernewstoday.com/more-bargain-and-free-books-for-2-21-14/6741206/ feature yielded very nice results and I sold enough copies of DROP OUT to hit below 1,500 ranking in the entire Kindle store yesterday. I highly recommend all authors give this site a try. It costs nothing upfront but they do take a small percentage out of units sold through their link. I know author’s hate to give up even one penny of their royalties, but trust me the exposure and amount of sales make up for it.

I also recommend Choosybookworm https://www.facebook.com/choosybookworm which is a Facebook and Twitter book marketing page. This is a totally free service. The page only asks that you like it and promote it in return.

All in all good results and I’ve already received a few new five star reviews on Amazon because of the sales.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Ranking results

Not too bad in twenty-four hours. Went from about 125,000 to this. Selling a lot of books in a short time is very exciting to say the least.


Friday, February 21, 2014

It's happening again!

Okay, here's where the viral aspect of being featured on a website with more than a half million hits a day sets in. Will see if I hit the "list" by morning. Already moved up 250,000 in ranking and now selling about 25 books an hour.



 

Hitting the best seller list



Today is the day of my Eareader News Today promo spot. Last time ENT featured my book it went to #176 in the entire Kindle paid store and briefly #1 in the romantic suspense department. Of course, that was only for a few hours. But what a thrill.
Here is the link to the site. Please check it out and I urge all authors to submit their books to ENT. They only get a small percentage of your sales and make no money if your book doesn’t sell through their link.


You also get listed on their Facebook page which has several hundred thousand likes.


By chance, I also have another promotion today going on at choosybookworm. This is a totally free Facebook promo spot and I also encourage all authors to submit their works to this site. It doesn’t cost anything but the five minutes it takes to submit and who knows how many people will see the spot.


Please check it out. Thank you.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Don’t make these mistakes.



My father always told me that it's okay to make mistakes, it's how you learn. Well, I'm about to tell you the mistakes I've made while marketing and promoting my books so that you don't have to go through the same mistakes when you market and promote your own books. I'll put them in list form so it's easier to digest.

Number 1. When posting on forums don't just promote yourself with no other redeeming information. When I first started out I'd post summaries of my books and links to buy them on sites that specifically said no self-promo. I didn’t listen. The result: I got banned from these sites and all the networking they could have provided. Provide content marketing material when you post. Writer’s are always interested in information that can help readers find their books.

Number 2. Don't write articles that tell people how they are going to feel about your book. For instance, don't write a blurb that says, "This is the best book you'll read all year". Statements like that really turn off the reader. Let the reader decide if they like what you’ve written.

Number 3. Don't believe the hype that paying for click advertising or putting up banners are going to increase sales. The most important driver of sales is word of mouth through social sites and networking… using grassroots marketing. If you’re looking for the prestige that comes from seeing your book ad on a popular website, then go for it. But statistically, it's a very small percentage of people that will actually buy the book through a paid advertisement. Sorry, but it’s a fact.

Number 4. Don’t think that by spamming social network sites that you’re somehow going to go viral (meaning tens of thousands of people clicked on your info) and sell a million books. Most social network site followers don’t want to see you blurbing about your book a dozen times a day. They would rather watch kittens playing piano.

Number 5. Just because you wrote a book, published it, and sold a few copies, don’t think you’re going to be able to quit your job and retire. That only happens to lottery-winning writers. I’ve had a few tweets and postings go viral and it led to just a small increase in sales. It’s a cool feeling knowing so many people have checked out your stuff, but not profitable.

Number 6. Write for yourself and don’t try to copy what’s out there just because what’s out there is selling now. Be original and write what you want. That’s the only true way of gaining a loyal reader following.

So there you have it. These are the mistakes I made early on in my writing career that cost me loads of time and briefly damaged my professional online persona. Do the exact opposite of these six things and I guarantee you’ll see your sales rise and people will begin to notice you.

I also wanted to let everyone know that I have two promotions going on tomorrow. One from Ereader News Today and one from ChoosyBookworm.com. I highly recommend that authors try to promote on both sites. ChoosyBookworm is a free service and Ereader News Today gets paid on commission. They don’t make any money from your promotion if you don’t. I think that’s one of the best deals there is for exposure on the internet.