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First, I will say that this is just my experience. I know many people who have been successful with these things. I simply haven’t.
Last weekend was the free period for Beginning of a Hero and the February raffle ended this morning. The results got me thinking about all of my contest and giveaway attempts:
- I did a review contest long ago that got only a few entries. The mistake was thinking people would read and review the book in a month. One winner never even got back to me.
- Fan art contest got no entries.
- First free period for Beginning of a Hero got over 2,000 free downloads, but the later ones have a little over 200 and a little over 500. The last two had actual promotion behind them too. Also, I’ve been told by several people that sales boost after a free weekend. Each time, the book has hit a dead point and has struggled to sell again and get back up the rankings. Typically, the release of a new book is what revives it. Beginning of a Hero went from the 30,000 area to the 130,000 area with no sign that it’ll improve under its own power.
- Rafflecopter event for this February had 453 entrants. Sound good? Keep in mind that one person can earn 76 entries, so this can be as low as 6 actual people. I’m still waiting for a list of winners. I’ve heard of people getting thousands of entries on these things. Not me.
- Goodreads Giveaways had netted me between 60-200 people each time. Again, I hear people go on about getting thousands. I promote these things too.
- Ereader News Today has been used by several people I know to amazing success. I did it and sold a whopping . . . ZERO. What the hell? Not a one on something someone once told me was a sure bet? This is the one that makes me wonder what is different about me.
And there is something different about me and my books. All of the people who were telling me how great these promotions are write either drama, romance, historical fiction, and erotica. I write Fantasy, which is why I constantly hear ‘it’s great that you wrote a book. I’d buy it if I read fantasy.’ I saw it with the ENT promotion where people were showing no interest in my book while going on about the other books being repeat promotions. I guess bad timing hit me on this one too. Now, this doesn’t explain the Rafflecopter failure and I can’t figure that one out. Did it fail because a fantasy author headed the promotion? I’ve been a donator on a few run by romance authors and seen them explode.
Now, someone is bound to mention Perma Free, which is what I’ve seen in the free lists. It seems to be popular among fantasy authors because we do series. That first one free supposedly helps the others. Personally, I’m leery of making my first book Perma Free. As I told one person, going Perma Free means that my book won’t be on the same lists as the big boys of my genre. Somewhere along the line, I took a lot of pride from seeing my book sitting among those titles. That’s something I don’t want to give up for the possibility of sales. (I’m sure I’m gonna have a debate or two on this.)
Now, why do I think fantasy has a hard time with these types of promotions? I thought long and hard about this. It’s because as much as we believe fantasy is mainstream, it isn’t. Those of us that are in the genre seem to forget that we’re still fringe. Sure ‘Game of Thrones’ has an HBO show, but it’s unique. A lot of series that fantasy readers know and love aren’t at that level of fame outside of our circle. So, a giveaway or raffle that focuses on a fantasy author doesn’t attract the same amount of people as more mainstream genres like romance and historical fiction. Honestly, I’ve heard ‘I don’t read fantasy’ or ‘you introduced me to fantasy’ more times than I’ve heard long-term fantasy readers talk about my books. In fact, many of the lovers of fantasy don’t like me, but that’s an entirely different story that I’ve mentioned before.
So, what am I going to do? The Free Weekend approach has backfired on me multiple times. The Goodreads Giveaways are a safe bet for promotions since I don’t lose sales or rankings when they’re going on. Joining up with other raffles is still a good idea too. Basically, I need to choose less riskier promotions here until I have more books in the pipeline. That way it doesn’t hit as hard if the first one plummets. Again, this is just me and my experiences. Tons of people have been successful with these tactics, so give it a shot if you want.
Legends of Windemere 
Such a shame to hear when I know you work so hard.
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Yeah. It’s definitely the weakest area for me and I have no idea how to fix it.
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Things are tough right now. Many of the things I did for Dawning are not working as well for Moonstone. I’m trying different avenues with some success, but not great success. I shouldn’t complain because I”m still doing better than many authors, but I have to admit that some of the wind is now out of my sails. AND I have had people I know well tell me they would read my book, IF they read romance. That comment is usually followed with : Maybe you should write a REAL book next time…. GAR….
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I haven’t gotten that second line yet. I get a request for another genre at times as if it’s that easy. The thing with the promotions has been going on since I started. After the first free weekend, nothing worked. I used that weekend with a convention appearance, which might have helped. Still I never get the same level of results as the more mainstream genres, so I think the rules of fantasy are slightly different.
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Might be different for you. Who knows. I think we’re all guessing. And some people don’t consider romance to be an acceptable genre.
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Really? I know a lot of romance readers, so I thought it was mainstream. At least among women.
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Depends on who you hang out around I think.
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BTW I love your honesty.
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Thanks. Hard to do some times.
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I know. I appreciate it. Gives me someone to commiserate with. LOL
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I’m sorry, Charles. You really work hard to market your books. It’s frustrating, because I love fantasy. It’s sad that fantasy authors still aren’t considered mainstream. And yes, I’ve heard the “I don’t read fantasy” line from people. Yet they watch fantasy shows like Once Upon a Time.
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And watch Harry Potter movies. I think fantasy movies and shows grab more people because of the visual. You don’t have to imagine the dragons, spells, and battles. They’re in front of you. I think I should skip frustration and stick with what works. I’ve tested enough marketing paths to get an idea of where to go.
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I feel your pain. 😱
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Unity in ‘meh’!
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I have never offer for free except right when I first published and it got downloaded in the thousands put on so many free sites that it took forever to clean that up. I have been wary to do it again. I do think it works best for people who do series.
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You mean it got put up on sites for free download?
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YES! It showed up on about twenty sites. Some even in Mexico offering it for $15 for the eversion. Reselling. They all took it down upon request, except a torrents site. I had to threaten legal action, then they took it down.
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That probably didn’t have anything to do with the free downloads. At least with Amazon, the price doesn’t change the security. You buy it or get it free, it’s still locked on the Kindle unless you hack it with a program. Not exactly sure how it’s done, but it happens a lot. I’ve found my books do that including the ones that never had a free period.
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I had offered it on a free ebooks site (temporarily) and then others downloaded it and offered it free or for a cost on their sites. It wasn’t Amazon related.
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Ah, I get it. Amazon has protection against it that people have to work to get around. Do you remember the site?
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Free-ebooks.net
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http://www.free-ebooks.net/ I don’t think i wrote that correctly.
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Looked at their FAQ. Works off the honor system from the look of things. Nice thought, but it usually backfires on the Internet. Have you ever tried a free weekend on Amazon?
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No I have not. I may do that at some future point. Maybe when I get my next book good to go. I am two books shy of my February goal with two weeks at 99 cents wit RC&R. I will never do a 99 cent or free promo with smashwords again. Going across ALL platforms and getting the price set and then reset afterwards has been a nightmare. I still have the book at 99 cents because Sony was dragging its feet. Amazon won’t reset until all others have. Even though Sony now has the correct price, and I have gone through KDP to rest on Amazon. It is now again live with the 99 cent price, so I have email out to Amazon to inquire.
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They might not have noticed the price change. I think it’s a program that does it and lets someone know that the price has to get dropped. I’ve see a lot of people going Perma Free and altering prices, so it can be backed up. Still, an email would put you to the front of the line and make you look good to them. They like it when you bring those things to their attention for immediate work instead of them going after you.
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I had reset on KDP and was sent an email that Amazon would not change price because Sony still had it at $3.99, but it is all fixed now and back to $3.99. Unfortunately, I have done some promo work today at 99 cents. People will have to pay full price. I still need to sell two books today to meet goal. Close, but no cigar.
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What’s the goal?
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It was 300. I am just 2 books shy, but things have been really slow for the last two days. At $3,99, I don’t think I will make it today.
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Not bad falling just 2 short of that. February seems to be a slow month.
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LOL…it is still pocket change 😦
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I’m finally getting out of that realm with the $2.99 book.
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Never mind. Amazon just reset.
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This reminds me of that famous William Goldman quote ‘In Hollywood, no-one knows anything’, or words to that effect, meaning no-one ever knew what would be a hit really, or when, or how…some hits are sleepers at first, some are surprises, and some have all the big guns, so to speak, but fail. maybe it’s the same with promotional sites. I’ve read articles recently re ebooks that say fantasy is right up there as one of the popular genres for ebooks specifically, and your early experience suggests that..now, who knows,, perhaps it does depend on the platform used, or the time of the year…or perhaps there are no patterns either.
I had my bad experience a couple of weeks ago of the 500,000 email campaign that scored nothing but given that my email address received it as unintelligible garble I suspect everyone else did so I will never know if it might have worked, or how well, and it cost me $5000. They told me my computer or my email address mustn’t receive HTML properly but it receives plenty of other email in that form perfectly, and since then they’ve offered no other explanation. So…these things suck, but what can we do…we can’t ever prove much, and from your journey it seems right when you feel you’ve learned something that works it reverses for some unknown reason…
Hang in there, you still do have relatively high success compared to most indie writers, overall something must be working… 🙂
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Ouch. Is there any way to get a refund or have them find out if it worked?
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I’ve tried emailing about it and just got the excuses. If you want the whole story its on a recent blog post of mine called Dying of the Light…its a cautionary tale now for others, quite apart from my own depressing results. The issue is I can never prove it did go that way to others but I find it hard to believe it would just randomly come to me as garble when I get other HTML emails just fine…but if you can’t prove it, and they offer no other solution more than two weeks from when it first happened, what can one do? Very disappointing really, from both a results and a client service perspective. 😦
If they still don’t respond in the next week or so I shall probably write a complaint email but I doubt that will do anything other than let me vent my frustration….
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All you can really do is tell of your experience and hope other people are wary. You’re right that without proof, there’s nothing you can do. Do you know of anyone that the email went out to?
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No unfortunately, I only have my copy and its an unintelligible mess…I jus don’t see why they can think an explanation that it is my computer or email when it receives others fine, and that of all people I’d be the only one to receive it in this way, are reasonable arguments to make…but they are the only arguments they made and they are not responding further from what I can see…
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With any luck, only a fraction of the people have issues and the rest get it clearly. I’ve been odd man out on a few emails like that.
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I doubt that is what happened as there were no sales at all for a 500000 mail out, and that means not even 0.0001 per cent were interested if they did get it properly as that would have meant five sales…so on balance I suspect t it went out wrong to everyone….just statistically for half a million people receiving it that seems highly unlikely….
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Makes sense. Hope you get at least some of your money back.
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I doubt I will…the real shame is that I truly believe the email itself was flawed so I will never now know if the campaign might have worked otherwise…obviously I’m no going to invest another $5000 to try again with my second book….
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Good idea. What kind of company was it? I’ve never really heard about something like that before.
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It was the same company that published the work for me, it was part of their marketing services. That’s the other thing that was odd and disappointing. Their publishing work is fabulous, but it guess that is their core business. A shame overall, but a leArning experience if nothing else….
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That really is disappointing. You would think the publisher would be concerned with the email going out looking terrible.
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Yes, but it’s still self publishing ultimately so you buy all the services and I suppose apart from them not getting any revenue from sales it doesn’t impact them directly, except a disappointed customer who to date has spent $9000 with them for two books published and now this failed campaign. Again, they do a great job of cover design, formatting and distributing both book and paperback, but this is sad, and would make me seriously rethink even doing the publishing with them in the future despite how good they are at that…I don’t know….I haven’t decided on that point yet…
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I went with a self publisher once and they were great at the publishing part too. I had an iffy feeling about the marketing side though. I did a small package of on-line marketing and got nothing. I think they depend a lot more on authors promoting than they let on.
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I think you’re right!!
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Frustrating, isn’t it? We hear what a great platform the Internet is, that we’ll reach thousands by blogging or commenting or tweeting… but we get just one or two responses. The silence can be corrosive.
I don’t have any answers, except that you have to be a bit analytical. If something doesn’t work as you hope… don’t do that again. In particular, if watching your sales figures is bringing you down, then stop watching the sales figures. We all have only so much time and energy. Choose where to put your energy in a way that’s fun for you, and then just be patient.
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We tend to forget that we’re not the only ones promoting out there, so we sometimes get absorbed in the flood. It is good to not repeat attempts that don’t work, especially if they cost you money.
As for the sales watching, I agree to some extent. Checking every hour is a bad idea. Yet, I do watch them when using a new promotional tool to see if there’s a change. That can bring me down, but it’s a necessary risk to see if the tool is worth using again.
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Agreed, especially when so many of the marketing tools are pretty expensive. More expensive than the initial publication, in some cases. You need a clear idea of now many books you’d have to sell to pay for your marketing, and then consider if you’re really likely to recoup the expense.
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I use a lot of sites that have $10 services and a few heavy hitters that are more expensive. I self-publish through Amazon, so the cost of publication is zero for me. There’s cheap ways to market eBooks when you have a budget (FB, Twitter, blogging, etc), but I’ve seen that paperback is a lot tougher. Most of my physical book sales have been to me for promotional purposes.
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The paper copies give you options, though. For me, a lot of my promotion is personal appearances, especially signings in November and December. For book stores, you need books.
I also attend a couple of SF conventions a year. For this, I need paper books. Signing the cover of someone’s e-reader isn’t quite the same.
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I do both, but I haven’t had any luck with local book stores. My books are at an 8 x 11 size to make them cheaper, but the size throws people off. There is a site called Authorgraph for eBook signing and many eBook authors do signed bookmarks or cover prints.
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I re categorised my science fiction fantasy mash up as action adventure. I suspect that helped. If it’s action adventure as well as fantasy, would that be worth a try?
Cheers
MTM
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I have it listed as Epic Fantasy and Action/Adventure on Amazon. It doesn’t seem to do anything. It’s predominantly fantasy and the cover shows that, so that might be it.
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