Harley and her Hyenas
So, I’ve been looking at sales and marketing and yadda yadda yadda. I’ve come to a few conclusions for myself:
- Facebook is doing nothing for me in terms of sales. At least with the groups. I sometimes get a like or a share, but mostly I get nothing. Sort of. I get a lot of people messaging me about wanting to trade reviews or to sign up with their marketing site. It isn’t very appealing and I’m considering not doing Facebook promotions for a few days to see what happens. Add into this that even m non-blog and non-promo posts on both my own account and my author page tend to get nothing. The only reason I’m still on there is for 1-2 groups, knowing what’s going on with friends, and the 2-3 people I chat with. That second one is rather essential since I wouldn’t know about engagements, divorces, pregnancies, birthdays, or much else without Facebook.
- Twitter at least has more activity. I don’t know if it’s more sales, but I see a lot of retweets, more reciprocation, and it’s getting easier to come up with catchy tweets. The one thing I’m not sure about here is if the ‘Pinned Tweet’ is more advantageous than the non-pinned tweet. I think it works if I’m retweeting a lot and people are reciprocating, but it means I have to always remember to switch the ‘Pinned Tweet’ every 6 hours or day. For now, I’m sticking with the tweet every 4 hours. Oh and all personal tweets have gone ignored, which means I won’t even bother any more.
- I’m out of any other marketing ideas and really just want to edit/write. I have two blog interviews coming up this month and I keep hoping I can make time to contact someone about a Skype interview. The full-time parent addition to my life has really taken a toll on my ability to do anything that involves Skype or chatting over a computer. I’m dead on my feet by 4 PM even on a Monday. This is only going to get worse as the month progresses. So, I’m guessing this is having an effect on my sales and temperament.
- I’m not a fan of Amazon removing the 20 word minimum on reviews. I know some people said it would open the door for more positives, but I’ve been seeing a lot of ‘this book is bad’ reviews. Not just on me. I have seen a few short positives, but I’ve also seen those vanish as if they were reported and deleted. It does seem like this feeds into the Internet habit of only reviewing or commenting when you’re emotional about something. 9 times out of 10 it’s ‘bad’. Even more disheartening is that I can’t take anything from the reviews as an author or a reader. “This book is bad” doesn’t tell me why and neither does “This book is great!” It sounds like the person said something solely to say something. My personal favorite is ‘get an editor’ since I receive this one a lot and the past has shown that it’s my present tense third person style that causes the problem. Without explanations though, a potential reader could just guess that the book has typos every 2-3 lines. To be fair, a potential reader can’t tell if a person writing ‘best book ever!’ really read the book or is a family/friend of the author. So now you have such vague reviews that it seems to hinder the usefulness of the system.
Anyway, those are my morning thoughts. These things have been irking me for a while. Now I’m off to do my biking and get started on the next editing project.
Legends of Windemere 
Always difficult to know what is working or where the interest is coming from, isn’t it?
Mind, I am impressed, Charles… you make it awake till four?!
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Awake is an odd term at that point. Let’s just say I’m simply not in a position to sleep. 🙂
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Any position will do me these days… except, apparently, snuggled up in bed. 🙂
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One of these days I’ll get to do that. I’m guessing it’ll be retirement at this point. I’d say a hospital stay, but I’ve been there and those beds aren’t very comfortable.
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No, they are not… designed, I think, to get you up and out as soon as is humanly possible… the beds and the food between them!
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Guess they don’t want most people to be too comfortable there. 🙂
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It definitely works for me… 🙂
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Just a little suggestion – probably a bad one, but I’ll put it out there anyway: What if you left a pinned Tweet up long enough for it to get retweets in the double or even triple digits? Would it not appear that more people are enthusiastic about your book?
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Oh, also – I never see any of your personal tweets. Maybe there aren’t enough of them… In my experience (and opinion) the more people relate to YOU, the more they’re going to want to buy your books.
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I do them every now and then when there’s something worth talking about. That 140 character limit is a problem. As for the personal stuff, I’m falling back on the fence there. I heard a lot of people shout for it and then I saw that my Sunday posts (personal goals and life) goes unnoticed for the most part. Truthfully, I don’t even know what personal stuff people want from me. I don’t know what people think I do over here.
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I dunno. I find that any time I write about things other people can relate to, my posts get noticed. How are you titling your posts? Is it pretty much the same every time? That’s a sure way to go unnoticed, particularly by those who follow you by email, like I do.
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I try to be catchy and clear with the titles. Maybe I’m in a position where nobody can relate to me. Sounds strange, but it is a possibility. Sure, I can post all the time about my son, but that removes the author side of me and that’s what this blog was supposed to focus on. I’m always writing and it’s my full-time job, which people don’t seem to pick up on or remember. This is what I do and maybe that puts me in a bit of isolation.
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Yep, I get that. My posts about writing get far less attention than the ones about parenting/life. And when you don’t get out much… I certainly don’t. Isolation is the norm for us writers.
If I come up with any other suggestions, I’ll let you know.
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Thanks. I’m really starting to get frustrated with this personal life request. There really is a limit to what I can say on here since many family and friends don’t want to be put up on the blog.
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So talk about general things we can all relate to. Your toaster that can’t seem to decide how much to cook your toast, your computer, your car, the weather, the drapes need washing but you have a nosy neighbour…
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And that’s where the problem lies. Stuff like that simply doesn’t happen to me. I’m not sure why people would care about my computer unless it’s having trouble and the car isn’t anything special. The ‘exciting’ stuff that happens are things that I can’t talk about on here without causing a lot of drama. So I’m in a tough spot where people might want something that I’m unable to deliver unless I make my life more difficult.
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Hehe. Yeah, I find myself holding back a lot too. It’s a problem to be sure.
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This is why I’m looking forward to dropping to 2-4 times a week of posting in January. It gives me more time for other things and I’m starting to feel like I’m not able to play to my audience any more. I can post college stories and other things, but the modern day stuff tends to be too personal for public consumption.
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I’ve considered that, but I doubt triple digits would happen. The thing with the Pinned Posts is that it only works if people come to your Twitter page and not just find you on their feed or during a hashtag search. After a few hours or half a day, it’s pretty much worn out from what I can tell. The only other way would be to do a lot of retweeting to draw people into the pinned post. This is why I’m not sure about how it works.
I did tried it once and it didn’t seem to do any better than the non-pinned.
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If you stopped tweeting it would stay at the top… Have you tried that for a day or two?
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Pinned posts stay at the top no matter what I post. I’m talking about on the feeds of my followers. Pinned posts don’t stick on those.
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Ahhh… I see.
The key may be simply interaction. If you aren’t already, try spending an hour just interacting with people in your feed and going out to find new followers. I’ve only been on Twitter for under a year and I have 1610 followers. The day I spent talking to people I think I got 50 new ones.
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I’ve been doing the retweets and reacting when someone talks to me. I’ve tried chatting with a few other authors, but got no responses. Honestly, I’m starting to feel like I’m spinning my social media wheels instead of doing my actual author job.
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From what I hear it’s ALL part of the job. 😛 (Actually I think you taught me that.)
Try searching for readers rather than authors on Twitter perhaps? Talk to them. Some of them will be thrilled to talk to a real live author.
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I’ll give it a try, but the best way to promote books is to release a new one. I’ve seen a lot of authors get so caught up in the marketing that they never put out anything new, which causes stagnation. I think marketing is important, but it shouldn’t be the bulk of time like people think.
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But isn’t the point to get new readers as well? Yes, putting out a new book in a series is going to get a lot of sales, but if someone new reads the first one and loves it, that’s how many sales?
If I were you, I wouldn’t stop until I had 10K followers. Even half an hour a day of searching for new ones is going to make a difference, and the more you have, the more momentum you get and the less work it becomes. That’s certainly been my experience with both WP and Twitter.
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I can only follow so many people and many don’t follow back. As I said, I tried chatting and most of my calls went unanswered. The reason why I say writing a new book helps get new readers is because it shows longevity and keeps the established readers around. I could be a dancing monkey on social media for the entire day and it’ll cost me in the long term. So I have to make sure I keep the writing going and with the chaos of the house, it’s not easy to do it with clarity.
Again, I’ve done the new follower thing before on Twitter and it didn’t turn into sales. It turned into a bunch of people following me on Twitter and asking me to promote their book or just quietly sitting there as they gather bigger followings. I’ll follow back when Twitter lets me, but communicating there simply hasn’t panned out for me.
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I’m with you on the chaos. 😛
I’m also out of ideas. I just thought if what you’re doing now isn’t working for you I’d try giving you suggestions… It just seems to me that more exposure from more followers (and the possibility of more people retweeting you for whatever personal reason they have) might ultimately lead to more sales. I’m no expert though. 😛
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I appreciate it and that is true about followers. I think it’s more that I should put most of my limited time into the writing. I do retweet other authors including those I don’t follow. That seems to operate better than most other attempts.
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Favouriting and replying wouldn’t move it.
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Social media takes up so much of our time and I haven’t seen much success on Facebook either. Like you I need it to keep up with the world! I still haven’t figured Twitter out, but maybe I should center my actions on there for a change?
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It doesn’t hurt to try your hand at Twitter. I will admit that it takes a few retweeting runs to help gather followers and get some traction. Just don’t retweet too much in a short span or the system will think you’re a ‘bot and freeze you for a day.
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I agree on Facebook. Nice to stay in touch but for selling books not so much. Not sure where the Twitter thing is, but will keep going. As to reviews, I have all but stopped trying to get reviews from people. I guess the world has a lazy streak that I can’t overcome. I am really disappointed with some I have actively supported and got nada in return. (I didn’t support them with the idea of a reciprocal gesture but still.)
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I’ve stopped with asking for reviews too. I did a bunch of free copies with my first book, which resulted in nothing happening. Most of the people disappeared as soon as they got the book, so I’ve learned to only do it through contests now. Others got free copies and then said they never review after making the promise.
Reciprocation is really a nice bonus, but I think people forget how much it helps. Especially on Facebook. Maybe it’s part of that lazy streak.
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I stopped Facebook groups and sold ten more books than usual last month. But now, I’m not selling anything, but I have not done any interviews or guest posts this month. Twitter blows my mind. It is like everybody is shouting but nobody is listening. ENT still works best for me, but only lasts a few days. I need to write more.
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Weird. I replied to this comment, but it didn’t go through.
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The forces of evil were blocking you.
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Basically, guest posts and interviews are becoming harder to find. I submitted to a few in August and early September with no responses. Twitter is all about the hashtags.
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Twitter gets me loads more traffic than the other sites, but you need to make tweets interesting, @RayneHall talks loads of Twitter sense and her book Twitter For Writers is excellent and worth the few $/£ and doesn’t take long to skip through.
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I’ve heard of that book and think I bought it recently. I try for the eye-catching stuff with hashtags. The tough part is that the URL for the book takes up an annoying amount of space. 😀
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Instead of removing the minimum word count, they ought to make a multiple choice option. Ha! 🙂
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That would be so much easier.
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I’m definitely not a fan of the Amazon change. I’m with you that it brings more opportunity for negative than positive feedback.
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I guess it made sense on paper.
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It doesn’t make sense to me on paper…
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Basically, it improves the chances of people leaving reviews because it takes less time. They don’t factor in that most people who write reviews will do so out of high emotions. Typically, this is negative.
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These are all wonderful points you’ve brought up, Charles. I really can’t comment on trends, as I really don’t pay too much attention to the marketing part of the business, but I have noticed since Facebook introduced the “follow” button, my personal newsfeed has been rather bland. I think people have been afraid to post anything exciting with the fear their friends might unfollow them but still remain their friends. Catch-22, I suppose.
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I didn’t even think of the follow button. Honestly, I totally forgot about that thing. I think Facebook has become a weird place where you have ‘friends’, but not really. It’s definitely changed the definition of ‘like’.
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I’m disturbed by the fact that “friends” can now see what I like on their newsfeed. Things like Jack likes such-and-such shows up on someone else’s feed. Things like that used to be private, but all that’s done away. The privacy settings are almost razor thin now. Don’t get me started! lol
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I didn’t learn about that until recently. Means all my friends and family saw the romance/erotica authors I supported, which could explain why nobody talks to me.
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Yep, that’ll do it, all right!
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