Blogs, Live Chats and the Kitchen Sink
Hands up (raise your right arm) who of you authors out there thinks they’re not doing enough promo for your books? Keep your hands up. Now hands up (raise your left arm) those who think they’re not doing enough? OK, how many of you have both arms up in the air?
Hands down.
I’m one of you. The one with both hands firmly up. I know I’m not doing enough to promote my books (that’s irrespective of whether I promote 5 hours a day or 5 minutes a week), but at the same time I wonder whether I’m just screaming voicelessly in a soundproof room in the middle of the largest desert on Mars.
Sometimes I sit alone in a chat room for an hour, with an audio book my only companion as I keep glaring at the blank list of guests and press “Refresh” at every full stop. Sometimes I update blogs that haven’t had a hit on them since the last millennium. Sometimes I do a 1-hour Blog Radio show and speak to myself for 60 minutes.
Some of the Readers’ Contests I set up receive no entries. None. Not a single one. Others attract emails in droves (whatever droves are, but if it’s hundreds then I’m not exaggerating). Go figure.
I Facebook. I tweet. Even my books blog.
I send out bookmarks, pens, postcards, magnets. I offer free books. I get out there, network, interview. I am interviewed in turn and reviewed.
And some of my books really sell well. Others don’t. Try as I may, I see no correlation whatsoever between my promotion efforts and the sales.
Please, please, please, somebody tell me they’ve had the same experience.
Better yet, please, please, please, somebody tell me they’ve had a totally converse experience, and HERE’S HOW TO DO IT, YOU SILLY!!!! 
)))
PS ok, I’m a promoholic. Catch me Wednesday 20 October 2009 9pm EST on http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/ctr_chat.htm where I’m doing 30 minutes about my Halloween Romance, A Slave Of My Own Desire (www.redrosepublishing.com)
Yvonne, I am not a promoholic, I’d rather be writing, so I do. Until a little before release date and a few weeks after. Then I’m excited and go full blast, but like you, haven’t seen specific efforts produce better results from one-vs-another. (If that made sense?) Which makes it very easy for me to go back to my writing cave and stay there until the next release.
Oh, I love this post. It’s what I’ve been bemoaning. I’ve tried different things and measured success but how can a measurement that’s all over the board count. The first book with Bookstrand (3rd published) is doing well. In fact the last book released in Sept seems to be selling it but not itself, instead it’s selling the one published in January. Why? I DON”T KNOW. This last story is really good, maybe better than the previous one.
I hope you get an answer to your post that tells us “HERE’S HOW TO DO IT, YOU SILLY!!!!
)))” like you asked.
The only suggestion I have is to keep a measurement like website hits or if you have a publisher where you can track sales. After I do a promotional I watch these two closely. And no, sorry but again the results are conclusive as to what works. Wish I had James Patterson, Nora Roberts and Sandra Browns secrets (and that they worked for me)
Yvonne, I’m sure glad you posted this topic. Same issues here. I’m like Stacey, though. I tend to promote right around the book release and then go back in my cave. I’m just now considering that maybe a broader approach is better, i.e., do one thing a month to keep some partial interest going. I’ve done it all, too – had contests with no entries, no one to chat to, and tons of leftover giveaways. I have three things I’ve noted work – a press release (sent to a dozen different Free services); Yahoo groups romance reader sites (belong to dozens, but the best I noted so far Romance Junkies – lots of active members), and buying space on Long and Short Reviews. After two books, you’d think my list would be longer, but not so. I still blog and send out a quarterly newsletter, but that’s it. This fall, I’m working on advertising various places and seeing how that affects the hits to my website and I bought a Romantic Times advertisement when my publisher came around and asked for interested parties. We’ll see if that was worth the bucks.
OK, a quick update. As an experiment, I’ve done almost no promo for my latest Red Rose Publishing release (Wild Thing, 29 October 2009). By “almost no promo” I mean no chats, no loop announcements, no guest blog posts. I did do a quick update on Facebook and my own blog. The result? “Wild Thing” is at number 10 on the Erotic Romance bestseller list at Red Rose.
I’ll do a round of promo now to see what happens.
Oh, and thanks for the Romance Junkies tip.
Another update on the promo thing. As promised above, I did a short sharp spurt of online promo, and I subsequently _did_ notice a spike in sales. Not a huge spike, but a spike nevertheless.
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Jeannie Ruesch
Stacey Joy Netzel
Maggie Van Well
J.K. Coi
Yvonne Eve Walus
Lavada Dee
Cheryl Pierson
Silver James
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Patti Ann Colt
Laurie Ryan
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