Tag: marketing

Marketing Research Begins

Tonight, although I’m still working on turning manuscripts into formatted novels, I am also beginning to look into promotion and marketing. I signed up for a class, and I bit the bullet and purchased Publisher Rocket, which analyzes Amazon data to help an author select the best categories and keywords. I am staring at it and can tell it will have a learning curve: It’s not hard to use, but its information is not easy to interpret. Also, all the categories that appear most relevant to my work have major players in their top slots, which probably means I need to dig deeper to find categories I can conceivably be competitive in.

In any case, tonight is yet another work night. If you’re interested, check out my Social Media page, which I have updated with some new accounts. If you’re using any of the platforms listed, I invite you to follow me; it takes only a moment and will help me build an audience.

Marketing, Marketing …

At the moment, I’m looking into advertising, as I’ve about exhausted the free avenues. Particularly, I’m considering paid reviews—not paid Amazon reviews, which are a no-no, but paid reviews from services like Kirkus. I’m gathering my info before I open my wallet; there’s an active debate on the internet over whether paid reviews are legit, or worth it, or whether the formerly respected Kirkus still deserves its reputation.

Publisher’s Weekly, which nobody reads except librarians, reviews indie titles; they formerly had a paid service, but now do it for free, but also reject around 90% of submissions. I think it’s worth it to go for it (considering it costs nothing but time), but the ironic thing is that I may be ineligible because I actually have a publisher, whereas their indie reviews are apparently focused on self-published titles. At least as far as they are concerned, I’m in a sort of no-man’s land between the Big Three and the self-pubbed.

If nothing else, Twitter and Facebook ads are likely to make enough of a return to pay for themselves. I’ll probably prepare something on that front, at least.