Tag: book marketing

A Dinosaur in a Young Adult’s World

Guest post
by Parker Moose

On June 8th, I released my debut novel. The world replied with crickets. The next day I sent a message to all of my contacts on Twitter and Facebook asking them to buy my book. That got me about a 10 percent response rate and a brief bump in Amazon’s rankings. But then I ran out of people who thought they might have known me in high school, and it was back to anonymity.

Lured by the siren song and royalties of KDP Select, I chose to be exclusive with Amazon and tried my first free promotion. The results of that were inconclusive, except for another brief bump in the standings and the unexpected finding that Germans really love free books. But then, sales tapered off again. It was time to get serious. Continue reading “A Dinosaur in a Young Adult’s World”

How Genre Labeling Keeps Some Books from Being Discovered

Guest post
by Sylvia Engdahl

Fans of my past novels are sometimes surprised to learn that I have become an indie author. I’m known to librarians as the author of six successful Young Adult science fiction novels, including an award-winner, that were first published by Atheneum in the 1970s and have all been reissued in hardcover as well as paperback by different publishers in the 21st century. They are enjoyed by adults as well as teens, and three of them were reprinted by a small press as adult science fiction. So why did I publish my recent adult science fiction trilogy, now concluded with Defender of the Flame, myself? Continue reading “How Genre Labeling Keeps Some Books from Being Discovered”

Exploiting the Subcognitive Brain

In my last post, I discussed the concepts of unconscious or subcognitive influence on the decisions people make. The hard-wired brain appears to be involved in a much wider array of skills and decision-making than science had previously thought.

People can catch a ball without consciously doing the complex trigonometry required to calculate angle, arc, and rate of speed. When the person fails to make the catch, it is more likely a result of the conscious mind intruding on the process—i.e., fear of being hit by the ball. If we don’t get in our own way, our brains work all that out lightning-fast without any fancy book-learnin’. Continue reading “Exploiting the Subcognitive Brain”

“I’m coming out…!”

Book launches should be fun and an important part of your marketing strategy. If you have never held one before, stop being a shrinking violet and begin preparing for your first. Treat it like a proper “coming-out” party for your book and you’ll thoroughly enjoy it.

Who?

First, you need to write a guest list. I mean, actually sit down and write a guest list out, on paper. Treat it like a wedding invite list. (Don’t invite Uncle Trevor though. He got drunk at the last wedding and dribbled down Cousin Veronica’s blouse.) Knowing the names of people and how many you expect is the key to securing a venue and for ordering the correct number of books for the event. Put the guests into one of these three categories: Continue reading ““I’m coming out…!””