23 Comments

  1. I’m with you about making money instead of spending it. When my first book with Kensington came out, I did as many ads as I could. I got bookmarks made, had an ad in RWA and on RT. I spent my entire advance (which wasn’t much at all) and still my sales weren’t that great. Since then, I’ve decided with my self published books that I want to actually make money and I’m very, very leery of doing an ad. But I’m glad to hear about goodreads and facebooks as I’ve wondered about them.

  2. Lori, you know I’ll let you know my experiences. But I am starting to agree with Dale, that the exposure is cumulative. I think, too, that a lot of book buyers check out places like Ereader News, Frual eReader, etc. There’s so many ebooks out that it’s a way to find out about new books.

  3. Thanks for gathering all this information, Edie. It’s super and so helpful to see everyone’s experiences.

    I have an ad running with Kindle Nation today so will drop back and let you know how that one works. They offer a list of Free kindle books and a different author sponsors the page each day. I see Renee already used it and Christy is signed up. So many advertising options, it can get pretty confusing.

  4. Thanks so much Edie for compiling all this great marketing advice. I think for us Indie authors it’s a progression, an up hill movement and the more books the better it will be for sales. Also Bev Pettersen had mentioned tagging on your next first chapter on your Amazon Kindle books and that’s a very smart move I will be doing next for all my books.

  5. Edie,
    Great advice. I was anxious to hear what worked for others as well. There are lots of options available so it’s nice to know what has and hasn’t worked for other Indies. Thanks for posting!

  6. Thanks for all your advice. I’ve done a few ads here and there for my romantic suspense novel, Buried Heart, but never figured out whether or not they’ve helped sales. After reading these comments, I feel more informed.

  7. End of day report for the Kindle Nation ad and it definitely moved Jockeys and Jewels up in the rankings. Would do it again, maybe in the spring. The movement is short term, but it’s nice to have some control:)

  8. I think this is a very helpful post especially for indie authors who are not sure whether or it’s worth paying for advertising. I agree with Julianne MacLean’s advice: if you want a bigger spike in sales rank to attract attention, try two (or more) campaigns close together.

  9. I suppose I should clarify: Obviously, I’m not referring to self publishing or big blockbuster books. So, for people in-between, do publishers advertise and authors can supplement or is it all up to the author?

  10. Great information! This blog is right on point because I’ve been looking for good places to pay for ads. We’ve been very good with getting reviews, author interviews, and blog write-ups for our books, but I’ve never tried ads other than Facebook (with little success in sales), so I’m very curious about Pixel of Ink and the others. As someone already said, I’ll try anything once. Thanks for posting!

  11. Great information. Thanks, everyone, for sharing your experiences. My book just came out, so I figure I’d better try to get reviews first so when/if I do advertise, potential readers will be reassured when they click to my book on Amazon. Any suggestions on getting reviews? Thanks again, Pamela Hegarty, author of The Seventh Stone.

  12. Pamela, there are book tours that you can sign up for instead of contacting book bloggers yourself. I haven’t done it, but other people I know have. A friend recently had one and she felt it really helped her. She went through Bewitching Blog Tours.

    I don’t know what the tour charged. Since I didn’t use it myself, I can’t recommend them personally. But when my next book comes out, I plan on checking them out.

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