Book promotion which works: Promo Stacking and building your marketing plan
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- Опубликовано: 21 июл 2024
- A book promotion template that anyone can follow. Learn how to create your own marketing plan to put your book into the charts.
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00:00 Intro - Promo Stacking FTW
00:52 What is Promo Stacking?
01:50 Why it works
05:14 Best book promotion sites
08:01 When to do it - creating your marketing plan
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Thank you for all your help, David. As someone that has thrown way too much money of bad advice, I definitely recommend your free course, it’s obvious you do it to help, and not to get rich.
One question: while writing the next book (yes, I paid attention during your course and know that’s the best promotion there is), and between the promotion stacking (releases), would you recommend leaving it in the hands of the “organic” algorithm, or use other means of promoting (ie ads)? (In my case, I am releasing book two in April and the third late summer. I guess the covenant halo effect won’t last that long:)) Thanks!
First thing I'll say is something we all need to hear (and be reminded of, even after many years!!!): it's okay for sales to go down. Over the course of a typical writing career, your sales and income will tend to vary dramatically, and typically the best months will be those you release in (or the one after). Authors tend to panic when sales start going the wrong way, but that's totally natural and largely unavoidable without either having lots of books out there or lots of money to burn on keeping the books artificially high in the charts. Let your sales fall. It's no big deal. Focus on the next book, focus on growing your list. And your next launch will be bigger, and the one after that will be bigger again, and pretty soon you'll have enough books out where you won't get such big dips in sales anymore.
Other option is to start looking at things like Amazon Ads or Facebook Ads or BookBub Ads. But learning these platforms takes time and a fair bit of money. And anyway, they are near-impossible to make work without having several books out - the math is very tricky.
Honestly, I think newer authors have enough on their plate with improving their craft and writing the next book and learning more about the industry and networking and growing their list. And many of them will skimp on one or more of those critical tasks because they want to chase the flashy sounding thing that is ads.
But if you really want to tool around with something at a lower level, perhaps try Amazon Ads. It's my least favorite platform, but the one where it's easiest to get up and running on a basic level. You can try some auto ads - just watch them closely and start small with your budgets. Recommended book: www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZXV4MVZ
haha I love the "smash all the buttons like a crazed baboon." Excellent tips and I love that you're producing regular video content. Keep 'em coming.
My bestie was sitting across from me as I was watching this and I cackled so loud when he said that I got chastised. :)
I loved your video, as always. However, the best part of it was you saying "attack it like an enraged baboon." I just kept laughing and laughing. You rock.
Found you as result of a person I've never met getting lured into an expensive "concierge" self-publishing situation, a cautionary tale : ) Subscribing, following now. I know the news/PR business well but the publishing world can be..... well...... let's just say there be big sharks in those waters! Thank you for doing this.
David, you're a treasure.
I've just signed up to your (free!) course, and I'm reading the book.
OMG!!! I'm hooked! A while ago I paid over $A1,000 for another course. I checked out the website of one of the tutors - the blurb for his latest book was badly written and included grammatical errors. Not very inspiring.
If you know half as much about marketing as you do about writing, I'm on a winner.
Thanks again!
(There goes my Sunday...)
There are a lot of crappy courses out there, and a lot of people charging way too much money for their courses (and aggressively marketing them at people who aren't in a position to spend that money - and who really should be investing it in other things, like a better cover design, or perhaps just investing in the time to write more books). I used to get mad about that. These days I prefer contributing something positive as a counterbalance instead, making as many valuable resources available for free as possible. It's the best answer to all that nonsense really.
I just received your newsletter "It's okay to struggle." THANK YOU! You've made me feel 100% better.
Are we all just ignoring the fact that the closed captioning says, "Hello, my name is David Coconut's Day?" (Seriously, though, great video. Thank you, David Coconut!)
Every day is David Coconuts Day in my house
Helpful! Concise and clear. Thx for sharing your expertise
I came here from the facebook ads video you did. Because you said this would be cheaper than 5 dollars a day. But I think the 5 dollars a day facebook ads might be cheaper.
Thank you for your help! Very useful video
😂😂😂i like your humour
Just discovered your channel David - one of the best, clearest and most informative book marketing guides I have come across - great stuff
Yes! Thank you for this!
Read a few of your books. Great value in the books and great information here on yt. Much appreciated.
This was great, David!
Thanks very much, David!
I keep sharing your stuff. Really appreciate your videos
Thank you so much! So informative
GREAT information for any writer doing promo!
Love your tips and learned advice, David. Thanks so much for sharing!!!!
Big value here; instant subscription. Thank you!
Just learned of your newsletter and videos recently and am glad I did... your marketing tips are very helpful. Looking forward to learning more from you!
I watched this just in time to realized I hadn't spread my upcoming promos out far enough! As always, thank you, David, for the pearls of wisdom. :)
very valuable wisdom thank you Dave
Thank you for this David and I'll check out your full course and book launch video as well. Your videos are always informative and fun! "Smash all the buttons like a crazed baboon," this describes how I feel sometimes when trying to get some sales going! LOL
I checked one of the sites and it said: Well rated. We are looking for books with at least 5 reviews and a high overall average. Books with fewer reviews may be considered if the author has a history of good ratings.
Excellent. I'll have a new series release soon and I'll be doing your course first!
Thanks, David, I have seen the basic concept in Starting from Zero course, but its great to get a reminder and re-watch it again. For all, do take Starting from Zero, super useful!
Very helpful 👍🏼
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, David! Would you recommend trying this strategy with a stand-alone novel? 🤔
Thank you for the great content. All this advice you have put out there is helping me find my way through this marketing jungle. :o)
Hi David - thank you for your fantastic info here - you have demystified so many things for us. Question: Promo stacking makes perfect sense (now that I watched your video) and my question is: if we use several promo sites during a 1- 2 week period, how do we know which worked best? We are using Kindle Series as you recommended and have booked a freebooksy promo for later this month.
Thank you in advance!
Hi Dave, thanks so much for the info. I'm just about to launch a 5-book series on my backlist. I watched your free course (why did I spend money on other courses at this stage?) and you use the word 'Spillover' when you talk about launches. What does spillover mean in this context? Thank you!
Dave thanks for the videos, man. Can promo stacking work for books that are already published on Amazon for like a year?
I did this back in Sep when I had the fourth book in one of my series releasing. I had book 1 free, 2 at 99c, three at 1.99 and it worked so well, but in Dec I did it with the release of the third book in another series with the first two at 99c, and it flopped. The September push is still riding high but the Dec one dropped right back to where it had been before. I'm trying to figure out how to revive an older series with only three books, and can't decide between free/99c because I think that was the difference. Plus having a sale over Christmas wasn't as good of an idea as it seemed when I planned it...
Hi David - love your work - so helpful. I’ve noticed all the book promo sites (for 99p books) are American? I’ve planned a countdown offer for April - do you have any UK sites to recommend and if not how do you promote a 99p book on US site emails. Thanks in advance.
I did a stacked promo for my first-in-series back in January and it was massively successful. Timed it to coincide with the release of book 3 in the series, which made it even better. Anyway, my question is how long should one wait before doing another stacked promo for the same book, using the same set of promo sites, to maximize effectiveness? I feel like it should probably be ~6 months or so? Thinking about trying it again after 4 months, but suspect that's probably too soon. I know from doing free promos for a different book that 30 days is way too soon.
What are FB carousel ads and FB series page ads? I'm running a Facebook ad for my first promo but hadn't seen this differentiation before
How does this tie in for pre-orders for books?
Hi David, I have a promo set with the fussy librarian for the first book in my series, I want to do a promo stack with book 2 and 3, with the release of book 4 in a month's time. Should I just do the promo stacking with the 2nd book the day after the first and the 3rd the next day?
Hi David, I’m about to finish my children’s book and put in KDP, but previously put an adult coloring book on and others to try get a start but nothing really. Can you suggest who may promote a coloring book?
David, I am not sure how some of the smaller book sites you mention get your book. Do they get access to it when you contact them?
Also, what budget do you think works well for promo stacking and doing fb ads?
Great info for my back list, which is languishing. And did you know the print of everything you say on the video (not sure if everyone sees that) reads, Hello, I'm David Coconuts Day?😄
That’s hilarious! I think he does have an actual Coconuts Day every once in a while… 🥥
What happens when that book promo is over? Are my sales going to crash?
Thanks for the list David. I think free book option will work better if you want to grow your list because most people are gonna get it and then they’ll get the freebie from the book inside by giving you their email so on your next book you’ll have bigger mail list to promote your own book. What do you think?
It really depends on your marketing goals and your circumstances. Free often works better when you have more books out, but I still like to switch tactics a lot and keep everything fresh. You get a different selection of sites when free vs. 99c, so you will hit new eyeballs by switching it up. There's lots of other ways to use free as well - you might like this blog post: davidgaughran.com/reader-magnet-permafree-arcs-free/
I just haven't had much luck with newsletter promos in the past year. They return about 1/3 of what they used to years ago, but the costs go up, and forget making your money back. 10-25 sales for .99 seems to be about the average these days, even from sites that cost $50-$60 for a promo. The ones that cost $10-$20 you might be lucky to get 5-10 DL. I think readers are just burned out by constant promotion spam.
The only emails I get from Amazon recommending fiction books are all published by Thomas and Mercer.
that's a little strange. Do you buy a lot of Thomas and Mercer books? If that's not the case, I can't really explain it. My emails recommend books which are self-pubbed, traditionally published, small press, Amazon-published - a real selection. Which is what most people will get.
How well does your system work for a specific genre like self-published children’s picture book?
Children's books are such a different beast - I recommend checking out this blog post instead: davidgaughran.com/marketing-kids-books-children-author-guide/
I can't see your comments with the links, David. How do I get those to show?
They're in the description, not the comments.
@@RolandDenzel Thanks, Roland.
This may have been asked before (also slightly off-topic) but do we have to number the books in a series? I wrote my debut novel as a stand-alone and on the advice of yourself and a couple of readers I'm turning it into a series. It's a Family Saga and the second book will be about the previous generation. I am not going to use the word ‘prequel’ in the description as I know Amazon, for some reason, hate that. Because the books will all be essentially stand-alones I'm wondering if numbering them is even necessary. What's your opinion, David? (Or anyone else)
My VERY strong advice is that if you can get away with marketing any collection of books as a "series" then you should absolutely do that. It expands your marketing options dramatically. And it's really important to number the installments sequentially so your series page will form properly and you can use this amazing marketing strategy: ruclips.net/video/sOyU0NxuMT8/видео.html
@@DavidGaughran Thanks for the prompt reply, David. Will it be possible to renumber the series when the prequel is released? And should I even do this? (I'm guessing it might cause more problems than it will solve) The only reason I'm considering it is that I'm thinking of writing a novella just for use as a give-away reader magnet. (Book#1 is over 80,000 words and I invested so much into it I don't think I could bear to make it permafree) Could a #2 or #3 in a series be used as an RM?
@@thomasgreenbank7580it's definitely possible to change the numbering in the series in Amazon.
In Bookshelf, RH side drop down menu.
0.9x
Did you just make a Xanadue reference? Wow, you ARE old, like me!
I am both officially and unofficially old.
The beard is gone? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
No, not gone. Definitely tamed though!
Well, the weather is starting to get good here and I learned an important lesson last summer: long beards cast a big shadow... which leads to hilarious tan lines 😂
@@DavidGaughran Never thought of that! LOL.