Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie discussion

This thread is for random discussions. It can be for discussing books, TV shows, what marketing tactics you've trying out. It's completely up to you. Just a place to discuss things with other writers. :)

Facebook approved my ad. FINALLY! And I'm actually seeing good results. No sales (boo!) but lots of likes and post engagement. It shows me that my cover is eye-catching. The blurb needs a bit of tweaking but I. Will. Get. There.

Excellent news. So what did you do to get it approved? I haven't tried yet, because I was under the impression I couldn't. Still might not be able to with the cover as an image.

Amy wrote: "Excellent news. So what did you do to get it approved? I haven't tried yet, because I was under the impression I couldn't. Still might not be able to with the cover as an image."

I prayed to the literary Gods. Lol.
I removed the racy blurb and just added the cover, a catchy phrase (A man will do anything for the woman he loves, except let her go) the price, the release date and a link to the webpage of the book. That way I can track the numbers of visitors that land on my page.

On my webpage, I added the blurb and two buttons: one that leads to Amazon and one that leads Goodreads. http://alexiswills.com/veni/

And it got approved! :D

Yay. I must try that. It never helped my other business. But doing anything is better than doing nothing.

Did you have to have a facebook page to run the ad or just a profile?

Erin wrote: "Did you have to have a facebook page to run the ad or just a profile?"

Uh, I have no idea. But I ran the ad from my author page.

I've never seen anything available to boost on my personal profile, I think the only times I've seen it is on my one of my pages.

I spent last week researching and analyzing keywords for of my books on Amazon. I changed mostly all of them with the exception of my weird western where I only changed two. What I did not to bore anyone, but I used KDP Rocket and I looked on Amazon. I compared and found how much the competition is, how much I could expect to make and how many people are looking up these keywords. I found that in several of the keywords my big problem was..the amount of people searching the keywords on Google and Amazon. Basically you need some kind of search for the word and a low competitive score or else you risk going on noticed. So I spent the last week changing words and I'm probably not done as I may look into new ones and see if newer ones I've found are better than what I currently have.

In another news, my next project will be my book descriptions. I fixed those up last year and have made changed here and there. Mine aren't just my synopsis but the setup I go by on AMC. The problem is I'm hearing there's a lot more to it than just the setup, lots have to go into the book description to make it stick out and drive people in. So I'm going to do this next because I have no sales coming in and I'm tired of it. If I can change my keywords and make my descriptions more powerful and sexy then maybe I can finally start seeing some income.

Finally, my local bookstore is closing and it makes me sad. It's where I had my first and only book signing...gahhh :(

Justin wrote: "I spent last week researching and analyzing keywords for of my books on Amazon. I changed mostly all of them with the exception of my weird western where I only changed two. What I did not to bore ..."

Very interesting. Do you use promo companies or go to horror-cons?

I'm running a giveaway on my latest book at the moment to increase my Amazon followers. In a few weeks, I'll release a new thing and see if the followers make any impact on sales.

I'm also hoping that whoever wins the copies might review it, too.

It's here if anyone wants to take a look: https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/51de594...

(I am curious what would happen if I ran a giveaway of someone else's book. Like, a super popular author in my genre. Would that get more traction? Might be worth trying out...)

I also changed my keywords a few days ago, but I didn't put the research into it that you did, Justin. Maybe if this lot doesn't work out I'll try with KDP Rocket.

I tired to share, but they told me I have your book in my kindle library. I'll get Brit to do it.

Oh, odd. I wish it would let me copy the full link here to Goodreads.

Maybe this is easier? https://aislinnkearns.com/2017/04/12/...

(Thanks for buying the book!)

shared! You're welcome.

Thanks so much!

I changed my key words and categories and sold a book yesterday, but again that went to a FB friend that asked what I'd written when I posted I'd finished writing the second book. I just don't think I come up on lists. I'm probably on page 357 or something when people search for books.

Oh I hope so. I know how you feel Alex. Although I suppose I should be grateful for the 24 or so downloads in 11 months, but wow, although I wasn't expecting to sell thousands I think I was expecting more than an average of 2 a month. 3 a month maybe lol.

That has got to be about the 6th time I've gone to look at turning my book into a paperback and realised I've got to stop so I can cook dinner...

I'm on a diet, and I had a chicken salad for lunch so I'm having one of my milkshake meal replacements tonight, but I've had to cook for the rest of them. Not bad going, I have just issued the Dinner Bellow up the stairs. I am therefore done for the evening and utterly done in.

At the moment it's more to do with the fact that I have out of date products to use up that I cannot sell to my clients. It's either eat them or bin them.

lol sounds very familiar.

I think if I changed my keywords my books would probably do better. I just can't get the hang of getting the right keywords. I could sure use some tips.

I followed the Amazon link for tips. Hopefully it works!

Thanks, Aislinn.

Groovy wrote: "I think if I changed my keywords my books would probably do better. I just can't get the hang of getting the right keywords. I could sure use some tips."

How about a cover revamp for your older books?
It is something that I've seen other authors do: e.g. Kresley Cole.
You can make a whole event out of it with the unveiling etc, and you can also hold a sale.

Examples of other authors doing it
Kresley on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/KresleyCole/...

Julia Quinn added a second epilogue when she changed the cover. Which helps because old fans can then buy it again knowing they're not just getting a new cover but also new content (and at a bargain!)
http://juliaquinn.com/news/old-favori...

So yeah, that could be a fun way to blow some life into your back catalogue. :)

I have recently updated the cover of my first romance novel, twice! And while I haven't seen sales increase I have seen an increase in rank ( KU downloads) with very little promotion because I have been holed up in my editing cave preparing for the release of book 2 in a week! Eek! And I have been working on all the posts for my release blitz with xpresso and everything that is going along with this big release including the Facebook Hop Amanda and I put together! But honestly I think that the changes I made to the cover have helped so far and I am hoping they continue to show results!

As for Facebook ads, I have never had a problem with my Facebook ads being approved. Granted I have only ran 2 and I will probably run one next week for the releasee hopefully I don't have a problem with it either! The only reason I could see for it not being approved is that you write erotica? Glad to hear you are getting lots of impressions! My last ad was of the pre-order for book 2 and I got a $10 coupon I saw one pre-order off of it! So, I called it a win!

Ember wrote: " The only reason I could see for it not being approved is that you write erotica?."

Nail. Head. Whack.

I am currently painstakingly checking the layout of my doc for the paperback version of my book. Each time I go through it I find another weird indentation of a paragraph. I'm using KDPs paperback thingy. And it's the first time I've done this so I don't know what to expect. I'm waiting for my designer to fix one last blip I found with the cover. Fingers crossed.

My main worry is whether or not I chose the correct version of the doc to cut and paste into the template. (I know I do, but paranoia) Please don't let me have copied two of the same chapter...I'm better than that. (Again I haven't but...)

Paperbacks can be a bit tricky, but you'll get there!

Alexis wrote: "Groovy wrote: "I think if I changed my keywords my books would probably do better. I just can't get the hang of getting the right keywords. I could sure use some tips."

How about a cover revamp fo..."

Alexis, that is a brilliant idea. I had planned on revamping the covers, and retuning the storyline of my old books. And now I have an idea of how to promote this. It's going to take some time, but will be worth it. Thanks!

UGH. OK I've finished. When I say I've finished what I mean is I've been through both the eBook and pb version of the book and culled some more words that didn't need to be there. Plus I have thrown some commas around, nothing that would change the way it reads, I had all those. These were at the end of dialogue which for some reason I kept forgetting. Now of course I have to upload a new version to KDP, which isn't so tricky, but the whole getting it into the premium catalogue at Smashwords is ugh. Hopefully the rest of the formatting still stands.

Still waiting on the updated version of my pb cover,

Currently working with this as a pb cover. It won't be changing much from this. It cost me about £25 so for that I'm very happy.

Looks good, Amy:) A lot of hard work, but worth it.

Thank you both. Not my hard work, thankfully. Although I did just do a bit of photoshopping just now to line up the front and the back more. My husband thinks I'm mad, but I'd rather have a wonky planet/moon on the spine than the right hand rectangle two pixels higher than the left.

Looks very professional.

Looks great

Thanks. I think it's a flaming miracle! (Hate cover design)

Alex wrote: "
I know what you mean on that front, it would bug the hell out of me, lol."

Yep no way I could live with that. He said "but it would just look like it came out wrong on the printer, what's inside is more important." I'll call him unique...

Agreed. Unless you happen to my husband who is a weird bugger. But hey, that doesn't say much about me-I married him!

Nope!

So, I guess this belongs in random chit chat. A while back I did an interview with Tara Woods Turner. And it's finally live! If for whatever reason you've ever had a burning need to hear my voice or see my face (I had thought it was a podcast, so sorry not sorry about the lack of makeup!) then, firstly, whyyyyy? My voice is horrible. And secondly, you're in luck!

https://youtu.be/dHrWvVhuQY0?t=1m3s

I can't listen to it back because I get the heebie-jeebies listening to my voice, so if you do watch/listen, be sure to tell me if I said anything super embarrassing.

Thanks!

Aislinn wrote: "So, I guess this belongs in random chit chat. A while back I did an interview with Tara Woods Turner. And it's finally live! If for whatever reason you've ever had a burning need to hear my voice o..."

Oohhh. Let me go watch. Do you still have a (stereotypical sorry) Australian accent or did Qatar ruin it?

I have an Adelaide accent, which isn't that stereotypical. We're a bit posher sounding ;)

Well done - every bit of exposure is so helpful,

That was so nice, Aislinn. Good for you!!!

Thanks guys!

That was awesome, Aislinn!! Hugs!!

Yay thank you! I'm glad it wasn't embarrassing!

It was fun to listen to, Aislinn! I was always curious to what "degree you were pretending never happened" and now I know. :D

I had about $100 in promotions and giveaway planned. I just cancelled it all. I'm going to hire a great editor instead and then use the rest of my promotional budget for one big investment: bargain booksy.