Advertising

So far I've only spend money on paying my editor (who gave me a better than friends rate.) The rest I did my self. One day I will probably have to pay someone to redesign my covers as I'll be the first to admit that they are not great. I've just been of the opinion that, why waste money on something that nobody wants to buy. Since I published my first book in 2013 I've been steadily growing in confidence. I had some good responses and reviews. I'm now waiting for my 4th experience in indie publishing. On the 11th of July the Anthology 'You're not alone' will be out. I contributed a short story to this book.

 

  

So having grown in confidence over the last 2 years I thought I do another book promotion and actually pay for some advertising. I used Facebook post boost and I'm pleased with the results:

4,212 People reached.

61 Page engagements of which 50 website hits.

12 New Page like, but this is not all due to the post boost.

Twitter:

I've now started to build on my twitter network. I've not spend any money on this and it is very time consuming. It is still a dark art to me, but I now have a 164 followers and I use @roundteam so I find that my posts with #PDF1 #IARTG and #ASMSG get retweeted about 9 times. I'm still not convinced there is any usefulness to Twitter, but it is something I want to use and understand better.

Facebook

Twitter and Facebook were the only means I used this time to run my book promotion. I wanted to see how it did with putting a fair bit of effort in. I posted my promotion twice a day on Twitter and on 6 Facebook groups. Plus the boosted post that ran for 2 days before and 2 days during the promotion. 

The results

I managed to give 199 copies of Language in the Blood away. Of course I'm hoping this will lift the sales of the other books, but only time will tell. It is hard to say if my first foray into advertising can be called a succes, but it certainly provided more results than I had so far with promotion. I'll try a few more things with sites other authors have recommended and see how that goes. But for the moment I want to concentrate a bit more on actual writing!

 

The Third Servant by Michael Billington

Book promotion has been the most difficult thing about self-publishing. I've been sceptical about advertising as I think word of mouth is the best. I'm not very good at blowing my own trumpet, although I have recently worked very hard at raising my public profile. I've connected with a lot of other writers and am learning new things by the minute. Amongst them some positive stories about which adverts work. So I'm doing a Facebook boosted post about my Free book and countdown deal. (See previous post.) So far the feedback is very positive and I'm reaching a big audience, getting some new followers etc. I'll let you know if it translates into any sales. So meanwhile we carry on with reviews and I hope to work some more on my own book before I have to go back to work. This was an excellent read and deserves 5 stars:
The Third Servant by Michael Billington

The Third Servant is based on a story taken from the Book of Matthew in the New Testament. Based on this story about a servant who fails to make his master a profit and is therefore cast out into the night, Michael Billington has created a rich and colourful tale. The book is set during the time of the Roman emperor Tiberius, The Hebrew king Herod and Jesus. A tumultuous and interesting time historically, and the author has managed to write with a language that fits this period perfectly. First and foremost, this is a great adventure story and the author brings to life vividly the people and the customs of lands that must have been very alien to our hero. Ezra’s journey begins as a boy, cast out into the Judean night. We follow his journey North and East, through the plains into Hindustan. It is as much of a quest for knowledge and wisdom as Ezra tries to find his place in this world and more important, to find his inner self in step with his outer self.  The tale of Ezra going from a confused and angry boy, to a wise man is a fascinating one. I enjoyed this book as much as I enjoyed Voltaire’s Zadig, a journey and gathering of wisdom might be similar, but the conclusions are very different. I’d also enjoyed Marco Polo’s travels and I think anyone who enjoys an epic adventure story with a profound message will enjoy the Third Servant. Very well written and cleverly constructed, I highly recommend this book. I was provided with a copy for review by the author.

 

99p and FREE

I'm running another book promotion:
Language in the Blood book 1 will be FREE on the 10th and 11th of June.

Blood Ties:Language in the Blood Book 2 is 99c on the 10th and 11th of June on a Kindle countdown deal.

One Night in the Hill Country by Felipe Adan Lerma

Spend a lovely leisurely day on the beach yesterday, and besides working on my tan I also finished another book. I got up at 6.30 this morning to take advantage of a faster Internet connection in the Hotel. It slows a lot once the other guests switch on their computers.

One Night in the Hill Country by Felipe Adan Lerma

This author likes to experiment with writing styles and push the boundaries of language. Love it or hate it, it should always be admired. This is my second book by this author and so far my favourite. Felipe Adan Lerma explains his motivation and background to the book in a prologue. His decision to go for very short chapters and an almost staccato style of writing, works well in this case. The chapters are told from a different perspective each serve to build tension. As Sam and the children drive into the Hill country looking for a kitten, we also get Tara’s story as she brings an illegal immigrant girl back to the farm. The two groups of people are set for a disastrous meeting. It was an unusual plot that had me gripped to the final nail biting scenes. The novella is very short at about 30.000 words and I read it in a day on the beach while I was on holiday. I would recommend it as a holiday or commute read. I’m also a big fan of putting cute kittens..ehm..well, anywhere and this book has a box full of them. Looking forwards to see what Mr.Lerma will do next.

When Disconnected by Christine Vann

A writer never stops being a writer. Even though I'm currently on holiday in Italy, I'm managing to be very productive. I've so far read 1.5 books, done a review, wrote about 2000 words and got to grips with Twitter. I'm by no means a Twitter expert (or should that be a Twit) but I'm now getting retweets on my posts and collected an alarming number of followers. Some good has already come out of it as a very nice Italian chap (currently on holiday in France LOL) asked me to review his book and send me a free copy (Hopefully he'll do mine too) So without further ado here's Christine Vann's 5 star collection of shorts:

When Disconnected by Christine Vann

Disconnected is an excellent title for this collection of short stories, which has been written in a series of different genres. There is a common theme of alienation, but in an interesting variety of settings; A boy not quite fitting in at school, a girl trying to survive in an hostile environment or a woman looking for her cat in the wonderfully Gothic ‘Shill and Shadows’. The author has used a number of different genres like futurism, realism and quite dream like narrative, but they all feel like they belong together because of Ms. Vann’s atmospheric story telling. At times disconcerting and maybe a little scary, I was totally griped by the stories and read it in a few sessions. Highly recommended, if you like your stories a bit more challenging.