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| What my left foot ballooned to. I'm not entirely sure what shape this is either. |
Well isn't that a fine howdy-a-do. It's mighty morphine update time!
So let's start at the top.
With pictures! Because they scream a thousand words!
That old pain came back, in a very big way.
I was bedridden for 2 days.
And bonus, that happened during the ungodly heatwave.
The temp read 95F just in my bedroom alone!
via GIPHY
I was hobbling on crutches for another two days.
Until you do that, you never notice how freaking narrow the hallways are.
I had to keep that foot in warm epsom salt water every single day for a week.
You don't even know! I couldn't even sit upright at my computer desk. My only recourse was to lie down flat. Edema was my #1 enemy at the time.
Hopelessness kicked in.
Even with two fans going on at the same time, my room was a suffocating pit of heat. I was sticking to the bed sheets, like throwing a wet calamari onto plastic wrap.
Mobility was a long forgotten dream...
Now here I am!
Hobbling like a penguin, but at least I can (barely) walk again.
And I had to play a really fast game of catch-up.
Hard to do on crutches. You try carrying a cup of coffee and walking on crutches - IMPOSSIBLE.
So for the next few days I had no choice but to let the house get untidy and grimy, because I am the cook/ maid/ admin/ secretary/ figurer out of bills/ etc.
Have you ever tried cooking a full meal swinging around on one foot in the kitchen? I have! What a painful mistake!
I'm just like, "Shit's gotta get done!" then I go, "OWWIE, OWWIE!"
Yep, that delayed the healing process by another week and a half. :-P
Now I'm taking it easy. Being a cripple with no health care sucks ass!
Still, I was able to very carefully walk down each staircase step, slooowly, to go sit on the stoop and watch the fireworks. I took this photo before June bugs buzzed inside my shirt and irked me right back indoors, sending me into a frenzy of shaking the contents of my shirt in pure paranoia.
Happy Independence Day 'Murrica!
via GIPHY
So that was on the 4th. Now it's the 15th.
It's only now, that my foot is good enough for me to walk around outside. For short spurts. But I cannot remain standing on my feet for any more than 20min. Then my foot begins throbbing.
I truly envy those with health insurance:-P
Which means I'm gonna hafta play catch-up again.
Catch up on all my personal obligations...
Man, I've gotta make it big with this writing thing! Time is money!
What Have I Been Doing Writing-Wise?
So!I have been plotting a course for a book launch for some time.
I've been printing blank calendar pages and writing in them.
Like so:
I'm gonna attempt to launch my first book ever (a spooky story anthology) far sooner than October. Why do you ask?
Because of the Amazon writing contest!
Yessir, Amazon held this contest last year, and I wrote in a post about how I wasn't able to participate due to unforeseen family circumstances. Well the road is clear now.
I'm gonna give it a shot this year.
Which means I have to reverse engineer the book marketing process, hence the plotting and the calendar dates.
Reading Up On Book Marketing
I've also been studying free webinars on how to use Facebook ads and Amazon ads. Very, very interesting stuff! When I'm about 3 books into my store, I will begin using these promotion tactics. One of the most important things they highlight is the importance of 're-targeting' your current audience.It is hard convincing complete strangers to take a chance on your books, but much easier to ask your current followers and fans to buy your latest books.
Makes sense.
And so, because I wasn't able to physically do much lately, I have been fervently reading and studying and practically eating up anything talking about book marketing. Time will tell if it works for me at all.
BOOK MARKETING'S NEW RULES
(last edited July 22, 2018)In no particular order:
- Don't throw $$ MONEY $$ at ads without your book having a minimum of 10-20 good reviews
- Ads only work when paired with a strong book launch
- Book reviews help strengthen book ads, one cannot exist without the other
- Put your book offer in the beginning of the book, and at the end too
- Amazon recently changed their rules when it comes to book reviews. You can no longer 'ask' for a review when supplying an ARC copy
- "To contribute to Customer Reviews or Customer Answers, Spark, or to follow other contributors, you must have spent at least $50 on Amazon.com using a valid credit or debit card."* This rule was supposedly always around, just not enforced until recently**
- Another reason for the crackdown on reviews was to reduce the amount of scammers cheating the Kindle Unlimited pot of money, and more cheater gimmicks that faithful customers/sellers complained about (feel free to google 'kindle scams')
- Inserting your book offers inside the book are called 'Call To Action'. They're basically neon signs you use to flag people's attention. You can even put a couple up on your websites, or wherever you want people to see your offer
- Your book reviewers can say something along the lines of, "I received this ARC at no cost" or something similar. As long as it's clear there was no obligation to put up a review for it
- CTA example: Like putting this at the beginning of the book--> "Hey, thanks for buying this book! Want another one for FREE/ At discount?/ Want to be included in a $20 Kindle gift card drawing?/ Wanna know when the 3rd book in this series drops? - Then SIGN UP to get my newsletter (they supply their email address) so I can tell you when that is happening!"
- The rule with CTA's is, that you cannot demand a review for it. So wording your offer becomes tricky
- Every FREE or 0.99¢ book you give away is for PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. Do not expect that these will bring in any money. The goal is to bring you all the traffic, garnering interest in your other paid books. This is good for no-name authors to gain traction
- Your email list that people sign on to get your newsletter, is also your CUSTOMER DATABASE
- Re-target the same customers when you launch each new book
- You captivate email addresses because those are your current customers, and will be your faithful future customers!
- Amazon sponsored ads (the ones that say Customers who bought this item also bought) seem to do better than the motion graphics Amazon banner ads on the right side of the screen, from what I understand
- Supposedly KDP Select authors are given preference (or leniency) on their 'vanishing' book reviews, but this seems more conjecture. Haven't seen solid evidence yet; just reporting what I've read on the internetz
- Images inside ebooks increase the file's megabyte size, so during download, it uses more server download resources than a regular text-based ebook. In turn, they deduct that cost out any of your royalties (I just learned this one)
- Facebook Ads is still too tricky for me, so I started reading Mark Dawson's Mastering Simple Facebook Ads For Authors which is FREE and comes with a FREE video too (he also has a podcast f.y.i.)
- One needs to have about 1000-5000 minimum keywords stuffed in their ads. Most self publishers use KDP Rocket software to help with this
- book bloggers need good book cover, good reviews & good author platform, or they'll ignore you
- It's pointless to do ads on a Pre-Order. That's a new book. It has no traction on the marketplace yet. Save the ads for books released weeks and months ago - this is called retargeting
- Amazon Ads and Facebook ads are good for a book launch. A 3-day window of ads should be mandatory for each launch, DURING the launch
- UNLINK your Amazon profile from your Twitter, Facebook, etc. and any other social media! This is a new one I learned...because, supposedly, Amazon has new fraud detection software that cannot distinguish readers from your email list tribe, or from your family & friends, and confuses both. That is why your social media followers will get their reviews removed, and branded as 'family & friends' that aren't allowed to post reviews
- Readers can download your book for FREE through Amazon.in or other foreign amazon stores, but may be subject to taxes from such countries
- You only get 30% royalty rate from book sales in Brazil-Japan-India-Mexico if you're NOT enrolled in KDP Select
- FREE book campaigns with zero reviews are unsuccessful
- Do not put Amazon affiliate links in emails (newsletters) because it's against their TOS and will get your ass banned
- Amazon doesn't let you put affiliate links into newsletter or emails, so you can use BookLinker.net (FREE) or ReaderLinks.com (paid; also gives you detailed stats)
- Check your book's stats with Book Report (FREE) and Novel Rank (FREE)
- Get the Book Report applet for your web browser so you can track book sales. It's FREE: https://www.getbookreport.com/ Novel Rank makes one too: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/novelrank/
- 'Twitter blasts' can get you more followers, but they don't necessarily convert into 'readers'
- The first book you publish is the hook to get more readers and interest in your works. It is not the book that makes you money. Not yet.
- THE ONLY WAY TO SELL BOOKS: Great Title-Great Cover-Great Description-Great Reviews-Great Demand For That Particular Content-Put it in front of people
Well that's about that for now. There is more, and I will cover it in a separate future post on book marketing, and future methods I will employ. Stay tuned.
*Here is a link to updated Amazon terms: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201929730
** It has been long suspected that the self-publishing division of Amazon isn't a moneymaker for them since that market is overly saturated now, hence the shift in their priorities as Amazon makes more money selling other items
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