Tips, tricks, and plans

October is bearing down upon us. This has always been my favorite month of the year. I would happily trade January or August for an extra October. It's also always been my best month for sales. This is probably because I have a few paranormal titles in my catalog.

I plan to hit it hard in October. I have a few guest posts that will appear, and you may find some new blogs to follow at the host sites. I still have time to write a couple more if you know of an October event that I should participate in.

There are also a couple of blog tours via my Story Empire crowd. We'll be giving away prizes and hope to make a big splash. Follow Story Empire to keep up with what's going on over there.

I intended to make the tips & tricks part of this into a Story Empire post, but there is a five person rotation and it would be November before it posted. Over here I can weave in some of my individual plans too.

I intend to use some of the Amazon tools during October. I may run an ad campaign. I'm almost certain to have a sale, or even some free days. Keeping the October theme going, I'll probably focus on The Playground, Will O' the Wisp, and Panama. Both Experimental Notebooks fit the bill too, but since they're 99¢ I don't see how a sale would work. I may do some Facebook boosting too.

Last year, I invited people to provide artwork for Macabre Macaroni. My idea was that some budding cover artists might like a place to showcase their work. I was even happy with grandchildren who glued dried macaroni to a paper and made art. I never got a single taker, and there was no artwork last year. This year I'm taking a different approach. I commissioned a piece of art to accompany the micro-fiction. Macabre Macaroni will post every Tuesday in October.

I'm a little slow on the uptake at times, but I learned a Twitter trick. There are people out there who support me heavily. They make custom tweets about my books, or maybe a post they found entertaining. I want to reciprocate that support, and found their pinned tweets to be handy as hell. They made them, they want them shared, and they're right at the top of their timelines. There is one lady who changes her pinned tweet every day, others leave them for a week or so.

The gears move slowly, but what if I created my own pinned tweet to help them out? I've been doing this, and find it respectful of their time, and helpful to my cause. I'll probably create a graphic of some kind, like this:

In the 140 characters I can say something clever and include the Amazon link. I will try to change it up +/- weekly so it doesn't get stale. Twitter is a volume game. A million people see your tweet, and maybe one buys the book. It does produce sales though, so something that catches the eye might work.

The point is that you should be using a pinned tweet too. I've scrolled through dozens of hundreds of tweets to find something to support an author with. They probably appreciate me sharing their book tweet, but not the picture of their lunch. A pinned tweet is right on top where it's easy to find.

Moving to the next one, sharing buttons. Not everyone is using them on their blogs. I'm happy to share, but again, I may not take the time to create my own post from scratch. I'm now encouraging visitors to use mine on the Lisa Burton Radio posts. This way my guests get a bit more exposure. The sharing buttons are easy to set up through WordPress, and you may want to check them out.

While you're deep inside the guts of WordPress, are you auto-feeding your posts on other social media? I have mine set to feed right into the Entertaining Stories Facebook page, Goodreads, and to tweet the link out. Easy-peasy, and I don't have to do this individually.

This next tip might be worth the price of admission. I think there could be something to what the world is calling curated content. There are a number of apps and social media options out there. I'll even provide links, but I want to talk about them a bit first.

I started out with an extinct platform called Zite Magazine. I used it for news I couldn't get anywhere else. It provided many of the Idea Mill articles. If I liked something, I could give it a thumbs up to get more articles like it. If I gave it a thumbs down, it learned not to send me data about the Kardashians.

Unfortunately, they were absorbed by Flipboard. Flipboard promised the same experience, only better-faster-stronger, yada yada. It failed on this front, but there is a silver lining.

Flipboard will let you create your own magazine. I decided, since I was already there, to test it out. I call mine Entertaining Stories. (Branding and all that.) I selectively share my blog posts there, and occasionally share other items of interest, like when one of you has something wonderful, or Sean Harrington shares a Lisa poster on his DeviantArt site.

Most days I can see a few visitors from Flipboard. On occasion it goes absolutely crazy. I posted a bit of micro-fiction about Lisa this week that had over two-hundred visitors from Flipboard. See the image to remind you of the post.

A few months ago, I shared a post about a short story trick. It involved the twist endings I use in some of the short form. I had over 2000 visitors that found me via Flipboard. It still gets action to this day.

Here is the link for Flipboard.

 

We're still on curated content, but I'm drifting again. (Bear with me.) I've written before about what I call “white noise.” Feeds on all social media have become so much white noise. Twitter is the worst, and my regular feed is like a firehose of data. I scroll through until I see something that catches my eye. Catching my eye has become the new trick. Facebook is similar, and so is WordPress.

I follow a ton of blogs. I can't read them all, so something has to catch my eye in the regular stream. I have my “must read” blogs and they got on the list by engaging and by posting great content.

Re-blogging is a double edged sword. I love it when someone shares my post. I like to share the awesome stuff here too on occasion. It's hard to get much engagement on a re-blog. The original poster is the one where the interaction occurs.

There are some bloggers who share a dozen posts per day, and never seem to offer original content. One of these curated content options might be a great way for them to spread the word. Flipboard is only one, here are a few others.

I have not used these, but I might someday soon. It could be a way to extend my tentacles online without too much effort.

The first one is called paper.li It is like having your own magazine, or newspaper if you prefer. You get to share whatever you want with your subscribers. One of my author friends is testing this out right now, and I hope to learn how it works for him.

The other one is called RebelMouse. This is a similar product. I really don't know the advantages of one over the other.

It seems to me like this could be the way for me to replace the original use I had for Zite Magazine. If I could find a couple of curators who deal with macabre stuff, and some cutting edge science, it could be useful.

It also seems like a place that's ripe for mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers. Flipboard, paper.li, and RebelMouse are all doing nearly the same thing. (One sells to Microsoft, one to Apple, and one to Google.) That wasn't the point of my post though.

These sites are helpful. My content has been shared on all of them by others. I need to check out paper.li and RebelMouse, but before I dive in they have to be easy and fast. Any of us would like more exposure, but my time is limited.

In the case of Flipboard, there is an app for that. I find that to be an advantage. I did not find apps for the other sites.

In my case, all roads lead to this blog. If you find me on Twitter, Facebook, or Flipboard, even Goodreads, there is likely something that leads you back here. That's my system, but there may be others that work better. If you have a better way, share it in the comments. I'd like to know, and I'll bet my regulars would too.

Do you have any experience with RebelMouse or paper.li? I'd like to get some input on these platforms. If I take one of them on, it will probably be part of my 2017 business plan. I'm just gathering data right now.

Are you going to create a pinned tweet? I think it's a great way to let your supporters help spread the word.

Are you going to set up sharing buttons on your own blog? Feel free to test mine out.

Do you know of any October events I should be taking advantage of? Are you hosting one, and need some players?

I need to start a list

I posted recently about having my cool new cover art, and the pending release of my book of short stories. There is a ton of work to do before this comes out.

I have one piece of Lisa Burton art on order to promote this story, and when it arrives I'll order one more.

The betas are making good progress and I'm getting reports to work on. I've decided to farm out the formatting, and with a late August release, there should be plenty of time for this.

Meanwhile, I need to start writing ideas on my legal pad. I have promotional plans for more than just this book, and maybe they can tie together somehow. It probably won't all come to me until I have it all written out.

I would like to take this book on tour, and keep it with friends and volunteers. It's going to be a 99¢ special, and spending a ton of money on it isn't realistic. I can custom write things, and make Lisa Burton available to fly around with her posters and talk about the book. More on this when I'm closer to publication.

The Rave Reviews Book Club can help me on some fronts. There is a WhatsApp room where we can promote free and 99¢ books that I can make use of. They are also doing the Back to School Book & Blog Block Party again. I chose two dates, and hope I get one of those days. If I do, I'll try to make that my release date. This is because last year I had hundreds of blog visitors on that date. Why not make the date something special.

I will probably work on some Halloween type promotions too. I've already talked to a group of authors who write similar stories and we may do some group promotion. There are Halloween themed stories in both Notebooks, but I also have Will O' the Wisp and The Playground that are suitable too. I'll have to make those decisions later on. Part of this promotional push has to involve The Playground.

Beyond that, there are Kindle Countdown Deals, free days, giveaways, and Amazon advertising to consider. I can do some of this fairly cheaply, and might be able to spread it across several books. The idea is to be everywhere for a couple of months.

If I get really lucky, maybe someone will read one of the Notebooks and take a chance on a novel.

I intend to post some more Halloween style micro-fiction in October. I call these Macabre Macaroni, and they've been pretty popular over the years. I just need to find time to write them. So far, I have one. I need about three more.

I'd really like to try BookBub at the same time, but my best chance has a limitation. Will O' the Wisp has the most positive reviews, but I published it in two versions. This is because I purchased a license to use copyright protected song lyrics, but could only get rights to North America. It's available everywhere, but the versions are slightly different.

I won't be able to do everything, but I intend to do one hell of a lot. Between September first, and October last, I want to be everywhere. It all starts with a list.

I suppose I'd better fill a fountain pen and get started. A cool pen makes it more fun.

The Rest of the Weekend

This weekend was kind of a bust… Again. I managed a mere 500 words of new fiction, but that's 500 more than I had before, and 500 more than last weekend.

We had date night at a cool restaurant where everything is about bacon. It's actually called Bacon in the daylight hours, but changes its name to Berryhill in the late afternoon. They even have different menus. Berryhill is still all about bacon, and there was bacon in the bread course, even infused in the butter. I really enjoyed my bacon lasagna serving. So I'm probably going to die from a bacon OD, but my body will be preserved for years. I'm also very happy.

My Amazon advertising isn't producing much for The Playground. It never costs much, and the exposure is huge. They don't seem to lead to many sales though.

I managed to move forward with two new episodes of Lisa Burton Radio today. They aren't finished yet, but there are some fun things coming up. I also paid for my next cluster of Lisa Burton artwork. I don't have a book coming out any time soon, but I need some general images to post on the blog.

I was recently awarded a Push Tuesday by the Rave Reviews Book Club. They chose to push Wild Concept, my oldest book. That isn't to say it's old, but the online world moves fast. It came out in February of 2014, I guess that makes Lisa two years old physically, but her database is much older than that.

RRBC started something new recently. They have a members only room on WhatsApp for us to promote and push our free and 99¢ books. My Experimental Notebook was pushed there too, and I sold copies. Experimental Notebook is always 99¢ though.

I kind of want to play in the WhatsApp room, so I'm holding a sale on Wild Concept. I haven't held a sale in about 18 months. For about five days, anyone – not just RRBC members – can get a copy of Wild Concept for 99¢. If I did it right, it will start tomorrow. Once it switches over, I can share it on WhatsApp too. I have to dig a little bit deeper, because they have a special hashtag to use on Twitter. This is so club members will support our sales, but it's a neat tip for readers too. If you follow that hashtag, you can find some great books for free or 99¢.

So let's talk about it. Wild Concept is Lisa Burton's origin story. It covers her journey from just a high tech piece of equipment to the Lisa we all know and love.

It covers her first job, chasing a killer for the Hudson PD, to her flight from the company that created her.

Her questionable decisions are here too. This includes her sometimes garish makeup she learned from YouTube videos, and tattoos so she would fit in with others.

It also addresses issues of prejudice. Some folks aren't too keen on the idea of robots in our society.

I don't expect this to be an overwhelming success. I've never had much luck with sales, and that's why I stopped doing them. On the other hand, I'm a pretty good club supporter, and want this experiment to succeed. If I did it correctly, the sale should start in the morning. You can get your copy of Wild Concept right here.

Finally, I sent out an advertising inquiry for The Playground. This involves sponsoring a blog talk radio show where others are talking about their books. I would get a banner and visual ad that could produce some sales. I like it, because it's different from everything else available out there.

For the rest of the evening, it's Game of Thrones, and a mug or two of a nice Bock beer from McCall Brewing. Okay, I'll probably check email to see if I can finalize those two radio posts, and check my baseball score. The game was all tied up in extra innings the last time I checked. But I'm doing it with a frosty mug in my hand, so it counts as relaxation.

Assessment, Part Two

I glanced back at the bullet list from my last post, and decided to limit this post to two promotional items. Comments from last time told me there is a lot of interest in the Amazon advertising. I'll talk about that, but first I'm talking about Macabre Macaroni.

Macabre Macaroni is my name for Halloween themed micro-fiction. I posted one per week during October. Mostly it was just fun, but I turned it into a mild promotion for my Experimental Notebook. The idea was, “If you like this sort of thing, why not spend 99¢ on Experimental Notebook, etc.”

I never know which story will pique everyone's interest. My personal favorite was called There's a Cat on my Grave. I watch the likes on a post, to keep score. Your favorite was called Selfie. This story was popular enough to join my top ten posts of all time.

To tell you the truth, I thought Selfie would be a middle of the pack story. Last year, I thought the same thing about Jack O' Lantern. It could be that readers like a bit more blood and death than I thought.

As far as the promotional value goes, there were clicks to Experimental Notebook from my page on the story days. There were sales on those days. Data isn't available to prove whether the stories produced those sales.

Which brings me to the entire assessment in general. There is no way to get tracking data from Amazon on these promotions. I've shared statistics on occasion with people who guest posted here. Sometimes they like to know how their visit performed. They don't have access to whether someone clicked on their link, but I do – so why not share? We still never know if the click led to a sale, but we do what we can.

I ran three different Amazon promotions during my big push. The results are confusing, but encouraging. I made a mistake at the beginning, but changed things up right away. Amazon offers two options, target products or target book genres. I decided to run one of each and compare.

I ran Will O' the Wisp out by targeting products. I chose nearly a hundred items with a Halloween vibe about them. If you shopped Amazon for the movie Hocus Pocus, you might have seen my ad.

I ran The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack by targeting genres. I felt pretty good about the experiment and let them both loose.

Later on, I learned that targeting by product will never appear in a Kindle device. I made the assumption this probably included all the various apps too. Will O' the Wisp was my best shot at Halloween sales, and time was ticking. I ran a third campaign by pushing Wisp out toward various genres. I was assured that Wisp would appear on Kindle devices at least for this campaign.

I justified the extra expense by telling myself that using the same book to compare the different advertising options was a better comparison. Here are the results

When I targeted products using Will O' the Wisp the ad was shown to 90,516 shoppers. It was intriguing enough for 53 people to click upon it. These clicks cost me $4.18. It never sold a single book.

When I used Wisp to target genres, and appear on Kindle devices, the ad went out to 25,501 readers. 171 of them clicked on the ad, costing me $34.05. It never sold a single copy.

I'm going to break the flow to explain how these ads work. I've posted about them before, but I might find a new reader today, so bear with me. I have the option of setting my own time period, so I ran every campaign for one month. There is a fail safe in the system, so I set the campaigns to halt if I spent $100. Beyond that, I get to decide how much I'm willing to pay when someone clicks on the ad. I pay nothing to have it appear, but if they click I get charged. Amazon holds an instant auction among competing advertisers, and the high bidder is the only one who gets placed. I bid 20¢ per click.

Wisp cost me 8¢ per click when I pushed toward products, but 20¢ per click when pushed toward genres. There was some tough competition for Halloween books. Neither campaign produced a sale, but it's still data to consider. There is value in being seen, even if nobody buys. It's possible that someone saw my ad and came back later to download the book.

What about that campaign for Experimental Notebook? The other one that pushed to genres? It performed best of all. 31,979 shoppers saw my ad. 207 of them clicked the ad, costing me $38.48. Each click cost me 19¢. But out of those clicks, 15 of them actually downloaded the book.

Before anyone gets too excited, this is a 99¢ book. After I split with Amazon, I pocket a sweet 35¢. I lost money, but did I really? If you remember my last post, Notebook was designed to be a gateway drug into my other works. Take a 99¢ chance… Come back for the novels. I found 15 new readers I wouldn't have reached otherwise.

Why did Notebook sell, while Wisp did not? There were sales of Wisp for two months, but not because of Amazon advertising. It could be that Notebook's cover appeals to more people. Maybe my blurb was better on Notebook. Personally, I think price has a lot to do with it.

People might take a 99¢ chance on a new author, but not a $2.99 chance. Macabre Macaroni is free, if you enjoyed them… Notebook is 99¢ if you enjoyed it…

It appears the conversion rate is higher when targeting genres, and appearing on Kindle gadgets. It makes sense. Those shoppers are all readers in the first place. When targeting products, the shopper might not have read a book since 1974. Less people saw those ads, but they were more productive ads.

Still, a crap ton of people saw my ads in total. Maybe something lodged in their brains, and they will buy a book a month from now. Exposure has some value too.

I've spent more money on promotional stuff that produced less. There is a reasonable chance that I'll run an Amazon campaign again in the future. I'll probably target book genres and appear on Kindles. I may bid low and give it more time too. I haven't really pushed The Cock of the South lately. Maybe it's time. It keeps my name out there for a couple more months.

Assessing the promotions reminds me of the paleontologist who finds one fingernail and interprets the skeleton of a giant ground sloth. There isn't much evidence to go on, but we do what we can based upon that evidence. We can also share with our friends. This includes not only campaign data, but blog stats when we host someone.

What about you guys? I've shown you the fingernail, do you see something I'm missing? Let me hear from you. Next time I'll try to cover the rest of the things I did during September and October.

Assessment Part One

September and October were busy months for me on the promotion front. I really dislike promotion, but it’s necessary for authors to push here and there. My promotional stuff wove together like an intricate web. I decided to hit it hard and see what happens.

Here is a list of everything I can remember. I intend to do follow up posts and break down the assessment a bit further.

• The Experimental Notebook of C.S. Boyack was designed to fuel interest in my longer works.
• There was cover art for this book shared across blogland.
• I sent Notebook on a tour of my blog friends.
• I paid for a blog tour for Will O’ the Wisp.
• I accepted every guest invitation I could during this time. I reblogged them all too.
• I set up some review sites for both books.
• I participated in Teri Polen’s Halloween promotion.
• I pushed out Macabre Macaroni stories every week of October.
• I ran three Amazon promotions.
• I participated in the Rave Reviews Book Club Back to School Book and Blog Block Party.
• I tried to sent out at least one tweet per day throughout this time period.
• There were some unexpected surprises along the way that I benefited from.

Let’s talk about the first four today. Everything relates to everything else, but I have to start somewhere.

Notebook has a couple of promotional things about it. It was designed to be a gateway drug to my longer fiction. I tried to cover the various speculative genres I write in. If you’re into science fiction, there are a couple of stories for you and you only spent 99 cents. Maybe you enjoyed a fantasy or a ghost story along with your science fiction.

I also included an introduction and mentioned that writers appreciate reviews. Finally, I included a section of Will O’ the Wisp in the back of the book. It’s like a free test drive.

I did the usual cover art release to fuel interest. This was followed up by begging asking blog friends to host a post about this new book. I used Lisa the robot girl to help with this, and commissioned some unique art to help the push. Lisa draws a lot of attention, and the images are pretty good at getting folks to take a gander. She dropped these off as posters for various hosts along the way. (It doesn’t hurt that she has a short story in Notebook either. It drives interest.)

I made a few writing cabin posts myself about getting Notebook out the door. They were very popular.

In October, I sent Will O’ the Wisp on a tour that I paid for. I hired 4-Wills Publishing to put this together for me. Some of these posts went to non-Wordpress sites, and that’s a good thing. A blog tour is all about reaching new people. I love you guys, but we all seem to follow the same group of people. A tour can become so much static after you’ve seen it a few times. With new sites, it’s at least fresh to a few people.

I shared some Lisa art at a few of these stops too. It’s the same reasoning, just different art.

I sold books based upon these ideas. The Notebook tour was particularly successful. Tours are kind of hit and miss, but reaching new readers via a paid tour has some merit.

I tried to reblog everyone who hosted me, and those who surprised me along the way. I also tried to participate in the comments. I think commenting is extremely important.

I don’t have any data to decide if the Experimental Notebook drove sales to Will O’ the Wisp. To really test this, I would have to only promote Notebook and assess the Wisp sales. I didn’t want to take that chance. I believe Notebook moved a few copies of Wisp. (And it could keep happening.)

I averaged just under three book sales per day for over sixty days. There are still sales coming in. The funny part is every book except Arson made a few sales. Arson is a different story, and I’ll leave it at that. A bunch of people bought The Cock of the South in a three day cluster. Notebook landed in the top 100 for a few days in some segment of Amazon.

Notebook was the big seller. Is it because of better cover art? Maybe my blurb is better? Maybe its the 99 cent price. There is no way of knowing for certain, but it’s worth thinking about. More on this when I write about the Amazon promotions.

Some of you will laugh at my small success, but it’s pretty darned good for me. It’s a place to build from. I like the fact that it lasted so long, and it’s still happening.

I’ll grab another handfull of bullet points and write about them in a couple of days. Everything ties together, and it’s either break it down, or make one gigantic post that nobody will actually read.

Weigh in here. Are there other things I could have done? Maybe something else I should have done? I spent money on the book that delivers a 70% royalty, and did as much free stuff as possible for the one that only pays 35 cents per sale.

How’s it going?

I'm about to tell you how it's going. Organizing my September and October pushes was a lot of work. I had to write all the posts for the Will O' the Wisp blog tour. I also had to think ahead to get the artwork for Lisa Burton's promotion of my Experimental Notebook. I had to write all her posts too.

I put together a couple of Amazon advertising campaigns for these books to run concurrently with everything else. I submitted the books for reviews, and some of them are landing at the perfect time.

Today, my stats showed that someone found my blog from Flipboard. I checked it out, and converted my Zite Magazine to Flipboard. It turned out to be a hosting I did for The Bow of Destiny. Good for me, and good for P. H. Solomon

I also discovered this graphic on Rosie's Book Reviews. These guys do a lot of book reviews, and it's an honor to be on one of their top ten lists. Will O' the Wisp is the ranked book, but the post was about my Experimental Notebook. This is another double benefit.

Maybe the theme tonight should be double benefits. Let's head in that direction.

Regular readers of Entertaining Stories have been awesome on this blog tour. Most of you have made a couple of the stops, and some of you have made all of them. The Twitter support has been unbelievable.

There is a double benefit here too. Hosts volunteer to give up their blog space for a day. When you guys show up en mass, it gives them a boost. They might even gain a follower or two out of the deal.

My benefit is self explanatory, but visitors might find a cool new blog to follow, or even make a new friend along the way. Win – win.

People who host authors are worth making friends with. Many followers of this blog are writers, and you'll want hosts yourself one day.

I went with Macabre Macaroni again this year, because Notebook came out and was fresh. I had to write all of them too, but I love writing them. It's been well received, but last year one went almost viral. That's tough to live up to. As the blog tour winds up this week, I still have two more stories to finish out October. I'm excited to share them with you.

I've done promotional stuff in the past, and had no results. There are sales this time around. I think it might be the multi pronged push as opposed to one small thing. The big surprise is sales of The Cock of the South. I'm not currently pushing it, but maybe I should. There have also been a lot of pages read via Kindle Unlimited.

Another unexpected thing was the acceleration of tweets about Panama. It has a Halloween theme too, and if someone would rather chase a demon through the jungle I'm fine with that. Black magic, witchcraft, hoodoo, vampire bats, fun for the whole family.

As the next week winds down, we decided to go camping one more time. I may be out of touch next weekend, but I could use a little nature time.

Is it good? Is it bad? Possibly indifferent?

I've been hitting the promotion front pretty hard since September. It started off with Experimental Notebook. There were cover reveals, followed by advanced sales. Early reviews came next, then Lisa Burton toured around and discussed the book. A small bit of that is still going on.

Part of Notebook is a free sample of Will O' the Wisp. The hope was that leading into October, folks might be interested in that kind of story. Lisa made a stop on Friday, and has one more in early November to talk about this book.

Macabre Macaroni is part of the mix too. If someone likes one of those stories, maybe they will take a 99¢ chance on my Notebook.

There is more Macabre Macaroni coming, but I'm also trotting Will O' the Wisp out for another blog tour. You'll probably see a few reblogs around here to help my supportive hosts out.

I want to talk about Amazon advertising today. I decided to run a campaign for each book, but I chose different options in each case. This isn't a scientific comparison, because they are different books with a different price point. I still think there is some information to be gleaned.

In each case, I bid 19¢ for placement of my ad. Amazon awards the bid to the highest amount, but only charges enough to win the spot. Some of my ads were placed for 6¢. I'm only charged when someone clicks on my ad, not whenever it gets seen. Let's look at the chart.

The bottom campaign is an old test drive for Will O' the Wisp dating back to May. This campaign placed my ads on products that might be similar to my book. You can see that I spent 95¢ to show my cover to 28,000 people. Seventeen of them clicked on my ad, and I never sold a single book.

In my mind, this is a mediocre winner. I got a lot of exposure for 95¢. I wasn't convinced or defeated here. So I decided to do it again.

On October 4th I ran a very similar campaign. I am banking on the season to help me with this particular book. Right now I have 19,500 views, and 12 interested parties. Nobody has taken the bait yet, but I've only spent 94¢.

The top row is for The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack, and it started on October 6th. For this campaign, I chose genres instead of products.

I didn't know until after my first campaign what the difference might be. With products, you cannot be advertised on Kindles or the various apps. With genres that is where your book gets placed. What this means is if someone is shopping for a boxed set of the television show “Charmed” they might see the advertisement for Will O' the Wisp. The risk is they aren't shopping for a book, and might not be readers at all.

The Notebook campaign shows 2634 placements, 17 clicks, and one actual sale at 99¢. (Which I have to share with Amazon.) These ads were all placed with folks shopping for ebooks. I have no idea why I have more page views than clicks. I assumed there had to be a click before there was a page view. Maybe the person who bought the book went back and forth a few times??? You can see that my 35¢ royalty cost me $2.55.

Both current campaigns are performing better than my original one. I'm getting a ton of exposure, and I know my covers are great. The Notebook cover isn't as awesome at thumbnail size though.

I don't see these campaigns as losers. I'm spending a minuscule amount of money for a ton of exposure. It is possible that someone will return later and make a purchase too. They might see the cover for Wisp on the blog tour and go, “Oh yeah… I'm going to buy that.”

For those who haven't explored this program, you have to commit a specific amount of money. In my case $100. This serves as a fail safe to prevent dumping a million dollars on a campaign that goes crazy. The campaign ends at $100. There is also an ending date for the same reason.

It looks like the campaign that targets genre is performing a little bit better. Notebook is cheaper, but one sale doesn't sway the performance much.

I know I've spent $50 on several promotions that never netted a single sale. This doesn't look too bad by comparison.

Let me hear from you guys. Have you ever used this service? Are my numbers pretty typical, or do they suck? Would you ever use this service? Has this post piqued your interest in this service? Do you want to buy a book?

Home again, home again…

I have a list of things to accomplish this weekend. I intended to jump right in and get with it, but my wife intervened. At least she chose Old Chigago for entertainment. I get to blog and have beer. I'm sure she has ulterior motives, being at the mall and all that.

I made contact with a promotion service while at the convention. I may not hire them, but there is no harm in finding out how they would brand me as an author. Part of the weekend is to follow up via email with them.

I'll probably set up another Amazon campaign too. This was moderately successful the first time, and October might make a difference in this promotion.

I need to work up my critiques, but that won't take a long time. There is a novel to finish reading too.

The new television season is starting in force. My wife managed to record some season premiers for me, but we missed one. I really like Sleepy Hollow, and didn't know it premiered this week. Now I have to look into online ways of seeing what's going on. I'm open to suggestions here.

The good news is that I'm off Monday. I can actually pay attention to my wife, and still get a few things accomplished. Therefore, tonight is all about pizza and beer, probably some covert shopping too.

I may catch up with S.H.I.E.L.D. later tonight, or may not. Depends on how the evening plays out. I'm pretty sure Agent May misses me though.

S’pose I ought to post something

I go on vacation for nearly three weeks, starting Friday. This gave me a little bit of time to get the camper ready, and maybe move a couple of projects forward before we head out. I also get a bit of time after we get back home.

I'm getting company next weekend. It's never failed so far. My vacation time is like a company magnet. It doesn't matter, we always have a good time together. This is one of the reasons I stay non-committal about deadlines and such. Writing is my fun time, and I don't have to live by rigid performance deadlines. If it has to wait a week it can. I don't have a New York publisher breathing down my neck.

Here is my loose plan of what I want to accomplish. I'm going to participate in the Rave Reviews Book Club Back to School Book and Blog Party. (Who names this stuff?) this will take up one day of blog space in mid September. It looks like a good turnout of people exchanging support for our various projects.

I want to publish The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack in early September. I still haven't decided how I'm going to promote this one, but I should set up some relatively free stuff. I'll ponder on the idea and come up with a few things.

I decided to write posts for Macabre Macaroni again this year. This involved micro fiction I posted weekly during October last year. I debated its merit on this blog, and the feedback helped me make up my mind. If I'm doing it again, I might as well make it work for me. I'm going to figure out a way to make it part of my promotion for the Experimental Notebook. I already have a couple of the stories written.

I'm going to make a pretty big push for Will O' the Wisp in October. I booked a blog tour, and have all the posts written already. I decided to submit this one to a few more book reviewers too. I need to get on the stick if I'm going to time this before Halloween. Wisp is a natural for a Halloween push and I'm going to go for it. Reviewers need time to read it, so I'd better get moving.

I'll probably do most of the standard things, like cover reveal posts for the new book. I may do some guest spots here and there. Right now, I'm concentrating on the issues that must be planned ahead.

I'm still thinking about placing some more Amazon advertising. This is more about awareness than sales. You gamble with $100, but they normally don't spend it all. I think 19,000 people saw my ad last time, and it cost me about $18. I don't see that as a bad thing.

Every day involves baby steps toward these goals. If I keep doing a bit here and there it all gets done. It leaves me time for a trip to the coast, and a visit with company. If I wait until the last minute I get too stressed out.

I need to plan for other events too. I already have a post with Lisa about the upcoming book. I need to write another one about choosing which outline will become my next project. Then I need to spend some quality time with my current manuscript and edit it into something coherent. This will involve some time with Doubt the Raven.

I'm kind of surprising myself here. It's a lot to do, but I can manage it. After October I will prioritize editing my novel, and finishing the winning outline.

Here is a question for those of you who've tested a specific Amazon process. Is there any value in setting up my book of short stories as a pre-order? This involves publishing it using a specific date. Consumers can order it, but Amazon won't deliver it until the specific date. Presumably, you get credit for all the sales the day it gets delivered. It's a way to start off with a higher ranking, and hopefully stay there. This book will price at 99¢, so people might take a chance. Let me ask it a different way. Is there any reason I should not set my book of short stories up with a pre-order time period?

Out and about

I finished up my critique group stuff this morning. The guys had some good suggestions, and I made a few changes.

We wound up at the camper place to pick up a gas fitting to hook up our outdoor stove. This was followed by a trip to Whole Foods. I had a wonderful peach and pancetta panini there. Sounds weird, tastes wonderful.

We stopped by the Boise Co-Op because my wife wanted a few things over there. I found the first pumpkin beers on the shelf and brought several home. I am an admitted pumpkin beer junkie.

Somewhere in there I wrote another Macabre Macaroni. I have two now, but need two or three more. I like to plan ahead, and not wait to create them. I'm pretty happy with these. I also sent off a couple of guest posts to friends who invited me over. Love those guest posts and visits.

I also had a fun idea for Macabre Macaroni this year. I need to keep mum until mid September, but some of you might be able to play along. What can I say? I'm an author and I get ideas.

I booked a blog tour for Will O' the Wisp. I have it set up right before Halloween, because it's a great Halloween read. Somewhere in there, I'm going to release my book of short stories. They might also make decent Halloween reading. Just in case, I'm including a free sample of Will O' the Wisp in the back of the shorties. Everything is starting to tie together quite well. It may not all work, but it won't be for a lack of effort. I'm considering doing another Amazon advertising campaign over the top of all this. The last one wasn't uber successful, but it wasn't a failure either. Approaching Halloween, it might be more productive, plus the blog tour, etc. Should I do it? What do you guys think?

I also wrote a fun Lisa Burton post to throw out there right before the short stories go live on Amazon. I did a tiny bit of research on how to make an active table of contents, but haven't gotten very far on that project. I have two new pieces of Lisa art that I'm dying to share with everyone, but I need to wait for the release. Two more are coming to support my novel, The Playground.

Tonight, we returned to Old Chicago to work on my beer mini tour. I only need to drink two more to earn my beach blanket. This is right before we take the camper to the Oregon Coast for our vacation. It's a tough job, but I'm up to the task, and we'll have a cool beach blanket. One more full work week before I'm on vacation, and I won't have to go back until early September.

This means I'll have to use some of that time to choose an outline. I'm really struggling with this. The politically correct crowd may have changed what I need to write next. As horrible as that sounds, I need to be aware of such things.

Tried to talk my wife into continuing our night out, but we're home now. There are any number of small breweries we could have visited, but she wasn't up for it. Therefore, I'm watching classic Dr. Who episodes while I write this. The Waters of Mars is on right now. It looks like some weeping angels are up next. I'm not disappointed. These were great episodes.

How is your Saturday night going? Did you write anything? Do you have any promotional events coming up?