3 ms·

This is less true in self published romance, btw. My wife saw almost 3x that many book reads/sales (Kindle Unlimited pays nearly as well as a sold book) in just

This is less true in self published romance, btw. My wife saw almost 3x that many book reads/sales (Kindle Unlimited pays nearly as well as a sold book) in just two months of her first self-published book. It's kind of higher than expected but there's decent number of few romance self-published authors out there making good money, often in the six figures, in their first year. In order to do that they often write 4-8 books during that year though, writing fast and building giant series is pretty much required for romance. My wife also has a day job in marketing, so she utilized that knowledge for market research, writing to market, learning what types of self-promotion works, and promoting aggressively, so that helped a lot as well. Also me being willing to do pretty much all the housework while she focuses on getting this off the ground (not doing an amazing job, things are slipping, but at least we have clean dishes :). I like to write also, but just silly humorous fiction books (I've yet to actually publish one also, but hopefully in the next year or two), and I'm not expecting to be anywhere near as successful as she is. For me that will likely always stay a hobby (it's competing, and often losing, to my other dream of making games, anyway).

barbariangrunge 4y ago
What marketing techniques does she find most valuable?
- cableshaft 4y ago
  Some of the things she's doing for marketing right now: - Making videos for TikTok. She has over 1000 followers already, up from 0 a few months ago. She's slowed down on it recently, mainly because she has to focus on writing her book. - She sent out copies of ARCs in exchange for a promise to leave a review on Amazon, so she had about 30 reviews on the day of the book's release (thankfully very positive) - Contests to win ARCs (advanced reader copies) that involve following her social media - Contests to win physical books and swag after answering questions that prove you read the book. She's also purchased a mug press and a sublimation machine so she can make her own swag. She's already made custom buttons, bookmarks, tumblers, stickers (she bought the stickers though), etc. - Scheduling and participating in social media 'takeovers' (mainly reader Facebook groups) where she schedules a timeslot to engage with a group's members with games, contests, polls, and comments back and forth, usually for a couple of hours at a time - Exchanging slots with other writers to promote each other's books in each other's email newsletters (she puts them out weekly). - She tried Instagram and wasn't getting anywhere near as much engagement there, so she's mostly stopped that. - She also tried buying Facebook ads and didn't have much luck there. I couldn't say for sure what worked the best, although based on conversations with her, giving out ARCs, posting videos on TikTok, and Facebook group takeovers seem to be the most effective for her so far. She didn't just throw anything up there for TikTok videos, either. She consumed a good amount of TikTok herself for research (I think she kind of turned herself into an addict in the process, but that's not uncommon with that platform), sees what audio clips are trending, and makes her own variation on them that also promotes her book. I'm sure she's doing other things as well. She likes to experiment and see what's working for her and not. She also attended several online classes given by established authors (which also let her network other people taking the course, and participate in almost weekly discussions with them), and I know she's signing up for another online course that her writer friends recommended to improve her TikTok game even more.

barbariangrunge 4y ago

What marketing techniques does she find most valuable?

cableshaft 4y ago
Some of the things she's doing for marketing right now: - Making videos for TikTok. She has over 1000 followers already, up from 0 a few months ago. She's slowed down on it recently, mainly because she has to focus on writing her book. - She sent out copies of ARCs in exchange for a promise to leave a review on Amazon, so she had about 30 reviews on the day of the book's release (thankfully very positive) - Contests to win ARCs (advanced reader copies) that involve following her social media - Contests to win physical books and swag after answering questions that prove you read the book. She's also purchased a mug press and a sublimation machine so she can make her own swag. She's already made custom buttons, bookmarks, tumblers, stickers (she bought the stickers though), etc. - Scheduling and participating in social media 'takeovers' (mainly reader Facebook groups) where she schedules a timeslot to engage with a group's members with games, contests, polls, and comments back and forth, usually for a couple of hours at a time - Exchanging slots with other writers to promote each other's books in each other's email newsletters (she puts them out weekly). - She tried Instagram and wasn't getting anywhere near as much engagement there, so she's mostly stopped that. - She also tried buying Facebook ads and didn't have much luck there. I couldn't say for sure what worked the best, although based on conversations with her, giving out ARCs, posting videos on TikTok, and Facebook group takeovers seem to be the most effective for her so far. She didn't just throw anything up there for TikTok videos, either. She consumed a good amount of TikTok herself for research (I think she kind of turned herself into an addict in the process, but that's not uncommon with that platform), sees what audio clips are trending, and makes her own variation on them that also promotes her book. I'm sure she's doing other things as well. She likes to experiment and see what's working for her and not. She also attended several online classes given by established authors (which also let her network other people taking the course, and participate in almost weekly discussions with them), and I know she's signing up for another online course that her writer friends recommended to improve her TikTok game even more.