AMY R. BIDDLE - AUTHOR
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Blog Tours: A Comparison, Part II

7/11/2014

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Months after my first line-up of promotional ideas and options (Blog Tours: A Comparison, Part I), I've come out of the fray with less money and more books sold, and here's the rundown of what was worth it and what wasn't. I'm keeping track of all these successes and failures to help myself learn marketing tactics. Since it's blog posts like these that have helped me formulate my marketing strategy in the first place, I figure I should share it with the rest of the indie author community. Here's what I tried, not limited to blog tours, and how it all worked out. If you've got marketing tips to share, please leave a comment!

Successful marketing attempts, from most to least effective:

#1: Bargain Kindle Books (corresponding with a 99 cent sale)
This was a huge success! Bargain Kindle Books lists ebooks that are on sale, and sends the list out to a whole bunch of avid readers. You have to apply, and get accepted, so there's some selection, which is good. The day the book was listed, it climbed to #9 in the paid Kindle store for comedies. The next day, it crept up to #4, and remained in the top #20 for another few days.

COST-BENEFIT: I'll pay 25% of my royalties on all the purchases made while my book is listed, which ends up being just under 9 cents per book sold. In theory, I won't lose money on this, but since I'm dealing with a third party (my publisher) I won't know for sure until I see a royalty check, and compare it with my bill.


#2: In-person readings, talks and signings (especially readings that involved other authors as well)
It took a lot of pavement-pounding to get my first two readings (probably visited over 20 bookstores in Boston). But once I got some exposure, fellow authors and community members got wind that I did events and I started getting invited. I sold some books at these events, but nothing astronomical... at the worst I sold 1 copy, at the best I sold 9. But the turnout was especially good when I cross-pollinated with other authors, and I got some press surrounding the events. The events and corresponding press appear to have boosted sales in surrounding areas. The end result means more paperback books floating around people's living rooms, the back of cars, and private bathrooms. All good things.

COST-BENEFIT: I most definitely didn't make any money selling books, and if you include gas and time spent and food purchased, it was a bit of a charity case. But it was worth every penny (and every second) to meet the people, and talk books with avid readers and other writers. And now I can tell people I read at the Harvard Coop!


#3: Ebook sale for 99 cents
Sales certainly spiked when the book was first sold in the Kindle store for 99 cents. If I could have, I would have given it away for free for a week or so, just to get the word out.

COST-BENEFIT: Sure, I won't make as much money on each sale. No, I don't care. Yes, it will benefit me in the end.


#4: Reviews, interviews and articles
It was a lot of work at first, getting reviews lined up... but then after the book came out I found that there were plenty of opportunities to do interviews on friends's blogs, and as the word got out, people started to approach me. Some of these articles seemed to help spike sales, others fell flat... but either way, the more exposure the better, and now I have a little collection of links to post here on my website, which makes me kind of look like a legit author.

COST-BENEFIT: Free, and totally worth the time... if you have it.


#5: Goodreads giveaways
These are totally worth it for me, because my publisher is willing to send a book to the winner. I got one Goodreads review after about 6 giveaways, and lots of to-reads, but that's about it. 

COST-BENEFIT: I don't know if it would be worth it if I had to pay for the book myself, but as long as my publisher pays for it, I'm game.


#6: Blog Tour: Goddessfish
I did three blog tours and wasn't too impressed with any of them. The only tour that seemed legit was Goddessfish, which I wrote off at first because it's geared towards romance and erotica. But the people were professional, and the bloggers posted on time. On the less-positive side, the reviews were short, and nestled under a bunch of blog tour nonsense: the Goddessfish logo, my synopsis, bio and an excerpt. I'd have rathered a review, with links, and nothing more. It seemed kind of kitchy, but I guess I got what I paid for.

COST-BENEFIT: I think it was worth $50 for five reviews, most of which showed a spike in sales. And, it was fun to read people's thoughts on my book.


#6: Facebook ads
I put up a targeted ad for my Facebook page dedicated to The Atheist's Prayer, and enjoyed watching the book get over 300 likes. It wasn't cheap, and I didn't see a spike in sales. But now my page is more legit, and I have a host of people who see my Facebook posts, and might slowly gain fans from it.

COST-BENEFIT: I ended up spending about $120, which Facebook claims is just over 50 cents per like. That's expensive, and I didn't see a spike in sales. Will I do it again? Not for The Atheist's Prayer, but maybe I'd do it again to boost the release of my theoretical 'next' book.


#7: Blog Tour: Novel Publicity
This was set up by my publisher at no cost to me, which is awesome. I saw a spike in sales after some of the reviews. Sweet. I expected a lot out of Novel Publicity, because their website is stellar and professional. To my surprise, this tour was less professional than the Goddessfish tour. I don't think a single blogger posted their review on time, and four of them decided not to review at all. As with Goddessfish, the actual review was often hidden underneath a bunch of fluff. I think one review was only a sentence long. 

COST-BENEFIT: For me, the tour was free and totally worth it. I would NOT, however, pay a whopping $1,000 for their 'traditional' tour, which promises 20 reviews (that's $50 per review, compared to Goddessfish at $10 per review). 


Disqualified: Attempts that failed miserably

Book Club Reading List
After doing a helluva lot of research on blog tours, I got a hair up my butt and decided, on a whim, to sign up for something I'd never heard of before, with basically no research on the legitimacy of the program. Basically, the Book Club Reading List is what it sounds like: a newsletter that connects authors with book clubs. The idea is great- you say something about yourself and your location/availability so that interested book clubs, after reading your book, can contact you and have a meet-the-author session (in person or via Skype). That's cool, right? Thing is, I've gotten nothing out of it, no spikes in sales, no emails, nothing. Something might come through eventually, but I'm skeptical. Lesson learned: I should research better.

STUPID TAX: $150

Reading Addiction Blog Tours
I knew, signing up for this, that it was a waste, but the price (less than $6 per review) sucked me in. The blogs were of a similar low quality as the Goddessfish and Novel Publicity tours, but I didn't see any spikes in sales. I still enjoyed the reviews, though, so I guess it wasn't all bad.

STUPID TAX: $34


On Blog tours in General
Since this started as a series on blog tours, I feel like I should wrap up with my opinion on the much-debated and generally looked-down-on concept of paying for your book to get tossed around the blogosphere.

My overall take: Blog tours are worth it for your first book, not necessarily legit or cost-effective
Hey, now I have at least three times as many reviews, google results, and plenty of exposure across the world wide web, so I'm not complaining. As an unknown author, it's hard to get your name out; I have no shame in pushing it there. Sure, the tour hosts were often kitchy and sometimes sketchy. But I could tell by the reviews that most (maybe not all) of them actually read the book, and I enjoyed hearing what they had to say. Also, they are real people, with real friends. Perhaps their blog doesn't have a following, and is unprofessional and not to my taste, but maybe they will help me out with word of mouth. More reviews = more exposure, and exposure is more valuable than gold for a new indie author. Also, now I have blogger contacts for my next book. In the future, I might do Goddessfish again right around the release date of a new book, to spike sales and feel good about myself in the beginning. But first, I've got to start writing that book!
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On Reading

3/31/2014

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Last week, I was fortunate enough to have two back-to-back readings in the greater Boston area: one at The Harvard Coop, and one at Comicazi in Davis Square. For my first readings ever, I think they went over pretty well. Here are some things I learned:

1: Speeches are scary, but the worst thing that can happen is that they suck, and you laugh about it later. As soon as you're OK with making a fool of yourself, it's much less nerve-wracking, and you can have fun with it.

2: Networking and meeting the organizers of the event is half the fun. These are writers and book lovers who have chosen a career that surrounds literature and art. Not only are they interesting and fun, they are the guys (and girls) you want on your side.

3: No matter how many people show up, what really matters is the support of friends and family.

4: Free doughnuts bring people to an event. Those people may or may not be homeless, and they will probably ask strange questions. Keep bringing doughnuts, and get better at diverting unrelated questions.

5: Listen to advice and ask for criticism. Take it all to heart, and keep improving.

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Blog Tours: A Comparison, PArt 1

3/17/2014

4 Comments

 
As an author, I want more reviews. As a reviewer, I have an extremely hard time paying for something that I do for other people at no charge. Still, I want the boost of a Book Tour- so I'm doing some research. After getting some sound advice from author friends, scouring Google, and browsing the posts the Absolute Write Water Cooler, I've come up with a list of legitimate-looking blog tour hosts that I'm considering. I'm hoping that this post will be helpful to someone. If you have any advice, please chime in!

Here goes... from most to least bang for your buck (Disclaimer: in calculating "bang" I did not weigh in the probable inverse relationship between price and quality of reviews.)

Bookmonster "Name Before the Masses" tour
www.bmptours.com
$50 gets you 22-31 book reviews. That's $2.27 per review, max.
My opinion: This is by far the cheapest place I've seen. It's tempting, but something smells fishy. There are a lot of broken links and a lot of sponsors at .blogspot.com. Nothing explicitly wrong with it, but something's off.

Orangeberry: "OpsMore60" plan
www.orangeberrybooktours.com
$290 gets you 60 book reviews. That's $4.83 per review.
My opinion: Well, not many people had nice things to say about Orangeberry at the Absolute Write Water Cooler. As a reviewer myself, I've been asked to review books that had a heck of a lot of 4 & 5 star Amazon reviews, all the same length, all original but somehow flat. Those books don't pan out. I've got a sneaking suspicion that services like this use a lot of fake pseudonyms. On the other hand, that's a lot of reviews for not much money. Is it worth a risk? Maybe. 

Reading Addiction: "Mixed Addiction" tour - on 15% sale for the month of March
readingaddictionvbt.blogspot.com/
$64 gets you 10 reviews. That's $6.38 per review. (If you book in March)
My opinion: That seems like a fair price, and I heard decent things over at the Water Cooler. However, their website isn't exactly beautiful and I have a hard time giving money to someone who's too cheap to buy their own URL. Still, I'll consider it.

Promotional Book Tours: "Just Reviews" Tour
www.promotionalbooktours.com
$125 for 10 reviews. That's $12.50 per review.
My opinion: They guarantee Goodreads and Amazon reviews as well, which is good. I haven't heard anything bad about them, but maybe I didn't look deep enough. It seems like a decent mid-range gamble. Professional website, etc.

Kismet Book Tours: currently closed to new books
www.kismetbt.com/
$320 gets you 20 reviews (I've heard). That's $16 per review.
My opinion: Those numbers are hear-say. It got good recommendations from some author friends, and I guess they have a selection process of sorts. If your book is coming out in 2015, research them in advance. I'm sad I missed my chance.

Premier Virtual Author Book Tours: Basic 25 blog tour - 20% off for indie authors
www.litfusegroup.com
$599 for 25 reviews, plus other appearances. That's 23.97 per review.
My opinion: It's not cheap- and if you aren't an indie author, the price is a lot higher. I inquired about pricing plans and got a strangely formatted, badly edited email. The site is sparse and rather suspicious as well. But like everyone else in the world, I'm a sucker for getting 20% off.

Book Nerd Tours: "The Super Nerd"
www.booknerdtours.com
$225 gets you 6 or 7 reviews, plus some extra guest posts/interviews and whatnot. That's $37.50 per review, max.
My opinion: The reviewer in me is happy that they don't guarantee too many reviews- it makes me think people will actually, honestly, read and review the book with the intention of reaching their own set of fans. Book bloggers are swamped, and the legit ones don't read just any book- they read books they think they'll like. They don't say nice things about just any book either, and I want to hear an honest opinion. But the author in me says, "More reviews! That's not enough reviews for two hundred dollars!"

Novel Publicity: Personalized Tours
www.novelpublicity.com/
$1,000 gets you 20 blog spots. That's $50 per blog spot (not reviews!).
My opinion: That's a heck of a lot, and it doesn't even say if the 20 blog appearances are reviews or not. I'm not going to pay for it, but my publisher works with them (or maybe an affiliate of theirs) and I believe they are legit. Shell out the big bucks, and it might be worth it. They do guarantee a certain amount of traffic on the blogs, so that's a plus.

TLC Book Tours: The ten-blog tour
www.tlcbooktours.com
$549 gets you 10 reviews. That's $54 per review!!!
My opinion: Holy cow! That's expensive. Like a grocery shopper looking at over-priced organic food, my first impression is, "They must be legit." But even if they are, is it worth it? I'm not sure.

Oh God there's so many... Here are more, which I did not include because they either specialize in specific genres or don't mention actual reviews:
firstwildcardtours.blogspot.com
pumpupyourbook.com
litfusegroup.com
bewitchingbooktours.blogspot.com
blogbooktours.blogspot.com
buythebooktours.com
goddessfish.com


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