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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Also Boughts now include sponsored ads
« Last post by Lynn on February 08, 2025, 09:18:45 AM »
The way I look at it is that brand building should follow purpose.

If you want to sell books first and foremost, you need to write some books and find out what sells for you (maybe you have a certain style that isn't fit for some genres even if that's what you like best so that'll be when you have to decide your purpose: write what you want, accepting that sales might be in second place, or write what you can sell (not what someone else can sell because those aren't the same thing at all)), then build up your image around that so that people come back to you for that thing you're doing your best to sell.

Your purpose really does put everything in its place. That doesn't mean you can't maximize as you go down the list from primary purpose to secondary.... Or that your purpose as a writer might be different from your purpose as a publisher. (You really do have two jobs/businesses to consider as a self-publisher, sometimes many more.)

If your purpose is to write books that might be picked up by a school or library, you need to build a brand around that, and so you won't wait until you're seeing sales, you'll want to go in with a brand that fits what they'll want and decide how to make that work. You'll pick what to write based on this purpose and sales will naturally have to come second even if you want to maximize them.

You can't really brand yourself however you want without making those choices about purpose for yourself, even unintentionally.

It's just a series of choices. The brand follows that first choice, which is your purpose.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Also Boughts now include sponsored ads
« Last post by Lorri Moulton on February 08, 2025, 09:02:42 AM »
Branding can be about selling books...if that's the primary reason you're building a brand.  Author A wants to sell books, so Author A establishes their entire brand around selling books.  That's a worthwhile endeavor for obvious reasons.

However, branding can be about other things as well.  Perhaps, Author B wants to build their brand around their business, which INCLUDES selling books but is not the only focus.  That branding might be very different than Author A.

Before everyone asks why would AUTHOR B want to do that, I say there are many things we "might" do with our stories and everything that revolves around our stories.  Beyond that, I'm not going to get specific. 

We can definitely agree to disagree (again, I'm not giving specifics on my strategy regarding this), but I do think it's important to at least entertain the idea that building a brand specifically to sell books does NOT have to be the only reason we build a brand.  Just something to consider whether it applies to our own business plans or not.
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I usually promote the first book when introducing subsequent books in the series. Advertising geared to the second book or later may be lost on people who haven't read the first yet.

BTW, AMS ads can be used to promote multiple books if you are content not to write a tagline as part of the ad. That means you could have an ad showing your first three books, which I've had some luck with. I haven't had luck with sponsored brand ads, which allow to show three books and then point to your author page.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Also Boughts now include sponsored ads
« Last post by Bill Hiatt on February 08, 2025, 08:14:16 AM »
To me, branding is a way of organizing what you do around a particular focus. In other words, I don't do anything just for branding. I have my brand (image I want to project) in mind, and I make sure that everything I do to advertise (product description, cover, ad copy when I run ads, posts, etc.) is consistent with that brand. If I were doing a lot on social media, I'd have the same focus there.

What goes into branding: genre, themes, messages (if any), things you want to connect with your books because of similarities. Some people might also add the way readers feel about you. Some people do react to who an author is, so author bio can be important. However, my branding focuses more on the literature and only tangentially on me if I'm doing something where my bio is relevant.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Also Boughts now include sponsored ads
« Last post by Post-Crisis D on February 08, 2025, 07:51:49 AM »
Unfortunately, "branding" is another word, like "exposure", tossed around when results can't be measured.  You could spend a bunch of time and/or money on doing things that cannot show any measurable results and the excuse will be made that you're "building your brand."

If you're making money selling things, you may be able to justify spending a percentage of profits on things to build or expand your brand.

If you're not making money, you need to focus on things that will sell stuff, not on flushing good money and time down the "branding building" drain.  If "brand building" efforts cannot demonstrably sell things, you need to focus on efforts that can and do.
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: Also Boughts now include sponsored ads
« Last post by Lorri Moulton on February 08, 2025, 07:22:48 AM »
Social media works for branding. Does it work for sales? Not sure.  I guess it depends on who follows you, what the brand emphasizes, if it's a direct or indirect relationship, etc.

My only "presence" consistently is on Facebook.  Right now, ugh...it's really slow.  Elections do that, and all the noise isn't helping.  I do think there is an opportunity every time we have these meltdowns for authors to get some followers by NOT being one of those posters.  (Unless their books and sales lean into all that.  Mine do not.)  Whether it lasts probably depends on what we post.

I do well with branding.  I do well with free ebooks.  As for sales, Kickstarter has been better...but we can also charge a lot more.  So far, the 99c book blasts haven't hit there from what I can tell, but as saturation continues, it's definitely becoming a visibility issue.  Like all platforms.  And that might be why some people don't like to share their ideas and what works for them.
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Thanks for keeping us up on this insane plan. Very Big Brother and a huge task to oversee--by what government employees? They're all being fired, right? (It's a joke. I'm not being political Timothy.)
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Formatter's Forge [Public] / Re: Touching Base
« Last post by Lynn on February 08, 2025, 06:07:04 AM »
I still use and like Jutoh. There are several good or good enough apps and programs available that will have a shorter learning curve to output fancy ebooks, but I still like how much control Jutoh gives me over the output.

It looks kind of old style and a little outdated but it's actually extremely powerful. It gets regular updates, and the creator is very responsive when you have an issue. https://www.jutoh.com/whatsnew.html

However, if you're looking for something that is modern looking, and you just want to import your document and spit out your EPUB without having to really touch anything, this is probably not for you.

In all honesty, for paperbacks I'm still just using LibreOffice Writer. I haven't found the quality difference to be significant enough to make it worth the investment to switch to something else, and creating print books just doesn't take that much time after so many years of doing it and having created some nice templates for myself. I've been telling myself I was going to switch to Scribus but never have and then Affinity Publisher but never have, LOL.


Oops. My phone double posted before I'd finished so I deleted the extra. :)
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Marketing Loft [Public] / Will 99 cent ads followed by a free ad work for a sequel?
« Last post by Gregg Bell on February 08, 2025, 06:01:01 AM »
What I did with my first legal thriller was make it 99 cents for my newsletter and then run a bunch of 99 cent promos followed by a FreeBooksy promo. Sales really improved after the FreeBooksy promo. Now I have the sequel to that legal thriller, and I'm wondering if the same strategy will work or if there's a better way of approaching it? (I heard a while back that when publishing sequels it's best to make the first book, not the sequel, free and run a promo for the first book.) Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.
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You don't have to do it for Goodreads. Readers can review upcoming ebooks there before the book is published.

Wow. Did not know that. Thanks. Still considering this:



and that I don't have a scheduled publication date it might be easier to just add the paperback and let people post there. Then link the paperback to the ebook.
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