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51
Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: What the heck happened?
« Last post by TimothyEllis on March 22, 2024, 07:06:54 PM »
Not sure if you've been hanging around in various author circles but if so you'd see that sales, reads, ads, everything is down for many authors. Some are doing okay but many have had sales tanked.

Let me give a stab of what I think it is.

1. Wars- If you research book sales (for some reason) always drop with wars going on. I'm guessing because some people spend more time glued to reading or watching anything to do with the war. You can add me to the list. I don't know how I got into it but several times a day I am on Ukraine Reddit reading about the war and that's how I keep up with it. But, yeah, they say book sales tend to be bad during wars.

2. Inflation- Prices are creeping up again. Many readers can't afford to buy books like they used to especially if they are not in KU. People have less disposable income and when that happens, for many, books are the first things to go. They're not gonna get rid of their streaming services, sports tickets, concert tickets, food budget, cellphone, or clothes budget, heck no. But books, yep, if people need to save some money they can go without books. There are also tons of free books and libraries so for many that's more appealing than paying $5.99 each for several books.

3. Just Not Reading- Not only are sales down for many authors right now but so are KU reads. Even my KU reads have been "ewe" and I do pretty well usually. Seems like no amount of promotion or releasing does much right now. I'm betting readers just aren't reading right now. That's what it feels like. I'm an example of that. I let my KU subscription go about two months ago, not because I didn't like KU but because I have other stuff I am doing including writing my own books so I haven't had time to read in KU.

4. It's freaking springtime! I live in Houston, Texas and the rodeo's been going on for about a month. Everyone is going. People are finally out of the Covid funk and doing more things again. The weather's been nice and people wanna go out and have fun. They're going to waterparks, amusement parks, pools, the beach, the movies, the zoo, museums, on vacations, etc. The last thing some people wanna do right now is sit in the house reading a book. Doesn't mean they won't get back to that but even voracious readers don't read all the time. Just so much to do right now and people are going out more than ever. Not to mention it's March Madness, Baseball season's coming and Basketball season's getting ready for playoffs. The French Open will be starting soon, the golf tournaments, so much going on now. And let's not mention there is concert season. Seems like everyone and their momma is having a tour right now.

The world is busy right now and so many have other things to do and think about and don't have the time to read or buy books right now. Many authors have stopped pouring money into ads right now because it's been a dry spell.

My advice is to find some way to promote where you aren't spending a bunch of money so you can still have an ROI and not having to throw money away. It doesn't make sense to keep running ads if they aren't producing. You might as well flush money down the toilet.

Try other ways to promote that are low cost or free like swaps or doing promos on BookFunnel or joining multiauthor boxsets.

I stopped doing click ads years ago, BTW.

I stopped in 2019, when I spent a lot of money on ads, and got zero back. Not done any sort of paid ads since.

I can't disagree with any of the quote, BUT, I'm one is currently doing better than at any time since the second half of 2018. And that's after 2023 was a long slow fade out for me, although not disastrous, just belt tightening a bit.

In spite of the quotes some things have changed. And they seem to be working for me for a change.

Amazon is sending out new release emails again, and also using the reader app to notify people.

The war with Bookbub appears to be over, with ranks almost back to the time lag they used to be.

And in spite of the comment on KU, reads haven't gone down. Mine are way way up.

And in spite of the comment on the US, my US component has risen from 74% to 86% in just 3 months. My readership in the UK and Aus hasn't changed, but my readership in the US has significantly gone up.

So while I can't disagree with the quote, it's not my experience.

My guess is that those reliant on ads, are now suffering because then entire ads system seems to be floundering.

Those who baled out of ads years ago, and just concentrated on writing and keeping the fanbase happy, are now riding a wave as the fan base is now being told about new releases better.

Last time I looked, I had 6800 followers on Amazon. And yet, that seemed utterly ridiculous based on last year's sales and reads. And yet, this year, that number seems less ridiculous. It's like twice as many actually know I'm putting a book out now, and are buying in the first week. That's still well short of that 6800, but I'll take the win.

So whatever is happening, it's a lot more complicated than we can see.

There is something else though. Feb 2024 saw a change in the 20 year Feng Shui cycle. We entered the period of fire. And for some, there will be huge changes in progress. Up or down, and mainly to do with where the water is around where they live. But there's no way of generalizing that, as there are 16 different charts, and the same 'thing' can be in 16 different positions. The last time this happened was 2004, and people had their lives blown apart without knowing why. But others had wins. Same thing happening now.

52
Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: What the heck happened?
« Last post by writeway on March 22, 2024, 05:05:50 PM »
Not sure if you've been hanging around in various author circles but if so you'd see that sales, reads, ads, everything is down for many authors. Some are doing okay but many have had sales tanked.

Let me give a stab of what I think it is.

1. Wars- If you research book sales (for some reason) always drop with wars going on. I'm guessing because some people spend more time glued to reading or watching anything to do with the war. You can add me to the list. I don't know how I got into it but several times a day I am on Ukraine Reddit reading about the war and that's how I keep up with it. But, yeah, they say book sales tend to be bad during wars.

2. Inflation- Prices are creeping up again. Many readers can't afford to buy books like they used to especially if they are not in KU. People have less disposable income and when that happens, for many, books are the first things to go. They're not gonna get rid of their streaming services, sports tickets, concert tickets, food budget, cellphone, or clothes budget, heck no. But books, yep, if people need to save some money they can go without books. There are also tons of free books and libraries so for many that's more appealing than paying $5.99 each for several books.

3. Just Not Reading- Not only are sales down for many authors right now but so are KU reads. Even my KU reads have been "ewe" and I do pretty well usually. Seems like no amount of promotion or releasing does much right now. I'm betting readers just aren't reading right now. That's what it feels like. I'm an example of that. I let my KU subscription go about two months ago, not because I didn't like KU but because I have other stuff I am doing including writing my own books so I haven't had time to read in KU.

4. It's freaking springtime! I live in Houston, Texas and the rodeo's been going on for about a month. Everyone is going. People are finally out of the Covid funk and doing more things again. The weather's been nice and people wanna go out and have fun. They're going to waterparks, amusement parks, pools, the beach, the movies, the zoo, museums, on vacations, etc. The last thing some people wanna do right now is sit in the house reading a book. Doesn't mean they won't get back to that but even voracious readers don't read all the time. Just so much to do right now and people are going out more than ever. Not to mention it's March Madness, Baseball season's coming and Basketball season's getting ready for playoffs. The French Open will be starting soon, the golf tournaments, so much going on now. And let's not mention there is concert season. Seems like everyone and their momma is having a tour right now.

The world is busy right now and so many have other things to do and think about and don't have the time to read or buy books right now. Many authors have stopped pouring money into ads right now because it's been a dry spell.

My advice is to find some way to promote where you aren't spending a bunch of money so you can still have an ROI and not having to throw money away. It doesn't make sense to keep running ads if they aren't producing. You might as well flush money down the toilet.

Try other ways to promote that are low cost or free like swaps or doing promos on BookFunnel or joining multiauthor boxsets.

I stopped doing click ads years ago, BTW.
53
You can't just export to PDF?

Whether I use InDesign or Pages, if I export to PDF (rather than trying to Print to a PDF), the resulting PDF is exactly the same as I set up the file.
54
Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: What the heck happened?
« Last post by Post-Crisis D on March 22, 2024, 10:28:42 AM »
Yep.  I stopped using Google Ads years ago.  One reason, of course, was being banned.  But, before that, I had stopped using Google Ads for my best selling physical product because the bids on ads meant that I lost money even if I got a sale.  I guess some count on repeat business but since most buyers are one-time buyers, even if a percentage of them become repeat buyers, you're still losing money.
55
Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: What the heck happened?
« Last post by Lorri Moulton on March 22, 2024, 08:36:59 AM »
I saw this happen years ago with a different business.  Rates went from $20 a day to about $300 a day.  Crazy high! That's one reason I don't do paid ads.  You can't depend on rates to make a long-term business plan. 

Paid newsletters once in a while, even the occasional ad to bump sales can really work, but every week, all the time...too risky.  (Not saying this doesn't work for some, but I'm risk-averse with this one.)
56
Yes, upload in PDF, but that shouldn't be a problem.

The one thing I can think of is that PDF converters are essentially like printer drivers, and each printer driver spaces and potentially paginates just a little differently. For that reason, it would be a good idea to set the PDF converter as your printer driver (if you can). That guarantees that pagination won't shift after the conversion.
57
Jan, the page numbers will depend on the trim size. You don't want to use the e-book for page numbers. Word can generate the TOC if you use styles. It's been a while since I've done this (2020) and I'll need to learn it in Libre Office Writer. But if I can do it (tech-challenged) you can do it.

Thanks.
I've never used styles  :icon_rolleyes: Was going to try it but decided it was easier to go with what I've done. I've got the book mostly sorted for print but just wary of adding the page numbers to the TOC. I guess I'll have to give it a go and see what problems crop up.
After reading other formatting problems it looks like I might have to upload in PDF rather than Word. 
58
Marketing Loft [Public] / Re: What the heck happened?
« Last post by alhawke on March 22, 2024, 06:19:14 AM »
Be cautious with Google Ads. I was getting impressions but lackluster to zero sales. So I stopped using it.
And... wow:
Google ADs - The short answer is targeting a geography as wide as the "US" now requires this: "recommended budget would be around $55-60 per day."
:icon_eek:
If ads keep driving up in cost, I don't see an avenue for indie writers or small businesses. I don't get it. We have more things available but we seem to be losing avenues for sales. Where's all this money coming from? $55/day is absurd for writers That's $1650 per month, $20k per year. (Unless you suddenly hit some kind of ad ceiling where your revenue jumps into the tens of thousands :dizzy, I can't afford this sort of publishing ad madness). Maybe Google ads is only for big business?
59
Formatter's Forge [Public] / Re: Tips and advice on including page numbers in a TOC
« Last post by Vijaya on March 22, 2024, 05:37:25 AM »
Jan, the page numbers will depend on the trim size. You don't want to use the e-book for page numbers. Word can generate the TOC if you use styles. It's been a while since I've done this (2020) and I'll need to learn it in Libre Office Writer. But if I can do it (tech-challenged) you can do it.
60
One option, easiest for Wordpress but also works with others, is Surecart. It's free and has Tax calculation/EU VAT calculation. Paid versions have more capabilities but most aren't needed for indie authors:

https://surecart.com/


Supports payment options of:
SureCart currently supports Stripe (13+ Payments Methods in 135+ Currencies in 45+ Countries), PayPal, Mollie, GooglePay, ApplePay, you name it.

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