Writer Sanctum
Writer's Haven => Marketing Loft [Public] => Topic started by: The Masked Scrivener on February 16, 2021, 08:54:36 PM
-
I've decided to pull my books from KDP Select and head out into the great wide open. I enjoyed my time watching KU pages add up while I wrote my first series, but feel the opportunity to get my books out to a bigger audience is the best plan for me. I have a couple of months left on some of my books for select, so the re-launch of my series will be in April. I will share my success, or lack thereof, with the class as it happens.
My plan is to go direct with Amazon, Apple, Google, Kobo, and BN. I will be using Bookbub ads, FB ads, and maybe dabble in AMS. My newsletter is over 700, and growing.
My current series is a five book science fiction series. I will be launching my new science fiction series, which is planned for 8-10 books, with the first 4-5 to be published this year.
Wish me luck and good fortune.
-
Scrivener,
I too am into the second month of "going wide, permanently" and I have not yet regretted the decision.
The 'Zon page reads have dropped to almost nothing. But, I am starting to see traction on other platforms. (One sale is traction, right?) :icon_think:
Cheers,
R.C.
-
Were you able to get a direct account with B&N or have you not tried yet? I was never able to manage it, but if you were recently able to sign up I might try again.
-
Were you able to get a direct account with B&N or have you not tried yet? I was never able to manage it, but if you were recently able to sign up I might try again.
Amanda, not trying to steal the thread but I have input for your question.
I was able to create B&N and Kobo accounts. B&N let me pull over the Draft2Digital files into the "direct account." (Reminds me, I need to check that it worked correctly.)
Kobo would not "copy the files" over. They told me I had to remove them from D2D and manually add them to the direct account.
Cheers,
R.C.
-
Thanks RC. I was never able to get B&N to give me a direct account. I'm going to go try again now just for giggles.
-
It should be easy to get a BNN account? I've had one for years with few issues.
Press.barnesandnoble.com
To the OP, what percentage of your monthly royalties were KU reads vs sales?
The decision to go wide seems like it'd be harder for those of us whose page reads account for 50 % or more of monthly income.
-
Thanks DM - They reject my bank information and attempts to contact them to work it out were completely fruitless. I just submitted the info again so it is pending approval again. This is the same bank info I've used at Amazon, D2D, Kobo, Google. B&N are the only ones who have a problem with it. I've tried various banks and accounts that I have. Maybe 56th time is the charm.
If it works I'll upload my next release there, if not, I don't give a #)($). I'm done with :HB over B&N's incompetence.
-
Wow. That is weird!
I seem to recall it being finicky.
-
I got an email at 9:52 that my account was approved and then one at 10 that said my account was being reviewed. <head up one's own butt emoji>
-
DmGuay, my sales have been weak as I had done no AMS. Page reads were the lesser of my royalties though, even when it was going well.
I have heard from a lot of indies that genre makes a difference when going wide. SciFi looks to be one of those that can go wide and succeed.
Hope that helps.
-
SciFi looks to be one of those that can go wide and succeed.
It didn't work for me in 2017, early 2018. And I'm Space Opera.
That period taught me that if you can't get a Bookbub, going wide basically means starting again from scratch.
Sci-Fi should be doing well in KU. If it's not, I can't see going wide will do any better.
I'm very happy to be proved wrong though.
-
Mil scifi and space opera are very strong in KU ... but then there's also masses of competition.
My ongoing mil SF series went wide in November last year. In the last 30 days I've sold the same number of copies of book 1 on Apple as all the Amazon stores combined. As for book 2, my Apple sales are 3 times those on Amazon.
Small numbers mind you. But I figured with all the Mil SF and Space Opera being mostly KU exclusive, wide readers won't have as much choice.
-
Masked - make sure you ask for the promotions tab on Kobo. As far as I know you still have to ask for that. I did well when I first started in Kobo in 2018 with first in series free promos. After that it fizzled.
-
SciFi looks to be one of those that can go wide and succeed.
It didn't work for me in 2017, early 2018. And I'm Space Opera.
That period taught me that if you can't get a Bookbub, going wide basically means starting again from scratch.
Sci-Fi should be doing well in KU. If it's not, I can't see going wide will do any better.
I'm very happy to be proved wrong though.
I do space opera and went wide 4 years ago when KU dropped off dramatically after the Zon f*cked with something. Nowadays, I earn more wide than through Amazon.
-
I went wide with everything, mainly to access the libraries. People need books and not everyone can afford to buy them. I'm also hoping this gives my books more exposure, which will help in the long run.
At least, that's the plan! :dog1:
-
Wide here. But I'm still considering launching with a book in KU for the first 3months again. I still get page reads from a book I released a yr ago, and I got good visibility doing that (just had page reads today, even). And I've gotten some readers/fans from KU.
What's killing me now is whether I should move into more serial romance books that are short, 60-70k, rather than my current monstrous 105k word one. Shorter is cheaper for editing, hrs spent, etc. I don't know. But if I went with writing series books, Urban Fantasy, for example, that are short and around 70k each, I'd consider staying in KU.
-
Wide here. But I'm still considering launching with a book in KU for the first 3months again....
Wide also... The last book in my SciFi/Fantasy series is on the horizon. Do you think the KU 90 day lock has enough value for a launch?
Granted, my page reads dropped to almost nothing when I opted out of KU. I am not sure the exclusivity retains enough value for 90 days of not going wide.
Cheers,
R.C.
-
I have heard the danger of doing some wide and some KU, even for a short time, is that you risk alienating potential readers. Those that pick up your book in KU, then find out the rest of your books are wide, feel those books are inaccessible and move on to another author. The same goes for wide readers that find books of yours only on KU.
Now, that was just an author's opinion, based on their experience, but they were a very successful wide romance author. They are also advocates for wide, so maybe their opinion is skewed. But I think the idea has merit.
-
Wish me luck and good fortune.
Good luck, and good fortune! :cheers
-
Wide here. But I'm still considering launching with a book in KU for the first 3months again....
Do you think the KU 90 day lock has enough value for a launch?
It's a consideration. As with everything here, it totally depends on your situation.
I had never published in KU, so it introduced me to a new audience. And being that it was the first book in the series, I didn't upset people regarding the other books--I think.
But, would I do it again? I'm not sure. For the epic fantasy I'm working on now, I don't think that genre sells as well with KU. So ... I probably won't. Like I said ^^, I think KU works really well with authors with multiple series, particularly Urban Fantasy. I'm still unsure with my upcoming book.
I can say that after I published in KU it was harder to get any traction wide. The book was no longer a "new" book.
-
Update
I have one book left in KU, and that will come out on March 20th. I'm hoping to have my books all loaded up on the other stores for release on March 22nd. I did some additional editing of book 1, changing the format to vellum, and updating all the blurbs.
The first draft of book 1 for the new series is written, and the rewrite begins tomorrow. I should release that next month, but that depends on how fast I can write book 2. I want to have a preorder for the next book in the series up before the release of the current book, and I don't do preorders until I have the pre-edited manuscript finished.
I'm getting excited the closer I get to going wide. I'll update this thread as I progress.
-
I have 4 left in and they drop out at the end of this month. Everything else is now wide.
I'm planning on applying for a Bookbub with a series where I've yet to write the third novel. (They're standalones, so it's not an issue.) I figure if I get a worldwide BB for book one, the motivation to write book 3 will be intense.
-
If you're going wide, you might want to check out the 'Wide for the Win' group on Facebook.
-
I know posts about declines in sales ore pagereads are tiresome, but... is it just my imagination, or have pagereads really tanked lately? I've never seen it this low, and I've been publishing since well before the first KUpocalypse.
-
I know posts about declines in sales ore pagereads are tiresome, but... is it just my imagination, or have pagereads really tanked lately? I've never seen it this low, and I've been publishing since well before the first KUpocalypse.
I think Amazon changed their algorithm again.
I saw a big drop not long ago, but my latest release was about normal for that series.
But the drop off after seems to accelerate with each new book.
I'm not doing any advertising, especially since my last attempt proved to be AMS ripping me off and ignoring my daily limit, but I've felt for a long time that the lack of an ad adds push down points to your books.
I'm finding there is a lot less tail to a release now, and even monthly releases are not often enough to keep up the momentum I achieved for most of 2020 with a 6 week schedule.
-
I know posts about declines in sales ore pagereads are tiresome, but... is it just my imagination, or have pagereads really tanked lately? I've never seen it this low, and I've been publishing since well before the first KUpocalypse.
I think Amazon changed their algorithm again.
I saw a big drop not long ago, but my latest release was about normal for that series.
But the drop off after seems to accelerate with each new book.
I'm not doing any advertising, especially since my last attempt proved to be AMS ripping me off and ignoring my daily limit, but I've felt for a long time that the lack of an ad adds push down points to your books.
I'm finding there is a lot less tail to a release now, and even monthly releases are not often enough to keep up the momentum I achieved for most of 2020 with a 6 week schedule.
Currently, it's hard to know if it's algorithms, the way they count pages, or the pandemic.
I was all in KU last fall. Then I put my popular 12-book series wide for a bit, with a Bookbub on book 1. They ran my book in Fantasy rather than a mystery category, so it didn't do as well as it had in the past, but it did a little better on iTunes.
I cycle back and forth between KU and wide because I find that's the most profitable.
So, I went back into KU in February, and my sales plummeted, cannibalized by KU. More than usual, but not unexpected. However, unlike the past, there was no bump from KU. I'm now earning less on Amazon, in KU, than I was earning with sales alone on Amazon two months earlier. (Books are $4.99, 75-80k words.)
For the first time ever, I'll be taking that series out of KU just to stop losing money on Amazon, never mind the other platforms.
It's possible my niche (paranormal cozy) is overfished. But it's hard to believe it happened in 5 months when I've been in that genre for 5 years. Yes, it's been gradually getting more crowded, but this felt like an overnight change.
I have some wacky theories that perhaps a significant portion of the pagereads in the system (like a third or half of them even) could be fraud from clickfarms, and the difference is whether or not the clickfarms "read" your books as cover. My reason for thinking this is that it's always the pagereads that are so unpredictable and mystifying, whereas sales continue to be about what I expect.
-
Update: I'm wide.... sort of.
Book 1 of my series is wide on all platforms except Google, as they need time to review my book since it is the first time I've submitted. Quick run down on stores and how my experience was getting my books listed:
Amazon: been there, done that, I'm sure everyone is familiar.
Google: Easy to submit to, but there is the waiting period I mentioned above.
Apple: Took a lot of work to set up the vender account, didn't like using a separate website to submit the book, but uploading was simple enough.
Kobo: Went smoothly, except the submission form was clunky in my opinion. Their user interface could use an update as I felt it was more complicated than it needs to be.
BN: No complaints, but not impressed.
Smashwords: Not a fan. Since I'm not using them to distribute to other stores, I didn't like that the default was for that and I had to opt out of distribution.
Over all going wide wasn't as difficult as I expected. Yes, it will be interesting to see how I manage to keep track of sales channels and pay outs since I am direct to each retailer, but I don't see the need to give 10% of my earnings to a distributer, but that is just me.
Side story: I'm waiting until I get all five books, and the start of the new series, up wide before starting advertising. Set up ScribeCount to track sales, and saw that I had a sale on BN. Thank you NOOK reader! With that sale I now count myself as a professional wide indie author.
-
I'm all in with wide, but I'm using D2D for everything but Amazon and Google. They do take a percentage, but I like that everything updates at once. If I start selling a LOT more books, I might try to go direct with some of the other major retailers.
One thing that surprised me is how much more "FREE" I feel since going wide. No more wondering if something is allowed or how much of a book I can post elsewhere.
I also decided to raise my prices recently. We'll see if it works, but I'm feeling pretty good about it! :dog1:
-
One more day and the last four of my novels in KU drop out.
I just got an intl Bookbub on book one of the series which dropped out a month ago, so that was good timing/good planning. (My reason for dropping out of KU was to try for Bookbubs/promo stacks at regular intervals.)
-
One more day and the last four of my novels in KU drop out.
I just got an intl Bookbub on book one of the series which dropped out a month ago, so that was good timing/good planning. (My reason for dropping out of KU was to try for Bookbubs/promo stacks at regular intervals.)
When you do an international, do you manually change the international prices on Amazon? Or do you change all the prices on Amazon? Even for an international, isn't Amazon the big player? Or not?
-
I change all the prices for US and international. Spent an hour today booking 9-10 different promos (all but one for the US.)
The problem with that is that I can't apply for a US bookbub on the same title for 90+ days because of the 0 price now. But to be honest, at this stage I'm happy to be a support act. I'm guessing they get a lot of US-only deals, given the number of big-name authors and publishers promoted in the daily emails, and so filler for international subscribers probably comes in handy.
I do apply for US + international each time, because there's always a chance of a jackpot.
-
Do people think internationals are worth it?
I did one international BB. The other two I was fortunate to land were both Intnl & US. You're not going to see the same numbers as with a US BB, for sure, but the visibility is still fantastic. It was worth it to me.
-
One more day and the last four of my novels in KU drop out.
I just got an intl Bookbub on book one of the series which dropped out a month ago, so that was good timing/good planning. (My reason for dropping out of KU was to try for Bookbubs/promo stacks at regular intervals.)
Do people think internationals are worth it?
I've been offered one now, but I'm reluctant to accept. I had an international earlier this year. It was profitable. The tail lasted around 6-ish weeks. But the profit and tail were nothing compared to a US plus international. Quite frankly, there are other ways to make that amount of profit. Good use of click ads achieves the same dollar value profit-wise.
Based on what I'm hearing, it looks like BookBub are largely quarantining indies to international only. I'm still trying to come to grips with whether the internationals are worth it. Without the boost that comes from a US plus International, it seems like a lot of fuss for something I can achieve without BookBub.
Torn about what to do...
You're asking me if I would spend one dollar and make three or four back, and my answer is always going to be yes.
It's not so much that BB are quarantining indies, it's that US-based publishers are signing up for US-only deals (often, rights go to different publishers in different countries, so they can't do all markets). That leaves slots to fill, and I'm guessing Canadian/Aussie/UK/Indian publishers can't take them up because Bookbub lumps all four together in 'International only'. Aussie publishers won't hold the rights to UK/Canadian/Indian editions so they can't apply for intl BBs. Same for the others.
This leaves a nice opening for indies, and I will always muscle through with both elbows out whenever I can.
-
I'll be honest, if BookBub are only offering international only deals, then that significantly lowers their value to me.
Completely negates them for me.
75% of my income comes from the US.
The one intl only BB I got proved very disappointing, but considering it ignored my primary market, it wasn't very surprising.
I'll never do another intl only one. No point.
-
Good luck with your Bookbub Tweek.
-
Good luck with your Bookbub Tweek.
What's a Bookbub Tweek? :icon_rofl:
Oh, there should be a comma in there. :angel:
-
Oh, there should be a common in there. :angel:
A 'common'?
I can't work out if you're being clever or autocorrect hates you!
Auto-correct hates me. Or I'm going senile.
But it does seem to only be happening here. Very odd. Third time in 2 days now.
-
If you were senile you'd forget to log in.
More like I'd forget why I was logging in.
Logging in here is a habit. Habits remain even when you forget why.
Spelling correctioin in firefox was turned on. :rant Now it's off. I guess we'll see.
-
Why would the trads suddenly start taking over BookBub US slots that way? I had two full BookBubs last year within a few months of one another. But there appear to be almost none this year for anyone.
Not sure what you're asking. Are you asking why trads are getting bookbubs, or why I think they're taking over BB?
Every daily email I get now has about 3 trad pubbed and maybe 1 indie. Many of the trad pubbed are huge names, and every time I click on one it takes me to my amazon.com account where I'm not allowed to buy the deal because I live in Australia. (I use amazon.com for ebooks instead of amazon.com.au. Always have, not changing.) If I go to the same ASIN on amazon.com.au it's either not available or $17.99.
That tells me these trad pubs are filling the US-only BB slots, which is how I've worked out that there must be Intl-only slots going spare.
Look at my latest - I got accepted in 2 days and the Bookbub was 16 days after acceptance, which is a pretty short lead time.
-
I'll be honest, if BookBub are only offering international only deals, then that significantly lowers their value to me.
Completely negates them for me.
75% of my income comes from the US.
The one intl only BB I got proved very disappointing, but considering it ignored my primary market, it wasn't very surprising.
I'll never do another intl only one. No point.
Well yes, but if you want to increase your readership outside the US, promotions and ads are the only way to do it.
For a long time now my income has been split 50/50 between the US and UK, and I advertise to Aus and CA all the time.
-
I advertise to Aus and CA all the time.
Canada isn't even a blip on my BR reports.
Aus is about 4%.
How do you advertise to Aus?
-
Canada isn't even a blip on my BR reports.
Aus is about 4%.
How do you advertise to Aus?
Same way as US - through Amazon ads. They do UK, AU and CA now, and I've got my US sales down to 60% as a result (used to be 75%). Non-US sales are way more stable, and less infested with content mills and the like.
-
They do UK, AU and CA now,
Not that I can see.
I only have access to US.
Where do I find the others?
-
Where on the AMS Ad Dash do you specify a country as the target? :HB
-
You have to go through your AMS account for each country. Your way would be much more awesome.
From your bookshelf hit "promote and advertise", then "pick your marketplace". Marketplace=country
-
From your bookshelf hit "promote and advertise", then "pick your marketplace". Marketplace=country
Well there you go. :shrug
I NEVER go in that way. I direct link into the add mechanism.
Now of course it wants all my details again. :doh:
Something to do tomorrow.
-
I'm having a "do it tomorrow" day and it's only 10AM here.
-
I'm having a "do it tomorrow" day and it's only 10AM here.
Grin
-
Well, I posted in February (above) about not regretting my experiment in "going wide".
I began the process of going wide in Oct (Q4 2020), full-on in Jan (Q1 2021) and now... the results are in.
I'll cut to the chase: I am going back to KU.
The big three decision points are:
- Without KU, AMS ADs Get No Respect. - To achieve impressions, I must constantly raise bids. Timing and market forces change but the same strategies, which worked for months, are no longer successful. The 'Zon bots definitely have a bias.
- Too Much Effort - I do not mind the marketing/business aspect of being self-published. However, the ROI of the LOE for wide is non-existent. (See: Crappy Business Acronyms 101).
- KU Promotions Work - When coupled with Bookbub, WrittenWord, and other "external" adverting, the KU promotions are effective.
There are many other factors, but net-net: Without a large following, wide is a twenty miles of bad rode and no assurance of navigating successfully.
Happy to provide more detail if requested.
Cheers,
R.C.
-
In my experience, one of the factors at play is that gaining traction wide takes more than a few months. I've been all out of KU for the last four years and it took me over a year before wide revenues were reliably replacing the KU income I had before going wide.
-
In my experience, one of the factors at play is that gaining traction wide takes more than a few months. I've been all out of KU for the last four years and it took me over a year before wide revenues were reliably replacing the KU income I had before going wide.
Understood.
However, two factors are heavy influencers in today's market entry: Existing Audience Size and Market Forces skewed to the 'Zon/Kindle audience.
Both are working against me in trying to find my niche and generate sales.
Waiting a year to "replace" already limited sales is not viable. Hence, go back and build upon the model which generated sales.
Cheers,
R.C.
-
Yeah, I've been wide since 2018 and 2019 was great and I seemed to be going in the right direction, but 2020 seems to be a hole I can't dig out of.
-
I tried going wide a couple of years back, and I just about replaced the lost KU income with wide income, but it was a huge amount of extra work to achieve that. The final straw was getting a Bookbub on one of my KU books and NOT getting one on my wide books, so I just folded and went straight back to KU. I haven't regretted it for a second.
I think wide works IF you're prepared to put everything into it, including all the new stuff AND you get promotions on the wide stuff AND you stick it out for at least a couple of years. But it's still a lot more work than I want to do.
-
So if you guys were going to pack it in and not do anything in terms of promotion/advertising but just leave your books up there would you do that wide or KU?
-
Just for another view... I don't actively promote beyond AMS and the very rare BookBub (haven't been able to snag one in over a year). My time spent on marketing is less, way less than the time I waste on Forge of Empires. So beyond the aforementioned, my own site, and social media, I do bupkis for ads. But I've established a record of sorts with other retailers over time and get invited to participate in iTune free promos a few times a year. Apple iTunes is my second highest revenue generator, and every invitational bumps up my paid sales there and everywhere else (because of price match across the board). Now granted, I don't need book revenues to live on, so I'm an outlier who can afford a slow build up, but it does eventually pay off. Other than during new release months, my revenue by percentage is greater on wide than Amazon these days.
-
So if you guys were going to pack it in and not do anything in terms of promotion/advertising but just leave your books up there would you do that wide or KU?
KU and run the occasional promotion via KU... BUT, I am going to target lots of "cycles" of advertising around new releases. KU is LESS work not NO work.
Cheers,
R.C.
-
So if you guys were going to pack it in and not do anything in terms of promotion/advertising but just leave your books up there would you do that wide or KU?
Wide. Definitely. I can have free books available all the time to bring readers into series and I've been getting more sales on Apple (through D2D) than I expected. The other retailers are slowly picking up, and D2D has some nice promos.
My advertising consists of social media (no paid ads), free books, and the occasional Fussy Librarian promo.
ETA: My focus in on brand awareness and getting readers to my website. If I was focused on sales only, I would probably be trying paid advertising...but it just seems like too much work at the moment.
And I really need to get some books finished this summer and fall! :dog1:
-
I think the choice depends on the type of book you publish. My western romances are the kinds of books KU subscribers read. My women's fiction, not so much, and I am unwilling to cannibalize my high prices and go for page reads alone. I keep them wide and I don't start them in KU, either.
-
I agree with LilyBLily. I think genre plays in as well. You'll find relatively few of the successful historical fiction authors in KU because HF readers apparently just don't join KU. What other genres this holds true for I'm not sure. But for romance authors as an example, KU can be a big seller. As Lily mentioned, if you publish in a higher-priced genre which HF is, it is a huge hit to income if you take the KU pay.
Is it more work to be wide? I honestly don't find it so. Making the switch a few years ago was a pain in the bum, but I advertise with places like BB and a few other advertisers that pretty automatically ad the other retailers to my ads. I am pretty selective where I advertise though.
I suspect that there are too many variables on following, genre, advertising budget, etc. to make any hard and fast rule about which is better.
ETA: The decision is easier for me since I only write HF. My historical mysteries might do well in KU though, but I don't want to split my market.
-
I'm all in with wide, but I'm using D2D for everything but Amazon and Google. They do take a percentage, but I like that everything updates at once. If I start selling a LOT more books, I might try to go direct with some of the other major retailers.
One thing that surprised me is how much more "FREE" I feel since going wide. No more wondering if something is allowed or how much of a book I can post elsewhere.
I also decided to raise my prices recently. We'll see if it works, but I'm feeling pretty good about it! :dog1:
I would strongly urge you to go direct with B&N. You will not get into the genre subcategories if you go through D2D. Your books just get stuck into the top level genres and you get very little visibility that way, especially since B&N does not use keyword metadata in their search engine. I've more than tripled my sales there since going direct because of this.
-
Well thank you, that's good info, but Ugh. B&N Finally approved me for an account a day after I launched my latest book. Took 2 years, more? Not sure I have the will to move everything over.
-
Because they kept sending me the same useless error message about my bank account info being wrong. Someone here finally pointed out to me I needed to do the W9. I think that was it.
-
I just got accepted into a Books2Read promo through D2D. I write in many genres, but this was a fantasy/new beginnings category.
They also have some Vivlio promos that look interesting...as well as promos with other retailers. Some are available direct while others are D2D only.
-
I send everyone to my website, but I don't do PPC ads. Mainly social media and a few promos.
From my site, I have buttons to most major retailers and a B2R button for everyone else.
I believe the promos might be new. You can sign up for D2D notifications, but I see most of them in the Wide for the Win group on Facebook.
ETA: My co-author and I moved our series to D2D (even have them distribute to Amazon) for the 'split payment' option. So much easier!
-
Thank you!
-
You'd think support could have explained that.
That would have required a response to my inquiries. :shrug
-
I just got accepted into a Books2Read promo through D2D. I write in many genres, but this was a fantasy/new beginnings category.
They also have some Vivlio promos that look interesting...as well as promos with other retailers. Some are available direct while others are D2D only.
Congrats. Hope the promo goes well. :tup3b
Me too. Best of luck Lorri.
-
I don't think D2D offered promos when I used them in 2017/18. I never had any problems with them, but also couldn't see the point to giving them a % of royalties. They made loading to all platforms easier. But you lost real time reporting. That was another reason I moved the books direct. With the exception of Google, you get real time reporting, which works better with click ads (PPC). And directing buyers to my website gives me more a bit more data about the campaigns I'm running.
I have gotten into a couple of Apple promotions through D2D and they are the only way I have seen to do that.
-
I do some sales in the UK, enough that it is worth trying another int'l BB promo at the relatively low price compared to the US price. The big issue for me is that I know of no way to stack int'l promos. You would think that someone would have a UK list, but not as far as I've ever seen.
-
I do some sales in the UK, enough that it is worth trying another int'l BB promo at the relatively low price compared to the US price. The big issue for me is that I know of no way to stack int'l promos. You would think that someone would have a UK list, but not as far as I've ever seen.
bookhippo.uk
I've never done them, but I just pulled up their website and they are still around. You will have to do your own due diligence as to whether they are worthwhile or not, I don't know.
-
Thanks! I'll check them out.
-
I went wide at the beginning of this year, with a 3-month period when I had a foot in either camp as various books dropped out of exclusive.
Aside from June, every month has been close to the equivalent month last year. June has been a bit quieter (25% lower) but I took my foot off the ad pedal and coasted, so I blame myself for that. I haven't sent out a newsletter for months either.
I've spent the last three days redoing a bunch of AMS ads across the 4 english-speaking markets, and I'm running a BB ad for a perma-free first in series at the moment.
I've had six months now where I've not had the slightest insterest in writing or publishing, but I've come to accept that I need these lengthy breaks from time to time. I've been plotting Hal Spacejock book 11 recently, and I can feel the urge to write coming back.