I’ve been posting about free newsletter marketing lately, but I did try my first paid marketing campaign, for The Golden Key, this past summer. It had a couple of high moments, but overall I made a blunder that I’d like others to avoid.
First, I scheduled a grand tour–Bargain Booksy, Robin Reads, Book Barbarian, Fussy Librarian, Free Kindle Books and Tips, and a few Facebook sites got thrown into the mix. All highly recommended sites that had done well for other writer friends.
I always buy a copy as soon as my book’s released. It still looked good, so I went forward with the paid promo. But I forgot to check the Look Inside until the advertising run was over. Epic fail on my part.
I also paid for Hidden Gems, a review service, at the same time, and the resulting reviews were positive overall, with a few being incredible. My favorite: “Not what I expected. It was so much more.”
But otherwise, I spent $200 to net about 33 sales. I figured I wouldn’t break even because it was a novelette, and I was selling at $.99. Novelettes have much smaller potential audiences. But I was expecting to do better than that.
Then I checked the Look Inside. Aargh! This was the first book I’ve published that included a map. It turned out that the first thing potential readers saw when they pulled up the Look Inside was my map, stretched beyond recognition. I had to scroll down something like three pages worth to get to text.
It was no problem to get the Look Inside fixed. An email to Amazon and a day’s wait.
So, whenever you publish a book, buy a copy, and CHECK THE LOOK INSIDE. Learn from my mistake.
Happy promoting! 🙂
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Avid writer and reader of Faerie tales and noblebright fantasy.
Cathleen Townsend 
Thanks for the important advice!
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Oh goodness! That does sound like a nightmare! Good advice 🙂 I hope the book does well 🙂
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Glad to pass it on–especially since it’s an easy fix. 🙂
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Oh dear, that is unlucky, Cathleen. Thanks for sharing your experience. Happy new year.
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I gathered from a kboards thread from around the same time that this happened to a lot of writers who had maps in their books. Just one more thing to make certain we check. 🙂
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Sorry to hear about your oversight, but at least you managed to get some reviews, so not a total disaster!
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That’s true–the reviews were definitely a silver lining. 🙂
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That’s disheartening. I have had countless problems with Amazon on “Look Inside” but none were solved so fast. I’m pretty fed up with them.
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I hear you–sometimes it seems this whole gig is a constant struggle. 🙂
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Painful to see afterwards but solid advice for all of us. Thank you.
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Someone should benefit from it! 🙂
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Cathleen, you’ve been incredibly generous at sharing your experiences with marketing and promotion. Thank you for your outreach to those of us just starting out. Wishing you a successful and happy New Year.
As an aside, I’d love to know what you feel has been the most rewarding part of self-publishing.
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Happy New Year to you, too, Sharon. 🙂
The most rewarding part of self-publishing for me is being able to publish. Trade authors live with terrible uncertainties–their books can be pulled up to the last minute, and there’s basically nothing they can do. I don’t think I would hold up particularly well under that pressure, so I’m glad I don’t have it.
I’m getting my stories out there, and they’re getting read. That’s really the core of what I wanted when I started writing.
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Thanks so much for the heads-up, Cathleen. Wishing you a blessed and beautiful 2019! ❤ xo
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Hope it saves someone some money and aggravation. Happy New Year to you, too! 🙂
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I feel your pain about marketing investments vs returns. I’ve tried a few advert/review services but none of them worked well. I never heard of Hidden Gems. How did they work for you?
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I LOVE Hidden Gems. It was like this lovefest that lasted a week when I used them for The Golden Key this year. I booked four more appointments for this year. If nothing else I can justify it as attitude maintenance, but of course the reviews are very nice to have. I think I netted 16 reviews out of thirty books downloaded.
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That is an awesome ratio. I will check them out.
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As a reader/customer, I use the Look Inside feature quite a bit, but I never thought about it from the perspective of an author — that if it isn’t formatted properly, you’re potentially turning off interested readers. Thanks, as always, Cathleen, for sharing the wisdom of your experiences.
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I’m sorry that happened to you, Cathleen, but how kind of you to share that experience with your readers. A helpful post indeed. I hope your new year is off to a good start.
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