Capclave 2019 - Promoting Your Book
As the con drew to a close I attended a session titled, “Promoting Your Book.” The panelists were: Shahid Mahmud, publisher of Galaxy’s Edge, Sarena Ulibarri, editor of World Weaver Press, Danielle Ackley-McPhail, author L. Penelope, whose self-published books are now published by St. Martin’s Press, and Alex Shvartzman, editor of Unidentified Funny Objects.
There are a number of things authors must do, including building their own emailing list through providing their fans a monthly newsletter, possibly offering giveaways like free short stories.
Building an email list takes time, often years to building a significant number. Shahid Mahmud has spent almost a decade building a 10,000 member list. He also shared that Bookbub has been a wonderful way to sell and offer discounted books over the years, but traditional publishers have found Bookbub, which is making it much harder to be accepted.
Sarena Ulibarri shared that Bookbub promotions have helped World Weaver Press immensely. Their sales skyrocket. The cost of selling ebooks discounted at Amazon’s preferred price $2.99 price (maximizing an author’s or publisher’s royalty) can be as high as $1,600 on Bookbub, but the expense is worth it.
Not mentioned during the discussion is that Bookbub’s expense is less when the ebook is free. However, when it’s not, authors and publishers can offer the discounted ebooks in a wider variety of formats, reaching more Bookbub subscribers.
Book launches at local bookstores were also suggested, but there can be drawbacks. Book returns cost three times what sales do. You can mitigate that be signing all the copies, so more remain on their shelves. And, though, launching or reading a book at a book store may only be for an hour, the promotion of your book will be up for weeks and help sales.
Danielle Ackley-McPhail does at least two major book launches at the larger conventions she attends. She offers a silent auction which you need a raffle ticket for to participate—and the only way to get that first raffle ticket is to buy a book. One of the members of the audience called out, “Those launches are great!”
Garnering reviews through sites like Librarything, where you can offer free books in exchange for reviews are growing more important all the time.
L. Penelope self-published first and her work gained acclaim through reviews, which led to St. Martin’s Press offering her a contract to take over publishing them.
Shahid Mahmud shared that Amazon now holds more than 70% of the ebook market and 40% of the print market. That makes Amazon reviews more important than getting one from Publisher’s Weekly or paying for a Kirkus Review.
By the way, my book Triple Dare came out exclusively on Kindle and as part of my promoting the release, the paperback edition of the first book in the series, Dare 2 Believe, has come out in a second printing. The second printing of that book for Kindle as well as book two of the series, Double Dare, both came out over the summer. The Double Dare paperback second printing will be coming out in a couple of months.
Dare to Believe,
D.H.