I wrote a blog post recently about which is hardest between writing, editing and marketing. Other writers have since engaged when I shared that post on social media with their own thoughts that publishing and marketing are by far the hardest, since the former two of the three are within the writer’s control, whereas the latter involves reaching customers – and that, for the most part, is down to readers, not writers. Since it’s the one year publishing bookiversary of my most popular book, The Blue Man, I thought I’d share some marketing insights that I’ve learned over the past year. I’m by no means a marketing expert; I’m just another indie author who has had more hit than miss over the past year with my marketing experiments. Believe me, this time last year, I was wondering if releasing a ghost horror novel in July, rather than closer to Halloween, was the right decision. Turns out it was, as I guess readers like a creepy read at any time of year; I sure do! With that in mind, I thought I’d share what I’ve learned, so feel free to join me for a coffee (hurray caffeine!) and read on:
The cover matters
People do judge books by their covers. If you are unable to afford a professional cover artist, I recommend using Canva to do your own covers. There are great templates on Canva that you can use with professional fonts and layout; all you have to do is change the elements to suit your own design. Make sure your design fits your genre and theme. If you write ghost horror or psychological literary fiction as I do, your books should look atmospheric and suspenseful, at the very least. I designed the cover of The Blue Man myself and readers have been in touch to say they think it’s quite spooky. If you are not a graphic designer (you’re in good company, as I’m not!) I have a good layperson tip that helps: look at your cover design draft upside down. Does anything seem misaligned/ stick out too much/ not seem centred? Then tweak it!
Promote your book on social media
Social media is a writer’s friend. Why? 2 reasons:
1. It’s free. All it costs is your time. Since your book-baby took so long to write and edit (blood, sweat and tears, eh writers?) then you’d be crazy not to devote a huge chunk of your time to promoting on social media. A HUGE chunk, especially if number 2 sounds like you.
2. It’s an introvert’s dream. If, like me, you shy away from real-world-social-activities, then online marketing is your goal. It’s not that I dislike public book events such as book signings, but I find that pouring my advertising budget into online marketing has yielded far greater results, for me, than what in-person events have managed. You can read my thoughts on this in another blog post I wrote in 2021 called Indie authors – reaching readers globally versus selling to readers locally. I will write another post about the difference I have found between online marketing and physical promotion in a later post, but for now, let’s continue with other ways I have found that work to sell books.
Use sponsored ads
I have had decent success using Amazon sponsored ads in promoting my books. For clarity, regarding this topic I’m not going to discuss ACOS (Advertising cost of sales) as according to a cursory Google search of ‘good percentage ACOS on Amazon sponsored ads’ that in order to be successful, yours should aim to be between 15-20% and mine is most definitely higher than average on that point. What I will focus on instead is reaching new readers without hemorrhaging too much money. My success rate of paid clicks converting into books over the past 2 years since I first set up my own indie author imprint works out at about £8 advertising costs per book sold. When you consider that my average royalties sit at around £1.50 a book, that would seem like I’m out of pocket – on the surface. However, I’ve noticed that books in my back catalogue have begun to sell, and indeed sometimes I have had customers buy both books in my Belfast Ghosts series after clicking on only one sponsored ad. Longer term sales are more important to me than maximising sales in the short term.
Metadata matters
Listing your books in the right categories, with the correct keywords helps readers to find it. If you are in a very broad category, like crime, or romance, then try to think of specific keywords that will set your book apart. Thinking of terms that readers might search for is useful too: a good tip I learned for setting keywords on sponsored ads is to try variations of my name. Sometimes people misspell ‘Leilanie’ as ‘Lielani’, for example. How would someone spell your author name in a rush?
Choosing to go wide, or go exclusive
Going exclusive on Kindle Unlimited with the eBook version of my novels, poetry and short story collections has paid off. I have had tens of thousands of page reads from readers that I assume wouldn’t even know about my books if it weren’t for being able to ‘borrow’ them on KU. I myself subscribe to KU and as a reader, I’m happy to take a chance on a new author whose book I might otherwise not have tried buying outright. In case you don’t know, authors still get paid – per page read for this ‘borrowing’ service. I have nothing against other eBook services; it’s simply that I tried going wide with my first indie published book, The Buddha’s Bone, in its first couple of months and only made one sale through other eBook options, compared with two dozen or so on Kindle. That increased further once I enrolled in KU, so for me it was worth it.
However, I have found that going wide with my paperbacks and hardcovers has yielded decent results, as although I make most sales through Amazon, I also have sales through click and collect via Gardners UK and Ingramspark for the US, Europe and elsewhere worldwide. Every author will have their own reasons for going wide or exclusive, but I personally recommend exclusive for eBooks and wide for paperbacks and hardcovers. Of course, if you are using KDP’s free ISBN, and hence ‘independently published’ you are automatically exclusive to Amazon and can’t sell on other retailers. Bear in mind that I buy my own ISBNs directly from Nielsen and they are registered under my own imprint, therefore I’m free to sell my books on Waterstones, Foyles and other UK retailers as well as Barnes & Noble among others in the US. This means my books bear my imprint – Leilanie Stewart – instead of ‘independently published’ on Amazon. Here’s my imprint:
Get reviews
I have also written another post about Getting book reviews: effective methods so I won’t go into details again, but will simply say that having reviews has definitely helped me to sell books. I know this because:
1. I’ve had more success with sponsored ad sales for books when they have a few reviews posted as opposed to none.
2. I have seen some reviews marked on Amazon as ‘helpful’ by customers, which shows me that readers are actively browsing my catalogue.
Write more books
After I sell any of my books, I find that often a few sales of my other books will start to trickle through too. While I have no way of verifying for sure, I assume that it’s the same reader checking out my other works.
Use discounts wisely
Over the course of 2 years of Indie publishing, regarding discounts, I have learned 2 things:
1. Giving away books for free reaps no rewards. To celebrate the one year bookiversary of The Buddha’s Bone in October 2022, I made the eBook free for 5 days. I had 59 downloads after promoting it for free on social media (I personally disagree with paying book marketing sites to run a promotion if a book is free. It doesn’t gain readers, just freeloaders). None of the ‘readers’ who downloaded it left ratings or reviews, as I had hoped might happen in exchange for a freebie, therefore I have no proof that any of them read it. You can read more about that topic in my blog post: Is giving away free ebooks worth it for authors?
2. Discount promos work, but be mindful of your market. I have learned that when I run a $0.99 sale for The Buddha’s Bone in the US this works well as this novel is more popular States-side for some reason (told you I was no marketing expert, didn’t I?) whereas when I run a £0.99 sale for my Belfast Ghosts books, The Blue Man and The Buddha’s Bone, this is effective as those novels are more popular in the UK. I have had limited, or no success doing the opposite. The takeaway is that it’s worth it to know who your readers are. Confused about how? Look on your KDP dashboard at which marketplace sells the most for your book and start there.
The final word
Was that helpful? It was a longish post, but I hope so. I enjoy sharing tips and insights with other writers, as I enjoy reading other helpful advice on how to sell books. And now for the caveat: why don’t you buy a copy of The Blue Man on its one year bookiversary and make an author happy? Okay, so I was joking about the caveat, but really – if my post was informative for you and you’d like to celebrate with me by supporting me in turn, then here you go – enjoy!
Leilanie Stewart 