Action One New Marketing Initiative Per Day for 30 Days Part 4; The Finale

 

Thursday 21 January 2016
I cannot believe I am typing these words: MY BOOKBUB PROMO WAS ACCEPTED! Absolute insanity. Wow; I’m going to try not to get ahead of myself here. This is big. I need to calm down and make the most of it. So—need to update back matter for The Patrons so it’s link to my other books and to my signup list, get my iBooks page up for On Fire (which means I need to get my ISBN going), and try to finish transcribing On Fire as quickly as humanly possible. Trying to get the rights back to my most obvious next read after THE PATRONS, which is VIVIAN RISING, so I can link it in the back matter. I’ve been putting this off for ages, so I feel sense of accomplishment at getting this request in. Daughter accidentally smashed phone last night; hour on the line with apple, but managed to save over $100 to get a replacement. After that, washing machine flood. Two steps forward . . .

Friday 22 January 2016
Woke up at 5 to beat the kiddies out of bed and get a head start on all the prep work for getting the most out of this bookbub. As expected, it’s a lot of searching for old files and since I haven’t looked at them in a while and have a new computer, it’s difficult to find what I’m looking for—the MOST up-to-date versions of the manuscripts. Need a better org system for this, which is difficult, since at the last minute you wind up making lots of small changes and wind up with lots of “final” files. Will do better with ON FIRE. In the meanwhile . . .

I eventually locate the files, start reading up on sample text to insert in the back matter and link advice.

Later at the café I put in some time transcribing ON FIRE, and then create my listing for it on draft2digital. I also hear back from my conversion contact who says she should be able to add my pages next week. So far, so good. Now, I just need to create them.

Saturday 23 January 2016
After putting in some serious overtime transcribing ON FIRE, today I woke to pleasantly find I’d had another book sale from the KDP ads. These are still small numbers, but there’s a steady uptick this month with no promos running. This is good news and means action-oriented marketing time, in the right areas, will increase sales. I need to put in a query to KDP today, just to make sure that changes to the manuscript of THE PATRONS won’t affect my eligibility for my promo (update: it doesn’t), then finish the 99Designs contest, giving the finalized blurb to the winning designer.

Sunday 24 January – Wednesday 26 January
The main thrust of these four days is finishing the transcription of ON FIRE. I’ve worked out that having this new release ready to buy for downloaders of THE PATRONS who want more is the best marketing action I can complete before my bookbub. I’ve woken up obnoxiously early, stayed up ridiculously late, and typed until my fingers ached. I plan to finish tomorrow so I can have the proofing done and get it published. Additionally, after listening to a discussion about KDP ads on The Sell More Books Show, I decided to add more products to my ad listing, which has only resulted in two sales to date. So far, no difference in results.

Thursday 27 January
Will finish the last 40ish pages of transcription of ON FIRE today, no matter what it takes, but first I have to complete the links in the backmatter of THE PATRONS, so I can get that to the conversion contact. Sitting down to actually accomplish the link creation brings my attention to a few issues: can I use my affiliate link in the amazon version (update: turns out, no, you can’t)? Should I create a new listing for ON FIRE even though it isn’t ready and this will probably ruin my ranking, just so I can have a listing to link of wait a few days until it’s all done? What about all the backlist books I don’t have converted yet? Just leave those out since they won’t have links, or let people check them out so they get excited and say, new version coming soon? Hmmm. I decide to post my link questions on kboards, Finish ON FIRE, and revisit tonight. Finishing ON FIRE will take care of most of these issues, so here goes. . .

Right, one hour in, get a sick kid home from school. Oh, well, will have to continue this later.

Friday 29 January
Today isn’t much better; a second sick kid, up all night, etc. But I finish transcribing ON FIRE. With the lead-up to the bookbub, I also decided to decrease the timeline of my KDP ad, so that more impressions would occur now. Kboards was again a great help in answering my queries; I post another query about conversion contacts, and most advise doing conversion yourself these days—especially with backmatter needing updating constantly these days. I’m putting it on my to-do list.

Saturday 30 January
Contact some proofreaders to see if I can get a quick turnaround for ON FIRE, in order to get this new book up in time for my PATRONS bookbub. Also decide to post ON FIRE on KDP for pre-order, so that I’ll have the link to put in THE PATRONS new backmatter. Do some research on the pros and cons of the pre-order listing, and for these purposes, and for such a short duration (set the date for Feb 6), it seems this is the right way to go. So far, update to KDP ad doesn’t seem to have made any change in sales. I find a proofreader on Fiverr to do the job quickly for $75 (Update: she is amazing; not only does she do an excellent, skilled, careful job)—on time, but she also provides both an edited file with the track changes, so I can go through, and a complete “final” file with all the changes accepted, so I can go and post that in a rush. I’m impressed.

Sunday 31 January
KDP ads yielded another sale overnight for DIARY OF A WORKING GIRL. My investment is still small ($27 – $10 made back in sales so far, way less than most promo listings, and the sales, however small, keep my ranking in a decent place; remains to be seen whether this will turn into profit at some point).

So, that’s my month done. Gearing up for the bookbub promo as I post this, added a freebooksy listing to get the most out of the opportunity. Will certainly update on how the bookbub goes in a future post. In the meanwhile, this 30 day resolution has been amazing in 1. Motivation, 2. Education, 3. Increased reach, and 4. Organization. I feel like I know what I need to do, rather than floundering around, trying this and that. I’m going to keep it up, in some format and frequency, which has yet to be decided (really want to maintain the same pace and turn the project into a book for all to benefit, but is this too ambitious?) . .