June 16, 2016 Marketing, Reviews 3 Comments

REVIEWS AND THE BOOK-BUYING PROCESS

Most authors ask, even beg, readers to leave reviews for their books in the hope their kind words might inspire others to give their novels a chance. But how much sway do reviews really hold?

The majority of genre readers spend a lot of cash every year on books, and they demand well edited reads that leave them emotionally satisfied. How do they know if what they’re buying is right for them? Let’s assume the buying decision starts with an exciting cover and an engaging short description, also known as a blurb.

Right. The price is fair, the cover’s gorgeous, and the blurb is amazeballs. Check, check and check. What is the next step for our hypothetical reader?

Reliable book reviews, perhaps?

Most online retailers and book sites allow readers to share their opinions on their latest reads. Goodreads is where many rate books, typically without giving reasons for their ratings. Barnes & Noble is struggling a little at the moment and as a result features comparatively few reviews, so maybe this is not an ideal source of information, but what about iTunes or Smashwords or other retailers? And what about that giant of giants, Amazon?

Recent changes by Amazon have upset bloggers and authors alike. Amazon has never allowed friends and family to post book reviews (and uses questionable algorithms to determine who is and isn’t friends with an author), and its policy now seems to extend to readers who review a lot, most notably bloggers. My heart goes out to them. A lot of effort goes into writing an interesting review, let alone the time it takes to read the book, and they have seen years of work deleted from the Amazon website. Authors are just as annoyed, since reviews are currency. Even a single sentence makes a difference. But maybe it is this rigorousness that makes Amazon the most reliable source of reviews.

But does any of this matter? Do readers even check out reviews before purchasing? And if so, how much do other people’s opinions influence their decision?

The Poll

To this end, I posted a poll on Facebook with the following scenario.

Assuming a reader has found a book of around $4 with a great cover and blurb, is he convinced already, or is more research required before buying it?

The options were as follows:

Twenty-three readers responded. Not a huge number, but the results are convincing nevertheless.

8 out of the 23 cited Amazon reviews as their next step in deciding whether to buy the book or not. That’s about 30%. Some readers admit to focusing on negative reviews more than positive ones, which makes sense. If someone doesn’t like humor in their fiction and therefore didn’t enjoy my books, that’s fair. I can live with that. And if the next reader is not put off by this “flaw” and does in fact love humor in their novels, all the better for everyone involved.

Can we assume that the remaining 15 of our respondents avail themselves of a mixture of the other options? Actually, no. Instead, a staggering 14 out of the 23 said they don’t read reviews at all. All they need before making a decision are the blurb and the cover.

Only one respondent said she uses Goodreads to help her make up her mind, and she cited Amazon as her second choice.

I have always suspected that not many use Goodreads before buying a book. GR strikes me more as a social platform that helps readers keep track of the books they’ve read. These results seem to confirm my hunch.

Still, this outcome wasn’t at all what I imagined. I expected a much wider spread.

To complete the picture, I should mention that three respondents gave more than one answer: the second answer was Amazon in two cases and iTunes in the third.

There you have it. Readers seem to either seek information about a book from Amazon reviews, or more likely than not, they will buy the book on the basis of the cover and the description alone.

I will therefore encourage my readers to leave reviews on Amazon. That said, if you have something nice to say, I don’t mind where you post it. 🙂

Disclaimer: This does not answer the question of where or how readers discover books, of course. This will be the subject of a different poll.

So, let’s talk about this. Am I the only one surprised by this outcome? If you’re an author, will this change the way you promote in future? If bloggers are no longer allowed to leave reviews on Amazon, are blog tours still worth their money? And if you’re a reader, would you agree with the outcome of the poll?

August 29, 2014 Marketing, Promotion Post a Comment

PROMOTION ETIQUETTE FOR NEW AUTHORS

Using Your Author Platform The Smart Way

Published a book? Well done. You started months ago building a twitter base of followers, collecting facebook likes, feverishly writing blog posts. Now is the time to unleash your creation upon the world. You send facebook updates, participate in blog tours, plaster your book details onto Twitter, and organize giveaways on Goodreads.

But why is this so hard? You should be laughing all the way to the bank, but the sales aren’t as copious as you’d hoped. What are you doing wrong?

Clearly, there could be any number of reasons. Perhaps your book doesn’t strike a nerve. Maybe that’s the way things go for new authors.

Or maybe you’re sabotaging yourself.

What is this thing we call promotion?

Promotion isn’t about selling. Selling is what Amazon and Barnes & Noble do. Promotion is about communication. Dialogue. A two-way exchange of communication.

So stop shouting already! You’re annoying people. Hasn’t your momma taught you manners?

If you shout, no one is going to hear you. Try talking to people. Starting with why a reader should buy your book. Because you’re loud? Because you’ve written it? Uh-uh. Not gonna happen.

The crucial issue in promotion is that it takes the participation of two parties. This applies not just to writers, by the way.

I helped a couple of authors increase their fan base, and ultimately sales, with what I learned in my one-year marketing course combined with a dash of good old common sense. There’s no telling what you can achieve by following the same simple rules.

So, what do you do?

First of all, have you picked the correct partner to engage? Buying 20,000 followers on Twitter means nothing if they aren’t readers. Does your blog address readers or fellow authors? If you mainly feature writing advice, don’t panic. Writers are avid readers, so all is not lost. But don’t forget which side of their personality you’re appealing to.

Of course you need a platform. A stable base where people can find out about you, about your book, about what makes you tick. Which social media outlet is best? Your Twitter profile is not that place. Facebook? Better. Amazon and Goodreads author pages? Great. But the best platform is your website. Let me try it this way. Your website is the link, or the interface, between your readers’ individual space shuttles and the mothership (i.e. the seller of your book). Occasionally you might redirect the link to a cargo ship, like a review site or your Facebook page, but only as a means to ultimately guide the shuttles safely to the mothership’s hangar bays.

So, how have you set up your interface? Is it easy to learn more about you? Are your posts attractive to the right sort of reader? Are your Amazon/B&N links, Facebook like button, newsletter sign-up and follow fields at the top of the page, or does the reader have to wade through lines and lines of old blog posts and affiliated websites?

Next come the channels of communication. Twitter is a rubbish way to sell anything. But it’s fantastically suited for informing. Inform your followers of the release of your book. Let them know about this fantastic post you’ve written or your guest appearance on someone’s website. Facebook, in turn, is a great place for genuinely engaging with readers. Have fun with them. Find out about them. Listen to them. You must know your readers to understand how to communicate with them. Too many writers regard this as a waste of time. It’s not. The key is to invite readers to join you, not to damage their eardrums by yelling them into compliance.

A word of warning. You might gain Facebook likes, but the rate of engagement will be low until you’ve “made it.” Yes, until you’ve joined the big-ish leagues, people won’t give two cents about you. Engaging takes time, and people’s engagement is focused on the big names. Of course it is. Wouldn’t you rather be sitting with the Heathers than with the weirdo new guy? But your effort will not be in vain. Because at some point, your likes will reach a number where you become interesting. The book(s) will take off. This is not the time to act like a spoiled brat and reject those that used to ignore you. No, this is when all your earlier efforts pay off. This is when your early followers start their word-of-mouth campaign. After all, they’ve been with you from the start.

How about the frequency of your promotion activities? Well, at what point do phone calls stop being fun and begin being the acts of a stalker? You’ve written a book? Great. Pick the correct time, ideally after work and toward the weekend, and send your followers a tweet. Perhaps another one a week later. But let’s be honest, everyone’s Twitter feed is filled to the brim with book reviews and self-promos. Be different. Shake things up. Share some cool lines from your book, and someone might be intrigued enough to investigate. Tweet about a cool blog post, and someone might follow the link, like your views and your writing, and check out your book.

Want to find out more?
Here a few websites I’ve found useful.
Your Writer Platform
Writer’s Digest
The Book Designer

In other words…

It’s not rocket science. Promotion is tough, and you’re probably doing many things right. Just…don’t sabotage your efforts. Okay?

I mean, if you’re an author, you’re also a reader. What tweets do you react to? What makes you buy books? Share with us. We can all do with a little help.

July 19, 2014 Marketing, Techie stuff Post a Comment

MAKE YOUR BLOG YOUR HOME PAGE

…AND CREATE A BLOG TAB

For a while, my website’s front face was my static “About” page. Interesting only to those who already knew me. But I preferred to set my blog as home page. Trouble was, whenever I tried to set up my blog as a home page, I was missing a tab. That meant, as soon as I navigated away from the blog, there was no tab to navigate back to it.

So here’s a quick way to solve this problem.

Go to Add page. Add a new, empty page you call “Home” or “Blog.”

Move to Appearance/Menu. If the “Home” or “Blog” page doesn’t already appear on the right with your other pages, add it to your menu, and move it into first position.

Open the “Home” or “Blog” submenu by clicking Page (with the tiny arrow on the right-hand side).

This opens a handful of fields. Into the field labeled “Navigation Label” write:

<a href=”http://yourdomain.com”>Home</a>, if you called your page “Home,” or

<a href=”http://yourdomain.com”>Blog</a>, if you called your page “Blog.”

Save.

If all is well, this should have done the trick.

July 17, 2014 Marketing, Promotion Post a Comment

INNOVATIVE PROMOTION FOR AUTHORS

IMPORTANT CHANGES TO ‘THE WRITE PATH’

If you’re an author, unearthing ever new ways of promoting your brand and your books is tough. I‘m always looking to try out new things. Some work, some don’t. But I’m sure we can agree that effective author promotion relies not on industry experts or Kirkus reviews, but on the humble reader.

So how do you know what readers want? Do you analyze Amazon stats or devour essays written by experts? Well, I thought I’d ask the readers themselves.

As a rule, before I initiate anything, I carry out a survey to see if the demand exists. So what insights did my recent opinion poll (involving nearly fifty avid readers and reviewers) yield? Lots. And I’ll overhaul my popular series THE WRITE PATH in August as a direct result.

In the words of one blog visitor,

“I have the author’s official blurb and reviews from independent reviewers to guide me in what books I might like to read, but what I really want is some background on the story from the author’s mouth. Why did they write it? You know, that kind of thing. […] I want to see writers engage with and enthuse about their own work.”

I listened, and starting next month, the focus of my five author questions will switch from the author’s writing life to the books they’ve written. I’m very excited about this change, and hope you are, too.

If you want to see which questions got the most votes, please get in touch. I’m taking bookings for mid-August and beyond. You can contact me by leaving a comment (at the top of this post) or by using the contact form (see the link for THE WRITE PATH).

FACEBOOK PARTICIPATION

In addition to THE WRITE PATH, and its sister series THE READ PATH, promotion takes up a huge chunk of my time. I recently set up a facebook page specifically for my book “Divide and Conquer.” Getting twitter followers is easy, but on facebook, you build relationships one by one. A personal approach is needed, which suits me perfectly. Whether you’re building a new page like me, or already have 5,000 likes, what you really want is to connect with the RIGHT people. In other words, you want to connect with fellow readers and fellow authors.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could combine our efforts in some fun way? Once again I surveyed some of my regular blog visitors, and an idea formed. A story chain. A short story written by multiple authors. The reaction to this idea has been nothing short of enthusiastic. Only a trial will show whether this is simply something readers would like to see, or if I can convince other authors to run with it. Many writers are solitary creatures, who are naturally more comfortable doing their own thing than accommodating readers. Fingers crossed.

But a story chain gives authors and readers a chance to interact and to create something wonderful together. Readers can leave comments and influence the story direction. facebook is the perfect medium, since it connects readers having a genuine interest in discovering new reading material with authors to whom those readers may otherwise not have been exposed.

If you’re interested, please let me know here (see “Comments” at the top of this page), on twitter (@authorcarmenfox) or on facebook. If I get at least four writers to start the chain, we’re a go.

Here’s how it works:

Each author reads the previous instalments, then writes a few paragraphs to further the story. By including the relevant links, readers can read the story chain by following the links as if they’re merely turning the page. facebook makes leaving comments and feedback easy. Authors can take part more than once, but let’s wrap this up within around twenty links of the chain.

That’s it.

To those who’ve taken the time to answer my questions and to brainstorm, my sincerest gratitude. I will do my best to make this happen, but please be aware that writers are busy, so this is a long shot.

If you have any original ideas for building relationships with readers, why not share them?

June 26, 2014 Marketing, Techie stuff 9 Comments

GUIDED TRANSFER TO WORDPRESS.ORG – Part 2

Guided Transfer – Part 2

(for a quick check list, see below; for part 1, click here)

Moving your blog to WordPress.org isn’t straight forward. The easy way is to let someone do it for you. But even that is not all that simple. Without a Guided Transfer For Beginners manual, it’s tempting to give up. Don’t. If I can do it, so can you.

Enough chitchat. So how do I move my blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org?

I officially paid for the Guided Transfer on a Friday. They scheduled it for the next Tuesday, warning it would take 24 hours. In the meantime, there should be no downtime on my website, but they asked me to not make any changes during that time.

The Happiness Engineer got to it in the evening.

Indeed, he was quickly done, of which I was informed by email. The email also gives you a link which you should bookmark, together with a new password for your account. BUT I had to wait 40 hours (up to 72 hours in some cases) for the changes to “spread” across the Internet.

This is important. It means that while the transfer only took 24 hours, you can’t do anything with your website until the changes have spread. Apparently, this means it will take that long for the Internet to understand that, next time you type “www.yourdomain.com,” you want to go to the new website and not the old wordpress.com site.

[It’s worth noting that so far, I have not come across anything a specific website called WordPress.org. I think the whole WordPress.org stuff is a myth. 🙂 Not that it matters.]

I noticed the transfer was complete when the number of followers on my website had changed. That’s because it no longer counted facebook and twitter followers – only my blog followers. The link the engineer gave me connected me to a wordpress login site, looking just like the one I had used before. I tried logging in, but it seemed I had the wrong details. Before writing to the engineer in a panic, I deleted my chache (=my Internet history and my cookies), and finally it worked. Upon logging in, a dashboard appeared, which looked very much like the old dashboard, just snazzier with a few extras.

By the way, the website itself looked exactly like my old one, too. That is one of the things the engineer tries to do for you, so your followers and visitors never experience any “downtime.” To help with that, the engineer installed my first pluging called Jetpack Plugin for me. It provides many features, most notably the same “stats” feature, “follow” feature and “follow by email” feature I had on my .com site.

I could even use publicize again, the feature that lets you automatically announce your new posts on facebook, twitter etc. Trouble was, by connecting to it, I had to connect to my old wordpress.com site. So I logged into facebook and twitter and google, but my dashboard was no longer the snazzy new one. Where had it gone? (Whatever you do, don’t post anything until you have your new dashboard back!)

I logged out and tried logging in again, but the “wrong password” message came up once more. I deleted the cache TWICE, and finally, my new password was accepted. Phew.

Guided Transfer comes with a two-week service period, during which time the Happiness Engineer will be at your beck and call with questions and advice. Still, the engineer’s email recommended to take advantage of Vaultpress, at least for the first month after initial installation. Vaultpress keeps backups of your website, so if in your exuberance to tinker with your website you mess something up which you cannot fix, you can simply restore an earlier version (and try again). They even offer the first month for free. To me, this made sense.

That’s when I ran into more techie trouble. I paid for Vaultpress lite. To set up, they asked for something called SSH and FTP. I’d heard of FTP before (whenever you upload something), but that was the extent of my knowledge. You can find both on your host’s website (in my case the Bluehost website). But honestly, this was far outside my comfort zone. I sent another request to my lovely Happiness Engineer, asking if the whole techie stuff ever got easier. He replied, “No, it doesn’t get easier. What does get easier is knowing where to turn to for answers.”

With that comforting bedside manner, it’s a wonder he didn’t choose to be a doctor. 🙂

He got in touch with his Vaultpress.com colleague, who set Vaultpress up for me. I didn’t have to do a thing.

Finally, the email included a link to Akismet. That’s the same feature that stops spam messages as I had on my WordPress.com site. I didn’t need the link, because it was right there on my dashboard now, and I merely had to click to activate it (if it isn’t there, ask your Happiness Engineer about it).

Since then, I’ve been learning new things non-stop. I’ve played around with the layout, even picked a new theme. I’ve found a few plugins that might be useful, among them Google Analytics, Yoast, and Mailchimp.

As complicated and frustrating as all this has been, don’t give up. The engineer really tries to help you. Thanks to him and his advice, I know that, even if I mess up my lovely website, everything should be recoverable.

Guided Transfer tl;dr

ADVANTAGES OF MOVING FROM HOSTED (WordPress.com) TO SELF-HOSTED (WordPress.org)

Plugins
More control
Option of selling your books/services from your website

SIGNING UP WITH NEW HOST

Sign up
Check on the store section on your wordpress dashboard to unlock your domain and receive Authorization code
Enter code on new host’s website and follow instructions

GUIDED TRANSFER

Pay
Wait for your email informing you of schedule
Remember not to plan any updates for up to 96 hours (24 h for transfer, plus 72 hours for change to take effect)
Once transfer is complete and the changes have “spread,” clear your cache and log in
If needed, re-connect to social media

VAULTPRESS AND ASKISMET

In case of trouble installing Vaultpress, pay, and then ask the Happiness Engineer if he can help you out
Click on Akismet link to activate

For everything else, ask your Happiness Engineer. Many times, if necessary.
Good luck!

May 13, 2014 Marketing Post a Comment

Shaping my Blog

“If you write well, with something to say, they will come.”

Right?

But are they the right “they”? Having more or less abandoned my previous blog, I’m now starting from scratch. It’s a hard but rewarding slog every blogger has to bear. I’m an author, and for years I have been blogging with my fellow writers in mind. I will continue to do so, sporadically, but I have many interests. While writing is the most important one, I also like fantasy, Star Trek, tabletop games, computer games, comics, tea, physics…

It’s no accident one of the main female characters in my book is a full-on nerd, and the learned geek reader may spot a few references ordinary readers might miss.

In any case, I felt restricted by my old blog. This website, by contrast, is going to be unfettered. I will write depending on whatever mood strikes me.

How the hell do you find followers and regular readers with that premise?

By writing well and making sure my posts are as entertaining as they can be, I’ve been told. Mixed in will be giveaways, fan fiction contests, and a whole host of other stuff.

I hope people will join me to talk about the things they‘re interested in. Because more than anything, I want to connect with my followers. Get to know you. Visit your blogs. Give out guest spots to anyone who wants to get something off their chest.

But this isn’t so much about followers alone as it is about establishing a sense of community. I’m planning a regular guest blog series where authors talk about the craft of writing. I’m very excited about this. A number of friendly faces have already agreed to spill all. If you want to take part, please get in touch.

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