Yesterday, I posted about the pre-pub costs of self-pubbing: editing, cover and interior design, reviews, and online platform. Today, I'll share my experience with the post-pub costs: marketing and promotion. I get the "I wrote my book and published it! Come find it, world," attitude, I really do, but as Matthew Clemens said, "Self-publishing is print on demand, the key word being 'demand.' No one will read your book if they don't know it exists."
So, here's how to let the world know about your brilliant baby:
My Kickstarter campaign is asking for $12,056 to self-pub The Catalain Book of Secrets, which everyone except that one mean lady thinks is a low number. It is, but that's because I'm going to do most of the legwork myself, which keeps the costs "reasonable," depending on your perspective. :) I'd love to hear below if any of you have other experiences or ideas in the area of marketing and promotion.
(Sigh. I've totally depressed myself with this post. I'm going to go pet my dog, brew some hot chocolate, and write a book to remind myself why I do this in the first place. Keep on writing!)
Please check out my Kickstarter campaign, share the link, and give if you can (every dollar counts!): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1675834533/the-catalain-book-of-secrets
So, here's how to let the world know about your brilliant baby:
- Get reviews. The publishing industry uses NetGalley for a lot of their reviews. If my Kickstarter campaign is fully funded, I will have the great fortune to test them out for myself. The single-title, six-month listing plus email blast and single newsletter placement runs $998 and seems to give you the most bang for your buck. Here's a great article on how to (and how not to) request reviews from other sources, as well as links to reviewers of self-pubbed books.
- Get your book into the hands of indie bookstore owners. This one is time-consuming but so worth it. You are an indie author, they are an indie store, you two go together like peanut butter and chocolate IF your book is wonderful and IF you respect the challenges of keeping a bookstore afloat in this climate. Specifically, you have to choose a printer/distributor that allows standard discounts plus returns. I'm going with IngramSpark. The set-up fee for my book will be $50. My plan is to order 200 copies of my book and send it to the nearest Indiebound stores, along with a handwritten note and an offer to stop by and sign stock. To get the books printed and shipped to me will be $900. The cost of mailing them to bookstores (envelope, shipping, printing, lagniappe) will be around $1400.
- Get your book into the hands of reviewers. NetGalley will send out protected e-copies, which is convenient and less expensive, but you still need to send out galley copies to many reviewers, including newspapers that will consider self-pubbed books. I'm going to send out 50 galley copies, and with shipping, etc., that will run me around $590.
- Hire a publicist. S/he, if good, will think of avenues for marketing your book that never occurred to you. This can cost in the ballpark of $5000-$20,000. Preditors & Editors lists reviewers and book promotion services and also warns you if they are not legit.
- Set up a blog tour. A publicist can do this for you, but there's no reason you can't do it for free, yourself, as long as you follow any posted guidelines when requesting a guest post slot. It might be helpful to set up your own blog, if you haven't already, so you can return the favor and host someone else in the future.
- Get your book to book clubs. This is a great article on how to do this, but here's something to think about early: write discussion questions for your novel so they can be part of the book when people buy it, just like the publishers do. Here's an example (the author also reached out to local book clubs she found on MeetUp). LibraryThing also seems like a great book-clubby way to get your book out there. To make 100 copies of my book available for review, and then to ship them, would run me $1250.
- Donate your book to libraries. I LOVE libraries, but also, realistically, librarians, along with booksellers, are your boots on the ground. If they like your book, they will tell other people who will like your book. Donating 100 copies of my book to Midwest libraries would run me $1250.
- Set up signings at local bookstores (if your book is available through bookstore-friendly channels, like IngramSpark) two months in advance of your book release and attend conferences in your genre. Remember that the buzz works better if it's happening all at once, so schedule accordingly.
My Kickstarter campaign is asking for $12,056 to self-pub The Catalain Book of Secrets, which everyone except that one mean lady thinks is a low number. It is, but that's because I'm going to do most of the legwork myself, which keeps the costs "reasonable," depending on your perspective. :) I'd love to hear below if any of you have other experiences or ideas in the area of marketing and promotion.(Sigh. I've totally depressed myself with this post. I'm going to go pet my dog, brew some hot chocolate, and write a book to remind myself why I do this in the first place. Keep on writing!)
Please check out my Kickstarter campaign, share the link, and give if you can (every dollar counts!): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1675834533/the-catalain-book-of-secrets
You, Jess Lourey, are my hero. Send any mean people my way so I can educate them as to why they are asshats. This article not only shows all the work you're putting in, but provides a blueprint for other authors wanting to follow the same path!
ReplyDeleteThank YOU, sweetstuff!
DeleteThese posts are terrific, Jess. Thank you for your openness and generosity of spirit. Another promotional tool you might consider is running free giveaways on Goodreads before the pub date. This can build some pre-pub buzz for the book AND generate some reviews on Day 1 from happy readers lucky enough to read the preview novel.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the suggestion, Robb! I've heard mixed reviews re: free giveaways on Goodreads. For some, it has generated for buzz, and for others, nothing. I suppose it's like any other form of marketing--sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Have you tried it?
DeleteYou'll think I'm mean.
ReplyDeleteBut that's a really high number. I'm not going to get into it because I don't want to get flamed.
Best of luck and Godspeed!
Ha! :) You'd have to try hard to be mean, and based on your short message above, I don't think you're that kind of person. I would love for this to be a dialogue, if you have info/experience to share! My info in the last two posts is based on my experience, and modeled after what traditional houses do for their authors, but it for sure is not the definitive anything.
DeleteI actually created an email list a few months before my pub date (people signed up via Facebook and my newborn website) and then I ran random drawings each week to give away a proof copy of the book to a lucky email subscriber. I generated a little community called the "Early Risers" (because the book was called PHOENIXVILLE RISING). People seemed to enjoy being a part of the "in crowd," before the book came out. I probably gave away 10-12 books -- all of which resulted in positive reviews on amazon the first week after publication. I did two giveaways on Goodreads -- not sure how much it did -- a number of people marked the book as a "To Read" but I have no idea if they did in fact go on to read it. My marketing campaign was built primarily around word-of-mouth and the old shampoo commercial: you tell two friends and they tell two friends and so on and so on ...
ReplyDeleteSo smart! Thanks for sharing this info, Robb.
DeleteIt was tough because no one knew who I was (they still don't), so I had no established platform from which to launch a small coming-of-age novel. You obviously are better positioned for success and reaching a wider audience than I did. I went into this hoping to make a few people happy and praying that they would in turn tell friends about the book. That is indeed what happened. Also, book clubs were HUGE for me. I was doing one or even two visits a week there for a while. I got a lot of satisfaction out of generating word of mouth and hearing nice things from strangers. That honestly meant more to me than a "professional" review.
DeleteJessica,
ReplyDeleteDo you own your (very impressive) backlist? If you do, I would consider making one a loss leader and reducing the price of your other ebooks. Romance readers generally will pay 5.99 for an ebook, but asking them to pay over that is hard, since they are voracious readers who love to buy books.
As for marketing, I do work with a publicist myself and we do a variety of things to promote my books. Giveaways are fun and posting teasers from your book on your facebook page is somthing readers enjoy. It seems to me, and I could be wrong, that you are focusing on print sales instead ebook sales?
Please consider reading The Naked Truth of Self-Publishing, which is written by some super smart, professional women with a variety of backgrounds. I think the information in it would help you get your costs down a heck of a lot. So much so that you wouldn't need a kickstarter campaign.
Marquita
Good question, Marquita! For better or worse, my books are all still in print, so I do not own the backlist. The loss leader idea is an excellent one, though, and I've seen it work well before.
DeleteI know a book can be self-published for cheaper than I've listed above. I did it with my YA book. I didn't skimp on editing or cover design but did on marketing, and it simply didn't gain traction. Spending money on promotion is no guarantee of that, but spending smart money on promotion increases the odds.
Were there any costs listed above that specifically stuck out to you as not an effective promotional idea? I would love for this to be a dialogue.
(And the info in my post focuses on print books, though my marketing campaign will not. It's just that promoting ebooks is--in my experience--crazy inexpensive and so I didn't even go into that.)
Excellent suggestion on the teasers and giveaways--thank you!
Yes, all the print copy costs. Those struck me as high (though not unreasonable for your goal) because most indie authors I know don't focus on print.
ReplyDeleteMay I ask if the book you are looking to kickstart is the first in a series or a part of the one you already have? I can't speak as much to YA except that for my friends who do write it, series seem to work best at gaining traction.
Also, sorry to have started a new thread. I thought I hit reply, lol. :)
DeleteMarquita, no worries in starting a new thread! I actually didn't figure out the reply thing on my very own blog until last week.
ReplyDeleteYou know, in reading your thoughtful comments, it occurs to me that in neither of my blog posts about the costs of self-pubbing did I explain my goal. Aiyiyi. Some days I do better than others, you know?
So, to back up. I agree with you that most self-pub authors focus on ebooks, and I think that's smart, especially if you do not yet have a following, as it's low-risk. I'm after something a little different. I want to see if indie authors can fill a gap that had resulted from the traditional model of publishing and bookselling not doing well (B & N is rocky, Borders is long gone, and the Big 5 are taking few risks). Specifically, I want to create a model for indie authors to work closely with indie bookstores to get good books in the hands of readers who wouldn't otherwise discover them. If we can figure out a symbiotic relationship, readers, writers, and small businesses win. I love that!
It'll require some trial and error on my part, though, as well as financial risk because ebooks (while I will publish and promote them) are not the right vehicle for my goal. It's gotta be print.
Does that make sense?
Yes. Now, that you've outlined your goal, it does make sense to me. I do think that's a great one to have as well. I hope you post your results on working with indie bookstores. :)
DeleteGood luck!
Thank you SOOO much, Marquita. I know it can be a pain to comment on blogs--you don't want to get misunderstood or hurt feelings, and who's got the time?--but you're really helped me out by asking your questions. I've just updated my Kickstarter campaign accordingly, mentioning you by (first) name. Hope that's okay! Update here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1675834533/the-catalain-book-of-secrets/posts/1009154
DeleteThe thing that most people don't realize about printing books is that the unit cost is always higher when you're doing a shorter run. People think that you can print a book for a dollar or two per book, and you can, but you have to print 1500 or 2000 books minimum to get that unit price. Then you have to figure out where to store 1500 or 2000 books, and I guarantee that basements in Minnesota are not kind to books. Now you've got a few thousand dollars tied up in inventory, plus as much as $100 a month in warehousing costs, dollars that cannot be used for marketing or promotion. To print far smaller numbers like 100 or 500 books means that you're paying far higher unit costs, as much as $5 to $6 per book for a 350 page novel. And none of that counts shipping the books from the printer to you. Don't get me started on making the math work for that same book, which can't be priced more than $16 without being priced out of the market, and yet has to be sold at a minimum 40% discount to a bookseller, and a 55% discount if you want it carried by the major wholesalers. So no, your printing numbers are not particularly high for digital print on demand. The only way you could get your overall costs down is to do an offset printing of 1500 books, IF you have the funds to invest in the initial printing, as well as the funds to store them, and ship them all yourself (boxes, shipping tape, packing material, mailing labels, postal scale, etc.).
ReplyDelete"I guarantee that basements in Minnesota are not kind to books." So true, Sheyna, as is all the rest. Thank you!
DeleteAs far as I know, you cannot donate books to libraries. You must submit your book for evaluation to the administrator in each county-wide system. The library will order if it is interested through its regular channels. Libraries don't want people dumping books on them.
ReplyDeleteMakes sense, Sherry! Thanks for sharing the thought.
DeleteI'm a librarian and YA author and you can donate your book for the collection if you're local or have a connection to the library. It's good PR for the author and the library. My mom just donated my book to my hometown library. They were happy to receive the books.
DeleteThank you for the info, Kimberly! It's mucho helpful.
Delete