Money and Marketing

Make Mine Mystery

May 5, 2018

 

Linda Lee Kane

It’s been nearly six years since the release of my first book The Black Madonna and even before that day, I struggled with the best way to introduce people to my book. Black Opal, a small publisher in Oregon, published it. It received good reviews (4.3 on Goodreads), but sales were meh. I’m writing the second book to the series right now and will be hiring someone to promote the book.

I’ve already built up my Twitter following and I have set up a book tour through libraries, book signings, and Farmers Markets. I’ve joined Sisters in Crime and Romance Writers of America. I like Twitter a lot, but I am not a 140-character kinda person. I enjoy more nuanced “conversations” and am much more comfortable with Facebook. That waste of time and money is minor compared to the bookstore tour fiasco. I’m usually, a numbers kinda person. This time I let my ego get in the way—and that was a huge problem.

Michael Connelly or Janet Evanovich can generate lines stretching down the block for a book signing. As a mechanism to introduce lots of new people to an author, it is a colossal waste of time and money. First, driving to independent bookstores takes time that could have been more productively spent. Second, meals out and motels are expensive. The economics are terrible. Let’s say I had a terrific event (for an unknown) and sold a dozen books. Net royalty to me is about $24. But, whenever bookstores order too many books, the costs of returns to Ingram are ultimately charged back to the author. My net might even be negative!

I enjoyed those events, and if I do say so myself, I’m good at them. I’ve learned to only do local events with a natural draw. The net result on book two, you ask? A 4.3 Goodreads rating, a few more books sold, a lot of money lost.

And therein lies my second huge promotional mistake. I should have realized that Amazon is driven by algorithms with very little human intervention. Books that do well get major support to drive them to do even better. Books that languish are left to wither.

And then the whole engine died. I thought Amazon would drive sales with “If you liked this, you’d like . . . “ mine. Not so much. As with any publisher, Amazon controlled the pricing, and I couldn’t run price-promotions. I expected them to and then to advertise them. It didn’t happen. What I think I need to do is invest in advertising right at the beginning to encourage more people to read that book. Without positive statistics, Amazon’s algorithms don’t kick in to help. It was a grand opportunity that I wasted.

Over time I regained rights to my books and introduced advertising and periodic price promotions. I increased my newsletter followers and reader by reader continued to add fans. I was confident (and I still am) that since readers rated the series well (4.1 on Goodreads), I just needed to develop a wider marketing tool. If I could reach readers who like to read the kind of books I like to write, they’ll try my books and enjoy them.

So, this time with a new book out, Death on the Vine, I’m reaching out to the blogging community, hoping my posts will encourage readers who like character-driven suspense novels to take a chance on a new author. I’d be interested to learn how y’all decide which new authors to try. Let me know in the comments.

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