Tag: book marketing

Time to Make the Donuts

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So, I’m busy, busy, busy with my giveaway on BookFunnel (here’s the link).  I’m also seeing if I can put part or all of it up on a site called Royal Road.  And I’m posting links on my X feed to try to connect with the wider world.  And if any of you want a free copy or have any friends who might like the story, please pass the link along to them.

Well, in addition to all this I’ve been drafted into a publicity campaign for the Dunwich Republicans.  I’ve got to awaken a “sleeping giant.”  But it’s more like a geriatric midget in a coma.  So even if I can drum up new blood, I’m afraid they’ll just show up, hear there’s work to be done and say, “Looks like you’re doing a great job.  CARRY ON!!!

But one must do the best one can.  As old TR used to remind us it’s “The Man in the Arena” that counts.  Unfortunately, I feel more like the Christian being fed to the lions in that arena.

Well, the weather is just as uncertain as ever with one day being seventy degrees and the next day featuring snow flurries but we’ve definitely turned a corner and the Great Southern Ice Sheet is barely a foot thick and receding rapidly.  All the spring flowers are budding and the turtles are sitting on the dead log in the swamp.  The mallards must be awaiting the hatching of their eggs and even the local pair of hawks seem to be hyperactive, probably getting food for their nest.

Listening to Andy Weir talk to the Critical Drinker about his book “The Martian” was kind of exciting.  I think anyone who writes a book secretly desires to be that guy who hits the jackpot and has the world beat a path to his door.  I mean, I know it’s ridiculously unlikely for a number of reasons for my book to be a big seller.  It’s in a very restricted corner of the marketplace based on politics and demographics and trying to get advertising is like pulling teeth.  But I confess I not-so-secretly dream of the book going viral and selling tons and tons of copies.  I guess when the dust settles, I’ll probably be in a funk for a while but I think it was still a good experience to try my hand at something I’ve wanted to do since I was a teenager.

And I’ll say that I don’t think that writing a good book is beyond my talents.  But self-publishing and self-marketing is not for the faint of heart.  It takes money and a lot of hard work to promote a book in the current marketplace.  And that’s the part I don’t enjoy at all.  Playing cat and mouse with the Amazon algorithm isn’t my idea of a fun occupation.  It’s more like going to the dentist’s office than something associated with creativity.

Ah well.  Whine, whine, whine.  Time to make the donuts.  Onward and upward.  Excelsior!

Book Funnel Sniper Giveaway

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That’s right get your free pdf copy of “The Sniper.” All that’s needed is to provide your e-mail address and view my harrangue at the end of the book to leave a review on Amazon. What’s fairer than that? Don’t answer that! It’s a rhetorical question as part of my sales pitch.  Let me know if there are any problems with the download.  This is my first attempt to use BookFunnel.

 

Click Here for Link to Sniper Giveaway

 

 

Riding High on a Horse in a Star-Spangled Rodeo

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So, I’m making the plunge.  I’ve joined BookFunnel and I’ll be running a giveaway for e-copies of the “The Sniper” starting pretty soon.  The trick now will be to get as much visibility for the giveaway as I can.  So, I’ll publicize it here (of course) and I’ll put up a post on X and I’ll tell everybody I can think of that likes this kind of story.  My plan, such as it is, is to use the giveaway to garner as many reviews as I can and try to get the book more attention.  And after that I’ll put it up on Kindle Unlimited to tempt the general public that tests out its fiction one page at a time.

Will it work?  Well, I certainly hope it will but I’ll find out for sure whether I can interest the world at large.  I was listening to the Critical Drinker interview Andy Weir about the success of two of his books being turned into movies.  But I was just as interested in his story about self-publishing.  His “The Martian” was self-published on Amazon and struggled to find an audience in the beginning.  So, it’s kind of that one in a million-success story that inspires the other 999,999 writers out there toiling away in obscurity.  So just to clear the air ahead of time, for the movie version of “The Sniper,” I want Adam Baldwin to play Bogey and Gary Oldman to play Cutter.  Nick Searcy would make a good Chastain.  As for Connors, I haven’t made up my mind.  And the other parts are also up for grabs but definitely no Hollywood weirdos; that’s for sure.  I think Christopher Walken would make a good President Miller.  He’s always able to provide a memorably psychopathic character when required.  Of course I’m hoping to get myself a bit part.  Sort of like how Stan Lee always got a cameo in the Marvel superhero movies.  Maybe I can be one of the clerks at the airport in Baghdad.  I think I could really handle the part with style and finesse.  Sort of a latter-day Olivier.

But I will say it is a little discouraging to see just how much grunt work there is in navigating the world of self-publishing.  The experts don’t really seem to know that much more than the people wandering around in the dark like me.  Sure, they have a sense of things like keywords and how to attach to other books that are already popular but it doesn’t seem like they can tap into any magic formula for shining a spotlight on a new book.  It reminds me of that Glenn Campbell song “Rhinestone Cowboy,” “Where hustle’s the name of the game and nice guys get washed away by the snow and the rain.”  Of course, that’s a little dramatic because I’m doing this from the comfort of my dining room where it’s relatively warm and dry.  But metaphorically I’m pounding that digital pavement so I can sing the blues along with Mr. Campbell.

Various Public Relations

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So, Tuesday I have a meeting with my marketer to see how I can achieve more of my goals for the launch.  The book seems to be sustaining sales but I’m not satisfied with the visibility with respect to reviews and general profile.  As I’ve mentioned I’m going to find out just how large a giveaway I can expect to perform.  Now, I have no idea whether this makes any sense at all.  After all, as a tactic giving something away for free seems to be defeating the purpose of sales.  But my whole reason for writing this book, is to get other people to read it too.  And if you’re competing with literally millions of other books and some of them have multi-billion-dollar companies marketing them then it may take extreme methods to break out of obscurity and catch the public’s eye.  And then again, I may just be kidding myself.  But I think I’m very close to making a decision on the path forward.

And there’s not much time left before I’ll be overtaken by other responsibilities and projects.  First Selectman Cthulhu has selected me as his personal spokesman with responsibilities for communicating his agenda to both the human population of Dunwich and also the trans-dimensional realm of the Great Old Ones.  That’s right I’ll be updating his LinkedIn and TikTok pages.  Currently he’s asked me to edit out the use of words like crush, dismember, maim and devour in his recent communications.  He’s up for re-election and he needs to finesse his image quite a bit.  I’ve suggested he watch several of the recent Godzilla movies and figure out how to mimic the joie de vivre of that radioactive reptile who has managed to cultivate a laid back and avuncular style in the last few years.  I told him he might want to think about a facelift.  But then he reminded me that technically he really doesn’t have a face.  It’s more of a foot with eyes, mouth and tentacles.  Well, a rose by any other name.

On the home front, Mr. and Mrs. Mallard have returned to dismal puddle and seemed very satisfied with whatever slop has run into the swamp.  Also, a pair of wood ducks have also appeared but I notice they are much more skittish than the mallards.  Well, it takes all kinds.  So far, we haven’t seen any ducklings.  Time will tell.

And I’ve cut down all of the raspberry canes and put about five pounds of 10-10-10 fertilizer on the bed in anticipation of a bumper crop this year.  I’m hoping it will expand significantly beyond the current patch and eventually triple into the whole garden.  This is a matter of turning necessity into a virtue since nothing else seems to flourish besides raspberries in that soggy area.

The southern ice sheet has retreated back to the massive driveway pile which is now only three feet high.  At the current rate of retreat, I calculate it will disappear completely by Memorial Day.  At which point the last of it will end up in my drink cooler for that barbecue event.

Well, things are moving apace.  Excelsior!

It Could Be Huge

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Just as I planned, we ate a late and leisurely breakfast today.  It was as warm and sunny as forecast.  Walking out in the sun by a frozen lake was very enjoyable and I even took a few photos just to prove I still remember how.  Then Camera Girl and I drove over to the big city (ha!) and had some Thai food.  Splendiferous.

I went over the communication I received from my book marketer and set up what I hope is a productive post-launch meeting where I can finalize a plan to finish off the launch with a large number of readers getting their hands on the book in the next week or so.

Apparently, there is a website called BookFunnel that will allow me to run a giveaway in exchange for the customer’s e-mail address.  This will facilitate follow-on advertising of my sequel books and other writing projects.  In conjunction with this the marketer thinks I should produce a follow-on epilog or teaser to entice the readers to sign up for some program of material that I will produce in the future.  All very interesting, but what I’m also interested in finding out is whether the traction I created with the launch is indicative of a book and sequels that will be popular or not very popular.  I basically don’t have any real knowledge about what a popular book start-up looks like.

I’ve sold a little over a hundred and twenty copies to date and that doesn’t seem to be an overwhelming response by the book buying public.  I was hoping for more like a hundred and twenty million copies or even a hundred and twenty thousand copies.  I’ve had to cancel my rental of MetLife Stadium for my book signing event.  Instead, I’ve taped together three or four of the boxes that Camera Girl gets her dog food bags delivered in and set them up in the lower driveway.  I hope it doesn’t rain soon.  That tape’s not so strong.  I’ll be giving away free key chains with the name of my local mechanic on them.  He had them out on the counter and I thought he wouldn’t mind if I took a few (or all) of them.  I don’t think he bought one of my books so I think it’ll be alright.

For my next book, maybe I’ll attempt to reach viral status using a best-seller adjacent name.  In other words, I’ll make it sound like some other popular work.  For instance, “Reacher” is a very commercially lucrative series.  So maybe I could have a series with a character named “Reached.”  He could be like Reacher only in the past tense.  So instead of being enormously large and strong I’ll make my character big but kind of old and worn out.  Sort of like Reacher in thirty years.  And he could fight crime but only in retirement villages and old age homes.  And his tag line will be, “What did you say?  Speak up you young punk!”  I think it could be huge.

08MAR2026 – This’N’That

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Today I spent a chunk of time with a roof rake pulling snow off the lower roofs.  These roofs have heavy plastic cleats glued to the metal to keep the snow from sliding into the gutters but there was so much snow that the weight cracked the glue and so these enormously heavy blocks of ice and snow were falling down onto the upper and lower driveways and blocking the routes we use to reach the road.  So, I forced the issue and pulled down all (most) of the snow with the rake and then spent a few hours moving the snow away with a shovel and wheelbarrow.  I was planning to use the snowblower to move the snow but all those plastic cleats would be bad for the rotating parts and it would have taken me so long to separate them out using a garden rake that I said, “to hell with it” and just used the wheelbarrow and shovel.  Well, they say work develops character and Camera Girl says I’m a character so it must be working.

I’ve had some interesting conversations on X with another author and he seemed genuinely interested in how my characters would advance in a sequel so I told him I should send him the e-book and then he could see the challenges I’m going to face deciding how I’ll clean up the mess I’ve created in the first book.  Also, I’m hoping to get a review out of him.  Of course, he’s not a genre fiction author so it may not be his cup of tea so I may not get a highly positive review but honest feedback is valuable so I’m interested.

Tomorrow, third grandson is coming over to spend time with us and absorb mass quantities of spaghetti and meatballs followed by mint chocolate chip ice cream.  He’s starting high school next year so I’ll have to try and up my game.  I wonder what form of entertainment he’ll favor.  I know this year his whole family has been on a hockey kick.  While hockey is far from my favorite form of entertainment, I feel I must try to adapt myself to the grandkids as best I can.  After all they’re the future and I’m practically extinct.

I got in touch with my marketer and said I wanted to discuss strategies to maximize numbers of readers by minimizing cost to the reader (up to and including giveaways).  She said I should make a point to collect e-mail addresses to allow for follow up advertising for sequels.  I will study her message and formulate some specific questions to facilitate getting answers at the meeting.  I’ve found marketing a book is an onerous task that’s far from fun.  At this point I want a strategy that sustains itself with minimal demands on my time.  But I may not get the answers I’m hoping for.

Alright, that’s enough for now.  I’m trying to stay away from the news of wars and scandals and elections and other tawdry concerns.  The world is certainly a messy place.

A Big Crazy Idea

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I have this crazy idea.  I want to get my book into the hands of an enormous number of people.  I heard of a guy whose book was given out to a hundred thousand people by some corporation for some reason unknown to me.  And after that it became very popular and sold millions of copies.  Now obviously that’s a crazy thing.  I think this was a hundred thousand physical copies not e-books.  Why a corporation would pay for a hundred thousand copies of a book to then give them away doesn’t make any sense unless it’s the Gideons giving away the Bible at hotels.

But for whatever reason it intrigues me.  Now theoretically I can give away a hundred thousand copies of my e-book by emailing them.  Of course, an e-mail provider will charge some fee for that much bandwidth.  But in terms of the files they’re free.  The trick would be to interest a hundred thousand people to request the book and actually read it.  There are book sale sites (e.g., Smashwords) that allow you to lower the sale price to zero.  But the trick would be to attract the right audience for the book.

I admit it’s kind of a goofy idea.  The whole reason for writing a book is to get people to pay you money for the privilege of reading it.  This stands that concept on its head.  But I think it’d get more satisfaction from knowing that a huge number of people had read my story than having a few hundred pay me for buying it.

I have a lot more research to do to figure out all the details of how doing something like this would work.  I want to target a right-leaning audience and so I’m looking at advertising on one of the right-leaning sites like Red State or something like it.  But one of the things is making sure it doesn’t cost me too much money.  After all I’m not a trillionaire.  I’m just a regular old multi-billionaire you know.

My book sales on Amazon reached one hundred tonight.  Maybe that was what triggered this megalomania.  After all it’s only a few orders of magnitude between a hundred and a hundred thousand.  What’s that between friends after all?  But I have learned a little bit about how difficult it is to reach across the “digital barrier” and communicate with the mass of humanity out there.  It requires you to master the secrets of the “algorithm” and “search engine optimization.”  Either that or you have to shell out a lot of dough.

But I’ll have to say it must have been more fun in the old days when a writer could sell a short story to Analog for a few hundred bucks and have a hundred thousand people read that story and give their feedback in just days or weeks.  I know there are now digital equivalents.  There’s a site called Royal Road where free content is uploaded and people vote with their eyeballs.  And maybe I’ll go that route.  Of course, I understand that most of the content is sort of video game fan fiction which is completely impenetrable to me.  And maybe an audience for my stuff would never show up there.  But I should look into it.  Well anyway, enough about this.  I’ll figure it out and see if it can be done and if it’s worth it to me or not.  Ah, the trials and tribulations of a great literary artist.  Oh, the pain, the pain.

03MAR2026 – Sales Update and Begathon

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Update:

Yesterday’s total was 18 books and my book ranking has also improved markedly.  Overall rank now close to 20,000 and categories in the top 100s!  Look out Tom Clancy (or whoever the new alive guy is).

Well, things are looking up.  So far today, I’ve sold ten copies and pretty soon I’ll reach a hundred sales.  Cool!

And I broke through the 40,000 overall rank in Kindle Store and the 200’s in some major categories (see below)

And so now that some momentum is building up I’d like to make one last plea (on bended knee mind you) for anyone who liked the book to put a good review up on Amazon.  You can use any name you like and you don’t even need to have bought the book.  Just tell the world why you liked it and help me become independently wealthy ( or at least cheer up a poor hard-working author.

Thank you for your attention.

Jake Barter

16FEB2026 Marketing Update

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I was going to review another science fiction movie tonight (Her (2013) but about fifteen minutes into the movie I couldn’t get over my dislike for the protagonist (Theodore played by Joaquin Phoenix) so I turned it off.  Once again that “best of” list doesn’t really match up perfectly with my taste.  So far, I’ve had three bombs; Repo Man, Dark Star and now Her.  On the positive side I liked Dark City, Wrath of Khan and Dredd.  And soon I’ll watch Dune which I’ve already seen and liked.  So, this guy is batting slightly better than .500.  To be fair there were other movies on the list that I also like but have already seen.  But the point is I’ll have to make my own version of “The List.”

So, there’s about another ten days or so left in my marketing contract for my book and I have learned a lot about how Amazon Ads work and also what they can and can’t do.  You’re basically buying visibility on Amazon.  The ratio is about one person in a thousand who sees your ad will click on it.  And about one person in ten (approximately) will buy the book.  But you pay money for every click (something like a dollar a click) and so you actually lose money on the sales you make.  It’s quite bizarre.

The next stage in the campaign includes giving away five books on Goodreads to people who signed up and dropping the price on the e-books for two days to $2.99.  And then there will be ads on Bookbub and hopefully this will provide the recognition in the algorithm to boost the books visibility.  And of course there will be some reviews that hopefully entice buyers.  Well, the fate of a self-published author is a lonely one.  But I wanted to write a book and now I know how that looks.

On the positive side I have gotten pretty favorable feedback from some of the readers whose opinions I highly value and that is actually the biggest pleasure of the whole process.  Several people have demanded that I produce a sequel immediately.  Which is kind of a problem.  But I have several different stories that I’ve been toying with and one of them will take the lead and become book two.  It is interesting to me how differently men and women approach the story.  Some of the women wanted to know how Bogey does with the waitress from the end of the book.  Well, everyone has their own way of reading a story I suppose.

Anyone who’s purchased the book and would like to put a review up on Amazon I’d encourage you to do it right away to help me with the push for sales during the upcoming sale.  I’m told that verified purchaser reviews are actually one of the most important marketing factors.

Well, there’s my update.  I’ve been disavowed of my dream of best seller status (sniff).  But I hope that with the rest of the program to come it will spark enough interest to produce a burst of sales.  Excelsior!