Advice

Steve’s Marketing Advice June 2019

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

It’s the latest update of my Marketing Tips!  As always, I keep updating these every few months.

The Core Principle: The Web Of Connections

To promote yourself your various activities, giveaways, social media, and so on need to connect and reinforce each other.  If a new book comes out, promote it on your website and give away a few copies in your newsletter.  If you’re speaking on art, give out bookmarks with links to your website.  Everything ties together.

This does make finding what works a bit challenging, so I take these steps:

  • Do what is easy, like cross-posting sales and stuff among my social media.  Hey, it’s easy.  Then I monitor what seems to work.
  • Do what seems rational and looks like it’ll pay off.  Don’t try everything, try what will probably work.
  • Do what seems fun.  Why not enjoy this?
  • Advance marketing with incremental steps.  Usually that takes a month or two to show, so I tend to do my experiments every month or every other month.
  • Record what I find from above.  What do you think this post is?

Over time you’ll find what works for you, what doesn’t, and how elements interact.  It might help to keep a list like this!

Have A Website

Have a website, period. A website is a place you can send people to that acts as a “hub” for your marketing efforts. It doesn’t have to be complex (I’ve got some tips below), it has to be a place that acts as a hub for finding out more about you. The goal of a website is to have a one-stop-show for people to come to for information, and leave from to go to your various portfolios, books, social media, etc.

Follow these steps:

  1. Get a domain name (networksolutions.com, tierra.net are recommended). Make sure the name is unique, fits you, and can be re-purposed if your plans change (FrankDoesArt.com is a bit specific, but FrankGetsCreative.com is more general).
  2. Set up a website. Most people I know use www.dreamhost.com or www.wix.com. Just start with one page to make it easy – I’ve seen successful authors whose page is a blurb and a list of books.
  3. A fast way to do it is buy a domain and redirect it to one of your social media accounts or a portfolio setup (like Twitter or LinkedIn).  You can build the site later.
  4. Link to all your books, art, portfolio, and social media from here.
  5. This website should be mentioned in your books, social media, etc. so people get prompted to visit.
  6. Link to all your social media from the website – LinkedIn, Goodreads, whatever.  Well, whatever is appropriate, like maybe no one wants your photo collection of antique pots on that photo sharing site.

Other things to add:

  • A schedule of speaking engagement.
  • Reviews of your books.
  • Testimonials.
  • Helpful downloads – like character sheets, guides, etc.
  • Fun things not necessarily related to your writing like a cookbook or a link to pet pictures.

Have Appropriate Social Media

Social media is a troublesome subject. Yes, it can let you market – or be annoying. Yes it can let you meet people – or it can waste time.  It also changes in value over time.  However, done right it’s a great way to connect with people.

Your social media should always link back to your website and in many cases, your other social media. This helps create a “web” of connections, so people are able to go to one social media source, find your others, and of course buy your stuff.

My takes on social media in rough order are:

Twitter: Twitter, for it’s many flaws, has a lot of use, its simple, and with lists and filtering (and learning when to ignore it) you can meet authors, promote yourself, and be found. I’d determine what approach you want to use (from marketing to just goofing off) and do it.

LinkedIn: You should have a LinkedIn profile anyway, but how much of your “creative” life you want to share or link to depends on your goals and personal image.  If you do list your creative works, don’t forget the options like “publications.”  Also remember there are communities there you can join.

Instagram and other photo-sharing sites: Some people use this to promote their work, others use it as a sort of photoblog. I’m mixed on it myself.

Facebook: Facebook keeps having issues, but it helps to have a presence. I’d keep an author page on it at the very least and see how you engage.

Amazon Author Site: Set up your Amazon Author Site at Author Central.  This also can be a place to point your web domain.

Books2Read Author Site: I learned about this as Draft2Digital.com sets you up there if you use them.  Not sure it’s useful as I’ve just set one up, but its pretty nice.

By the way, a good way to manage social media in one go is www.Hootsuite.com.

Have A Newsletter

A newsletter is the way to engage with readers and keep people informed, as well as give them cool reviews, interesting updates, and more. In some ways it’s like a mailed blog, but I separate them as a newsletter is more focused and like an update, whereas blogs can be more freeform. If you don’t do a blog, do a newsletter, and if you only have time for one do the newsletter.

The ruler of newsletters is www.mailchimp.com, which has an amazing free service and reasonable paid services.

Make sure that your newsletter subscription form(s) are linked to from as much social media as possible and, of course, your website.

Some newsletter tips:

  • Don’t overdo it or underdo it – I do it every two weeks.
  • Find a “feel” for your newsletter – a roundup, personal, chatty, serious, etc. Judge what works.
  • Include any vital updates about your work. Link to your blog, new books, cool things.
  • Give away “Lead Magnets” – basically free stuff like samples, an occasional free book copy, downloadable cool stuff, etc.
  • Use it to promote other cool things – help folks out.
  • Remember that most newsletter software gives you all sorts of statistics and data – you can use this to improve reaching people!

Have A Blog

Blogs are ways to post thoughts, essays, and more, turning your web presence into a kind of personal magazine/announcement/discussion board. Most authors use them, though at various rates of usage, from constant posts to “occasional speaking updates.”

A blog is usually part of your author website, and thus is another reason to come there – and to go and check out your work and your other media. Most blog setups can act as your author page as well (which is what I do).

I use blogs to:

  • Give weekly updates on myself.
  • Post various essays and thoughts.
  • Review or promote interesting things.
  • In a few cases, blog posts then became other books, or I round them up to publish free “compendiums.”

You can set up blogs at the following sites, with various advantages and limits. Some allow you to use your own domain name, some don’t.

A few techniques:

  • You can get a domain and just point it at your blog or a similar site (like your Tumblr) and save time.
  • Some authors and artists do blog tours where they post across each other’s blogs.
  • If you have related social media accounts (LinkedIn, Tumblr, etc.) consider posting your blog entries to all of them when appropriate. Just make sure they redirect to your site.
  • Set up an RSS feed (or find it’s address in a standard setup) and put a link on your blog. I also recommend www.feedburner.com despite it being sort of static by now.
  • Mailchimp.com and some other mail software programs let people subscribe to a blog feed so they get email updates. You can also load those with helpful extras and information.

An important caveat – if you’re a prolific writer, you have to find the blogging/writing balance. It’s not an easy call because a few long blog posts can take as much time to set up as a small fiction piece. In some cases small books may be like blog posts so you have to ask “write a book or write a set of blog posts.”  I cover that more later.

Physical Media

Many authors and artists give away cards, bookmarks, etc.  I find these different giveaways vary in effectiveness, so I’m not sure how well they work for me or you.  However, it doesn’t stop me from doing them as they’re easy, and sometimes expected.  I also figure saturating the world with references to my work helps.

The one challenge is that this costs money, and you may not want to spend money on business cards, bookmarks, etc.  So you want to balance your choices.

Here’s what I try and what I find works:

Business Cards – These are a must if you’re serious, and the only physical media I can truly say that about.  Business Cards are cheap to get, easy to give out, and even expected.  Most print shops and office supply stores have quick options.

Bookmarks – This is popular among the book crowd for obvious reasons.  I’m not sure how well they work, but they do make it easy to set out information, give them away in panels, leave at interested shops, etc.  They can be a bit pricey depending on the deal you swing,

Mini-pictures – I’ve seen artists give away small cards with their art and contact information, sort of a sample/bookmark/business card fusion.  This may be worth trying.

For printed bookmarks and the like I recommend www.clubflyers.com.

I always have business cards with me, keep some bookmarks in my car, and take bookmarks to any events I speak at.

Giveaways And Promotionals (Mostly Authors)

A great way to get people’s attention is to give out stuff like free books, extras, samples, and more. With these properly done (and linked back to other works), its a great way to get attention, meet people, and of course get sales.

There’s two services I recommend for authors.  For artists you may have to look for other methods.

Prolificworks.com – having both free and subscription modes, it lets you give away work and join (or create) promotions. The paid version lets you tie giveaways into your mailing list as well. It does get a bit pricey beyond the Free level ($20 to $50 a month), so I recommend paid tiers for serious authors nly.

www.bookfunnel.com – Is a cheap ($20 a year to start) way to do book giveaways in a variety of formats, and higher tiers include features like Prolificworks.com. I’m fond of the starter tier as its a great way to make book giveaways easier (and if you don’t want to host your giveaways).

To make these work you have to obviously be dedicated to it and work out strategies. I use them to:

  • Give away free stuff and samples to my newsletter subscribers.
  • Give away a few copies of new books via Prolificworks.com
  • Have promotional giveaways (often samples) that people can sign up to my newsletter to get.
  • I join groups on Prolificworks.com to do team giveaways.
  • I use both – Instafreebie lets me set up easy giveaways, and Prolificworks gives me all sorts of options.

If you use KDP, there’s a KDP Exclusive you can use for eBooks. In exchange for making your work exclusive with Amazon, you get some tools to set up sales and giveaways.  It’s easy for starting authors.

Have A Portfolio

If you’re a visual artist of any kind, have a portfolio. Put it on your website, use a social media site like Deviantart.com, whatever. People want to see your work and maybe buy it, so make it easy to do. If you take commissions, it’s pretty much a way to market yourself.

Non-visual artists like authors may want a portfolio as well. This would contain:

  • Cover art.
  • Sample works.
  • Free giveaways.
  • Summaries of your work (with links to purchase it). For instance, I have a press website a lot like this.

Do Series

If you’re doing fiction, you probably already have a series in mind. If your books are non-fiction, you may want to group them into series, because various bookselling sites will remind people that “X book is part of Y” series.  If you’re an artist, this may help as well.

The advantage of the series are:

  • A series promotes the books within it.  When people seem a book is in a series, they may check out another.
  • A series creates cross-promotion as it sells.  When one book gets another book to sell, the various websites that sell them may refer books to other readers.
  • A series shows commitment.  When you’re doing a series it shows that you care and plan to stick around – or did stick around.

It takes time for a series to “take off.”  Once it starts getting attention and people buy other books, then they get more recommendations, more attention, etc.  On Amazon and other book distribution services, this results in more promotion over time.

A series can even act as a kind of low-profit loss-leader or self-promotional.  If someone buys small books in a series, or you write a series to focus on a popular subject, then it gets attention to your other works.

Do Multiple Formats

One of the challenges of selling media is that people want to consume it in different formats.  Unless you’re very sure that your target audience wants a certain format, try out different ways to sell things. 

If you write books, then consider ebooks, different ebook formats, and print.

If you do art, maybe your art can be in several sizes and formats.

For instance, I’ve found some of my physical books sell well around the holidays as people use them as gifts.  Others are the kind of thing people want in print for easy review or taking notes.  So over time I’ve branched out in my book formats.

Remember every sale helps – though some formats (like print) are hard and costly to set up, so evaluate their worth.

Calculated Distribution (Authors)

This part is pretty much only for authors – and for book distribution.

For print books, your usual choices are Amazon and IngramSpark (or IngramSpark via Lulu).  Amazon doesn’t charge, the other services do, but bookstores don’t always like to stock Amazon books as it’s a competitor.

For ebooks, your choices are:

  • Go with Amazon’s KDP Select, where you only go through Amazon but get marketing tools like sales.  Amazon is the majority of the market, so if you go Amazon its easier.
  • Distribute incredibly widely.  This takes time, and you don’t get Amazon’s marketing tools, but you get the chance to make more sales.  Some authors I know find they sell more books outside of Amazon, but I haven’t figured out any rules or principles to this.

If you go broad here’s my take

  • Draft2Digital is the easiest way to go broad, but only does eBooks.  I also recommend managing your Amazon account separately.  Draft2Digital doesn’t have the broadest range, but it’s free (taking a cut of your sales) and very, very well done.
  • Smashwords is also free, but takes a larger cut and doesn’t have the extras of Draft2Digital.  It does get into a few unusual areas of distribution.
  • Lulu.com will do full service, but partners with Ingrahm, and there are charges.
  • Ingrahm is full service as well, and charges.  It’s probably a better choice than Lulu these days.

Publish Lots Of Stuff

Like it or not your goal as a creator is to be noticed so people get ahold of your work and benefit from it.  This means that you may need to create lots of works to get attention – or use work that you aren’t making public to do the same.

For instance, I realized that a lot of my blog ideas were better off as books – or could be turned into books.  There was far more benefit to turning certain ideas into small books (or expanding existing work into books) than letting things sit.  Some things just work better as a book anyway, and I have more works that people can get their hands on.

(Plus, the polishing that goes into a book made them, honestly, higher quality.)

If you’re an artist it’s probably the same thing, depending on your market.  If you have lots of different things to sell and buy and do you increase your chance to get more sold. 

Remember that this ties into having series as well.  Don’t just publish lots of stuff, tie it together as series.

Advertising (Mostly for Authors)

I’ve used both Google ads and Amazon for books, though it’s been awhile since I’ve done Google (and I may want to try again).  I have done a lot with AMS, or Amazon Marketing Services.

AMS lets you set up promotional ads to appear during searches or on pages of specific projects, and you can set up keywords, targets, and even decide what to pay for a clickthrough.  It’s a pretty advanced tool, and though it obviously only targets Amazon, that’s a pretty big market!  The challenge is that you have to figure out the right words, monitor progress (to avoid overspending or waste), and tweak marketing for each book.

I’ve found it effective, but it takes a lot of work.  What I do is update AMS every month or so with new terms, shut off ones that aren’t working, and try to get an idea of what works.  You can download data from each ad you set up, and then make a new ad with just the data that worked.  You honestly need to start with 100-200 search terms to get it working.

Done right, I find AMS yields roughly $2 in sales or more for each $1 spent – as long as you tweak the advertising, cancel bad projects, and keep learning.

More To Come

That’s my latest!  I hope it helps you out!

Steven Savage



Make It So: Relocation Panels For Cons

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

As I note in Fan To Pro, a convention is a great way to scout an area for relocation. You get to visit an area, see how it handles a crowd, meet people, and of course know if the geekery there is for you. A con is good research – among all the other benefits.

This got me thinking – and helped me revive my old Make It So columns.

We need relocation panels at Conventions. Not how to relocate or why, but how to relocate to the area the convention is being held in. Yes, I’m assuming that area is worth relocating to, so work with me here.

So let’s work on a format idea!

First, who would host it? Obviously people living in the area, at least some of them being being that relocated to wherever the con is being held. You want specific testimonies from people in the know and who went through the process of relocating.

Secondly, some of the panel has to be specific testimonies from the people above. You need people to discuss their experiences, challenges, and techniques from living in and/or moving to the area.

Third, subject matter. Here’s a few things that should be covered – interspaced with real stories:

  • Employment and employment options – and challenges.
  • Major employers of all kind – corporate, government, education.
  • Living expenses and what they’re like.
  • Best places to live. You may want to add a bit of what not to do if there’s anything to really avoid.
  • Walkability, public transportation, and other ways to get around.
  • Trends in employment, living, etc. For instance if some places are getting pricier, etc.
  • Social opportunities – cons (obviously), clubs, etc.
  • Cultural opportunities like museums, libraries, and so on.
  • Food, dining, cuisine.
  • Moving tips and advice.

Fourth, have a handout of some kind with all of the above or put it online. The convention might even host it on their website, especially if this becomes a permanent thing.

Done properly, a Relocation Panel would be an awesome addition to the right cons in the right areas. It’d help attendees out, help people share their knowledge, and these days we need all the help we can get living and job-wise.

Keep it in mind, and let me know if you try it . .

Steven Savage

It’s Fine To Spend Money

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

America has a weird approach to money.  On one level, we love to spend it (if we have it) to judge by the things that people buy.  On another level, we continuously shame people for buying things. It’s a strange duality – until you think about it for a few minutes.

Americans believe money is a measure of virtue.  We believe having it shows virtue (even if someone inherited it or made it in questionable ways).  We believe spending it somehow shows virtue as long as it’s the right things.  To have money and spend it has a weird moral quality – if you’re the right person or kind of person.

On the other hand, we view the wrong people spending things on the wrong things to be bad.  Millennials get constantly bashed for A) wasting money while B) killing industries by not buying stuff they can’t afford anyway.  I’m sure you’ve encountered various cases of some scold telling you not to buy things – that they, of course, would do.

Me, I’m frugal.  OK, I’m quite cheap in some ways.  I am the last person to tell someone to spend money for no good reason.  So I’d like to chime in that it’s damn fine to spend money on things because sometimes it makes sense and is better than saving it.  Use this the next time you feel guilty, or some jerk decides to make you feel guilty.

Here’s where I think it’s damned fine to spend money.

Sometimes it’s fun.  There’s nothing wrong with fun.  People need more fun in their lives as far as I’m concerned.  So go, spend, have fun.

Sometimes it’s therapeutic.  I mean if a bar of chocolate or a mimosa makes you feel better, spend the money.  Indulge, feel better – I learned from my studies on diet and exercise that indulgences can be incredibly valuable to sanity.

It saves time.  Pay for that food to be delivered, pay for that restaurant to send you a pizza, spring for postage.  If time is money, sometimes you have to spend money to save time.

Capability.  Maybe you need to spend money on something you can’t do yourself due to not having the skills, illness, physical limitations, etc.  Know what, it’s fine to spring for someone to clean the apartment if you can’t, I mean seriously.

Cost-benefit.  Sometimes you get more out of spending money than not doing it.  That reasonably priced laptop that lets you send email, do your job search, practice your skills, etc. is worth it.

Sometimes you must do it.  Look sometimes stuff costs money and you can’t go without that stuff.  Don’t let the scolds tell you not to do it.

Temporary situations.  If you get sick and have to order out, fine, spend money.  Must change apartments because of a job move, fine, pay the move fees.  Spending money is not always a constant; sometimes it’s temporary.

Spending money as fine.  As an official skinflint, a man that has an involvement with spreadsheets bordering on the romantic, please, spend money.  Don’t listen to the scolds and the puritans who want to tell you what not to do so they can feel superior (and often they have money and positions that you don’t).

I’m all for frugality.  I’m all for careful spending.  But money is just a tool, and sometimes you gotta open the toolkit.  

Steven Savage