Category Archives: Marketing

Marketing, Non-Fiction/Documentary, Uncategorized

The State of Online Writer/Author Spaces

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I quit Farceborg and Twatter cold turkey circa 2013. Never got rid of the Twatter account. Had to dust it off when a friend gave me a lead on a possible artist for a graphic novel project. So I got back on and was surprised to discover there’s some right-wingers tweeting over there. Also a whole lot of authors and some readers.

There must be dozens of writers who host #shamelessselfpromotion threads there. Every single day, it turns out. At first I jumped on, because I could always use new readers, especially for my new series. Now it’s dawning on me that there probably aren’t any readers/buyers who look at any of those threads. It’s like most other thirsty writer spaces–a bunch of tryhards pimping their wares without even reading what others post.

It’s one heck of a reader-friendly market out there. Unfortunately, most of the literature out there is mediocre or worse, written by tradpub wannabes/imitators. And authors seem to outnumber readers by maybe 5-to-1.

I had a group on MeWe but didn’t have the time (or personality) to manage it, and it became one of those shooting galleries for thirsty authors. A ghost town where everybody self-promotes but nobody reads, responds, or even clicks “like” buttons. I didn’t want to have a bunch of rules or be the content cop, but human nature being what it is, I guess that’s what you have to do if you want a quality space with interest, engagement, value, etc.

The book-related groups on Gab (that I’m still a member of) are mostly the same–no conversations, no sharing, just thirsty authors shooting their full auto promotion guns into the ghost town.

In conclusion…just kidding–I don’t have a coherent conclusion.

I suspect a lot of us are Generation X, and even though we are on “social” media, we just can’t overcome our survivalist “look out for #1” mindset.  We’re not networking, or “building relationships,” we’re fishing. And we’ve depleted the fishing hole’s already-shrinking population of literate consumers by inundating them with bait and lures. I guess.

Too bad, It would be nice to have those conversations and take a break from the sellsellsell! mania.

Adventure, Marketing, Time Travel

The (Short) Story of a Bestseller, in Pictures

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Part of the story has been told in previous posts.  It turned out that November would be the best month for the debut of the first book in the Paradox series. When I had a publish date, my next step was to arrange a promotion.

I hate marketing; I’m not good at it; but it’s one of those pesky chores you just have to do if you want folks to know your book exists, so I did what I could. My hope was to assemble a package of promotions that would overlap and feed each other seamlessly.

That didn’t work too well early on. I got some sales that bumped my sales rank, but it petered out before the next promotion kicked in. I was driving long hours on the 19th and couldn’t get my “smart” phone to take a screen shot. When I got to a place with an Internet connection I was able to take one with my laptop (I’m using Amazon to track sales, rankings, etc., because they update all that the fastest. Other sellers might give you sketchy info a week after the fact–which doesn’t help with this kind of data study).

The overall ranking had slipped by over 10,000 places by the time of this screen shot, but it never reached an impressive rank during this phase anyway.

The next phase began on the 21st. From early morning until about 2pm, the ranking continued to slip, down to about 220,000+ overall. Then, finally, evidence began to show up that the needle was finally moving upwards again.

 

Not a bestseller yet, but moving in the right direction with enough time left in the day to possibly get there. Two of my Retreads novels had already topped multiple categories at this point in their promotions, while the other one took a little longer (it got harder every time to reach the top, though all three did crack #1 bestseller rank). Then around 6pm I checked for a data update:

 

 

Top 100 in three categories was less than what I hoped for, but might possibly mean that the book was showing up where book shoppers could at least see it. And technically, it was now a bestseller.

Around 8pm, when the data updated again, Escaping Fate was  at #6 in Time Travel Science Fiction (for the Kindle); #25 in Time Travel Fiction (all formats); and #45 in Conspiracy Thrillers (all formats). Glass was half full.

 

This not being my first rodeo, I remembered to go to a bestseller’s page to grab a screen shot.

Here’s where I noticed a John Scalzi book was holding the #2 spot. My first encounter with Scalzi fiction was in a library many moons ago. I knew almost nothing about the author at the time, but after a reading a chapter or two, decided it was representative of everything wrong with the pozzed, woke publishing industry. Later, after discovering Vox Day’s blog, I learned more about the author and discovered my instinctive assessment was spot-on. Long story short, I thought it would be a satisfying coup if my underdog politically incorrect heteronormative red-blooded right-wing indie novel could unseat his gatekeeper-approved Establishment Left cookie-cutter book from that #2 slot.

Lo and behold, at 11:30ish pm…

Not only was it sitting at #2 in Time Travel Science Fiction (Kindle), but it was now designated as the “#1 New Release.” So a quick re-visit to the Bestseller’s Page was in order.

And there you can see Escaping Fate sitting at #2 with Gay Time Between the SJWs coming in 3rd. I wanted to stay up and see if it would hit #1 that night, but pooped out and went to bed.

I’ll probably never know if it cracked #1 in that category for a hot second–unless one of my readers just happened to be grabbing screen shots in that corner of the Web right then, and sends me one.

It had slid down to #3 the next morning when I checked it, and held that position throughout the day–so in that respect, at least, my promotion package has managed to sustain a decent ranking for a while. Not bad for a one-man operation cutting against the grain with none of the advantages handed out to the woketard authors.

On the subject of bestsellers, it hasn’t met with the same success as my Retreads novels (yet), but it’s a pretty strong launch, and the series is just getting started. I’ll call this one a “W”.

BTW, heartfelt thanks to the readers who have posted reviews. Those help immensely with visibility.  I’ve written about the importance of reviews before and elsewhere, and groused about what’s been happening to mine, so will spare you that this time.

Fantasy, Marketing

Buy Big Based Books on Black Friday, Bro!

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Actually, you can buy them from November 22nd-29th.

As word spreads about the Big Based Book Sale, this one might be the biggest and best yet.

The books offered are, at the very minimum, void of PC content. Some, like Schantz’s own novels, actually serve up direct counter-arguments to the shibboleths of a PC worldview. In his novels, these might be reflected in the narrative arc or in the dialogue itself. (His young adult trilogy, The Hidden Truth, for instance, is predicated on the reality of a globalist cabal, while his fictional high school students debate topics such as why or why not women should have the vote.) In the end, I imagine that all of the authors offering their works for this event approach being “based” differently.

BTW, I have finished The Hidden Truth and highly recommend it. I’ll post a review here in the near future. Hans G. Schantz has also made 49 chapters (so far) from The Wise of Heart available to read for free on Arkhaven and his substack.

Marketing, Reviews

An Invitation to Readers and Fans

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If you like to read, but you’re not on BookBub yet, you really ought to check it out. Their website is just part of it, but there you can search for book titles, authors, and by genre. Even better, you can find book recommendations from authors you already like. If you like what I write, for instance, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll like reading some of the books I’ve enjoyed.

If you subscribe to their newsletter, BookBub will alert you when books are going on sale–sometimes for free.

Goodreads was meant to be a place for booklovers to discover good books, and interact with other avid readers. You may find it more useful than I have, but I find my time better spent at Bookbub. And I plan to spend more time there in the future, follow more authors, get some recommendations on books, and do some recommending of my own. I’ve been on a sort of Sabbatical for the last few years, doing life, tackling various projects, and writing Paradox. For the next several weeks (months?) I’ll be getting books ready for publication, but then I hope to be more active on BookBub.

Why not follow me there? I’ve got a handful of new titles coming out in the near future, and BB can alert you when they’re available. And about price promotions.

I do have an email list, but I don’t have a newsletter and I hate hate hate acting like a spammer and flooding your email inbox with messages. I’ve had so many people (especially authors) do that to me that I dread checking my email sometimes. Sometimes I’ll set aside time to just unsubscribe from all the people burying me under thirsty promotion emails–but it’s kinda’ like cutting heads off the Hydra.

I will send out emails when I have a new book (and I’ll be better about letting folks know when books go on sale), but with the BookBub newsletter, you’ll also learn about other new books you might wanna check out. I’ve got a button now on the right sidebar to follow me, or click right here.

Marketing, Sports, Time Travel

Escaping Fate Is Available for Pre-Order

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The first book in Paradox (my epic sci-fi conspiracy thriller/sports/adventure series) goes live before Thanksgiving, but you can be the first on your block to lock it in now.

Pete Bedauern began his life as a latchkey kid in a run-down trailer park with a single mom, living on stale hot dog buns and bleak prospects. Those were the cards Fate had dealt him, and Pete was on his way to becoming an angry young man. Then Pete’s estranged uncle burst on the scene to punch Fate in the mouth.

Uncle Si is scarred inside and out; he’s a hard drinker; painfully blunt; a little mysterious and maybe even scary, but takes an interest in his nephew that Pete’s father never took. Most of Uncle Si’s life is a secret, but through the part of it he shares, Pete undergoes a master course on life, love, and full-contact sports.

As it turns out, Uncle Si not only has tons of money, multiple businesses, and a fleet of fast cars, he also owns a time machine.

Paradox is one good-hearted-but-alienated boy’s odyssey into manhood, and Escaping Fate is the opening leg of that journey. Before it’s complete, Pete will learn the guarded secrets of history, take on a pan-continuum conspiracy, contend for a world championship, crack the code for success with women…and even save the world.

Well, one world, maybe…

Book II in the Paradox series (Rebooting Fate) might be ready by Christmas. They’re all written–just need some tweaking before they’re  ready for prime time.

Escaping Fate is for sale on Amazon, as well as the other e-book stores through this universal book link. Paperback editions will be coming along soon. Thanks to all my readers for your support over the years, and for staying loyal during my eight-year hiatus which is thankfully now coming to an end.

Marketing

Cover Prototype & Title Shuffle

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Last night during my typical bout of insomnia, I did some brainstorming about the books, the covers, titles, etc. I’m now gonna call the first book Escaping Fate. The second one will be Rebooting Fate. It makes more sense, I think, given how the master volume is broken up. Here’s a cover for the series debut:

I’m trying to keep the variety of colors on the cover to a minimum, per current wisdom. But I plan to change the font color with each installment, so that will become a bigger and bigger challenge as the series goes on.

Been doing some research on cover design in the time travel genre. There is some diversity there. If it’s more literary, serif fonts are used. Time travel romance uses fancier serif fonts–sometimes even script. Both of those offshoots use warmer colors in the art and font. The rest of the genre uses thin sans serif fonts and a cool or cold color scheme.

My “artist” chose cold colors, so that’s what I’m working with. I did the first cover concept with one of the comic book fonts I bought.  It was kind of like the common sans serif fonts but informal, and I made it thicker for the title text. I wanted it to help convey that this is not any of the existing genre mixtures. It’s not hard science fiction, overly technical, or chick-lit time travel. Also far from safe and uncontroversial. So the font was a little risky, like the story itself. At least, that was my rationale.

Got some advice from an online friend and tried something else–what you see above.

To show how awful I am at marketing, it didn’t even occur to me to plug myself for my bestsellers, until it was suggested to me (thanks, MM). Well, duh. That should have been a no-brainer. It really does make a difference for many readers–the whole bandwagon approach to advertising is what bestseller lists came out of.

For those of you who are not authors, I’ll let you in on a secret: Most people who graduate high school never crack a book voluntarily for the rest of their lives. When you meet such people and they find out you are published, the first question out of their mouths is not what you write about, but whether you’ve written any bestsellers. They might never buy your book. They might never try to read it. But they definitely won’t if you’re not a bestselling author. If they have a passion for, say, horse racing, and Author A has written a novel about horse racing while Author B has written a novel about a retarded Serbian prostitute…which is a bestseller…then it’s not even a contest. Off into the world of retarded Serbian prostitution they go!

The latest advice is to use one other font for about half the text on the page. I think I’ll experiment with that, too. So this probably won’t be the final version.

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Marketing, Military

Time Running Out on the Big Based Book Sale!

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The Big Based Book Sale ends tomorrow. You still have time to save money on some good reads by non-woke authors.

And despite it being mostly a sci-fi/fantasy deal, my Retreads trilogy made the Top Ten in sales. If you haven’t picked up my paramilitary adventures, now’s a good time to get those for cheap, too. (Not just on Amazon, BTW. There are universal book links on the “Books” page right here at Virtual Pulp.)

My thanks to Hans Schantz for putting this sale together. Hopefully the first novel in my new series will be ready by the time of his next sale. Or the one after that…