Eight days to The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn is released. Time for an update of my ad plans.

The issue was, and still is, how best to spend my ad money? No surprise; the core issue in all advertising is deciding how much money to spend, where? 

I've researched social media sites including LinkedIn and Facebook, thinking I would try something on both of them.

More recently, I came across book specific sites such as BookBub and LibraryThing, along with GoodReads, all focused on books and people who like to read books.

Book readers don't just want to read any book, they want to read the kinds of books that appeal to them.

Sites specific to books and book readers provide the level of detail required to define a target audience, which is not as true for LI, FB, and other mass social media sites.

As much as I've learned about where to advertise, there is still so much I don't know. So, come October 15, I will start a week trial of ads on Facebook and BookBub, spending more on each than I ever thought I would a few months ago.

I've come this far, there's no turning back. 

But you could. To learn more, spend some time on the Career Authors site. 

Earlier posts here have documented my navigating the world of book marketing.

On the one hand, not that different from marketing any product.

You have to increase awareness of what you are selling among potential buyers, hoping a large enough number of them will buy it to cover costs.

When it comes to book marketing, what is different is how you accomplish that.

You could pay for TV and/or radio ads. You could do mass mailings of printed material. You could attempt to get book stores to host you signing books in their store.

You could, but you won't do any of that.

Radio/TV ads and mass mailings would be incredibly inefficient. The cost per sale exorbitant!

Instead, you have a plethora of online marketing tools specifically relating to book marketing, available to you. You will be able to afford many, but not all of them.

The challenge is  determining which will work best for you. I'm at that stage now two weeks ahead of my book launch.

I'm narrowing down the list of possible ways to place my marketing "bets" (an analogy to gambling is very appropriate.) The best I can say is, it will be a case of trial and error.

I will update you on what does and does not work for me as it happens. For now, consider the math of me spending my money to market my book sold on Amazon, both digital and print versions.

The starting price for a digital Kindle copy of The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn will be $6.99 in the US, somewhat more or less in countries outside the US. For each book sold at that price, I will receive $4.84, also more or less as the price varies.

The starting price of a paperback print copy will be $14.95 in the US, again, more or less elsewhere. I will receive $4.80 that sale. 

(Why less than the digital copy? A large part of it is $4.17 cost to print. When it comes to marketing, creating, and producing your book, nothing is free.)

I can run ads in a number of places including Amazon, GoodReads, LinkedIn, Facebook, Apple, and many, many more sites too numerous to name here. Lets just pick an anonymous advertising platform as being indicative of what they'll all be like.

I decide how much I'm willing to spend; $400 over 10 days, $40 a day on average. My ad will be competing with those of others selling their books. Some will spend more than me, others less.

The ad platforms tell you how many impressions you can expect for the amount you are willing to spend. In old school advertising lingo that's "reach". They will also tell you approximately how many times your ad will potentially be seen, which is old school "frequency".

What they can't tell you is how many books you can reasonably expect to sell. No one can; that depends on a number of unknowns not the least of which is how good your book is.

But we can make some assumptions.

There are four "moving parts".

1. The number of people who see your ad, referred to as "impressions".
2. The number who click on your ad, called "engagement".
3. The number of those who engage and buy your book.
4. The ratio of those who buy the digital version versus those who buy a print copy.

Assume the ad generates 3,000 impressions (people who see the ad). Of this, assume 300 people will "engage" (they click on it to learn more).  And finally, assume 10% of the 300, 30 people, will buy the book, 75% a digital copy, 25% print.

I'll spare you doing the math. My example $400 advertising investment would produce $144.90 revenue. That's sales, not profit, which in this example, is a $255.10 deficit.

Do you think the number of impressions is too low, maybe the engagement and purchase figures as well? Spend a little time with Chris McMullen.

There are other mitigating factors to consider.

​If you run a campaign over time, things might improve. So too might they if you are actively recruiting people to marketing material you've created, such as that on the book's website, your mailing lists, and contacts on the sites where you advertise.

So what does this mean to you?

If you are overly optimistic, if you do not have reasonable assumptions regarding costs and sales before you start spending money, if you do not have a plan, your chances of success will be significantly less than if you do.

Write the best book possible, have it professionally edited, read by beta readers whose recommendations and suggestions you seriously consider.

Make a plan to support it investing in marketing including such things as a video blurb, professionally designed cover, advertising, advanced reader copy distribution, and public relations.

​Do honest math regarding what all this will cost relative to reasonable expectations for sales. 

If you can accept what that tells you, you've done all you can.

I wish you and your book, me and mine, the best of luck!  ​

Approximately three weeks from now Raymond's story becomes available.

Until it is, and for some time after, I am busy recruiting those who would be interested in reading and reviewing what's taken me 5 + years to write.

If you'd like to be a part of that head over to NetGalley or Get Books Reviewed to register. You'll read Raymond's story for free and I'll appreciate hearing what you think.

​You'll also find an increasing catalog of great books you can read and review at no cost from authors like me looking for readers like you to the benefit of us all.

Thank you in advance.  

Raymond's story is about making decisions; those he did, those he did not (remember, NOT making a decision is a decision nevertheless.)

We don't use decision trees to guide our lives, but if we did, I expect it would look similar to this one 1,000,000 X more complicated.

​Raymond was given the opportunity to relive some of his life decisions. How different would your life be given that same opportunity?

​When I began writing Raymond's story 5+ years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. My only self-publishing knowledge came from my previous experience writing and publishing "The 7 Keys to Change" in 2013.

So, so much has changed since then, mostly having to do with what is equally important to writing the best book possible, knowing how to market it.

I created a book page on Facebook devoted to sharing what I've learned with others writing their own books. The posts there reflect what I needed to know as I stumbled through the "now that it's written, how do I market it?" phase.

I'm still stumbling, still learning to give the book it's best shot at success.

If you're a first time author, or soon to be one, it might help you to spend some time on The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn page.

Paraphrasing and slightly altering a line from Bob Seger's "Against the Wind", if I had known now what I didn't know then, things would have been much easier for me.

You'll find much of what that is on the RQ page.

Each year, approximately 2,000,000 additional self-published books are added to the estimated 10,000,000 available as of 2023.

​The great majority are by unknown authors such as myself.

So when someone or a company helps increase awareness of the authors and their books, it warrants a thank you.
​
Thank you Book Reader Magazine!

Well, ok, "poor, struggling" overstates things a bit, but if that's what got you reading this, so be it.

The success of most any new book is getting positive reviews. Getting reviews is easy for established authors, not so much for the rest of us.

One way to do that is to offer Advance Reader Copies (ARC's) at no charge. The reader gets a free book to read, the author (hopefully) gets a positive review, which encourages others to buy and read the book.

I can use your help.

If you're willing, head over to BookSprout where you can pick up free a copy of my soon to be released "The Unlived Lives of Raymond Quinn".
​
​Like it or not (I think you will), I appreciate you taking the time to post a review on any digital book site you prefer (Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, etc.)
​

The concept of parallel universes gets very confusing very quickly; take a look at the Many Worlds Theory. But you don't have to go down that rabbit hole to understand the layman's explanation. 

If parallel universes exist, there could be an unlimited number of you and me "living" somewhat to very different lives in them based on the choices we've made and not made.

Possibly the best movie interpretation of this is Back to the Future I, II, and III. What could be more that than Marty McFly encountering himself, family, and friends, in the past, present, and future?

Just as Katelyn Tarver does in a video of the same name.

Raymond's story has a puzzle hidden among all the words. If you enjoy doing puzzles you will enjoy reading his story.

When you assemble a puzzle you see the individual pieces, and must find how to put them all together. You don't see the complete picture until you put all the pieces where they belong.

There are no physical puzzle pieces in Raymond's story, but it is a puzzle nevertheless. The pieces are the individual interactions he has with others, and none more than with Asian. What they say and do to each other, and all the other characters, becomes clear to you when you reach the end.

If you read the book, read carefully, paying attention to the detail. Do that, and you will be rewarded with the ending.

​You will look back at what you read, saying (hopefully to yourself), "OK, now I understand!

​I initially thought I would use a company in the US to produce a video blurb. The one I chose offered tiered pricing ranging from $500 to well over $2,000. I was planning to go with the $1,000 level.

But after asking questions their contact would not answer ("We can get into that after you sign up and provide payment") I looked elsewhere.

So glad I did, and that I found Pranay Bhagwat. (https://fiverr.com/s/R7qz71w)

If you're not familiar with Fiverr, become so. There is a lot of talent there to help you with many of the things you need to do in support of your book, video blurbs included.