Category Archives: Promotion

Repeat After Me: We’re All Different. I’m not.

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Life of Brian

I was ahead of the curve and I blew it. Six months before Amanda Hocking and John Locke stunned the publishing world by selling millions of self-pubbed eBooks, I predicted this would happen. In fact, I’d hoped it would happen to me. I knew that there would be a small window when not too many authors would choose the less traditional route of indie-publishing. They would still be busy adding their manuscripts to the slush pile. I wanted to be one of the first through the indie-publishing gate. All those avid readers with their new Kindles would turn to my economically priced eBook and give it a try instead of paying ten bucks for a traditionally published book.

But six months is a long time in the heady world of e-publishing. During that time I indie-pubbed a few of my previously published short stories and fought to edit my way through my novel set in Afghanistan. But when the New York Times started writing articles about Hocking and Locke, I knew I was far too late to be ahead of the curve. Now I’m riding out the tsunami.

Within a few months millions of indie-pubbed authors joined the rush, all out there flogging their novels almost overnight. But what fascinates me is how unoriginal we are with our marketing. I’m just as guilty as everyone else.

First we cobble together a website. Then we start a blog. Thanks for reading, by the way. Next are the Facebook and Twitter accounts. We join tweet groups and we follow each other. I’d say about 80% of my Twitter followers are writers, 5% are self-proclaimed “social marketing experts,” and the rest are spam bots. Some authors go the extra mile and make book trailers, although these usually consist of zooming and panning shots of stock images overwritten with text and playing the ubiquitous canned music. Dull.

I don’t even read my regular twitter feed any more because it’s so jammed with pleas to buy this author or that author’s novel. The rest of the feed consist of links to blog posts like this one. Yup. Mea Cupla.

I do have a list from Twitter for authors I admire. I also have a list for runners, and another for friends so that I can still use Twitter to keep up on neighborhood gossip. I don’t flog my novels on Twitter anymore out of respect for my friends and the fact that all those authors who follow me aren’t interested in buying books, they’re just interested in selling. One author even sent me a direct message asking me to “like” her Facebook page and promising to “like” mine in return. I did and sent her a tweet to let her know, but she didn’t “like” back. Hopefully it was an oversight, but I’m suspicious it was just self-centered. Anything that didn’t immediately forward her career wasn’t worth the bother.

So I feel like I’m at Brian’s sermon in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. He’s trying to get the crowd to go away and says, “Listen, you’re all individuals.” Like robots everyone replies, “We’re all individuals.” He continues, “You’re all different.” Crowd replies, “We’re all different.”  Then one man puts up his hand and says, “I’m not.” He proves he is different by denying it. Brilliant comedy. Thanks to Youtube, you can see for yourself. Here’s the one minute segment.

I want to be that guy who stands out by not doing exactly what everyone else is doing.  It won’t be easy. It won’t necessarily sell novels, but I have a plan. I can’t tell you what it is just yet, because it’s not ready to go, and I don’t want to find out that in the time it took me to launch, a hundred-thousand other authors are doing it too.

So for now I’m trying to stand out by doing not much of anything. I’m not tweeting pleas to buy my books, because it rarely resulted in sales and just irritated my friends. I will keep writing my blog, because I’m a compulsive writer, and of course I’ll keep writing the rest of the 1000 Souls series. That’s what my plan really needs: product. No point in being successful if all I have to offer is three of novels and an anthology of previously published short stories.

So I’m going to try to be different. It won’t be easy because the lure of the well-trodden path is tempting, but it’ll be interesting for me, at least. I’ll keep you posted.

Too British to Brag?

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SFContario Three: A Cosy Con

I’m actually not British but rather a total colonial mutt. However, my roots on my mother’s side do go back that way, so perhaps that’s why I’m not screaming at the top of my lungs: “I’m the SFContario 3 Idol!” Okay, there, I said it.

I have a new respect for those daring people who perform for American Idol, willing to stand there and accept the verdict of caustic judges while attempting to look like they aren’t being humiliated for our entertainment. I at least had the benefit of anonymity, and even then I’ve never been so terrified in my life, and between working on high-steel bridges as a teenager and visiting war torn countries…hey, maybe I can brag, just not about my writing!

The judges for our competition sat at the front of an overcrowded and hot room, while a con organizer, in this case Debra Yeung, read the entries, each one only the first 250 words of an author’s manuscript. Since no one knew who the authors were, we contestants didn’t have to admit to being the recipients of ridicule as the judges panned one story after another. Debra simply began reading an entry and kept going until three of the five judges gonged the story, usually after a paragraph. The judges would then each explain why they didn’t like the story, what kicked them out, and if there was hope, they’d make a suggestion as to where it could be approved.

I had submitted the opening for Generation Apocalypse, curious to see how it would be received. But when Debra started reading, I became very aware of my heart beat. Amusingly, the judges had earlier warned writers not to use cliches like, “his heart beat faster,” to illustrate how a protagonist felt. But what can I say? I’m a marathoner (hey, this bragging is easy!) and I’m very aware of my heart beat, and this was a slow heavy thump. I swear I could feel it pushing against my rib cage in waves. I waited for that first judge to gong, which usually caused a cascade of gongs from the other judges.

But it didn’t come. The room went silent, and Debra read far past the 250 words allowed. I next expected them to gong because I had submitted too much, nearly 900 words to get to the end of the first prologue. Still Debra continued to read, and the silence in the room deepened. No one shifted, coughed or flipped through their program book. That’s when my hope rose, tempered with disbelief. Did I have them? I had them! Debra reached the end of the prologue and one of the judges said, “go on!” To which Debra replied, “that’s all there is.” The audience burst into spontaneous applause, and I joined in an effort to stay anonymous. Why? I was embarrassed at the praise. It must have been those diluted British genes making themselves known.

But one of the judges, Author Douglas Smith, asked if the writer would be willing to reveal themselves. Now I couldn’t stand there and pretend I wasn’t the guy. After a pregnant pause to gather my nerve, I put up one hand. The audience gave me another round of applause. I was overwhelmed.

But I’m also a lousy marketer. Doug did his best to save me from my humble self. He asked me if this was from a novel. Yes. He asked if it was available for sale, again, embarrassed at the attention, I just said, “yes, as an ebook.” I failed to tell the audience the title, or that it was on Amazon, or anything else that would be helpful if they wanted to buy the book. As soon as the contest was over I simply fled the room and rushed out to the street to call my wife.

I should have been shouting about this all week, but the British genes held me back. Oh well. Maybe I’ll get better at bragging. This blog post is a start. I’m an SFContario3 Idol! Will it make me rich and famous? No. But I cherish the memory of the five minutes of captivated quiet in that room.

Friday Funny: Preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse is a Good Idea. No, Really!

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I have a confession to make. I don’t believe there’s going to be a zombie apocalypse. I do, however, believe in pandemics, floods, hurricanes, huge power blackouts and slow government responses.

A fellow writer once commented on my apocalyptic stories by saying, “It wouldn’t all fall apart so quickly. We have governments that would intervene.” After Katrina hit New Orleans, and the stories of a city in chaos from the flood hit the 24hr news cycle, he apologized. He was amazed that a huge country with an operating federal government couldn’t seem to come to grips with the disaster for weeks. It wasn’t just that stores were looted, it was that people weren’t being rescued, were totally left to fend for themselves.

I also remember the great blackout of 2003. The phones still worked, but I discovered I had no way to get news about the size and scope of the black out. I got lucky and managed to find eight batteries in my “dead” battery bin that had enough charge to power a radio. I had absolutely no other supplies. I was totally unprepared.

But not anymore. The Zombie Survival Crew tweet to me about having an escape route in case of attack, and I think it’s a good idea. Seriously, what if a bigger, longer blackout hit my city? How would I get my family out of the chaos? I’ve come up with a plan.

First, the highways will be blocked. Hey, they’re totally blocked during morning and afternoon rush hour now, why would the apocalypse be any different? So instead of trying to head north out of the city, I’d head south for the lake, which isn’t that far from my downtown Toronto home. No, I don’t own a boat, but if it is a true apocalypse and my family were in danger, I’d either negotiate with an owner, hitch a ride, or liberate a boat. I’ve already picked out a convenient marina. Then I’d head east, making for the coast of Lake Ontario near the Trenton Air Force Base. If there is any order left in the province, it will be there. Trenton also has a power dam and may actually have electricity. If not, there are two highways that head north from that area into very sparsely populated countryside, mostly through farmland at first, but after that rugged cottage country. Yes, remote empty cottages.

But is that enough? People send me stuff, and this one made me laugh. How to survive the zombie apocalypse from your pole barn. Yes, they’re trying to sell prefab barns, but at least they have a sense of humor about it. The best part is at the end, when they list one of their sources as “a coworker who has watched Shaun of the Dead too many times.” I also loved their comments on who you don’t want with you: “People in the entertainment industry (actors, singers, models, etc.), People in useless white collar trades like SEOs, marketing professionals, accountants, and salesmen.” I actually would take one salesman with me, but that’s because he’s family and he’s actually pretty savvy.

So prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse. Keep some water and canned food ready. Plan an escape route from your city. And if it actually turns out that I’m wrong and it is a zombie apocalypse, remember that your shed full of gardening tools like axes and shovels is your best source of anti-zombie devices.  Have a great weekend.

Thanks for a Great Day

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The film industry is a great place for a writer who doesn’t want a full time job. I loved it because I spent a lot of time as a daily, going from show to show on a moment’s notice, working on everything from big feature films to YTV kids’ shows. One tradition I noticed was that when the day was over, the regular crew often said to me, “Thanks for a great day.” There was always a sense of relief and it was a sincere compliment. They were happy that I was the guy the union dregged up, and they wanted me to know they appreciated my work. Eventually I did succumb to the lure of money and worked full time on a bunch of shows, and I always continued that tradition when I had extra crew out to operate extra cameras. Thanks for a great day.

29 for Action/Adventure, 51 for Horror! Yeah!

So hey, to all you wonderful people who downloaded Generation Apocalypse last Friday during my promotion day: Thanks for a great day! We reached 29 on the free bestseller list for Action/Adventure and 51 for Horror.

But I’ve been reading Cheryl Kaye Tardiff’s book on how she spiked her sales, and she warns that just doing one free day in a row is wasting momentum. She shows that from her experience, it’s best to break up the five free days granted by the KDP Select contract into two promotions-one for three days and one for two days. Full disclosure here: Tardiff was a fellow member of the Crime Writers of Canada, and while we’ve never met in person, I’ve communicated with her in years past via the CWC Yahoo group, and we’ve probably been in the same room a few times at the Bloody Words Mystery Convention.

I’ll learn from her success. My next promotional day will be two days long. I just have to pick the days and start promoting to ensure another great day.

Marketing Lessons from Missoula, Montana

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Pearl Jam Ten Guy found alive and well at U of Montana Campus

I have a confession to make: I’m not as big a Pearl Jam fan as my wife, or at least I wasn’t until I went to Missoula, Montana. I liked their music before, and I thought they were talented, but I wasn’t a dedicated fan. I didn’t go looking on iTunes for their music.

But excellent marketing changed all that. I’m a lousy marketer, but here’s what I learned in Missoula:

Lesson One: Love what you do. Pearl Jam loves to play music, especially when in the presence their fans. I know that sounds obvious, but friends still speak bitterly of an R.E.M. concert they attended during which the band made it plain that being up on stage was a nuisance that had to be gotten through as quickly as possible, like painting a bedroom or mowing a lawn. Perhaps they were just too exhausted from all the touring. I bet they lost fans at that concert.

Pearl Jam’s performance in Missoula was the opposite. They were having a blast, as if they had just made it to the big time, as if touring was a new adventure. They played their music excellently, better live than even their studio recorded songs. By the end I had changed from a lukewarm fan to a dedicated fan. I want to go to another concert to hear songs they didn’t play in Missoula. I want to buy more of their music.

Lesson Two: Be dedicated to your fans. Pearl Jam runs a fan club, the Ten Club, and those fans pay to be members and get perks, not freebies, but perks, like early access to ticket sales and discounted merch. In Susan’s case, they had a lottery for good seats in Missoula, and she was one of the lucky winners. We still had to pay for the seats, which weren’t expensive, and we had a great view of the stage. We felt special.

Lesson Three: Market to your fans. Pearl Jam marketed the Missoula concert first to their Ten Club members, and they sold the tickets in pairs. We needed I.D. to pick up these tickets at the Will Call, so the scalpers were totally knee-capped. I met people from all over America and Canada, and many were like Susan and I, one rabid fan, and one lukewarm–soon to be rabid–fan. Not only did this increase their fan base, but at the concert they were surrounded by an exceptionally receptive audience. The local newspaper, the Missoulian, described it as a 6000-voice-strong sing along. Dedicated fans know all the words.

But the band was also fair and reserved a block of seats that had to be purchased in person, so that people from Missoula could also attend the biggest event in town that weekend. Once in the Adams Center, which is on the University of Montana campus, they were very likely converted from curious onlookers to music purchasing fans, which explains why a band that just celebrated its twentieth anniversary has fans that weren’t born when Pearl Jam performed their first concert.

Lesson Four: Reward Your Fans: The lights came up and the band played on, rewarding us with several more songs. Eddie tossed tambourines into the crowd, but not randomly. He chose each recipient with care. One man in a wheelchair couldn’t possibly compete for one, so Eddie talked to a closer fan, tossed him the coveted tambourine, which he in turn tossed high up the seats to the man in the wheelchair. But Eddie wasn’t done. He called to the go-between fan and followed up with one for him, a reward for being cool and giving up the tambourine as requested even though he had briefly held it. I loved it. The crowd loved it.

How will I apply all these lessons to marketing my novels? I’m still working on that, and I’m open to suggestions, but the biggest lesson I take from that concert is to be genuine. None of this felt contrived or engineered. It just was. That’s what makes it great.

Thanks to all for a Great Week

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The launch of Generation Apocalypse has been a hectic and exciting time. While we aren’t even close to breaking Stephen King’s average sales for a single hour, it has been a personal best for me, and it was fun to see the novel quickly climb to 15,000 on the Amazon best seller rank. I admit that’s not record breaking for a lot of novels (No Easy Hope, a zombie novel I keep tabs on, has been around the 1500 mark for about a year) but it’s nice to see my sales improving with each launch.

15,277 Paid in the Kindle Store

Our bestseller rank has dropped over the last two days, but I still have great hope for this novel. I’m lousy at marketing, but I once heard a marketing guru state that anyone can be good at marketing if they truly believe in their product. I truly believe Generation Apocalypse is a great read. I can’t wait to get deeply into writing book three of the 1000 Souls, let alone book five.

But the fun is not over. We’re going to launch a website for the 1000 Souls where you’ll be able to take the Ericsians determination to find out what soul-portion you host. We’ll have Youtube videos of Bertrand Allan warning of the apocalypse. We’re going to make the books come alive for everyone, whether they’ve read them or not.

They next few months will be a great adventure.

But first, we’re going to fly 3000 kilometers this weekend to Montana to attend a Pearl Jam concert. What’s that got to do with anything? Nothing. That’s the point.

Go For Launch!

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Three souls that just click, but only when they're needed

He had just turned ten when the world ended. At first it was fun, because some of the teachers stopped showing up at school. The principal, tall and angry, kept stuffing the students into the gym to watch movies, promising each day that next would be normal. Instead, fewer and fewer of Tevy’s friends came to school, and one day neither did the principal.

That is the opening of Generation Apocalypse, and I’m delighted to announce that it will launch on Friday September 21st. This Friday. Yup, only three months late, but I think you’ll discover that it was worth the wait.

Early reviews: one trusted reader described it as the best book I’ve ever written. Another raved about the opening and scattered complementary comments throughout the manuscript–something he rarely does. Even my wife, one of my toughest critics, thinks I’ve written a great book.

So here’s my shameless plan: If you’re a fan and you want to be part of the success of Generation Apocalypse, buy it on Friday September 21st, or Saturday the 22nd or Sunday the 23rd. That’s this weekend. Why these days? Because I’m trying to push the bestseller ranking on the book high and fast. Amazon helps those who helps themselves, and their system will automatically promote a book that’s selling.

Is this unfairly gaming the system? Absolutely not, because any author can do it. Indie authors can’t afford advertisements in the New York Times like the big six publishers, so we have to find other ways to get that sales bump at launch and create buzz.

If the book sucks it’ll sink anyway. I’ve tracked several authors through this process, and one thing I’ve discovered is that while an author can light the match, only readers can make the fire catch hold and burn brightly. If the sales taper off and Amazon’s promotions don’t help, their algorithm will drop a book from the most-favored status and it will die.

But I think we’ve got a winner. So buy early and buy often!

If you’re worried that you haven’t read book one of the series, Apocalypse Revolution, fear not. Generation Apocalypse can be read as a stand-alone novel. But I’m willing to bet you $2.99 that when you get to the end, you’ll want to read book one to find out how this all began.

Many thanks to all my fans for their e-mails of encouragement–and their gentle nudges to write faster–over the last three months. You inspire me.

 

Getting the Marketing Right

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I’ve got a confession to make: book two of the 1000 Souls series is ready to go, but I’m not going to launch it just yet. I apologize to my fans, some who’ve been on my Facebook page gently urging me to hurry up. I know I’ve missed several deadlines, and I hate to make people who are eager to read my novel wait just a little bit longer. I’m as eager for them to read it as they are.

Why am I holding back? Because I’m not good at marketing, and I’m trying to do better. Usually I get a novel up on Amazon as soon as it’s ready and try to do bits of marketing here and there after it’s available for sale. Besides being a challenge to squeeze these faint efforts in between the day job and the family, this half-hearted approach doesn’t build momentum. Every time I get the ball rolling, I wander off to take care of other things.

A traditional publisher would never ship a book out to stores without preparing the ground for sales. They send out copies for review, they get other authors to blurb, they take out ads, and they have a specific launch day and even a launch party.

Obviously I can’t afford ads in the New York Times, and Stephen King isn’t going to blurb for my book since he’s never heard of me, let alone  my books. But there are other marketing initiatives I can take.

First, I have a couple of websites I have to get in order: my publisher website and the novel site. I also need to write all the promotional material, which ends up being substantial, rather than adding it a bit at a time later.

Second, I need to do a proper launch. That means picking a launch day and letting people know in advance instead of after the fact. The idea here is to get all my friends, family and fans to purchase the novel on the launch day. This could give the novel quite a boost on the Amazon bestseller list. Is this gaming the system? You bet, but in a way that all authors and publishers try to get a bump in sales right off the bat.

I also want to contact each of my fans, especially the ones who have reviewed Apocalypse Revolution, and give them an Amazon gift certificate so that they can buy it on my tab. If they provide another good review it will be money well spent. Even if they just buy it, well, they’re buying it, which means I’m actually only paying 30% of the cost of the novel, and I get the bestseller rank boost. If you want a free copy, use the Contact Mike button above and let me know that you’re interested,  and I’ll see that you get one too. Fans, especially ones who’ve taken the time to write me and tell me how much they love my book, make this whole endeavor worth while.

I met with my business manager today over lunch (fortunately we’re married, so it was easy to arrange) and we discussed what had to be done by launch. After some scheduling debates,  we’ve pick a book-launch day.

So here’s the first big announcement. Drum roll please. Generation Apocalypse, Book Two of the 1000 Souls, launches on Friday, September 21st. It’s the best I’ve ever written. I love it. I hope you will too.

Look out world. Here they come.

Three souls that just click, but only when they're needed

Kindle e-books Rising

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Amazon announced yesterday that Kindle e-books are now outselling all formats of paper books (combined) in their UK store. They passed this mark a long time ago in the US, but people in the UK have been slower to buy Kindles and adopt electronic reading.

I’ve got a few haired-brained theories as to why UK readers have been slower on the up take. Perhaps they’re a more conservative country than they think, or perhaps they’ve been enthralled watching the slow-motion train wreck of the Euro. I imagine it’s no fun to witness your trading partners’ economies crash and burn. All those Brits who kept them out of the Euro and on the British pound can now take a bow.

The good news, of course, is that even though the adoption of e-reading in the UK has been slower than in America, it is happening. Perhaps that’s why my last free day saw a surprising number of UK downloads.

So I guess I better fill in my Amazon author page for the UK store and work on promotion across the pond. There are Kindles needing e-books.

Amazon’s Amazing and Scary Algorithm

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This is a cautionary tale for indie-authors.

Up until around June 23rd, Amazon used to auto-suggest Apocalypse Revolution to readers. For instance, when looking at a product page for a similar horror novel, readers would see this header below the cover page and description  “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought.” After that comes the row of about one hundred clickable thumb-nails of novels usually in the same genre. When checking out other horror/scfi adventure novels, I often found that Apocalypse Revolution was auto-suggested.

But it all changed in the third week of June. Now I can only find one novel that auto-suggests AR: The Dragon and the Unicorn, and AR is about the 90th suggestion.

So what happened? Obviously this was not a human decision, except that a bunch of variables were programmed into the auto-suggest algorithm and my novel tripped one of them. Here are my theories:

1) Low downloads on a free day. This is my bad. I waited months for the new cover and then ran three free days close together. That’s a killer for downloads because the hard core readers who are looking for deals will have already downloaded your novel the day or week before and don’t need it. On the last free promotional day I ran there were only forty or so downloads, actually there were more in the UK, only the internet knows why. Here’s my other bad: I didn’t promote the free days at all. I was conducting an experiment to see which cover moved better, but of course I couldn’t run a proper control, so it was a pretty useless experiment.

Maybe the algorithm has a bit of code that says, ‘if free downloads are less than fifty in a day, stop auto-suggesting this novel.’ I’m paraphrasing of course.

2) The six month theory. The third week of June was six months since I published AR. Now I admit I haven’t done a whole lot to promote the novel, and Amazon helps those who help themselves. I’ve been cramming through book two, anxious to get it to market, anxious to get to book three and fill in the gap that takes us to Vampire Road, which is book four. So I wonder if I trip some piece of code that says, ‘if sales aren’t x by six months’ reduce auto-suggest function by an order of magnitude.’ In other words: dump it.

Whatever the cause, the results are startling. AR went from selling one or two copies a day to nada, okay, almost nada, since Amazon turned off the promotional tap.

I’m not too worried. Book Two of the 1000 Souls is the best I’ve ever written, and I think its sales will put me back into Amazon’s favored novel status. But I have learned my lesson. Amazon promotes those who promote themselves. Don’t leave it to luck, because Amazon’s Amazing and Scary Algorithm will cut you off and leave your novel to languish into obscurity. Fair enough. Why should Amazon have to do all the work?

So I’m thinking about book trailers, Shelfari, Good Reads and more. I’ll keep you posted. Any suggestions, send them my way. I’m not a natural promoter, but I’ll learn.