As a business person I work on maximizing ROI. One of the best way to get a positive ROI is to control costs and the new technologies allow me to do that so I use them.
Robin, getting a good deal on printing costs isn't a return on investment - it's simply good business. Your ROI is working to get your titles sold, which is done through marketing and promotion.
You have quite a list, and I applaud you on your attempts to do all you can to create demand for your titles. But I have a few comments - not to criticize you, but to let authors understand some of the realities of how these things work.
- Book Giveaways - unless a publisher is well-known and they have a lot of people driven to their site, these types of offers usually yield very few sales.
- Review copies - to whom? Do you do a separate ARC run and send them out to the trade reviewers? If so, they don't review POD books. Even if someone requests a review copy, there is no guarantee it'll be reviewed.
- Email promotions - To whom are you sending these mailings because, lawdy be, I hate these things. I get spammy emails stating that Jane or Joe Author published their book. Delete. Even if you're emailing an author's friends and family, chances are strong they already know about it. So you're either spamming [and irritating a lot of people] or telling someone something they already know. Either way, it doesn't go viral.
- Social networking sites (especially GoodReads) - I hope this works for you. We've found the whole internet social networking thing to be a lot about nothing. The internet is just too vast to make an impact unless you already have a large presence - which can take years to establish.
- Bookmarks - this is gimmicky because most people simply throw them away. It doesn't create demand, it just increases the landfills.
- Conventions - what kind of conventions? We have an author who did a convention with Wayne Dyer, and she sold over 200 books in an hour. But he had her on stage and had her give her story. So is this what you're talking about, or are you talking about buying a table and hoping someone stops to buy a book? That is a grueling, unprofitable way to market.
- School signings (for the Juvenile books) - these can be very effective provided it's done right. Kids don't go to school with money, so it can be hard to make any sales unless a lot of prep work beforehand has been done.
- Book store signings (though I'm not doing much of this anymore as it is not as profitable as other choices) - Agreed, to a point. Signings can be great if the author has done a lot of prep work, or they can be a dismal finger-up-the-nose two hours that you'll never get back. The main problem with POD books is that they won't be stocked to any extent after the signing. The store may keep a couple copies, hoping they sell. Or they'll bundle them up and send them back. Do you have a return policy?
- Award entries - Our titles have won any number of book awards, and I have yet to notice any uptick in sales. People don't really care, and store buyers are even more droll about the whole thing. They want to know what the author is doing to promote the book. An award doesn't sell that many books.
- Press releases - Always a good idea provided you're sending them to the right place. To whom do you send them? If you don't have store placement, these press releases tend to go the way of the round file.
- Media kits - same goes for media kits. Round file, unless you're sending them to a targeted audience, or better yet, they're requested. Media kits are expensive as hell, so who receives these?
- Author Interviews - Interviews are great depending on where they appear. Online interviews tend to get swallowed in the white noise and hardly create a blip - unless it's an interview to a specific audience.
- Websites - Eh. This is not promotion. This is simply a good idea. Websites don't create demand because it's very hard to establish a big enough footprint that will drive people to your site. What normally happens is people read the book and go to the website to learn more about the author. So saying a website is promotion is backward. It's support to the book that has already sold.
- Contests - what kind of contests? How does this create demand? Readers don't normally peruse publisher's websites. An author can hold a contest, but unless he has an online presence, who's going to play?
- Book club appearances - Yes, these are great because the author is getting their pretty face out there in front of readers. Do you arrange these appearances? Do you have a list of book clubs and pitch your authors to them? If so, that's lovely!
