ERom promotion question

Loose Id sent my book out to a lot of reviewers. I don't read the trade magazines, so I don't know if they run feature ads there. They heavily promote each month's new books on their website, so I had great early exposure.

As for paying for ads myself, I haven't done a bit of it. I linked to some good reviews from my blog, and I've joined some Yahoo groups for regulated promotions/excerpts. I did a blog hop and giveaway in October that led to a surge in sales. I'm just now tweaking a Goodreads author page to go live sometime soon. I'm getting some good word-of-mouth promotion, but it is of the type that I have to pretend I know nothing about and never interact directly with the readers promoting me.

Most of my erotic romance writer friends have seen diminishing returns when it comes to heavy promotion - after a while, they see fewer and fewer sales for more effort. The only thing that works really well is to write and publish more books, because that tends to lift the backlist.

I will probably never submit anything to a publisher who requires me to handle the bulk of promotions, especially if their sales are really low to begin with.

Here is the way I think about it. No one, and I mean no one, is going to work as hard to sell your book as you do.

I'm published with Loose Id, EC, Decadent Publishing, and Liquid Silver Books((which has done dick as far as advertising)).

The only time I've had a big time ad placed was the back cover page of the RT magazine with LI. Other than that it's been the big eRom publishers advertising the publisher, rather than the individual author. EC, for example, advertises in national magazines but it's always for EC, not their individual authors. Yeah, they all send out review requests, but guess what? The days of you getting an auto review because you are published with XXX pub are pretty much over.

You need to get out there and hustle the personal connections with the reviewers, establish a fan base, and bust your ass at PR and marketing. I can't speak for anyone else, but I'm always shocked when people complain about lack of sales but don't see a correlation between their lack of effort to promote. The days of you getting signed, publishing a book, and merrily sitting on your ass while waiting for your pub to do all the PR are over. There is just too much competition. Look at it from the publisher's prospective, EC for example. They have a ba-fucking-jillion authors. If they tried to place an ad, that might or might not work, for every author in their stable with the big blog/magazine/whatever sights they'd be spending millions of dollars a month.

Let's take, for example, the back page ad that LI did for me and three other authors. Here is the current price from the Romantic Times Magazine for the back cover, and we'll throw in an inside the magazine cheaper ad as well:

Back cover 70lb UV-coated: $3,410
Half page one time ad: $2,235

Now, let's do the math for LI for one months worth of new releases(I would do EC but they put out anywhere between 50 and 100 books a month if not more): 16 new books x 2235= $35,706 That's the cost just for one ad, in one magazine, for every book they published that month. Now, if you want them to advertise for you on more than one sight I'm sure you can imagine how that number would rise. In today's ePub world, hell even in the Big 6, the onus for marketing is on you. If you don't think you need to guest blog, go to conventions, establish a fan base etc you are GREATLY cutting down on the chances of your success.

I'm not disagreeing with Ann. ER writers need to have some online presence to build that all-important fanbase. The publisher isn't going to do it for them, and those writers only have that sales platform as long as their contract runs.

It's the kinds of promotion that matter, I think. Being visible on FB works well for some authors, as does having a lively interaction on Goodreads. But some online marketing and promotional attempts can come off as clumsy and badgering. When I see them from other authors, they make me less likely to buy that author's books.

Let's see, as far as actually scheduling me for individual stuff, the only one that does that is Decadent Publishing. And by individual stuff I meant they hire a blog tour company to set you up with at least five places to blog, if not more, during your release month. But, they do that for every author. They are also the most proactive about letting us know about different tours/blog hops/speak your piece days on various sites.

LI, in my experience and I can only speak for myself, doesn't really tell you to do anything. With them it's been pretty much, okay here is your MS and your release date, good luck! They do hold marketing meetings for each book so I'm sure there is a bunch of stuff they do that I never even notice. I just know they haven't talked to me individually about PR and I've never really asked them.

EC promo is aimed at all of their authors, with the big one being the Romanticon conference that they hold. I went last year and it was a blast. I'm also doing a signing with them Feb 2nd at the Sexapalooza convention in Columbus OH and they throw a hell of a part at RT, so on conferences they are solid. They are also very forthcoming with info about where you can PR, in their author groups etc, so the info is there if you look for it. If you were were an author with them and you asked for PR advice I'm sure they'd be more than happy to work with you. But, you can do most of this stuff on your own.

You can set up your own chats, contact various sites to ask to guest blog, contact reviewers, interact on Goodreads, etc. There is no one magic way to reach a reader. A way to think of it would be all your PR is a thousand bouncy balls and your readers are on the other side of a wall with small holes in it. You throw all those balls at the wall at once, and hope at least one ball gets through and connects with a reader, earning you a new fan.

I wish I could give you a more concrete answer, but I'm not the most interactive with my pubs on what PR they want. I do what I think works and things like fifty dollar ads on some blog sites haven't worked at all while some fifty dollar ads on blog sites have been okay, but none have really been worth the price IMO. I have all ads linked back to my webpage, so I know how many times that ad gets clicked, and where that visitor goes on my page afterwards.

Let me know if there is anything you'd like me to clarify or if you have any other questions.

Epublishers do minimal promotion for specific titles. They will send it for reviews. They may or may not do some other things.

I personally do not do a lot of active promotion of my titles either (yes, I have a blog, I have a list I notify of new releases and basic stuff like that). What sells my books, for the most part, is packaging and distribution.

WriterInChains said:

So if an author asks "may I see what you've done to promote my book" and gets no answer, that's not appropriate. Correct?

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Not necessarily. It would depend who you were talking to and how they felt about it. If you get the promotions person and ask what you should do to maximize their approach, they should be able to tell you things like what reviewers they sent to and what conventions they will be at.

WriterInChains said:

I don't expect any reviewer to jump on a brand-new author's story immediately, so the fact that I haven't seen any actual reviews isn't worrying me at all.

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Reviewers go by topic and interest more than anything. They are all swamped and it is pretty much the same for everyone.

WriterInChains said:

What, exactly, do you mean by "packaging and distribution"? I see this a lot but am not sure what it entails in this context.

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I mean my books look right, it is clear what they are, and they are released by romance publishers will a strong following. So they will sell right out the gate. The number of extra sales I could add with extra push promotion is, in my opinion, not all that big.

I do things that are simple to do, almost all online. I understand that most of my books make a few thousand. Spending more than a few hundred dollars or a few days of time here and there on their promotion would be disproportionate.

YMMV but the few times I have pushed a title hard with extra promotion, the response has been pretty negligible. People who want gay werewolf love tend to find it at the source, those that don't are unlikely to be talked into it

Samhain advertises new releases on the site promoting them on the front page on the week of their release. I was amazed as a debut author to get 33 pre-order sales from the website on my debut novel although I was promoting on Facebook and Twitter and a blog as well. I don't know if that did anything. I am too poor to even have a website. I only do free promo.
Samhain sent my book out to several places for review along with their other new releases....and NONE of those review places picked up my book for review. :-(
I saw that romantic times had reviewed three of the Samhain Christmas books, but they didn't review mine. I had to find my own reviewers after the release which means the reviews missed Christmas and so far I've only managed to get two reviews from two kind of obscure places. :-( This is not Samhain's fault. All books just aren't picked up for review any more because there are too many I guess. It is disappointing.
I'm with Emily in that I don't think promoing yourself like crazy really does all that much. Whenever I see authors talking about how much they've spent on advertising and how much they've earned.... they always seem to have spent more than they earned it never seems to be a good investment. Perhaps I'm reading the wrong threads. Lucky me I have no money to waste anyway (lol) so all I do is free stuff. A blog, twitter, Facebook.
Samhain places one ad somewhere online for each new book.For those who aren't big names it's usually not at a big place. Samhain paid for one ad for me at Joyfully Reviewed.
Samhain authors who have made the NYT Best Seller list or USA Today list will get a full banner ad on the Samhain website with their new book and will get paid for ads at big places like Smart Bitches. Authors who are not big names get their book featured along with five or six other books on the front page the week of release. If you sell a decent amount of books in a short period you make Samhain's various onsite best seller lists which draws more attention to your book on the website and this is very exciting and fun. For example I was able to promote my book on twitter for awhile as the current number 1 best selling menage at Samhain.

For me the only promo I've done that I think actually works at all is Twitter. Twitter got me the occasional sale of my Freya's Bower title and seems to get me one or two sales of my Samhain book about half the time I tweet about it.
. I never Direct Message strangers about my book as I find that very annoying when done to me. I don't feel making a straight up tweet not directed at an individual is spamming in the same way, as it's not forcing my advertisement on any one individual. I asked some of my friends if they found my tweeting about my book annoying and they said not a bit.
Oh and to expand on what Emily said.... , googling my pen name, my Samhain novel seems to be available for sale practically everywhere on the web that it's possible to buy a book. I think that is something impressive Samhain do. Since my book has only been out since December 4th I don't know what that will look like re sales, but it impresses me to see Samhain has it listed everywhere. I guess that is good distribution?

Based on my own recent experience... do a google search of your name, your book title and review and see what comes up. You may be surprised. Your publisher will have sent books out to reviewers more than likely but they would not necessarily have told you which ones or even if/when/where they put the reviews when written. When I did that search I came up with several hits I was completely unaware of - two good reviews and a number of places where I was simply listed as an author of that book (and two of those had notes on the entry asking for me to contact them to add details like webpage and bio). This was all due to the publisher doing stuff and not telling me about it.

But, frankly, the public want to talk to you as a person not to the marketing dept of a publisher... this is one reason why social media are good tools if used properly (and yes, they can be used very badly... I prefer to see it as treating your readers/potential readers as friends rather than sales targets).

Echoing everything that's been said before -

ePublishers might promote their "brand", but they're most likely not going to promote your book beyond sending out to reviewers and their announcement loops. Depending on the publisher, their "brand" is enough to generate a few sales for you based on their name alone. Ideally, those few sales will lead to reviews/word of mouth, followed by more sales (this doesn't always happen).

While LSB did send my book to review sites, the only review I actually got I got on my own. Their name definitely does not guarantee a review. However, it did make it possible for me to submit review requests to sites that do not accept review requests from self-published authors (these may still not lead to a review).

To avoid disappointment, it might be best to think of ePublishing houses as providers of Cover Art, Editing, Formatting and Distribution (and any promo they do as gravy). Ann said it best - no one is going to promote your book as hard as you do.

As for promo...sigh...it's the bane of every author's existence I suppose. I have a website/blog, I tweet, have a facebook page, have a goodreads page. I sent out review requests to about a dozen review sites that LSB doesn't automatically send to (only a few nibbles). As far as this book is concerned, I think I'm pretty much done. Best to get to work on the next one!

If you want to have more publisher-funded promo I would suggest looking for low output presses. Many of the current presses publishing too many books for their few promotional staff to promote each one extensively.

I meant more boutique presses who deliberately have low output (and tend to focus on print not e-), rather than very small or start up presses. That said the few examples I would have given are year ago are looking rather insolvent now (e.g. PD Publishing).

areteus said:

Based on my own recent experience... do a google search of your name, your book title and review and see what comes up. You may be surprised. Your publisher will have sent books out to reviewers more than likely but they would not necessarily have told you which ones or even if/when/where they put the reviews when written. When I did that search I came up with several hits I was completely unaware of - two good reviews and a number of places where I was simply listed as an author of that book (and two of those had notes on the entry asking for me to contact them to add details like webpage and bio). This was all due to the publisher doing stuff and not telling me about it.

But, frankly, the public want to talk to you as a person not to the marketing dept of a publisher... this is one reason why social media are good tools if used properly (and yes, they can be used very badly... I prefer to see it as treating your readers/potential readers as friends rather than sales targets).

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I do this like...everyday. There has been NOTHING. My book came out December 4th. The only two reviews are two obscure places I managed to arrange myself. Have also submitted to a wide range of places myself now with no response.
I know my publisher sent out places for my book to be reviewed but I found the review sites picked up the straight contempory Christmas romances for review and not the paranormal ones for some reason.
With my Freya's Bower book in 2008 there were three or four reviews before release so I was not expecting this problem. It seems things have changed since 2008.

WriterInChains said:

Thanks for all the great replies! I truly appreciate you-all taking the time!

Learning promo feels like drinking from a fire hose at times--but I'll keep plugging away.

gingerwoman--Thanks for the scoop on Samhain!
How do you know that you've gotten sales through Twitter? Is there something like NovelRank that can show you who/how many clicked through your Twitter links? Like you, I've tried to take advantage of all the free promo opps I can find, because I just don't have the $$ to pour into it & hope for returns later. I'm right there with you about DM on Twitter -- I can't stand it when anyone tries to sell me something like that. I mean, at least say hello first? *lol*

areteus--Exactly! But the readers have to find you before you can interact & that's what I'm trying to learn how to do--help them find me. I know a lot of it isn't within my control & will take time, so I'm out there blogging and hopping and chirping & FBing & all that.

MsLaylaCakes--I don't know that I'd call promo a bane, but it's not the easiest thing I've ever done! I'd rather be writing all the time but that wouldn't work even if I had the time free. If only the Universe would stop trying to teach me patience things would be much easier.

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I don't really know that I've got sales through twitter I've just noticed that after tweeting about my books several hours later there would be a new sale on Novel Rank or on the Samhain website quite often so I think it does work sometimes. Most often this seems to work when Samhain has a sale on and I can tweet that it is on sale. They have special sale days.

Gingerwoman: Mmmmm, that does sound as if your publisher hasn't done anything... Some do and some don't, I suppose. As far as I am aware, my publisher did what it does for all books they publish and send a circular round a list of reviewers they commonly work with. In your case it may be worth seeing if you can do that yourself - compiling a list of romance reviewers and sending out a query to see if any of them are interested.

areteus said:

Gingerwoman: Mmmmm, that does sound as if your publisher hasn't done anything... Some do and some don't, I suppose. As far as I am aware, my publisher did what it does for all books they publish and send a circular round a list of reviewers they commonly work with. In your case it may be worth seeing if you can do that yourself - compiling a list of romance reviewers and sending out a query to see if any of them are interested.

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Or use Ann's list from the Romance thread -- by the way, thanks Ann for that list! It gave me a starting point.

areteus said:

Gingerwoman: Mmmmm, that does sound as if your publisher hasn't done anything... Some do and some don't, I suppose. As far as I am aware, my publisher did what it does for all books they publish and send a circular round a list of reviewers they commonly work with. In your case it may be worth seeing if you can do that yourself - compiling a list of romance reviewers and sending out a query to see if any of them are interested.

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No! Not true!I am very satisfied with the way Samhain has made my book available for sale everywhere. It's just reviews I had trouble getting I don't think you read my earlier post. I listed several things Samhain has done to promote my book and my December sales were great! (It is a Christmas book.) But they send out dozens of books for review to the most popular places and my book was just not picked up.
I also said already that I've already sent my book off to a lot of sites that do romance reviews and none have replied yet. No responses yet.
. Things are changing and the review sites are being flooded with requests and are not able to keep up.
I have two now on more obscure sites and a UK site hopefully coming though.
The reason I care more now is that my publisher asked me for review quotes for the print edition coming out in November. They didn't realize that none of the places they sent it to reviewed it.