I recently entered Incite Insight into a competition. In order to enter, I had to list all the marketing for the book. When I wrote it all down, I was surprised at how much had been done:
– Book launch at Readings Bookstore (+inclusion in their catalogue and display window at store).
– Paid inclusion in Ingram’s Advance Catalogue.
– Paid promotion of e-book through Book Gorilla, Booksends, eBook Lister, Fussy Librarian, and eReader News Today, in conjunction with KDP Select price promotion.
– Social Media Campaign (Facebook and Twitter).
– Panellist at Continuum (Science Fiction) Convention (additionally, bookmarks promoting the text were included in the gift bag given to all delegates.)
– Retail table at Continuum Convention.
– Free Bookmarks and book displays advertising the book at various retailers.
– Website of publisher.
– Website of author, including blog.
– Guest Speaking at Writers Groups.
– Amazon Marketing Service (paid advertisements on Amazon.com)
– Ditmar award entry.
– Book available for borrowing from 7 Libraries.
– Displays in 3 retailers.
– Emailed bloggers asking them to read and review the book.
All this has resulted in 300 sales. So not exactly setting the world on fire, but actually not too bad. As a comparison:
“The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith, aka J K Rowling, could not have received better reviews. Yet before the secret broke, the Bookseller reported The Cuckoo’s Calling had sold a total of 449 copies through BookScan since its April release.” (SPN, 2013).
While I still have a long way to go before I reach 449 copies (and to be fair that was print copies – my total of 300 includes only 90 print copies), I am really happy with my progress to date. I’ll keep up the marketing and hopefully keep the sales coming while I work on my collection of short stories which should be out early next year.
Robert New 