Busy (Best-Selling!) Beaver, Part 6: The Advertising Dilemma

This is Part 6 in my ongoing series explaining my experiences going from a relatively unknown writing schmuck to an Amazon best-selling author. Today's post is about the place I did my advertising which led directly to making it onto that best-sellers list. To find out how I learned about it, scroll back to my Jan. 22nd post.

Ok, my loyal peeps. Let's end the torture. The place I advertised is called EReaderNewsToday.com, and
they have an interesting sales model. Rather than charge several hundred (or thousand!) dollars as most advertising agencies do, ERNT instead charges nothing up front but takes a portion of your profits... 25%, to be precise, which admittedly is a little higher than I was comfortable with.  Nevertheless, my friend "Chris" insisted I should use them. I acquiesced. But ERNT doesn't accept just anyone. There are rules.

First, they only advertise eBooks. Nothing in paper copies.
Yeah, I figured that. Keep going.

Next, they only advertise novels. No poetry or collections of short stories.
Ok. Disappointing since I also have 2 collections I could have advertised, but fair enough. What else?

Next, they only advertise books that have at least 10 reviews on Amazon, and average 4.0 stars or better.
Sounds legit. Only higher quality books that already have at least a small taste of success. I'm still listening. Where's the catch?

Finally, they only advertise your book if you sell it at $0.99 or give it away for free.
Oh. Ouch. Dammit.

And herein lied my dilemma. A buck!? Seriously? Or free!?! What about all my hard work for all those years? What about a reader's basic appreciation of an artistic work? What about my integrity!? It was a very hard pill to swallow, but in the end I decided to listen to my friend and give it a try, if for no other reason than to learn from the experience.

So here's what I learned:

1) ERNT led directly to 250+ sales of my novel, "Man Hunt," in only 3 days. I profited about $75.
That's certainly nothing to change one's life, but it was some nice pocket change and more than I had earned on my own without advertising. Besides, I reasoned, won't those people be impressed and write nice reviews and tell their friends? Certainly that's how this works. I was mostly right about that assumption. Mostly.

2) Even after the sale & advertising was over, "Man Hunt" has continued to sell. To date, it's been a full month since the price has been returned to a whopping $5, and I've sold an additional 70 copies, profiting about an additional $75.
This was a pleasant and unexpected surprise. I can attribute these sales to one of two notions: A) The Best-Seller status help garner even more visibility for my book, and B) my assumption was right and those initial 250 people read my book, liked it, and have been telling their friends about it.

3) Getting onto Amazon's Best-Sellers list was a complete surprise, as was their algorithm for what constitutes a best-selling book. But I'll talk more about that another time. ;)

4) My book also received a boost in Amazon reviews. Most of this is good mojo, but some of it is bad. More on that later as well.

5) Without being ready for the event, I had officially and accidentally reached one of my life-long goals... but this had also caused me to reevaluate (and re-write) my goals & realize I still had a hell of a lot of work to do. As you might guess, I'll save the details for another post.

I could comment more on the advertising dilemma, and perhaps some day I will, but I fear this post is already too long so I must end now. In the meantime, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that this post about my advertising adventures is not in chronological order to the events as they took place. ERNT took a little over a week to get back to me once I submitted my book to their advertising campaign, and during that week I did something somewhat insightful, just a little bit crazy, and amazingly powerful. I'm convinced it was another, subtler, helpful push in my sales results. Unfortunately I'll never be able to prove it. But when I write about it in next week's post, perhaps you'll tell me your interpretation. What I can tell you is this: advertising and the great Amazon aren't the only way to get attention and exposure as an author.

Until next time,
-K

ps: Writing Results Since My Last Post: LOTS! I successfully revised another tough chunk of my current novel, made about a dozen new writing friends (several of which I actually met face-to-face), got invited to do a PAID (you read that right) speaking event about myself as an author at a local library, and experimented with another advertising platform. I wish I could contribute most of that to my Amazon Best-Selling status, but the truth is that I've continued to work my ass off and other life wins have resulted.