So, I think during the duration of The Hero’s Blog Hop, I sold -1 copy of The Altar of Deimos. What could have happened?
1) Not leading with my best foot (The Altar of Deimos, while not a bad story, is short, and my ultimate intention is for it to be free).
2) Not participating (I was getting married, so I had a good excuse).
3) Description needs sprucing up.
4) Cover art needs tweaking.
Well, we’re going to fix all of these for Love on the 500’s spin with Romancing the Hop. I’m working on the description/cover, I think it’s a great story and people seem to like it, and I’m going to try and hit up 5 sites a day.
Not that results were all bad. While the hop may have been a commercial flop, it definitely drew people to my blog, lots of people commented, and I ended up with a few new followers. The woman who runs these blog hops is just lovely, great about communication (like she will email you back within 24 hours if not seconds, normally seconds), it’s all easy peasy.
I’ve also discovered that people who include everyone’s links right in their blog are a blessing, but my current post is really long, and if I add a list of 200 names, I’m going to feel like I owe people another $5 for scrolling through everything (offering a $10 Amazon gift card again). At the very least I’ll give it a shot, but at this point I’m on the fence, again, due to the sheer volume of names.
Also, I’m not commenting this time. I can’t flipping count, and if I comment I have to count how many people commented before I determine my random number. I will thank people after (if WordPress doesn’t yell at me for typing “thank you” too many times).
Last time I wrote a bit of orignal backstory to go with the book, and I think I’ll try that again, unless it ends up being dreadful in which case nertz.
It’s your opinion blog hops work then? I’ve been avoiding them, for two reasons. 1) I don’t know how they work, and 2) I suspect they take more time than I have available.
The cover looks tacked together. Are they supposed to be sitting in the seat? Maybe move them up some. Try feathering the edges of the guy/girl using 1 pixel and maybe add some shadows (keeping in mind the light source). Also, her hair needs a bit of work. I really hate removing background from hair like this. 🙂 Just suggestions. You can ignore the crap out of me if you like.
If you’re looking to drive some traffic to your blog, yes. Sales, that may be my failure, and not a problem with the blog hop. 1) Stick a badge for it with your books (I’ve got the blog hop and Naughty Free Reads up), and when the day comes up, make a post about the topic (or set it up beforehand), offer a prize (free ebook or $10 giftcard to Amazon works well), and if you want, got check out other blogs. 2) I did a blog hop the weekend I got married, so it doesn’t really take up much time. Try one–you know what they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you wanted, you could put the book you’re promoting on sale at the same time, and submit it over to Naughty Free Reads (they do sales too). If you do a book give-away, don’t have it be the one you’re promoting (people may want to buy it, but they’ll wait to see if they won it, then forget about it)
If I wrote like I design covers, my shit would read like 50 Shades of Grey. Any comments are greatly appreciated, especially that it’s bad (because then I can make it better). I think I need to ask myself, do they need to be on the bus? It was the colors of the image that I really liked anyways, so maybe reassess my approach to design, at least until I get better with stuff. The lighting is something I need to start working on, in general. This isn’t the first cover I’ve put together like this.
I keep reading it’s the book that matters, not the promo. Dunno, but I admit it gets discouraging. Who doesn’t want to sell a lot of books? I’m releasing one 9/1 and I have serious doubts it’s going to reach its intended audience. It will be my first self-published work. I made it as good as a publisher would but I don’t have their storefront. That’s gonna hurt.
I think it comes to down to, all the publicity in the world won’t make a bad book sell, but it’s not going to hurt a good book. Here’s a pretty good blog of marketing ideas:
http://www.dirtybirdiesauthors.com/2012/06/17/welcome-guest-blogger-skye-warren/
Oh gracious it’s discouraging. I have 2 stories sold for this month and I’m hoping neither get returned.