Calculating the real value of your book ads
By: Ginger | Posted on December 18, 2020
As an independent author in charge of your own marketing success, you owe it to yourself to make sure you can properly determine just how effectively your book ads are performing. But if you’ve been assuming that you can simply rely on the advertising dashboard provided by Amazon or Facebook to give you the answers you’re looking for, you need to understand that those numbers can be very misleading, if not completely wrong. To illustrate this, ad expert Ginger takes us through some actual numbers pulled from one of his own recent ad campaigns. Before I finally published my first successful book, I had spent 25 years carving out a career in advertising and marketing; which probably gave me an advantage when it came to promoting my books. I’m old enough to have entered the advertising industry before the days of Facebook and YouTube – back when people still… Read More >
Amazon Exclusive vs Wide: A Case Study
By: Isabel Jolie | Posted on October 23, 2020
The case for going wide or remaining in KDP Select as an Amazon exclusive is fiercely debated, but at the end of the day there is likely no right answer that fits everyone. Like most things, it comes down to experimentation and doing your research. That’s the approach romance author Isabel Jolie took, and luckily for us she was willing to put together this blog breaking down her numbers and what she learned from her experimentation. To KU or not to KU? It’s a question every author has at least considered and weighed. “Any romance author should do KU.” “KU is a no-brainer for a new author.” These are things I was told – repeatedly. I ultimately chose to go wide, but I did briefly test KU, and the following is what I experienced. Background I released my first book in January 2020. In September, I released my fourth… Read More >
Choose an Email Marketing Service That Works for You
By: Annabeth Saryu | Posted on September 25, 2020
Most independent authors are well aware of the importance of a newsletter and the benefits of using a mailing list to handle it, but a quick google search will result in plenty of different email marketing services to choose from. Unfortunately, it’s not a one-size-fits-all sort of problem, since every author has different needs. Luckily, author Annabeth Saryu has already done a lot of research into what factors need to be considered, and she’s put it all together here to make it easier to determine how to pick the service that will work best for you. Regardless of where an author is in their career, they eventually encounter a piece of universally accepted advice: build your mailing list. Your mailing list not only consists of your most avid readers, but if cultivated properly, also includes your most dedicated customers. While many experts on author marketing stress the value of… Read More >
Increase Book Sales with In-house Promotions
By: Erin Wright | Posted on August 14, 2020
One of the things that sets wide storefronts apart from Amazon is the hand-curated element to their sales. Unlike Amazon, where your placement in the store depends on how much you’re willing to spend on AMS ads, the promotion of books on all the other online storefronts is handled in a completely different way. Author and going-wide expert Erin Wright explains how to increase your book sales by getting featured in these in-house promotions. Here’s a run down of what you need to know for each of the major wide storefronts. GooglePlay GooglePlay is the easiest storefront to cover: They don’t do in-house promos, period. The books that are shown to a customer are 100% driven by algorithms. If I pull up https://play.google.com, I’ll see a very different storefront than when you pull up the same URL. This means that more than any other wide storefront, it’s very important that… Read More >
Helping You Decide – Go Wide or Go KU?
By: Tracy Cooper-Posey | Posted on July 10, 2020
The debate about whether or not to self-publish exclusively to Amazon or go wide to other online distributors is a lively one, but the fact that the question is so controversial in the first place tells us one thing for sure: That there is no right answer that works for everyone. Unfortunately, this leaves many independent authors wondering how to make that very important decision. That’s why we turned to author Tracy Cooper-Posey for advice. Not only is she a successful author and blogger, but she has experience on both sides of the debate. She’s not here to tell you which way is better, but rather to provide you with the criteria you need to consider in order to make the best decision for you and your career. Wide V Kindle Unlimited: Is there a more contentious issue out there these days? We’ve resolved, more or less, that advertising is… Read More >
Top 10 Tips to Going Wide
By: Erin Wright | Posted on June 26, 2020
We’ve been hearing from more and more authors lately that are cutting the cord, so to speak – stepping away from KU exclusivity for one reason or another in order to test the waters by “going wide”, which simply means selling their book across all (or most) of the digital storefronts instead of just Amazon. Erin Wright went wide back in 2016 and has never looked back, which is why she’s perfectly suited to provide you with the tips for how to change your way of Amazon-centric thinking and prepare to bring your work to a much wider audience. Howdy, y’all! *waving* I’m Erin Wright, a USA Today bestselling author. I write contemporary western romance, and am a dedicated wide author. Although I didn’t start out as a wide author, I quickly became one as Amazon went through one upheaval after another, stripping page reads from authors, shutting down accounts… Read More >
Is Mark Dawson’s Ads for Authors worth the price?
By: Ginger | Posted on June 19, 2020
Recently, the famous Ads for Authors class from Self Publishing Formula opened up. With access available until June 24, this course promises to teach aspiring authors what they need to know to amplify the impact of their books on Facebook, Advertising for Amazon, Instagram, and more. But is it worth the money? With less than a week left to sign up before it disappears again for months, we wanted to give you the answers you need ASAP. Mark Dawson’s course is generally regarded as the essential advertising resource – but it’s not cheap. With $849 to lay out for lifetime access, one question I get from many authors considering the program is – is it worth the money? Well, based on my experience – my answer is a “qualified” yes. That’s probably not exactly the straight-forward answer you were looking for, but at Hidden Gems we’re all about transparency, and… Read More >
Series-Writing Advice: Think Like a Reader!
By: Ginger | Posted on May 15, 2020
If you want to generate a following as an author, it’s important to think like a reader. This means not only determining what it is that they want from your books themselves, but considering how it is they discover you as an author, what works best in drawing them into your stories, and most importantly, how to keep them hooked and reading more of your work! While writing is a craft, being a successful self-published author is a business; and it’s important to think of it exactly like that when it comes to advertising and marketing your books – a business. You want to score the most sales you can; and that begins with one of the core strategies for successful business – empathizing with your customer. I’ve written about the importance of the Back Matter of your book – the things you include after your story is over. However,… Read More >
ONE MORE THING that may be killing your Amazon book sales!
By: Ginger | Posted on May 8, 2020
If there’s one thing for certain about Amazon, it’s that they’re reliably uncertain. And while it’s true that they just about single-handedly created the industry, it’s only from their ruthless and monopolistic practices that they’ve maintained a strangle-hold over it. Sure, other online store fronts still exist, but very few authors make a living from those alone, while many do very well selling exclusively on Amazon. The unfortunate side-effect of this is that when Amazon moves the goalposts, you need a strategy to keep up. If you’ve been around for a while, you’ve probably already learned this lesson but if you’re new to writing, it’s a lesson you have to learn fast in order to survive and thrive. Here’s Ginger with the latest change you may see affecting your sales. I recently received an email from an author who’d “given up.” In a message he sent to subscribers – one entitled… Read More >
Combining Entrepreneurialism and Self-Publishing – The “Billy Houston Method”
By: Ginger | Posted on March 27, 2020
Recently, we interviewed Australian entrepreneur and author Greg Holman, and one of the nuggets he shared in his debut novel, Billy Houston Rags to Riches, was the secret to a successful business. And while you may be one of those authors that embraced storytelling as a way to leave that world behind and be your own boss, you would be making a mistake by ignoring it completely. There are many parallels between running a business and self-publishing your book, which means that a lot of Billy Houston’s advice can be used to make your own career more successful. In his novel, serial entrepreneur Billy Houston imparts some of Greg’s real-life wisdom (as the author himself is a massively successful entrepreneur) and it resonated deeply with me as a self-published author. Process, leverage, and distribution – the three guiding business principles that would guide my business endeavors. You might wonder what… Read More >
