promoting (Page 1 of 2)

What's the point of having a publsher if you have to pay your own promotions? Is the author talking about self-publishing through sites like Amazon?

Norm, a little dose of reality here. If you're John Grisham or Harlan Coben, you don't pay for any promos. You might have to spend time on the talk circuit, though. Schmoozing with Oprah. What a drag, right? The vast majority of published authors (and I'm not talking self-published here) have publishers who will help in the promotion, but the onus is still on the author to sell his book. I've had a publisher who paid for a blog tour, a NetGalley promo, and a BookBub promo (expensive!). But the rest was up to me. I've had another publisher who did absolutely nothing to publicize the book. In between, I've had a publisher who greased the wheels, so to speak, with FB and Twitter mentions and lowered the price temporarily so I could do promos (on my own). Most small and medium-size publishers use print-on-demand for their paperbacks (often through CreateSpace), so their investment consists essentially of paid editorial services, cover art, and reputation (don't want to have their name on a dud). And they don't give you an advance against royalties. Your book doesn't have to sell that many copies before they've recouped that investment. So there isn't much incentive for them to put out money for promotion. Actually, some big-name authors have chosen to leave their major publishing houses to publish their own books and have total control of the product. But hey, they've already got the rep, and who really looks at who published the book anyway?   Jack

Thanks, Jack. I wasn't aware of that.

Norm, feel free to ask me about my experience in the publishing jungle anytime. I look at TNBW as a community of like minds when it comes to putting our creative energy out there. Sharing tips and bewares is a benefit of membership, in my view.

They don't specify the number of reviews but do say this enters into their selection process. Big help, right?  And it depends on genre. the number needed for Action/adventure would be less than for Romance, for example. Basically, you submit your book request and they let you know if it's selected. They also don't say how much it will cost until the book is selected, claiming that they're constantly adjusting their prices based on book sales and market conditions. I can tell you, though, that my ad for Skeleton Run cost close to a grand. Paid by the publisher, thankfully.  Based on my experience and that of other authors I know, the BookBub ad definitely generates significant sales.

The big-time publishing houses often require their big-time authors to go on book tours around the country (which they'll arrange) to hawk the books. You've probably noticed that celebrities do book-signings at B&N stores in NYC and other big cities. It's the publicity they're after, not really the sales, since selling a few hundred copies (at the most!) is a drop in the publisher's bucket. I, myself, have pretty much given up on book-signings as not worth the effort. (The number of books I've sold at these events is a tiny fraction of my sales on Amazon.) I would rather promote to a vaster audience on Amazon, FB, and Twitter.

And here's a tip: Once your book is on Amazon, shorten the often ridiculously long URL so that you can give the link on a Twitter promo and keep it within the 140 characters. I've used Bitly for that, but there are other sites that will do it for you, too - for free.

Many thanks, Janet, Jack, et al, for your comments above. With my first novel to be released in a few months, I'm already working on a promotion plan (in conjunction with my publisher, who provides pages of advice).

Good to know. I've used google shortener.

They do adjust their prices, but that's what any business does. Their pricing chart is right here:

https://www.bookbub.com/partners/pricing

Thanks, Jack!

As I go through things, if there is something not already covered here, I'll put it out for the group.

Annoying unpassable popup screen that begs  your email address without any disclaimer to its purpose not to sell it to spammers. It is basically, I can only suppose because I can't have a look-around, a means of advertising that one must pay by loss of privacy to see -- Brilliant, as if Ford MoCo asked TV viewers if they would like to see their ads. Has any author or publisher done even an anecdotal cost-v-benefit in paying for a site that could just be a scam of a sort?