The book blog tour revisited.

12/2/2015

Yes, I promised. I would return after the blog tour concluded to discuss the results. And with the tour almost two weeks done at this point, I have to ask… too soon?

Maybe. But here’s what can report. I don’t know.

I have been selling books two ways at this point in the journey. On amazon.com (and on CreateSpace’s store) in both print and Kindle. And onsite at my book signing tour. (I do mean tour – that’s for next week’s blog) Anyway.
I’ve been averaging about 10 books a week. I’ve been selling about 30-50 at each of two signings to date (with five more before Christmas). So, between FB announcements about the book, these blogs, twitter announcements and the blog tour, I’m hitting it with everything I got.

So you do the math. At this point I can’t subtract the blog tour out of the equation but I can say that of the 10 blogs I was featured on, most were a nice ego stroke, but the blogger looked more interested in taking the day off and dumping my press kit (example available – just ask!) onto their site for the day and calling it done.

But there were 3 that took it seriously – one sent the interview questions ahead to me for filling it out exclusively – the other two took the interview responses from my PR gal’s boiler plate (which I took very seriously – and tried to balance my irreverent witty sense of humor with good punctuation… to appear erudite… LOL) Of the two who went with my on-file interview, both added a personal note/and endorsement to their readers, so it really did feel being “featured.” I will say that after the first couple of “dumps” I did complain to my PR agent. I did suggest (after I figured out what was going on – a day off for the blogger in trade for being featured on their site) that they at least add a paragraph in their own words to grab their reader’s attention. Which did happen on the two other rockstars. But what made the the other tow rockstars shine was that they tweeted the heck out of lil ol’ me AND their followers retweeted me. And retweeted me, and… well, my inbox virtually blew up one day when H.K Carlton @AuthorHKCarlton added the hashtag #mustread and hit the little blue bird… @Rachelle Ayala at BooksPromotion had the same effect.

And guess what? All of the best at promote were writers themselves. They knew what were’ all trying to accomplish. And they did their part. So I need to step up. But has it resulted in sales? I will confess as a member of the broadcast TV tribe for the last 30 years, I have always known of the unholy shotgun wedding of storytellers to our red-headed stepchildren the advertisers and PR peeps was what made the entire engine run. I don’t completely trust that it’s any one thing that is responsible for overall sales. It is truly alchemy or voodoo that can’t be completely reduced to a single thing or formula (tho’ that holy grail has been sought by everyone who ever had an overhead… overhead!)
But now that my hair is red, I have to ask myself (tho’ also as a turncoat, I will never admit it outloud) what the one thing is or will be that will open the flood gates.
I’m glad I did it – and the cost wasn’t crazy. I know a few ways to do it better next time… and that’s the ultimate question right? Would I do it again next time?
Well, since I am the gal with the lucky charm on keychain, who never steps on cracks, probably… but much better next time.
I will insist on screening the potential blog sites before we go up (my book has a niche audience) and make sure they’re compatible. I will insist that a personal intro go in front of my press kit AND a call to action from the blogger to end the article in whatever way is appropriate to that blogger’s site and audience. It can be as simple as “write your comments/questions below for the author” or anything that takes it out of being a throw away blog for that day.I do think there’s more to this subject than I know – so I’d love, love, love your thoughts and comments – so please post them below!Until next week! Every great blogger has a signature sign-of line. (Okay I stole that from talking into microphones)
Cya.

2 Comments

Blog Byline: Scottie Madden

Scottie currently lives with her love in a treehouse in the shadow of LA’s infamous “dirt Mullholland,” with their black dog Aria. When she’s not pretending that developing, writing and running television shows is anything other than a dream come true, (if they find out it isn’t hard at all, they’ll make us work!) she is cooking up some wild adventure in food for her friends and family.

Todd Lincoln Richards

1/14/2016 05:18:02 am

Hi Scottie, Spending some time with your blog here. Love that you're documenting the process and your thoughts as you make progress. It's a fabulous book. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with it. As a writer myself, thought I might chime in.

First of all, kudos on your efforts. You're much better at this than me. It's a daunting task to promo a book, one which I think all writers find tedious at best. I know I'm not very good at it, and on top of that I'm not that interested in it. However, without it you're just standing there holding your book and nobody else knows. So... it's a pretty big deal.

I think it's important to celebrate the wins, and to not have expectations. Reading a book literally puts one in the minority these days. We're all surrounded by screens as we fight the clock, too much to do, not enough hours. Reading time? What's that? Well, to some it's still important, but it's a niche group of people to start with. I have close family and friends who haven't read my books and probably won't. In the beginning I sort of expected that they would. I was wrong. However, the flip side is that I've also had people who I've had relatively little contact and connection with who dove in headfirst and then told their friends about the experience with my novels.

These folks are golden for the purposes of "growing" a book, but they're few and far between. However, the number increases as time passes and more networking happens. It's word of mouth and it's absolutely priceless. The very small amount of traction that I've had has come primarily this way. So, keeping the faith and doing what you can, be it creating an advertisement or simply bringing it up in conversation (within reason) is one of the keys to keeping the ball rolling up the hill (up, because it's being pushed).

Time - I think this is a factor that we need to consider and get more comfortable with. A book is forever, you may have a bad few months here and there, but they could be offset by a couple really great and unexpected months somewhere down the road. Once the word of mouth begins, that impression has been made and is traveling from one person to another, might be tomorrow, might be next year. Or the year after. The impact of the book is cumulative. I try to keep that in mind. The heavy lifting is done, the book is a real thing. After that, it will find its way. It certainly needs constant nudging, but I think that without serious promo budget, having huge expectations may be unrealistic and ultimately a little heartbreaking. This way, when I do have a run of sales, I'm pleasantly surprised.

Once it's out in the world for awhile, the real magic can happen, those moments where promo meets the word of mouth and news of your offering really starts to get around. It's a strange way that these things collide, but it happens, usually less than we'd like, but it does. And, it often happens without our knowing it. Word about your book could be moving through areas you don't even know about and may not for some time. I certainly hope so. It's a good read. My best to you, Todd

Scottie Jeanette madden link

1/14/2016 10:45:05 am

Well Todd, as a veteran of not one but two tour stops/signings, I can say you put your mney where your heart is! Thanks again for the kind support. But mostly thank you for your veteran wisdom. Writer to writer - when I titled this blog, I hoped that we could provide a place where those of us "in the trenches" would be able to support each other on each of journeys and you certainly have done just that for. Yes, it's a process unlike most anything in today's world save for wnemaking or possibly having a child! HA! True a book (and even a bottle of wine) is never going to crash your car,... wait... okay, bad example... but maybe not? Yes they will break your heart, raise you up and care for you in your elder years... and they take their own sweet time - once they develop that proverbial "life of their own." Readers will read and writers write, right?
But promoting and publishing is the great part - tho' some like yourself don't cotton to it much (sound like your Clair?) We must do it proudly and without apology, cuz they're our children (or bottles of wine) and we need to treat them right.

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The book blog tour revisited.

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Blog Byline: Scottie Madden

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