I’m doing better this week, so I’ve been playing around more with doing ad campaigns for Revenants. Last week I ran a campaign through Facebook that didn’t work out so well. Apparently I needed to enter more interests for it to be focused, but on the ads app they have a very limited number of interests from you to choose from and they don’t give you the option to enter more of your own creation. Also, my ad picture supposedly had too much text in it. All it had was the title of the book and my name. Nothing else. So after a couple of days of the ad not performing well (probably because it was only showing it to friends and family) I got a message saying that I should come up with a new design. Mind you, I’ve seen other ads for books with WAY more text than the image I submitted. And if that was going to be an issue, why not warn me from the get go? Why tell me three days later?
I would like to try Amazon ads since I feel that I might have more success since they are the number one retailer for books. But Amazon requires a minimum budget of $100 AND you have to pay up front – which is something that just isn’t an option right now. Goodreads also has an ad service available to authors, but they also require payment upfront. While they recommend a minimum budget of at least $50, they don’t actually have a limit. I was able to set one up for $25, though I have yet to pay for it at the moment.
Reedsy just put up a list of promotion sites that are available to indie authors – but it seems like most of them are geared towards books that are discounted are free. Since Revenants just came out, discounting it really isn’t an option at this time. Nor is marking it free. That may be an option when Elusion and the omnibus come out next year though. We’ll see.
In writing news, I worked on the pen name project a bit more. It looks like this half of the project is going to be a bit longer than the first one… which I had a feeling might happen if I split it where I did. However, that was the only logical place to split it. When I’m not working on that, I’ve been jotting down some scenes for fanfics that have been plaguing me for years. I am not planning on pursuing them, I just want them out of my head so I have more room and time to work on other things.
And on the mouse front… we caught one. I still think there might be others hiding somewhere, but at least the one that I had the stare down with a couple of weeks ago is out of the house. If there are any others about, at least they are better about hiding their presence.
And now, for WIPpet Wednesday!
WIPpet Wednesday is a weekly blog hop where we share snippets of whatever projects we might be working on. The only rule is that the snippet has to some how relate to the date (for example since today is September 13th, you could share 13 words from page 9). Since I cannot share anything else from Revenants or Elusion for fear of spoiling things, I’ve been sharing bits from some of my fanfic projects.
Today I’m going to finish up that scene I started last week that featured Cressida and Percival Graves from my Fantastic Beasts fanfic – The Broken Man. It’s the 13th of September, so here are 5 paragraphs (1+3=4-9=5)
Cressida knew she should wait and approach Graves when he didn’t have company, but her subconscious mind had other ideas. Before she was entirely aware of what she was doing, she had slipped off her stool and through the front door of the automat. She stood on the corner as she pulled on her gloves, her eyes skimming the heads of the crowd for the auror’s dark head of hair.
She caught sight of his familiar cloak across the street, and bolted over the crosswalk as soon as it was safe to do so. Once she was in front of the Woolworth building, her desperation fled her. What if he didn’t want her here? What if he had decided to pursue her neighbor instead? But she couldn’t give up now. Not after coming all this way and spending all this time looking for him.
She vaguely remembered the two of them turning West towards Broadway, so she headed in that direction. She streatched her awareness ahead of her, skimming over the minds around her as she searched for the tight walls of Grave’s mind. It was hard to stay focused though; she felt like a fish swimming up stream as she wove through the pedestrian traffic on the packed sidewalk. The blare of taxi horns certainly didn’t help matters either.
She closed her eyes for a moment in a desperate attempt to block everything out. Just a brief moment was all she needed. However, the peopled around her weren’t so patient, and she was almost knocked down by the hustle and bustle. She reached out to steady herself, expecting her hand to meet the cold metal of a light pole. Instead it was greeted by fine wool, the muscle of the arm underneath tensing at the contact.
“Cressida?” A familiar voice asked, and she gasped in surprise as her eyes met Graves’s.
To read more WIPpet Wednesday posts, go here.
The Many Worlds of Christina L Olson 
More! More!
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Of course 🙂
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Brian Meeks has written a wonderful book on Amazon ads. I highly recommend it or you’ll end up wasting money like on FB. Here’s a rule of thumb, if there is a course teaching you how to do it, it’s complicated and you need to do your research. Mark Dawson teaches you how to use FB ads, so obviously there is way more to it than a lot of people realize. And I also agree that you if you don’t have the money, it’s best to wait. That’s why I’m waiting until I have more books on my backlist–then when I do run ads I’m kind of advertising for all my books, not just one. (It’s pretty much a given if a reader likes your book, she’ll read all of them.) Good luck! I’m not trying ads for a long time yet. I don’t have enough books out right now, and it would be a waste of money.
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Good to know. I’ll have to look those up 🙂
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I had the same trouble with Facebook ads, both for my book and for a separate fundraiser I was trying to organise. I’ve pretty much decided that I’ll do the odd bit of promo here and there but I’m going to focus on getting a few more books in my catalogue rather than outlay any really serious money on promoting just one title
nice snippet – I really like the atmosphere. I can definitely feel her being jostled around.
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The more I think about it, I had more luck with Facebook ads when I was trying to get views on my pen name’s page. But that was over three years ago, when the algorithms weren’t so specific. Even though I know it’s better to wait till I have more books out, I still plan on giving goodreads a shot here soon. Just for the experience.
And thank you! I really enjoy Cressida’s tale. It’s a nice break from my other projects 😀
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FB ads have proven quite worthless to me and are certainly not what they claim to be. Reach up to…. yeah, maybe you send to 20% of that number and charge me the same amount.
For me, the best promo has been being seen. Participating. Blogging. Letting other’s know I’m here.
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I’m working on getting back into the social media rhythm more. The whole mouse fiasco really threw me off. But thankfully Boyo should be starting preschool soon, so that’ll give me more time to write and to blog and tweet and all that jazz.
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Glad you got the visible mouse. Happy we have cats for that purpose. =D
I don’t know the fandom, since I know just enough of Harry Potter to know I’m a Muggle that way, but I loved your snippet.
Your Boyo is starting preschool. On the other end of things, my Boyo is learning to drive!
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We have two cats, and this mouse just did not care. I think us sealing up all his exits made him desperate though.
Yup, Boyo should be starting preschool in October 🙂 We met with the district psychologist today, and then next week he’ll be evaluated by the therapist, and then the week after that we should have his IEP set up. I’m excited for him and scared all at the same time. This will be good for him but it’s going to be a huge change. Though I did tell Hubby, watch – now that all of this is set up, someone will buy the house. Because that’s just how the universe works sometimes.
Driving? Egads! That’s got to be terrifying!
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Actually, it’s when my DAUGHTER is ready to drive I’m likely to worry. My son is calm, centered, analytical, and cautious without being timid. He loves to think things through and know how they work. He’s proceeding with due diligence.
My girl, on the other hand, has her father’s love of an adrenaline rush, and loves trying new things more or less on the fly….and that’s scarier, to me, even though she’s very aware of her own limits.
I hope everything works out for all of you, whether you sell the house or not.
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Advertising…gah. It’s really tough to figure out what’s worth the money. Good luck with it.
And another great snippet. How debilitating it would be to rely on that kind of awareness and not be able to use it. I can’t wait to read the next WIPpet!
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