Looking Outside Your Own Industry for Ideas

I often run marketing ideas past DH. Yeah, I know he doesn't work in the publishing industry. That's exactly why I talk to him about this stuff.

Writers are often locked in an echo chamber, where marketing that's trending is pushed without any regard to whether it works or not. Often, my first about a method is what's the ROI (AKA return on investment). I have yet to hear a real answer.

At least, I'm asking the questions. A lot of writers don't.

The old ways of advertising, such as book review blogs, 99-cent sales, and simply announcing you have a new book out doesn't work like it used to.

I've been examining online advertising. The following is me thinking out what I'll do in the future.

If I run Amazon ads, I'm  merely giving more revenue to the company beyond what I pay them to host my wares. How does that help me especially when I have to jump through targeting hoops? I look at the folks who target my books, and I often wonder what they are thinking. Especially when their books aren't remotely similar to mine. Then, there's the issue of randomly turning your ads on and off.

Then, there's Facebook. I'm on there in a limited fashion. DH set up a fan page off his account around ten years ago. I admit I'm not real happy with FB's recent actions, including selling personal data of users, not upholding its own rules equitably, and it's promotion of white nationalists. Furthermore, it will also randomly turn ads on or off without notice to the advertiser.

Which brings me to BookBub ads. The ads are on the e-mails BookBub sends out daily so they seem to be a little easier to target for a specific subgenre. Readers sign up for the daily e-mails so I would have a willing and more receptive audience. Plus, I haven't heard any complaints about BookBub trying to snatch additional revenue by turning on an ad without authorization.

But something else is coming back.

Free!

Even DH's company provided free services to old and new clients for one day last month. The free offer was limited in scope and duration, but it sponsored some good will among their clients.

Which brings me to something I used to do--offer free books.

I didn't do it all the time, but enough I earned some loyalty from readers. Unfortunately, that loyalty dissipated in the chaos my real life became over the last few years.

But I talked it out with DH last night, and I plan on including some old and new ideas over the next few months. We'll see what happens, and I will report my findings here.