For book/ebook authors, publishers, & self-publishers
As my five dollar blog ads end I can reliably say that they resulted in maybe a dozen sales. Since I only get like thirty-five cents a book the result wasn’t worth the expense in monetary terms. But it’s all about exposure. This brings me to the next level of my experiments in marketing. After reading forums on the pros and cons of making your ebook free to the public, I decided to do just that. Kindle Direct offers a program where you can offer your book free for up to five days. I’m doing…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on January 9, 2012 at 11:02am — No Comments
That is the goal of most novelists. Not so much because of the greed factor, but that money affords the life of being a writer. Indie publishing can make it happen! That said, here are the final results of my relatively expensive blog ad campaign. I got maybe twenty extra sales because of it. So my advice would be only to place ads that are cheap and give great exposure. My mistake was that I jumped right in with the $40 ads instead of doing more research and finding numerous little ads for…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on January 5, 2012 at 1:21pm — No Comments
Since my website and blog pages are getting so much attention I’ve decided to submit SILENT INVASION to try and get an agent, again. Though, as I said before, it’s more of an ego thing than anything else. I figure with my sites getting so much traffic I can use that info in my query as a great platform. Since most agents won’t even look at an author unless he’s got the basic WWW promotion down, at least I might spark someone’s attention. Although I’ve made money from my books, it would be…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on January 3, 2012 at 9:45am — No Comments
Yeah! Sales are increasing! My blog is now averaging about 75-100 hits an hour. My Facebook Fan page has almost 3,500 “likes” and my Authors Den profile is averaging 100 hits a day. So, here’s the breakdown of all my promotional and marketing efforts so far. The newspaper article scheme did nothing for sales but probably exposed me to a few new people. I would recommend against it. The ads I paid good money for, like the Litopia and YA Reads.com did almost nothing for sales. Perhaps, I got a…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 30, 2011 at 10:02am — No Comments
As some of you may have noticed the counter for my blog has exploded. For the last week, I’ve been averaging about 600 hits a day and it’s going up. Yesterday, I got 1,700. It seams the search engine optimization is kicking in after all, and it will only get better over time. It’s a bit overwhelming to think that so many people are reading my posts and checking out the kinds of books I write. Every morning I jump from bed, come down to my office, and check my stats on my various sites. It’s…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 27, 2011 at 10:01am — No Comments
The first ads of my winter campaign are live. The combined cost for both was $100. They will run for the next two weeks right on the home pages of these sites. This should give the ads about 100,000 views at least.
Now, I’m not expecting to sell 250 books because of these ads, which is what I’d need to break even, what I’m looking for now is exposure, plain…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 22, 2011 at 2:11pm — No Comments
I just put together a Facebook fan page for Author Neil D. Ostroff. http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Facebook-Page-of-Author-Neil-D-Ostroff/124794694205967?sk=info
I sent out a bunch of notices through social marketing and guess what? I already have almost 2,000 likes. The internet is just amazing! Anyway, I’ve got everything in place for my winter marketing blitz. I’ve got…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 20, 2011 at 12:50pm — No Comments
It’s done! I’ve just put money into promotion. A pretty good chunk, actually. I’m starting with Kindle Nation Daily site. I’ve done some research and heard a lot of positive things about this site and what it can do for your sales. They even have a statistics page that shows you all the books whose ranking went down after placing ads. I signed up for two campaigns. One, the bigger one, won’t start until March, which is fine because hopefully there’ll be many more Kindle owners by then. The…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 16, 2011 at 6:30am — No Comments
My brother sent me an article the other day that inspired me beyond belief. I’ll attach it at the end of this post. Basically, it’s the story of a self-published success. I know, I know, I’ve read a thousand of them, also. But this one struck me different, mainly because this author did everything I have done to market and promote with one exception. She used the pay promotion on her sites and I have not. See, I’ve been mistakenly foolish with my numbers. I was putting book sales in…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 13, 2011 at 10:02am — No Comments
Been doing the interview thing a lot lately and I think it’s starting to pay off. Not only does my name come up more often in search engines but I’m noticing visits to my blog and website are increasing. Of course, this could also be the result of my article experiment, which I’m waiting for the final stats. Speaking of my Author’s Den website, I recently signed on with GoDaddy to build a website myself that I can update, and let me tell you, it’s not nearly as easy as they claim. I spent…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 10, 2011 at 10:06am — No Comments
Do you know if you write a page a day that within one year you will have written a book? How many times have I heard that one? If that one book takes a year to write then the revision process would have to take many years. Truth is, writing a first draft is the easy part. I can usually belt one out in a few months. But the revision; forgetta’bout it. That’s the time consuming stuff, though I am getting better at it as I get older (and hopefully wiser). I’m also getting better as a…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 7, 2011 at 12:05pm — No Comments
Hit 6,000 words today on my new novel. It's an easy and exciting write because anything can happen in a world that isn't real. I see the book getting a little deep in the philosophical area once the characters begin to realize the nature of their existences and how it all could just disappear. We'll see where the story takes me. Right now, I'm still developing characters and relationships and setting the scene for a wild ride through the possible and impossible.
…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 6, 2011 at 9:00am — No Comments
As some of you know I started a new book a few days ago. The title is IMAGINATION and it’s the wildest concept I’ve had yet. Here’s the preliminary tagline: (What if everything around us, our friends, our surroundings, the universe, what if all we experience is just a figment of someone’s imagination? And what if that someone is dying?) I’m very excited about this one as I’ve been thinking about this possibility for a long time. The book will be written in the style of one of my earlier…
ContinueAdded by Neil Ostroff on December 5, 2011 at 9:25am — No Comments
Okay, well… here it is. The $55 article written for me. Now,
the next step is the company will send this to three hundred article submission
services, and people, and companies looking for content. My Blog address and
Author’s Den address will be attached to the article so readers can connect
with me. I reset my site stats to zero and will closely monitor that over the
next ten days (the run I was promised). I average about twenty-five bio hits a
day on my AD site and…
Added by Neil Ostroff on December 1, 2011 at 2:23pm — No Comments
It’s raining today. Drops slide down my window like translucent
snails. Water puddles in the street. Worms
tunnel up from drowning liquid and sprawl across the sidewalk. And here I sit
in front of my computer belting out another novel. I forget who said it, but I
remember a quote that summed up the writing life completely. The quote went
simply; being a writer is like having homework every day for the rest of your
life. And that’s true for the serious, passionate…
Added by Neil Ostroff on November 29, 2011 at 12:51pm — No Comments
I just did something that I’ve never done before. Something
I ignorantly hoped to avoid but always knew would happen. I just paid hard
earned dough to promote my books. Well, not my books individually, but my blog
and author’s site. I signed up for two marketing ideas that I believe may
actually work. I also have a third PR person in line to do search engine
optimization. Who would have thought being a writer and selling books could get
so complicated. The first site…
Added by Neil Ostroff on November 27, 2011 at 11:45am — 2 Comments
It’s happened! I’ve finished a new book (DREAM TRAVELER) and
it’s about to go live. So, what do I do now? Well, besides all the marketing
and promotion I’m planning in the coming weeks, it’s time to start a new novel.
I’ve had this one simmering in my brain for a long time; about thirty years.
What’s it about? Well, I learned long ago not to talk-out a book before you’ve
put it to page, but I have come up with a tagline. ‘You and me and the world we
live in is nothing…
Added by Neil Ostroff on November 26, 2011 at 8:28am — No Comments
Happy Thanksgiving to all! That said, I have to tell you
that since I’m in the service industry, I work every Thanksgiving. So today,
black Friday, is my day to celebrate. Oh it’ll be a hoot. Got the family coming
over, got friends of the kids stopping by, got lots of food and drink. By the
time most of you read this I’m going to be knee-deep in overindulgence. But for
now, I must write. This post is only the beginning of about two hours I’ve set
aside this morning to…
Added by Neil Ostroff on November 25, 2011 at 8:47am — No Comments
So, you married yourself a writer, eh? You bought into the
romantic notion of the two of you sitting fireside, you drinking a glass of
pinot noir while your significant other sits beside you writing the next great
American novel. The only sound is the crackling fire and the tapping of their
keyboard. Every once in a while your significant other looks up from their
masterpiece and flashes you a smile that makes you feel like you’re the most
special person in the world.…
Added by Neil Ostroff on November 22, 2011 at 1:06pm — No Comments
Got a new book coming out next week and I must say it’s a
great feeling. Not because I finished another book, but because I finished a
book that I started writing in 1997. As I slowly weed through more than two
decades of manuscripts, there’s a certain joy that comes each time one is
finally declared “finished”. Even as I re-read the manuscript for the
thousandth time, I could still picture myself fourteen years ago, sitting
upstairs in my sweltering bedroom…
Added by Neil Ostroff on November 21, 2011 at 2:00pm — No Comments
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