Tag: Kitty Bucholtz

Home > ArchivesTag: Kitty Bucholtz

The Value of Advertising a Single Self-Published Book by Kitty Bucholtz

November 10, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , ,
We’re all trying to figure out what kind of advertising and short-term discounting works to increase sales and readership. I am at the beginning end of the self-publishing curve with one stand-alone book out, and one series with a free short story prequel and a book one. In October, I did several different things and tracked sales daily. Here are my results.
The Specifics
I put Unexpected Superhero (book one of a series) back in KDP Select for 90 days in July, ending October 21. I used my five free days in October with three days on a Wed/Thur/Fri and two days a week later on a Fri/Sat. It was also on sale for three days for 99c at the end of the month (Oct 31 – Nov 2).
I used advertising on several of those days. I purchased the InD’Tale Bargain Book Ad for $25 on October 8, the eBookSoda ad for $10 on October 10 (the first and last day of the first free period), then Ereader News Today for $20 on October 17 (the first day of the last free period).
On another author’s recommendation, on October 31 I used Ebook Boosters’ $25 service where they submit my book’s 99c sale information to 25 other free-newsletter sites (sites similar to BookBub and eBookSoda). I didn’t try to figure out for sure which sites picked up the book, but I know it went out on at least a few email newsletters that day. (I was at a convention all weekend so I didn’t have time to do Google searches or keep track of Amazon rankings.)
Non-Advertisement Promotion
Additionally, I participated in an author book swap with 19 other authors on November 1. We all put one book on sale for 99c, then blogged, Tweeted, and posted to Facebook about all 20 books, and we all bought each other’s books. (So that accounted for 19 out of 25 sales on book swap day.)
I mentioned all of this to my newsletter list (122 people) once at the beginning of October on the day the book was first free, and on the last day of October when the book was 99c. I did one guest blog, and wrote three other blogs on my own two sites.
I also was at Comikaze, a comic book and pop culture convention, October 31 through November 2, and I told attendees that the book was 99c on Kindle that weekend.
The Finances
Altogether, I spent $80 on advertising. Royalties from Amazon (the only place the book was for sale) were about $38 for 27 sales in October plus about $30 for 15 borrows from the KDP library, and about $20 for 32 sales in the first week of November.  Financially, I broke even, about $8 ahead.
But keep in mind that I had 3710 free downloads as well. If those downloads translate to reviews and newsletter signups, that’s worth the cost of advertising. A bigger newsletter list means more sales when new books come out. I’ve had about the same number of newsletter signups already that I had after a BookBub ad last year yielded 17,561 free downloads of the same book. Last year’s free downloads added about 35 new reviews over two to three months. It’s too early to know how many reviews I’ll get due to the 3710 free downloads last month.
While traditional wisdom is that advertising with so few books out isn’t worth your time and money, check out the difference in sales and in reach between the month before the sale, the sale month, and only one week after the last sale.
September (with no sales or advertising) – 6 purchases, 6 borrows, 0 free, about $27 in revenue
October (with three sales and lots of email ads) – 27 purchases, 15 borrows, 3710 free, about $68 in revenue
November (1 week only, end of last sale) – 32 purchases, no borrows or free (not in KDP Select anymore), about $20 in revenue
While my numbers are small, the percentage of increase is excellent. Because last year’s BookBub ad was for a free book, the reviews were easily worth the $90 I paid for the ad, but there was a very small sales tail after the five free days ended. I believe I sold 24 books in the month following. I ended up with a negative net income that month despite the wild “success” of so many people choosing to download the book.
This time, I spent nearly the same amount of money, reached fewer people but over several different audiences instead of one, and had a positive net income for the month. Also, my book was being promoted over the course of three weeks rather than five days. I will likely derive value from that later since people need to hear about a product a certain number of times before they decide to buy it.
Specific Advertisers
If you’re interested in the results from specific advertisers, these are my stats:
InD’Tale $25 ad to about 10,000 readers = 1238 free downloads that day
(NOTE: There were also 551 free downloads the day after the ad came out, and 245 on the third day, on which I also used an eBookSoda ad.)
eBookSoda $10 ad to 700+ readers = 245 free downloads that day
(NOTE: I used eBookSoda in April and May of this year, and had 0 sales and possibly a few sales, respectively with books priced at 99c. I emailed them and was told Little Miss Lovesick was advertised to 681 subscribers in April with 37 click-throughs to retailers, and Unexpected Superherowas advertised to 714 subscribers in May with 43 click-throughs to retailers.)
Ereader News Today $20 ad to “thousands” of readers = 1277 free downloads that day
(NOTE: There were another 391 free downloads the following day.)
EBookBooster $25 ad to 25 sites and potentially thousands of readers = 8 sales at 99c that day
(NOTE: There were 10 more 99c sales during the 3-day sale, and a lot of word-of-mouth promotion as well.)
I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. This is data based on having only one book in a series and advertising that book without the next book out yet. I’ll let you know what happens when I do this again when book two comes out.

Meanwhile, please leave a comment with your thoughts, or your advertising experiences. Your input could be very helpful for others contemplating advertising and short-term sales.
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story, “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites.
0 0 Read more

Learn to Self-Publish Your Book This Month – and Have It On Sale Next Month!

September 10, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , ,

Just a quick reminder that I’ll be teaching “Your How-to Guide to Self-Publishing” starting on Monday, September 15, 2014. That’s this upcoming Monday!

It’s a 4-week online course that will help you take your completed manuscript, and format it and upload it so it’s finally for sale. Yay you! Someone asked, if your manuscript is not quite complete, can you take the class anyway and use a test version to go through the steps so you know what to do when you’re ready? Yes, you can!

The class will consist of written lectures with step-by-step instructions for getting your book ready, as well as videos showing you what to do. You may have already read dozens of blogs and books about how this person or that person created their self-published book, so you already know there is more than one way to go about this. I will show you how I do it and, as a class, we’ll all help each other as each person chooses their own tools (software, distributors, etc.).

For only $30 ($20 for OCC members), this class is a great deal! And half of the proceeds go to support the Orange County Chapter of RWA. Tell your friends and sign up today!

Have questions? Email me at Kitty at KittyBucholtz dot com. I hope to see you in class!

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story, “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites. Superhero in the Making will be released this year.

0 0 Read more

Time Management for Writers

August 12, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , ,
by Kitty Bucholtz
There is a lot of talk about self-publishing nowadays. The pros being bandied about include having more control, publishing faster, and potentially making more money. But that’s not what I was thinking when I heard about Kindle Direct Publishing in 2011.
I was thinking – this is the business I’ve been waiting for!
Ever since I was a little kid with a Kool-Aid stand, I’ve wanted to own my own business. By the time KDP came along, I’d already had two businesses, both writing-related. But I’d come to dread getting more work each week because I couldn’t tell if my customers were going to be easy and fun to work with or complete nut cases.
Now I have what I’ve always wanted – a business I run mostly by myself. If I hire an outside contractor for something like editing or design and they don’t perform as I’d like, or we have a personality clash, I can hire someone else for the next book.
The down side is that I am in charge of everything. Everything.
So after I published my first book, Little Miss Lovesick, in 2011, I quickly realized I was going to need tools to manage my time. I considered tools I’d already used as a magazine editor and a conference director, and I tweaked them for my new business. I bought books on organization and time management. I tried a lot of new things and took a lot of notes on what worked and what didn’t.
Eventually, I started sharing what I’d learned with other writers, then started an online class on time management for writers. Other creatives started asking questions, so I tweaked the class slightly to accommodate other creative people. I’m excited to say I’ll be teaching the class in person at the California Dreamin’ Conference next March!
Some of the tips I’ve shared with writers include :
•   Start now – You don’t have to wait until January to start planning your calendar; you don’t even have to wait until Monday.
•   Restart – Time management is slippery. Things will always come up that force changes to your schedule. You can hit the restart button at any moment and work around the changes.
•   Write it down – People carry a lot of information in their heads, but even the most organized people compartmentalize and forget things. Writing your target deadlines down on a calendar will help you to keep track of where you are and what still needs to be done.
•   Sticky notes can keep you calm – If you write directly on your calendar and something changes, the new information might be difficult to find. Worse, the scratched out information may be a reminder that you didn’t make your original deadline. That can end up making you feel bad, and no good can come of wasting your energy that way.
I’m excited to share this and much more at my workshop in March. I hope you’ll join me!
If you, too, love the idea of owning your own writing business, if you have a manuscript ready to self-publish but don’t know quite how to start, or if you want to learn how to do it in case you decide to self-publish in the future, I’ll be teaching “Your How-to Guide to Self-Publishing” next month. This online class offered by OCC RWA runs September 15 – October 12. You can get more information and sign up at http://www.occrwa.org/onlineclassSept14.html. Or come to the OCC meeting on September 13 and hear an abbreviated version of the class.
Happy Writing!
KittyBucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story, “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites. Superhero in the Making will be released this summer.
0 0 Read more

Accidents Happen by Kitty Bucholtz

July 9, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , ,
John buying his new motorcycle

You may know that my husband John was in a motorcycle accident four months ago. He broke his leg badly but, as I’m fond of saying, his brain and internal organs are all in their original packaging. He’s alive, and that’s all that really matters to me.

That being said, I was on a major writing roll when the accident happened, and I’ve written very little since. I had my year planned out with my production schedule, speaking schedule, etc. all posted on my calendar in color-coded sticky notes. Those of you who have taken my goal setting and time management class know what I’m talking about. And you also know what I have to do now – hit the restart button and move all the stickies to new dates.

The thing is, that’s not the only hard thing that has happened this year. John’s current project ended (he works in the entertainment industry); we’re packing up our apartment in preparation to move to the next job even though we don’t know when or where that will be; our car decided it can’t go on any longer; and we had another death in the family so we had to put plane tickets on a credit card. There are days when, as blessed as you know you are, life just sucks.

But then one morning as you’re lying in bed trying to figure out how to juggle the day’s tasks, you remember that despite not having been on some of these roads before, you do know what to do. You accept that accidents happen in life – life happens – and you hit the restart button.

You remind yourself that you only have to move through the now. You don’t even have to be sure how you’re going to handle the afternoon. You only have to decide the first thing to do today. Maybe even the first three things. You tell yourself that you choose to be positive in spite of life’s difficulties – because we all know that going through difficult times with a bad attitude only makes it worse.

You keep doing the next thing that needs to be done. On a To Do list that feels a mile long, when you don’t know which is the most important thing to do next, you just choose one. You keep moving. You remember to be grateful for the things that go well, no matter how small. And before you know it, you’ve made it through another day. Not just survived, you had a few moments of thriving – you smiled at a stranger, had a short but nice conversation with a friend or neighbor or family member, you got a few things done that needed to be done.

And soon, you realize that a week has gone by, a month, four months, and you’re still standing. The things that haven’t gotten done, including the book that was to be published months ago that still isn’t finished, they will be done eventually. Life has ebbs and flows, sunny days and storms, accidents and accomplishments, and you have what it takes to get through them all.

You do.

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story, “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites. Superhero in the Making will be released this summer.

0 0 Read more

My Results Using Ads and Specials by Kitty Bucholtz

April 10, 2014 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , ,

Most writers are curious about what is and isn’t working for other writers when it comes to selling books. I’m grateful for what others have been willing to share, so it’s only fair to share in return. Even though my results are a bit embarrassing.

I’ve only bought ads three times. I bought an ad last year with The Wordsmith Journal Magazine (online) for Little Miss Lovesick. After one month, I had zero new sales. Ouch.

In August, while Unexpected Superhero was enrolled in the KDP Select program (meaning it was only for sale on Amazon for the first 90 days), I took advantage of the program’s free days option and made the book free for five days in a row at the end of a conference I was attending. I also bought an ad from BookBub that appeared on the first day of the promotion.

There were a whopping 17,561 free downloads during those five days! Over 10,000 copies were downloaded the first day, which I attribute primarily to the BookBub ad. During the next two weeks, I sold only 24 more copies when the book went off sale (back to $3.99). Then the sales dropped back to the 0-3 per week average that has been more common for my books so far.

A month or two ago, I dropped the price of Unexpected Superhero from $3.99 to $2.99 to see if I could see a change in sales. There might have been a slight increase. At 0-3 sales per week, it’s a bit hard to say. 🙂

My third promotion-with-paid-advertisement was last week. I dropped the price on Little Miss Lovesick and promoted it with 19 other lovely romance authors and their books last Friday. I also took out a then-free ad from eBookSoda, a newer email list like BookBub that advertises free and reduced-price books. (The ads were free, then $5, and I’m sure they’ll keep increasing in price as they grow their list. The problem with this ad is that I don’t know if it went to 100 people, 1000, or 20,000.)

I dropped the price from $2.99 to 99 cents a week before the promo with Smashwords so it would be 99 cents at the other outlets by the day of the promo. I decreased the price on Amazon two days before, and it went into effect the day before. I saw that I sold one copy on Amazon a day or two before the promotion, then two more copies total during the weekend of the promotion and ad.

That’s it – 3 sales. At the high end of “usual” for me.

Little Miss Lovesick got a new (second) cover a few months ago, but it’s barely changed the sales. Unexpected Superhero got a new (second) cover at the end of March, too early to tell if it has affected sales yet. I took out another eBookSoda ad (the free ad that went to $5 when I did it this time) for Sunday, May 4 (my third choice date, Fantasy category, same as last year’s BookBub ad). I’ll leave Superhero at its current $2.99 price and see if anything happens when it’s not on sale but advertised.

And that’s about all I know so far. My second superhero book was to be ready next week for WonderCon, and which I expected to help sales of the first book. But my husband’s motorcycle accident and injuries trumped anything and everything that used to be on my To Do list. 🙂

I’ll keep you updated so you get a well-rounded view of self-publishing and advertising. (It’s less embarrassing to write about your successes, so there are a lot more of those stories out there.) It would appear that my experience underscores what other successful writers have said about success coming after you have several books out. Unfortunately, “life” has thrown a wrench in making that happen soon, but as the Brits (used to) say, Keep Calm and Carry On.

And keep writing! 🙂

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites. Superhero in the Making will be released this summer.

0 0 Read more
«‹18192021222324›»

Copyright ©2017 A Slice of Orange. All Rights Reserved. ~PROUDLY POWERED BY WORDPRESS ~ CREATED BY ISHYOBOY.COM

>