books – Page 3 – Sam Russell

Book Promotion – what I got up to in 2015

January 29, 2016January 29, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

So, here’s the book promo chart which I linked to in my earlier post ‘So does the marketing work?‘ – my efforts to make my book visible over the last ten months, and the chequered results. Read and enjoy, and if you’ve got any better suggestions please drop me a comment below.

ps The link was there last time because I hadn’t worked out how to insert a table into a WordPress post (without a plugin). Well I have now, sort of, but if anyone knows a tidier way of doing this I would love to hear from you!)

and a pps to The Sister – so yes, everything is possible if you try hard enough! Not perfect, but possible 🙂

Promotion	Cost	Time consumed	Enjoyment/ bad taste in the mouth	Result	Profit
Start a blog	£0ish (I got led astray with domain names and pretty backgrounds but it doesn’t have to cost)	Quite a lot	Great fun! I’m a writer, of course I want to write. WordPress & HTML sometimes do my head in	Met lots of nice people in the blogosphere. Learnt new skills and generally enjoyed myself. Had some lovely feedback from readers Recommended	No idea. Probably not, but I have sold a couple of books to people who were able to contact me through the website
Twitter	£0 no ifs, no buts	Ate up my life in the early days but I’ve got a grip on it now	Some laugh out loud moments. Bad taste in the mouth? Depends who you follow!	Met a lot of nice people in the twittersphere. Even made friends – yes really. A lot of generous sharing going on out there. Recommended (if it’s your thing)	Would have to be, because it didn’t cost me a penny and I have sold books to twitter pals.
Facebook Page	£0 to £Any limit you set (if you pay FB for ads or boosted posts)	As much as you want to give it, but you will disappear if you don’t keep at it	Meh. I don’t spend enough time on the page – no real interaction with followers	Boosts and ads can be directed to people who are likely to read your books, but you are paying for it	No idea, but somehow I doubt it
Feature in Good Housekeeping Magazine	£0 + A lot of luck	1 Day	Bloody brilliant. Best day out ever (read all about it in This Weeks Shenanigans)	A trip to Londinium, a make-over, posh clothes to try on and a free lunch. What’s not to like? Recommended 🙂	Definitely sold a number of books, and it cost me nothing
Visit the local bookshops	£0	Roughly half a day begging, ongoing sucking up	Great once I’d talked them round. Lovely people. Sticking the neck out was uncomfortable. Bookshops hate Amazon	Sold lots of real, paperback books. Great buzz seeing my book on the shelf. Became the ‘local bestseller’ (briefly!)	Absolutely. Or it will do when they pay me for the books…
Feature in the local press	£0	Roughly half a day finding photos, talking to reporters and writing a press release	Mild embarrassment when the headline read ‘Saucy Farmer’s Wife’ (or something like that)	People stopping me in the street. A run on the local bookshop (which of course I mentioned in the feature.	Yes. Bookshop and Amazon sales
Kindle Free Promotions	£0	15 minutes to fill in the form	Fun watching the download graph rocket. Not so fun that you’re giving the book away.	Hundreds of downloads, gets the book seen by readers.	Yes and no (the download is free) but it cost me nothing and I’m hoping the same readers will buy the next book. More pages read on Unlimited, which I do get paid for.
Goodreads Giveaway	£0 for promo, cost of books + postage to mail the books to winners	15 minutes to fill in the form, a trip to the post office	Another chart to follow!	A few reviews of the book	Not sure/not really BUT reviews grow interest in the book. Postage costs can be high if you run worldwide (you don’t have to)
Public speaking	£0 (some authors charge, but I’m not there yet)	3 days stressing + however long the event is	More fun than you would think (or more fun than I thought it would be) once you get over the nerves. People are nice.	A good laugh, and usually good sales.	Yes – best sales day ever of the paperback was after my talk to the WI!
Paid email subscriber lists (I’ve done BookBub and Fussy Librarian)	££ depends which countries you target. USA is spendy, I went UK – less than £100	An hour or so submitting (with a good chance you will not be accepted) A fair bit of time faffing with time zones and price drops	Watching the money roll in… … oh wait, I’m giving the book away again.	Lots of lovely downloads	Yes when I price dropped to £0.99, no when I priced at £0.00. But there’s always that second book that their tongues are hanging out for…
Start a newsletter/ email sign up	£0 so far	I reckon quite a lot, but it’s early days for me with this.	People really need more crap in their inboxes… … luckily for them my Newsletter rate is scarce/non-existent	I’m told the potential is huge…but how the hell do you persuade people to sign up? Ps – do please sign up for my Newsletter here 🙂	Watch this space. The idea being that every faithful fan who has read your book will be running for the shops the minute you tell them a new one is out.

Giveaways Events and Special Offers

I’m virtually in Scotland this week

August 10, 2015January 29, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

I’ve popped over to Mac Logan’s blog this week. I met Mac on twitter, he writes poetry and thrillers (Angels’ Cut & Dark Art).

We struck up a cross-genre relationship, and being the generous bloke he is, Mac offered to host a guest post from me.

Mac is a crafter of words and there is some great stuff on his site if you shoot over there and take a look. His most recent post ‘Cafe on the Edge‘ is a good place to start.

p.s. That isn’t Mac in the image, just a nice pic of a cow.

Writing Romance

We’re all romantic fools at heart…

July 29, 2015January 29, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

As a writer of contemporary romance with a novel to sell I am clear about my target market. Now I’m not a fan of pigeon holes. Or of sweeping judgements which attempt to predict character by demographic. But having issued that disclaimer, please bear with me as I litter this post with offensive generalisation. It’s the grubby truth of marketing, and I accept that having a criteria on which to base your marketing efforts does make sense.

To ensure the best response to my own marketing, I carefully researched my target audience. Ok, that’s a lie. I gave it my best guess. I mean we’re talking contemporary romance. How hard can it be? Young women of average intelligence education. We all know that it’s the dreamy lasses who want to read about gorgeous hunks – men who will love them completely, and whose hearts they will mend. Passion, adoration (and a soupçon of scorching-but-meaningful rumpy-pumpy). The cynical mid-lifers (of which I am one, which should have told me something as I am writing this stuff) have been there, done that and thrown away the t-shirt. Some have nurtured ill will against romance ever since the departure of husband number three. And the highly educated know enough to understand that it’s all a load of fanciful tosh, they are busy improving their literary minds with important books.

The elderly? Please. You need to ask? As for men, well we all know that their perfect relationship is straight-forward (willing woman – leg over – meat pie for dinner. Depart to watch the match). If the match is showing widescreen at the pub, we have our happy-every-after. I warned you that this would be offensive.

If you are ranting at me right now, please take some solace in knowing that I now understand the folly of these collective ‘isms’. They are wrong, wrong and wrong again. We are indeed all romantic fools at heart. Take if you will as an example, the lovely letter I received this week from a farmer. A man who I happen to know is the wrong side of 60 (strike that, let’s make it the right side of 60!) He qualified his letter with the fact that he wasn’t much of a book reader, preferring the Farmer’s Weekly. He reads, he tells me, one book a year, on his holiday. He usually chooses a romance (did you see that coming? If not – shame on you.) That letter made my week. And there is the card I received in the post from an octogenarian. The photographs sent to me of my book in exotic locations, despatched by a woman who holds rank in City banking. The builder I met in Tesco who apologised for having not read my novel yet. I countered his apology with one of my own; “It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, what do you usually read?” His reply – “Mills & Boon.” I misjudged, again.

One of my closest friends is on husband number three. I realise now that this fact alone is a credit to her faith in true love. Isn’t that really the message of every romance? And she’s read the book three times. Happy endings, I find, can bring a tear to the most hardened of eyes. Boo sucks demographic. You don’t know us at all.

Writing Romance

Reaping the rewards

July 15, 2015January 29, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

I am writing like a demon. Smug as a skunk. I should point out that my reaping of rewards lies in the satisfaction of a story coming together…a novel forming. Monetary rewards, not so much but right now I couldn’t give a hoot. I #amwriting – and loving every minute of it.

I accept that this nirvana may be temporary. I recently latched on to an interesting forum discussion based on the question ‘How many words should you write each day?’ Various frightening word counts littered said forum outrageously. I selected the lowest target (500 words) and set to with evangelist gusto. It almost worked, for a day or so, then I had a weekend away and wrote not a single word. Panic at falling behind my target perversely blocked me from getting back to the writing at all. With every day that I failed to write I mentally upped the daily word count which I would achieve when I started writing again. The days stretched on, to a point where the daily word count I was planning to achieve became, well, unachievable. I finally acknowledged my frailty and gave up altogether. The mysteries of the human mind are anathema to me (or maybe only my mind functions this way) but within an instant of concluding that I couldn’t write any more, I was off like the proverbial steamy-train (note: deliberate typo).

Contrary, but I’m not knocking it. Not this week anyway, while I’m writing like a demon. My *k words are climbing. It is easy to get caught up in the numbers (stroke-impossible-not-to). When I wrote the first book I am embarrassed to admit that I reached my final word count without a clue how long the book was. No idea if my number was paltry, sufficient or awesome (it was somewhere in the middle). That lack of number pressure was a guilt-free blessing. I just kept writing until the story was written.

In the smugness of my current flow (and the block which preceded it) I have arrived at my own answer to the conundrum ‘how many words should you write in a day?’ That answer is simply ‘as many as you bloody well can’. That might be two (I have experienced this, the words were ‘Chapter Twelve’) it might be 20k (I haven’t experienced this yet). When the fug strikes, hammer out five. When the floodgates are open – CLEAR THE DECKS AND DO NOTHING ELSE (as best you are able, this may prove counter-productive if you expire at your desktop from starvation. Take that as a health warning.)

Facebook won’t miss me, tweets are an endangered species, blog posts will be scant. Marketing is tedious anyway (as are ironing and housework). No escaping the day job which is growing my daily bread. If I keep this up maybe harvest and the manuscript will collide in a glorious eruption of reaping.

Uh-oh, that sounds like a target, and you know what targets bring. I really hope I haven’t jinxed my fortune, by writing about my writing here (if you get what I mean). Thank heavens I am not traditionally published, imagine the pressure of advance payment!

*Shudders dramatically* like the tortured indie she is.

Marketing and Promotion, Writing Romance

50 Bales of Hay (shameless, I know)

June 29, 2015January 29, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

One million book sales in just one week. Woah.

That is a level of book sales that most of us haven’t imagined in our wildest, most optimistic day dreams. An unbelievable storyline (the figures, not the book). You couldn’t write it as the saying goes (and a million is not easy to write unless you are concentrating. That’s a lot of noughts).

I’m talking Grey of course. Isn’t everyone?

Another masterclass in selling from the stable of E.L.James, and the message is starkly simple: Write something that everyone wants to read. And market the living daylights out of it. Respect.

Or it would be simple but for two things. The first is a question – what the hell does everyone want to read? (Submission and lashings might be the answer, but I think that has been done). There are whips in my book, but only the riding sort (and we’re talking horse riding here I’m afraid) so I may have missed a trick.

If you think you know the answer, get on and write that book but my instinct tells me that none of us actually do. We might know what is working now but 50 Shades was new and different. I doubt that James wrote it because she knew it would be the next big thing. She probably wrote the story she carried in her head, as I suspect most authors do. I wonder if she dared to dream one million book sales, right back at the very beginning.

Marketing the living daylights out of a book must surely be easier when you already have one..two…three best sellers and a film under your belt. A supermarket, nay mega-market, full of eager buyers and a proven product to sell. So we have looped very neatly back to the first point. Get yourself a best seller. Write the book that everyone wants to read. Easy peasy lemon squeezy, thanks ELJ.

Or don’t of course. Write the book that you want to write. Write it the best you can. Tell people about it at every random opportunity you trip over. Cross your fingers, and don’t give up the day job. A masterclass in book sales from the stable of Sam Russell. Best week to date (excluding the giveaways which did make my sales chart very pretty) 32 books (thank you the WI) and I was delighted with that. But a hundred would be nice…or even a thousand. Nothing wrong with optimistic day dreams, they are what keeps us going.

As for Grey, have I bought it? You bet I have.

Marketing and Promotion, Self-publishing

My rookie efforts at experimental, almost zero budget, Marketing

May 6, 2015January 29, 2016by Sam Russell1 Comment

I have been dabbling in marketing over the last few weeks, without a budget, although I did fork out just shy of thirty quid on Facebook in April. And three pounds 49 pence on postage… Facebook – Page Promotion and Boosted Posts I love that you can target Facebook boosts to a specific audience, and the fact that it only costs you if a person actually connects with your post. FB allows you to set your daily budget and the duration of the boost, so right from the get go you know absolutely what your maximum spend will be. Great user tools, and targeting too, what more could you ask for! Results and connections are charted for you. I saw an increase in page likes and in activity on all the posts I boosted. FB also tells you which of your (un-boosted) posts are amusing people, so you can make informed choices about what to promote. What you cannot do is work out if all this activity translates to actual book sales. I console myself with the belief that any PR carrying the name of my book is valuable, even if it does not directly translate to financial returns! As the author of rural romance, featuring horses and dogs. I targeted my post at women who like books, romance, dogs and horses. Which feels pretty specific. As I have yet to complete my ‘Facebook Ads training’ I could well be missing a trick. Amazon Giveaway Unfortunately only in the USA – a US address is a requirement of entry (Amazon’s idea, not mine) but as America knows little about me yet, I thought this was worth a bash. I offered three free copies of my paperback (you have to have a physical book – or a physical something- to participate in this) and ticked ‘follow me on twitter’ as one of the entry requirements. You decide the ‘lucky number’ who will win a book, e.g. every 30th entrant or every 1000th. I over-estimated the potential number of entrants and set my number too high. Consequently I only gave away one book in the end. Amazon despatches the book themselves and charges you the retail cost plus postage, so prize giving is delightfully easy (I had to pay £10 to despatch a book to the USA after my Goodreads Giveaway). You can promote the giveaway on twitter with the #AmazonGiveaway tag. Result – an increase in twitter followers, potentially people who actually read books, although probably those that just enjoy giveaways! Cheap Handouts for my upcoming signing An easy one this, I ordered 100 free business cards from Vistaprint, replacing the business name with the name of my book, and adding my tag line where the legend should have been. I’m quite pleased with the result (see below) and I have something to give to those attending my book signing. Total spend £3.49 (on postage) and I now carry a few in my handbag to distribute to anyone who shows a glimmer of interest. P.S. I got a voucher from Visa Print this morning, offering £10 off my next order, which I am about to use to create a poster for the book signing. I think I’m in profit.

Pinterest Having become absorbed by Pinterest when creating mood boards for my novel (otherwise known as procrastinating), I finally made the boards public. I find images a great way to stimulate writing, and as many of my readers have said that they would like to “step into the world of Draymere”, I decided it was time to share.

The cover image on my mood board “A Bed of Barley Straw – Draymere” offers a link to my book on Amazon. I have absolutely no idea if this will engage potential readers or not but I’m enjoying myself! It also spurred me on to create the mood board for the sequel (not public yet) which had the effect of breaking my writers block and delivered me back to the typewriter. Now that, I call a success.

Marketing and Promotion, Self-publishing

Talking about my book…

April 17, 2015January 29, 2016by Sam Russell3 Comments

That is what I have to do now. Blog tours, author interviews and a couple of local speaking/signing events lurk on my horizon. I will have to talk out loud, in front of people. Yikes.

Numerous niggles are harrying my mind. The blog tour sounds fine; I can sit at my computer, happy in my space, editing and re-editing my words as often as I like before I send them out. Viewers can glance at my post and move swiftly on, or they can read every sentence. I cannot be offended because I will never know which of those actions they have taken (unless they drop a comment or a reassuring ‘like’ – lovely gifts from cyberspace which let you know you have actually connected).

My issue with author interviews is that I’m not sure I’m getting the answers right. This belief is confirmed when I read the interviews of proper, grown up authors. Those familiar with my blog will surely remember that my response to a straightforward query about my favourite books resulted in total brain freeze. (I felt only empathy for Natalie Bennett after that train crash of a radio interview). Also I did not study journalism at the University of Brilliant, I cannot quote Shakespeare (at least not knowingly), I have never written for the National Shout it Out, and there are zero awards to my name.

My author bio is a desperate little paragraph with few writer credentials, and zero proof of wordsmithery:

Left school at 16 ( I couldn’t wait to get out). Worked with horses. Got married, had kids, wrote a book.

There is more of course, but little of relevance. Various eclectic jobs, study and hobbies. You’re taking a gamble on me as an author, but hey, live dangerously. Oh, I’ve just remembered, I won the poetry contest at our village fete – for three years on the run! How the hell did I miss that out? They even gave me a cup (it had to be given back at the end of the year, of course). My poem about the Queen’s Jubilee was an absolute cracker. I would love to share it with you here but it is sadly lost in the mist of obsolete PCs.

Now the book, I can talk about, as friends will verify (whilst rolling their eyes to the heavens). Here are some great sample questions on author interviews which I can’t wait to get my teeth into:

“Describe your hero in five words” – Hunky, bloody gorgeous. Bit of a sod. (Oops that’s seven)

“Was your novel inspired by real life events?” – No! But no one believes me (mates who have read it are eyeing the Farmer in very different light). Some of the horses and dogs existed in real life…does that count?

“Can you remember where you first saw your book on the shelves” – I can promise you I.WILL.REMEMBER.THAT. When it happens.

And now the biggest Frog – PUBLIC SPEAKING. I’ve yet to find out if I can pull this off without my voice going weird and squeaky. I used to read the lesson in church as a child. That didn’t bother me. In my twenties and thirties I became adept at lecturing my offspring. Do either of those qualify as public speaking? I have hollered across a windy field whilst teaching people to ride, so I know the voice can carry when it wants to.

Luckily I have two secret weapons in my armoury.

The lovely, helpful people on the “Alliance of Independent Authors” Facebook group, who have been amazingly generous with hints and tips.
Gin and tonic.

Wish me luck.

Giveaways Events and Special Offers

A Bed of Barley Straw

April 1, 2015January 29, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

My free Kindle give away has sadly ended now. I hope you downloaded and enjoyed my book, but if you missed out this time follow me here, on twitter @SamRussellBooks or like my page on Facebook to make sure you get first-hand news about any future competitions or offers.

Below is a taste of some of the reviews “A Bed of Barley Straw” has received so far.

Marketing and Promotion

Running at the wall. Early marketing efforts

March 21, 2015January 29, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

Firstly an apology for my hastily posted previous blog, which was nothing more than a shameless ad for my Goodreads Giveaway. My intention that day was actually to link the ‘Goodreads Giveaway’ widget to the book page on my website. Three hours later (dehydrated, in need of sustenance and losing the will to live) I worked out that I can’t do that on my freely hosted site. On the plus side I did learn something about Java script, HTML and plug-ins (there must be a rap there somewhere). On the minus, all you lot got was an alert that RussellRomance had posted a blog, only to view a hurriedly pasted clip of the view of my Giveaway which you would have got, if I could have linked you to it. Technical frustration dogs every stage of this process.

Anyway I digress. My marketing efforts so far (all work-in-progress):

Beg mates to buy the book. Positives: Hugely successful – 99% hit rate. Generous, gushing reviews resulting in warm glowy feeling. Negatives: Something of a short term policy. Few mates left (less than I started with?)
Social media pedalling. Positives: Make new mates (to replace the ones you lost banging on and on about your book). Success rate – not a clue but hopefully aids awareness that your book exists. Additional warm glow (so many nice people out there who are happy to help you along). Negatives: Time and life consuming. Distraction levels at an all-time high. Original thought used up trying to invent interesting posts/tweets.
Feature in a magazine. Positives: Great day out! Whole new experience to bang on to the friends about. Book brought to the attention of thousands of potential readers. Negatives: I haven’t seen the photograph that will feature. (Oh, weak vanity). There may be others…I will let you know.
Plead for reviews from strangers and book review bloggers. Positives: I don’t know yet, my pleas have not been answered. One potential blogger lined up – I have all my fingers crossed. The reviews will be honest (this could be listed under negatives too, but I’m quietly optimistic). Negatives: See previous sentence (safest to hedge your bets).
Run a Goodreads Giveaway of your book. Positives: Raises awareness of book among confirmed bibliophiles. Potential for reviews on respected site. Negatives: Yet another statistic to obsess over – ‘number of people requested’ (I bounce between Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, CreateSpace, Facebook, Twitter and WordPress in a never-ending quest for approval. Sad, but strangely addictive.)
KDP (Kindle) Select. I’m still considering this option, but haven’t signed up yet. Positives: Book has potential to reach thousands of readers for free. Negatives: Royalties per read considerably reduced (not such a problem if your readers quadruple in number). Your ebook becomes exclusive to the Kindle store (I currently publish on Smashwords too). I would be really interested to hear your comments and views if you are either an author signed up to KDP Select or a reader who subscribes to Kindle Unlimited (you may be both of course!)

Other ideas still bubbling in the pipeline: Local press, bookish coffee mornings, appearance on Richard and Judy (yes, I jest. But I have been asked why I can’t just go on there. What a wonderful world to live in.)

Wishing you all a happy, fruitful week. You’ll find me running at that wall, lobbing copies of my book over the top.

Giveaways Events and Special Offers

GOODREADS GIVEAWAY

March 20, 2015January 29, 2016by Sam RussellLeave a Comment

Two free copies of my book to give away at Goodreads – Enter here to to win. Closing date 28th March.