SFFMP 213: Marketing Plans for 2019, Meta Data and SEO Explained, and Which Advertising Platforms are Best for Authors?
We recorded early this week, since Christmas is on a Tuesday, so we hope you enjoy the show while you’re traveling or after you’ve had fun with the holidays. The three of us answered listener questions that covered the range from what the heck is meta data and SEO to what kind of marketing we plan to try in 2019 and which advertising platforms we’ve found best for their books.
Here’s a list of the questions as well as some Bookbub-related links that Lindsay promised:
- How do you market cross-over fiction such as a mix between urban fantasy and near-future-SF?
- Is urban fantasy with a lighter humorous note a trend now?
- What is meta data and SEO, and does it matter for authors?
- How much value is there to in-house promos on the various retailers, such as prime reading on Amazon, the promo tab on Kobo, and Apple and B&N features?
- What new will Jo, Jeff, and Lindsay be trying in 2019 in regard to marketing?
- Are book blog tours worth your time as an author?
- What should you do to build buzz and sell books if you don’t have money to spend on advertising?
- Who are the guys’ favorite authors and how did they influence them?
- How do you go about improving as a novelist and keeping new books from being too much like what you’ve written before?
- Have you tried to publish your audiobooks on Spotify?
- Do you need an ISBN for an Amazon paperback and a different one for an IngramSpark paperback?
- What’s the biggest thing you learned/realized in 2018, and how will that change your approach to publishing in 2019?
- How would you go about calculating ROI for advertising a series that doesn’t have a set reading order? Whenever people talk about this calculation, it always hinges on figuring out your readthrough, but if the series has multiple entry points and you can skip books, what then?
- What do you find is the most effective platform for authors for ads?
- What marketing avenues would you recommend for authors who aren’t big fans of marketing?
- How have your audiobook sales done for your different series? Does releasing a new audiobook for a backlist book help boost sales?
- What’s going on if you’re struggling to get impressions and clicks are expensive for Bookbub ads? (Links: All About Bookbub CPM Ads and Becoming a #1 Bestseller on Amazon with Adam Croft, Bookbub Insights Blog for Authors, The Best Bookbub Ads of 2018)
- Can you change your author name on Amazon after you’ve published a book?
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Just wanted to ad to the changing name on Amazon discussion, I’ve done this and encountered some problems. In one incidence Amazon red flagged my book for copyright infringement and I had to prove I was who I said I was using paperwork filed with the US Copyright office. So it can be a big hassle.
If you aren’t trying to totally hide yourself, I actually suggest you simply put your new pen name in as a second author. Then after a bit you can switch that to primary.
Also I respectfully disagree about ISBNs. I use the same one for the paperback edition on KDPP + Ingram. Never had any problems. I use a different ISBN for different editions (hard cover, large print, digital), not for different publication platforms. Whether it comes form KDPP, Createspace (RIP) or Ingram, if it’s trade paperback, sames size, cover, and lay out then it’s the same edition and gets the same ISBN.
Thanks for chiming in, Gail! Good point on the ISBNs. What I didn’t clarify well is that you can’t use the one Amazon/CreateSpace gave you elsewhere. If you had the foresight to buy one and use that when you upload to IS and Amazon, then yes, it should work just fine.
From Amazon: “This free ISBN can only be used on KDP for distribution to Amazon and its distribution partners. It cannot be used with another publisher or self-publishing service. You can buy your own ISBN from Bowker or through your local ISBN agency. ISBNs purchased from Bowker can be used to publish titles in any language.”
I have changed my name on KDP Print paperback, in a similar case to Joe Lallo. I had my name with initial on the cover, but published under my name without initial.
I made a helpdesk request, and they did it, BECAUSE the book cover had the desired name already on it. So, ISBN rules must be more tied to the displayed name?
For changing your name, you won’t be able to change it on the paperback because as said, it’s linked to the ISBN. So what I’ve done when making a change to the title or trim size to the paperback is unpublished the existing paperback and then set up a new one. It’s not the best solution because there will still be a linked “used” page for the unpublished paperback, but that’s the only way to change the name.
Do you have any tips for getting on the radar of Apple to even be offered a feature? Is that something they select, or can you apply somewhere?
Sometimes, the various vendors will have reps at the big publishing conferences, so if there’s one in your area, you could check that out and see if you can sign up for their list. Draft2Digital and Smashwords are both more approachable (we’ve had Dan Wood/Mark Lefebvre from D2D on the show and also Mark Coker from Smashwords), and if you’re distributing with them, and have good looking books that sell reasonably well, they may be open to plugging you to Apple and the other sites for future promos.
Thanks for the advice, Lindsay. I direct distribute with Apple, so I must not be getting enough sales to entice them directly. I’ll look for conferences in my area.