Category Archives: Discoverability

October 18, 2021 · 3:06 pm

Five Months Out: Adjusting the Promotion Plan

Four weeks have flown by in a swirl of promotional activities. Now it’s time to take stock and decide what’s working, and what needs adjusting.

Discounting. Making Waterspell Book 1: The Warlock free in all ebook formats has definitely raised the book’s profile. At one point, it ranked about #1,200 in the Kindle store, and around #46 in Fantasy Adventure Fiction. Alas, I did not screen-shoot those lofty numbers, so now I can’t prove what I saw. As of today, however, the book is still ranking respectably at Amazon (as pictured). Its sales rank at Barnes & Noble also improved quite a bit. There’s no doubt: making it free has made Book 1 more visible.

Reviews. Free ebooks have NOT yielded new reviews, however. I’m kinda gobsmacked over the difficulty of getting readers to post reviews. Even giving away paperback copies to potential reviewers has garnered only one new review in a whole month. It’s a reality check, for sure, regarding the vast numbers of books that are available to readers, and the vast numbers of authors who are clamoring for the attention of those readers.

Exploring additional avenues to get reviews, I’ve signed up at StoryOrigin. There, I posted a sample as a Reader Magnet, and my offer of a free review copy has been accepted by two readers so far. Also, I’ll be participating in a group promo for Portal Fantasy books, Dec. 1–31.

Just today, I entered Waterspell Book 1 in a monthly book giveaway sponsored by Reader Views. Am waiting to hear when the giveaway will be scheduled. It’ll be in time, I hope, to help with next year’s planned Book 4 publicity.

Bookstagram. This platform has been encouraging. I’m connecting with other authors, and with reviewers and book bloggers. Two readers have accepted my offer of a free review copy in exchange for honest reviews. Those reviews have not yet been posted, leaving me to wonder whether they will be. Fingers crossed.

BookBub ads. Mixed results here. I’ve tested various graphics. All of these (below) have attracted some clicks, but none has performed spectacularly. For my next month of advertising, I’m switching to Freebooksy.

Blog Tours. Going on blog tours was the best way I got reviews when the Waterspell trilogy was first published. I’m thinking it may be time to investigate what’s available these days. On Bookstagram, I follow TBR and Beyond Tours. Not sure they’re a perfect fit, but I’ll look into them further. I’ve bookmarked several other possibilities at The Book Designer.

Those of you who occasionally read my blog posts (thank you! I love you!) have probably figured out, by now, that I use this space for thinking out loud. It’s my planning area. Without my posts on “discoverability,” I’d never be able to keep track of plans made, plans executed, or plans adjusted. All of this marketing work is squeezed into the hours when I’m not actively writing—or formatting.

On top of everything else, I’m repaginating the paperback editions to skinny-up the print books a tad (in light of current printing and shipping costs) and to update the copyright and About the Author pages. Scattered about my house are PDFs of Books 1, 2, and 4, with Book 3 yet to be repaginated. The Book 4 manuscript is out with my final beta reader, I’m busily promoting Book 1, and I’m trying to be a regular Bookstagrammer, while not wholly neglecting Goodreads and Facebook. The days are just packed! And now I’ve added StoryOrigin to my online efforts. I can’t keep this up forever. About a month after Book 4 is published, I’m going to collapse and sleep for three days.

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Filed under BookBub, Books and Readers, Bookstagram, Discoverability, Waterspell fantasy trilogy

Tagged as advertising, book discovery, book reviews, marketing, social media

September 20, 2021 · 5:33 pm

Six Months Out: Working the Promotion Plan

Release date for Waterspell Book 4 is March 18, 2022. Which means I’m now officially in the six-month pre-release window. I’ve got a plan and I’m working it.

Today I made Waterspell Book 1: The Warlock free at every bookseller that will let me: B&N, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords. Amazon is resisting going lower than 99 cents, and I can’t figure out how to “tell them about a lower price.” I thought there would be a button or something to click on the book’s Amazon page, but I’m not seeing it. Maybe Amazon’s zealousness about not being undersold will soon work to drop the Kindle price to free. Google Books also seems slow to respond to my price drop; I’ll keep checking back until the Google page shows it for free.*

*9/21/21 Update: Amazon and Google have caught up. The Book 1 ebook is now free in ALL ebook formats. Price-matching triumphs again. 😀

Most of the rest of today, I’ve spent making Instagram posts to get the word out about a free ebook. I’m not quite ready to post either of these yet, preferring to feature a few more Reader Reviews first, but these graphics are ready to go when the time seems right:

I’ve also reached out to some book reviewers with whom I’ve connected on Instagram. I have review copies (print and ebook) ready to send out in exchange for honest reviews. (Fantasy fans, you need merely ask, and you shall receive.)

Waterspell trilogy The Book 4 manuscript has gone out to a trusted beta reader who is herself an author. I know that I (and the book) will greatly benefit from her feedback. She’s showing me the great kindness of reading the entire original trilogy to refresh her memory of the backstory before diving into Book 4.

Now it’s quitting time for today, and my neck is stiff from too many hours at the computer. I’ll need to learn to pace myself as the clock counts down to December 18, 2021, the first day of pre-orders, and then to March 18, 2022, the Book 4 release day. I’m trying to figure out when and how to do a Cover Reveal in there somewhere.

Which reminds me: I must also see to a new paperback cover for Book 4. To do that, I’ll need to determine how many pages the book will occupy in print. No point doing that, though, until I hear from my beta reader. Almost certainly her comments will lead to a final round of edits.

It’s going to be a busy Fall and Spring. I’m ready. I have a plan and I’m working it.

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Filed under Books and Readers, Bookstagram, Cover Design, Discoverability, Waterspell fantasy trilogy

Tagged as book blurbs, book discovery, book reviews, free ebooks, marketing, self-editing

September 9, 2021 · 11:06 am

Canva and I and Waterspell and Instagram

Sitting on a bookshelf over my computer desk, for several years, has been a spiral notebook that I filled with quotes and notes from the books I was reading while writing the first three books of Waterspell. I bought the notebook in Mexico, where my late husband and I were living at the time, and where the original Waterspell trilogy was largely written. Our house on Lake Chapala, south of Guadalajara, made for the perfect writer’s den. I was insulated from my formerly too-busy life north of the border, and could devote myself full-time to the creative act of writing fiction, and to reading widely in support of my work.

Once the original trilogy got published, I seldom or never looked at the notebook that I’d filled with pertinent or inspiring notes and quotes. After getting on Instagram, however, I pulled the notebook off the shelf and, paging through it, discovered that I had created a wonderfully diverse archive of readily Instagram-able thoughts and sayings.

They have inspired me to feverish sessions at Canva, where I’ve upgraded to a Pro account to have access to ALL of the pretty pictures. I’m having a great time creating square-shaped graphics that feature quotes gleaned from my jam-packed notebook. On Instagram I’m alternating such quotes with excerpts from readers’ reviews of Waterspell, and the strategy seems to be working. I’m connecting with readers, reviewers, bloggers, and other authors much faster and more easily than I’ve ever managed to do on my largely useless Facebook author page.

Here’s a sample of the Author Quotes that I’ve taken from my old Mexican notebook and transformed on the Canva interface into post-worthy graphics:

And here are some of the graphics I’ve made to feature excerpts from readers’ reviews:

I am deeply grateful to the readers and bloggers who gave Waterspell such wonderful reviews upon the books’ original publication. I’m grateful to Canva for making it so easy and such fun to feature these review snippets as attractive graphics. I’m grateful to Bookstagram for giving me a place to post my Canva creations. Canva and I, and my books and Instagram, are jelling together quite well these days. Giving me hope that I may yet break through the static and bring my work to the attention of new readers, upon the publication of Waterspell Book 4, and to new listeners as well, when the long-in-progress audiobooks are finally released.

When books meet tech the right way, the results can be beautiful.

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Filed under Books and Readers, Bookstagram, Discoverability, Waterspell fantasy trilogy

Tagged as book discovery, book reviews, social media

August 21, 2021 · 12:45 pm

My BookBub Ad Test

Here are the results of my advertising test at BookBub: “Belong” (ad 1) and “Courage” (ad 2) got almost exactly the same number of clicks, but hardly any clicks at all from Amazon shoppers. The vast majority of readers who showed interest by clicking either ad were Barnes & Noble customers (“Belong”) or, surprisingly to me, Apple Books and Kobo readers (“Courage”).

Waterspell by Deborah J Lightfoot — BookBub “Belong” ad

This supports my belief that writers who give Amazon exclusive rights to sell their books are condemning their works to compete with the almost infinite number of “products” sold by Amazon, while ignoring the truly dedicated readers who shop at Barnes & Noble and elsewhere, and who prefer non-Kindle tablets and e-readers.

When I launch a serious ad campaign for Waterspell Book 4 and the accompanying audiobooks, I now know where to direct my efforts.

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Filed under Audiobooks, BookBub, Discoverability, Waterspell fantasy trilogy

Tagged as advertising, book discovery, marketing

August 11, 2021 · 8:35 am

TMI: Marketing Info Overload

My eyes are glazing and my brain hurts. It began with a BookBub Partners email directing me to a guest blog by author Nick Sullivan, his topic being one close to my heart: Launching Book 4 in a Series. Like Nick, I have a fourth book coming out in about six months. But unlike Nick, it would never occur to me to set up a pre-order for a book being released months from now. That’s yet another marketing wrinkle I must consider.

As is “calling KDP.” What? It’s possible to telephone Kindle Direct Publishing? Nick says he “Called KDP and added eight more categories to both the paperback and the Kindle editions. (When you set up your book in KDP, you provide two categories, but you can contact Amazon and get up to 10.)” Veddy interesting. I had no idea that speaking with an actual human would be possible. I must investigate.

Reading more of Nick’s advice, I came to the unfamiliar term AMS. Nick writes that AMS had been “getting away from him.” Well, by golly, it’s sure been getting away from me, since I had never heard the term before today. Googling clued me in: it stands for Amazon Marketing Services. Oh, okay: ads. Yep, Amazon ads have been on my to-do list.

So I let Google detour me from Nick’s Book 4 launch strategy into the YouTube weeds of “How to Do Amazon Book Ads.” The process seems similar to BookBub’s DIY ad platform. Except Amazon makes provision for “negative targeting keywords,” where you enter search terms that you don’t want your book to be associated with. For instance, if your book isn’t free, you can enter “free” and “free ebook” as negative keywords, to keep freebie shoppers from clicking on your title and then getting mad when they see that it costs a whopping $2.99. Good to know.

But back to Nick’s advice. He names several non-BookBub promo sites: Robin Reads, Freebooksy, Book Adrenaline, BookDoggy, ENT, and eReaderIQ. I see more Googling in my future, as I have no clue what any of those are or what they do or how much they cost.

Nick’s post eventually led me to this related article: “Marketing a New Book Release that’s Part of a Long Series.” In that linked article, author Julianne MacLean offers succinct advice that seems a little easier to follow for someone (like me) who possesses only rudimentary marketing knowledge. Julianne breaks her promo plan into seven steps:

1. Pre-order
2. Cover reveal
3. Social media
4. Book trailer
5. Discounting
6. Advertising
7. Blog tour

I’ve got Waterspell Book 4’s new cover in hand, I’ve made some book trailers, I’m as active as time allows on social media, and my testing-the-waters ads via BookBub have yielded promising results, especially for rebels like me who prefer Barnes & Noble and Nook. When Waterspell Books 1 and 2 were newly released, I did blog tours, and it seems that such tours are still “a thing,” though blogging itself isn’t the hottest communications medium out there.

Which leaves pre-orders and discounting for me to investigate.

My to-do list grows ever longer. It’s encouraging, though, that other writers have worked out doable marketing plans that I can hope to emulate. But not right now. At this hour of the day, I (like Fernando Pessoa) need truth and aspirin.

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Filed under BookBub, Cover Design, Discoverability, Writers

Tagged as advertising, book discovery, marketing, social media

August 3, 2021 · 9:11 am

Burrowing Into BookBub

The Plan calls for investigating the usefulness of BookBub, a book discovery service that features free and discounted ebooks. Quickly I learned that it’s great for readers. In Week 1 of getting their daily emails featuring ebook bargains, I bought six new books or series (pictured, Refraction through Book of Dragons). None of these cost me more than $3. Such a deal!

BookBub ad 1

I’ve also tentatively begun advertising on BookBub. My first ad served up 1,600 impressions but garnered only eight clicks. Being inexperienced with this ad platform, I paid for impressions rather than clicks. So far, I can’t see the logic in spending money on “impressions,” which are nothing more than opened emails. There’s no guarantee that people will even scroll all the way to the end of the email, where the ads appear. As I see it, “impressions” mean little or nothing. It’s clicks that should matter.

BookBub ad 2

For Ad No. 2, I changed the tagline and bid on clicks, not impressions. This ad has been running for three days now, serving up fewer impressions but not burning through the test budget like my first ad did.

BookBub ad 3

I’ll give Ad No. 2 a week, then change the text again, to test a question rather than a statement. My Facebook focus group likes Ad No. 3 the best of all the examples I offered for their scrutiny.

All things considered, I believe there’s more reason to invest time and money in reaching the “power readers” at BookBub, rather than work at growing an audience for my Facebook author page. Facebook users are a distractible bunch, their interests running the gamut. BookBub (every time I start to type that, it comes out Boobbub!) is laser-focused on people who buy books.

And clearly, those readers don’t want to spend much money. I can’t blame them. I myself scarfed up the dollar bargains as quickly as they came my way.

Therefore, after testing Ads 1, 2, and 3, my next step will be to drop the price of Waterspell Book 1 to 99 cents (or free, if Amazon will let me) and see what the response is.

If at first you don’t succeed …

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Filed under BookBub, Books and Readers, Discoverability

Tagged as advertising, book bargains, book discovery

July 22, 2021 · 5:37 pm

Time to Work Out the Plan

For a year, I’ve been laying the groundwork:

• New covers, first for the ebooks and now for the paperbacks
• Ongoing work on the audiobooks
• New book trailers, created via Biteable
• Reformatted Facebook author page
• Updated Amazon author page
• Updated Goodreads profile
• Lots of social media graphics newly made at Canva.com

My next steps include looking into the usefulness of these things:

• BookBub
• The Fussy Librarian
• Blog tours
• Goodreads Giveaways
• Amazon advertising
• Written Word Media
• Instagram

I know who I’ll ask for new reviews to augment the glowing reviews that Waterspell received upon the books’ initial publication. The circle I move in, these days, is much changed from the social circle that I knew before my husband’s death in 2012. Now, I number among my friends many anti-fascist activists, folks I got to know after November 2016. Most of them didn’t even know I was a many-times published author; it wasn’t what drew us together. Now, gradually, I’m revealing my past life and enlisting the support of those who are willing to help me recover something of it.

Am I dreaming, thinking I can relaunch a 10-year-old fantasy series? Possibly. But I’m making final edits to Waterspell Book 4, preparing for a 2022 release. And the audiobooks are slowly coming together, after my wonderfully talented narrator endured a major upheaval in his own world. It took him away from the work for six months—disruptive, yes, but not as damaging to a career as was my own dark, nine-year period of grief and neglect. If nothing else goes too badly wrong, the audiobooks should be released in 2022, along with Book 4.

I’m thinking those two events could be and should be enough to spark new interest in the original trilogy. If I will get out there and promote, dammit. It’s no secret that promotion takes money, and I’m prepared to pay, within reason, for advertising. Here’s what I plan for my first sponsored Facebook post:

“Perfect for fans of Kristin Cashore and Charlotte Brontë.” From award-winning author Deborah J. Lightfoot, an unforgettable epic fantasy that readers call “extraordinary, enthralling, completely unpredictable.” Think “Jane Eyre meets a sorcerer.” Coming in 2022, Book 4 of Waterspell will complete the series. Print & ebooks available. Audiobooks in progress. www.waterspell.net

Amazon advertising and BookBub being completely new to me, I’ll need to discover how they may or may not fit into the budget. But at least I’ve got a little ready cash to spend on a new promotional push. The 2020 Pandemic Year not only gave me time and opportunity to pursue audiobooks and to write Book 4, it saved me money. I went nowhere and cooked meals at home. Everything I didn’t spend on travel and restaurants is now earmarked for book promotion.

I hope to Drisha this plan of mine will get these four books in front of the readers who will most enjoy them. At this point, it’s readership I want—not fortune so much, just a tiny bit of fame to validate the years I’ve spent obsessing over this story of mine.

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Filed under Audiobooks, Books and Readers, Cover Design, Discoverability, On Writing, Waterspell fantasy trilogy, Writers

Tagged as book discovery, book reviews, book trailers, fantasy, promotion, social media