marketing and book trailers

First of all, here's our Arizona tree! (still need to add red bulbs.) I'll light the candles on the winter solstice!

Back to book topics: I'm still struggling with marketing--I guess it's an endless uphill battle. Facebook has suddenly decided...what? I'm not sure, but all I know is that they've changed things again. I read that it was bad for entrepeneurs. and I guess I fit into that category. I am now spending entirely too much money 'boosting' posts. I don't send these posts to friends and family anymore--now I'm targeting women from late 20's to 60 years of age. Men have enjoyed my books but they seem more geared to women. Does boosting work? I have no idea! I get a lot more 'likes', but that isn't a click and a buy, now is it? (or maybe it is!) I don't know.

 I'm also spending money in other area's regarding my books--I've combined the three books of my trilogies and am selling them CHEAP. But when I went to check on other's prices for their kindle 'boxed sets' I was horrified to find they were practically giving them away! For me these cheaper prices make me turn away. And so I'm asking less than the three and more than one. I'm doing a lot of promoting right now before Christmas. I have an ad in the local paper here in Tucson, but so far people only seem to buy my paperbacks from the metaphysical store, not the bookstores.

Something fun I discovered yesterday on FB was a site where you can make your own video trailer! It's called Animoto and you can do this for free! Unfortunately mine got a bit involved and ended up having their logo spread across the images. And if I wanted it removed I had to upgrade to Pro--same old same old. I did so but before I did I found a coupon on line to lower the cost. I'm posting the link to You Tube here for anyone who hasn't seen it on FB or Twitter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUTpbycdSzk--it's barely 30 seconds long. I plan to make more of these but they will all be pretty short. And if you upgrade to Pro they have lots of music and images to choose from! It's a fun way to market and since I like to watch short videos (emphasis on short) I figure others will too.

With all this fooling around and doing fiverr, (do you know about fiverr?) I've barely had time to do any writing! I found a woman on fiverr to tweet my new trailer with a very short blurb about Gypsy's Secret. I don't know how to link to her but if you're searching, her name is Melrock and she'll tweet your book to god knows how many people for five bucks. There's tons of stuff to choose from on the site.

I seriously need reviews for Gypsy's Secret so if you've read the first two, or even it you haven't, I would really appreciate it! The kindle is .99 for the next couple of days. And if you're part of kindle unlimited it's FREE!

So enjoy the darker days, make soup and tea and READ!

The Wolf Moon

As you can see here I finally decided on a cover for The Wolf Moon. This third choice represents a lot of angst in bringing the story into focus, which includes a good deal of romance and interesting twists relating to reincarnation...can't say more for fear of giving it away...

So the book is finally up on Amazon but not without a lengthy delay that made no sense.  Right now I'm just ecstatic that the book is for sale! Kindle is lagging but should be up soon...At this moment I am trying very hard to think positively, promoting like crazy. I've even scheduled a blog tour--something I didn't do for book 1 or 2. only doing it now because of a writer friend and a blog tour person who made it seem simple. www.aoifemariesheridan.com/‎

Said tour will start on June 14th lasting a whopping 28 days! I'll be posting about it everywhere. :)

I've done a trailer for The Wolf Moon, which you can view here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiBJJfdzHVg

My own excitement for this book is brimming over and I just hope this energy will be heading out into the universe to stop people in their tracks! (oh my gosh! I just have to go and buy a copy of The Wolf Moon!)

As far as Createspace goes--when I went with my own cover they refunded me oodles of money--something I was not expecting. Next time around I will have it formatted and a cover in place before I submit--(way cheaper) it only took me three books to figure this out. But I have to sing their praises  for putting it up on Amazon and doing the Kindle conversion...

Check here for giveaways--I plan to do them through Kindle and on Goodreads--it will be worth your while!

And so I await my twenty free copies, hoping they arrive BEFORE my husband and I leave for Portland!

Link wheel

A few weeks back I had a call from a man who is the admin for a website called BookClub Reading list. I had forgotten all about signing up for this.  In my usual disorganized fashion I had not kept a written record. In any case he needed me to fill out more forms on the site that he referred to as a 'press release'. Before getting on to the main topic of this blog I will say that Bookclubreading list is a list of authors and books who make themselves available to book clubs and not the virtual kind--these are real flesh and blood people who are looking for good books to read. So far I have not been contacted but maybe...

During the course of our conversation Chris brought up a marketing tool that I was completely unfamiliar with. The link wheel. Simply put the link wheel is a series of blogs designed to point toward a main site in the middle of the circle. Of course for me this main site is www.wolfmoontrilogy.com. Since he is also an author, all of his blogs point to his book as well--The God Complex--each blog takes a particular subject from the book and expounds on that. Then this blog links to another and so on around the wheel. The links go only in one direction. On the bookclubreading site is a youtube video of Chris talking about the link wheel. If you can't find it, go to this youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqWE8Usi5Os. I found that his link wheel is different from others I've looked at and makes more sense to me in terms of marketing a book rather than some other type of marketing.

On the Bookclubreading list is a link to a google search tool in which you can search for a certain phrase, let's say 'godsanddeities' since that's one I've chosen for my link wheel. This tool will tell you how many times a month or a year people google that phrase and also what the competition for that phrase is--you want the competition to be low.

And so I bought six domain names through hostforweb since they seemed to be the best price per year...each domain cost me $12.95 or somewhere in that range. According to Chris, these blogs should be static and be done through a hosting site rather than blogspot or wordpress. That sounded right to me and so I spent two full days trying to set up one blog. I contacted support and then I contacted support again. I asked my husband to come and take a look since he's way more computer savvy than I am--he shook his head.

Giving up on my hostforweb domains, I spent a couple of hours setting up the first two blogs through blogspot. Simple and easy. I used the closest I could come to my original domain names which I had researched for the most google hits. Four more to go! I've decided to keep the domains--I may need them in the future. If you are familiar with the Wordpress interface, by all means go the hostforweb route but for now I'm sticking with blogspot.

Youtube clip...

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, here's my youtube clip done with a friend of my husband's, Jerry Wilson, who loves doing this kind of stuff! He's made several youtube videos with his grandson as well as a rap artist, and definitely has a knack for putting music, readings and imagery together in a way that is mesmerizing...This scene is from Book I, The Moonstone, and is from the point of view of the wolves since it lent itself so well to imagery. The voice could be better but I tried my best to set the proper tone! (I hate my voice but I was cheap) And my husband makes his film debut in part of it--see if you can find him...he was originally supposed to be a druid but when he couldn't keep a straight face (with a blanket over his head), Jerry decided to cast him in a more sinister role.

A blurb at the bottom tells a bit about the series so people don't get the idea that the book is just about wolves. Despite the series title, Wolfmoon Trilogy, it is not. They do play a definite role however, especially in Book III, The Prophecy.  Since I've decided to forego readings, at least for this first one, I'm trying different ways of advertising--hope this one is successful!

For any authors reading this, how have you advertised your books? What has worked for you?

marketing monthly news...

Book is speeding its way to those people who took me up on my giveaway. One of them promises to do a lengthy review on Amazon, the other will interview me on her blog and do a giveaway of the Kindle version. Thank you Christina and Kayla!

Our local spiritual bookstore has taken three copies on consignment and I'm slated to meet with the book buyer at Powells Books on Hawthorne this Saturday. Further marketing plans include visiting two other small bookstores in Portland and making a video to go up on Youtube. And I've been distributing printed postcards of the book to businesses who might have customers interested, like my chiropractor and Bodytalk practitioners. (If you aren't familiar with this practice, you might take a look--http://www.bodytalksystem.com/)

So far I've avoided the dreaded (to me) readings. Since I'm an unknown I don't see see this being helpful. Maybe with the second book? I'm still open to any and all suggestions and advice.

I'm about to start a major edit of Book II since, according to my husband, it needs more tension. Trying to pay attention to the "finish each chapter with a question or conflict that needs resolving" idea. The month of March is dedicated to this purpose since it looks as though we may be moving in April!

After tackling things locally I may branch out but at the moment I'm taking this one step at a time...