Marketing Stuff Again

Mornin' Folks.

With a lack of anything else on my mind right now, I thought I'd talk a bit more about my marketing efforts, how they're working for me, and what's next.

First off, I realize you have to have money to do marketing.  At least any effective marketing.  I mean, there are Facebook groups you can post to that sometimes can bring you sales without you having to shell out any dough, but that's rare.  And it's inconsistent.  Hit or miss, if you will.

But, not every outlet will break the bank.  There are some nice little venues that can give you at least an equal ROI.  (You pay $6 and you make about $6.)  You might even make a little money over and above, which is always nice.  And it helps the soul to see people actually buying your books, even if the money isn't rolling in.

Last month, I had that ENT ad which cost me $40 and a smaller ad with PUFB that cost $8.  I'm still seeing residual sales from those.  Mostly in page reads with Kindle Unlimited, but hey, those page reads bring in money, so they count as sales.  I've already had almost as many page reads this month as last month and this month beats every other month but May this year.  And it's only the 6th.

Plus, I'm still seeing some page reads for DE and that sale was in April.

I'm not making money hand over fist, but I'm about 2/3rds of last year's total sales over the first 5 months of this year.  And last year I did very little advertising.  Because the money to do it just wasn't there.  But that's another story, eh?

Looking ahead, I've got Kindle Countdown Deals set for the 19th thru the 26th of this month on Accidental Death and Natural Causes.  I've already set up an ad for AD with a place called ebooksHabit on the 21st ($10).  And I'll set up something with Author Billboard for both AD and NC for the 22nd (she only runs her newsletter on Fridays) which will cost me $6 ea.  We'll see how those work. If I sell at least 32 books and pay for the ads, the rest is gravy.

I don't care what the dieticians say, gravy is good.

In August, I'll run sales for the Once Upon a Djinn books again with as much advertising as I can swing in anticipation of the release of Sleeping Ugly - which isn't part of the genie series, but its a paranormal, so I hope I'll get some crossover readers there.

What I really need is more reviews because there are lot of advertising venues that won't accept an ad for books with less that 5 Amazon reviews (or under 4 stars, but that's not a problem right now).  Which means I can't push ads for the majority of my books at those outlets.  I wish all the people reading my books on KU would write reviews.  Not sure why they don't.  =o(

I could also use a big lottery win.  I think reviews will be easier to get.  But only slightly.