Impressing Readers with a Bio

I was wandering over at the Kindle Review Exchange on Facebook. Its a place were you can post your books and exchange a review with another writer (or reader?) As  I was scrolling through the blurbs for review I noticed a few put their bio up instead of a hook or blurb.

Hmmm, not impressed. One said stuff like, So-and-So has been writing since the age of 5 and published her first book at age 10. I didn't read any further. The thing that came to my mind was, "What? Did your mommy write your bio?" (Excuse the Jersey in me, but it is what it is- Have you met our obnoxious Governor?)

Smack me, but am I wrong? Should I care that the writer was scribbling books at age 5? I would be more impressed with with writing experience in the grown up world, degrees, interests dealing with the subject matter, etc.  I think when I do read the bio I want to learn what motivates the writer to do these kind of books. But if you're putting your book up to ask for a review exchange I think the hook is the best thing to put up there first. Drag me in and make me want to read more. Kind of like that back blurb only shorter?

But hey, what do I know? I just had a Facebook ad fail.
I gotta go check my bio now, because I really have no idea what I put in it.

So how's your bio? What important there and what did you leave out?

Facebook Ad Fail

The Facebook ad for No Apologies was a bust.

I set the ad to run midweek to midweek encompassing one weekend. I figured this would give me a wide view of how it did on what days. I also got to choose a target audience by age, gender, interests, etc.  For my budget of $60 I spent $59.81 total for 164 click through to website. I put the click through right to the Amazon page to buy the book. As you can see from my Amazon sales chart, out of the 164 that clicked through to see the book, 11 books sold. Bah!

So was it my fault this ad tanked or Facebook's?

Above you see the ad. One of the issues I have with the Facebook ad rules is the amount of space words can take up. I think it was like 22%, so I had to keep shrinking my book cover to get it under the 22%. This was a detriment to the ad in general because the title is part of the grab in selling a book along with the cover art. So I don't think the visual of the ad was that good. Facebook fail for stupid word rules.
Next I look at the words I put with the picture on top and below the ad. Did I not grab the reader's attention? Too tame? Too common? This would be my fail.
What about the where i wanted the ad to go? I chose all ages over 18. Although there's no actual graphic sex scenes in the book there are some sexually suggestive scenes so I thought it was better not to target the younger market.
Here you see the demographics of who actually clicked through the website. I also included men in the party, which could have been wrong. A very small amount of men actually clicked through. I did include the UK and Australia because they are English speaking countries. Should I have made this wider? I don't know.

Here's the Facebook and Amazon reports. There was a slight spike in click throughs and sales on Friday.

In conclusion? I don't think Facebook ads are that great for books. Or I did it wrong. I think I need a better photo for the ad. The book was too small and I doubted it caught any attention by the cover. The reports also showed the ad did better on the news feed than on the side bar. Which is where it would show bigger. If I can't get that cover bigger then maybe I should have just ran it on the news feed and taken it off the sidebar.

I finance my book ads with my Fiverr editing. When I get gigs on Fiverr the money there goes to book promotion. Sometimes I have more money to do it with, sometimes less. I want to save for a BookBub ad which is expensive, but I hear it's worth it. I've done a free book on Pixels of Ink and that gave away 80 books. Would that have generated more sales than Facebook if it wasn't free? Maybe I'll try and see what happens. Pixels of Ink wasn't that expensive. Gotta go check my Fiverr account to see what I go for next.

Indie Author Revolution

     There’s a Revolution going on and it will touch every one of you, it probably already has. It’s in the books you read. 

     Before, agents and the big 5 publishing houses controlled 90% of the books in book stores. (Big five= Random/Penguin, Simon & Schuster, McMillan, Harper Collins, & Hatchett) They made the rules and let everyone know what was hot and what was on its way out. Agents had to bend to their wishes or they didn’t sell any books. Together they had  a strangle hold on writers and plenty of amazing books never saw the bookshelf.

     Then in 2009 Amazon said, “Publish with us,” and doors opened. Writers took control of their own futures and success.  The Indie Author was born. Like independent musicians and filmmakers, writers could now let their creativity loose on the world. The world of books has opened for both writers and readers. No longer is your reading material censored by 5 companies. Readers too, have found the freedom to read whatever they like and for a price that won’t break the bank. Indie Authors set reasonable prices and work hard to bring their stories to the world.

     

     The Publishing industry is forever changed. TeleRead, a website that reports on the publishing industry states, “if you’re a debuting writer, it’s a lot better to debut in self-publishing than in the Big Five. While the Big Five’s numbers are flat, the number of indie authors who can earn a living at it increases year over year.”

     Like the Indie Filmmakers and Indie Musicians, Indie Authors have a growing presence on web. Just type “Indie Author” into a web browser and see what pops up. You will find writers advocating for the Independent Author way of life. They are posting earnings & instructions on how to edit and publish. Indie Authors have shown up in the news. The New York Times, Forbes, and Tech Dirt have all covered the Independent Author Revolution.

     

     The earnings for Indie vs  Traditionally published writers? That would be 15% for those authors published by the big 5 vs. 70%  for the Indie Author.  

     J.A. Konrath, one of the first to step up and publish his earnings, in 3 weeks in 2012  made $100,000.  He talks about his 500 rejections from agents and publishers. He had one deal with Hyperion in 2003, he sold his book, Whiskey Sour, in a 3 book deal for $200,000.  Then, after doing everything he could to promote his books and make the numbers, they dropped him. He’s now making more as Indie. In 2012 he reported $791,000. You can check it out on his website.

     The Guardian reported that Amanda Hocking, another writer who started as an Indie Author made $2.5 million in one year. In April 2010 she wanted to go see Muppets in Chicago and needed $300. for the trip. She put a couple of Vampire love stories up on Amazon for $2.99. By August she made $6000 one month and quit her day job. By October she had $20,000 for Muppets.

     

     Writer’s Digest reported that Hugh Howey another Indie Author, made $150,000 a month from e-book sales. When the big five came knocking, he made publishing history when he made the deal and kept his digital rights. He now has a new book deal and sold the movie rights.

      

     There’s an old saying, “Everyone has a book in them,” and now it’s possible for writers to make their dreams come true. However, to be a successful Indie Author there are a few requirements.

• Learn the rules of writing
•  Edit, edit, edit
•  Multiple books = $$$
•  Publish Regularly
•  Know Cover Art
•  Market your work

Go Indie! 

Scrivener - Is it worth it?

After my last writer's conference I really wanted to try Scrivener. A lot of the more experienced writers were raving about how easy it is to organize a story. All the writers who were doing series swore by it.

So I toddled on over to Scrivener's website and found a free 30 day trial. One great thing about the trial was it was 30 days of actually using the program and not 30 calendar days. If it was calendar days I probably would have waited for that magical month when I had the elusive "time" nailed down. That never happens in real life. But 30 random days definitely fit my schedule. I hit that download button.

There is a learning curve to Scrivener and I've been using it for about a month and still feel I have a lot to learn. I can write, set up my characters/place descriptions. Jump back and forth and it is so nice to have those notes at my fingertips.  I'm still not great at fixing paragraph formatting but I haven't put much time into learning much about that stuff. I'll get on that more when I'm in the editing process.

Confession: I didn't wait the 30 days. I purchased Scrivener after two weeks to the cost of $40.

There's actually no excuse not to learn the ins and outs of Scrivener. They have a lot of tutorials on the website to help you out and other writers are stepping up to put up blog posts on it. Writers sites talking about it here.
There are lots of informative You Tube videos that go over different aspects of what Scrivener can do and how to use it. This one is pretty good here. A lot of them cover different parts of the program so it's an easy study. 

Bottom line, the peeps at the writers conference were right. Scrivener Rocks!

Figuring Out Facebook Ads

Experimenting with book ads and studying the results. I'm running a facebook ad for No Apologies and watching my Amazon rank fluctuate. 

An 12 day ad with a daily click through up to $5. giving me a total cost of $60. The book is not on sale, I left the prices the same as always. 

First day my rank dropped dramatically. From 923,485 to 32,291. The next day its up to the 300,000's. (I only checked it once that day, not realizing it was going to be changing that much) The following morning it dropped again into the 30,000. Yesterday, Friday, at 7 a.m. it was back up to the 300,000's. (Wish I charted these exact numbers, but i can only give you the approximations.) Friday afternoon I'm back in the 30,000's. This drop happened about 4 p.m. which I think was when everyone at work decided they had worked hard enough all week and jumped on facebook. ;)  It held there until about 9 p.m. when everyone probably broke open the wine and started ignoring facebook. (52,000's)

This morning we jumped back up to #110,761. Will this change when people start waking up? Break for lunch? Go back to facebook after dinner? I'm curious to see if weekends are better than weekdays. 


From what I've read on Booktrakker Amazon updates hourly. 

I'm wondering if some of this is the result of setting the ad to $5.00 a day for click throughs? I hit the $5. in click throughs and the ad stops running for the day? 

Are click throughs equaling sales? So far, not much. :( but we'll see what happens by day twelve. I'll let you know. 

Anyone else have luck with ads? Any hints or tips?