A place to share ideas about publishing and marketing books
HomeHome  GalleryGallery  CalendarCalendar  FAQFAQ  RegisterRegister  Log inLog in  Featured MemberFeatured Member  NewsletterNewsletter  
Post new topic   Reply to topicPublished Authors Forum :: Marketing :: Marketing Tips
 

Do you advertise online?

View previous topic View next topic Go down 

Do you advertise online?
Yes and it has helped me
50%
 50% [ 2 ]
Yes but it did not help
50%
 50% [ 2 ]
No and I will not try
0%
 0% [ 0 ]
No but I will try it in the future
0%
 0% [ 0 ]
I don't know, publisher does it all
0%
 0% [ 0 ]
Total Votes : 4
 

AuthorMessage
ibookdb
One Star Member
One Star Member



Joined : 25 Mar 2008
Posts : 34

PostSubject: Do you advertise online?   Tue May 27, 2008 3:53 pm
Just wanted to see if any of you do advertise online yourself or leave that to your publisher. If you do advertise online, where and has it helped you increase sales?
_________________
Random Books from My Bookshelf

iBookDB
Back to top Go down
Malcolm
Four Star Member
Four Star Member



Joined : 11 Jan 2008
Posts : 429
Location : Georgia

PostSubject: Re: Do you advertise online?   Wed May 28, 2008 2:35 pm
When my POD book first came out in 2004, I bought a few banners at the flat rate and, while I noticed a traffic increase at my web site, I didn't see that the traffic translated into sales. Perhaps if I sold my books directly off my site rather than sending people to Amazon that might have been different.

Most ad space on most sites costs far too much money for a person footing the bill for his own POD book. Banners used to be cheaper, but now the click through costs send them out of my budget fairly quickly.

I've seen very little return from them, but I think a publisher with an online book store to which the add clicks are sent my have more action.

Malcolm
_________________
Malcolm R. Campbell

http://www.malcolmrcampbell.com
Back to top Go down
ibookdb
One Star Member
One Star Member



Joined : 25 Mar 2008
Posts : 34

PostSubject: Re: Do you advertise online?   Wed May 28, 2008 7:39 pm
Do you think it would have helped you if you sent your ads directly to Amazon instead of your site?

What did you think of CPM (pay for thousand impressions) as compared to CPC (pay per click)?

How much should a first time author be willing to pay for advertising? If online advertising did not work for you did you try other means of advertising? What was the best method?

Thanks
_________________
Random Books from My Bookshelf

iBookDB
Back to top Go down
Malcolm
Four Star Member
Four Star Member



Joined : 11 Jan 2008
Posts : 429
Location : Georgia

PostSubject: Re: Do you advertise online?   Sat May 31, 2008 4:09 pm
The problem with either CPM or CPC, is that the pricing is set up for the budgets of corporations, not individuals. To get a "reasonable" amount of traffic, I would have to pay hundreds of dollars a month. Since POD books don't make hundreds of dollars a month, that's not a viable use of money.

Yes, it might have worked better to send people straight to Amazon with the banners.

Malcolm
_________________
Malcolm R. Campbell

http://www.malcolmrcampbell.com
Back to top Go down
ibookdb
One Star Member
One Star Member



Joined : 25 Mar 2008
Posts : 34

PostSubject: Re: Do you advertise online?   Mon Jun 02, 2008 2:59 pm
Malcolm wrote:
The problem with either CPM or CPC, is that the pricing is set up for the budgets of corporations, not individuals. To get a "reasonable" amount of traffic, I would have to pay hundreds of dollars a month. Since POD books don't make hundreds of dollars a month, that's not a viable use of money.

Yes, it might have worked better to send people straight to Amazon with the banners.

Malcolm


Actually that is no longer true. The price of online ads has been decreasing every year. I don't know what kind of pricing you have come across but I can give you the example of ibookdb. At our current rate of 60$/year for our text ads, the CPM price comes to about $1.50 and is constantly decreasing because our visitors are increasing.

It's a little more than double of that for out top placed text ads but I don't have enough data points yet to actually have a real estimate.

For google adsense, you can set low budgets like 1$/day and still get significant ad impressions and clicks depending on your keywords and ad copy. Advertising on Myspace is expensive but I think Facebook has some options that are cheaper. Though it is just easier to use site targetted advertising from google rather than direct with Facebook, MySpace or other large Social networks. Also adsense is on most major book related sites and you can site target your ads and save more money.
_________________
Random Books from My Bookshelf

iBookDB
Back to top Go down
Malcolm
Four Star Member
Four Star Member



Joined : 11 Jan 2008
Posts : 429
Location : Georgia

PostSubject: Re: Do you advertise online?   Mon Jun 02, 2008 3:45 pm
If you're making the text ads work, that's great. I've seen no impact from them--or banners either.

My experience--and from what I read--is that it's difficult enough to get a person to remotely consider buying fiction from an unknown after they read an entire web page or display ad about it. Getting them to click on a small text ad or banner is very unlikely. Heck, I read hundreds of books a year, and I don't click on those kinds of ads because the odds of the book being very good AND within a genre I read are very small.

Malcolm
_________________
Malcolm R. Campbell

http://www.malcolmrcampbell.com
Back to top Go down
Chelle




Joined : 04 May 2008
Posts : 13
Location : northeast US

PostSubject: Re: Do you advertise online?   Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:10 pm
I just wanted to clarify my answer, my "advertising" online is FREE promotional stuff such as my Author site on Blogger, icons and such on MySpace and Facebook. It seems to get me quite a few "hits" and my sales numbers on B&N are on par with some of the indie books whose authors spend lots of dollars with ads.
Back to top Go down
ibookdb
One Star Member
One Star Member



Joined : 25 Mar 2008
Posts : 34

PostSubject: Re: Do you advertise online?   Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:39 pm
Chelle wrote:
I just wanted to clarify my answer, my "advertising" online is FREE promotional stuff such as my Author site on Blogger, icons and such on MySpace and Facebook. It seems to get me quite a few "hits" and my sales numbers on B&N are on par with some of the indie books whose authors spend lots of dollars with ads.


What do you think of Myspace and Facebook vs. your own site. What has been better in your opinion?
_________________
Random Books from My Bookshelf

iBookDB
Back to top Go down

Do you advertise online?

View previous topic View next topic Back to top 
Page 1 of 1

Permissions of this forum:You can reply to topics in this forum
Published Authors Forum :: Marketing :: Marketing Tips-
Post new topic   Reply to topic