Attention: Free Book Giveaway. Details
Below.
***Thanks go to you first and foremost
for getting through this article, it's far larger than my usual posts
about marketing. However, if you are able to wade through this tide,
you may get a free 500 page novel out of it. Read below to find out
how.***
I was recently asked how I got reviews
for my book, Demon Vampire. Normally I'd just attribute it to hard
work and let it be. However, the question provoked an overwhelming
response in my mind. That is why I am posting this on the blog
instead of through a private email.
Have you ever wanted to find people to
review your book and were never able to figure out where to look. I
feel your pain. Thankfully if you are reading this, you will not
suffer for long. In searching for people I first noted the type of
reviewer I wanted. The average person would not do. Those who review
romance novels should not review true vampire epics. As much as you
may think otherwise, the genres do not mix. There is a loss of
validity when you blend too much romance with the raw strength of a
vampire. It weakens them in a way that does not translate well on
paper to those who actually know and love the real vampire
subculture. What I instead searched for were groups of people that
shared my interests in general. I didn't comb every vampire site,
questing for the best reviewer imaginable. That will end in perpetual
insanity. I sought out those who enjoy all forms of dark fiction. I
found those who had been disenfranchised to the current form of my
competitor's books. I searched for the estranged of my rival's
novels. In a simpler sense, I found people that were pissed off about
twilight and what it did to vampire culture as a whole. Angry people
have things to say too. You just need to find them and give them a
reason why your book is different than the one that made them
initially upset.
My first location for disgruntled
vampire fans was Facebook. I was able to find a few, but after about
five to seven messages or friend invites, Facebook throws a red flag
and suspends your activity for two days. There is a way around this
at least. When the message comes up, promoting you to click “okay,”
don't do it. I know that sounds simple, but it is what it is. If you
are quick about it, 2-3 seconds, all you have to do is close the tab
or window that has Facebook up. If you have multiple tabs with FB,
close them all. This will prevent your account from being locked for
the average two day stint. Regardless, Facebook I found was not the
best place to find reviewers. Many of them want to charge for a
review, that is not a review, it is a vanity service and nothing
more. An honest review does not require a palm to be greased in any
way, they are free and always will be.
After FB, my geass lead me to twitter.
There I found the majority of my reviewers. Although there were still
some tribulations as well. Twitter has limits as FB does, simply
different. The largest untold number is the formula to how many
people you can follow. As I have seen over time. It reads something
like this. You are allowed to follow 2000 people until your actual
account has over 2000 followers. Once you have this special number,
the math is simple, you can have an additional amount equal to 10% of
your total number of followers. That means at 2000 followers, you can
follow a total of 2200 people. (2000 x 0.10 = 200) I currently have
4100+ followers on my twitter account @demongift , this means that I
can follow 4510 people. (4100 x 0.10 = 410, a total of 4510
(410+4100)) There are also ways around this cap. Although Twitter
frowns upon it, you can have multiple accounts to attract more people
to follow your account. I started with a few dozen people following
me. Them I set up two secondary accounts with names that were
extensions of my book. I wad able to instantly follow three times as
many people. Now you may be wondering why you should follow others
when they aren't following you. It's simple, you need to spread your
message. Whatever that message is, you need to tell people about it
in order for them to tell others. Having others tell people about
your book is ultimately your goal and constant aim. If you are able
to do this, you have increased your effectiveness. Two people tells
people about your book is better than one(yourself). You still need
to tell more people about the book, but now you have word of mouth
that is genuine and beyond your direct initiation. (It spawns from
within, and generates more people that find you book irresistible.)
Still on Twitter, you will need a
service to manage your three or more accounts. You can find them
anywhere, but the best ones are one time fee programs that only cost
under $40. If you have to pay monthly, don't do it. You will be at
this for a long time and don't need to be wasting money on
re-occurring fees. Just search “twitter programs” and you will
find all you need. I'm not one to suggest any program myself, just be
smart about it's pros and cons when you choose. Now as to what to do
with your managing service, tweet!!! Find all the best content you
have ever posted and link to it. Set it on a modulating loop. (Vary
the loop.) You don't want to have the exact same thing tweeted every
hour of each day, you will lose followers this way. Second, you will
need to search out all those in your subculture. For me, that was
those interested in gothic fiction, clothing, fantasy, dark fiction,
vampires, and anything generally having to do with the color black.
If you are gothic, you will understand. Once I found these people, I
followed them. I waited a few days for them to follow me back, then
if they didn't, I unfollowed. There is no need to have someone take
up a slot in your 2000+ list that isn't going to follow you back. You
of course need to make sure you give them a chance. Don't unfollow
after a day, give them a few, then do it. At the worst, they will get
a message telling them about your account and they might look into
it. If they follow you, make sure to follow back immediately. Most of
the services have this feature, make sure you use it.
I know what you may be thinking at this
crucial moment, “Why collect people that only want to follow you
back?” And if you aren't thinking that, you should be. When you see
an author that has 325 followers on twitter, what do you think? Do
you think they have a lot of followers? Of course not. You are used
to seeing accounts with thousands of followers if they are popular
enough. And if you don't see those numbers, you will naturally think
they are unpopular and thus not worth your effort to follow. This is
where it comes into play. If you have a larger number of followers,
those who find your twitter account and follow it will be actual
fans, not just follow back accounts. This is how you get reviewers.
The old adage, “if you build it, they will come” fits very well
here. This applies to all other avenues of your marketing program as
well. If you have 4100+ followers on each account, as I have, that
makes 12,000+ followers between all three accounts. Now that holds
solid weight to it and means you are able to leverage other benefits
as well.
I was able to find reviewers through
twitter that honestly enjoyed what I had written, then I asked them
to review the book. And of course, they said yes. This is called a
rigged slam dunk on a track with gravy wheels. You get the analogy.
However, those reviews will not cut it when it comes to your average
person. You need credible, non-bias reviewers. You need people that
aren't already fans. This brings me to my next location for finding
reviews, TV.
You may think this is a lost effort.
That no one famous will take the time to read and review your book.
And you may actually be 99% right. However, all you need is one. You
read correctly, one. It doesn't matter if that takes you a hundred
attempts or a thousand. All you need is one. The reasoning behind
this is simple, clout. When is came to my book, Demon Vampire, I
contacted several known authors about reviewing my book. I sent a
Facebook message to Don Henrie, Michelle Belanger, Charlaine Harris,
Anne Rice, and many more famous authors in my field of writing. Most
never replied. Some did, of those a few said no and a few said yes.
To those that replied in favor, the remainder never followed through.
Thus why I do not have any of the above names listed for a book
review of Demon Vampire to date. Regardless of the fact of their
rejection to my proposal, I did it. This gave thought to contact
others, besides the normal famous authors to write a review. I
searched amazon and the internet for vampire books. I found a few
promising authors and I contacted them with the same proposal.
Michael Clutton, Amy Mah, and Amy Dawson said yes and followed
through. It proves that even though you may hand many ideas of how to
market your book, nothing beats experience, good or bad. It pushes
you to think in new ways and travel down harder paths that you
wouldn't normally take in order to get to where you need to be.
Finally, and recently, I have ventured
into using youtube. The glorious grand gabble of the visually
victorious viral video. I searched for people, not reviewers, that
honestly might like my book. When I found them, I messaged them.
About twenty a day. If I found something unique about their current
videos that I thought might be applied to a video review of my book,
I noted it in the message and told them about it. Of course youtube
has restrictions of how many people you can message an hour, for me,
that was 18-20 people. Of those people, only a few responded, some
simply had other things to do, or their account were too old. (Always
check the last date of their most current post.) If their account is
too dormant, there is no need to message them, the light are on, but
no one's home. A video review is a great and infectious way of
letting people know what your book is about. Far too few people take
the time to read a paragraph, unless you give them an incentive.
(More on that later.) Video Book Reviews let your audience see what
your book is like from the eyes of someone that has taken the actual
time to read it and enjoy it. They are a powerful way to spread the
message of a book, even if that message is “I was written dammit!!”
I currently have one video book review live on youtube and am in the
works with three more. (An author, a video game reviewer, and a
gothic band.) Never dismiss an avenue untreaded by other authors.
Last there is your personal site about
you and your books. Write, write, and write. Always have new content
each week to entice new people to join. Offer then a prize for being
a follower. A book, a poster, a t-shirt, anything to get more people
to join and stay on your site. They'll sign up for the giveaway, but
stay for the content if they like it. However, they may not sign up
if not given an incentive to do so.
This brings us to the giveaway
mentioned at the beginning of the article. Thank you for reading
everything up until this point. Starting December 1st, I
will be giving away a free book to one lucky follower on this blog. I
will be doing this each month on the 1st. Some months the
book will be from the Demon Vampire series, others will be novels
from like-genre authors. There may even be a gothic CD thrown in if
things go well.
The conditions for this giveaway are
simple.
- Be an open follower of the blog. Not just an anonymous feedburner subscriber. I do enjoy the fact so many people are subscribing to the feed, however, they will need to show their numbers publicly to be eligible for the monthly giveaway. Those in the Google subscribers category will be eligible for the giveaway, but entering in as a follower and a subscriber will not increase your odds of selection. (Granted it doesn't hurt them either, so sign up for both;)
- You will need to check the blog every 1st of the month by 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time to see the name of the winner. If you are the winner, simple comment on the post announcing the winner and wait until I reply. (Generally the next day.) I will confirm that you posted a comment and write down my email address. All you have to do is email me your physical address (don't put it in the comment box, I don't like sharing fan's addresses with anyone. There are a lot of people that visit the site and I'd rather your email isn't spammed with nameless ads for viagra.) Once you email me your address, I'll send the book to you, absolutely free in the mail. All you need do is enjoy it. Obviously, if the book is from the Demon Vampire series, it will be signed, and if it's from another author, it will be signed by them.
The giveaway will be featured one week
before the deadline of the 1st. All public followers will
have an equal chance of winning, including new ones. Sign up to
follow the blog by visiting the right hand side bar right now.
***Important: This is a dynamic
giveaway. That means that for every 50 followers or subscribers this
blog has, another book will be given away. (While supplies last of
course.) Tell your friends about the site and have them follow as
well, your chances of getting a free book go up for every person that
becomes a follower.***
Thank you for all your support. Please Comment & Subscribe to my blog. It's Free.
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You can buy Demon Vampire on kindle for $2.99 Here. Or Buy it in print Here.
And make sure to like the book on Amazon.com
Demon Vampire is here, Spread the Word.
