Reviews!

You can love them or hate them. But you can’t ignore them. All your marketing efforts will come to naught if your readers land on an Amazon page with just 1 or 2 reviews which look like they’ve been written by your friends.

One way to get reviews for your book is running an Amazon free day promotion. This works well for many authors although I’ve read on a few forums that the efficacy is going down over time.

At BookBuzzr, we’ve been playing around with a number of solutions for this problem. One of them is the “One Click Win” feature on our reader site – Freado.com

The idea is that a reader can get a copy of your book with just one click. This works great for ebooks since you can give away hundreds of copies at a very low cost which may translate into a handful of reviews for your book.

Here’s how your book shows up on Freado in the prize listings section:

 
And here’s how it shows when a reader clicks on the prize details page:

 
How this is Different from an Amazon Free Day Promotion?

The chart below gives a quick comparison between the two:

This feature is available only for subscribed BookBuzzr authors. So if you’re a BookBuzzr subscribed author, log in to your BookBuzzr Book Marketing Home page, click on the Book Giveaway section (below Build BookBuzz) and add your book. If you’ve not yet signed-up for a BookBuzzr subscription, why not take a look? Plans start from just $4.99 per month with a one month free trial.

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Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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In life, we all need a horse to ride.  Without the horse, we are a small fraction of what we could be.

When I was 13, my parents took me to a motor museum at a grand country house.  Big yawn.  Happily, there was a donkey derby alongside it, and they agreed to let me ride a donkey.  Being bigger and heavier than the other kids, nobody backed me and the bookmakers pushed my odds out to 66-1 against.  Whereupon my dad surprised them by plonking down a fiver on me – after a moment’s hesitation, the bookie took the bet and rubbed out 66-1 and put 25-1 instead.

When the race started, I was so terrified of falling off that I stuck my heels into my donkey and held on for dear life.  The donkey was terrified too – he moved up three gears and we won drawing away.   Dad was £330 richer – a fortune then.

I tried to get the same donkey in the next race but the ring manager directed me to another one, perhaps feeling that two rides from me would be hard on the beast.  This time I was less scared but I couldn’t galvanize the nag and we finished a distant third, even though the punters had piled their money on me and we had started odds-on.

Guess which donkey won?   The one I’d been on the first race.

It was a sign!

We are all less important than the donkey – or preferably horse – we get to ride.

Life is not just you or me – it is the vehicle (or vehicles) we find to develop our skills and express ourselves that counts.  And even then, perhaps our skills matter little compared to the destiny of the horse.

When I was 30, I was more-or-less fired from one job (with the Boston Consulting Group) but talked my way into another with a smaller rival, Bain & Company.  But the thing was – Bain had a great business formula and was growing much faster, at 40% a year.  Yes, each year the firm got 40% bigger.  You can imagine the opportunities presented by that growth rate.  From being a failure I turned into an overnight success – doing exactly the same job.  It wasn’t me, it was the growth rate.  I was stretched, learned a lot, and became so much more confident.  I even started to enjoy what I did.

The horse, not the jockey.

When I became a writer, I pondered the 80/20 principle.  I had long known its value.  I was not the only one.  The Principle was well known to economists and in business circles and was much discussed on the web.  But no-one had written a book about it.  Now that book has sold over a million copies.

The book, not the writer.

The horse, not the rider.

Have you found your horse yet?

The horse could be a college or firm that transforms you.  It could be an idea.  It could be a new business venture.  It could be a church, a club, or a cause you make your own.  It could be a group of friends banded together to do something great.

If you want to transform your life, Find Your Horse.  But how?

How to Find Your Horse

The horse, you will recall, is something with inherent power to propel you.  It could be a college or organization, a job, a new business venture, a cause, an idea, or a group of friends fixated on one specific aim.

These horses are rare.   There are three secrets to tracking them down.

The easiest give-away is that the horse is young, yet fast and powerful.  It is growing rapidly.  Its time has come, but only just.

If the horse is a business, it will be growing by more than 10% a year, and probably between 30-50% a year, maybe even more.  Such firms are very unusual – somewhere between one and five in a hundred.  Yet if we you keep your eyes open, you will find such a firm.

The firm must be growing under its own steam.  Firms that grow by merger or acquisition do not count.

What does it mean if the business is expanding fast?  It means it has created a product or service that people really want.  It means the firm has a formula or business model or knowledge that other firms don’t have.  It means the business is a winner.

Every very large and profitable firm started life like this – initially it was tiny, and then it went through several years of incredibly quick growth.  If you go to work in such a business, you will benefit enormously because there is more opportunity in the firm than experienced workers.  You will spread your wings and learn to fly like an angel.  You work will be fascinating and you will get promoted rapidly.  If you can get stock options, you may end up with a fortune.  Ask the first 100 people into Microsoft, Google, Amazon, e-Bay, Twitter, Facebook, or any other mega-success.  They are all millionaires, centi-millionaries, or billionaires; not because they are smarter than you or me, but because they were there at the start or shortly after.

It’s the same for a cause, a social movement, or even a qualification.  If it’s not growing very fast, it won’t push you forward.  In the 1960s and 1970s it made sense to get an MBA, because there weren’t many around and business schools were mushrooming.  Now it’s futile to do an MBA – there are far too many already and the currency is devalued.  Instead, look for the next big thing.  Get in early, while the growth is exponential.

The second clue to finding your horse is that it excites you.  The idea, the cause, the organization, whatever it is, must turn you on and have meaning for you.  You must think, “I love the idea of this”, or “I am going to grow to love this.”  Animation, enthusiasm, and genuine fervour are peculiarly human attributes.  They too are rare.  Most people are not excited by life and what they do.  The few who are, have a tremendous edge.  They are tens, hundreds, or thousands of times more likely to succeed – and they will have a ball doing so, not least because every day they will collaborate with people who are as excited and motivated as they are.

The third pointer is that the horse has integrity.  Everything about the horse hangs together.  The horse is beautiful. The horse is admirable and excellent.  The horse is generous. The horse doesn’t have bad breath, a gamy leg, or a hidden disease.  If the horse is an idea, the idea is true and constructive.  If the horse is a firm, it has a mission to improve the world in some well-defined and narrow way, and everything about the firm is designed to fulfil that mission.  And if the horse is a cause, the cause has to benefit society at large, not just its proponents.  With any beautiful horse, there is always some deeply satisfying insight behind the idea, the firm, or the cause – an insight that is unusual or unique, and thoroughly worthwhile.

In large parts of Europe in the 1920s and early 1930s, there were two horses growing faster than any other.  One horse was the Communist Party and the other horse was the Nazis.  Both horses excited their devotees.  Both horses were immensely strong.  But neither of them had integrity.  The ideas they espoused were simply not true.  The horses were speckled with evil.  It is the same with every get-rich-quick scam, every witch-hunt, every mean and nasty movement.  One of the most amazing and hopeful things about the universe is that evil does not last, because it cannot embody the spiritual longing of humans, the thirst for truth and beauty.  Only ideas, firms, causes and people with integrity can build something wonderful and enduring.

So there it is.  To find your horse, recall three words – growth, excitement, and integrity.  Finding your horse will not be easy.  But if you think hard and look hard, if you really are consumed with desire for such a horse, it will come to you.  You will attract it.  You will recognize it immediately, with overflowing joy.  The horse will change your life, and that of many other people.

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Richard Koch is a former management consultant, entrepreneur, and writer of several books on how to apply the Pareto principle (80/20 rule) in all walks of life. Richard has also used his concepts to make a fortune from several private equity investments made personally. Richard’s investments have included Filofax, Plymouth Gin, the Great Little Trading Company and Betfair. Previously he had been a manager at Boston Consulting Group and later a partner at Bain and Company, before leaving to start management consulting firm L.E.K. Consulting with Jim Lawrence and Iain Evans.

www.richardkoch.net
E-mail Richard Koch at richardkoch@btinternet.com
Like Richard Koch at facebook.com/RichardKoch8020
Follow Richard Koch at twitter.com/RichardKoch8020
 

Read Quote of Laura Copeland’s answer to Writing: Why do so many writers use words that might be difficult for some readers? on Quora
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Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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Thank you so much. I appreciate your taking the time to interview me.

The screenshot below was taken on March 26^th, 2013.

BB: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Since I was a kid I loved to read.  It was my escape whenever things got rough. I learned that books can take you anywhere, to another country, to another time period, or even to a fantasy world.  When I began writing I wanted to give that same gift to others.  I wanted my readers to feel the same magic when they read my books as I felt when I read the works of so many wonderful authors. And if I have been so fortunate as to have touched one person with my writing than I will have been blessed.
 
BB: How did you create your book trailer?

I have to laugh at this question. I hired someone. I am not computer savvy at all. But she is and she did a beautiful job.

The Amazon free days are wonderful. They have given me the opportunity to reach out and build a fan base. It is not as important to me to make money, although of course it is nice, as it is to know that my books are being read. Through my work with Amazon I’ve met so many wonderful readers and I am so grateful that they have given me the opportunity to be a small part of their lives.
 
BB: You’ve got quite a few reviews on Amazon including some from Vine Voice reviewers such as Paul Lappen. Can you share your learning in this regard? How can an author reach out to reviewers on Amazon?

I’ve gotten wonderful reviews and every time I get one I want to thank that person a million times. I want to reach out and send them a million blessings. It is the most awesome feeling in the world. They don’t even know it, but their words have made my day. All day long I am on a high. But, I’ve also gotten hurtful reviews. As an author, I realize it is to be expected. And, I am grateful for every person who takes the time to read and review my work. Of course I prefer the good ones. But I take the bad ones in stride.  The only way I have found to reach out to reviewers is to offer the book free and wait.
 
BB: How do you divide your time between marketing and writing?

Ahhh, now this is a bit tricky!!!! I prefer to write, but I realize that marketing is an important part of being an author in today’s market. So, I try to write for an hour every day, and to market for an hour. Of course that is in the best of all possible situations. It doesn’t always work out that way. But I try.
 
BB: How do you handle negative reviews?

As I said earlier.  I take them in stride. I realize that some people will love my work and I am so blessed to have found each and every one of them. Others, will not love my work and there is nothing I can do about that. I hate to disappoint anyone, but it is to be expected. Some people like chocolate ice cream, others like vanilla, and still others like strawberry.  Can’t change it.  I just hope that the readers who enjoy my books find meaning and joy in reading them.
 
BB: Which do you find to be a better platform to reach readers?
Facebook or Twitter? Why?

I like Facebook, only because I am not sure how to use Twitter properly.
 
BB: Which is your favourite BookBuzzr technology?

I love the games! I think that the idea of offering games is such a clever and unique concept. It helps the reader to have fun while discovering new and interesting titles. Kudos to Bookbuzzr!

And thanks again, for offering me this wonderful opportunity to personally connect with my readers.

Vikram Narayan is the founder of BookBuzzr Book Marketing Technologies. (Twitter – @bookbuzzr) Vikram is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University. Prior to starting BookBuzzr, Vikram founded another software company that has been successfully serving clients from all over the world since 2001. When he is not dreaming up ways to help authors accelerate their earnings and book sales, Vikram spends his time playing the guitar, practicing Aikido and spending time with his family.
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All widget themes are available at no extra charge to BookBuzzr subscribers. To access them, simply log in to your BookBuzzr Book Marketing Home page, go to ‘Get Widgets’ section and click on the Landing Page Widget icon.

Happy Book Marketing!

1) The Importance of Short Stories (even for novelists)

If you’re not yet a well-known author, then readers are 300 times more likely to read a short story of yours rather than the first chapter of a novel. Even if your eventual goal is to sell your novel, start by writing some great short stories and hosting them as free giveaways online. When it comes to online reading, try to keep your stories under 1,500 words as these get by far the most traction.

2) The Limitations of Personal Websites

When most writers decide to market their writing, they usually start by building their own website. If you decide to make your own website the centre of your marketing campaign you’re going to come up against some fairly large problems. Not only is getting people to visit your website extremely difficult, but normally people visiting your site will look around for a few minutes and then leave, never coming back again. You need to RETAIN your visitors and keep them coming back again and again. A better option is to make one of your social networks the centre of your marketing campaign; that means your Facebook, Twitter, GoodReads or ReadWave page. If you decide to make your Facebook page the centre of your marketing campaign then have a go at building your website on Facebook itself. If you’re not scared of a bit of html then do it yourself using the Static HTML App. Otherwise, the Bookbuzzr Facebook App is highly recommended. Try setting it up so that readers get a free giveaway if they “like” your Facebook page. It will be much more effective to use this as the centrepiece of your marketing campaign as opposed to driving traffic to your personal website.

3) Building a Mailing List

Every writer needs a database of the names and email addresses of their grassroots supporters. Regardless of whether you’ve written anything new this month or not, you need to keep your early supporters constantly engaged through newsletters. Really you should put the same time and effort into writing your newsletters as you do in writing your stories. Building a mailing list is difficult, there’s no doubt about it. After speaking to lots of writers, we’ve decided to make newsletters a built-in feature at ReadWave since at the moment there are almost no services that are specifically geared towards helping writers get more sign-ups. Otherwise, I would recommend MailChimp. A word of warning though, beginners at email marketing tend to get a bit scared at sending out thousands of emails in one go and compensate for this by being stiff, or even worse, sounding corporate. Often you only get one chance to dazzle a new subscriber before he/she will ignore your emails forever. It’s better to send out no newsletter than a bad newsletter. Be funny and easy to approach in your newsletters. Think of it as a chance to build a positive brand around yourself, rather than to sell, sell, sell.

4) A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

When it comes to digital content, pictures really are key. Readers are more than five times likely to start reading stories with interesting pictures than those without. It’s also worth noting that the peak time for online reading is mid-week when people are bored at work. This means that readers don’t want to be seriously engaged with your magnum opus, they just want to flick through something that is quick and easy to read while their boss isn’t looking. Think about your online and offline content as two fundamentally different things; online content is very much about surface values. Readers won’t have a lot of time to ponder the hidden depths of your story.

5) Social Reading

You know when you see on Facebook that your friend, John, has read an article on The Huffington Post entitled “Why the President is afraid of sandwiches!”, and you’re more than a little curious so you decide to click on it, and before you know, it’s been posted to your timeline too, and now all of your friends are clicking on it, and so on. This is social reading, and as an aspiring writer it’s your new best friend. At ReadWave we provide this Facebook integration, and we’ve noticed that some writers are better at getting social reads than others. Part of the reason for this is the way Facebook is set up. Most social activity is shared on the ticker (the bit in the top right), whereas if someone comments on or reposts your story it will appear in the newsfeed itself. So putting this into practical terms, when someone “likes” or “reads” your story, engage them in conversation and try to get them to respond. If you can start a conversation you will get many, many more likes.
 
Those are my top 5 tips for marketing your book. As you might have noticed all of them were geared towards creating a positive brand around your stories based on free content, rather than simply selling. Best of luck to you all in building your readership, and if you have any questions you can contact me at:
 
rob[at]readwave[dot]com
www.readwave.com
Join us on Facebook
@readwave

 

Mitch and I had met at Michigan State University and he was in Army ROTC.  Initially wanting to wait to marry until after he had served his two-year commitment, he changed his mind and we were now married.

Although the U.S. Army did not tell him he could bring his wife, I was not staying home.  We drove south from Chicago in a tiny Fiat Spider and hoped for the best.

(I borrowed our actual experiences for the beginning of Sharon Gold’s experiences in MRS. LIEUTENANT although many of the things about Sharon are not true of me.)

During the nine weeks that Mitch was in Armor Officers Basic, I experienced a way of life that I could never have imagined.  Meanwhile, the protests against the Vietnam War and the beginning of the women’s liberation movement formed the background of my military life experiences.

For many years I wanted to tell this story of a specific slice of women’s social history in the United States.  About 20 years later two Hollywood producers liked the story but told me I had to write a book first.  By the time I wrote a novel (to protect the innocent), they had moved on to other projects.

There followed about 20 more years of writing courses, books about novel writing, and then rewriting accompanied by rejections from agents and book publishers.

Along the way I hired a book consultant to figure out exactly what was missing from the story.  He advised me to make the timeline of events clearer.  This valuable advice – requiring yet another rewrite – made all the difference.

About this time I became aware of POD (Print on Demand) publishing, which I thought was genius.  No more stacks of books in one’s garage if an author decided to self publish.

At the same time I started the POD process with BookSurge (owned by Amazon and later merged into CreateSpace) I submitted MRS. LIEUTENANT to the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition.  I was very excited when MRS. LIEUTENANT was named a semifinalist, especially after so many rejections.

(Reasons for rejection of the novel by East Coast publishers included: 1) there is no more prejudice in the U.S. and 2) the women could not meet through their husbands but had to meet through their own jobs.)

The Kindle had been introduced in November/December 2007, and when MRS. LIEUTENANT came out in April 2008 I knew enough to have a Kindle ebook created.

Of course, few people had a Kindle at the time.  Then later I realized that the original Kindle formatting had now been improved and my book needed to be reconverted.

Recently the burgeoning popularity of Kindle ebooks has given a second chance to my novel.  And the reviews of the book on Amazon have been good.

I am very pleased to be able to introduce MRS. LIEUTENANT to a larger audience thanks to KDP Select free days on March 6 and 7 as well as to the Kindle Boost service provided by BookBuzzr.

Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the co-founder of the online marketing company www.MillerMosaicLLC.com and blogs on book topics at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com. She is also the author of fiction and nonfiction books, including TOP TIPS FOR HOW TO PUBLISH AND MARKET YOUR BOOK IN THE AGE OF KINDLE.
 

 
 
 
 
 
Her Military fiction MRS. LIEUTENANT: A SHARON GOLD NOVEL (2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist) will be free on Kindle on March 6^th and March 7^th at http://amzn.to/TKTk4B