Holy Bejesus! What a day yesterday! Tim Howard can have my babies, first of all.
But what rocked my world mostly was over on the Twitters! So yesterday was #indiebooksbeseen tag day, and I posted my hilarious photo of me holding my book with the hashtag #indiebooksbeseen (it was national Indie Book awareness day or some junk)
I'm a bit excited about my debut novel, #raziadoublelife Buy it today! http://t.co/7zcdfkWqRa #IndieBooksBeSeen pic.twitter.com/vJ46WB4YHG
— S. Usher Evans (@s_usherevans) July 1, 2014
And it went viral*!
(*for me. It went viral for me.)
Here's the stats by the end of it:
- 22 new followers
- 52 retweets (Average is 0)
- 172,000 retweet reach (Average is 0)
So was the #hashtivism a success? Maybe, too soon to tell. Immediate results say no, because I didn't sell any books, and I only got a bump of about 13 visitors to my website (all brand new people, but still, most bounced immediately). So while I gained a whole slew of new followers and RT's, that did not equate to the primary objective (1: Sell books. Else, 2: Get Book in People's Hands. Else, 3: Get new followers).
Hrmph. Be that way. I'll win you over. Just you wait and see! (Ready to buy now? Check it out here)
You know, one of the things that scared me back when this whole roller coaster started was the idea of rejection. I'm normally terrible with it - my first instinct is to argue and tell you why you're wrong. But with the book, I guess I've mentally steeled myself for the onslaught of people who just aren't jiving with what I'm selling. I've been submitting my book to literary agents, and, so far, I've gotten two rejections (not surprising). But what
is surprising is how not bothered I am by it. It's more, "Oh, cool, they responded. Oh, that was nice of them to add a personal note." And moving on.
I guess it's because my book is already out there, it's already making some kind of money. I'm already marketing my ass off, being a one woman show. I've done everything from planning my tweets for the next two months to designing the entire cover for my book to formatting my manuscript to planning how to use my cash inflow. I'm obsessively watching my marketing metrics (and marketing dollars) to identify where I should invest next.
This has become a super fun game to me, like a scientific experiment to see if I do X will Y happen. Today was another experiment - using the "hashtivism" to try and gain followers and notoriety, which will hopefully lead to book sales (as I said, none so far). Still, it was a lot of fun to see so many different people from around the world retweet me. I felt a bit famous :D
On a similar note, you also might have seen that I attended my first Comic-Con in Richmond over the weekend.
For realz; how cute am I in my Razia cosplay? Can we talk about those pants? AND THE POCKETS ON THOSE PANTS! (full of business cards)
While I only sold 1 book, I finally got over my fear of conventions. As usual, I was suffering from my fear of "otherness," worried that I wasn't "nerd" enough. In truth, people are actually nice - and they weren't going to laugh me out of there. I made lots of new friends, and made the terrifying decision to put in an application for Baltimore's Comic-Con in September - and the even more terrifying decision to fork over $250 of my own money (read: not book profit money) to reserve my table!
Basically, I'll need to sell around 50 books to make a profit. I'm going to bring (*terror*) a hundred? I think? Whit's worried we won't sell them, so she's trying to lower the number of books I buy. She's my nervous nelly, that Whitters. Still, I was able to sell a book at Richmond out of a bag using nothing but my
boobs charm and charisma. So I totally think I could sell a hundred books over three days. Especially if I go into full-on marketing mode with a legitimate table.
I've got some great ideas for marketing, assuming I have a few volunteers to help me out. Something about you get to become a pirate, and fans can go out and hunt you to try and win a prize. Or something like that. Still working the details.
Of course, this also means I have to consider setting up a real business for my publishing (Thinking Sun's Golden Books, LLC? You know, because that was my nom de plume when I was a kid, and those kinds of meta-type things amuse me). I also have to get a tax number for the State of Maryland and all that jazz so I don't go to jail.
Hm...that would be a nice thing for a publisher to take care of. H'alas. Onward!
First i want to thank you for your taking part in the #IndieBooksBeSeen festivities yesterday,But i must admit i'm a bit disappointed you didn't see the big picture and based your experience on book sales alone.Everyone that participated on july1st got several looks (RTs) and in this business called indie publishing,that's all you can ask for.My whole purpose for starting the #IndieBooksBeSeen movement was to get people talking about the industry itself, And to lift us to a place where we can be more competitive with the mainstream,which in turn will give lesser known authors like you and i a better chance to shine and prosper.To me yesterday was a great success,because it brought all of us together and we all worked hard for the next authors work.I personally tweeted and retweeted for hours,to the point i had to take a break because my whole arm got numb.And i know many of my peers did the same.Everyone looked out for everyone,and that's huge! It gave me hope and inspiration to see us come together in such a way.This was a first step to what i hope is a big change in our industry.The # IndieBooksBeSeen movement has much more to do, And july1st wasn't supposed to have an immediate impact.But it showed what we can do when we come together.Your sales will come,but please look at the bigger picture......Take care @marktheshaw ps...Great Cover!
ReplyDeleteThere's no doubt that, overall, the event was successful from an audience awareness perspective. And thank you for your passion and your support on behalf of all the indie authors.
DeleteAs you'll note, I say that it's too early to tell if the event was successful for me or not. Success for me, as a bookseller, relies heavily on three main metrics: How much money did I make? How many books did I get in people's hands? How many fans did I get?
The point I make in the post is that of the 170,000 people who supposedly saw my tweet, only .0017% of people clicked through to my site, and 0% completed the first goal (how much money did I make) and 0% for the second (how many books did I sell). I'm pleased that .013% of folks began following me, but those numbers are exceedingly low for the amount of activity that surrounded the effort.
I will consider the hashtag a success when I see a higher number of click-through rates on my site. For now, it's a nice, free way to pass the time, but it's not a viable advertising solution.