Marketing Activity - Reading The Results

[Pauline Rowson]

Read an e book Week is now over for another year. My crime thriller novel, In For The Kill, was offered as a free e book for one week only, between 7-13 March 2010. Some authors wouldn’t agree with giving away free copies of their novels but sometimes it is a good way to raise one’s profile and introduce your work to people who might not normally come across you or be inclined to pick up one of your novels to read.

Analysing the early results of this marketing activity, it seems to have been successful. In For The Kill was mentioned on the Read an E Book Week web site, on several blogs, in the book trade press, and of course on my own blogs and social network sites, including Twitter and Facebook, thereby generating traffic to my official web site. Traffic to my official web site increased by 172% with the result that 422 copies of In For The Kill were downloaded and many more web pages viewed with some new readers signing up to my regular e newsletter.

Analysing the long term results of this activity is a little more difficult because even if I (or my publishers) were to see a boost in sales you’re never exactly sure where those sales might have originated. Participation in Read an E Book Week was just one part of an overall continuous marketing strategy conducted by my publishers and myself; it goes alongside the fact that this month (March) I have had one of my Inspector Horton crime novels, Deadly Waters, featured in an Exclusively Independent Bookshop initiative; I’ve been selected as one of the crime and thriller Authors of the Month on top online book retailer website, The Book Depository; I have a book tour in the north of England; my books are in the station BookSwap initiative on South West Trains; and I have three books published – the new Inspector Horton crime novel, Blood on the Sand, in hardcover, Dead Man’s Wharf in trade paperback and The Suffocating Sea in mass market paperback.

For any marketing strategy to be successful it needs to be consistent and continuous. So, over the coming months there will be more marketing activity here in the UK and in the USA with reviews, my appearance at the London Book Fair (19-20 April) at CrimeFest ( 21 May), more talks and media interviews, National Crime Fiction Week (14-20 June) and lots more. And meanwhile I continue to write. I am hoping to finish the next Inspector Horton by the end of April and start a new crime novel after that. Whether it will be a Horton or not …. I’m undecided, but I’m sure to keep you posted.

[Jon Loomis]

Good for you, Pauline. Further evidence (if we needed any) that I don't know what I'm talking about. Upon reflection, I could see giving away at least part of the first in a series, if you wanted to jump-start readership for a new book in that series. Or doing as you did, and giving away the whole book for a limited time. Whatever works.

[I. J. Parker]

Good to know that the giveaway worked. I'm thinking of doing something similar.