What's the point of this blog!

I'm documenting the marketing for my YA book series "The chick friends rules". I want to see which marketing strategies will work best in creating buzz and hopefully income. So, sign up below and take the journey with me.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

What's more important to an author; sales or readership?

I made a very bold move today in the quest for marketing my series. I decided to giveaway an ebook copy of freshman year for one week only on Goodreads.com starting on Oct 31. And sell it and sophomore year for only $0.99 on Kindle and Nook, thereafter. The reason; I worked for two years to produce this series and I'll be damned if it sits on an Amazon or B&N virtual shelf collecting dust because of my ego. I'd rather give it away. So, for me readership is more important. I'm a first time author, I have to build a fan base where however possible. I can always charge full price on the next go around when everyone knows my name and bow at my presence. It was a hard decision and I'm about to take a shot of 6 year old whiskey and go back to bed.

5 comments:

  1. Vici, thanks for sharing your philosophy and your adventure. As a, well to be honest, very surprised first-time author myself, I find that I'm more interested in getting my work out there as well, and interacting with the fans, then getting hung up on sales numbers. Although, unfortunately, that's really the bottom line most of the time. Best of luck to you, and I'm gonna pop by and see how things are going!

    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Aaron-Speca-AuthorEditor/216515161730857

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good move. Readership is way more important. When I launch my first book soon, I'll be handing out some freebies :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's an excellent idea to give away some stuff to build readership. In addition to books, I put up a lot of short stories, and I always put the short stories up on Smashwords for free for a week or so. This helps get people interested in my novels. Another good idea, that I have seen others using is the first book in a series goes for $.99 then the rest are higher.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I also think its a great idea. You have to build the readership first. You cant expect to just sell and sell and people dont know who you are. :D

    ReplyDelete
  5. I agree with the previous comments - readership is important because if you have that, then the word of mouth will build and you have more and more sales. I'm working on building my readership on everything now so we shall see - E :)

    Ma America, The Travelin' Maven
    Author of the JGDS, 50-state, mystery, trivia series
    Where will the adventure take you next?
    http://jgdsseries.blogspot.com
    http://jgdsseries.weebly.com

    Elysabeth Eldering
    Author of Finally Home, a YA paranormal mystery (coming soon); The Proposal (An April Fools Day story) (now available); The Tulip Kiss, paranomral romance (coming soon); Bride-and-Seek, a paranormal romance (coming soon); and Butterfly Halves, a YA fantasy (coming soon)
    http://eeldering.weebly.com
    http://elysabethsstories.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete