On 9th July I made a big ol’ public declaration to sell a thousand copies of my fantasy novel The End of Magic by Christmas, and I promised to keep folks in the loop with the ups and downs of sales and marketing with a weekly update.
A few caveats…
- I can only do this in the USA… Unbound have the UK rights and I have no visibility on sales other than the twice yearly statements.
- I’m going to stick with Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.
- I’ll be counting both Kindle and Paperback sales.
- Here’s week seven!
The big change in strategy has been to stop with the expensive ads on Facebook, Bookbub and Amazon and instead to build my readership. And that means bulking up my newsletter and getting bloggers to review my book to drive a little buzz.
I started by looking online at other authors’ blog tours. Both Mike Shackle and Edward Cox have had recent blog tours with their new books – both of which are similar enough to mine – and they posted these handy images with the details of the bloggers…
I spent a day visiting the websites of these bloggers, finding out how they accept submissions (they all do it differently) and dropping them a line.
I also did a small blog tour when The End of Magic was launched in the UK in February and I got in touch with a couple of bloggers who had offered to review, but hadn’t posted anything. Immediately, I got a result…
The good news is I’ve had some very positive responses from the other bloggers I contacted. A few weren’t taking reviews (despite the Ed Cox and Mike Shackle blog tours… but that’s what a big publisher gets you!), and a Grimdark blog had the cheek to tell me that it wasn’t for their readers (!!).
When will these reviews go live…? God knows. A few of them post their TBR piles online and they’re swamped. I’ve told them I’ll be happy with anything between now and Christmas.
Next on my list was to start building my newsletter numbers. I was lucky enough to get a proof of the new Joe Abercrombie novel from my friends at Gollancz. I loved it, said so on Twitter, and got a great response from fellow fantasy fans. I had finished with the proof, so I could give it to a charity shop, maybe? Or… I could give it away online to people who subscribe to my newsletter!
This wasn’t officially sanctioned by the publisher, but I have a copy of the hardcover on order from Waterstones, so I figured what the hell, created the giveaway and added the Tweet to my original review…
Joe retweeted the giveaway without any prompting from me and the result at the time of writing has been…
… which is nice. Lots of new fantasy fans who might be looking for something read after Joe’s book.
To be in with a chance of getting your hands on it, simply sign up to my newsletter here before 23:59 UK time on Saturday 31st August. Full terms and conditions are here. Good luck!
After last week’s FB video (did you know I also put a video version of these blogs on my FB author page…?) Sam Missingham – my guardian angel of marketing – got in touch to tell me about Story Origin, who run book and newsletter swaps for indie authors, much like Bookfunnel, though, unlike Book Funnel, Story Origin are currently FREE.
Rather than just fill out the form I interviewed Story Origin’s founder Evan Gow for the podcast to find out how it all works. It should go live as an exclusive for our Patreon supporters next week.
The interview inspired me to get started, and I’ve been accepted for a group promo. This means I give away my short story – How Drust Krax Lost Two Fingers – as part of a group of similar authors to gain newsletter subscribers. It starts on Thursday, so I’ll report back on how it went next week.
Sam Missingham also featured me on her first webinar for The Empowered Author last week. It was a fun session, discussing book sales and marketing and this very quest, and I’ll post a link to the Youtube video when it goes live. Thanks, Sam! Once again, if you’re an author and you’re not following Sam on Twitter or The Empowered Author, you’re really missing out.
I also realised that I hadn’t let my Unbound supporters know about this. 279 gorgeous and wonderful people supported The End of Magic on Unbound and I’m able to contact them via the book’s dashboard. I rattled off a message asking them to spread the word and maybe leave a review on Amazon/Goodreads. These posts are sent via email and need to be review by Unbound and we’ve just had a Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, so it probably won’t go out for a couple of days, but I’m hoping a few of them might say something nice online.
So, how many sales have been driven by all this hard work? Drumroll, please…
Well, no one said this would be a get-rich-quick scheme… but none of my efforts last week will have the immediate impact of, say, an expensive Bookbub ad. I’m planting seeds, folks, planting seeds…
The KU page reads are up and down…
I did get some good advice from my friend Ian W Sainsbury over on FB and here’s the conversation we had…
He’s absolutely right, of course. This is something we discovered when pushing Back to Reality this year. You need a series to really make this work. And, as I’ve hinted at there, I am working on a brand new series.
I also got a couple more wonderful five-star reviews on Amazon UK…
Those both truly made my day… But I’m still stuck on 6 reviews in the US…
Honestly, with whom must I copulate to get a review in the States?? (Not that I’m desperate or anything).
Here’s a summary of last week’s sales…
Kindle units sold: 2
POD Paperbacks: 0
Kindle Unlimited Pages read: 489
Royalty: $4.06
Advertising spend total: £0
And here’s the running total…
Kindle units sold: 98
Kindle Unlimited Pages read: 9077
Royalty: $46.98
Advertising spend total (since 9th July): $464.00 (and £105.81 in GBP)
AMS: $99.92
Bookbub: $272.70
Still 902 units to go!
That’s a little over 7 a day between now and Christmas.
Thanks again for all your messages of support and to everyone who’s bought the book or spread the word.
If you would like to help, then please do any of the following:
Buy a copy here in the US, or here in the UK
Tell your friends about the book
Leave an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads
I still only have six reviews on Amazon.com. They’re good ones, for which I’m very grateful, but ideally I need at least 20+. I like my reviews to grow organically and they have to be honest, so if you’re American and have read The End of Magic a few kind and honest words will go a long way.
If you have any thoughts or comments on what I might be doing wrong, do please leave them below! Until next week…
Mark Stay Writes 
I love StoryOrigin, not least because they integrate with mailing list suppliers for free. Regarding Ian’s advice – if you’re self pubbing, you could do a couple of novellas instead of full length sequels. Just a thought.
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Ooh, good idea… 😁
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Hey, I’m one of those two who bought on 8/20! OK—I’ve got 5 hours on an airplane tomorrow and I’ll dedicate most of that to read The End of Magic, and I’ll pledge to review.
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Thank you, Paul!!! Have a safe journey.
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