A Thousand Li: The First Step Launch Marketing (Patreon)

Alright, I promised to write a note for the authors in the FB group, and since I was going to write it, I figured I might as well post it here for your reading. Those who aren't interested in how the sausage is made / marketing talk, you can skip this entire post.

The First Step launched yesterday and did really well.

Now, one of the things I did that is not always recommended for the launch of A Thousand Li was set-up a pre-order. The reason why it's not always recommended is the way Amazon's ranking algorithm works. It only tracks sales on that day, and it's generally considered that the higher you are on the ranks, the better your sales are. It's a social effect of saying 'this book is good'. So, having a pre-order means you take some of those loyal customers who might have purchased your book on release and spread them across the timeline of your pre-orders.

The argument for pre-orders is a bit more nuanced. A pre-order allows you to catch eyeballs over a longer period of time (i.e. getting more pre-order sales) which means you might get more reviews immediately on release. In addition, the purchases allow you to populate your 'also boughts' which is another major way people find your book on Amazon. Lastly, pre-orders allow you to market your book to people.

 I'm going to ask that people keep the numbers for this confidential. I'm stretching a little (okay, a LOT) in my comfort zone in posting this. This post probably won't stay up forever, but I will answer what questions I'm comfortable. 

Pre-order Marketing

The First Step is book 1 of my cultivation series. It's not Gamelit but it is adjacent and has a lot of interest in our groups due to the progressive power system. Still, it was a new series in a new genre for me. I was deathly afraid that it wouldn't work, so I decided to do a few things.

Let's be clear, my pre-order was just over 3 weeks long (23 days long to be exact).

1) Initial post in my author page and in GameLit Society

This could be considered grabbing the 'easy access' people, those who are already my fans. I posted it on my FB page and the Society page and watched the pre-orders roll in.

Result: 91 preorders between March 10 - 12

2) Facebook Advertising from March 13 - 28 (total spend $345)

After the initial few days, I started the FB advertising spend on boosting the post. I used a VERY broad targeting category here, only restricting it to the USA and those over 21. My goal here was very much brand awareness rather than direct sales. Remember, this was a first in a series for my new genre.

Results: Over 1,300 likes or other reactions, 79 shares, 8 comments and 26 link clicks (to 'more') information. 

An immediate 2 day increase of 79 pre-orers. After which it decreased down to around 22 pre-orders the day after (note, not directly related since see...)

3) Amazon Advertising (total spend $196.96 to April 1)

I started this on 3/12 too, so note there's some crossover between all these marketing efforts.  Here, I targeted all the wuxia, cultivation and other stories I could find, doing the best that I could to gainpeople in the 'buying' stage of the sales cycle. Advertising here (generally) generates more direct results.

Result: $104.79 in sales (21 orders).

4) New FB Advertisement started on March 31 (spend $53.68)

Not much to explain here. I let the advertising cool for a bit before the release before starting a new one that was more targetted using a pre-built advertising image. The targetting here was much more careful and mostly focused on those with Kindle interest groups.

All this marketing was done beforehand to (mostly) generate awareness of my upcoming book and potentially draw sales. My expectation when going in with this was to generate significant awareness and some pre-orders such that on launch day, I would see a decent bump in ranks.

The end result was outstanding to me - 572 pre-orders in total.

Launch Day

So. Launch Day. With so many preorders, you can guess that there was some concern that I'd impacted my first day rankings significantly. I would definitely say that the first 100 or so pre-orders that came from the GS Society and my Fan page were taken from that 'initial' group.  

I'm not going to go into detail about launch day marketing, but here's what I did:

- Post on author page & GS Society and my cultivation FB group

- Send out to my (small) mailing lists (approx 400 people)

- Post in reddit Gamelit, Progresion Fantasy and Fantasy

- Increase my AMS ad daily spend.

- Boost my FB posts

Things that were done for me (and which I'm entirely grateful for and why I'm doing this post) - get my release shared around by many of the authors in the Writer's Workshop. 

Result: I hit 118 on the ranking chart. The book has now started the slide after the first day, it was at 133 the last time I checked. But this MUCH better than I expected.

Some Advantages I Had

- an incredible cover. I spoke with a few people about the first version of the cover and we changed it up, even though I thought it was nice. This version is so much better and nearly everyone I've shown it to have loved it. I was willing tot hrow money down the FB drain because of the cover.

- an existing fan base. I have 13 books out at the time the First Step released. 500 or so fans on my author page. An e-mail list of 200 people. 

-  An on-going reddit presence. I spend a LOT of time on reddit and do what I can to interact with the community there. I like reddit and hang out there often, so it's not 'work' per se. As such, me interacting and pushing my book isn't completely offside. 

- friends. Seriously, all the authors who shared the book really helped.

- it's in KU. Borrows are a HUGE part of this ranking bump. 

Preorders. Good/Bad? 

I don't know if there's a direct answer to this. There are too many factors to make a definitive statement. These are my views after reviewing some other shorter pre-orders I've done.

- short pre-orders (5 days or so) generally hurt more than they help in your rankings. Your fans who would instabuy the book are all absorbed in that pre-order window without giving you time to build up other orders

- long pre-orders have to be backed by marketing dollars. I got a TON more reach from my FB advertising because of the numerous organic shares.  If not, I would probably have thrown even more money into advertising.

Alright, I think that's all I have to say. If there are questions, I'll do my best to answer them. 

This post brought to you by the flu and deep grattitude for the support the writers in the community have shown me.