I have published five e-books, with two more releases scheduled before the end of 2009, and found promoting them the least rewarding of my activities, if one judges by royalty statements and website traffic. All five were received enthusiastically by the publishers, garnered good to excellent reviews, and I used the traditional means of promoting, posting excerpts, chatting, interviews, RT adverts, blogs, presences on the web via Yahoo groups, Myspace, Facebook, etc., etc., etc., but the most significant factor in sales has been the dwell time on the front page of the publisher's website. It outweighs the effect of every other activity by so large a factor, it is embarrassing.
This leads to two opposing conclusions, either my efforts have been so badly directed as to be totally ineffective, or the traditional means of promoting are nonsense and nothing works beyond having enough books released that they promote themselves by their excellence and the fact that readers keep tripping over them on the web.
My first five books were all in print and the publisher did the general advertising etc, allowing me to hold local events, book-signings and the like, and dabble with conferences and my magazine short stories required no effort on my part. It spoilt me for the "real" world of E-publishing.
In case the first of the two opposing conclusions is the right one, I have signed a six month promotional deal with an affiliate of Coffee Time Romance and will observe the process with considerable interest.
Wish me luck!
Amy
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It's difficult to know what works promotion wise. I used to do chats and loop promotion, but I'm not sure that it made much difference. I think the problem is that there is so much competition. This year I've tried a new attack and really worked hard on my website traffic and blogging. I can't be sure of the financial results yet, but I'm definitely getting more traffic.
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