The Monthly Mailbox #1

Each month I get emails on this site. Sometimes they’re people asking for advice, other times they’re people telling me how stupid I am.

I thought it’d be fun to take a look at some of the questions I get from people. Maybe I can answer them here and you can get some ideas or solutions for your own problems, whatever they may be.

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Question from Jimmy:
How can I use Facebook to sell my book?

This is a great question, and one that I have no real idea about. I lived in China until 2013, and they didn’t allow Facebook. So I never used it. I do now, and I’m a member of many groups. Sometimes I’ll post a link to one of my free or discounted books in those groups.

Someone left a good comment on the site a few weeks back leaving a link to Facebook author promotion groups. That might give you some help, Jimmy.

I put up links to The Jongurian Mission in many of those groups and I had a slight uptick in freebie sales for a day or two.

You might also want to try Facebook ads for authors, which I did and which you can read about in this post on, you guessed it, Facebook ads for authors. (We don’t try to complicate things around here, Jimmy).

Hope that helps!

Question from M.:
are you ever going to stop putting up that stupid flight 370 story?

This is a good question. Yes, I will stop putting up that stupid Flight 370 story, perhaps when we get up to Part 10. I hope to get the book finished by the end of June, so you can buy it then, M. I know you’ve got a deep-down, aching desire to buy it, and frankly, I don’t think your life will be complete until you do so.

The reason I say this, M., is because you failed to capitalize your ‘a’ in your question. You can learn a lot from reading, and I think this book would be a good place for you to start. If it’s too difficult I would recommend Who’s There, Spot?

Question from Susan:
How can you write so much each month?

Well, Susan, I write each day, so if you do that and add it up it just…adds up.

Here’s a look at my word count this month so far:

Each day I’m doing 1,000 words, and I bet you have a lot of days like that too. The problem is that most of your days look like my May 3, where I had just 1,293 words. With that pace you’ll get about 30,000 words in a month, maybe more.

Now take a look at some of those 5,000 word days. That’s hard to keep up, but working on multiple projects helps. If you did that for 30 days you’d have 150,000 words in a month. That could be three novels or a couple novellas and a few non-fiction books…whatever.

The point is, you have to sit down and do it. And that means forgoing the “Game of Thrones,” that night out with the boys, or sex on the couch. Yep, these are sacrifices you’ll have to make, not everyday, but most.

You’ll notice I don’t do 5,000 words everyday, however, but I’m still averaging around 3,000 words a day.

Question from Padka:
Where do you promote your books?

Nowhere, really. My promotion sucks, mainly because my bank account balance sucks. When I do promote I’ll typically do so with the following sites:

• BookSends (formerly Book Blast);
  
• Freebooksy;
  
• Bargainbooksy;
  
• Book Basset.
  

Yep, that’s about it. I told you, my marketing efforts suck, and those are the few sites that will take my book.

I did a little advertising with Kboards before they booted me, but that was never effective. I did two eBook blog tours, but both resulted in exactly 0 sales. BookSends has always been good to me with my perma-free, and Book Basset has given me some paid sales, but not many.

Yes, I adhere to the “write another book and forget the others” approach to marketing. How’s that working? Not too good.

So what should I do?

• Spend more money on advertising that never really worked in the first place? 
  
• Find better advertisers, even though they currently won’t take my book?
  
• Do more social media marketing to try and get sales?
  
• Lower the prices of all my books?
  
• Raise the prices of all my books?
  
• Offer more books for free?
  
• Offer no books for free?
  
• Give up?
  

As you can see, there are many options when it comes to promotion, or lack thereof.

If you’re books aren’t selling now I just think you should write another. Lots of people think this is wrong, and that’s fine – lots of people don’t agree with my politics, but I don’t think that’ll change my views. Would it change yours?

I don’t understand why some people get so offended when you travel your own self-publishing road. I certainly hope you can find the answers you’re looking for, Padka, because I don’t think you’ll find them from me.

I’m too busy writing the next book.

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Disclaimer: None of these people are real. You think I get email? Ha!