No More Cookies for You (Or Anyone Else)

Google is gunning for cookies — those intrusive and unloved snippets of code that track your browsing habits and transmit said data to unscrupulous marketers. Cookies also allow other bad actors to snoop on your privacy and form a pretty good personality profile of any given web user. But being Google, and living on advertising dollars, they are still going try mightily hard to keep advertisers happy by building in more privacy-friendly settings. One suspects much of this zeal for privacy is driven by the European Union’s much more stringent privacy regulations. Falling afoul of the EU can be an expensive business.

“As we work to make the web more private, we’ll provide businesses with tools to succeed online so that high quality content remains freely accessible — whether that’s news articles, videos, educational information, community sites or other forms of web content. With Tracking Protection, Privacy Sandbox and all of the features we launch in Chrome, we’ll continue to work to create a web that’s more private than ever, and universally accessible to everyone.”

— https://www.businessinsider.com/inside-googles-plan-end-cookies-chrome-browser-2024-1

Value of Book Cover Design

Author services site Reedsy conduct a semi-scientific test into the relative marketing merits of a better designed cover. The signal seems pretty clear, though one would want to make such tests on a much larger scale to fully quantify the effectiveness. But of course there is a reason mainstream publishers invest a lot of effort into eye-catching genre-appropriate cover designs — it very much works, and catches the segment of the buying public interested in that specific kind of title.

Hybrid Publishing

Books + Publishing recently published a fairly lengthy and nuanced discussion on the state of ‘hybrid publishing’ in Australia. The article defines hybrid publishing as “a situation where ‘a writer pays money for publication, and grants the company a licence of rights or the company takes a share of any profits”. Hybrid Publisher Shawline Publishing is mentioned, along with their recent opening of a bookstore in Ballarat focused on promoting indie authors. Their Facebook page is here.

Books + Publishing also posted a useful checklist for authors considering signing on with a hybrid publisher. Reedsy’s take on hybrid publishing is here.

Naturally Supporting Cancer Treatment by Jenny Graves

Author Jenny Graves has just released a very well written and meticulously researched book (Naturally Supporting Cancer Treatment, available here) on supplementing cancer treatments with “evidence-based ways to help prevent cancer formation and and recurrence, and assist treatment”. Jenny plans to promote her book in various cost-effective ways, and emailed us with the following specifics:

“Because of the subject matter, I’m targeting other naturopaths, some of whom don’t have much knowledge about treating cancer patients, and also for them to stock in their dispensaries to sell to their patients. I’m contacting the universities offering naturopathic degrees to see whether they would suggest it to their students as associated reading or even as text books.My local health food store has told me that they will stock it in their two stores locally, but the manager is also on the board of the company (Go Vita) and I’m hoping that they will stock it nationally and publish an article in their magazine to promote it. I have a Business Facebook page at www.facebook.com/NaturallySupportingCancerTreatment and my website, www.naturallysupportingcancertreatment.com.au is due to go live shortly, with plans to produce blog articles regularly on it and a regular newsletter containing those articles to be sent to those who sign up on the website. I have an author page on Books2Read, https://books2read.com/b/3LwPzN?edit=maybe-later and their Universal Book Link, https://books2read.com/NaturallySupportingCancerTreatment. I’m toying with the idea of using a media publicist if I can get over my terror of speaking in public. 😊 I’ve also got plans to submit articles to various websites for them to publish as a Guest Author. I may put my toe in the water with Facebook and Google ads, but I believe that they can be something of a money pit unless you get them right, so I’ve been doing training courses on those.”

— Quote Source

Email marketing your book — some practical advice

Some advice to authors planning to market their books via email, from experienced editor and author Dr. Euan Mitchell:

Email programs are getting better at detecting advertising material.

Especially if the salutation is not to a specific person's name.

Including an attachment also increases the chances of it being filtered out.

I suggest the best way is to first send an enquiry email to the organisation concerned without an attachment or any advertising copy in the email itself.

Simply ask who the editor of the organisation's newsletter is. This only takes a sentence or two. In that first email, do not explain why you are asking.

Let them ask. And even if you are starting by emailing the organisation's general email address, you should soon have a reply and a person's name to start with. Importantly, the current person, not someone from years past.

The pitch should not be: "Here's my fascinating book, please buy it." People get similar emails all the time and block the sender.

Start a dialogue with an enquiry email, not an ad. If the organisation has a newsletter then it has space to fill on a regular basis. The author might be able to help out : )

Depending on the organisation's main interest, the author might be able to contribute a few quotes or anecdotes to an article.

These contributions need to be customised to the organisation's interests according to the person who answers the emails.

Funnily enough the contributions can include a plug for your book, even if just a footnote at the end of the article. This subtle way of advertising the book should be more effective than a straight-out ad because the author has first been introduced to the reader by the organisation the reader subscribes to.

In summary, the approach shifts from generic inbox drops to personalised email enquiries (or phone calls) about organisations' newsletters without initially mentioning the title.

Don't lead with your chin. Get a dialogue going first. It takes time but the success rate is much higher.

Euan’s excellent practical guide Your Book Publishing Options is available from Amazon.

Thrill of the Chase — books by Ray Scott

Ray Scott was born in England, and for many years lived near Birmingham. Ray and his wife Mary emigrated to Australia in 1970. Ray worked in the insurance industry, in England and Australia, over 35 years and after retirement devoted his time to fiction writing.

 In 2012 he released his first novel, an e-book originally entitled “The Man Who Had Five Lives”, later re-issued as “The Fifth Identity”.  In 2014, a paperback “Cut to the Chase” was published, followed in 2017 by “The Wimmera Shoot”, another e-book. In 2019, a fourth e-book and paperback “Double Dutch” was released.Ray maintains a website here.

 Ray’s writing style is similar to top writers such as Desmond Bagley, Geoffrey Household and Eric Ambler. The books are racy and about ordinary people caught up in international or political intrigue by accident or design, who go on the run to avoid being arrested, or murdered to ensure their silence.

 “Double Dutch” includes an exciting chase through country Victoria and New South Wales. The leading character accidentally learns of an impending coup d’état in a nearby Pacific island nation, is kidnapped to ensure his silence, but escapes. Penniless and without transport, he endeavours to reach Canberra to warn ASIO of the coup.

Author Trish George and her website

Independent author and outright character Trish George has an author website up, and it is quite well done. An inveterate traveler, Trish has been all over Australia and promoted her work along the way. Along with her works of fiction, she has also written several travel books and is quite a raconteur.

A Promotional Strategy for "Summer at Urchin's Bluff" by author Eliza Bennetts

On writing a series:

Writing in series is considered the way-to-go when it comes to romance. Romance readers are voracious! I attend the yearly RWA conferences and they often talk about the fact that some romance readers read 7-10 books a week! This means that when they find a set of characters or a world they enjoy, they want to keep reading.

As an author, it pays to have more books down the line to service this need. I was lucky to latch on to this pearl of wisdom while writing the first draft of Summer at Urchin's Bluff, so that allowed me to ensure there was scope to have a supporting character who will feature as the main character the next book, and so on for the following two books. I guess, in a way, writing in series is it's own form of promotion. Each book works to promote the next. Well, that's the plan anyhow!

My writing life:

I think like most of us, for me writing was always a hobby - something to get me out of my head when I was stressing about work or family or whatever. I've recently found myself with a little more time to write, and I'm loving it, but I'm yet to establish a routine around my writing. I've listened to podcasts and read books that say you should blank out some time each day to write (eg. 9 - noon). I should probably do that, but I'm loathe to, in case it sucks the fun out of it! I don't want it to feel like a chore, but I guess if I want to do this as a career, I might need to consider it. At the moment I write every day, but not at a specific time, or for a specified length of time.

Marketing and Promotion:

So, my plan with marketing is really to take it slow. I do plan to look at Facebook ads and Amazon ads (I have purchased the KDP Rocket software) for the promotion of Summer at Urchin's Bluff, but not in an extensive way. I figure once I have more books on my shelf, any money I invest in advertising will be that much more effective. I do plan to look at BookBub, but not for book one, or two for that matter. I know they're hard to get, so I might wait to start trying (maybe once all four books in the Seasons series are released). As far as social media goes, I'm only active on Facebook. I know it's better to be everywhere, but with kids and work, and the whole writing-the-books thing, I don't have the time to service a ton of social accounts. This is an area I need to become more confident in. Every time I'm about to post (even just on that one platform) I'm always thinking, 'is anyone going to care about this? Is it spamy?' (not a word, but you know what I mean). I do know that building a mailing list is super important, so I'm working on that but it's slow going. I'm okay with things taking a while to build. I want to be doing this in 20 years time, so being number 1 from day 1, with book 1 is not really my goal (I mean, I wouldn't be upset if it happened!). I guess what I'm saying is that everything I do around marketing and promotion, for me, needs to be about steadily building a readership.

Summer at Urchin's Bluff is a contemporary seasoned romance (seasoned is the term we use in the romance world for a heroine over 40). It is available for pre order now across most platforms.

Available from these outlets.

Sailor to Radio Lineman to CEO to Author — Jim Pratt and His Books

Scottish born James Pratt, the son of a coal miner, is a man from humble beginnings who rose to the top of his chosen profession. At the age of 15 he, (as he describes it), ran away to sea and joined the British Merchant Navy before settling in Australia at the young age of 18.  

 He worked as a radio lineman in outback Queensland for several years then moved into sales and marketing, then General Management.  By the time of his retirement, he had reached the very top of his profession as a Telecommunications Executive.  

 He held several senior positions, including, Chairman of the globally renowned GSM Association, was the founding CEO of Peoples Telephone Company Limited, a substantial mobile telephone network operator in Hong Kong, (now China Mobile Hong Kong), a former Managing Director with Telstra and the President & CEO of GlobeTrac Inc. He served as a non-executive director on several boards until his retirement.

 He honed his writing and communication skills on business reports and strategy papers and had numerous articles published in various global Telecommunications magazines.

 Well travelled, he has been to almost 100 countries, meeting some of the most famous and influential people around the globe.  

His first stop inside a departures lounge at any airport was always the bookstore where he would purchase a novel, usually an action thriller. He read almost everything by Le Carre, Ludlum, Forsyth, Cussler, Clancy, Harris and many more, most with enjoyment.  However, over time, he concluded that he could write more entertaining stories than those he was now buying to read on those long flights and was finding it increasingly hard to find a book he could relax with and enjoy.  So, upon retiring, he turned his hand to writing his first novel, Telekom, which he released several years ago with quite some success.  He has just released his second novel, The Sleeper Project and had started work on his third, to be called, “Cassidy’s Conflict.”

Authors, Don't Forget Libraries

Independent authors sometimes forget the library market. Libraries have made a largely successful transition to the era of the Internet, becoming multi-use spaces, offering ebooks and audio books and maintaining their print collections. Many libraries are quite supportive of independent authors. Joanne Penn has posted about getting books into American libraries, but similar principles also apply in Australia. Apart from contacting individual library corporations, try reading this kindle book on the Australian market. URLs for Australian library distributors below. And don’t forget to register for Public Lending Rights!

ALS
https://www.alslib.com.au/

James Bennet
https://www.bennett.com.au/

Peter Pal
www.peterpal.com.au

Book Reviews and Amazon — a battle royale

Reviews are a key signal used in the ranking of online books. The more reviews, the higher the book ranks and the more books are sold. Of course, given this logic, reviews have been widely gamed by authors and publishers, to the point when they are sometimes not reliable guides as to a book’s quality and popularity. Authors round up their friends to review their books, or pay other services to generate reviews, or review other authors’ books in the hope of reciprocal reviews. Amazon has been fighting back against this degradation of the reviewing signal — the outlines of said epic struggle are described here, along with the latest strategies for independent authors.

The Big Bucks in Design... Uber's redesign

Uber, everyone’s favourite “move fast and break things” startup/world consuming corporate giant, has just installed a new look. How much of it is effective and how much is marketing doublespeak and gobbledygook, I will leave to you to decide. But rest assured that the designers have been paid handsomely for their work. Uber Move is quite a pretty typeface family, though.

Unsubscribe En Masse

If you subscribe to email newsletters and regularly provide your email address online, you may find your inbox swamped with importuning emails. If it has all gotten too much, unroll.me offers you a quick and painless method for clearing out most of that recurrent clutter. The process is extremely simple, and what it reveals about the sheer number of marketers who have your email address can be fairly sobering.

Marketing Ideas for Authors

From the ever-prolific and results-oriented Joanna Penn, an information-packed video on book marketing. Well worth 45 minutes of your time.

Writing Effective Emails by Example

Writing effective emails can be difficult. Not everyone is a natural marketing guru. Goodemailcopy.com has a small collection of pithy emails from web based services to potential, existing and past customers. Some use humour, some are blunt, others cute, but few of them waste any words.

Primer Promotional Lessons from Google

As the biggest seller of advertising space in the world, Google knows a thing or two about marketing. They have distilled some of that knowledge into a series of lessons. Topics include "Create  a Landing Page that Lands Customers", "Segment Your Customers to Reach the Right Ones" and "Keep Customers Interested with Email Automation".

“We assembled a small team of our own marketers and challenged them to build a product they would use. The result is Primer.”

Content Marketing: an Inch Wide and a Mile Deep

A very interesting discussion on the topic of content marketing. Mark O'Brien, CEO of Newfangled (a US-based agency partnering with agencies "to make digital business development platforms for themselves and their clients") makes a good case for highly targeted content-based marketing. He discusses the approach with one of his clients, who gives many examples of the effectiveness of this approach. The client has gone from trying to attract clients from many industries to focusing on one very small industry segment. Using social media tools and creating useful, responsive content, the client was able to reposition his business, resulting in a massive increase in client engagement, meaningful lead generation from his website, all through quality content. No hard-sell, no desperate cold-calling. 

“[these new businesses are] looking at a much smaller, smaller, smaller sector of the economy, but they’re marketing to thousands of those people. Funny, it’s like the magnifying glass. You’re putting that on there but you’re actually reaching far more people ultimately in a far more effective way, even though you’re looking at a much smaller slice of the economy.”