Lessons Learned: A Post About Promotion

Photo by Oleg Laptev on Unsplash

It's been nine months since the release of my debut YA fantasy, Son of the Siren. My publisher Oliver Heber Books has done incredible work behind the scenes to promote the book and has never stopped supporting it.

But common advice out there is to not rest on your laurels--or your publisher--for all of the promotion, and that there's a lot you could do yourself. In fact, according to many, you're expected to do a sizeable chunk of it on your own anyway.

I came up with all sorts of ideas for Son of the Siren, and spent an estimated $3,ooo (or more!) on promotion. I do not have this kind of money lying around and I am poor. Some of it came from my pension refund from Japan, but a large chunk of it came from an inheritance. I tried to make the best decisions I could with the budget I had, but a lot of what I did ended up not making much of a dent. When it came to ranks and sales, what my publisher did for me moved the dial. When it came to stuff I tried on my own...well, some things seemed to bring success, and others, not so much. A lot of it just wasn't measurable.

I want to go through what I tried to see if it will help other authors out there who are considering a lot of what I've done. I want you to see what is worth trying and what isn't...except the big thing is, your mileage may vary. What failed or worked for me may go a completely different way for you.

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Preorder Campaign

The original commissions by artist Juhaihai were purchased while I lived in Japan and had a decent, regular income. I had three character portraits made and then commercial licensing fees for each piece of art. Now, I overpaid on the licensing fees but it was my own free will to do so. I thought (and still think) Juhaihai is an incredible artist and was underselling their work, so I paid sizeable fees for licensing. The cost over about two years or so of work for three detailed portraits: $1260. I commissioned Juhaihai a little bit at a time, so while this seems like a huge amount, it didn't hurt my wallet at all and I thought it was totally worth it.

When I moved back to the USA and got Son of the Siren published, I knew I wanted to make character art cards for a preorder campaign. I printed 100 cards per character and it overall cost me $216.

Was this successful? I put a lot of effort into the preorder campaign, but...only eight people participated. So, one could say that I wasted money, especially on printing so many character cards. I want to commission art again, but I probably won't print off as many cards. I'm still debating whether or not to do another preorder campaign.

Books for Reviewers

I got ten free copies of Son of the Siren from my publisher for me to do with as I wished, and I used those copies for an Instagram book tour. I'll talk about that soon.

But I needed more books! I didn't know how to come by them, so I bought 20 from Amazon and 10 from Barnes and Noble at a later time, all with the purposes of sending them out to reviewers. This cost me $462 not counting all of the shipping I did, which I forgot to keep track of. 😒

Anyway, as of writing this, I've had seven books in perfect condition just sitting here because I can't get reviewers to bite. I decided to hold a giveaway for six of them and keep the seventh "just in case." Hopefully people who enter the contest actually want to read it and in turn, review it on Amazon and Goodreads (but hopefully Amazon).

How did I go about trying to find reviewers?

Instagram Book Tours

I did two of these. The first one was the closest to my release date and was international with ten participants who were required to take photos and publicize Son of the Siren on either Instagram or TikTok. They were not required to review, but almost everybody did on their Instagram profiles. Only one reviewed on a review site. And only three TikTok videos were made. However, this later led to an interview from a NYT bestseller, which was awesome! This first tour cost $195, not including the costs for me to ship the books within the US and internationally. There was also a giveaway for a copy of the book, but the tour group provided it and saved me money! I would count this endeavor as successful and would use them again.

I did a second tour months later with a group that was more well known that had famous authors on their rosters of clients. I picked a 14-day tour with a new Instagram profile daily. Participants were not required to read or review the book. Most participants just shared the description I provided them and did not comment on the book at all. I got one really good review out of the whole thing and no Tik Toks. This tour cost $400 and I had to ship everyone their books. Despite some gorgeous photos, I would count this as a bust and I will not use them again.

Cold-Contacting Reviewers

I reached out to about 30 YA and fantasy reviewers and only two responded and agreed to review the book. The good news is that both reviewers gave me five stars, and one of them I use to blurb the book. But because 28 other reviewers blew me off, I count this as a waste.

Paying a TikTok Publicity Group for Influencers to Review

I paid $69 to a company that advertised your book to TikTok influencers, who would then reach out and provide their contact info to be sent the book to review. I allotted ten books for this, but only got four requests (bummer!). I mailed the books out with character art to each influencer back in December and not a single influencer has filmed anything about the book. There were no "book mail" videos, review videos, "what I'm reading now" videos...nothing. The company said the influencers weren't required to review the book...but then why did they ask for the book? It's been months and I've been looking for anything on TikTok about Son of the Siren and it's crickets. I followed the people who requested my book, and do you know what they post about instead? Zodiac Academy and Fourth Wing. Sigh. Total waste of money. Never doing this again.

Paying an Instagram Influencer Directly

I follow someone on Instagram who is a pretty big deal in the Bookstagram universe, and she offers publicity packages. I sought her out because I liked how she presented books and talked about them and we had similar reading tastes. I got four pretty posts and one cute reel, and we did an Amazon gift card giveaway for $25, which I footed. The influencer did review my book in one of her Instagram posts, which was nice. This was $600 and although the influencer did beautiful work and gave a positive review, I didn't see this make a dent in sales, so I probably won't do this again.

Overall, was buying 30 books for reviewers worth it? Nope. Because no one guarantees reviews. If I get another book published, I'm not purchasing as many volumes given the general lack of interest and I'll slow down purchasing books until I know I can send books to people who actually want them.

Doing a Book Blitz Promotion with a Contest

I picked a book promotion group to do a "Book Blitz" on book blogs promoting Son of the Siren, along with a drawing for a $25 gift card, which I provided. 20 blogs participated, sharing the book cover and the back-of-the-book blurb. It cost $90. There was no measurable benefit from doing this, so I am not going to do it again.

Taking out an Advertisement in a Book Magazine

I took out a quarter-page space in a magazine that talks about books and features books on sale. It was one of the first pieces of promotion I did for Son of the Siren, and it appeared in the summer issue of the magazine. It cost $175. There isn't a way to see if this actually helped or not...if I kept paying for ads over a period of time, it might have worked. I won't be doing this again, at least not with this magazine.

Small Advertisements in Newsletters and on Websites

Across a variety of sites and newsletters, I collectively paid $221 to have my work featured--namely the cover, my author photo, and my book description. I haven't been able to tell if this has helped or not in any way.

Author Interviews

With the exception of one magazine, all of the author interviews I have participated in have been free, and I have participated in a lot. I can't remember the grand total, but if you search my name, besides mentions of Son of the Siren, you'll get lots of hits linking to interviews. This has done well for my SEO/internet presence, but I don't know if it got people to buy my books. However, because this is so inexpensive, I will continue to do this. Plus, it's a lot of fun.

Holding Giveaways

I held a giveaway for the Son of the Siren audiobook and am currently holding one for the paperbacks, too. I did research and found Gleam, a great website for administering contests and giveaways. I had to pay for a higher plan, though, because I needed to have specific capabilities, like enabling people to sign up for my newsletter as an entry. Anyway, it costs $59/month and I'll have to pay for two months because both of my contests spread over that period, and then I'm stopping my membership until I want to do another contest, which probably won't be for a very long time because I can't afford to buy more of my books. Anyway, the contest giveaways amount to $118 to run, and then however much it costs to ship the books to winners. I can't tell if this has done anything for book sales, but it has helped grow my newsletter--but only by six people so far.

Content Pulling (for Marketing)

I almost forgot to talk about this. When things were particularly low for me, I paid for a critic to do a content pull of the book--they would read the novel, then pull quotes or scenes from the book and plan or design social media posts for me, namely for Instagram and TikTok. This cost me $80 and I got a five-page report filled with tons of ideas that have helped me for Instagram and TikTok. I don't think this helped me gain more followers, but it's been great for making beautiful posts. I will probably utilize this service again as social media is not my thing.

My Local Bookstore

I called my local bookstore and because my publisher doesn't accept returns and uses POD technology for books, they will not stock me at their store. This is a huge bust.

Marketing with My Social Media

This has not been very successful. My follower counts on Blue Sky and TikTok are abysmal and I only get maybe 1-4 views/shares. I have the most followers on Twitter/X and my promotional posts get 5 hearts and one repost. Instagram gets 1-4 likes per post at most. My Threads account has had some posts hit 800 likes, but they didn't have anything to do with Son of the Siren. Those posts usually get 1-4 likes and 1 repost. My Facebook gets the most attention because my family and friends are on there, but even so, the best I've ever gotten has been about 8-10 likes and 2-3 shares. I will continue to share on social media because it's free, but I don't think it does anything at all.

Marketing with My Website

I love my website. I love writing for it. But the hundreds to thousands of views I get on this site only go to my animation posts. Every time I post about Son of the Siren, I get about 3-5 views. I think the most I ever got was 11. Because my website is my home, I will continue to post about the book here, but it doesn't really do anything that I can measure.

Marketing with My Newsletter

While I have 43 subscribers, I only have a 3% click rate for links and a 56% open rate, meaning only 56% percent of my subscribers actually bother to open the email up to look at it. With my subscriber list and statistics being so poor, I do not think advertising via my newsletter helps, but I will do it anyway.

Entering a Prestigious Competition

I submitted Son of the Siren to the Ohio Book Awards sponsored by the Ohioana Library. Previous winners include Celeste Ng and Toni Morrison. I submitted back in December or November, and they're still reading/deliberating. I don't think I have a chance, but it was worth a shot. As long as I don't have to pay to enter, I will continue to consider entering my work into competitions.

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Well, that's a wrap. I spent all the money I could spend on marketing and spent until I was broke. I'm still broke. I've sort of slowed down on publicity and promotion because I can't afford to do the bigger things, and so many of the bigger things failed for me. I keep my eyes open to see if there are free things I can do, but I can't even afford to buy more copies of books to send out. Someday this might change, but for now, much of my promotional efforts have screeched to a halt. I need to do more research to see what can be done, but right now, I've left promotion to my publisher, who knows what they are doing. I hope I can get the energy and money to do more things for the book...and to keep writing!