A measure of success--or not. According to textbooks, the effectiveness of E-marketing depends on creativity, distribution, promotion, and pricing. After spending months surfing sites and examining the effectiveness of the above list, I formulated a massive e-marketing plan. My projected goal--name recognition in the published author marketplace.
First, I selected to give something away free-something I own exclusively. Why not a manuscript? Two, I elected to give the manuscript away free without a hitch—the hitch being signing up for a list of some sort or taking a survey. I added a donation button at the end of the manuscript for those people who believe an artist should be rewarded for a creation. Remember, I want website traffic and name recognition above all else. Generally, I want people talking about me and what I’m doing and writing.
Three, I utilized the free world-wide web with things like Myspace, iVillage, Facebook, Filefront, Blogs and links, personal website, Amazon profiles, my private address book, my professional organizations, Romance Writers of America, Heartland Writers Group, Kiss of Death, From The Heart Romance Writers, Nebraska Writers, contest judging, online critiquing, and anything from RWR. Fourth and last, I have a Youtube video in the making.
So all said and done, what is the expected timeline for the ripple effect to take place--the ripple effect being thousands of free downloads of my Pdf book and name recognition because all the people I’ve approached directly about the promotion have taken advantage of the offer and passed on the news to friends? Since most of these connections are writers themselves and by nature also readers, I’d think the traffic and downloads would zip through cyberspace at incredible speed. If not because the other writers read my type of work, but because they have first hand knowledge of what it takes to get any recognition.
I’ve stated my agenda and tried to eradicate anything murky in this promotion. I’ve attempted to create a situation which is based purely on electing to support me. No cost. Incredible ease by providing one click access.
http://www.julieacarda.com/books.html Minimal time investment--less than sixty seconds.
This being the case, why after nearly four weeks isn’t the counter on my book spinning into the thousands? If getting a free e-book isn’t tempting, I wonder how the sudden explosion of e-publishing is going to survive. I’m curious to hear what others believe might be the reasons for the lack of appeal and interest and how to solve them.