Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Building Subscribers List/Going Viral

Hey All:

Here's some news about Savage Press.
Last week nine new subscribers joined the SPI Blog.
Would you be willing to get one friend to successfully subscribe to the SPI blog this week?
It would be a great thing to keep adding new subscribers weekly. Hopefully there is sufficiently fascinating content to keep people interested. We'll do our part.
Here's some additional SPI information:

1.) So far this year March was the most active month for Individual Book Visits to the SPI website. There were a total of 654 individual book visits in March.
2.) Last week there were 715 individual website pages viewed.
3.) On average people are viewing 35 "unique titles" weekly.

Seven unique book views a day is not viral by any means, but it is good, solid, consistent visitation to the range of titles offered. Battle Notes: Music of the Vietnam War is the most visited. With baseball season starting up Off Season and The Year of the Buffalo Marshall Cook's baseball novels are getting solid unique visits as well. Cook's Hometown Wisconsin is also getting looked at regularly.

If you are an SPI author and want to "encourage" your friends to promote your title by visiting the site, it would do wonders to increase your book's "visibility" on the net.

I'll always remember with fondness the advice given to me by the wise John Kuderle who was the SPI book buyer at Bookmen in Minneapolis. I asked him what was the best way to sell books, he answered dryly, "Mike, there are three rules to selling books. They are: One. Promotion. Two. Promotion. And, three. Promotion."

If everyone in the Savage Press family does one little thing daily to promote titles and the site, eventually we'll go viral and we would have to see how that fits us. Nicely, I presume. It would fit us all nicely, I'm sure.

Labels: , , , , , ,

posted by Savage Press Inc. @ 5/28/2008 0 Comments Links to this post

Monday, April 30, 2007

LOSS

It's always sad for me when an author's book doesn't get the kind of notice in the mainstream press that it deserves. But, as I've been taught lately, "deserves" can be a violent word. Every book and author deserves notice simply because it was written and the author is (more or less) a human being of equal worth and dignity. Trouble is, the mainstream (the stream that is main) can only hold so much water flowing within its banks. It always feels like loss to me when we try to get a book noticed and an editor or reviewer doesn't take notice.

So, "What's a mother (a publisher or author) to do?" We can let Calgon take us away, or we can keep on trying to get the baby noticed as best we can.

The best notice is word of mouth. Oprah has only so many shows a week. USA Today only has about 20 or so reviews a month. Entertainment Weekly usually runs only ten or so notices an issue. These mainstream venues for giving recognition to books can only carry so much capacity. Yes, I know the Internet is supposed to be the big answer to capacity, but SPAM doesn't work and there's only so much time for your "audience" to surf and find our titles.

So, the "big" venues are more-or-less unavailable to small publishers and authors. Again, "What's a mother to do?" Ask the readers and supporters you have to talk your title up. I do this in nearly every email I send out to customers who have bought an SPI book through the site.
I say, (in essence) "We're small but we're awesome and we need your help to spread the word about this good book you just bought. Please tell your friends and family, and even perfect stranges, about the book, the author and the company. We are grateful for your purchase and for any notice you can give the title."

I read recently where Proctor & Gamble is paying people to do word of mouth promotion over the Internet. Would to God we had that kind of kaching in the PR budget. In the meantime, we're walkin' the talk and talkin' the walk for every book on the list.

Wanna help? Just mention one of our titles or authors to someone today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...and...THANKS!

Labels: , ,

posted by Savage Press Inc. @ 4/30/2007 0 Comments Links to this post