Saturday, February 25, 2023
read marketing as a way of life
If you don't go out there and get it, it's not coming your way, you can be sure of that. Six months to a year into this, the only things I've found that work are Amazon ads and read marketing. I still can't really afford Amazon ads, but I say that more in reference to the time it takes to study them and figure out what works. With read marketing I was a natural customer anyway because 1) I've retired and always wanted to read; 2) I needed to open my mind to genres and study the differences between them; and 3) as a linguist and writing teacher I've always been interested in what's out there and what form it takes (for example, today I encountered a writer who used all be it as three words. Where does that come from? Did he hear it without reading it?)
But there are several problems with read marketing, which is basically reading others' work to guarantee that others read yours. Generally they do read yours, though they aren't your natural audience; in the same way I'm reading fantasy and erotica, my friends who are fantasy and erotica writers are reading mine though it may not be their favorite. As writers, they do know language, characterization, plot, that kind of thing, which makes them a little more discriminating than your average reader. But they're not my target. I can't make my living off of other writers. It has been ok as far as it goes, but it's wearing thin. On most of the seven sites I peruse almost daily, I've read almost every book that comes up; I need a break.
One good thing about it is that I now know which of my 27 books I enjoy marketing, and which I'd almost rather not bother. There are three I'm fixing to remove as soon as I have the guts. I put blood into them but I actually have their haiku in another book so I'm basically using them now to show off covers, or, to put it better, to work on covers until I perfect the art. Really I have 24, and don't worry about those three. And I have enough to work on with those 24; there are several of those I'd rather not market until I fix them up a bit.
In writing I am deep into a Puritan era around the witch trials where the family genealogy is blocked. Somewhere up there around Salem/Ipswich a relative got lost and there's an explosion of information about the area now, leading to tons of things on the web about how they lived, what they thought, how they interacted in those small towns up there: Salem, Ipswich, Wenham, Topsfield, Gloucester, Marblehead. Someone has pointed out that we're only talking a few thousand people here, and over 150 of them were accused of witchcraft and fixing to die by 1693. In 1715 one of my possible ancesters appeared in Boston marrying a woman who seems most likely came from up there; in fact there was a woman of the same name amongst the 150. The excitement of connecting my family to the witch trials sent me into a frenzy of genealogical research but it was mostly pointless: all trails are dead ends still, at least based on what I've found. I can't connect my family to anyone, much less to the guy I'm writing about, a President of Harvard.
I'm still somewhat obsessive about my reads, though; I check the sites constantly; I have more on my plate than I can read, and I check my stats (ratings) even more obsessively. They're better than they used to be. There is slow progress. Not much, not enough, but some. What I'm most relentless about is doing what works, and not keeping up with what doesn't. That means more read marketing, at least until I'm ready to advertise.
But there are several problems with read marketing, which is basically reading others' work to guarantee that others read yours. Generally they do read yours, though they aren't your natural audience; in the same way I'm reading fantasy and erotica, my friends who are fantasy and erotica writers are reading mine though it may not be their favorite. As writers, they do know language, characterization, plot, that kind of thing, which makes them a little more discriminating than your average reader. But they're not my target. I can't make my living off of other writers. It has been ok as far as it goes, but it's wearing thin. On most of the seven sites I peruse almost daily, I've read almost every book that comes up; I need a break.
One good thing about it is that I now know which of my 27 books I enjoy marketing, and which I'd almost rather not bother. There are three I'm fixing to remove as soon as I have the guts. I put blood into them but I actually have their haiku in another book so I'm basically using them now to show off covers, or, to put it better, to work on covers until I perfect the art. Really I have 24, and don't worry about those three. And I have enough to work on with those 24; there are several of those I'd rather not market until I fix them up a bit.
In writing I am deep into a Puritan era around the witch trials where the family genealogy is blocked. Somewhere up there around Salem/Ipswich a relative got lost and there's an explosion of information about the area now, leading to tons of things on the web about how they lived, what they thought, how they interacted in those small towns up there: Salem, Ipswich, Wenham, Topsfield, Gloucester, Marblehead. Someone has pointed out that we're only talking a few thousand people here, and over 150 of them were accused of witchcraft and fixing to die by 1693. In 1715 one of my possible ancesters appeared in Boston marrying a woman who seems most likely came from up there; in fact there was a woman of the same name amongst the 150. The excitement of connecting my family to the witch trials sent me into a frenzy of genealogical research but it was mostly pointless: all trails are dead ends still, at least based on what I've found. I can't connect my family to anyone, much less to the guy I'm writing about, a President of Harvard.
I'm still somewhat obsessive about my reads, though; I check the sites constantly; I have more on my plate than I can read, and I check my stats (ratings) even more obsessively. They're better than they used to be. There is slow progress. Not much, not enough, but some. What I'm most relentless about is doing what works, and not keeping up with what doesn't. That means more read marketing, at least until I'm ready to advertise.
Thursday, February 02, 2023
Blog stats Feb 1
The blogs took a shellacking this month; almost all were down. Only three went up in the entire picture, and almost all of them went down substantially.
Here's a theory. Since blog traffic is seasonal, it can be explained by the fact that January is a much worse month of getting up on the web and scrolling around, than December. And this can be explained by the fact that people are shopping for stuff in December. They're getting up there and looking around. Now in this theory most of my visitors are people who want to buy something, so they're looking around a lot in December and just happen to land on my pages out of idle curiosity (like the name of the blog?) or because somehow it seems to promise a possibility of finding what they are looking for. But what are they looking for? THere's the rub, I have no idea.
It's true that I need to do heavy overhaul of the blogs and, come the end of the month, I'm tired and haven't been doing it. I do get in my dozen blog posts a month, I get them in before the halfway point, generally, and still use the blogs after that. This last month I hit maybe sixteen of them, not bad. I know that if I keep them alive Google will notice that and move them up in search optimization so that people are more likely to see them. My personal blog comes up a lot on people's searches simply because it's full of interesting names of places that people might be searching for. But there had to be fewer people out there in January than December, because those other variables remained the same.
I have a couple of resolutions for upgrading the blogs. Stay tuned.
Here's a theory. Since blog traffic is seasonal, it can be explained by the fact that January is a much worse month of getting up on the web and scrolling around, than December. And this can be explained by the fact that people are shopping for stuff in December. They're getting up there and looking around. Now in this theory most of my visitors are people who want to buy something, so they're looking around a lot in December and just happen to land on my pages out of idle curiosity (like the name of the blog?) or because somehow it seems to promise a possibility of finding what they are looking for. But what are they looking for? THere's the rub, I have no idea.
It's true that I need to do heavy overhaul of the blogs and, come the end of the month, I'm tired and haven't been doing it. I do get in my dozen blog posts a month, I get them in before the halfway point, generally, and still use the blogs after that. This last month I hit maybe sixteen of them, not bad. I know that if I keep them alive Google will notice that and move them up in search optimization so that people are more likely to see them. My personal blog comes up a lot on people's searches simply because it's full of interesting names of places that people might be searching for. But there had to be fewer people out there in January than December, because those other variables remained the same.
I have a couple of resolutions for upgrading the blogs. Stay tuned.
