For a fiction e-book to be financially successful (beyond the initial A10 algorithm boost) it needs two things. An advertising budget and other e-books passively promoting it. It’s called Publish and Pay.
This is a short little post dealing with the basis of using sustained paid promotion and passive cross-referencing from other e-books in a series or group.
Here’s that graph again that we met in the last post: “Life and Death of an e-book”. In that post we looked at the red line – a Standard “Organic” Launch. More luridly known as “Publish and Pray”
This time we will start looking at the Blue line. That’s an e-book with a sustained ad/series strategy. Colloquially known as “Publish and Pay”.
We will be looking at the blue line in quite a lot of detail in later posts. But here it is important to set the scene to see why this promoted and cross-referenced e-book continues selling well beyond the 90 windows (although at significantly reduced sales).
Believe it or not, the blue line shows a potential strategic way ahead for selling e-books. Though it is not for the faint hearted.
The blue line e-book launch is initially supported by significant advertising spend. This spend is designed to ensure the e-book is seen by as many as possible in the target market. That’s why it’s called Publish and Pay.
But that is not all. This e-book is part of a series. A series designed so that as one e-book falls out of the 90 day period, it’s successor is launched. The result is that one e-book “bleeds” into another and then another. They all cross link and cross promote (free of charge) each other.
Great! You may say. What could possibly go wrong!
Well…
The Publish and Pay Treadmill
The author is on a treadmill. Every 90 days another book MUST be launched. Then all of the advertising for the new title must start again while advertising (although reduced) for the others in the series continues.
It is a numbers game involving considerable out-going spend with no guarantee of an superior incoming return. No author involved in the strategy (whether or not it is showing signs of working) can afford to let up for one minute let alone for (say) a couple of months.
This is now a business. The lonely scribe pouring out their soul into their work is history.
You are writing as an act of self promotion as well as expanding the story(s) across multiple e-books. You are working to deadlines and word-counts.
Couple that with the fact that 90% of the effort will be promotion not writing and you can see why many who attempt this bail out half way through and probably end up losing money as a result.
BUT…
It does have the potential to work. That’s if (and only if) the Gods are on your side.
But Hey!
This is publishing!
What did you expect? Certainty?
The one big thing you can expect though from “Publish and Pay AND Trade in on your Series” is that unlike the “Publish & Pray” (red line) strategy, this is more than just buying a lottery ticket. It does have the potential to actually sell e-books. (sometimes)
It has a another name too! The “Series Halo Effect”.
We are going to look at the “Series Halo Effect” in some detail in the next post. Why and How an e-Book Series Sells