Guest Blogger: Stacey Cochran

We here at FO like to provide you with fresh ideas and new viewpoints. We also know you get sick of listening to us babble at times. So we thought we'd bring in a new voice for the day. Your FO Guest Blogger today is Stacey Cochran. Treat him better than you treat us.

Thanks so much, First Offenders, for hosting me today as a guest blogger. I am currently halfway through a 45-Day Blog Tour to promote my novel CLAWS, and I’d like to write about book marketing today.

In the past three weeks, I’ve sold 1,100 copies of CLAWS and The Colorado Sequence. Additionally, CLAWS has started showing up on a number of bestseller lists at Amazon.com (as has The Colorado Sequence), reaching as high as #111 overall last Thursday.

So how the hell did I do this?

It all started with the blog tour. I set up my blog tour for 45 days with the idea in mind that I would be totally dedicated to writing posts, asking reviewers to review my book, doing interviews, etc. What I couldn’t have foreseen was how this concerted effort would build momentum like it has.

For those who haven’t done a blog tour, I totally recommend it, and I would encourage you to consider a 45-Day or 60-Day push. Anything much less than a month isn’t going to generate momentum, and if you rely on people to come to you (rather than asking people yourself) you’re not going to do as well. The thing about a blog tour is that it costs nothing to do, yet it could be done in conjunction with traditional bookstore signings (or a drop-in tour to sign stock).

In addition to the blog tour, I’ve been organizing a grass roots writers’ organization in Raleigh, North Carolina for about three years. The group has grown to almost 2,000 people who have come to our events and given me their e-mail addresses. E-mailing these folks the first two weeks to generate reviews on Amazon was instrumental to building the momentum that pushed CLAWS onto bestseller lists by week 3 of the tour.

New readers are going to Amazon, seeing the reviews, and giving the book a shot.

A lot has been said about book trailers, and most authors seem to think they don’t work.

I created a book trailer for CLAWS a few months ago that has been “viewed” on YouTube nearly a quarter million times (and will hit a million views by year’s end), and I know this trailer has led to dozens of sales. There’s a pop-up annotation that directs folks to the Amazon Kindle version of the book that comes on in the last five seconds.

The key to a trailer working on YouTube is that it must become viral, and if your video is basically slicked-up spam about your book, it ain’t gonna become viral. My trailer features a man being mauled by a mountain lion. That’s what people want, and that’s what thousands of people will embed on their websites when they see it. It’s also short (22 seconds), which is key to success on YouTube.

Finally, the Amazon Kindle… most of us have read Konrath’s blog talk the past few weeks. If you haven’t, you need to go read his blog. The Amazon Kindle is building for me (and dozens of others like Boyd Morrison, John Rector, and Sam Landstrom) a base of readers unlike anything else we’ve ever seen. My theory is that most debut authors who tank after 2 or 3 novels do so because they have no established base.

It is absolutely essential that today’s young writer build a base readership of at least 10,000 folks before signing with a major publisher.

People who own Kindles really, really want to download books; it’s why they spent 400 dollars in the first place. But too many publishers are pricing mid-list authors’ books at 7 to 15 dollars, and those books aren’t selling. On the other hand, I’ve priced my books as low as I can (at a dollar per book), and that has contributed to this rush of sales.

Now I have no idea whether it’ll last. My goal is to sell 10,000 copies. To me that is far and away much better than I’ve done on previous books, and at this point, it seems attainable. It also seems like a solid base to go into 2010 with, knowing that I’m planning to publish CLAWS 2.

A writing career really is constructed. Year after year. Back in 2004, I only sold about two dozen books. By 2008, I was up to about 500 books sold and over 50,000 downloads of the online audio-book version of The Colorado Sequence (given away for free). That base, in turn, led to the explosion in sales I’m seeing this summer on Kindle.

You really do have to build it one book at a time.

Thanks so much, everyone, for listening to me today. And thank you, First Offenders, for the opportunity to guest blog!

So what marketing strategies have you tried that have worked? What marketing strategies have you tried that haven’t worked? And what is the single coolest marketing campaign you’ve ever seen in any business? (I’m a fan of the Dodge “Has that thing got a Hemi?” campaign myself.)

You can find out more about Stacey and his books at www.staceycochran.com

Comments

[Stacey Cochran]

Thanks so much, guys! I'm on the road, but will try and check back throughout the day. Thanks for the opportunity!

[Lori Armstrong]

Thanks for guesting today Stacey and sharing your insight!

[Stacey Cochran]

Thank you, Lori!

[Karen Olson]

Welcome, Stacey! Blog tours have always worked for me, too.

[Stacey Cochran]

I've been amazed at the reception from so many folks on this tour, and at the momentum it has created.

Thanks, Karen.

BTW, who all is going to Bouchercon this fall?

[Boyd Morrison]

I'll be at Bouchercon. Should be fun!

[Stacey Cochran]

Cool, Boyd! Let's plan to get a bite to eat together. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your help on the whole Kindle boom! I couldn't have done it without your lead with your books.

[AlisonGaylin]

A belated welcome, Stacey! And I'll be at BCon too!

[Dawson Vosburg]

I'm planning on going to Bouchercon. It looks like there are a lot of people going there, and it being an hour or less away from my house only makes it more convenient (though I might want to stay at the hotel anyway, if I get enough cash on me after dropping the $150 registration fee).

I'd like to meet both of you, Boyd and Stacey! Always great to meet authors.

Dawson

[Clea Simon]

Good to meet you! I'm curious how you made your book trailer. Not sure yet if I think they're worth the cost, so I'd love to hear some tips.

[Stacey Cochran]

Hey, Clea, we were actually on a panel together at Bouchercon Chicago! (Clearly I made a great impression on you:)

The book trailer consisted of me downloading footage from YouTube, re-cutting it in Final Cut Pro so that the screen-shot showed the mountain lion pouncing on the man and adding the book cover and music at the end.

Cost $0.00 to make.

Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tgZmh2dkVI

[Stacey Cochran]

Hey, Alison and Dawson! See you guys in Indie!