For the past 6 months I’ve been sending out review copies of Harry Potter Jesus Christ and got enough positive reviews that it can now pretty much hold its own online. I’m not too worried about THIS book being a bestseller, because I’ve got several more in the works and I know that success comes with repetition. Right now I’m selling about 100 books a month – which is not enough to live on. But when I have 5 books out there, at 500 a month I’d be making good money. If I reach 10 books (as I plan to within 5 years) I could pretty much be a full-time writer.

So first of all, if you’re trying desperately to promote ONE book and have no plans for more, reconsider your future strategy.

That said, as my first book I’ve got a lot invested in this one and want to see it grow. How can I SELL MORE BOOKS? Advertising is expensive but it works. Here’s a little strategy I’ve used playing casino blackjack that may work for you.

It’s simple: spend all of your income on advertising.

Don’t jump into advertising by plunking down a ton of money on a marketer or book expert who says they can help you. First off, go to fiverr.com and pay 5 bucks for a few people to review your website, or edit your sales material. For $50 you can get 10 random people’s opinions and advice on how to clean up your sales page and information, which is vital to actually selling the book.

I’m not going to tell you what to do if your book sucks. If it’s a bad story, poorly written or poorly edited, OR if it has an ugly, home-made book cover, then advertising won’t help. (An easy test: try advertising $50. If it DOESN’T increase your sales, you may need to work on your core product. But hopefully it should increase your sales a tiny bit. Hone your pitch by linking your product to relevant current events and blogging about them. OK – so now your product is pretty good, it’s WORKING, it’s SELLING – you just need more traffic.

Writing blog posts, social media etc can all help with this. But advertising is easier and also can be effective. However you don’t want to throw your money away, so here’s the blackjack advertising strategy:

When you play black jack, the trick is ALWAYS DOUBLE YOUR BET. Let’s say you lose 4 out of 5 times. The first time you lose 10, then 20, then 40, then 80… but on that last hand you win 160 – winning back all you lost, with an extra 10. No matter when you lose, if you keep doubling your bets, you will always win all your money back. (This is infallible: unless you run out of money before you re-win your bets…which I’ve done before).

You can use a similar strategy when advertising your book:

1). Start with $100 (If that’s already too much, start with $50, or $20…) Spread it between Google Advertising and Project Wonderful.

Google Adwords: rather than allowing google adwords to advertise anywhere, in the beginning it’s a good idea to focus on sites that have readers that might be interested in your book. (If your book is about horses, google adwords will take the keyword ‘horse’ and advertise on a site for horse-racing or horse-meat). You can use the “networks” panel under your campaign settings to enter in the url’s of sites that you think would be a good fit. Choose about 10 sites and plug them in; now your ads should be displaying ONLY on those sites you’ve chosen. This will give you better success rates on people actually buying your book.

Project Wonderful Project Wonderful lets you pick websites or blogs individually.

Spend $50 on each and experiment for a month, or two, until you feel you’re getting the best value for your money.

Your GOAL is to be selling enough books to pay for this advertising: if you make $3 per book, you need to sell about 33 books to make $100 – then you can spend the $100 again the next month. IDEALLY, however, $100 will let you sell more than 33 books.

2). Let’s say you sell 100 books. Now, you should make about $300 – if you spend all that on advertising, (and you’ve already done your advertising research), you should sell about 3 times as many books (although actually it will probably be more like half, because some sales aren’t coming from the advertising).

3). So this time, you might sell 200 books. You should make, and spend, $600 on advertising. Next time you might sell 400 books and spend $1200 on advertising. Get it?
a) Don’t think about it as money yet – think about reinvesting your dividends until you push it into the bestseller range.
b) Don’t raise your advertising budget if you’ve had a slow month. Don’t be tempted to take out loans or use credits cards – if sales are down, use other, free book promotion tactics. Just try to invest all your sales profits back into your book.

Eventually – when you hit a goal you’re happy with (I’m shooting for 1000books a month) you could stop advertising (although – if it’s working, why would you?)

Other advertising things to consider:

a) When your budget grows, you should think about using blogads.com or other blog advertising programs. Although more expensive, you can put your ad on select websites.
b) contact related blogs directly – sometimes ads on blogs can be very cheap!
c) Get your ads designed professionally. Picture ads work better than text ads.

Like I said, I’m currently on this path: current budget is $200, goal is to sell 100 books; then $300 next month.

Try it out, and let me know if it’s working for you!

Recently J.K. Rowling started an online treasure hunt, giving clues to the top Harry Potter blogs which collaboratively spelled out “Pottermore” – a new Harry Potter website that, for the moment, just has a couple of owls and the words “coming soon.” What is J.K. Rowling’s Mysterious New Harry Potter Website? It’s not a book, she says. She’s also promised Daniel Radcliffe not to write another Harry Potter book (after she joked about it in an interview, he called her up in a nervous sweat and demanded to know if it was true).

My guess is this: Pottermore will be an online multiverse like World of Warcraft, where you can pick a side, a character, battle opponents, hone skills, form groups and take on quests. If it isn’t… well, then she’s missing out on a great opportunity.

What do you think it will be? Will it launch in time for Deathly Hallows?

Deathly Hallows Part II (HP8) is coming soon and with it, a definitive conclusion to the Harry Potter series. Here’s a cute video of the Harry Potter cast summing up their Harry Potter experiences in one word.

What has Harry Potter meant to you? Share your one word in the comments (mine is “inspiring”)

The Onion recently took advantage of the recent trend to split books into several movies, thus capitalizing on and extending the life-line of Franchises like Twilight and Harry Potter. Their newsreport (which are becoming increasingly more convincing – you can hardly tell the following video is a total farce) claims Harry Potter 8 (part II of Deathly Hallows) would be split into a further 7 minutes. It’s pretty damn funny – check it out.

In fact it was convincing enough to cause a slight facebook panic among fans who took it seriously. Sadly, however, Harry Potter is coming to a FINAL CONCLUSION this summer and there’s nothing we can do about it.

http://www.theonion.com/video/final-minutes-of-last-harry-potter-movie-to-be-spl,20528/

I just found this on YouTube – it’s the new Harry Potter 7 (Deathly Hallows Part II) movie trailer. Exciting. Can’t wait to see the movie this summer (July 2011).

Out of all the stuff they sell on amazon.com, Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Part 1 takes up 3 of the top spots, for various versions of the DVD. Everybody must be preparing for Deathly Hallows Part II, the final, epic conclusion of the series. What the hell are we going to do when it’s all over?

Oh well, the world will end in 2012 anyway.

If you want to sell your book online, or anywhere for that matter, reviews are crucial. But where can you get reviews for self published, indie or kindle books? And how can get more amazon comments? To solve this problem, I’m setting up a new website called “Creativindie: writing, creating, marketing, publishing, productivity and design tips for authors and artists.” Part of the services I plan to offer are free reviews and comments, for ANYBODY who submits an ebook/pdf copy of their book. I’ll also offer book cover critique, author photo critique, review of book proposals and queries, etc.  (I have several years in the publishing/self publishing industry and work as a book editor).

Unfortunately Creativindie.com won’t be completely set up until about June, 2011.

Don’t worry though, I’ve got another proposal for you in the meantime: In exchange for an amazon comment/review of my own book, Jesus Potter Harry Christ, I’ll do one for you as well. I will leave a favorable comment on amazon (I will be kind but also objective. If there are typos and poor grammar, I may say so but I will still give it lots of stars) and if you want to use a blurb by “Creativindie.com” on your website or book cover, you may. I’ll be pushing Creativindie hard and expect it to become a hub for indie creatives. When Creativindie.com is up, I’ll post the review, book cover photo and link to your site.

In return, you can skim through the contents on this site (or download the full review copy, for free) and post something on amazon.com. I don’t even care if you disagree with the book and give me one or two stars (but please mention what you don’t like or disagree with about the book).

If this sounds good, shoot me an email at “teosocrates@yahoo.com” with a file or link to your file. Review should be posted within 1 week.

Click Here to download the Review Copy of Jesus Potter Harry Christ (PDF-5.5MB)

Best of luck with your indie and self-published books!

Sincerely,

This is silly. And brilliant. It makes me chuckle.

In about 3 months the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 will be released in select cinemas! Although Warner Bros. haven’t released the movie trailer yet, here’s a glimpse of the official Deathly Hallows Part II Poster.

It shows Harry and Voldemort face to face with one wand between them.  At the bottom it reads “IT ALL ENDS 7.15″.

If you’ve read the last book of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, then you already know what this wand is, and that the possession or mastery over this wand will determine the winner in the conflict between Harry and Voldemort. You also know about the mysterious, intimate relationship between Harry Potter and Voldemort which Harry finally comes to understand in Deathly Hallows. When I first saw this poster, I thought it looks a lot like one of those visual puzzles (is it a vase or two faces?). Interestingly, with the trails of smoke winding up the wand, it also forms a Caduceus symbol or the Wand of Hermes; perhaps unintentionally hinting at the spiritual progression of the soul or religious symbolism in the Harry Potter series. Don’t forget about Moses’ snake on a stick or the fact that Jesus’ crucifixion was related to it – the deeper spiritual significance of the Harry Potter epic is not unrelated to Christianity’s literature. At any rate, it will be exciting to discover if – in filming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II – they will play up Harry’s sacrifice and suffering, making the parallel with Christ’s passion more obvious, or gloss over it in favor of action and magical special effects.

Deathly Hallows II, Harry, Voldemort and Jesus

What do you think of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2) Movie Poster?  What are you excited to see in the movie?

I’m doing some research on self-publishing, marketing and promotion (more than usual at least), because I’m going to start a new blog focused solely on sharing the tips I’ve learned from writing and marketing this Jesus Potter Harry Christ.

Today I found indiegogo.com. It’s an interesting idea: I can post an indie project that I need funding for, and offer bonuses for people who donate. If projects get enough community support/funding they can get a lot done that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to.

If successful at raising your target goal, indiegogo.com will take 4%. If unsuccessful, they will take 9%.

I’m testing it out (see my project here). I set a goal of $2000 to help market and promote this book. I’ve tried, hard over the last few months, and am having trouble paying bills. I’ve offered prizes in the form of free books. I probably could have thunk about some more creative, cool or awesome prizes but instead I offered what I could: free editing and book design services for authors or one of my original oil paintings. Not super, but it might entice some. Unfortunately, after the books and the freebies are given out, there won’t actually be much profit for the marketing part – however, running the project is a form of marketing itself. Even if I don’t make much money (or any) at least I’ll be reaching more people.

Tip: my lowest donation is $20, for which they get a free copy of the book. I could order my own book through createspace and send it to them directly, and make about $10 profit. If I could do it 50 times, I’d have 500 for marketing. However, how much better would it be to buy those 50 books one at a time on a specific day from amazon.com: I’d lose 500 bucks but my sales rank would go up enough to get noticed and maybe sell more books. I think I’ll test that out (or maybe buy 10 books a day for 5 days to keep my rank high).

Have you used indiegogo before? Can you think of a project you might be able to use it for?