Showing posts with label marketing idea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marketing idea. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Using Groupon for Book Sales

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Wow, do I have an awesome idea for you all today. Strap yourselves in and grab a cup of coffee, because this is gonna be one wild ride!

As I often do, I was thinking of new and innovative ways to sell/market books. I have a friend named Eva Pohler (find her on Facebook here), and this idea comes from a little snafu she hit a little while back with Barnes & Noble booksellers. No, this doesn't trash B&N (I love that store!); it's just information about what happened with her books. Plus, if you've encountered this particular problem, it might be information about how to unload books.

I'm gonna start with Eva's story, and work my way up from there. Stay with me, folks!

So, Eva wanted to have her book in a brick and mortar store (don't we all?), and she decided that was her goal for 2015. Please understand, when Eva goes after something, she goes after it; nothing gets in her way. Gosh, I admire that. Anywhoooo... So, she speaks with someone from B&N and they tell her, in order to stock her books, those titles need to be returnable.

Quick aside: Books are the only (yes, only) retail merchandise that's returnable for a 100% refund. How crazy is that? Okay, back to the story!

In order to make a self-published book returnable, you must go through a company like Lightning Source. Eva did that, made the book returnable, and B&N ordered a great number of copies of her titles.

Needless to say, she came home one day to find boxes and boxes of her books sitting on her doorstep. This is where my idea begins. I only told you enough about Eva's tale to give you an idea of what we're dealing with: tons of books sitting in your living room that you have no way to sell.

For the rest of Eva's story, check out the interview she did with S. M. Boyce here. It's a long video, but it might save you some money someday, I suggest you check it out.

Moving on!

I started thinking: How the heck is she gonna sell all those books? Marketing is difficult enough without a crapload of inventory sitting in your house. If Amazon can't sell them, how can you?

Enter Groupon. Why this never occurred to me before, I have no idea. But it's been a growing platform for sales for years. If you find yourself in a position like Eva did, why not create a Groupon to help move that stock?

I did a little digging before I started this post, and creating a Groupon is free.

But how the hell does Groupon make money, Jo? I know they charge you something! And how can I guarantee they won't oversell my stuff and me end up scrabbling to get more?

Great questions! I asked them, too. From their site: Groupon charges a marketing fee that's a percentage of the revenue from sales. You can set the number of items available, and they'll only sell that many Groupons. For answers to other questions, check out the FAQ here.

Now, the big question here is (you totally knew I'd look this up, right?): How many people actually buy Groupons? Here's an article from 2011 that gives a pretty good rundown of the numbers then. The projected growth is off the charts (no pun intended). Yes, that's billions with a B.

Can you imagine your book in front of that many people?

It's a huge marketing opportunity, and we Indies have to always be looking for the new idea in marketing. I love my iPhone, and I have Groupon. My husband and I use it often (browsing there created this idea). But I never looked at it as a market for books until now.

*face/palm*

Has my head been up my arse all this time? Or have I just never thought of it because it hasn't been done by anyone else? Either way, it's time to try something new, don't you think?

You may start here. Good luck!

What do you think? Will you try it?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Flipboard

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! Boy, do I have some amazing news for you today. Do you remember the Winter Author Blog Challenge and all that social media stuff we were talking about? If you have a mobile device, I'm about to make your millennium oh so much better! I've been holding off discussing it until now because I was waiting for their upgrade to be announced.

I got the e-mail this morning.

What is Flipboard? Well, it's a nifty little app that lets you keep all your social media accounts in one place and helps you find stuff you may be interested in. If you listened to my interview on Sandi Tuttle's radio show, you heard me talk about this awesome tool. If not, then you missed out. Sorry. Like I said, I was waiting to do a post on it until they updated to add this awesome feature I'm about to discuss. Let's get going!

Grab your mobile device, download the FREE Flipboard app, get all signed up with an account, and take a tour with me while I show you how to promote yourself!

Follow along carefully:
  • Go subscribe to your own blog via RSS/Atom
  • Add it to your Google Reader
  • Open Flipboard and add your Google Reader as one of your tabs. Then follow the directions below:
See that little red bookmark looking thing on the top right? Click on it and choose your tabs from there. Right now, we're focused ONLY on Google Reader. So add that one.






Next, click on the green square that says Google Reader and you should get a page that looks like this but have all the blogs you subscribe to.







Click on the title at the top of the page and select feeds and folders.








Select your blog from the list.








You should now have a page that looks like this but with your blog posts showing.







Now we get to how this can help you. Flipboard just added the coolest feature ever: Magazines of your curated content. See those little + signs in the top right of each post? Click on one and create your first magazine with your blog posts. You should add a description and categorize it. Then, go add all your posts to it and make it public!

Others can now find your magazine and browse it with ease. Be sure your image is your logo or branding headshot. Boom! You just reached millions of potential new followers! Best of all, you can also add Facebook content, Twitter content, and many other things to your magazine that concern you and your brand! You may thank me now. Hehe!

Go curate for others, too. Remember, sharing is caring!

Did you use Flipboard before now? Did you know it existed?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo