Advertisements & The Landing Page
June 19th, 2013I’ve been running some online advertising for The Red: First Light. It’s the first time I’ve ever tried this, and for this book I think it’s been a worthwhile exercise. If you noticed the ad, PLEASE let me know in the comments, and if you remember where you saw it, I’d like to know that too. I’m really curious, about it because I know that we (me) tend to use the “mental ad block” so that we just don’t see what’s there.
Anyway, I was talking to my daughter, Dallas Nagata White, a few days ago. She looked at the ad, clicked on it, and was not remotely impressed with my landing page, which was just the page on my website that talks about the book. She felt the page didn’t convey anything about the feeling, the flavor of the book. I think my response was something along the line of, “Yep, I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t really have time to do anything.”
Then out-of-the-blue last night Dallas called me up and said she’d created a digital painting to be the background of a new landing page. Given that I have only a few days left on my current ad run, and that I wanted to see if a new landing page had any effect on sales, I put aside what I was working on and dove into designing the page layout. It went up at midnight. Take a look at it here. It’s more spectacular anyway!
Like nearly everyone else, I have no idea what it takes to sell books — but I’m willing to try new things.
Please let me know if you’ve noticed the ad!
Posted on: Wednesday, June 19th, 2013 at 6:03 pm
Categories: Promotion.
Tags: advertising, landing page, online ads, The Red: First Light
June 20th, 2013 at 2:24 am
I saw you tweet the link the other day. Shiny.
I have no idea what it takes to sell books in this day and age, either
June 20th, 2013 at 6:44 am
Thanks for helping to get the word out, Paul. I really appreciate it!
June 20th, 2013 at 6:58 am
Your http://mythicisland.com/the_red_first_light_promo.php — I like it.
However…, I feel bombarded with ads. As compensation, I almost always change the channel when one pops up, no matter how good what I was watching was. I use AdBlock, NoScript, and similar everywhere feasible. And really in-your-face “merchandizing” I vow to remember (usually only for days to weeks…), and never purchase what’s being hawked.
When I actually want to know something about a product, I look for reviews. That’s what counts for me. So while I want you to succeed, believe that you _should_ succeed (very good “product”, Linda), be advised that ads don’t reach everyone; the “din” is sometimes just too great.
June 20th, 2013 at 7:10 am
Glen, yes, I understand that ads are, for the most part, ignored. That’s why I’ve been asking around to see if anyone will admit to having noticed the ad at all. I’m really curious about this. My thought has been to try to recapture those readers who were interested in my early novels, so if by chance the gaze passes over my name and takes it in, it might ignite a bit of curiosity and inspire a click. So the ad is aimed in part at former readers who have no idea I still exist, and in part at readers simply interested in solid SF. Both sites where the ad has run use a fairly low level of advertising, which gives the ad a better chance of being noticed.
Of course, no one approach to “getting the word out” is going to reach everyone, which is why I want to try a variety of approaches. A lot of writers advocate a “blog tour.” That seems incredibly labor intensive to me, and I’m already overwhelmed with things to read, so that’s probably a not-so-effective way to get my attention.
It’s all a great puzzle, and I’m sure the experience is different for every book and every author.
June 29th, 2013 at 6:14 am
HA!
I came by to mention how Amazon has changed their format on the book pages and find you trying out ads. HA!
I find books by obsessively using Amazon’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” feature. I’ll spend hours digging deep and harvesting books that way. I rarely find books by stumbling across ads. Those are usually in Locus or when I’m looking at the NY Times book review page. Both places are the extremes and only reach a small number of people.
Books find me, I don’t find books. HA!
June 29th, 2013 at 6:59 am
Hmm, I guess my books have been lazy. They need to get out there and start tracking down more readers! 😉