Slightly Off the Mark

 So, I have a request for all of you out there. Well, those of you who read. Well, those of you who read my stuff. Well, those of you who like reading my stuff.

Or even if you don't, what the heck.

As all of you know--well, some of you--we just re-released my first published novel, Storm Chaser. Thanks to Emily for doing ...

Everything. My wife did everything. Every now and then she'd toss me a proof copy, I'd leaf through it, and she'd go back to doing all that stuff she did. I did nothing, I admit it. Happy now?

Anyway, there's what it looks like. Yes, Emily put the cover together, based on the old one. But there's one thing she couldn't do: transfer all the reviews of the original edition onto this new one. Which is here:

https://www.amazon.com/Storm-Chaser-Mark-Hunter-ebook/dp/B0C7MB95NH

According to Goodreads, Storm Chaser collected 15 reviews and 27 ratings, which isn't great but beats the heck out of how many reviews I've gotten for Summer Jobs Are Murder (which hasn't been published yet). The problem is, according to Amazon I now have exactly three reviews. Which, at least, is easy to count. (Why those three stayed, I have no idea.)

So I'm asking everyone who has or does purchase the book, on Kindle or in print, to leave me a review. I don't know if Amazon will allow reviewers to post on the new book if they bought the old book, but if it doesn't you could at least leave yours on Goodreads, or the review place of your choice, up to and including bathroom stalls.

Just don't put my phone number there.

In return for your help I will ... hm ... dance.

No. No, that's a terrible idea. It's asking for another month of ice and ibuprofen. But I will be very grateful, because online reviews really do matter, especially on Amazon. No one really knows how Amazon's algorithms work, and I don't really know what an algorithm is, but I'm told the more reviews you have, the more likely you are to be seen.

People who see, buy. If enough people buy, I can write more. It's the circle of write.

This is the old version. You'll probably still see it here and there, so I should warn you it's probably more expensive.

• Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
• Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
• Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
• Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

 Remember, every time you don't leave a review, an angel loses his hair. You don't want bald angels.

 I embarked on a fun experiment at the end of November, and by fun I mean it wasn't much fun, and by experiment I mean I had no idea what I was doing.

One of my goals has been to increase book sales, a goal for most authors. The problem is, when it comes to sales an author is competing with--well, almost all those other authors. Writers don't like to think of themselves as being in competition. Writing can be tough, and selling--well, that's way worse. So we support other writers, because we know just how hard it can be.

That doesn't change the fact that there are only so many readers, seemingly fewer all the time ... and a lot of those readers are writers. They can read only so many books--I only managed about a dozen or so last year. So, while we'd like all authors to succeed, we all have to fight to be heard ... I mean, read.

Social media, once a great way to get the word out, has in the last few years bombed. Why? Because the people who run social media sites have realized they can get money from people who are trying to get the word out. As a result, they've changed things around so that an author finds it almost impossible to reach people on the internet, unless they pony up some cash, first.

And most of us can't afford a pony.

"Wait ... no ponies?"

So I tried promotion websites, and I tried Facebook Ads. Both gave me a few more sales, but not enough to justify the money I spent. Here's a fun fact, kids: If you spend more on advertising than you make in sales, it's bad. (It does sometimes work in the short term, like those "loss leaders" offered in stores.)

And so I turned to Amazon Ads.

Honestly, I'd rather sell direct, through our website or an independent bookstore. I'd also rather eat chocolate for all meals and be 25 years old again, forever. But never mind that--in this case we're talking about Amazon, the Godzilla of online selling. (I've heard Apple is the second biggest online bookseller.)

Figuring out how to run an Amazon ad is hard.

I mean, driving in a NASCAR race when you've never actually driven at all hard.

I had to learn about impressions, clicks, targeting, keywords, and, most important of all, ACOS.

That means Advertising Cost of Sales. In other words, how much does it cost you to sell a book? If ACOS is over 100, you're spending more money on ads than the book itself sells for. This is bad. If your ACOS is right at 100 you're still in trouble, because Amazon takes a cut--you're still spending more than your' making. The best number is right around 30, give or take, so you're making at least a little money.

I decided to experiment with my latest published novel, Coming Attractions. I set up an Amazon ad for the book, which hasn't sold a single copy through Amazon since November--of 2020.

On November 27 of 2021, my Coming Attractions e-book Amazon rating was 2,931,646. That's almost three million books selling better than mine. On November 28, the rating was 264,568.   It peaked on New Year's Eve at 63,798. That was the book's highest Amazon ranking ever, including when it was first published--when I labored long hours to publicize it.

 My goal for last year was to sell an average of one copy of our books every day. It didn't happen. In December it did: 37 e-book copies and two print copies of Coming Attractions, and one copy of The No-Campfire Girls sold in a little over thirty days. Here's what it looked like:

After a few weeks of joy and celebration I checked my numbers, and what I found made me very unhappy.

I was indeed selling a lot of books, but when I checked the ACOS, I learned that for every 99 cent e-book I sold, I was spending almost nine dollars to advertise it. This, for those of you who don't care to do the math, is unsustainable, unless you're a millionaire who's not concerned about spending money. I'm not a millionaire. I don't think I'm even a thousandaire.

So, like any sharp businessman, I panicked.

I spent the next several days tweaking all the details, including the list of terms I mentioned earlier. My sales dropped, but as of the first full weekend of January I've gotten my ACOS down to 56%. For me that's about breaking even, so still not great, but at least I'm not bleeding money. They don't make bandages for that.

I'm going to try again, of course, this time going in a little wiser. I haven't decided whether to try one of my other published books, or wait until the next new one comes along, but for once in my life I haven't been cowed by math. Much. I should add that most people who use Amazon ads say it's pretty common to have high ACOS ... ACOS's? ... at first, although I suspect my early numbers would have made them faint.

If you decide to try it, my best advise is to learn everything you possibly can about the process, first. The homework might save you some cash. How have you other authors been doing in your sales attempts? Any tips?

I noticed recently that if I went to Amazon.com and searched for "Mark R. Hunter", I did not come up first.

In the Kindle store, the first six hits didn't have "Mark R. Hunter" attached to them in any way, and none of them had the word "Mark" at all. In fact, four of them also didn't have the word "Hunter".

Under books, "Mark R Hunter" was the sixteenth match. Realizing I forgot to put in a period, I typed "Mark R. Hunter" ... and came in 19th, right after Operative Thoracic Surgery by Larry R. Kaiser and Glyn Jamieson.

This bothered me.

I suppose it's partially because sales were flat last autumn ... except that Operative Thoracic Surgery ranked at 1,333,795, and doesn't have any connection to my search other than "R". (To compare, The No-Campfire Girls ranked at 1,033,462.)

I understand ranking lower than more popular books of the same name, but this was like searching for George Washington and getting fifty matches for Abraham Lincoln. What bothers me about it is that when I'm talking to someone about my books, I tell them to just search for ... Mark R. Hunter.

On searching for myself on Google I ranked third, but at least the first two matches were a different Mark R. Hunter. I guess now I have to memorize: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO.

And my memory's not that great.

(In all seriousness, I've done some research, and it seems on Amazon you have about thirty days to make some sells before your book sinks into obscurity, and is afterward ignored by their algorithms. In other words, you have to make sales to be visible, but you have to be visible to make sales.)

https://www.markrhunter.com/

(Another note! This turned into fake news sometime after I wrote it in November, because I'm again  the first to come up under a search for my name. I'd imagine it's because since then, we put More Slightly Off the Mark on the market.)

I’ve just realized it’s only 19 days before the release date!  Images of America: Albion and Noble County comes out August 24^th, months ahead of when I originally thought it would. Emily and I worked hard on this book, a photo heavy look at local history that’s part of Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America line … I guess the title hinted at that, didn’t it?

You can see the book description at the publisher’s website:

http://www.arcadiapublishing.com/9781467114516/Albion-and-Noble-County,

and don’t forget to check out all their other great history books. It’s already listed for preorder on the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites.

Save the date for some upcoming appearances: Look for us in the fireplace room of the Kendallville Public Library main branch, on September 9^th at 6:30 p.m. I’ll give a brief presentation on the book, and also have copies available for sale.  

We’ll also be at the Stone’s Trace Pioneer Festival near Ligonier, where we’ve been invited to do a book signing between 1-5 p.m. Saturday, September 12^th. It’s a great historical site that gets mentioned more than once in the book.

Look for more events coming up—and thanks to everyone for your support!

you should happen to wander over to my Amazon author page, you might find some ahead-of-time surprises that even I wasn’t expecting.

http://www.amazon.com/Mark-R-Hunter/e/B0058CL6OO/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1429651616&sr=8-1

Okay, maybe I am the type to jump the gun. But I’d put the safety on.

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

            Like many published authors, I’ve developed a psychological disorder known as OCA: Obsessively Checking Amazon.

            This happens when you get a book listed on Amazon.com, and find yourself waking up in the middle of the night just to check the book’s ranking. When you don’t sell many copies (that would be most writers) your entire day can be made with one sale, or broken by the precipitous ranking drop that comes after that one sale.

            My fourth book came out in May, and my wife had to use a Taser and a crowbar to pry me away from the internet before summer arrived. My rank peaked in mid-May at 68,201, which sounds pretty good until you realize that the previous February, for reasons that remain a mystery, my overall rank hit 9,093.

            Of course, that counts only Amazon sales, as opposed to sales from other sources. I keep a box full of books in the trunk of my car, just in case I stumble across an unwary victim—ahem, reader—with a few bucks for books.