Jason’s Notes From the Lab…
I’ve been gone for a few months, diving deep into the next stages of my publishing career. Most specifically I’ve been looking at companies to manage some advertising and publicity, so I can focus more on what I’m best at. There are dozens, probably hundreds of options and candidates. I won’t speak to any specific brands this time, but here are the most important things I’ve learned about this over the past months.
- Fiverr is good for graphic design, but bad for managing advertising. Fiverr pro is better, but expensive enough you can hire a local for the same money most of the time.
- Many publishing and advertising companies offer free webinars to gather leads. These webinars alone have enough information to up the game of most writers breaking into publicizing their own books.
- If you’re not spending at least $10 a day on Facebook ads, you’re wasting money. If you’re spending $10 or more on them, you’d better be doing them right.
- Images for Facebook and Instagram ads work best if they look more like candid photos and less like advertising.
- Publicity and ad companies will schedule a consultation call with you. Some will try to make sure all the decisionmakers for spending money attend that call. Those are going to try to high-pressure you, and are best avoided.
- Good publicity and advertising companies will cost you a few thousand a month.
- Ask a potential company what their sales multiplier is: how much each dollar you spend with them will bring you in new revenue. Anybody who can’t guarantee 2x is probably best avoided. Anybody who guarantees 10x or more is probably lying.
Just my two cents.
Thanks for listening. See you next time.
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Jason Brick is the Editorial Consultant Barista here at The Fictional Café. You can find some of his work here. “The Break from HOKAIC” is his series of writing tips and news. HOKAIC stands for “Hands on keyboard, ass in chair.”
