Friday, January 06, 2012

Banking On Readers

When my last book came out, I did my usual promo -- website & blog ads, interviews, book giveaways. Sales were great, so it's a solid plan. But one of my most loyal readers contacted me with a suggestion.

Since she pre-orders my books, and has them all, winning a free copy isn't a big deal to her. She's wonderful about talking me up to her other well-read friendlies, some of whom wind up winning my giveaways :)

But it got me thinking that I could take my advertising budget for a book and instead of only offering books as giveways, I could also offer e-giftcards so readers could buy the book themselves. This way, if they already have the book I'm singing about, they can get a backlist story, or support another author.

It's a little scary to branch out and try something new, but if it works, it's better for me and my reader lovelies.

I'll be giving away a $5 e-giftcard at each of my blog posts this month for either Amazon or B&N or your favorite bookish site. I'll link each post on this blog.

And I'm having my first Twitter contest. Every day for 25 days I'll post a new FOR KICKS Business Travel Tip. Collect them all and at the end email me the list to be entered to win a $25 e-giftcard. That's enough for my entire ebook collection, or a couple of the paperbacks...like PRIVATE SCANDAL, which will be released next month.

Be sure to follow me on Twitter @jennabb to collect the tips (or just collect them from the Twitter feed on the sidebar of this blog if you don't tweet).

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great idea! It is kind of scary to give away gift cards and not have it used to buy your book. But I'm sure all of your readers will love you for it.

Miss Viola said...

Good way to think "ouside that box" Jenna! Viola

Paty Jager said...

Sounds like great promotion and fun for the readers. I tweeted. ;)

Cathryn Cade said...

Jenna,

Sounds like a good idea to me! I agree that if you're posting to loyal readers, they're going to buy your book anyhoo.

Look forward to seeing how it works for you, since I just got a smartphone, and am exploring the convenience of TweetDeck, etc.

Cathryn