Those that have worked in mobile and social games can appreciate the concept of virality, that tipping point where when you send it to one person, they send it one person, who sends it to other people, which continues to fork broadly.  Facebook ads use their meta-data on users to help target most likely targets for your ad.  You can target your friend’s-friends, or the public at large. Interestingly enough, it costs slightly more to reach your friend’s friends than the general public.

The good news is you no longer have to throw large sums to do a Facebook campaign.  You can actually throw ANY amount at it.  If you want to reach a few thousand people, you can do it with $10.  That’s pretty cool.

Now, the messages have to be crafted to attract the right people and convince them to click.  This is standard pay-per-click strategy stuff.  Don’t just “promote” a general post.  Instead, craft it along the following:

– Two-Three SHORT, punchy sentences

– Get their attention and enable them to identify your message is right for them (Like Science Fiction?)

– Get the product name in (D’mok Revival: Awakening by Michael Zummo.)

– Get quickly across the value proposition (Top 20 Science Fiction Saga on Amazon)

– Include an action statement like “Get it now!” (This is the call-to-action)

– Include a time-boxing to create urgency “Today only!” or “On Sale Today!”

– Image of the product will help

Example

Like Science Fiction? Get D’mok Revival: Awakening by Michael Zummo, on Amazon’s Top 20 Science Fiction Alien Invasion stories. On sale today: $2.99!

The better crafted your message, the more your target will be able to identify it as important to them.

In order to determine pertinent information and the appropriate call-to-action, you need to understand where in the consumer sales funnel you’re trying to hit.  If your series is new and no one knows about it, a general awareness campaign may be better.  In this case, send people to a free preview of your book. If you’re trying to appeal to those that know about your story but have yet to purchase it, perhaps a more sales focused message will help convince them like “On Sale Today.”

The bottom line is this: be deliberate about your messaging. Know what your goal is. And try to track your progress.

For instance, if you have a URL going to your site add a tracking tag on the end like ?tracking=Nov2013Promo.  This does not hurt the URL and creates additional information in your server logs (or Google Analytics) for you to see how many people really followed THAT promotion.  If you’re going directly to Amazon, I have yet to find a good way to trace it, other than watching your actual purchase numbers and trying to make weak correlations between the promo and the sales.  This also doesn’t help you track the long-tail purchases that happen as a result of your promotion but after it ended, or the resulting word-of-mouth traffic it generates that leads to later sales.

This isn’t an exact science, and it’s different for each book and market. Try things out knowing you’re going to evolve your messages, links, and even targets over time.

When you’re a member of the KDP (kindle direct publishing) program you get 5 free offering days for each enrollment period (90 days).  They can be individual days, a block of five days, or any combination in between.

One drawback is you cannot select which Amazon can see the promotion.  If you set one up, ALL the Amazons (the internationals) get the same promotion.  I really would love to do targeted international promotions to areas that don’t have traction yet, but at this time you can’t.

Leading up to my promotion D’mok Revival: Awakening was moving between being 20-40 in rankings in the Space Opera and Alien Invasion categories. I had a brief peak at 18th. Remember, based on sales, this number adjusts constantly throughout the day (somewhere between every 1-3 hours).

Be aware that once the promotion begins, you completely drop out of the PAID rankings and get pushed into FREE rankings.  When you go to the “top 100” list for any category you will see two tabs: Top Paid 100, and Top Free 100.  I just want to reiterate, this means you will disappear from the previous list no matter what position you previously earned (because you have no new sales).  You will, however, appear now in the Top FREE listing.

I decided to try two days of free promotions to see what would happen.

Within a few hours D’mok Revival: Awakening went directly to number one in the FREE Alien Invasion ranking. It also went to #3 for FREE Space Opera.  In the US Amazon, I ended up with over 224 downloads a day (on average). That exceeded, by far, any single day sales to date.  This includes the 105 softcover editions sold over four days at Comic Con Chicago 2013.

What I didn’t think about at the time was the international implications.  I was happily surprised to see how well the free promotion worked in other territories.  Here’s the breakdown of the international Amazon’s when the promotion concluded:

us  449

uk  60

de  14

fr  0

es  0

it  1

jp  1

in  1

ca  5

br  0

mx  0

That’s 531 new readers!  AMAZING!

Now people may say, “aren’t you exhausting your market?”  Or “but shouldn’t you have just wait to get paid for those?”

Everything is a trade-off.  First of all, I’m not going to exhaust the science fiction readership.

Secondly, this is the first book in an unknown series from an unknown author. My goal isn’t to make millions, but rather to share the story with as many people as I can. It’s all about exposure and market penetration. It’s really more an “awareness” campaign.

In fact, I’m not making money at all.  Even if book one continues to sell electronically it could take a few YEARS to get back my investment from the editing, book printing, conference attending, and other marketing I’ve done to date.  That’s A-Okay with me. I believe in the story and since I have a fulltime job outside of writing, it’s do-able for me.

Lastly, those that download a FREE book may not have paid for it (even at the $2.99 price-point). However, if they like it, these people may recommend it to friends who may purchase

What happened after immediately after the promotion did unnerve me a bit.  I was worried that once I fell out of the PAID listings I’d lose a key promotion opportunity of being in the rankings which would negatively impact sales.

As predicted (and this IS how it works), when the FREE promotion came down I returned to the PAID rankings.  Since I had no paid purchases, I wasn’t far outside the top 100. I’ll admit I panicked when I didn’t see a single category ranking when I went to D’mok Revival: Awakening’s Kindle product page.

It’s important to keep in mind that, as long as there have been sales for your book, the Top 100 list isn’t your only point of exposure.  There’s the up-sell listing (“those who bought this also purchased:”) area, and the ebook “Recommended for you” emails that go to Amazon customers.

By noon I was back in the 60s for PAID Alien Invasion.  Three days later, I’m back in the range I originally was in before the promotion. So, everything appears to be going well.  Now, there were some outside promotions happening on Facebook and at Comic Con New York 2013 that may have helped in the rebound.

My next blog post will be about those other promotions and the results.

Amazon has been an excellent choice for the D’mok Revival series. The first two months have been amazing.  I wanted to share a little bit of what I’ve learned using their Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) platform.

#1 SIMPLE TO USE

Once you’ve signed up, you get a publisher’s interface featuring reports, KDP sales options, and access to the publisher community.

If you want to change prices, add promotions, etc. you go either into your book product details, or the KDP Select options.

If you want to ask questions to the community at large, you go into the forums.  As long as you read the “primer” posts out there people are typically friendly.  Don’t just blindly ask a question without researching it first.  People are NOT friendly when a quick read of a FAQ or primer would have answered your question.

There’s also great ways to monitor your book’s progress.

#2 Reports

There are three core reports offered:

1)      Month-to-Date Unit Sales

2)      Prior Six Weeks’ Royalties

3)      Prior Months’ royalties

The Month-to-Date Unit Sales report allows you to see how many sales have come in so far this month.  The information provided includes: Units sold, Units Refunded (yes, I’ll get to this), Net Units Sold (Units Sold minus refunded), Free Units-promotions (from KDP promotions you can setup), Free Units-Price Match.

There can be up to a reported 5 hour lag in sales registering. Nevertheless, it’s a great tool to keep track of things.  I actually take the data and put it into an excel document.  It allows me to see daily and hourly sales trends for my series.

Prior Six Weeks’ Royalties allows you to see a rolling six weeks of royalties earned from your book(s).  It’s typically generated at midnight on Saturday of each week. The information includes: Week Ending, Title, Author, ASIN, Units sold, Units refunded, Net Units Sold (Units Sold minus Refunds), royalty percentage (%35 or %70), Average list price, average file size (of your ebook that they store and serve), the Average offer price (which can very depending on cheaper prices found on the internet), Average Delivery Cost (for storage and transmission of your ebook file), and the resulting Royalty earned in US dollars.

Keep in mind, you only get six months. So if you want to trend this information, copy and paste it into an excel document.  Also, there are 11 Amazon stores (US, UK, DE, FR, ES, IT, JP, IN, CA, BR, and MX).  You get individual views of this report for each one.

Prior Months’ Royalties provides a rolling 12 months of royalties. This is generated on the 15^th of each month.  Unlike the other two, it creates an excel document you can download.  The format of document is a little overwhelming.  It provides the following information: Title, author, ASIN, transaction type (35%, 70%, or KOLL: Kindle online lending library—I’ll get to that in a bit), Units Sold, Units Refunded, Net Units Sold or Borrowed, Percentage of Borrows, Average list price, average offer price, average file size, average delivery cost, royalty.  These columns are available for each of the 11 Amazon stores.

Because this is another rolling report, be sure to copy it down to your computer and store it.  Once the information is gone, it appears to be gone.

#3 What to expect with Sales

Amazon does a great job of promoting your book in personalized emails with new and hot books to their user base. Since you’re book has the proper category tags, you know Amazon will send information about your book to the right audience.

If you have a well written book, it will get noticed and downloaded. As it becomes more popular your  seller rank and book position will improve.  To find this out, go to the kindle version product page for your book.  Look in Product Details.  You’ll find “Amazon Best Sellers Rank” and any earned category positions there.  At one point D’mok Revival was ranking in three categories.  Right now it’s just one.  The numbers jump around every hour or two.

According to the publisher community at large, 300 books sold monthly is average for a well written work.  How fast you reach this average, or how long it lasts depends on the popularity, and target market.  Right now I’m around 375 and climbing.

#4 What to expect with reviews

The coveted reviews are hard fought to get. Marketing shows that 17 reviews appears to be the tipping point for people believing ratings.  However, that doesn’t mean get your family and friends to put up great reviews the day after your book goes up.

The community at large says there’s about a 750 readers to one review average. As crazy as that sounds, it appears fairly accurate.  If readers see a ton of reviews early on, they will get suspicious and despite a five star rating could walk away from your work.  Also online shoppers have tuned into reviewer quality.  They check to see who the reviewer is, what they’ve reviewed in the past (if anything), etc.  There are also coveted Amazon reviewers that hold “rank” due to the number of reviews and number of times other shoppers have given their review a “thumbs up.”  Reviews are not enough, it’s the quality of the review that will make or break your book in this important social aspect.

Leverage your social media outlets like your book’s Facebook page to ask those that have finished your book to post reviews. It may help, especially if they purchased it from Amazon and the all-important “Amazon Verified Purchase” tag goes on it.

Right now I have 4 reviews.  Hopefully I’ll get more, with greater detail about what the person liked and didn’t like.

#5 What to expect with returns

YES, there are returns even with an ebook that cost someone $2.99.  The average is somewhere between 3-6%.  It’s hard not to take that personally, but you can’t. If you have more than that rate, you should seriously look at your work. Check the composition, the description to make sure the book is properly representing itself, the meta-data used to categorize your work and get the proper target market to you, and scour the reviews for anything that could explain why those returns are so high.  I’m sitting around 1.6% and I’m very happy with that.

There’s another interesting wrinkle with returns. Amazon allows people to return an ebook for a full refund up to a week after purchase.  They “could” read the book and just return it.  However, this doesn’t appear to be a systemic problem, otherwise you’d see your return rates much higher.

#6 KOLL

The Kindle online lending library is for Amazon prime members.  Any prime member can borrow an ebook for any length of time for free.  Sure, this isn’t a SALE for you, however, you get compensated for the length of time a book is checked out. It seems like a pretty good deal so far to me. It’s an option you can set in the KDP options area for your book.  I highly recommend it.

#7 Word of warning

Ever stare at a pot of water waiting for it to boil? Having access to near-real-time reports on your sales, and being able to go to your kindle version product page to check your rank can become obsessive.  AVOID THIS. Check daily, or a few times if you’re really excited.

Understand your figures will swing up and down. Your rank will rise and fall. It’s how Amazon and internet sales go. I’ve personally been a little too observant of micro-trends (read as obsessive), and I’ve seen that times of day, stock reports, holidays, etc. all dramatically impact how many copies are sold.

What’s important is overall trends, not the detail of each transaction.  Use this data for promotional materials (e.g. D’mok Revival broke the top 20 in the Kindle Alien Invasion category), gauge how effectively your marketing is resonating with the market.  Just don’t dwell on it.  Trust me, it becomes like a game to check it and hope things ticked up higher… Sometimes I got very disappointed when my rank fell versus going continually up.

What did I learn from Comic Con

Here are some of the more important items I learned at Comic Con.  Great event!  I certainly want to do it again.  I also sold 105 books and 30 ebooks when no one knew who I, or D’mok Revival, was!

#1 It’s an incredible event that you want to be at to reach science fiction and fantasy lovers.

#2 Candy works great to attract people near your booth

#3 You have to start the conversation and reach out. Say “Hello” or ask if they like Science Fiction (or whatever your topic is).  Otherwise people walk right on by. You have to play the role of an extrovert, even you are not one (and I am not).

#3b Have your story ready.  It’s your elevator pitch, you 60 seconds to tell someone about your story.  Believe me, if you don’t have one at the beginning you will at the end.  It’s an amazing “market research” opportunity to hone your message and see what works and does not work with your direct target market.  I certainly have my elevator pitch and story explanation down now!  That in itself makes the convention worth the booth price.

#4 Have something clearly posted with the highlights of your story.  A few words that get across the “ooooh” factor in your book.  This lets people anonymously (and safely from a distance) see if what you have is interesting to them.

#5 Display your price clearly, especially if you’re inexpensive for a soft cover book.

#6  Display information about your ebook version, especially if it’s on Amazon and inexpensive.

#7 Have a VERY flash visual to attract people (this is the only one I got right, next to the candy).  My cover art (Thank you Glenn Clovis) literally turned heads and brought people who had no idea who I was, or what the D’mok brand was to come over.

#8 Do a panel it’s great visibility, gets your name out there, and helps the community grow!  There were over 65 people at the panel, and many came over to talk and purchase a book after.  I’m still talking to some of them via email after the fact.

#9 Get to know the people with booths around you.  It’s an amazing networking opportunity, like the connection I made with the Stan Lee Foundation (AMAZING).

#10 PA announcements done with Comic Con promotions can be hard to hear.  I wouldn’t recommend you paying for them

#11 About 13 people came up following the registration bag flier I paid for with Comic Con promotions.  Unless you have a pretty big ticket item, or are well known, hold this technique off for later.  As Brittney pointed out to me, it’s like using a direct mailer, and those have pretty low returns on investment (with attracting people).

#12 I had about 5 people talk about the video reel slot I paid for with Comic Con promotions.  Honestly, it was great visibility and despite the lack of mentions, I would still do this again.  It’s a great value, and gets you out there during the con.

#13 Have a flier or business card for people to take.  They may not have time right now, or money right now, but want your product.  Giving them a card to take with email and URL gives them a chance to do it later.

#14 Be nice to the Comic Con folks and they will be nice back to you.  Things can get intense and very last minute–so be ready and roll with it.  It’s worth it.

#15 Do not rely on “bongo hot spot” or other facility wifi connections.  They get saturated very quickly and your devices will become unusable.  Make sure you have network access through your mobile carrier.

#16 “Square” (squareup.com) is an amazing and simple credit card reader.  You get the hardware free from the company, the software is free and intuitive.  The only draw back is you have to have an active network connection for it to keep working fine.  We used 2 ipads and a galaxy 4 smart phone.  The one login consolidated all the records into one sales listing and provided amazing trending reports (peak hours, etc.).

It’s only been one day, and I can say this was an incredible decision.  Not only is my book getting great attention (I did 27 sales on “the slow day”), but I’m learning a great deal about what scifi folks like about my story, the information they need to know to determine they want to “take the chance” and buy my book, etc.

My presentation on self-publishing is tomorrow at 1pm.  I’m a bit nervous as the venue is pretty LARGE, but it’s equally exciting.

I’m going to do a write-up of lesson’s learned and recommendations after the con!  If you have a scifi book, you need to do this!!!

In just a few short weeks I’ll be at the 2013 Chicago Comic Con.  It’s a week after the official book launch of D’mok Revival: Awakening.

My best friend Pat, and my sister Elizabeth will be with me the Con.  I can’t tell you how excited I am to be able to share this Con experience with both of them. As you will read in the dedication and author’s note in my book first book, they were instrumental in their support and early critique of the story. Without the book wouldn’t be what it is, and frankly, without Pat, the book would be here at all.

I’m also lucky enough to have Brittney Brauer at the con.  She worked at Mira Smart Publishing to get my “Seed” copies printed.  She’s brilliant, and an expert in the publishing realm.  One of main attractions (beyond the book) to the D’mok Revival booth is the opportunity for other con goers to find out how to bring THEIR story to market.  Look, most Scifi lovers have a story.  Some have the passion and drive to bring it to bear just like I did.  I WANT TO HELP those people.  Lord knows I would have loved someone to help me blaze the trail and figure things out.  But that’s okay.  I can be that for other people now.  It’s kind of cool!

So, in addition to the booth, Brittney and I have pulled together a panel on how to Self-publish.  It’s an hour presentation, on Friday August 9th.

I thought I’d talk a little bit about my approach to creating the panel.

This panel isn’t about saying how awesome D’mok Revival is and how to be godly or anything crazy, it’s an opportunity for me to “think like a new author” and provide the information I was seeking oh so long ago.

First I start with a clear goal.  My goal for the panel is to talk about the overall process with the experts.  Then talk about what happened as D’mok Revival went through these stages, like a case study.

The most important thing to remember is: who is in the audience, what do they already know, what would help them the most, and in what way can they absorb it the best.

So I put on my thinking cap and thought about Authors.  They are typically good with the writing part. In fact, many don’t want advice on how to write.  They have their approach and you’re not going to change it.  So I’m steering CLEAR of that one.  Besides, there are so many writer’s conventions out there that will provide better insights into the art of writing.

Instead I think it would be more interesting to them to focus on “what comes next” after writing the manuscript.  To properly tune this presentation I first listed what are the things the audience wants to know (or should know):

1) Where to spend the money if you have it (editor, cover, book quality)

2) Where to find an editor

3) How to find and evaluate an artist for your cover and brand

4) The printing process (vetting options, pricing)

5) PR for your book (advanced review copies [ARCs], how to come up with messages, press releases, web sites, social media, blogging)

6) Contests, reviews and advertising

7) Distribution of books (ebook, physical book, Amazon, etc.)

8) The release process and beyond (how, where, when, interviews, tours)

9) Questions

This looks a little long, so I’ll dial it back to the essentials and just use a summary for the others.

Cost, Editing, visual design, printing, and distribution really needs to be the core.  I can always direct people to my blog, to email me with other specifics later.

I’m going to pull together a few PowerPoint slides to provide relevant visuals and hold engagement. As my friend and co-worker Brandon would say “don’t fill it with text.” It’s a VISUAL medium, not intended to be a small encyclopedia.

In addition to the PowerPoint, Brittney is brining a few other experts to be on the panel. That takes some of the pressure off, and makes it more interesting as one person isn’t droning on the whole time.  It also provides more legitimacy concerning answers.  They can also deep dive in their respective topics to depths further than I could. Bonus information for the panel viewers!

In the end, I want the audience to have the information needed to start planning their own approach.  Brittney and I will be available after the session, at the booth, and via email after the con to stay in touch and help people out.

So, that’s my approach to assembling the panel.

Launch is imminent!  We’re just a few weeks away now.  I have the proof version of my final edition coming in the mail. The official t-shirts are in production. I have the exclusive Comic Con posters already in-hand at home. The Comic Con goody-bag flier is designed and about to go to press as soon as I get my booth number.

When it comes to the launch on Saturday, August 3rd at 7pm at Boswell Bookstore off Downer Avenue in Milwaukee (just in case you want to attend), I just need to figure out the refreshments and what I want to say.  I was hoping to attend a few book launches for other people, but that hasn’t panned out.  I’ve been told to not actually do a reading, and to talk instead about the origins of the story, my work on it, etc.  That should be easy enough.  It’s near and dear to my heart, and I know exactly how the story came about.

In my interview with Hugh Howey earlier this week (http://newbooksinsciencefiction.com/2013/07/17/hugh-c-howey-wool-simon-schuster-2012/) he mentioned how he can never shut off the story and characters in his mind.  I completely identified with him.  One of the things he said that really stuck me was that he never would want to be able to shut it off, that it was dangerous to be away from your characters for a long time.  My interpretation of that is if you don’t keep writing, you get out of the groove, maybe become estranged with your characters.

I’ve been working on so many side efforts like brining D’mok Revival: Awakening to market, working on the video game project for the major comic book property, being a single dad, holding down my job, that writing has actually taken a back seat to the rest of my life.  I can’t even afford the time to play video games right now, and that’s just CRAZY talk for me.  Honestly I have “The Rest of Us” by Naughty Dog just sitting there staring at me, crying out “COME ON! PLAY ME!”  Yet, “sorry, no.”  Not right now.

The upside is the comic book video game project is allowing me some leeway to write the actual story for the game.  At least I’m WRITING, just not in my universe.  I do want to get back to D’mok Revival.  I committed myself to releasing “D’mok Revival: Retribution” in fall of 2014, according to my official press release.  So I’ll need to get moving on that.  There’s a good deal of editing to do back in book two before sending it off to a professional editor for review.  Then there’s book three, then four to edit.

I do miss furthering the story as well.  Seeing there’s three tracks to write as of the end of book 4, there’s a lot to do!  I’m going to get through this launch for the moment, then find a way to really hit the ground running to get the next edition ready.

Sure, there’s the literal “cents” of this (more puns), but it’s far great than money.

Right now I’m literally dizzy from everything I’m doing. It’s all of my own making, and I’m choosing to do the things I am.  So, I’m not complaining, but rather sharing.

I have a fulltime job, I’m a single dad, I’m working on getting my first book out, I’m designing a video game for a very well known television and comic book series, I’m working on the user interface for a medical system.

I’d like to say that I see my friends all the time, but I don’t. But the friends I have aren’t the type you hang out with every day, or even a few times a week. They’re the type you see every so often, pick back up with where you left off, and have a great day or evening together.  I’ve never made friends that you hung out regularly with. I guess I’m not that kind of guy–even if I’ve wanted to be many times.

I’m a work horse, I always have been, I always will be. I get my personal satisfaction out of feeling I’ve created or accomplished something–perhaps even my own sense of self-esteem too.

The most important person in my life is my son. He’s the only thing that’s immutable in my life. I make a point to ensure time with him isn’t impacted by my hobbies in life. On the few nights or weekends he’s not with me (at his other parent’s home) I work. Though, I always miss him horribly.

They say you only live once, and that life is meant to be lived not observed.  Well, I’m certainly experiencing a lot. The stubborn Italian, Taurus in me won’t let me drop any of these important (and personally fulfilling) efforts!  Of course, the body doesn’t care about what the mind wants.

There is a significant cost to go after dreams. But doesn’t it just make your dreams that much more valuable?  I’ve sat for too long on the side lines, playing everything safe, architecting a house of cards that I’ve seen fall down before.  Now–now my approach is live the best you can, make the most of everything I do, and stay doing the things I love.  Nothing else is worth it, especially a false sense of security.

I may fail in what I try, but God help me–I’m going to burn like a star until I can’t any more.

Connecting with your readership is your number one best way to stay connected and aligned with your fans.  Sure, infrastructure and costs are important to manage properly, but if you don’t resonate with your consumers–if they don’t want, care, or need your project–you are done.

Enter the MVP Team.

Simply put, this is a collection of people directly from your consumer market.  They are people you hand pick, get to know, and come to trust as representative of those typically found in your consumer market.

What types of things would you tap your MVP team be used for?

• Discussing existing series direction
• New book concepts
• Getting reactions to new marketing / identity and branding approaches (logos, slogans/tag lines, look-and-feel)
• Review of new games, newsletters, etc.
• How to improve your site
• Pricing discussions
• Market research (what they want to read about, when they read, formats to present your stories in–blog, ebook, printed, etc.)

What types of (free/near-free) communications methods should be leveraged from MVPs

• Interviews (skype, gotomeeting)
• Forum discussions (joomla, wordpress, etc.)
• Surveys (surveymonkey)
• In-person Focus groups (at conventions, other local events)
• Virtual focus groups (google hangouts, gotomeeting)
• Email (mailchimp)
• Usability studies (usertesting.org)

How do you put together your MVP team?

First you must know your market. What it the typical profile of someone from your consumer market. What are they looking for in a story? What type of action or detail do they like?  What size book matters to them?  How often do they purchase books?  What is their criteria to decide?  How much are they willing to pay?  Where do they prefer to purchase books?  What format do they prefer? It’s not enough to look at general book readers.  You need to look at the ones in your target market.

Next, research where can they be found online? What type of social media or community interaction takes place and where?

Where can they be found offline (hangouts, conferences, and other gathering places)?

You need to examine if there are sub groups within your consumer market (kids, teens, young adults, adults, elderly, etc.) and understand their unique needs and dwellings.

Determine to what extend you want to leverage your MVP team (see “What are MVPs tapped for” below)

Create a page on your site about being an MVP (with a list of active and emeritus members)

Create an enrollment form with specific questions

• Name
• Age
• Where they live
• How long they’ve been a fan of your books or series
• What your series means to them
• What you love the most about the series
• One thing that you’ve always had an issue with
• Why they want to participate
• Best communicated with through: phone, email
• Able to participate in individual interviews, focus groups, and or tests of new company concepts

Review the enrollment forms, and select those you feel understand your brand, would be good sounding boards, and fit the “voice” of the market you want to connect more effectively with.  Look for thoughtful responses with insight.

Based on your research here is a non-exhaustive list of techniques you can use to recruit them:

• Recruit using the last page of your book
• News release on your Web site
• Survey from your Web site
• Email your to registered readers from your site
• Press article in trade site or journal about your recruitment for your MVP team
• Fliers at appropriate conventions
• Inserts in directions or other packaging with your products informing people about potential participation as MVPs
  • Send out a press release
  • Mention it at book signings
  • Drop off fliers at local books stores, coffee shops or other places your target dwells
• Blog postings about opportunity
• Posting on Facebook about opportunity
• Posting on Twitter about opportunity

How do you cultivate your team once it’s together?

1. Communicate with your MVPs. They want to know they’re a respected and stable entity for you. Without this they’ll feel their time isn’t worth the dedication since there isn’t any from you.
2. These people want to be a part of your brand and series. They want to be kept up to date on what’s going on. They want to be able to tout they’re an MVP for you.
3. Create a social media package (badges, etc.) that they can post to Facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. to show they’re connected to you
4. Send regular communications (news posts, email newsletters, etc.) telling them what’s going on, upcoming feedback opportunities, and how existing feedback has impacted your company/products (be as specific as you can)
5. You want a healthy crop of MVPs, and will want to rotate them in and out so you don’t develop any organizational bias or skewed thinking from your MVPs.  Celebrate graduations into emeritus status (certificates signed by you)
6. Ask your MVPs to spread the word about broader surveys, product launches, events, etc. Let them have exclusive information first
7. Planned discounts and special deals should be extended to your MVPs first as appropriate and if possible
8. Promote discussion amongst your MVPs. Provide a password protected forum for your MVPs to discuss issues and ideas
9. Talk about your MVPs at trade shows, on your site, commercials, and other places.  It’s both a nod to those that participate and a sign to your consumers you’re listening to them.
10. Contact them and ask them to meet you at book signings, conventions, and other social events close to them.

Before I know it the official launch on August 3^rd will be here.  Shortly thereafter will be the Chicago Comic Con event!

Tonight my sister, son, and I dropped off the first 15 books to Boswell’s Bookstore on the East side of Milwaukee.  Those books, from the first printing (what I called my seed copies), still had the $6.99 price listed.  As a result that’s all Boswell can sell them for.  We’re going to call these the “pre-launch” price.  It turns out Boswell Books will actually be selling them before the full launch.  I had some idea in my head that there would be no book sales until August 3^rd.  I’m actually really excited that they will be in a bookstore on the shelves!

This weekend I’m going to put in the final edits (mostly type-o fixes) that my sister found in the ultra final review.  Then the manuscript, along with the updated cover (new UPC/EAN5 at the $8.50 price) will be headed to Mira Smart Publishing for the next run of 2000 copies.  Yes, 2000 copies!

I need to pull together a few more plans for the official launch at Bowsell’s Bookstore.  Mostly refreshments and a brief outline of what I want to say about the story.  It’s been such a long journey, it’s not like I need notes to recall it all.

The t-shirts, intended mostly as a give-away at Comic-Con, will be ready by my launch.  I’ll bring 2 or so as giveaways for the launch.

I do need to finish up my press release, which I have a draft of from my PR company.  That will happen over the next few days.  I’ll send it to multiple outlets, in addition to the Morning Blend (channel 4 morning news program) to secure my TV interview slot.

Then I should be in great shape.  I have a few Comic Con items to work out yet, which I’ll talk about in another post.

I’m very excited to get D’mok Revival: Awakening in the hands of readers!  My friend and co-worker Frank expressed an interest in purchasing my book.  He mentioned finding the site, and reading the prolog and being interested. It was a GREAT feeling.  I know there are others at work waiting to get a copy too.  Just amazing!

Well, time to take care of myself and get some rest.