STILL GROWING
March 5, 2023 by Tracy Reed in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed tagged as email lists, followers, Marketing, Newsletter swaps, Tracy Reed
Happy March. This month we’ll usher in the beginning of spring. You wouldn’t know we were close to spring by the way the weather has slammed us. Last week I kept looking outside for Noah and the ark, but he never appeared. Instead, my neighborhood was hit with hail about three times. Then we get hit with a wind storm. It was so severe I kept looking for Dorothy and her crew to drop by.
I’ll keep it brief. As I mentioned earlier, this year I’m trying new things to grow my mailing list, BookBub followers and Facebook presence. I tried TikTok, but it’s not for me. I ascribe to that statement of only using the social media you understand. Right now, I don’t have the time needed to learn or grow a following on TikTok. My priority is to grow my mailing list because these are my people and I want to reach out to them when I want to, not when the algorithm wants to.
How is my mailing list project going? As of this post I have added 1800+ new subscribers. Let’s just pause and scream as I do a happy dance. Unfortunately, I’ve lost 48+/-. I’m not upset about the ones that left because I’m still ahead. February only had twenty eight days, which means I lost two days at thirty new subs per day. I’ll make them up with the months that have thirty one days.
I have to admit it’s getting trickier each month working with the swaps. I have yet to make a sale via the sales swap. However, I’ve had a few clicks.
The other thing I messed up on was posting/sharing. I misread the details. I thought I was only to post via my newsletter, which I did. However, I was also supposed to post to my socials. The other day when the March swaps went live, I started posting to Insta and FB. Within a few minutes of posting, I started getting clicks and downloads. As of this post, I’m at 115 new subs for the month of March. Overall, I’m averaging between 28+ new subs per day. These are great numbers considering in order to reach my goal I only need to average 19 new subs per day. Where I made the mistake, was not calculating for loss. I need to stay at this pace of 28 per day in order to reach my goal and cover any losses.
The other mistake I need to correct is focusing on sales. I’ve put most of my energy into growing my list that I’ve neglected sales. So far, this year’s sales have been dismal. Bright side, my Kobo sales are picking up. Praise God. I have been hoping to crack the Kobo freeze. I do well with freebies, but not sales. I hope this is the beginning of a fabulous relationship with Kobo.
The other area I’ve wanted to grow is my FB group. Thanks to an anthology I’m in and a release event, my reader list has grown to 120. YEAH! I am so excited about this. I really want to get this in the high hundreds. I would love to have at least a thousand followers here by the end of next year.
Then there’s my BookBub followers. I’m not at 1000 US followers yet, but I’m getting close. I’m currently at 684. I really want to get to a thousand US before my the end of the second quarter.
I know it’s going to take a little while to get to the numbers I want on my mailing list, BookBub and reader group, but I’m patient.
See you next month.
Tracy’s Books
JANAURY RECAP
January 5, 2023 by Tracy Reed in category Pink Pad by Tracy Reed, Writing tagged as Marketing, publishing, Tracy Reed, writing, Year in review
Happy New Year…Bonne Année…
Let’s get right into it. It’s that time of year when people make a lot of empty promises to themselves in the form of resolutions. Then they berate themselves when they come up short around the three month mark. The other thing they do in January is recap.
I refuse to allow myself to feel guilty about not completing all of my goals. I take pleasure in the unexpected things that occurred.
So what did I set out to do last year?
Get my letters -Didn’t happen
Triple my income – Didn’t happen. In fact, I finished the year less than 2021
Triple my mailing list – Didn’t happen. I gained about a 600, taking my list to 4000. However, not all of them want to receive email.
Master Facebook Ads – This is one of those ongoing things because Facebook or Meta is always changing. I did learn that I need to upscale for better results.
Update covers – Still working on this one.
Learn how to write a sellable blurb – I’m going to take the easy way out and farm this out. I found a service I like. I’ll still work on getting better, but I’ve learned it’s okay to ask for help
Use Ingram Spark – I loaded one book.
Direct Distribution – Still loading books. Last month I set up my first ebook direct sale from website and Book Funnel.
Increase BookBub US followers to 1000 – I’m 400+ away from my magic number.
Increase my prices -Did this.
Release Three books – Did this. In fact, I also participated in two anthologies and started one of my books for 2023.
I came up short a few times, but I also did some things not on the list I’m proud of.
My first Google sale
My first Eden Books sale
Wrote my first rom con for an anthology for February
Increased the followers on my Facebook passion page.
(I’m shocked about this it’s at 2800+ followers in less than a year)
Wrote my biggest book, so far (107k words)
Started creating large print books
Hired a PA and she’s got me on a regular email schedule
Wrote 300k+ words
Completed NANO
I had one BookBub Featured Deal
(It landed me in the 100 free in the Amazon store. (This was huge.))
So what’s on tap for this year? Everything I didn’t do last year. SMILE. I’m serious. I put those things on my goal list because I had every intention of getting them done. I could easily blame my lack of goal completion on a lot of things, but I’m not. Although, having COVID and searching for a new editor are very legitimate reasons for a schedule interruption. Truth is, I could have put forth a little more effort, but I didn’t.
I’ve already started working on my list and it’s only the fifth day of the month. I really want to get my mailing list to 10k and my BookBub to 1000 US followers. To do so, I joined about five Book Funnel Newsletter promotions. So far, I’ve gained 110 followers. I’ve also joined a BookSweeps BookBub promotion for February. I tried one of these last year and gained a hundred plus new followers.
To sum up, 2022 may not have been the year I planned, but it was a very good year of firsts. There’s a scripture I like that says your latter days will be better. I’m counting on that to come true in 2023.
See you next month.
October Featured Author: Denise M. Colby
October 29, 2022 by Denise M. Colby in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Featured Author of the Month tagged as Christian Historical Fiction, Denise M Colby, Marketing, Social Media, writing
Denise M. Colby loves to write words that encourage, enrich, and engage whether it’s in her blog, social media, magazine articles, or devotions. With over 20+ years’ experience in marketing, she enjoys using her skills to help other authors.
She treasures the written word and the messages that can be conveyed when certain words are strung together. An avid journal writer, she usually can be found with a pen and notepad whenever she’s reading God’s word. Denise is writing her first novel, a Christian Historical Romance and can be found at www.denisemcolby.com
She’s a member of RWA, OCC/RWA, Faith, Hope & Love Chapter of RWA, ACFW (where she is a semi-finalist in the Genesis contest Historical Romance Category), OC Chapter of ACFW, and SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference.
In addition to Denise’s column The Writing Journey on A Slice of Orange, you can read some of her magazine article here.
Denise M. Colby’s Books
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October Featured Author: Denise M. Colby
October 21, 2022 by Denise M. Colby in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Featured Author of the Month tagged as Christian Historical Fiction, Denise M Colby, Marketing, Social Media, writing
Denise M. Colby loves to write words that encourage, enrich, and engage whether it’s in her blog, social media, magazine articles, or devotions. With over 20+ years’ experience in marketing, she enjoys using her skills to help other authors.
She treasures the written word and the messages that can be conveyed when certain words are strung together. An avid journal writer, she usually can be found with a pen and notepad whenever she’s reading God’s word. Denise is writing her first novel, a Christian Historical Romance and can be found at www.denisemcolby.com
She’s a member of RWA, OCC/RWA, Faith, Hope & Love Chapter of RWA, ACFW (where she is a semi-finalist in the Genesis contest Historical Romance Category), OC Chapter of ACFW, and SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference.
In addition to Denise’s column The Writing Journey on A Slice of Orange, you can read some of her magazine article here.
Denise M. Colby’s Books
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October Featured Author: Denise M. Colby
October 14, 2022 by Denise M. Colby in category Apples & Oranges by Marianne H. Donley, Featured Author of the Month tagged as Christian Historical Fiction, Denise M Colby, Marketing, Social Media, writing
Denise M. Colby loves to write words that encourage, enrich, and engage whether it’s in her blog, social media, magazine articles, or devotions. With over 20+ years’ experience in marketing, she enjoys using her skills to help other authors.
She treasures the written word and the messages that can be conveyed when certain words are strung together. An avid journal writer, she usually can be found with a pen and notepad whenever she’s reading God’s word. Denise is writing her first novel, a Christian Historical Romance and can be found at www.denisemcolby.com
She’s a member of RWA, OCC/RWA, Faith, Hope & Love Chapter of RWA, ACFW (where she is a semi-finalist in the Genesis contest Historical Romance Category), OC Chapter of ACFW, and SoCal Christian Writers’ Conference.
In addition to Denise’s column The Writing Journey on A Slice of Orange, you can read some of her magazine article here.
Denise M. Colby’s Books
0 0 Read more
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