OK...

[ksmith]

I finally have all my books approved for the Amazon Connect program.

For those who have pages, how much effort do you put into the thing? Do you blog there, or post anything on that Connect page?

Comments

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

I've posted announcements of upcoming books (when I sold the new goblin book to DAW, for instance) and contests, but I don't use it as an actual blog.

I also came across a forum discussion of Goblin Quest the other day where someone said he had gone to Amazon to check it out, but had been turned off because of the way "the author was there, promoting himself."

I suspect that's a minority opinion, but it's been nagging at me...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I'm torn about Amazon. The audience isn't as big as you'd like to think, and as with the reviews, one snidely backlash can ruin the place.

I kicked my page into gear when one of my readers asked if he could friend me. I figure that if a few readers want to get info from the page, I should have the info there for them.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I am very bad. I was good last year when I first signed up, and kept up with it for several months. But when things started falling by the wayside, this was one of the first to go.

I suppose I should check it back out....

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

It's so much like a My Space page, kinda static. The lack of interaction doesn't make one want to visit too often.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I mostly used it to point people to my LJ blog. Though when I ran a contest for an autographed ARC, it was really interesting to track which entries came from Amazon versus my other sources.

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

If the numbers I've received from my top-secret sources are correct, Amazon has sold about 140 or so copies of Goblin Quest. That puts it at about 3 percent of my total sales. Not tremendously significant, but more than any individual bookstore.

Mostly, Amazon is *visible*, which means it's one of the easiest things for us to obsess about :-)

It's easy to go overboard, though. A lot of their discussion forums are full of obsessed self-promoting authors, and it leaves a nasty taste in my mouth every time I skim them. The last thing I want to do is come across that way.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

My solution will be to occasionally post non book-related stuff. The problem is that I think the posts go out to everyone who's bought one of my books in the past via Amazon. I know they can unsubscribe to the Plog function if they wish, but in the meantime I hope folks who aren't interested in hearing from me don't feel they're being spammed.

But the person who helped nudge me along by friending me *wants* to hear about ENDGAME. Book/promo stuff is what some folks want to read.

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Unless they've changed things, when you post an entry, you can check/uncheck which book buyers receive that entry.

That was probably confusing. When I posted my goblin contests, I unchecked the box for my old mainstream PoD book, because I figured most of those readers wouldn't care about goblin stuff.

There's still a risk of people feeling spammed, but you can be selective with it. You can even "uncheck all" so that the only place your post goes is to your Amazon blog.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is where I get grabby. I left checked all the boxes for all five books.

I'll see how this goes. Right now, I could spend half my day online keeping up with things, and I really can't afford it. Honestly, the royalty statements don't reflect any bump. But what else can you do--online outreach is the only thing one has control over?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I'll see if I can friend you and Jim.

[jimhines.livejournal.com]

Neither the online promo nor the real life stuff I've done have had huge effects, as far as I can tell. But there have been little effects. Sometimes I'll meet someone who's able to get a book reviewed somewhere, or who offers to take bookplates to all of their local bookstores, or who just talks about the book on different message boards and blogs. Nothing major, but I have to believe the little stuff adds up.

And hey, it makes my agent and editor happy to see me doing promotion, even if it doesn't have much of an impact on sales :-)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Looks like that worked.