Bryan Cohen's Ad School Challenge
Sales of books, once friends and family had done their part, came to a standstill. I was so fed up... I wanted to pack it all in. What do I do now? Where do I go? Who do I ask for help?
I hadn't got money to waste and there's a lot of vultures out there just waiting for newbie indie authors to join their social media pages. Yes - many of those social media pages where authors are encouraged to join 'to meet and be able to interact with other authors' ha! They're a breeding ground for vultures. Gathering their prey into safe 'private groups' where they can find potential clients and DM them. Social media seemed a great idea until you realise that most of them aren't open to the public and let's face it, the public are the readers, not other authors, and certainly not the vultures marketing companies that swoop down onto their wannabe prey!
As you can tell, I got pretty disillusioned.
I watched video's, I sat through webinars that I'd heard of on social media sites, and they all gave just a little bit of good advice before swooping in with their sales pitch! Every time!
I tried doing amazon advertising. You have to place a 'bid' ie a price that you're prepared to pay per click and they vary for every 'keyword' you choose to use, and yes, I got burned... almost £100 later and no sales in two weeks I gave up!
THEN a few months later, I saw Bryan Cohen's Amazon Ads Profit Challenge! My first reaction was 'oh yeah here we go again' but what had I to lose but my time? So I did the 2-week challenge. Followed through with the homework they set, watched the video's they suggested I watched and... no change! Not within those first two weeks.
Bryan Cohen does these profit challenges every three months. Authors at any stage of their career, solitary books, multiple books any size of authorship are all welcome and for two whole weeks they can ask Bryan's team ANY QUESTION THEY WANT! And the offer is genuine! I thought WOW! This is a rareness in itself!
I joined in the next time. There had been a nibble or two since the previous time and, because his method of bidding for ad space is not to throw money at ads, but to take the zen lemur approach and take it slowly, I was able to afford to advertise for longer. People were getting to see my book on the amazon book shelves at least - that was a good step in the right direction. What's the point of writing a book then sticking it on a shelf and not showing it to readers? My book was at least getting seen and we all know how advertising works... people see something often enough, they wonder what it's all about and eventually they want to give it a try!
Ad School sounded interesting. The support offered sounded interesting, but I couldn't afford it. But they still invite you to join them again the next time and they will still give their advice totally free for two weeks every three months... you can't argue with that!
As it turned out, I won a place with ad school... Me? I never win anything! I couldn't believe it! I've been with them ever since and it's not plain sailing I have to admit, but their support, their advice... I'm glad they're there. I'll keep you informed of when I become a famous author, but in the meantime, it's on with writing my next book.
Joan-put on a happy face is the first of a series - so watch this space :-)
If you want to ask questions or just keep in touch email me at carol.m.mottershead@gmail.com
Happy reading!
No comments:
Post a Comment