Spreadsheets, statistics, and sums

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It’s not the headline you expect for an author, right? It should be more words, plots, and sentence construction shouldn’t it? Yet the more I write, the more maths I seem to have to do!

Because, marketing! Getting my books in front of the readers who need to read them. (Yep, need to, because if I didn’t believe people needed to read my books, I probably wouldn’t be writing them.)

Spreadsheets

I’ve set up a spreadsheet for the launch of Small Forgotten Moments. It’s a great way to keep tasks which need to be completed each month, reviewers to submit the book to, and local media to contact for publicity all in one place. I did something similar for Grace & Serenity last year, but probably not to the same extent. Despite having several books out, marketing changes – the options available to authors mutate and improve – so I’m forever learning a new and better way to do things. It very much helps that the Vine Leaves Press authors are such a wonderful, enthusiastic bunch!

Statistics and sums

I quite like statistics and percentages and charts. Not enough to want to do them full time, but they’re a great way to procrastinate. The statistics I’m looking at currently are the ones telling me how well my Facebook ads are doing. I recently realised, via the wonderful bunch of Vine Leaves Press authors I mentioned above, that I’ve been doing FB ads wrong. Not just wrong, woefully so. Turns out you shouldn’t run an ad for five days, then create a new one to run for five days the following month, or the one after that…

Turns out, you should have one ad that you try to keep running for as long as possible. D’oh!

This is where the stats come in – cost per click, amount per day I’m willing to spend. Is more better, or can I get away with spending a bit less? Does it make a different to reach, to the number of people who actually click to buy my book?

Facebook do a great line in charts and reports to help with all this, and – of course – I created my own spreadsheet…

Probably the simplest equation Excel has ever seen, but hey, I’m a writer – what did you expect? 😉

I’ve only been tracking my stats properly since the beginning of the year, so it’s too early to really get a handle on it all, but all I can definitively say is the more you advertise, the more books you sell. I know, it’s a shocker!