- What works and doesn't work
when it comes to marketing and selling a book
when you are an unknown author in a genre
that is more passion than profit driven.
If you're wondering that,
and what kinds of things you can learn from an author
who's published their book more than two years ago,
and sales are still going strong,
then this Author Spotlight with S.A Bradley
is absolutely for you.
(upbeat music)
Hey there, I'm Julie the book broad from Book Launchers.
We're your professional self publishing team
helping you write, publish and promote a non-fiction book
that will help you have a huge impact on your readers.
And done right, will help you grow your brand,
build your business and make you money.
The best part, you, yes you, keep all rights and royalties.
Today, I am so incredibly excited
for you to meet this author.
If you've been around the Book Launchers scene for a while,
you've heard me mention him and his book
because this book is absolutely one of our favorites.
And it was challenging.
It wasn't a business book or a self-help book,
it didn't have a clear hook
or even a perfectly clear audience
when it arrived on our doorstep.
But the passion of the author sells you on it.
And his massively deep knowledge of the subject matter
is something so rare to find.
It's been such a fun journey working with him.
And we are so honored that he continues to work with us
more than two years post-launch.
That's a big hat tip to my marketing team too,
keeping him busy and growing his book sales
month after month, year after year, that he sticks with us.
So, without further ado,
because nobody tells it better than S.A. Bradley himself,
I'm going to turn it over to him,
to let you know what his book is about and who it's for.
Take it away.
- The title of my book is "Screaming For Pleasure:
How Horror Makes You Happy And Healthy".
And it's a love letter to all things
that go bump in the night.
And how horror not only reinvents itself,
reflect each generation's anxieties,
but also how it can be healing as well as thrilling
to a culture and as to an individual.
I talk about horror as art and as social commentary.
And so the audience is...
If any of that sounds provocative to you,
if it sounded like something that made you curious,
that's who the book is written for.
So horror fans and specific,
but really anybody who is somewhat intrigued
by the idea of me saying something about horror
being a healing as well is thrilling.
- Thank you, Mr. Bradley,
or as my team calls him, our historian of horror.
His book launched at the end of 2018.
So, what has he learned in more than two years
of marketing his book?
Well, I asked him to tell you what worked
and what didn't work so well.
First, let's hear what did not work.
- What didn't work for me, bundling,
bundling with another author,
and others creating a deal with another author
where both of your books are showcased and there's a sale.
Unless one of you, of the two authors
have a significantly bigger audience,
you're not really helping each other.
I sold very little.
And if you can't help the other author,
that person has a much larger group,
they don't really have a lot initiative
to do any heavy marketing for this thing.
So I found a kind of a lot of time went into
working with an author on that,
a lot of time to market it and build things up
to have it really go nowhere.
So that didn't really work for me.
Online magazine articles, outside of the obvious niche.
So, working with Syfy channel,
I had a Syfy interview that was really great.
Book Riot did something with me.
Those things really work well
because they're part of the niche of entertainment
that I'm working in.
But then if you're talking about things
that are outside of that,
like putting me involved with something with psychology
or self-help, they just don't know what to do with me.
I don't fit well next to pie recipes and things like that.
So, there were times that we had articles
that they didn't even give me advanced knowledge
that the article had actually come out.
So they had no idea what to do with me.
I was definitely the loose sock in the washer and dryer.
It doesn't really work.
- Ultimately book marketing is experimentation
especially when you're starting out without a big platform
of social media followers or newsletter subscribers
or fabulous, (laughs)
(beep)
or fabulous YouTube friends.
That means you don't know what's gonna work
until you try it.
And then here's the part that can be hard to swallow,
what works for you may not work for me and vice versa.
So you really do have to try with your book.
Okay, so that's what didn't work.
Here's what did work.
- What did work well, Amazon ads,
probably the best return on investment
of anything that we did.
The budget goes to connecting the book to
search engine keywords.
So, Amazon keyword, somebody types in to the thing
what they're looking for, my book will float up to the top.
I get anywhere between 750,000 to a million impressions
every month and around a thousand clicks
through the service a month.
It's not all book sales
but I certainly do sell quite a few books.
And that's without doing much.
Outside of the ads, I have yet to be in the red on that.
Every time I'm making more in sales than what I put in
the budget on a monthly basis.
Other things at work,
anything that gets me talking to potential readers.
So, being a guest on podcasts, going to conventions,
being a panelist, talk shows, things like that
where people can hear me articulate a little bit more
of some of the ideas that are in there,
let my personality come through.
My passion tends to sell a lot of quite a few books.
- Now here's a fun thing I wanted to ask him about.
He's found a lot of success with live appearances.
In fact, that's where we focused a lot of our efforts
for him on marketing, getting him in front of audiences,
but not as a keynote speaker
which is what a lot of authors think about
when they think of speaking and live appearances.
We focused on niche audiences and book driven events
where readers are hanging out.
And that's what's really worked for screaming with pleasure.
Here's S.A. Bradley to explain.
- I get the best results
with horror and science fishing conventions,
especially ones that are book centric,
they're book conferences.
The people who are gonna be there are readers.
I'm the best advertisement there is for my book.
I love to talk with people
and I really get passionate about the topics
that are in my book and just the topics in general
about horror.
So when people come up to me and they're curious,
they read something off of the back of the book
or they've heard me in a panel.
Once I start rolling with them on something,
they really do tend to buy my passion
as much as they are buying the book.
Things that I look to do,
panel discussions, book signings,
book readings at libraries, book readings at bookstores
all that stuff is really good for me.
Going to meet and greets, meeting with other authors
and doing a joint conversations with them.
Anything that's not where people have to read.
If they hear us, it tends to be a lot better on that.
- All right.
Now it's time for the question
that you've all been asking me to ask our authors
that come on here.
And that is, what is your experience
working with Book Launchers, and what advice do you have
for authors who might be considering working with us
or in other similar type company?
And let me tell you,
S.A. Bradley is about to reveal something
I haven't talked about on the channel yet.
Yep, he's actually going to teach you something
and share an analogy of our service
that you will never find in our marketing brochures.
This is the real deal my friends, raw and real.
Here he is.
- So, what I will say is that I'm still using the service.
You don't know how much you need some of the services
that are involved with a Book Launchers,
until you're on the other side of a potential disaster.
And that means getting to the release after the release
and even after the book is on sale for a while.
You know of the term death by a thousand paper cuts.
Reality is you don't know what you need to be wary of.
So you get the paper cut
and think of each paper cut as like being a dollar lost
out of your return on investment
because you have to make the mistake
before you know how to repair that.
Book Launchers has already gone through all of that
and they are basically helping you get past all that.
Amazon may make it easy to get a book published online,
but not to get it effectively online.
In other words, they will give you the bare minimum.
Being able to know how to play that system,
how to make a robust sale on that system,
really is the finesse that Book Launchers is able to bring.
One example of that that I wanna give,
is called controlling the box on Amazon.
This is something that happened with me.
Controlling the box,
the box is the little box that says how much
your book is selling for.
There are third parties that are able to link to Amazon
and sell your book at a lower rate.
So, you're maybe selling some extra books,
but they're cutting into your bottom line
because your book may be selling at 18.99 on Amazon
through your own ownership of that box
and being able to type in the number.
But if they link to it
and it starts selling a bunch of books,
it goes down to say 14.99, suddenly $4 is lost on that.
I had no idea that was even happening,
I had no idea that the third-party sellers could do that,
that that was legal and it was all okay with Amazon.
And all you needed to do is get in touch with Amazon
and say, Hey, somebody is taking liberties with the prices
of my thing and they reset it
and you have control over your box again,
something I would have never known.
And that's one paper cut that right there
can take some money out of your pocket.
But you will find out that there are legal things
that you need to watch out for.
What you say is there forever.
And what I like to say, the copy editor
and the content editor,
it is like having a one-on-one conversation
with the absolute worst troll that you would ever have
online, instead of embarrassing you
in front of millions of people
and writing a really bad review
that you can never get rid of.
Instead, they meet with you privately
and tell you how terrible what you have said is,
and how you can fix it.
And they make you fight for some of the things
that you believe are your opinion.
If you can get past them, they'll let that go.
But most of the time,
what I found is I ended up with a much better book
because of the input of the copy and the content editors.
- So, there you have it.
Working with our editors
is like having a one-on-one conversation
with the worst troll you can find online.
Oh, call me proud.(laughs)
I actually love that genuinely
because we take editing very seriously at Book Launchers.
We will not do just one edit of your book
just because you try to convince us that's all it needs.
No, we are for serious authors
who want the best book possible.
And we do not want trolls out there tearing your book apart.
So, we do it for you.
Now, I am sure I have to do another video for you after that
cause you're gonna be asking
about controlling your Amazon buy box.
That was a pretty golden tip and comment from him,
wasn't it?
Dropping massive value for you
in a section all about Book Launchers.
So, that was pretty awesome.
But, we're not done yet.
My personal favorite question is coming up.
What is the biggest surprise for you
since launching your book?
And I have to tell you,
this is quite possibly my favorite answer to date.
Just watch his face as he shares this with you.
- The greatest thing
is that my book is now part of the curriculum
at a film class at Webster University in St. Louis.
And I've been asked to speak as a guest
and to introduce films during that class,
and also take Q and A with the students
who have all read my book because it's part the curriculum.
That's pretty damn cool.
Feels like you're a real deal author
when something like that happens.
- How cool is that,
to have your book as part of the curriculum
and get to speak with the students
who had to read your book for class?
I love it.
It was very, very cool.
And I love seeing his face as he talks about it.
If you wanna connect with the horror historian himself,
visit hellbentforhorror.com
where you can check out his podcast,
find links to buy his book and connect with him directly.
Please join me in giving S.A. Bradley a huge thank you
for this incredible value packed video.
So, go ahead, smash that thumbs up button.
And thanks, try it.
It really does feel good.
And let's chat about what you learned in this video,
in the comments below.
And when you comment the day a video is released,
you'll be entered to win some sweet #NoBoringbooksswag
like our mug and our also soft journal.
We have new videos every Tuesday and Friday
so make sure you catch everyone
by subscribing to the channel
and turning those notifications on.
You are a delight to spend time with.
Would you like to hang out for a little bit more?
Oh, great.
Okay, do you wanna meet more of our wonderful authors
and hear their advice?
This playlist right here is our author spotlight videos.
And if you're good with that
and looking for tips on what makes a great author website,
because you're gonna need one of those,
then this video, is exactly what you need.
So go ahead and click on what you wanna watch,
I'm waiting for you.
(upbeat music)