{"id":6213,"date":"2020-06-12T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/townhouse\/articles\/covers-sorted-reviews-sorted\/"},"modified":"2020-06-12T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-12T12:00:00","slug":"covers-sorted-reviews-sorted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jerichowriters.com\/covers-sorted-reviews-sorted\/","title":{"rendered":"Covers? Sorted. Reviews? Sorted."},"content":{"rendered":"

Quite soon, Jericho Writers is going to turn, in a small way, into a publisher. We want to source and publish really great books on writing, publishing and author-led marketing. And of course, you folks will get first dibs and the sweetest deals.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re going to start simply. Ages ago, I wrote a couple of books for Bloomsbury, owner of the UK\u2019s venerable Writers & Artists brand. The books were on Getting Published\u00a0<\/em>and How To Write<\/em>, and were nicely received by readers, and \u2013 over time \u2013 sold plenty of copies.<\/p>\n

But since those books first came out, the world has changed rather a lot. For one thing, the text of Getting Published\u00a0<\/em>was creakily out of date. It really had nothing to say about e-books or about the digital revolution which was, back then, still only a looming shadow.<\/p>\n

For another thing, that revolution utterly transformed the way books like those are purchased.<\/p>\n

Back in the day, people bought niche non-fiction in bookshops, because there was nowhere else to buy it. So a bigger bookshop might have a section on writing, but stock selection was inevitably a bit hit and miss. The turnover of those sections was slow and a bookseller wouldn\u2019t feel they had to stock everything. So a reader could easily turn up looking for books on publishing, and find only a fraction of what was available \u2013 and a poorly curated fraction at that, because booksellers wouldn\u2019t have the expertise or incentive to research the niche in depth.<\/p>\n

Amazon blew that old system up completely \u2013 a good thing.<\/p>\n

If you want niche non-fiction, Amazon offers you everything. It allows you to compare rival texts at rival prices by rival authors. You can check book blurbs, and browse the text, and see reader reviews. For the two books I had out with Bloomsbury, my online sales as a proportion were at 85% of the total and rising. I\u2019m surprised there were any offline sales at all, to be honest.<\/p>\n

So for these reasons, and others, Bloomsbury and I chose to part ways. (Which is nice of Bloomsbury, by the way. They aren\u2019t under an obligation to revert rights, so it\u2019s kind of them to do so.) I\u2019ve utterly overhauled the Getting Published book and given a good old facelift to the How To Write one too. We\u2019ll launch Getting Published properly in a couple of weeks \u2013 and we\u2019ll do that modern-style. That is, instead of a book launch process designed around physical stores, our process be designed, from the ground-up, to be online-friendly.<\/p>\n

What does that mean?<\/p>\n

Well, a few things, and I\u2019ll make sure you get some really good insights into the whole process over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

Today I\u2019ll tell you how we\u2019ve approached book covers and how we\u2019ve approached the whole business of securing reader reviews.<\/p>\n

Okiedoke.<\/p>\n

Book covers<\/strong><\/p>\n

In physical world, the art of the book cover is 50% \u201cWhat book cover will most appeal to readers?\u201d and 50% \u201cWhat book cover will most appeal to supermarket retail buyers?\u201d<\/p>\n

Yes, a cover has to work in every format and through every channel, but traditional bestsellers are built via volume sales through the supermarkets, so those retail buyers are key. Since those buyers are professional, and since they\u2019re looking at every catalogue from every big publisher, it\u2019s hard to game the system. That\u2019s why so many covers in a particular genre look similar. Loads of publishers home in on the same solutions to the same question.<\/p>\n

And another thing: in physical world, you can\u2019t change a cover if one doesn\u2019t work. Publishers\u2019 catalogues come out six months or more before publication. Orders are placed weeks before. By the time readers have actually encountered the book, it\u2019s way too late to change it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not the case in online-world. Sophisticated digital publishers like APub and Bookouture will simply trial a cover. If they don\u2019t get the sales they want and expect, they\u2019ll change the cover overnight and re-analyse the data. A cover is as much changeable and malleable as the Amazon blurb itself, which you can change just by entering a dashboard and altering the text.<\/p>\n

We wanted to take a similar approach. We developed five different covers from a total of three designers. I\u2019m sure we all had views as to which cover was best, but honestly, it\u2019s hard to know for sure. In particular, we\u2019re not buyers for that particular book. We\u2019re a tiny sample. Opinions vary. We could just be wrong.<\/p>\n

So we went to Facebook and created five advertisements. Each had the exact same copy, and just asked people if they wanted a free copy of the book. The only variation was the cover image we showed in the ad.<\/p>\n

That ad showed to a total of 8,000 people (all of whom were interested in writing and publishing \u2013 we\u2019re able to select that audience using the tools provided by Facebook.) Of those 8,000, a total of 370 chose to get a free copy.<\/p>\n

Crucially, though, the different cover designs did not all perform the same. The best cover performed almost exactly 50% than the \u2018worst\u2019 cover \u2013 even though that \u2018worst\u2019 cover looked amazing and was by the same designer. Honestly, I don\u2019t think we\u2019d have predicted that result beforehand. We just didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s it! That\u2019s the whole technique right there. We have compelling data justifying our choice of cover, so we can launch confident that our sort of readers like that sort of look. It\u2019s a brilliant way to handle things.<\/p>\n

And yes: it\u2019s a somewhat costly approach \u2013 only not really.<\/p>\n

The Facebook ads themselves cost about \u00a3100 \/ $130. We stopped running the experiment at that point because the answer was already clear. And yes, we needed various different cover designs \u2013 but designers always offer you several anyway. I\u2019m sure we spent less overall than a Big 5 publisher would spend on a regular cover.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s cover design run in a modern, data-led, online-first way. We\u2019ll do versions of that experiment many more times before we\u2019re done.<\/p>\n

And now \u2013\u00a0<\/p>\n

Review teams<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reviews obviously matter on Amazon. Partly, people want to know what other people have thought of a book, but also people just don\u2019t like to be the first dummy to hit the Buy It Now button \u2013 just like you don\u2019t want to turn up early to a party.<\/p>\n

Additionally, traffic to a book page on Amazon is typically at its highest around launch. Amazon works much harder to promote new books than old stock, so visibility generally spikes at launch and drops away after that.<\/p>\n

So you want your reviews to show very soon after launch.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a really big deal that will affect your launch sales, but also your book\u2019s future trajectory \u2013 as higher levels of early sales will keep you selling for a long time after and will give Amazon\u2019s databots a much clearer idea of who your audience is.<\/p>\n

Right. So you want reviews and you want them promptly after launch. But how do you achieve that \u2013 and achieve it in a non-spammy, ethical way?<\/p>\n

Answer: you go to your mailing list \u2013 that\u2019s you \u2013 and say: \u201cWould you like an advance review copy of my book, for free?\u201d<\/p>\n

If people want the book – in ebook format – , they have to agree to post an (honest, genuine, sincere) review of it on Amazon within 48 hours of the book launching. There\u2019s nothing spammy there. You may get some negative reviews as well as some positive ones. You\u2019re asking people to write their genuine thoughts, not just automatic 5-star praise.<\/p>\n

Those reviews can populate quickly. The last time I brought a Fiona Griffiths book out, I had 50-80 reviews posted in a matter of days. Those reviews comforted newcomers to the series that it had legs and merit and have supported sales ever since.<\/p>\n

Yes: you do need a mailing list before this technique works with ease. But yes: there are ways you can do something similar even from a standing start.<\/p>\n

But since this email is already too long (gosh, what a surprise), I\u2019ll leave it there for now.<\/p>\n

If you would like a free advance review copy of Getting Published<\/em>, by me, please see info in the PSes below. It\u2019s first come, first served, and we have 100 books on offer only. I\u2019d love it if you chose to help.<\/p>\n

Oh yes: and the book\u2019s quite good too. It\u2019s Getting Published completely rewritten for the market of 2020 and beyond. I hope you love it. More on all this shortly.<\/p>\n

____________________<\/p>\n

If you want a free Advance Review Copy of\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>Getting Published<\/u><\/strong>, by me, then do as follows:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n