Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Trying to Get the Word Out

The D-Lux 4 book has been officially "published" for about one week now. The main problem now is getting anyone to notice! Google AdWords was working nicely for a while, but I need to learn a lot more about how to use it to best advantage. After it started yielding several orders (seven as of now, including the one that canceled), I got a bit carried away and expanded the scope of the ad campaign to many more geographical areas, including all of Europe and parts of Asia. That action resulted in a huge increase in the number of people who saw the ad and who clicked on it (and, therefore, in the cost to me, which is charged per click), but no increase in orders. My conclusion as of now is that the ad campaign needs to be carefully tailored to where it will result in actual orders. So, for now I've ratcheted it back to operate only in the U.S., Canada, and the United Kingdom, where I think it's more likely people who click on the ad may actually order a book.

On the production front, things are steadily improving. Clenise is a person who likes to get to the bottom of things and perfect them. She has really dug deeper and deeper into optimizing the process of binding the books, and each new batch looks better than the last.

For other promotional efforts, I have completed my application to Barnes & Noble for its small press department, and sent a book off to be evaluated for sales on bn.com and possibly in Barnes & Noble's stores. I've also sent review copies off to two magazines.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Alex, saw a mention of your book from leicarumors.com

    Why don't you try joining the Leica Dlux4 group on flickr and mentioning your new book?

    Can you post some of the sample images in your book?

    http://www.flickr.com/groups/798964@N24/

    best of luck!

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  2. Thanks for the suggestion. I will try to post some sample images when I get some time; things have been hectic lately trying to produce books and fill orders, etc. But that is a good idea, and I will work on it.

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