This Page is Outdated
8 Dec 2021 Update:
With the advent of new knowledge and experience, this page is no longer of much relevance. I may update it in the future.
My Marketing Plan
Means of promoting the novel
My plans to market the novel series' first volume is very simple:
1) First, I have already applied to the National Art Council (NAC) of Singapore to ask them to help sponsor me for my marketing. The outcome will only be out in June 2021.
2) Once that is done, I will spend some time till 15 Aug 2021 to do some self-marketing. This will include advertising on Facebook and Amazon. I will hire artists to help make the banner for advertising. Then, I will meta-analyze the data on my own.
3) If the NAC fund is approved, my main marketing can start only on 16 August 2021, per its requirements. On that date, I will hire a team of professionals to help me do more marketing on Facebook, Instagram, Ingram, and Amazon using social media and book advertising. This may include professionals from Reedsy, or I may hire Partridge Singapore.
4) During which, I will also send my books to professional reviewers to help obtain reviews and blurbs for my books. This is costly and will take many months.
5) I will also plan hosting some events to promote my books on Twitch. At the end of the year, there is the Singapore Writer's Festival. I may apply for it and give a speech there.
The Scholastic Details
For the more academically inclined
This contains the research that I have done to formulate my marketing strategy
Internet Marketing
The Prevalence of the Internet in the Modern World
I have opted for a marketing strategy based on online internet and social media marketing in this application. The former involves using Amazon and Ingram advertisements. In contrast, the latter involves advertising through Instagram, Facebook, Discord, Twitter, and my website. The reason is very simple: it is because the prevalence of the internet and its popularity has made it the most convenient, ideal, practical, and efficient choice for such. Here is a summary of such:
Studies (Dwivedi et al. 2020) have shown that online internet and social marketing can benefit many products' sales. According to statistics, about 4.54 billion people worldwide now use the internet (59% of the world population). Likewise, the number of people using social media has surged to 2.95 billion and is projected to rise to 3.43 billion by 2023. Facebook pages now have 50 million registered businesses, and 88% of them use Twitter for marketing. According to (Cheng 2018), Amazon is the number one source among online book sales, taking up 83.6% of the USA’s e-books sales revenue and 95% in the UK (Kozlowski 2019). Therefore, the internet opens up many options for marketing compared to traditional, non-electronic methods.
Likewise, other sources (Mohsin 2020; Mohsin 2021) have provided the statistics below for social media and Amazon. The yellow highlighted texts are most relevant to this current proposal’s marketing plan:
Image source: Mohsin 2020, Mohsin 2021
Image source: Mohsin 2020, Mohsin 2021
Methods of Internet Marketing
There are many kinds of internet marketing. Most involve advertising that alerts the user or browser of a product's existence, such as a book. A person may click on the advertisement banner and be referred to the source to purchase it or its promotional website.
Methods of internet marketing include the following (Ddurmaz et al. 2015; Roy, Datta & Basu, 2017):
Affiliate marketing: This has three types – pay per click, pay per lead, and pay per sale. On Amazon and Facebook, there are services such as an Amazon Ad account that one can use to target various demographics. This means if a marketing package offers 1 million clicks, it advertises through banners on Amazon. Then when people click it, it gets directed to the product.
Email marketing: This involves giving subscriptions to potential buyers. Each will receive periodic newsletters or updates or incoming sales.
Social media marketing: This involves using social media such as Facebook and Instagram. It often involves creating online banners that viewers can click on to be referred to the product being promoted.
Search Engines: This involves a marketing strategy whereby keywords that link to the product are prioritized in a search engine like Google. This will lead to more searches for the product.
Websites and Blogging: Creating a website that details the product’s information, alongside a blog, often attracts the person's interest.
Graphic Design: This can involve a beautiful book design, such as one created by a well-known artist.
Others: This may include mass author volume promotions, coupons, or book videos.
Because of the plethora of ways to market, it is impossible to use all methods due to financial, energy, and time constraints. In this paper, I will later choose those I find to be the most practical, effective, and suitable for my current purposes.
Factors in Marketing
Literature Review
Before one can formulate any marketing strategy, one must know the processes, causes, frameworks, and theories that impact such. More importantly, there must be substantial empirical evidence at a statistically significant level with a high correlation value for the factors involved. This helps us to identify the key elements that work best.
A) Consumer Behavior and Decision-making Models
Knowing how the consumer purchases a product is the first step to marketing. Therefore, this cannot be neglected and is thus, the most fundamental.
Several models exist to quantify consumer decision-making. The first is the AIDA model (Schwarzl & Grabowska, 2015), shown in the pictures below:
Image source: Schwarzl & Grabowska 2015
To summarize what the 2 diagrams mean, I have provided my chart below to illustrate and demonstrate each step in detail:
Altogether, this involves 5 steps:
Attention: First, the consumer is alerted to the product, such as from an Amazon advertisement.
Interest: Next, the consumer becomes interested in the product, often due to reading the summaries behind a book cover or a website detailing its essence.
Desire: In this step, the consumer receives good word-of-mouth such as a positive blurb, book review, or being informed by their peers through social networking.
Action: The consumer buys the product through an available source, such as on-demand print via Ingram, Amazon, or iBooks.
Post-purchasal: The consumer then decides to buy again due to loyalty or promises that the novel may continue in a series. It may also occur if the author actively engages with the audience.
Knowing how every step works, we can capitalize upon marketing strategies that work best for each step. For instance, if a book already has good blurbs and reviews, there is no need to further obtain more reviews if the money can be better spent capturing the consumer’s attention. This may involve Amazon advertising.
B) Factors Affecting the Success of Sales using Online Marketing
I have identified 5 empirically substantiated factors that correlate very highly with the eventual sales of a product, such as a book. Based on these, we can formulate a marketing plan.
Good word-of-mouth
Studies have investigated the impact of positive word-of-mouth through mathematical modeling. They have used pathway analysis, exploratory correlational analysis, confirmatory correlational analysis, and other predictive models to identify this factor's strength.
According to El Said & Galal-Edeen (2009), good word-of-mouth has roughly a +0.6 correlation with factors such as trust, loyalty, and the eventual sales of a product. See below:
Image source: El Said & Galal-Edeen 2009
2. Customer loyalty
Wong et al. (2019) have shown that brand preference arising from word-of-mouth and other factors has a beta coefficient of about 0.014 (p = 0.05). The chart below shows this:
Image source: Wong et al. 2019
This suggests that having (i) good book reviews by trusted professional sources, (ii) good book reviews by customers on Amazon, (iii) spread of word through social network or face-to-face methods, and (iv) positive blurbs all have positive correlates towards sales. This is empirically substantiated with evidence at a statistically significant level.
This suggests that methods that ensure long-term customer retention such as the use of (i) blogs, (ii) email newsletter subscriptions, (iii) long-term commitment of a common novel series, and (iv) use of social media of engagement through Discord servers, Facebook, or Twitter can help ensure the long-term continuation and success of a novel.
3. Product Attractiveness
As Alejandro Colucci, the book designer of the Witcher series, told me when I hired him: “Many big publishers have told me that people do judge by visual instinct. A good book cover can help even poorly-written books sell to some degrees.”
Lim et al. (2017) have also shown that source attractiveness has a statistically significant (p = 0.05) level with a product's purchase intention by testing various hypotheses. This is shown below in the 2 charts:
Image source: Lim et al. 2017
This means that (i) a well-illustrated book cover, (ii) a visually-complex and informative novel-promotion website, (iii) professional banner advertising online can all play a critical role in influencing people towards buying a product.
4. Social Networking
I have a master’s degree in Existential Sociology. My first research proposal to the committee involves the use of computational and mathematical sociology. This involves applying chaos theory and catastrophe theory to derive non-partial differential equations that attempt to emulate social phenomenon. Likewise, I am familiar with many social networks theories (Granovetter, Heider, graph theory, structural balance theory, clustering coefficients, etc.). As such, I know the importance of social networking and know it must always be a part of any successful marketing package.
A study (Cai et al. 2021) of the use of online coupons, whereby a person can pass on coupons to peers, in a marketing strategy, has shown that it is far more effective than other traditional marketing methods.
Image source: Cai et al. 2021
This means that heavy reliance on (i) social media marketing that connect people, such as Instagram, Discord, Facebook, and Twitter, and (ii) Author volume promotions can play a very important role in positively increasing sales.
5. Publishing on More Sources for Purchase
Of course, even if all of the other factors work well, the chain as strong as its weakest link. Publishing a book on more online publisher sources, ranging from Amazon, Barnes & Nobles, iBooks, Goodreads, Ingram, Google Books, or even on the author’s website, will allow for more means to purchase the good.
A Synthesis
Based on the literature review that I have researched, I have put together the following synthesis in a visual diagram.
Please refer to the attached file, titled “Synthesis Diagram,” for a high-resolution image. Alternatively, you can see it here, on my Twitter post: https://twitter.com/Eilara2/status/1375465635522564100 - click on it, and “open image in new tab” to magnify.
The diagram below is just a low-resolution preview because of website limitations for uploads.
The key is to capitalize upon the AIDA 5-step consumer decision-making model.
Each of the 5 steps can be capitalized upon using specific marketing strategies. For instance, attraction can benefit most from social media marketing. Interest and desire can benefit most from good reviews. Post-purchasal can be retained through a long-term commitment to a novel series, blogs, or email subscriptions.
However, the mountain can neither exist with its just the rock at its base or its top. It must exist as a whole. Therefore, a good marketing strategy must target everything as far as possible, given unlimited resources.
For instance, if a book does not receive positive book reviews, it would not result in sufficient positive word-of-mouth despite having enough social media advertising. Likewise, many people judge based on visual instinct. Even if a book has the above two factors, many people will be repelled if the book cover and website designs are bland.
Based on my sociological post-graduate experience and the research of the covered literature review, I have formulated the below framework:
The Spark and Wildfire Model
I call this the “Spark and the Wildfire” model.
The Chinese have a proverb, which states that: “one will spread to ten, ten to a hundred, and a hundred to ten thousand.” This is the fundamental mechanism of my plan.
First of all, marketing can only do so little if a book is written poorly. Marketing best flourishes if a novel is written well so that the two factors can work in tandem.
Therefore, the book is the spark, and marketing is the fuel. You need both to work.
I have evidence to suggest that my book will succeed very well, which I shall explain later. However, right now, let us assume that the book is metaphorically a golden statue in complete darkness. However, no one will buy it as they cannot see it yet!
So, all it needs is a spark, such that people first see it. This is done by getting good reviews, blurbs, and enough advertising. When people see it, I will capitalize upon each of the AIDA consumer decision-making processes by ensuring the fuel burns. In the long run, I will continue with the novel series, which will lure more people in and continue the cycle.
All it needs is a spark for the conflagration to burn.
The Spark and Wildfire Model
My Detailed Marketing Plan
Objectives of the Marketing Plan
The overall plan is simply to market “The Eternal Reflection’s” first volume of 4 books.
Here are the sub-goals:
Maximizing profit: The goal is to choose a marketing plan with an average per-sale cost below the 50% royalty rate of my e-books per person. I intend to sell each volume at SGD 10 as a start. Each will yield a royalty of SGD 4. As long as this is maintained, I will generate a profit as a whole. This proposal will derive my income projection to further expand on this point.
Maximizing lateral awareness: Lateral awareness refers to the number of people who are exposed to my work. Only a portion of them will purchase. Thus, the marketing strategy is to use Amazon, Instagram, and Facebook to get as many people to notice my book as far as possible.
Generating interest: Because having a high lateral awareness may mean only a small percentage will buy my books, my marketing strategy is to increase this percentage. This will be done by sending my books to prestigious book reviewers to secure good blurbs. It will also be done through intense marketing using Discord, Twitter, Twitch talks, author volume discounts, blogging, my website, and attending local author festivities.
Maximizing long-term retention: Once (1) to (3) are established, I will maximize long-term reader loyalty by working on my novel series’ future volumes. I will likewise continue to promote it aggressively with blogs, talks, Discord servers, Twitter, and email subscriptions.
Create self-perpetuating momentum: As explained in this proposal’s “Spark and Wildfire” model, the key is to target all stages of the AIDA consumer decision-making model. In doing so, I will be able to build up my own author prestige and novel brand. People in the future will then associate these two with experience and competence. They will then introduce it to others, who then also buy the novel series’ volumes.
Put my trust in a competent marketing company: Because I am just a novelist, I do not have a Marketing or Business degree. While I can monitor and understand many of these processes, I should not reinvent the wheel. I will hire a company with competent and experienced marketers who can do most of the work for me with results. I can thus have psychological peace of mind to work on my second volume for my novel series.
Why I believe my Novels will sell
3 things affect a novel’s sales: (i) How good the book content is, (ii) structural characteristics of the novel, and (iii) marketing.
Marketing has already been addressed so far. More will be elaborated later.
Let us look at the first factor:
Structural characteristics of the novel
A study (Ashok, Feng & Choi, 2013) uses a predictive mathematical model with an 84% chance to predict a novel’s success. There are many factors within the algorithm, such as verb, noun, pronoun, determiner, article, adjective, noun composition, complex thought processing words, the avoidance of bodily descriptions, and the detail of description. Good novels, for instance, have a high thought-processing complex word count (not difficult words!) as they are more nuanced and sophisticated in concepts. Good novels also have a low verb and high noun count as they “show and don’t tell.”
Although I do not have all of the factors, I have done the best to use as many factors as possible. I used https://www.analyzemywriting.com/ to compute my novel’s statistics, and here it is, compared to top-selling books:
Here are the computational results using the novel-prediction algorithm using my novels as input:
As seen, my novels have all of the structural characteristics of best-selling novels. All of the considered factors are listed above in the 2 charts. Additionally, it has a readability grade score of 6, meaning that even a 12-year old can understand it. It thus has broad general accessibility.
Based on the statistical modeling I have used, my novels have around an 80 to 90% chance to be very successful.
2. How good the book content is
I have sampled a range of many novels in my private qualitative study. I read the fantasy works of both literary prize-winners and commercial ones. I concluded that my novel stands out in terms of the following:
Setting and worldbuilding: I drew maps, illustrated everything, created new religions, histories, races, an entire world, and three artificial languages for the novel.
Character development: Many novels neglect the psychological and emotional character development of the characters. Mine employs existential phenomenology and psychological realism to explore each of them as far as possible by painting the dynamics of the inner world, beliefs, and moral choices.
Theme: My book contains dozens of parables, fables, many poems, songs, scholastic texts, the philosophy as told through Ei’lara (A fictional language that broadens the philosophical worldview of the user), and Thus Spake Oneness (based on a 250K book on spirituality I wrote in graduate school) which has profound philosophical implications that spans more than 20 disciplines. I read more than 3000 books in this life and have an intimate understanding of various disciplines' intersectionalities.
Plot: My plot is very complex compared to the vast majority of books I have surveyed. I have also written the drafts of volumes 2 to 6, which means that I have planned everything ten years ahead of the current 1st volume.
Prose: The prose is poetic, lyrical, and stands out from the norm while being very readable to even 12-year olds.
Most authors focus on either (1), (2), (3), or (4). However, I focus on all 4, which is very rare and unique for an author.
Therefore, the two non-marketing reasons, I am reasonably confident, will bode well in my favor.
With my marketing plan in this proposal, I hope to complete the trinity.
My Marketing Plan
I have decided to purchase 3 marketing packages, which total about SGD 10000 (assuming no promotional discounts), if the NAC grant is successful. It could be lower if the company offers a promotion.
The first involves sending my novels to 3 very reputable and rigorous book reviewers to obtain good blurbs and reviews for advertising my book hopefully: Foreword Clarion, BlueInk, and Kirkus Indie. The hope is to get good reviews on some to be used as blurbs for my book.
The second involves a social media advertising package through Instagram and Facebook with 1-million clicks. This is done through a video banner, and the company will help monitor my advertising progress and effectiveness. It will cost SGD 1400.
The third involves advertising my book through Amazon Ad and Ingram. Both are very important as they are the two most important and well-used distributors on the e-books market. Bookstore owners use Ingram to search for promising titles. They will also help me create banner advertising on both. It will cost SGD 3000.
The plan is to execute the first one (Trifecta review package) before the other two. This will take 10 to 12 weeks for the reviews to be obtained. When the reviews are received, which I hope to be positive, they can then be put into the book and website as blurbs. The other 2 can then be put into motion when that is done, taking place until the 1 million clicks are completed. I chose the 1-million click (basic) version instead of the 2 and 3 million clicks (advanced) ones to test out the market first without putting all eggs in the same basket.
Therefore, if NAC can provide a subsidy between 50 to 70%, a price of around 3000 to 5000 would be very affordable for me. Then, I can go on to promote my books using their marketing scheme.
The time of the project will begin the moment I get the funds from NAC. Hwei Shan Lo has told me that the project cycle should begin after 15 Aug 2021, per the Marketing and Audience Development Grant requirements. Thus, I will comply with the date requirements. Once approved by NAC to begin, I will then purchase the marketing packages on 16 Aug 2021.
The reason for not pursuing newsletters or subscriptions is that it is the final, 5th step of the consumer decision-making model. One does not put the cart ahead of the horse. Right now, nobody knows of my work yet, and as such, there is no existing, loyal base of readers to retain using this method yet. Thereby, this should come as a step after my current existing marketing plan. Likewise, the coupon method only applies to the final stage as well – it will not be effective without proper book reviews and positive blurbs. The last reason is that it is important to take one step at a time and adopt a conservative approach. As President Eisenhower once said: “Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” It is more essential to improvise based on step-by-step observation of preceding market plans to avoid excessive, risky, and untested investment.
In the meantime, I will promote my books by myself first using about a hundred dollars per month via Facebook and Amazon advertisements. During this, I will learn meta-analysis and monitor my sales through correlational matrix methods. I will also capitalize upon expanding my novel’s Discord server. Then, I will use my Twitch channel’s 500 followers to host streams to promote sales and spread the word.
Synthesis on Why it Will Work
In relation to the Spark and Wildfire model I framed in this paper, I shall summarize and remind the reader of why it really works very briefly:
The novel is of a high quality: Because of the statistical and mathematical modeling performed on it, it has an 84% chance of success. It shares all traits of best-selling novels. I have also shown that its content, style, and ideas stand out. Next, it is also 4 books in a single volume, being half a million words long.
Good reviews will attract readers: With good blurbs and reviews from the Trifecta package, the novel’s positive traits will shine through to potential buyers. Together with blogging and my website, I will further attract more readers.
Social media advertising will work: Once (1) and (2) have been fulfilled, the novel series only needs lateral exposure through Facebook, Instagram, and Amazon. They will build upon good reviews and good content.
I will work on long-term retention: I will continue to work on future volumes of the novel series and blog. I will also use Twitter, Discord, and Twitch to secure its popularity and readers’ loyalty in the long run.
The cycle completes and repeats: Once (1) to (4) are then, it will then repeat itself and gain more perpetual momentum over time.
The spark: The spark will be NAC’s Marketing and Audience Development grant. Once the spark is ignited, the flame will become a vast conflagration.
Demographics and Target Audience
The book is written with strong female protagonists to attract female readers, alongside male readers. There is no preference between either gender as both genders can appreciate it. However, a strong female lead does capitalize upon the prevailing feminist ethos in contemporary times.
It is also targeted at more informed audiences interested in philosophy, such as intelligent late-teenagers to adults of any age. Most importantly, because 90.4% of Millenials make up Facebook users, a social media marketing that targets them would be very useful. Most of them are relative digital natives and spend up to 3 hours on social media per day. They are often old enough to appreciate the nuances of my book’s philosophy.
To expand my age range, I also target young children as young as 12. This is done by reducing my readability level to 6 (primary 6 level) and cutting down mature violence and content to be suited to them.
The core protagonist, Ni’vim, ranges from 16 to 18 years old throughout the first volume. This will, thus, attract a young adult audience as well. Strong imaginative realism, fantasy elements, action scenes, battles, and an elaborate plot will draw people of this age range.
Throughout the novels, there are coverages of many racial, ethnic, and religious elements. The purpose is to convince people to tolerate and embrace each other, regardless of beliefs or race. This will therefore attract a multi-ethnic, multi-national, and multi-religious mix of readers.
More importantly, the indigenous market in Singapore is small – thus, the key is to go international. I believe that Facebook and Amazon will allow me to accomplish this and compete with other overseas authors.
Now is also the Covid-19 period and many countries like the USA (where Amazon readers mostly come from) are in lockdown. Thus, this year would be the ideal time for online Amazon marketing. Based on statistics from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ and other news channels, I estimate that the Covid-19 pandemic would last for at least another 2 years. The lockdown in the USA is unlikely to end entirely soon. Vaccination needs to hit 80% of the population to reach herd immunity within the next 12 months. Now, it is around only half of it at 43% (Brilliant et al. 2021) Therefore, it is essential to strike when the iron is hot and not after.
Income Estimates
To estimate my income from my marketing strategy, I have looked into the research of Yucesoy et al. (2018) and Wang et al. (2019). This allows me to access it scientifically and mathematically.
Every book has a post-release sales distribution curve that a mathematical equation can roughly approximate.
The two studies have shown that several factors affect a book’s sales:
1. Publisher:
A well-known publisher such as Penguin is shown to sell better because, according to the study, the publisher does the advertising for the author after it is published. Although Partridge Singapore is a less known publisher, it can be compensated through the marketing strategy that I have devised. Publisher name per se has minimal bearing on the book itself, suggesting that other factors do matter more.
2. Book Content:
There are sub-factors:
Books of subjects, like sports and writing, normally fair better compared to other genres. Individual stories/fiction books have at least 800 sales in the first year of the sampled books in the study, as seen here:
Image source: Wang et al. (2019) and Yucesoy et al. (2018)
The month of publication: Books generally sell better during the holiday seasons, such as June or December. It is particularly dominant at the end of the year, as seen here:
Image source: Wang et al. (2019) and Yucesoy et al. (2018)
Books of different genres succeed better than others. Fantasy, my novel’s genre, fairs pretty decently in the middle. The sampled books in the study sold at least 1000 copies in the first year. It is seen here:
Image source: Wang et al. (2019) and Yucesoy et al. (2018)
3. Author:
The best indicator of the success of a novel, according to the study, is author characteristics. Authors with more publishing history sell their books better as readers know that they have more experience to do a good job. The other factor is author visibility – such as their appearance on advertisements, Wikipedia, marketing, or the number of sales of existing works.
4. Post-sales decay or surges:
Book lifetime sales distribution can fall into 2 distinct categories:
Gradual decline: In the graphs shown below, many studies bestsellers and non-bestsellers tend to follow an inverse logarithmic graph. According to the 2 studies, after their initial success, many books are removed from the top-seller list (like New York Times bestseller). The publisher does less to market it. For instance, they switch to cheaper soft covers instead of hardcovers:
Image source: Wang et al. (2019) and Yucesoy et al. (2018)
Occasional bursts throughout its life: Some books do not follow the first trend. Nick Vujicic’s Unstoppable followed periodic bursts and took 2 years to peak. This is due to his relentless post-sales engagements, like motivational speaking. The same is for John Gerzema’s The Athena Doctrine, which periodically burst and increased due to his continued writing on leadership ethics.
Image source: Wang et al. (2019) and Yucesoy et al. (2018)
Application of the Findings
Based on the research, several factors are important. Some stand in my favor, and some do not. Let us consider those that do not stand in my favor first:
I am a first-time author: With no publishing history in fiction, people do not know if I am experienced.
I am self-publishing on Amazon. This does not count as one of the “big 5,” such as Penguin.
Other factors; however, can be capitalized upon to work in my favor:
Marketing: Because a well-known publisher succeeds, based on the above studies, not from its name but its marketing, I can compensate for this through my marketing strategy.
Author information and visibility: While I may not stand out now, I am working on a novel series. I have brought evidence to this proposal to show that it has a high chance of eventual success. Success will build upon success – when my books start to become well-known, this becomes a self-perpetuating process that gains momentum. Likewise, author visibility can be increased through my website, blogs, and marketing.
Timing of sales: The Covid-19 period and the fact that June is approaching will bode very well in magnifying sales. As said, lockdown is unlikely to end in countries like the USA completely.
My personal dedication: As shown in Nick Vujicic and John Gerzema, authors who continuously promote their books after sales can prevent the usual decay and inverse logarithmic graph of books. I will continue to promote my books, and since I am doing a novel series, the promotion is in the continuation of the series itself into the future. The more volumes I publish, the more the previous versions will sell.
Favorable genre and topic: Fantasy and fiction genres generally sell moderately well, as shown in the graphs I have provided. They do not fall to the lower ends, and the sampled books in the study sold at least 1000 copies.
Therefore, my book’s sale curve would look something like this:
Image source: Wang et al. (2019) and Yucesoy et al. (2018)
To estimate my first volume’s sales, I have provided two scenarios:
Lower bound
This is if my book follows a typical decay and inverse logarithmic curve.
In the worst case scenario, I estimate that my book will sell for only 1000 copies. However, this is only an assumption that my book’s features are similar to most fantasy books, which only sell for such.
In this case, total sales revenue = 1000 x $5 = SGD 5000 (I get $5 per book in profits since I intend to sell at a low cost to draw in readers first).
In reality, due to the factors in this proposal on how my books stand out, this is very unlikely. I will constantly be marketing and working on my novel series to not fall into this typical sales decay growth. Therefore the lower bound is more like SGD 10000.
Moderate bound
I cannot predict everything with accuracy in the very long run. More realistically, I will just have the following assumptions:
I publish my book in May or June 2021
The marketing begins (if NAC approvals my MAD fund) in Aug 2021 and lasts for 12 months.
I will continuously invest a few hundred dollars each month on my own on Amazon and Facebook to market the book throughout the next 3 years.
I start working on volume 2 of my novel series and publish it in Dec 2023.
I will do the same for volume 2 in terms of marketing.
This prediction lasts from publication in June 2021 to June 2023 (3 years inclusive).
Sales are affected by intervening events as shown below:
With this, I now obtain the graph of the moderate bound for my book’s sales:
After a year (next year Sep 2022) = 7175 x 5 = SGD 35875.
I am assuming that I follow the plan, publish my second novel volume, and market it aggressively. Then sales after 3 years = SGD 301125.
Higher bound
I do not wish to jump to a conclusion about a possible higher bound. Sure, every author’s dream is to become like Tolkiens or Rowlings. But I prefer to be realistic and not get ahead of myself first.
After a year (next year Sep 2022) = 7175 x 5 = SGD 35875.
I am assuming that I follow the plan, publish my second novel volume, and market it aggressively. Then sales after 3 years = SGD 301125.
Higher bound
I do not wish to jump to a conclusion about a possible higher bound. Sure, every author’s dream is to become like Tolkiens or Rowlings. But I prefer to be realistic and not get ahead of myself first.
Evaluating my Marketing Strategy’s Effectiveness
There are several methods that I will use to analyze my marketing strategy’s performance. To research this, I have looked at 4 different sources: Scott (n.d.), Batesman (n.d.), Dragilev (2019), and Lewis (n.d.).
Firstly, I choose to use several platforms listed below. This is not an exhaustive list; I only chose the ones which I found to be most user-friendly and informative:
Kindle Direct Publishing
Author Central Account
Facebook Ads Manager
Business Instagram
Google Analytics
The above platforms are useful as they give graphs such as the following:
Image Source: Scott (n.d.), Batesman (n.d.), Dragilev (2019), and Lewis (n.d.).
Therefore, I can monitor my sales over time. If I see a spike in a certain month after marketing begins, then I know it has an effect.
The platforms also give many metrics and indicators, such as the following:
Image Source: Image Source: Scott (n.d.), Batesman (n.d.), Dragilev (2019), and Lewis (n.d.).
In the above case, the analytics showed my ROI (Return on Investment), which I shall explain later, is the second-most important measure of a marketing package’s success.
Secondly, I will be using the following indicators in the above platforms to monitor the marketing performance. There are hundreds of indicators; however, I have chosen only those which I find to be the most essential:
1. Reach and impressions
Reach refers to the number of people who saw my content. Impressions refer to the number of times people saw the content – the same person can see it 3 times. Thus, you can have a reach of 100 and an impression count of 300.
This is important as it gives an absolute figure that denotes the number of sales. However, this by itself is worthless without knowing the efficiency of the marketing ad. For instance, you may get 1000000 impressions, but if only 1 buys it, then the marketing strategy is near worthless.
2. Click-through rate
Absolute reach and impression are worthless on their own. The click-through rate refers to the former's percentage who actually click on the ad to see it. This increases the engagement rate.
3. Conversion rate
This is one of the most important factors. It is a measure of how much money is spent on advertising per customer who purchases the product. For my novels, I intend to set the first volume to SGD 10. Thus, if I spend SGD 20 per person, then the marketing strategy fails!
However, what is more important is the Average Revenue per User (ARPU). It refers to the long-term revenue that each person brings throughout his or her life.
For a profit to happen, ARPU must exceed the costs of advertising per user.
4. Return on Investment
Image Source: Scott (n.d.), Batesman (n.d.), Dragilev (2019), and Lewis (n.d.).
As seen above, Return on Investment (ROI) refers to whether I am making profits over losses in a marketing plan. If it is positive, then the marketing strategy is yielding me positive returns, and it works!
5. Average Cost of Sales
Otherwise known as ACOS, this is most important. Even if my ROI is positive, it does not tell me how much money I am making. In my publishing package with Partridge Singapore, I have a fixed 50% royalties on Barnes & Nobles and Amazon. Sure, it might be lower than self-publishing, which grants 70%. Still, it has no taxation from the USA, Singapore, and file size upload cost per megabyte. If I self-published, it would be only around 40%.
But that being said, ACOS is important, as shown here:
Image Source: Scott (n.d.), Batesman (n.d.), Dragilev (2019), and Lewis (n.d.).
To make a profit even after marketing, the ACOS must be lower than the breakeven point of 50% for my case. If it is higher than 50%, I will make a loss. If it is below 50%, then I will make money, and the marketing package works.
Conclusion
I will monitor the marketing performance of my strategy. Although the package says that they will help monitor it for me, I like to learn new things. Thus, I will create my own Excel spreadsheets, perform correlation analysis, pathway analysis, meta-analyses, and other methods to see if the marketing works. With it, I can identify causes to capitalize upon.
Things which I will do on my own
There are other things that I will do on my own before the marketing package starts on the 16 Aug, if NAC approves my funds:
Split-testing
Many advertising platforms offer split-testing. For instance, you can target two different audiences in a certain banner advertisement:
Image Source: Scott (n.d.), Batesman (n.d.), Dragilev (2019), and Lewis (n.d.).
Then, all one needs to do is wait and see the results. When the results are in, perform a statistical chi-squared test. I studied social statistics (I was a social scientist!) before and am aware that this test allows one to judge if changing the audience has a statistically significant impact.
Since I will do some advertising before Partridge Singapore does, I will have a lot of time experimenting with what demographics work best for the optimal results. I will know which age group and nation to target and inform Partridge when they begin work.
2. Book Launch via Email
Studies have shown that this method has the highest conversion rate, at a staggering 28.91%! I will combine it with “Last Chance” offer via email methods, which by itself has a 17.98% conversion rate. When both combined, it would boost my initial sales and cause my book to skyrocket to the top of the search engines in Amazon due to their algorithm’s mechanisms.
3. In-content Blog
Recommending one’s book in one’s blog has a conversion rate of 16.84%. Thus, I will work on my website and begin blogging to get more people to buy my books. I will do this in conjunction with promotion through my Discord server and Twitter.
4. Group Author Event
I will do this alone after marketing begins with Partridge. This has a conversion rate of 89.2%. Singapore’s Writers Festival is at the end of this year. When I am published, I will sign up for it and promote my books.
5. Amazon and Facebook Advertizing
Facebook advertising has a conversion rate of 17.65%. Before Partridge formally does mine, as I have said, I will invest a hundred dollars per month to test out the market when the book is published. I will do this for Amazon too. My book will likely be published in June, which leaves June, July, and August before work begins. Therefore, I must use this and market on my own before NAC approves Partridge’s marketing package.
6. Self-promote on Discord, Twitter, and Twitch, and other means
When the book is published, I will give away free volumes to libraries and groups that may impact sales.
My Twitch account has 500 followers. Thus, I will use this with my Discord server and Twitter to host talks about my novel series. This will hopefully get the novel series introduced to as many people as possible before Partridge helps me.
Limitations
As with any marketing plan and scientific methodology, there are limitations. Here is a list of limits that I currently face:
I do not have specialized marketing knowledge: I am only a novelist and artist. Therefore, there are limits to how far I can market. Although I am willing to learn, one should not reinvent the wheel. It is more important than I entrust Partridge Singapore’s competent and experienced marketers to do the work. Doing so frees up opportunity costs, time, and energy for me to work on my novel series’ future volumes.
I do not have state-of-the-art mathematical software: Ideally, I like software that allows me to juxtapose the precise best-fit curves for my marketing sales. This may include a decay model or a Poisson distribution curve. However, I do not have access to such expensive software. Thus, I have to rely on cheaper, less accurate alternatives.
I do not have control over reality: While the empirical evidence and theories I have provided in this proposal are comprehensive, there is one problem. It is that “man proposes while God disposes.” No matter how exhaustive I try to bring evidence to predict certain things, reality is too complex to be predicted.
Therefore, with the limitations in mind, it is important to take one step at a time.
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