Ad Wars

Last year I read a how-to-market book and then questioned whether I should put the ad for my mailing list at the end or the beginning.  Either way I figured that people--or their Kindles--would skip it.  I decided to try putting it not at the beginning or end, but a little way in the book, usually after the first scene break.

I hadn't really noticed a huge difference in the newsletter audience, but there was a slight increase.  Then last week I saw this review for the Eric Filler book Derelict:

The naivete is kind of funny in this "review."  The whole reason the ad wasn't at the end was because you would just skip it that way.  There's no point in me putting the ad in if no one is going to see it.  It's why they don't put billboards out in the middle of nowhere or why in magazines and on broadcast TV they run ads all through them--so people might actually see them.

Readers can be a pretty selfish lot, though.  I mean when a book is free, you give a lot of copies away, but of course when you charge money, people don't buy nearly as many.  Then of course there's pirating because "books should be free" say people who don't rely on the income from selling books to pay their rent.  (And note that this review doesn't say "Verified Purchase" which means the reviewer didn't actually buy the book, so I assume they're part of that "books should be free" crowd.)

I suppose I would be annoyed with an ad in the middle of a book I was reading, but it's just one ad for my newsletter, which actually benefits people by telling them about my new books and usually has a free book listed on it.  It's not like it's six ads for beer, Nike shoes, the new iPhone, and whatever else.  It's an ad that benefits you--and me!

It's of course hard for readers to imagine how difficult it is for small-time authors to sell books.  We have to do whatever it takes to get noticed and sell our books.  It's not always pretty or fun, but we're just trying to muddle through.