Rachel Gold: books | marketing | play | enlightenment

What is a meditation retreat like anyway?

 A friend asked me about the meditation retreat I just atteneed and I thought that was probably a good topic for a blog. I’d been trying to learn to meditate since I was 15 (and failing!). In 2004 I attended the first Meditating with the Body program with Reggie Ray and actually started to learn to meditate in a way that works for me. It’s different for everyone, but for me having a 6-month program with a meditation instructor to ask questions and weekly assignments, plus a focus on the body (including physically how to sit), really worked.

But enough backstory, what actually happens at a meditation retreat? Well, we sit. And then we walk, really slowly, and then we sit again. Sometimes we lie down.

Witches, Werewolves and Starship Captains: Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy

On Friday, March 8 for International Women’s Day, Catherine Lundoff and I hosted a radio program on KFAI. You can hear it here.

Since we ran through a whole lot of names and titles during the show, we thought we’d list them on our blogs for anyone who wanted to follow up on our recommendations (or add some of your own in the comments). You can see Catherine’s picks over on her blog.

These are roughly in order that we mention them, though not exactly.

Rachel Pollack – Unquenchable Fire, Temporary Agency, Godmother Night, and more

MarsCon 2013

I'm on four panels for MarsCon March 1-3. If you're planning on attending, I'm looking forward to seeing you there. Below are the panels I'm on and you can see the full program here.

Gender Limitations in SF/F

Re(a)d Mars/Taylor (2nd Floor) — Friday 06:00 pm

Discuss how strong female characters are frequently portrayed as abandoning most, if not all, things feminine. Also, male characters who take on what are considered traditionally female roles are being portrayed as emasculated. Can a powerful female character be warm and nurturing and can a house husband be more than a punch line?
With: W. Scott Patterson, mod.; Rachel Gold, Lyda Kimberly Long-Ewing, Lyda Morehouse, Kathryn Sullivan

Social Media Marketing for Creatives & Geeks

Krushenko’s (13th Floor) — Saturday 01:00 pm

Strategies and tips for successfully marketing your geeky creative endeavor or business on various social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and LinkedIn will be discussed.
With: Hal Bichel, mod.; Rachel Gold, Christopher Jones, Heather Luca, Catherine Lundoff, David Schwartz

Diversity of Character

Re(a)d Mars/Taylor (2nd Floor) — Saturday 02:00 pm

A lot of the characters in speculative fiction have similar personalities to most fans. Are writers limiting their audience by failing to include characters that express the whole range of diverse human personalities? Who’s good at doing this? What techniques do writers use to design characters unlike themselves?
With: Rebecca Chesin, Andre Guirard, co-mods.; Rob Callahan, Haddayr Copley-Woods, Rachel Gold, Naomi Kritzer

Writers Who Like to Write

Re(a)d Mars/Taylor (2nd Floor) — Saturday 07:00 pm

There are a lot of writers who like the idea of being a writer far more than the fact. Some of us don’t’ procrastinate or avoid writing because we actually enjoy doing it. What are our techniques for getting things done, particularly when life interferes? Are we less “artistic” if we don’t have complicated or bizarre routines or requirements in order to write? Does one truly have to suffer to be a good or creative writer?
With: S.N. Arly, mod.; Rachel Gold, Kimberly Long-Ewing, Michael Merriam

My Next Big Thing

If you’ve been following the “Next Big Thing” blog hop going around author websites, you may have seen my post on the Being Emily site announcing that the sequel is in progress. There’s more exciting news. I recently signed the contract for another book to come out next year – a romantic paranormal novel.

The details about the book are below but I also want to add that this book and any others in its series will be out under my pen name “Rachel Calish.” As you can see, I’m not using the pen name to cover my identity, rather it’s to distinguish the two kinds of books that I write. Young adult is a very different genre than romantic paranormal, so I wanted to let readers decide for themselves if they want to read in both genres rather than assuming that someone who loved Being Emily will automatically want to read my paranormal novels.

What is the working title of your next book?

The Demon Abraxas

What genre does your book fall under?

Romantic paranormal/urban fantasy

What is the synopsis or blurb of your book?

Having escaped the poverty and violence of her childhood, Ana thought she didn’t have room for any more inner demons until she met one who knew more about being human than she did.

Ana Koury knows there’s more to life and she’s determined to find it when a chance meeting with the icy and brilliant Sabel sends her running into danger. Seized by a group of men determined to summon a powerful demon, Ana can only escape by allowing the demon Abraxas to inhabit her body.  She chooses to work with him to go after the men who thought they could use her.

Sabel Young is an accomplished professor and the student of a powerful group of witches who demand her complete submission in order to teach her how to control the magic coursing through her body. They have assigned her to watch Ana, but without emotional involvement. That seems like easy work until she meets Ana face to face and is stunned by her attraction to this woman who is strong enough to host a demon.

With her world turned upside down, Ana finds herself drawing closer to Sabel – unaware that her involvement puts Sabel in danger from every side.

The July Being Emily Marketing Report

The Facebook campaign ran its course, the Amazon sales numbers are in and I can make some educated guesses about what worked for Being Emily sales in July. Long story short: media appearances still rule.

Here’s the long version:

The Facebook ad ran from June 25 to July 13. A total of 118,789 people saw it on average 2.5 times each. I spent $90.34 on the ad.

Book Marketing Geek Stats: Facebook Ad Week 2

My Facebook ad for Being Emily has been running for nearly two weeks. I also did a book giveaway for Goodreads. Here are the stats that I have so far from both -- including the total spend. 

Facebook

Number of people who saw the ad = 99,023

On average they each saw it 2.4 times

Total clicks through the ad = 172

This cost me $75.01 so far (I’m paying about  $0.45 per click.)

Those 172 people took 205 actions:

130 clicked a link in the post

46 liked the page

16 viewed photos on the page

13 took other action such as sharing posts

 

How many bought a book? I’ll have a better idea when I get my Bookscan sales data on Friday but my guess is not that many (based on obsessively watching my Amazon.com sales rank).

However, I looked at the people who chose to “like” Being Emily after clicking through the ad and the majority of them are young people (late teens to early 20s) who are out in the GLBT community. That is very good target audience for me and by liking the page this means they’ll see future Being Emily updates, so this has created a good channel for me into segments of the population I would not reach otherwise.

In addition, the younger skew in likes suggests that there are others who don’t want to like an openly trans Facebook page, but have seen the ad. No way to know the numbers on this, though.

For the small price tag and the ability to reach people I might have no other way to reach, I would do this again – and I probably will in the fall with a flashier ad.

Goodreads Giveaway

I did a Goodreads giveaway offering 10 copies of the book. In the week that I offered it, about 130 people added Being Emily to their “to-read” list. I just mailed the books out on June 29. So far I have one review and one additional rating from readers who received the book. Total cost was about $115 (books plus postage).

Did this cause a bump in book sales? Again, nothing amazing happened in my Bookscan numbers. I hope to get at least one more review and a few more ratings. I would probably do this again too but with fewer books. I think it's a good opportunity to get noticed in a community of readers -- but it's less targeted than the Facebook ad.

However, if I didn't have a book easily associated with a cause, I'd probably lean more toward promoting on GoodReads due to the access to a rich community of people who really love to read.

If you have an online marketing tool that's working well for your book sales, I'd love to hear about it! And stay tuned for more updates as the numbers continue to roll in.

 

Book Marketing Geek Stats: Facebook Ad Day 2

Now that Being Emily is officially launched, I thought I'd try a Facebook ad to see how good it is for reaching audiences that I might not reach otherwise. I'll post my stats at various points in the campaign so you can see how the ad is working. The bad news is that I haven't yet figured out a great way to track the Facebook action to direct book sales, but I'll do what I can to show what's effective and what isn't.

Here's the first update: the ad has been running almost two days. It directs people to the highlighted post on the Being Emily Facebook Page with the information about ordering the book. The ad is targeted to 1.4 million Facebook users in the U.S. and Canada who listed interests include “GLBT,” “LGBT,” “transgender” and similar terms.

• Number of people who saw the ad: 13,026
• Number of people who clicked it: 22

Here’s what those 22 people did:

 

 

 

17 of them clicked a link in the post (these are the links going to my booksellers)
6 of them liked Being Emily’s page
2 of them shared something from Being Emily’s page
2 of them looked at photos on Being Emily’s page

 

 

So far this has cost me $9.86. Right now this seems like a pretty good deal for over 13,000 impressions. I'm going to hope that some people might not choose to like a Facebook page with the word "transsexual" featured so prominently on it, but that a few of them will Google the book later and maybe buy it. I'm also hoping that people sharing it are reaching communities who wouldn't hear about it any other way.

Stay tuned!

 

 

My book is available

My novel became widely available this week! Now I get to put into practice all that book marketing stuff I've been reading the last few years. If you haven't seen it yet, here's the basic info about my novel and where to find it:

Being Emily is first young adult novel to tell the story of transsexual girl from her perspective. It’s a story for anyone who has ever felt that their inside and outside don’t match and no one else will understand. You can read an excerpt on the publisher’s site http://blog.bellabooks.com/2012/06/being-emily-by-rachel-gold-now.html.

And you can buy the book there or on Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Being-Emily-Rachel-Gold/dp/1594932832 or on Barnes & Noble http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/being-emily-rachel-gold/1104889199.

For an eBook you can use in most eReaders, click here: http://www.bellabooks.com/9781594932830e-prod.html.

Why 2012 Will Be the Year of Content Marketing [with 2 Bonus Infographics] | Unbounce

Some would argue that creative content and using it as a marketing device (i.e. Content Marketing) is the only way to market a business. Without it, you’re like the wallflower at the prom. And seriously, who even uses the word wallflower these days?

via unbounce.com

I am looking forward to seeing better content (and possibly less of it) in 2012. One of the best quotes in this article says, "In other words, making free content that doesn’t suck benefits everyone." Not sucking is key. Content marketing isn't about throwing more words out into the world -- it's about creating content that people are eager to consume. (Click the headline above to read the full article.)

Some of the best content marketing that I see comes in the form of newsletters published once every two months, or blogs that are updated once a month. I've started unsubscribing from content sources that publish too often. I hope we'll see marketers in 2012 spend more time creating high quality content.

The Periodic Table Of SEO Ranking Factors

Search engine optimization — SEO — may seem like alchemy to the uninitiated. But there is a science to it. Search engines reward pages with the right combination of ranking factors, or “signals.” SEO is about ensuring your content generates the right type of signals. Our chart below summarizes the major factors to focus on for search engine ranking success. The Search Engine Land Guide To SEO explains factors in more depth, with tips and a tutorial on implementing them. Read on!

via searchengineland.com

This is one of the absolutely most helpful guides I've seen about SEO. Not only does it remind me of what I need to pay attention to, but it's also a handy way to explain to clients the complexity of SEO.

I encourage you to click the title above and visit the Search Engine Land website where you can download your own copy.