Monday Marketing. Why It Works and a Graph to Prove It

Can I just say that marketing actually works? I’m not saying that it works well, or that it’s worth the time, but for a number of weeks I’ve been diligently spending an hour a day, five days a week, trying to do some sort of marketing. This past week I went to visit my 93 year old father and since his is a house of dinosaur technology, I did zilch to market my books. The result? I sold 6 books less than the previous week.

I know 6 books doesn’t sound like a lot, especially if you want to tag a dollar sign on those 6 books—it makes it look like I made about pooh an hour. But if all of those six purchases happened to be (and they probably weren’t—but if they were) new readers, those 6 extra purchases could possibly be readers who fall in love with my book and then buy all of my books, which could then multiply to 60 extra sales. And what if they told just one person each that they liked my books, and those people bought one book, and then they bought all my books, and they each recommended my books….get it? This is how a readership grows-one or two or six new readers at a time.

Do I regret not marketing my books last week? No. I’m glad I had time to spend with my dad. (You can read about that here:  http://bit.ly/1sOEPQ3 )

And I’m glad that I took the time to do some number tallying. On my Amazon sales graph, the six books didn’t look so different from one week to the next, but when I stopped to consider the whole reader multiplication factor, I decided that the hour a day is worthwhile, even if it only looks like a fraction of the national minimum wage.

Monday	Time	Marketing	Sales	Evaluation
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

So, here’s a graph. Fill it in however you wish. And if you have a great marketing tip, please share.