‘To Market, To Market …’ by Ms Paige Turner
So having spent months upgrading my laptop, buying recording equipment, recording my poetry collection ‘Red Lipstick & Revelations’, opening accounts with Amazon Audible, filling in all my details, finding the right pixels for my cover, uploading all my files, waiting for approval, I then realise that I must go to market. What’s the point in having it out there if no one listens?
Amazon Audible give you a few ‘promo codes’. Free codes to give to ‘influential’ people who might help sell your spoken words by giving a review. But generally, one has to go out to one’s contacts and well, sell. That’s if you don’t have an army of publishing marketeers behind you. Which, like all the other thousands of authors out there in the market place, I don’t.
I am used to having a reading and signing books with real people. Not watching a slowly moving sales dashboard so I suppose the audible launch was a bit of a deflated balloon.
Undaunted and fuelled by the fact that my spoken collection had reached number 1 on Amazon for Grief and Loss Poetry and Love Poetry (I didn’t know I had written any love poetry) last Tuesday, I decided to enjoy my day in this September sun. Like the mayfly, I was certain this number 1 spot would survive only the day. So before setting off for Quaker Poets, I did two things. I paid £10 to have an ad on Facebook. I thought I was just paying for my cover to be spread more widely amongst my own friends and not to the general public. (I don’t read instruction leaflets.) So how disconcerting was it, to have two very, very, rude comments from people I don’t know and whom know nothing about my word wares? It took me two whole days to stop the ad on Amazon Audible.
The second thing I did was to take a screenshot of my first place to print out and frame.
So, to my three blog readers, if you haven’t bought it for £5.59 then here it is: Red Lipstick and Revelations
Or if you are ‘influential’ tell me, and I will gladly send you a promo code. You just need to be an Amazon customer – which many of my contacts aren’t. So, I will have to rely on that number one spot. Which, (and I check) had slipped down the top ten by lunchtime last Tuesday when I arrived home from Quaker Poets and will probably be 661 by tomorrow.
Such is the life of a poor performing poet …
PS You don’t need to be an Amazon customer to listen to a freebie sample next to the cover on the link. If you do listen to the whole thing and like it, please leave a review. You see … I can’t stop …