Taylor of the Written Word Media has written an excellent post titled, Holiday Book Marketing: An Author’s Guide to Black Friday and Beyond that lists all the remaining holidays of 2015. Why is that important?
Well, people are in buying moods. Authors can take advantage of the mass shopping mentality to acquire new readers, maximize revenue, and sell more books.
The downside of holiday marketing? Everybody’s doing it. On your average Friday, you’re competing with a few brands and businesses for the attention of readers. On Black Friday, you’re competing with everyone from Apple to Zappos. Ads are more expensive and your readers’ inboxes are jammed with sale announcements.
Still, holiday marketing is still worth it. It just requires strategic thinking to stand out and get noticed by readers. Starting with picking the right date. Here is a holiday cheat sheet to help you plan your advertising.
Black Friday
When: November 27th, 2015
What: The day after Thanksgiving, focused on in-store deep discounts. Many ecommerce / online retailers take advantage of the Black Friday frenzy and run discount promotions.
Recommendations: If you’re planning something for Black Friday, make it a discount. ‘Black Friday’ and ‘% off’ are almost synonymous to consumers. Other tactics are likely to get lost in the noise.
Cyber Monday
When: November 30th, 2015
What: The Monday after Thanksgiving, focused on e-commerce / online discounts. The number of people shopping online on Cyber Monday is very high. Amazon typically sees a 300% increase in traffic to its website on Cyber Monday.
Recommendations: Cyber Monday is the perfect day to capture new readers as so many people are online. This is another discount-focused day, so we recommend planning a price drop or free day for November 30th.
Shipping Deadlines
When: December 16 – 23 (for Amazon, depending on location and shipping options)
What: The last day to place an order for Christmas delivery (for physical goods).
Recommendations: This is a great opportunity to promote your paperback / hardcover books. Use ‘books make great last-minute gifts’ messaging.
Christmas Eve
When: December 24th, 2015
What: The day before Christmas.
Recommendations: Here’s your opportunity to reach the procrastinator. One great thing about ebooks – no shipping time! Advertise your ebook as a last-minute gift or stocking stuffer for that one person you didn’t know was coming to Christmas.
Boxing Day
When: December 26th, 2015
What: The day after Christmas.
Recommendations: We’ve seen a bump in eBook sales starting on December 26th through the New Year. Lots of people receive brand new eReaders for Christmas, and start playing with their new toys (and buying books to fill them up) the day after Christmas. Many people also receive gift cards to Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Apple for Christmas and start redeeming them for merchandise and ebooks. Advertise your book as a great deal for new eReader owners!
New Year’s Day
When: January 1st, 2016
What: New Year’s Day
Recommendations: Online traffic picks up in the afternoon on New Year’s Day as people start to wake up and recover from the previous night’s festivities. This is peak New Year’s resolution season so try including that theme in your marketing message. For example: “Is reading more on your list of new year’s resolutions for 2016? Get started with this great series.”
Many thanks to Taylor for that. You can check out the entire post on The Written World Media.
Thanks for the tips, Nicholas. As a newbie, I need all the information I can get.
Yay! Glad I could help 🙂
This is very handy post, Nicholas. I will have try a few out 😀
Yay! Glad you found it useful 🙂
Great targeting ideas. I might just have to try a few!
Go for it – and share the results on my call to arms 😉
time flies by too quickly when so many dates are planned ahead 🙂
Lol – tell me about it 😀
Thanks as always. 🙂
A pleasure 🙂
Officially shared on my blog. Great article!
I appreciate the share. Thank you 🙂
Fantastic information Nicholas! I am going to repost this…but am hesitant about the message that comes up about the insecure network to share. Do you mind if I share the link on WordPress instead? Thanks! 🙂
Please feel free to share any way you like – even copy and paste everything into a new post of your own with a credit link. After all, I, too, copied it from someone else 🙂
What message? I have some email trouble at the moment, but I’d appreciate it if you emailed me what you see.
Many thanks for this useful plan for holiday book marketing – though right now I could do with a book marketing holiday! 😉
Lol – the next post should be titled, “best ways to forget about book marketing on your holidays” 😀
Rather happy that these happen after Thanksgiving, but you rarely see books come into play. Then again, there’s the Read Tuesday event that Chris McMullen has put together for indie authors the last 2 years. Haven’t heard if it’ll happen again though.
I know this is a moot point, but one of the best things to do in December might be to release something new. Even if it’s a limited bundle or just something that can be seen as ‘new’. At least that’s one thing I’ve seen help authors.
That’s a good idea. I released a mega-bundle the other day (I’ll let you know the details soon), and someone read some 2,000 pages on KENP yesterday!
I’m wondering if I should set up the second Windemere bundle for December. Honestly, I’m so burned out that even that sounds like a lot of work.
Well, to be honest, you should. But first make sure to rest for a week or so, to be up to it.
I’m still waiting to find out if my next book will be ready to go by then. So I’m also kind of in a holding pattern.
Juts don’t get dizzy. How are the peanuts?
Peanuts? Got confused there.
Lol – sorry, you said you’re in a holding pattern and my mind immediately went to airplanes circling airports… Guess I’ve been travelling a lot lately 😀
Ah, I missed that. My mind went to being frozen in ice, but that might be because it’s cold. As far as the bundle, I’m also iffy because the first one isn’t selling. Honestly, very little is selling even with marketing, which has me worried. I’m starting to wonder if a bundle would be ‘better’ after the series is entirely out or something. Might be in a unique, bad situation since I’m an indie with a big, ongoing series. That’s been pointed out as a problem before. So maybe the ‘rules’ are different.
On the contrary, I see it as a wonderful opportunity. When you have enough books to reach a price of $20, bundle them at a cost of $9.95. Promote the bundle as 50% off the price of the individual books, then use the bundle as an upsell to a Facebook ad campaign. It’s what I’m trying out now, so I’ll publish detailed instructions, depending on how it goes 🙂
I’ll see how that goes. Right now I don’t have enough to reach a price of $20. As far as the FB ad, I keep hearing about negative aftermath. So I’ve been steering clear until it sounds like some kinks have been worked out. Don’t have a lot of promo money right now, so I need to save it for the next new release.
I’ll do my best to help, sharing anything I find out 🙂
Thanks. A big thing I’ve heard is that after you do an ad, your page gets a sudden reduction in exposure. Basically, you are kind of forced into getting another ad to even get back to where you were before the first one. Also I’m curious if ad-blockers have an impact.
I’ll let you know when I try them 🙂
I can really see the 26th of December connection. Tablets are the ‘big’ gift for all ages, as well as e-readers, and I can well imagine the increase in purchasing after receiving such a present.
We have had ‘Black Friday’, and ‘Cyber Monday’ imported into the UK now. Another import we really didn’t need…
Best wishes, Pete.
Lol – perhaps you should move over here. None of that yet 🙂