Mathiya Adams

The Hotdog Detective Mysteries

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Reviewing Reviews

September 2, 2019 by Mathiya Adams Leave a Comment

Reviews are the lifeblood of a successful writer’s career. When I get a favorable review, I feel pleased that I was able to satisfy a reader of my story. When I get an unfavorable review, I wonder why am I pretending that I’m a serious writer and why don’t I just take up bagging groceries at King Soopers as I was destined to do?

The truth is, you can’t satisfy all readers. I know that intellectually, but I still strive to create a book that pleases everyone. Like most writers, I tend to overlook the positive comments (though those are the ones that do the most to entice new readers to try out my books) and focus only on the negative comments. After all, if I am already pleasing my audience, how much improvement can I make? On the other hand, if I am not pleasing my audience, perhaps I can find ways to improve my writing.

When I examine the negative remarks (which I regard as anything 3 or lower), the criticisms fall into two main categories: criticisms of my competency as a writer; and criticism of elements of the story. The first group of criticisms are ones that I take seriously and definitely want to correct. Criticisms of the second group are questionable in my opinion. Some of them might be resolved if the reader goes on to read other books in the series. I ignore some of the criticisms if they focus on elements I actually do want to include in my story. In a similar manner, there are limited actions I can take if a reader expects one kind of story but finds that my story belongs in a different category.

Ultimately, however, it is impossible to please every reader. All I can do is thank the reviewer for their honesty, see if I can do anything to improve what I do, and plow onward with the rest of my series.

After all, out of fifty reviewers, forty-five of them like what I’m doing, and it is that audience I am trying to please.

Filed Under: Marketing your book, The writer's craft, Writing Life

Tracking Performance

August 31, 2019 by Mathiya Adams Leave a Comment

I track the sales of all my books on as many distribution channels as I can. This allows me to achieve several objectives.

First, I can see if I am reaching a larger number of readers over time. While I don’t have a specific target figure for how many readers I want to get during a given time period, I do want to see the number of new readers go up over time.

The second objective I can evaluate is whether I am retaining readership as my series continues. I don’t just track the total sales, but the sales ratio of each consecutive book. (Note that this analysis only applies to a book series.)

In the example below, Book 1 is offered for free. I expect a large number of downloads, and while I hope that 15000 readers actually read the first book in the series, I have no way of knowing this. What I can measure is the number and ratio of readers who go on to buy Book 2. In this example, that 375 fans who liked Book 1 enough to purchase Book 2. This now becomes a metric I can manage through campaigns, pricing, promotions, etc.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to determine if the percentage shown (2.5%) is an average number, higher or lower than average, since I don’t know of too many authors who actually track this number. However, the editors at Misque Press have given me access to the sales figures for one of the leading series it publishes, The Unfinished Song series by Tara Maya. The ratio of Book 2 in that series to the first book in the series is almost 6%, meaning that more than one reader out of twenty who downloads Book 1 goes on to buy book 2.

This shows that after the second book in the series, my results are not that different than those for a successful series like The Unfinished Song. These statistics showed me that I have to find ways to get more people who download Avid Angler to move on to the second book in the series, Busty Ballbreaker, from one out of 40 readers to one out of 20.

Of course, that is easier said than done. Some ideas include:

  • Make sure that there is a download link to the next book in the series in each book
  • Use pricing as a way of encouraging purchase of the subsequent story in the series
  • Increase advertising of the second book in the series

If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear from you. If you offer me a suggestion of how to accomplish a higher purchase rate, let me know what book in the series you’d like and I will send you a link to get that book for free.

Filed Under: Marketing your book, Writing Life

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