What are Novel Bits?
The medium answer: we'll help you build an audience for your book by regularly posting bits of your novel. A link to purchase your book along with a brief synopsis will be included with each post. Because we are only going to have one such advertiser at a time, there will be a certain level of exclusivity.
Think of it as Sample Sunday but extended.
The long answer: There isn't enough room or time to extol all of the reasons why this form of advertising is a good idea. However, I will give you a little more than the short and medium answers.
As I've learned from reading this book
, the value of building an audience before your book even comes out cannot be overstated, especially when you are competing with so many other authors, both tradtionally and independently published.
How do you expect to stand out in the crowd? Especially if you are a nobody. Letting a fairly large audience sample your work—even a substantial portion of it—means exposure, which means books sold and more importantly the gathering of fans.
I believe this to be true even after your book comes out, which is what Novel Bits is all about. There's a reason why you post samples of your book everywhere it is sold. People want to sample it before they buy. However, how do they know to go and take a look if you don't point them in that direction? That's what marketing is all about. If we get them hooked on your book on our site, they will buy your book ... hopefully.
What you get with Novel Bits
You may sign up for a week, two weeks or a month. I may allow longer periods of time based upon interest and availability. I will start with one advertiser, but if this becomes popular, I may allow another advertiser to do it at the same time, adjusting the price if need be.
At the beginning of your Novel Bit run, there'll be a post to introduce your book, including a synopsis, author bio, links to wherever you want people to be pointed, and maybe some quotes from positive reviews (that you supply)—pretty much whatever you want me to post. Each sucessive post will contain a bit of your novel (between 500 and 1,000 words) and a shorter version of the synopsis.
A different synopsis for each bit would be ideal to give the same readers something different to look forward to. We could post about a different character each day, for example. If you are running it for more than a week, a new introductory post will be used at the start of each week. These posts would be an ideal time for author interview questions, some of which might come via our fans.
The intro posts will run on Sunday, and bit posts will run on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Because you are paying for this exposure, you will also be the last post of the morning, ensuring your post stays at the top of the site most of the day. I may post again late in the evening in prepartion for the next day, but so far this has been mostly Thursday ... so we shouldn't run into this problem unless we add another advertiser whose bits will be posted Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
In addition to the posts, you will also be featured on the right sidebar right under the Twitter Counter widget (that shows the number of Twitter followers we have), which means you will be featured on every page of the site like the other ad space spots. Your twitter name will be attached to at least the first intro post, encouraging people who see it to follow you on Twitter.
Prices
- 1 week — $15
- 2 weeks — $25
- 1 month (4 weeks) — $40
As with top level and the scroller ads, we may go into auction mode if there are multiple people who are willing to pay a little more above the stated price. We'll see how things play out. Stay tuned for the ability to sign up for this and other forms of advertising.
