{"id":887,"date":"2010-07-25T05:43:40","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T13:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/publishingblog\/?p=887"},"modified":"2010-07-25T06:31:21","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T14:31:21","slug":"tracking-your-book-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/publishingblog\/?p=887","title":{"rendered":"Tracking Your Book Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love to wake up in the morning to book orders. This morning I had an order for my book, The Mainland Luau, How to Capture the Flavor of Hawaii in Your Own Backyard<\/em>, an order for How to Write a Successful Book Proposal in 8 Days or Less<\/em> and SIX orders for Catscapades, True Cat Tales<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Someone asked me the other day if I track sales\u2014if I have a way of knowing where my sales generate from. You know, we used to be able to do that. You\u2019ve probably ordered books or other items where you were required to include something like #BLB23 when you place your order. Sometimes the code is part of the address\u2014Dept. AL, for example. When the company received your order with that address extension, they knew that you ordered the item from a certain catalog or from an ad in a particular magazine. You see, they\u2019ve used different codes for advertisements in different modalities. <\/p>\n

How do you track book orders today? You do your promotion through many venues and avenues online and off. You get book reviews, speak at conferences and civic organizations, write articles for magazines and newsletters, have a magnificent website and so forth. And then you get orders from Amazon, Barnes and Noble warehouse program, through your own website, by telephone or even by mail and you have no idea how the customer(s) heard about your book. There is no indication as to whether the customer heard you speak two years ago and finally decided to order the book through Amazon or whether they saw your article in their club newsletter and ordered your book through your website. Maybe word of mouth prompted their order or they just happened to stumble across your book while doing an Internet search on your topic.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all rather mysterious these days. Occasionally, a customer will reveal how they heard about the book they\u2019re ordering. But, for the most part, the author\/publisher is left in the dark when it comes to which of their promotional efforts are working. You can try to figure out why you had a flurry of orders\u2014perhaps someone mentioned your book on light aircraft in an article and it showed up on Google Alerts going to everyone who is interested in aviation today, for example. <\/p>\n

If you\u2019re really clever with deciphering mysteries, you might be able to trace some of the sources of your orders. You can include a place on your online order form asking, \u201cHow did you hear about us,\u201d for example. You can email customers and ask them. But, if your promotion is widespread, as I advise it should be, there will be a whole lot of books sold without you having a clue as to which promotional activity is working.<\/p>\n

Should you expend energy and use up time trying to chase down the source? Welllll, possibly in some cases, you\u2019ll want to see what you can find out. Others, such as your Amazon orders, will be dead end sales. And that\u2019s okay. Probably the best way to spend your time and energy, when the orders start coming in, is to continue the promotion you are doing and keep adding new promotional activities. <\/p>\n

One thing to remember, book promotion is not a science or an absolute. Each author, each book and each audience is different. Like gardening, book promotion requires a lot of work and experimentation. <\/p>\n

If you need help with ideas and guidance toward promoting your book, consider signing up for my Book Promotion Course.
\n http:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/course_bookpromotion.htm<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love to wake up in the morning to book orders. This morning I had an order for my book, The Mainland Luau, How to Capture the Flavor of Hawaii in Your Own Backyard, an order for How to Write a Successful Book Proposal in 8 Days or Less and SIX orders for Catscapades, True […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t