So, March 14th, 2015 – official 1-month anniversary of “Dai’s Dark Valentine” – I’m just messing around since I’ve got a pic line in my arm, not feeling too great, can’t write much, and needed a little pick me up, so what do I decide to do? Google search my latest release. I know – nothing quite like the mind of a writer. LOL
Anyway, what I found was really cool! The screen shot above is a bit fuzzy, but according to what I’ve learned about Google searches, the sites that show up on the first page are the most popular sites for your search item at that time. Google searches by number of inquiries and click-throughs to a particular URL, and date (with most recent dates listed first). In other words, the most popular sites for “Dai’s Dark Valentine” on its 30-day anniversary are (in order with most viewed sites listed first):
1. Amazon (of course)
2. Sky Purington’s Blog – A Writer’s Mind
4. My Thunderclap
6. Stella Eromensere-Ajanaku’s Book Showcase
7. Goodreads
8. Beth Trissel’s Blog – One Writer’s Way
Notice where Barnes and Noble falls (beneath several of my friends’ blogs!) That tells me quite a bit – mainly, it’s a reminder of how much ground the distributor has lost in terms of marketing our books. I was pleasantly surprised to see Goodreads in the top 10, and although Facebook was no surprise, the platform’s prominent presence concretizes the fact that despite its many changes and ridiculous rules tying the hands of authors and making marketing so much harder there, it is not to be ignored.
Twitter showed up just a couple entries below Facebook with a retweet from Karen Docter via @Danita_Minnis – thanks, Danita and Karen!
One of the most fun, confidence boosting things to see was the images for “Dai’s Dark Valentine.” Too cool! Of course, as always, this search picked up a bunch of tangentially-related pics and ads, too, but images from other tour sites and a few of my Twitter buds’ pics showed up, including @KayelleAllen, @TriciaSchneider, @Mimi Barbour, and @AprilLWood of A Well Read Woman.
Well, I’ve waxed on in my excitement and joy long enough, but don’t miss my point. If you’ve never done this before, you should try it. As demonstrated in the pic at the top of the page, just type your book’s title in the search bar and let Google do the rest. You might be surprised what you learn about where people are searching for and finding your book 🙂
