You may have seen social media flutterings about AuthorsDB, a website that lets you enroll your books and/or your writing services in their free database and get…(sigh) free exposure. Yes, for free. Totally free. What’s the catch? Glad you asked. Well, there isn’t really much of one that I could see, even after employing Rich Meyer’s due diligence procedures. The philosophy of the site, however, reminds me of my local food coop, where you get a discount equal to what you choose to put in: slicing cheese, tagging tomatoes, putting up flyers all over town, or working the cash register.
No bagging raisins here, but the folks at authorsDB only ask that you join the community and help spread the word. Because it’s good karma to help fellow authors, yes? So they ask you to blog about authorsDB, tell your friends about them, and drive traffic to your profile page. Obviously, the more you spread the word, the more hits your listings will get [and more eyeballs on the site for them], which makes you eligible for random drawings for extra social media promotion and shiny things like “featured author” banners and such. We like shiny things. Because, you know, they’re shiny. And you can brag to your friends and potential readers about them. Which gets more hits to your profile. And so on, and so on, and so on.
They can offer this Internet real estate for free because of what they call their “angel investors.”
According to one of these investors, as taken from authorDB’s website:
“There are very few places where authors are able to add their information, one time, including promoting links to buy their books on all bookseller platforms. A place where authors continue to write while expert SEO people can assist in Social Media Marketing for free. Authors need an unbiased place to shout out about their creative works without ‘big brother’s’ control—without fear of loosing [sic] to unknown algorithms.” -Angel Investor-
As promised, they do push your listing to Google fairly quickly and let you (and your social media followers) know about it. Just a few hours after I listed my author profile and my editor profile, they Tweeted about it. Here’s an example of what they sent:
@LaurieBoris got indexed in Google because of #1AdB http://authorsdb.com/authors-directory/1122-laurie-boris …
Okay, it’s not exactly professional Tweet-crafting, but it’s there, and it’s another mention of your name.
And while it’s lovely of their “angel investors” to give authors a place to park and grow a community (if you’re willing to do the equivalent of bag your own groceries and divide the giant sacks of brown rice into handy one-pound packages), the concept stirred up some questions for me.
If exposure—any exposure—is free, is it necessarily good or effective? My Amazon author page, Goodreads profile, Ganxy pages, and BookDaily listings were also free, and similar information about my work and me is available on all of them. Random views may happen, but I still have to make some attempt to drive potential readers to them through social media and whatnot.
Even though authorsDB boasts of more than 1395 registered members as of April 11, 2013, and the owners seem enthusiastic and helpful, what does this site do for me that others may not? Well…as our KS Brooks informs us, a marketing rule of thumb is that it takes seven exposures to the name of a product or service for the average person to remember it. Don’t know exactly how many it requires to take action on that awareness, but having someone remember your book or your name is a very good start. Your authorsDB listing can add to that tipping point and could give you another place to point your readers and potential readers when they might be less-than-interested in hearing once more about your Amazon page, your Goodreads profile, and wherever else you’re listed.
Want to join? It’s not terribly hard, although the interface can look a little puzzling at first [and a couple of typos bugged me]. But after puttering around a bit, I figured it out. After you register for your account, click “submit a listing” on the left-hand navigation bar. Fill in your titles, descriptions, reviews, sales links, social media links, and media like cover art and videos. After you’re approved, start sharing.
I’m still deciding whether authorsDB will end up being an effective use of time and resources, or just another parking lot. But free exposure, as long as I’m in a nice frame, is still pretty attractive.
Hmm. I’ll have to take a look at it. Thanks for the heads-up, Laurie.
Thanks for stopping by, Lynne! 😀
Funny, because I have their pages up right now. Do you know what I look at when I join one of these exposure larks? The company I’ll be keeping. Do I want my books, my name, and my reputation (such as it is) to be seen alongside whoever’s already there? I’m not obsessive, but I’m choosy. So what I mostly do first is look at the existing members. Off to do that now. Thanks for this.
I look at that, too, and the site itself. Thanks for reading, Rosanne!
What Lynne said 🙂 But seriously, how many of these places is it practical to upload book detials, review details, artwork, then “back promote” to drive traffic to their site. If I were a reader – just a reader, looking for a good read – I wouldn’t know where to begin now there are so many places *sigh*
I’m wondering how many readers (not author/readers) see these listings.
Thanks for this Laurie. I am always up for a bit of exposure! I’ll be tottering over there to check it out although I am starting to feel that I am constantly applying to sites these days. Lucky number seven here I come!
Thank you, Carol, I’ve lost count!
Thanks, Laurie. I had heard of this but never looked in to it. As with anything else, I guess its a matter of what you put in to it will determine what you get out of it.
Thanks.
Thank you, Jim. Sometimes I feel like we all need clones for this stuff…
I’m listed there. I did it a few weeks ago. I figure the more exposure the better. There could be someone perusing this site that has not seen my book elsewhere, so why not. As long as I don;t get arrested for prostitution, that is.
Depends what you’re doing in there, JT… 😉
I found them a while ago. I became a featured author, and have been in the top 50 ranks, for mentioning them. They tweet out my achievements, and that is good free exposure. Not worked out how to interact on there yet, though. 🙂
Sounds like you’re getting some good out of it, Glyniss, that’s great! 😀
Laurie, this was so interesting. There are so many people fighting to get into this space… discoverability. It’s difficult to know where duplication will succeed or fail but I guess the bottom line metric is sales, right? I haven’t made up my mind, I guess, if it is all worth the effort…or should we direct our marketing to very specific things that target our specific readers. But it will be interesting in the next few years to see what shakes out… who is still here and who isn’t… example, Klout? Sigh! But thanks for the heads up on this one., and for doing the work 🙂
Thank you, Jacquie! Yeah, Klout…not so much.
Good post and excellent thoughts, Laurie. Personally, I feel like I am pushing my work too hard sometimes as it is. I’d rather err on the side of underexposure than be too aggressive. I think. 😉
Thanks, JD. Yeah. It’s a fine line between “underexposed” and “get out of my face.” 😉 I’m still looking for it.
Great post Laurie. I just wish I could find one of these sites devoted to science fiction so I can market to those who are actually interested. 🙁
Thanks, ACF! And considering how many people love science fiction, that surprises me.
Thanks Laurie, I’m with you and just about everyone else on the subject of where, when and how to get the ‘write’ kind of exposure. I sway from Dan’s opinion to JT’s, covering all bases in between.