Books For Catholic Kids Business Meeting: Part I

Our website Books For Catholic Kids with the blog The Story Of A Book has been live for two weeks now along with the companion facebook page The Story Of A Book. It is time for a business meeting to see how we are doing.

I am meeting here with myself in my capacity of CEO, treasurer and marketing director, three persons in one so to say, and each of them an amateur. I hope someone will benefit from our analysis of the progress of our marketing campaign, simplistic as it may be.

We are looking at data between November 14, 2017, when the kindle e-book version of St.Rosaline, The Carthusian: The Saint With The Shining Eyes was published on amazon.com through Kindle Direct Publishing(KDP). The paperback version followed on December 5, 2017. Since then, the book has been available for sale on amazon.com. On June 16, 2018, our website/blog and facebook page went live. This event marked the beginning of our marketing campaign.

We are looking at our business progress by way of three reports: book sales, website traffic and facebook traffic.

Book Sales:

Sales in the time period between the publication of the book last November and the launching of the online marketing campaign were low. We had our beautiful book posted on amazon.com but the world remained ignorant of its existence. In order for a book to appear on the first page of an amazon search, there have to be sales, many sales. Or there has to be paid advertising, which we cannot afford as we are still at the ‘wash out your ziplock bags’ stage (see Story of a Book). Therefore we have to make the book visible on amazon by generating sales in other ways. We started with the website/blog and the facebook page.

KPD generates sales reports on their website. We received an email notifying us of our bimonthly royalties (cool term, makes us feel so professional). KPD pays royalties bimonthly, up to 60 days after a sale. This gallery tells you how to get to the reports. Hover over the images to stop and see the captions

There was a tiny payment posted on our bank account resulting from the sale of two kindle versions and one paperback in March/April. How we love you, dear buyer of that one paperback. You are from the United Kingdom. Imagine someone halfway around the world finding our book on amazon and buying it. It is true what Mark (my husband) reminded me of: “"A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home." (Mark, the Evangelist, 6:4). Not that I am comparing a book to a prophet here but you know what I mean.

Since the launching of the website and facebook page, more sales have occurred. I wish I could say they were a result of the online marketing campaign but I would have to lie, a ‘no, no’ for Catholics. Fifty two books were sold as a result of my dear husband’s giving away free copies. It has proven to be a very effective marketing strategy, indeed, if somewhat costly!

Summing up our sales analysis, we must conclude that so far there is no visible relationship between our online marketing campaign and sales.

After this somewhat disappointing conclusion, I need a cup of tea. I’m sure you do to. Let us adjourn the meeting until tomorrow.