I’ve been experimenting with several ideas for marketing my Yale Larsson Private Investigator series. I’ve independently published three books in the series: “The Myakka Murders”, “Sarasota Sour Grapes”, and “Overexposed on Bird Key.” I’m currently working on Book 4, “A Pocketful or Euros.” My first marketing ploy was to use Amazon  Ads. I spent a lot of money with very poor results. I also used Book Bub to create an ad that appears on the bottom of their eMail with slightly better success.

I also created several Facebook Ads. The results were fairly dismal. I attended a book fair where I sold enough copies of my books to break even. At the event I handed out business cards and bookmarks. Then one day I brainstormed and had a blinding flash of insight, or BFI, to create a business card with a direct link to every Yale Larsson Private investigator book I’ve published. But before I could do that, I needed to set up a page on Amazon with all of my books. I did this through my KDP account by designating that the books were part of a series. Once I had a URL for my books, the next step was to create a QR code. If you’re not familiar with QR codes, they are images that can  be scanned with a phone and will take the user directly to the associated web page. You can get a high resolution QR code for free from this website: Free QR code 

With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, it was time to create the business card. I wanted a card that was unique, so I used Moo to create a Mini Moo card. Moo offers free templates for Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator. The cards are small and pique the curiosity of the people you give them to. The cards measure 1.3 inches by 2.75 inches. Moo also offers a small plastic card carrying case you can put on your key chain. I never leave home without my Moo author cards. I’ve been monitoring the results through reports on KDP. Handing out the cards has increased book sales.