Spreading the word

We're trying everything we can think of and reading up on the subject as we go along for more ideas to spread the word about our page and the book itself.

We've already mentioned the website, Facebook and Twitter pages. Some other ideas we've attempted are posting to all the Paranormal Groups on Facebook and now we're trying out some Facebook ads.

I'm experimenting with creating Craigslist ads to promote an upcoming FREE book giveaway. This is one post of what will be many, in popular areas all over the country. Unfortunately, for reasons I don't quite understand, Craigslist does not allow you to post using Bitly links so I won't know exactly how many people have clicked the link without digging around in the Google analytics data.

Note that in this attempt, which is my first, I'm trying to gather some names and email address, so rather than sending them directly to our website or a link to Amazon, I'm sending them to a squeeze page which promises to notify them of the FREE days coming up sometime before the end of the month.

Edit #1:

I started off with a single post in Honolulu. I'm now going down the list of top populated cities in America (at least the top 20) and posting a similar link. It directs them to the squeeze page but I'm being upfront and letting them know the duration of the promotion.

Before, I was approaching it as more of a gimmick to get them interested with a bit of mystery. But after a day of silent reflection, I realized this was probably the wrong way to go - simply because we're a nation of "Instant Gratification Junkies" and it was probably ignored. As of yet, I've had not one single reply to the original post after nearly 3 hours.

Edit #2:

After posting 14 different ads in the top 10 most populated cities around the USA (plus some other random ones), we've had just one person sign up for the "FREE Book Notification". I have a feeling the idea of letting someone know it's going to happen is just not working. It looks as though

Note: Two of these ads were removed/deleted from Craigslist as spam. I'm not entirely sure what causes them to be flagged as spam in some areas but not others - are the people doing it? or does Craigslist have an algorithm that automatically flags certain posts? Aside from minor wording tweaks as I posted them and selecting a slightly different image (one of three) there was no difference in the ads and the majority of them are still up and running.

Edit #3:

I put out one more local ad in Honolulu for FREE book days (on Kindle) and also mentioned the FREE Paperback copy of Paranormal America. So far, the response has still be nearly non-existent from what I can tell.

Edit #4:

Out of pure curiosity, this morning I posted the same ad for the FREE book days on Kindle as well as the chance to win the free paperback book in Osaka, Japan and Hong Kong. I'm not really expecting much from the two minutes I spent posting there...but I thought, "Hey, in the off chance these people are curious about America and read English, maybe they'll be intrigued."