I wanted to pass on some great advice that I just read from Ruth Francisco. Ruth has a number of books published on Kindle - as a way of thanking her for this great advice why not buy one of them? Here is a random link to one of them that is very well reviewed:
http://www.amazon.com/Sunshine-Highway-ebook/dp/B006O1IIKS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1332903814&sr=8-2
OK onto the great advice.
For those new to epublishing, the Kindle Select program allows indie publishers (e.i. writers who self-publish to Kindle) to offer their books for free for 5 days every three months. In turn Amazon requests an exclusive. The question is how to best make use of a free give away promotion. Here's some tips I've picked up.
1. Wait until you have at least 6 good reviews before going free.
2. There has been much discussion about how many and which days to choose. I am tending to believe 1 or 2 day promotions are best, Wed, Thurs, or Sunday. Try skipping a day between two free days.
3. Several weeks before your free promotion, alert ENT (Ereader News Today) and POI (Pixel of Ink). (Several authors suggest one month for POI.) Google their names and look for sign-up forms. Alert other book blogging sites, particularly those in your genre. This squidoo lens has links to other sites to notify your free dates: http://www.squidoo.com/going-free-kindle-ebook-promotional-campaigns-for-authors
4. On the first day of your promotion, alert all your followers on Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter. Ask your Twitter followers to retweet your promotion.
5. Twitter about your book to all Free Kindle twitter addresses (do a search for them on Twitter). Here's some to get you started.
@DigitalBkToday
@kindleebooks
@Kindlestuff
@KindleEbooksUK
@KindleBookKing
@KindleFreeBook
@free_kindle
@FreeReadFeed
@4FreeKindleBook
@FreeKindleStuff
@KindleUpdates
6. Email all good reviewers of all of your books. Many reviewers have email links on their Amazon Profile. Invite them to "gift" free copies to friends.
7. List your link here on Kindleboards, both on this link for free books, and on your individual book thread in the Bazaar.
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,97167.0.html
8. List or update your book thread on mobileread.com about your free book.
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/
9. On the first day of your free promotion, get up very early (like 3 A.M.) and add your book to the Amazon Kindle Forum thread for free books. Also add a comment to your book on the Amazon Kindle Forum Meet Our Authors thread that your book is free.
10. If you have several titles, try staggering free promotions. Free promotions seem to work particularly well for books in series, drawing people to buy other books in the series.
11, Try organizing a free promotion with four or five other writers, preferably around some theme. Each of you can blog and tweet about the other writers' free books, sharing the burden of self-promotion.
12. After your free promotion when your rank is slipping, gift copies of your book to boost your rank.
13. Several weeks after your promotion, run a .99 special on your books that are NOT in Kindle Select. Simply change your prices on Amazon, or lower your prices on Smashwords. Amazon will match the price. It will appear that you are slashing your prices, with the original price and discount. (Everyone likes a deal.)
I will certainly be following this advice next time around!
I read this post with mixed feelings.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the list of Twitterers to follow - very useful.
However, I don't agree that 1-2 day promotions are best. If you have a climbing book, sales rise exponentially with time. Therefore, it's best to keep promotions as long as possible, so as not to lose momentum.
Also, Amazon don't automatically price match Smashwords. You have to work hard to get them to do it.