Ebook Promotions - 10 Things You SHOULD Be Doing

A couple of months ago my publicist asked me if I would write an article on ebook promotion. I thought I'd share it on here with all of you as well. The information below isn't gospel, but it works for me.

 

1.       START PROMOTING BEFORE YOUR BOOK IS OUT

There are several things a writer can do prior to their book coming out.  A month or two before the release, I begin putting things in place that will create a steady momentum once the book is out.  One of the first things I do is to create a press release that my publicist can send to potential reviewers, newspaper agencies, press agencies, etc.  I also create some kind of giveaway on my blog to kick things off.  I give away things like Amazon gift cards and other goodies for any reader who purchases the book in the first month.

This is also the perfect time to schedule your promotions on the internet.  New sites go up daily, it seems, but my favorites right now are BookBub, Digital Book Today, and Ereader News Today.  Some sites are more expensive than others, but you should easily earn your money back on the day your book is promoted, not to mention the boost your book will get several days after the promotion.

 

2.       SOFT RELEASE FIRST

When I put out a new book, I do a “soft release,” promoting it to my fans and followers at the beginning to get things going.  I’ll send out a newsletter to let them know the new book is out and then run some kind of promotion for anyone who buys it or buys it and leaves a review (NOTE: I never, ever ask my readers to give me a specific kind of review—all I ask for is an honest review).  Many of my fans read the book within the first few days, and if I am lucky, they will like it and leave a review.  This is what I am hoping for—to get some reviews and initial sales before I push for the hard launch. 

 

3.       ENROLL IN KDP SELECT (IF YOU ARE A NEW AUTHOR)

 

Writers have strong feelings and opinions about the KDP Select program on Amazon.  For me, personally, it works, and I am a big supporter of Amazon and all they have done for writers today.  I believe the best time to enroll in KDP Select is when your book first comes out.  The more visible a book is, the more it gets noticed in the program, and the more lends you will receive. 

I entered the first three books in my Sloane Monroe series one year ago, and I can honestly say, the program has changed my life.  I was doing well prior to enrolling, but the program took my books to the next level.  I highly recommend using the five free days you are offered each time your enroll/renew, and here’s what I suggest doing:

 

·  When your book is new, enroll in the program. 

 

·  One month after you publish your book, schedule and use your free days.  To be successful on your free run, you MUST prepare beforehand.  You can learn more about this HERE.   The more free books you move during the promotion, the better your ranking will be when your book comes off the free list.  Amazon uses algorithms (which is a topic I’ll save for another day).    

·  I keep my book free for two or three days.  As long as it keeps climbing in the free store, I keep it up.  But if it slips past the top twenty, I take it off.  And after a few months, take your book out if you want and then you can sell it everywhere else.  Trust me when I say that it’s a lot harder to enroll your books in the program if you have to go around taking them off all the other sites first.  

 

One side note: In March 2013, Amazon changed the way they pay reader sites. This squashed a lot of sites that used to advertise your freebie. Amazon also changed their algorithms. In the first year of KDP, you could see a massive bump in your rank once you came off free. Now, not so much. So, use KDP Select to help make a name for yourself when you first start out, but long term, keep your options open.

 

4.       PARTICIPATE IN BLOG HOPS

There seems to be a lot of confusion about blog hops.  I organize two or three a year in my writers group, and I always get emails from new writers complaining about the fact that during the hop, they didn’t see an increase in sales.  Why?  Because blog hops aren’t about sales—they’re about exposure.  They’re about people seeing your name and your books.  Most people need to see a product (and your book is a product) several times before they decide to purchase it. 

But now back to blog hops.  If you get the chance to be included on one that’s organized and has quite a few authors participating, do it.  It usually requires very little effort on your part.  The organizer does most of the work for you.  You create a blog post, give away a signed copy of your book, maybe donate to the grand prize, and you’re done.  For my hops, when a reader visits my page, I ask them to either follow me on facebook, twitter, or sign up for my newsletter.  This is free for them, but it benefits me as well.   

 

5.       GET YOUR NAME OUT THERE

 

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen authors create Twitter accounts for their novel or their series, and not for themselves.  I always hear a noise in my head—that “X” sound from the game show “Family Feud.”  Why?  Because the author is going about it all wrong.  Your name is your brand.  Let me say it again.  Your NAME is your brand.  Not your series.  Not your book.  Not your character.  YOU.   Get your name out there in every way possible.

6.       TWEET 

There is a right way and a wrong way to tweet.  But first, I want to say this: if you don’t have a Twitter account, now is the time to create one.  Right now.  Well, after you finish reading this post, of course.  

I avoided Twitter for a long time.  I didn’t want a Twitter account.  I convinced myself that having an account wouldn’t benefit me.  But then a few of my fans said they were disappointed that I wasn’t on Twitter.  See, your fans feel like they connect with you through twitter—like they have some special insight into your life and what you’re doing.  But that doesn’t mean you need to get personal or reveal too much.  I don’t.  I keep it light.  I ask my fans questions.  I interact with them.  And I love it. 

In one year, I managed to cultivate almost 30,000 followers, and as of the end of this year, 2013, I am nearing 50,000. In August of 2012, I was named one of Twitter’s seven best authors to follow.  It was such an honor.  And to think, I almost never joined.   

Now let’s move on to the wrong way to tweet.  I tweet about my books:  

·  When I put a new book out

·  When I run a promotion

 

·  When I offer some kind of giveaway/incentive

 

This is the ONLY TIME I tweet about my books.  My fans don’t want to get tweets from me all day, every day that shout “buy my book!”  It’s irritating, and it’s rude.  I follow the 90/10 rule.  90% of my tweets are non-book related.  I save the other 10% for my promotions.  Otherwise, you’ll lose followers.  No one will retweet you if you keep saying the same thing all the time.  And during an incentive, you need those retweets.  They sell books, and they spread the word about you and your brand.  Long story short, don’t abuse Twitter, and don’t abuse your fans.  Interact with them.  It’s actually a lot of fun.

7.       CREATE A FACEBOOK AUTHOR PAGE 

I created a facebook author page soon after publishing my first novel.  Some of my friends and family liked the page, but in six to nine months, I only had a couple hundred followers.  To me, this was nothing.  I had thousands of friends on my personal page.  So I almost deleted it.  Then I published a boxed set which included the first three mysteries in my Sloane Monroe series.  And it took off.  I started getting up to ten new followers on my author page a day, none of them being friends or family.   

You can now promote yourself on Facebook too.  I like their ads because they’re cheap.  If you have less than 1,000 followers, you can run an ad for three days that posts not only to the side of the pages of your fans, but to their followers sidebar as well.  All for around $15.00.   

8.       AUTHOR FRIENDS = POWER

What does having author friends have to do with promotion?  Everything.  When I was writing my first book, I interviewed traditionally published authors on my blog.  I asked them for their advice for new, up-and-coming authors, and many were happy to oblige.  Some of the biggest names in the business offered tips on getting started, and I learned that making author friends was pivotal to success.  It IS who you know.   

I created an author group on Facebook in 2010 and have almost 1,600 authors to date.  We share our books, help one another promote, and offer tips and a helping hand to the newbies.  Many of the authors have become life-long friends.  The group also helps me stay in the loop.  Whenever there’s new news in the industry, I’m the first to hear about it.     

9.       CREATE AND MAINTAIN A NEWSLETTER 

When you’re first starting out as an author, you might only have a newsletter that consists of friends and family, and that’s okay.  It doesn’t grow to thousands overnight.  It’s more like a slow trickle.  The main thing is to have a way for readers to contact you, and it should be on everything—your blog, website, author product pages, in your books, etc.  Keep it consistent and keep it the same.  When a fan emails you, add them to your newsletter list.  I send out an email quarterly and try to match it up with a book release, especially when it’s in the soft release phase.  Your most devoted fans will buy the book as soon as it’s released, as long as they know about it. 

10.   TRY NEW THINGS 

I mess around with my prices several times a year.  I also mess around with different genres.  But let’s start with price.  It’s fun to find a reason to change the price.  One that I use is my birthday.  On my birthday, I lower the prices of most or all of my books, just for the day.  I also run a promotion to go along with it.  Another time I lower the price is after Christmas when all those readers have a brand new kindle in their hot, little hands.  I don’t lower the price for a long time—usually no more than three days.  The benefit of this if you do it right is that you’ll sell more books than you were and your rank will lower.  The lower the rank, the more your book is seen.  The more it’s seen, the more copies you’ll sell.   

Now let’s talk about genre.  I don’t move around too much, but there are a lot of different options you can try with your book.  Most of my books are in the mystery/thriller genre.  But, they have just a touch of romance.  While not the main theme, I can still put them in romantic suspense.  I can also put them in action & adventure.  I can also put them in genre fiction.  Sometimes it’s nice to shuffle things around a bit.  After all, lettuce is best when it’s fresh and new.  So, too, are books in categories that attract an entirely new audience. 

The YAY or NAY of book signings

I live in a fairly small town.  Many people here know I’m a writer.  I can tell because they come up to me, they whisper about me, they talk to my relatives about me, they chase me down the aisle at WalMart…Okay, so that last one is a story we'll save for another day, but you get the idea.  I’ll be honest, it’s pretty amazing to meet people  who are fascinated by what I do.  And for that reason, whenever I am asked to do a book signing locally, I do it.  And I sell out every single time.  We aren’t talking about thousands of books, but that’s okay.  That’s not why I do it. 

When I was fist starting out, the people in my town rallied around me, buying my book and spreading the word around town.  So doing a book signing here is more about showing my appreciation than the money I get from doing it.  Although, money isn’t so bad either.

My publicist recently tried to schedule a book signing for me that was four hours away.  I declined.  Then she said, “What if I can schedule a TV interview for you in the same town that morning?”  Book signing, back on.  However, I don’t like to travel to do them, for the most part.  I don't like to spend a whole day on something like that when I could be writing instead.

The next time you consider pimping yourself via a book signing, ask yourself these questions first:

1.       How far away is the signing and how much money will it cost you in gas?

2.       Will you have to stay overnight?  If so, how much will the hotel room cost?  Food?  Entertainment?  (one bonus is, at least you can write it off)

3.       How many hours will you spend that you could have spent writing?

I’ve been to plenty of author book signings, and unless the person was named Stephen King, the lines usually weren’t that long.  I’ve been in a bookstore many times without even knowing beforehand that a signing was going on, and there, sitting all by his or her lonesome, is the author looking quite forlorn.  I guess what I’m trying to say is: get your expectations in check before doing the book signing.  And make sure you are fine with shelling out a bunch of dough and not getting a lot in return.  I’m not saying your signing won’t be a success, maybe it will be, and I hope it is.  But try not to expect it just in case it's not.  

There is one place I like doing signings: conventions.  But you have to make sure you are at the type of convention where a person would actually be interested in buying your book.  I did one last year at a conference for women and it was very successful.  The conference was all about supporting each other.  The woman in the stand next to me was pimping cupcakes with huge edible flowers on top that she made herself.  She did good as well.  Sometimes it just works. 

Now let’s shift the conversation a bit and talk about setting up.  I have a few rituals.  I always bring a tablecloth for the table.  After all, I am a woman.  It’s simple though, black and white.   I’m not into huge frills.  My books are the main attraction. 

On the table I have a basket which contains clear bags of candy.  The bags are wrapped with ribbon and my business card is attached.  These I give to anyone and everyone regardless of whether they buy my book.  I also have a metal cookbook stand with two of my books displayed (usually the two most recent books).  My books are stacked behind them, not too many, maybe five of each.  I reach under the table and replenish the supply when needed.  The metal stand looks like this:  

 

Next to the table is a giant metal easel.  On this I set the poster board I’ve made (see example at the top of the page).  This is what my first one looked like (without the easel and before I had more books to my name).  

Make sure you have more than one pen to sign your books with.  There's nothing quite like being properly prepared.  My favorite pen is a fine point Sharpie.  And always, no matter if they say their name is Bob, ask them how to spell it.  Or you'll end up with the one guy who spells Bob: Bobb or Bahb.  Trust me on this. 

*

Now, as to how many books to take with you and what your price point should be, first consider the venue itself and how many people are expected.  If it's a bookstore, they should be able to give you general idea of what to expect.  For a smaller venue, I like to have twenty-five copies of each of my books.  I also keep a clipboard handy so if I sell out, I can get the name and an address of the person I need to send the book to. 

Anyone who buys my book(s) also receives a bookmark and a keychain (if I have a bunch of them handy). 

 

As to how I group my books together, I sell them as singles for the price on the back of the book which, right now, is $12.99, BUT I also box some sets together since I have one series right now, and another one I'm starting in 2013.  I’ll put three together in the series and charge less, maybe $30.00.  They get a deal, I move more books. 

If you are tight on funds, and the venue is small, don’t worry so much about taking so many.  Maybe start with fifteen or twenty.  If you are only promoting one specific book, I’d say fifty or so for a medium-sized signing.  You have the rest of your life to use them for promotions, giveaways, or even to sell them.  Fancy that. 

I usually drag my husband along with me when I can because he makes me sound like the most talented person in the world, and since I tend to be fairly introverted when it comes to people I don't know, his outgoing nature comes in handy.

Now go move some books :)

Writing to Infinity...and Beyond!

 

When I started writing my first novel a few years ago, I was determined to publish the traditional way.  But I didn’t know anything about anything.  I only knew how to write and what was relevant in my own genre.  I started a blog and interviewed several famous authors, asking what advice they would give to an aspiring writer.  One of the authors I interviewed had indie published with huge success, and after twisting my arm a bit, she convinced me to indie publish my first novel.  I literally read every post on J.A. Konrath’s blog (A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing) to get me up to speed and then took the plunge.   And I’ve never looked back.

When you’re first getting your feet wet, the best thing you can do for yourself is this: be the sponge.  Soak up every bit of knowledge and information you can from successful indie authors who have gone before you.  You need to understand what you’re getting yourself into and decide whether you have the time to be so much more than a writer, because you’ll have to be your own publicist too.  Here are a few things that worked for me:

Indie Writers Unite

I didn’t know many authors in the beginning so I created the Facebook group Indie Writers Unite.  I wanted a place where authors could get together to exchange ideas, questions, and information with each other while getting to know one another in the process.  This has been the best thing I’ve done for myself.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it.  Some of the friends I’ve made on there have become like family to me. 

My suggestion is to seek out groups like this, join, and get involved.  Get to know your fellow authors.  Believe me when I say, it IS who you know in the book business, and having great author friends to hold your hand when you’re just getting started could mean the difference between a book that’s ranked 200,000 or 2,000.  Knowledge is power.

Blog, Tweet, Hang Out and Hustle with your Friends

Blog

I have two blogs, one for readers, one for writers.  I keep them separate because my readers aren’t really interested in all my tips for writers, and they aren’t coming to my blog for posts like that either.     

I started the writer blog first.  While I was writing my first novel, I spent a lot of time learning about writing.  I read everything I could get my hands on, attended seminars, paid attention to what other writers were doing that worked for them.  I wanted to share all the information I’d learned, and a blog was a great way to do it. 

I suggest starting a blog if you haven’t already, but you need to also figure out ways to drive traffic to it, or no one will see your posts.  Interviewing successful authors helped me because once the post went live, the author tweeted about it and shared it, and this attracted attention to my blog as well as new followers.  Don’t be afraid to ask a best-selling author to do a guest spot on your site.  Most times, they are grateful you asked and won’t turn you down. 

Once you get your blog going, get creative with it.  I recently started a monthly contest called “Chapter One” where I look over fifty first chapters, choose the one I feel is the best, and then I interview the winner and tweet about them.  I also offer an Amazon gift card to the winner.  It’s one way I can give back.  And I love it.  Making new author friends is one of the best things you can do for yourself when it comes to promotion. 

I started my reader blog after getting a bunch of emails from impatient fans anxious to get their hands on my next book.  I really loved their enthusiasm for my writing and their interest in getting to know me better, so I created a blog where I could write about random things that happen in my life.  It’s fun and keeps them connected to me while they are waiting for my next book to come out.

Tweet

I’ve had so many authors ask me this: What’s the best thing you’ve ever done to promote yourself?  In the internet world, it would be Twitter.   I have a few rules I follow with Twitter.  One is not to spend all my time pimping my books and instead to interact with my followers.  I make exceptions to this rule only when I have a promotion going, like a free or discounted book, and let me tell you, Twitter really gets the word out.  But you need followers in order to do that. 

I follow most people back who follow me and do my best to respond to anyone who tweets me directly or RT’s one of my tweets.  I had a promotion going the other day and tweeted it several times.  Over the course of the promotion, it was retweeted about 100 times, and I tried to personally thank all the people who took the time to RT my tweet.  Why is this important?  Because it shows you care.  When someone does something to help you out, they deserve to be recognized for their efforts in a personal way.  Think about it.  I tweeted to all my followers, who retweeted to all their followers, and so on and so forth.  It definitely makes a difference in getting your name and your brand out there until you become someone like Stephen King who only needs to write ;).

Hustle

I’m a multitasker who likes to have several irons in the fire at the same time.  I try to keep an ear latched to the writing world so I know things like when an excellent website is opening for promotions, or when a blog tour is starting that I want to participate in.  Speaking of blog tours, I usually run two every year on Indie Writers Unite.  Blog tours are excellent ways to introduce new readers to who you are.  I have sent signed books to winners who have gone on to give me five-star reviews because they liked my books.  For me, right now, they’re worth it.

Being a writer takes time.  Newbies are often overwhelmed when they realize how much work it really takes to keep your books moving, but you need to ask yourself what your goals are as a writer.  You probably started writing because of your passion for words.  Don’t you want to share that passion with the rest of the world?  I imagine you do.  With the right tools, a good book, and a lot of dedication, you can achieve great success as an indie writer.  Best of luck to you all!