Excitement Coming Soon?

Deviating from my usual topics here because we may be seeing a bit of excitement next week.  Hurricane Erika is on her way and the latest prediction showers the storm passing just off shore from our location.  Of course, that's still 4 days away and the predictions of storm plots can, and often do, change. 

The Results of My E-book Giveaway Promotion

Since I haven’t blogged in 3 weeks, this is long overdue.  All I can say is my “regular job,” as well as our volunteer work, has kept us busy.

So what happened with the e-book giveaway promotion?  That’s where we left off.  It was a bust for sales; did not sell a single copy from my promotional efforts.  The reason why was simple.  I didn’t promote my promotion, at least not well enough.  I posted to a handful of Facebook groups, as I had not yet even been accepted for membership to the list I found of places to promote.

However, I did improve my ranking by a fair amount.  It was not enough to bring about any sales.  As anal as I can be about details, I didn’t make note of my standings before I started, but I remember the numbers roughly. 

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: ~#360,000 Paid in Kindle Store

    ~#13,000 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Paranormal

    ~#38,000 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction

At the height of my giveaway, my stats looked like this.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,812 Free in Kindle Store (Note, this number is in the free category.)

    #181 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Paranormal

    #361 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction

And this is where I currently stand.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #198,020 Paid in Kindle Store

    #8135 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Paranormal

    #10218 in Books > Romance > Paranormal

    #25481 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction

I gave away 89 copies of Soul Searching, made no money, but raised my overall ranking by over 160,000 places.  Granted I’m still just shy of being in 200,000^th place, but that’s better than 360,000^th.  During the promotion, it was exciting to see my other numbers dip into the low three digits.  But that didn’t last long.  The morning after the promotion (which ended at midnight) the stats looked like this.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #199,602 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

    #8257 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Paranormal

    #10611 in Books > Romance > Paranormal

    #25407 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction.

Now keep in mind I didn’t sell any books from the promotion.  Since then, I have sold exactly 3, and have a couple of Kindle Unlimited users.  Even those 3 sales improved my stats.

What’s next?  I will be doing another giveaway, but only after I have done an organized promotion from a carefully crafted list.  The object is to rank high enough in popularity, that you will be as close as possible to the top of the list.  Then the effort becomes self replicating.  People who didn’t see the promos for the giveaway will see it when they go to “Free on Kindle” without scrolling too far.

The list.  Well, that’s coming.  But it has been a rather daunting task.  I’ll tell you why next time.

A quick addition.
When I wrote this just a few minutes ago, my stats were as I described them.  I just looked again and they had changed.  I lost ground.

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #212,182 Paid in Kindle Store

    #8511 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Paranormal

    #10723 in Books > Romance > Paranormal

    #26828 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction

That one single sale last night affected the numbers THAT much, at least temporarily.  It would seem that small changes in sales can have a surprising effect.

What have I learned about promoting my novel on Kindle?

OK, so what am I learning about promotion.  I’ve learned that it’s not just about giving an e-book away for a couple of days.  Without promotion, the effort will likely fall flat.  It may only generate a few downloads and little or nothing in the way of sales.

I’ve also learned that a lot of people have made a lot of lists on where and how to promote your e-book online.  Some are paid advertisements, others are free.  Some will allow you only to promote when your e-book is free, others will allow you to post when it’s reduced, and others allow free posting of a full priced e-book.

Some web sites require varying lead times, as much as 30 days.  Others request a week, and still others are “day of” only.

I also found a list of “Twitter Influencers”.  Looks like I will have to revive my Twitter account.

Many are Facebook groups.  Virtually all memberships require approval.  After 24 hours, about 50% have been joined as members.  The rest are still “Pending.”  I’m focusing on Facebook first since it’s the social network with which I’m most familiar. 

I might add that I found a great group on Facebook.  Promotion is forbidden, but they have a great group of people.

I’ll work on Twitter next.  That should just be a matter of Following a bunch of users, and hoping that they will follow me back.

Part of my process involves worksheets.  I have consolidated the lists that I found online and I’m in the process of putting them into a table, complete with my own notes.  The goal is to separate the free from the paid, and which I can only use for my free giveaway and those that will let me do general promotion.  If I don’t, any efforts will be haphazard.

Another thing I learned is not to talk about free book giveaways in the Amazon Author forums.  It’s a subject that starts flame wars among users. 

My free giveaway has been set to start at midnight (but I think that’s Pacific time) and End Friday.  I should know how well it worked on Saturday.

Marketing and Promotion on Kindle

Having conquered all of the technical aspects of Kindle, I will now begin tackling the marketing and promotion of my novel.  I’ll also be thinking about my next book to be uploaded entitled The Damsel and the Hermit.  Yeah, not very creative but it’s the best I could come up with and my wife likes it, soooo…  But I digress.  Marketing and Promotion.

My first order of business was to set up my Author Page on Amazon.  It was quick, easy, and fairly painless.

The next order of business will be to help move my novel’s listing by giving it away.  That may seem counter intuitive, but it is said to work.  Amazon places ebooks on their list according to the number of downloads.  It doesn’t matter if those downloads are at full price, reduced price, or free.  The more downloads you have, the higher on the list you appear.  But because of my inherent procrastinatory tendencies, I will put that off for a couple of days just to see if anyone stumbles across my novel all on their own.

Once my curiosity is satisfied, I will be offering my novel Soul Searching for free, and posting it to my Facebook page.

BTW, my Author Page can be found at http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B012LA0TE8
Its a little long and unwieldy, but I can change it to something that makes more sense.  But first I have to figure out what that could be.  My name in all of its variations is taken.

It's Done

It’s done.  My novel is uploaded.  All 72,450 words, cover art, description, keywords… the whole shebang.    Distribution… set.  Royalty options… set.  Price… set.   I clicked “Save and Publish” at about 9:45 last evening.

The status was given as:  Now in Review and should be available within 72 hours.  

Within a few minutes the status changed to: Now Publishing. Again there was the promise of 72 hour availability.  I was loving that fact that at that time I still didn’t have a product link so there was nothing more I could do.  A procrastinator’s dream.

Some time around 11 pm it went live.  I had a link and I could see it as Kindle Shoppers see it.  I immediately saw that I would have to edit my html in the description.  I added a line break unbeknownst to me that Kindle would add one as well underneath my headline.  It really blows the flow.  But that’s not a problem, I needed to go back in and register for KDP Select as well, but I don’t want to do that until the ad looks just right.

It’s was also available to the Kindle search at that time.  I typed in Soul Searching and it comes in third with several more underneath it.  I’ll have to play with keywords later and see how it ranks.

At around 11:15 I noticed the status was: Live – Updates Publishing.  But I couldn’t get in to edit that pesky html error.

It was a little past midnight, and I still couldn’t edit anything.  That was probably a good thing as it might have inspired me to stay up later.

When I woke up this morning, it was all there and available for editing.  It only took a few moments to make my corrections to the html coding in the description and enroll in KDP Select, then a few minute for the changes to appear on the page.  I’m in business.

So here it is on Kindle; my first novel. Soul Searching.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B012JO8E98?*Version*=1&*entries*=0

So I guess my next step will be promotion.  But I kind of want to see how many, if any, people stumble across it in the next day or so.  Maybe that is procrastination, but I'm curious to see if anyone  will see it among the millions of other ebooks on Kindle.

Today I will be studying the ins and outs of KDP Select. 

Fear

At the end of the last post I mentioned that things were getting a little frightening.  I don't know about other first time Kindle publishers, but I would hazard a guess that many experience this angst.  Very few outside my immediate family, my actual household, and a few close friends know this is happening.  To those who know, I'm guarded.  "Maybe I can sell a few copies," I say, tipping my head from side to side with a forced smile. 

Inwardly is a different story.  I wonder if I'll hit pay dirt.  Maybe I'll be an overnight success.  Fame and fortune will be mine.  My family will never again be in want of anything.  I don't even care if its not overnight; if it takes a month that will be fine. 

But going deeper is a more dispiriting thought.  What if NOBODY wants to read it?  As Marty McFly said in Back to the Future: "What if they say 'Get outta here kid, you're no good.'?"  It's a scary feeling.

It's getting scarier because there are few things between me and hitting that "Publish" button.  The time is drawing near.  It might even be tonight.  In the winter, I drink coffee morning noon and night with a few colas in between.  In the summer, I tend to drink coffee only in the morning, and colas until bedtime.  Tonight, I'm thinking coffee.  Its a "project drink."  Something you drink as you work to keep your edge sharp.  Or perhaps beer would be in order.

Inspiration and Procrastination: My Kindle Project

The previous post is why I have 3 completed novels.  Every time I would finish a novel and start to even think about searching for an agent, I would get inspired with another story.  "I can't waste my time looking for an agent today.  I'm really hot on this new novel.  I probably wouldn't find an agent anyway."

As a champion procrastinator, the first rule of procrastination when faced with an unpleasant task is to find something more important to do.  Since inspiration has no schedule, you must strike when the iron is hot.

That is not to say that, I haven't procrastinated a bit since I first began exploring the Kindle option.  At the present time, I have ideas for 5 more novels in various stages of notes.  In the last week or so I have become very inspired to write other things, but I am forcing myself to focus on Soul Searching.

I have the cover art.  That was a huge stumbling block.  I have finally sorted out the royalty option choices.  I know what format it needs to be in prior to uploading.  When the final proofread and corrections are complete, the file will be ready for upload.  But there was more more thing to agonize over.  The description.

The description isn't just something to go and fill in.  You don't just sum up your novel in the text box with no prior thought and move along.  The description is what will make people either click the button to download or keep searching.  I find that daunting, especially after searching the internet for tips.  "Write in the style of your genre," says one.  "It will drive your English teacher crazy but don't use complete sentences," says another. 

Today, inspiration struck for my description.  I'm still fine tuning it, but I'm sure I'll have it ready before the final draft is complete.

All I can say is "soon."  Which is actually a little frightening.  More on that later...