The Underrated Authors Project 2013 discussion

The face of publishing is different. Authors are taking the publicity side of it into their hands more.

Why don't we all share some techniques that we've come across over time in trying to get our names out there. Did doing a free KDP select campaign work for you? Did you win a competition and suddenly start getting more reviews? Have you published in a literary magazine and found that experience useful?
Lets help each other out!

Great topic! It wasn't until I took a direct role in my own advertising that my novel, Zero Point finally began to receive some notice; even after becoming a finalist in a writers competition.

After the competition in October 2012, and a lot of hesitancy, I took the plunge into the KDP Select program. Before that, I was averaging 6-10 Kindle downloads a month and a Kindle sales ranking of about 427,000-700,000. I also had a mere seven reviews.

Then the two day give-away began and at its end, I had a staggering 11,800 downloads and wound up on Kindle's top 20 free list right beside Dan Brown on the paid list. Pretty cool, but what followed was better. I had listed my up-coming give-away with many free online sights which aided in the amount of downloads. Below is a great list of sites and their links.

http://thewritingbomb.blogspot.ca/201...

After the promo, I saw a marked increase in sales. Afterglow? Not sure?
158 sold and loaned in Jan.
182 sold and loaned in Feb.
143 sold and loaned to date in March
My average ranking in sales is now between 4,600 and 13,000
I'm also up to 24 reviews on Kindle which I feel is important to influence readers to purchase your work. Hey! It's not NYT best seller status, but it will help defray future advertising costs.

The bottom line for my experience was, I couldn't depend on the KDP Select Promo alone. I believe the extra advertising helped.

I may do it again when it comes time to release my sequel.

Tim wrote: "Great topic! It wasn't until I took a direct role in my own advertising that my novel, Zero Point finally began to receive some notice; even after becoming a finalist in a writers competition.

Aft..."
Thank you for sharing. My sales have been pretty sluggish, and I've looked into KDP Select, but was unsure if it would help. I might give it a try.

My biggest fear was, Oh gosh! I'm giving away SO many books, but considering Kindles are selling by the thousands each month, I won't run out of new readers real soon.:-) Plus, from some of the reviews I received, I have gained new readers that WILL buy my next book. I think it was worth the try. Good luck, and be sure to advertise it. :-)

I've given away far more books than I've sold :) For me, right now, it's more about building my name and reputation. I'm finally doing something I have always loved to do (writing, that is, not marketing), and if I ever make a little of my investment back, so much the better. If not, then I've still succeeded, for I've followed my dream.

I have been careful with my giveaways. I have done two on GoodReads and a couple on Blogsites with lots of followers. I am concentrating on getting my name and book known anywhere I can. In addition to the traditional book signings and book stores, I have contacted local book clubs, read to school children, newspaper articles, emails, and pass out our books promo card to anybody I talk to. We have also done some craft/art fairs which have generated pretty good sales.
I wrote my book to connect with people so I am having a ton of fun. Making some money is good too because I want to write a second book.

There's some some great posts going on here! I'll def try some of those links in the future!

I work for a literary magazine and I've been mainly doing the advertising with it. It's small, so trying to get the name out is my main thing at the moment. We've set up a whiteboard with all the places we want to contact about stocking the magazine- retailers, hotels, libraries etc. Don't just send copies out to people and hope that they'll look at it, usually that will be a waste.

What we're going to try and do is contact individual book stores, offer to send a complimentary issue, talk to their managers etc. The internet is good and all that, but getting it physically in stores is our aim.

Getting good online reviews is also very important. Still trying to crack that ourselves. Might also be worth contacting local newspapers, telling them about your book and offering a complimentary copy if they'd want to write a review about it. Then if they do, you'd obviously want to keep a copy of it, perhaps post it on your blog or something.

Things like competitions do tend to generate some publicity, so it might be useful to get involved with some.

I have also found facebook has a much more responsive audience than twitter does. Also- if you want to send out the link to your book, track how many clicks they get through using bitly.

Just a couple of things I've learnt since working here :)
Jess

One thing I did to help with my local exposure was to host a benefit book signing. I chose a charitable organization that related somewhat to the plot line of my novel and literally gave my books away for a donation. I don't know if it'll help my sales any, but I did gain some free publicity, made some new contacts, and helped build my presence on the local level.

What great ideas! I especially like yours, L.G. Doing something to help others brings a warm glow to people's hearts -- and they'll remember you warmly.

For me, belonging to groups is a big help. I recently renewed contact with my high school classmates, whom I haven't seen for years, and they've suggested places to contact about book signings or carrying my books. I've reached out to old karate buddies, some of whom have bought Elegy: The Black Diamond. And I always make sure I include the name of my upcoming book, A Sprig of Adventure, for those looking for something a little lighter.

My reviews on Amazon are all by people I know. Some friends have bought directly from me (I always have a box of about 10 in my car). I ask them directly for reviews, but Amazon requires that you buy something before you can review (it doesn't have to be a book; you just have to be a customer, and if you have a customer account, that may count; I'm not sure).

For those folks who are not Amazon customers, I ask if they'll write something up anyway, then send it to me. I add all or part of each review to my Facebook newsfeed, and I'll be adding them to my web site, as well.

I April I'll attend Pikes Peak Writers Conference. Since I'm not a speaker this year, I don't think I can get my books in the conference library, but I have friends there who may be willing to buy directly from me. In fact, I'm sure at least a couple of them will, since I'm also a volunteer moderator for various sessions.

In May I'll be speaking at a small town's Career Day in their middle school, as I did last year. It gets my name out there, even if my first book isn't really aimed at that audience.

In October, I'll present (as usual) at a local literary festival, and I'll be able to sell books at my writers group table there, too.

Anything you can do, or think of, or attend that will get you in front of people is good. You can always find a way to work your book into a conversation!

For me, I make sure to mention that the fight scenes are based on 18 years of studying RyuTe Karate and a 5th-degree black belt. If you have a particular expertise, be sure to bring it up (in conjunction with your books) whenever you get a chance.

Hope this is helpful.

I have mixed feelings about about the KDP Select programme which a book needs to be enrolled for before it can be made free for five days.

The KDP Select is Amazon's push towards a monopoly, using a mix of rewards and penalties to get authors to grant exclusivity. I'm not putting all my books into KDP Select because I don't like monopolies and I value my independence.

I've experimented with KDP Select, enrolling one book or another for three months, to see what would happen. Sales didn't increase significantly, although there were a few loans. The option to make a book free for five days offers an interesting promotional strategy, although it worries me that Amazon allows this only for books that support the monopoly.

The five days free-books promo sometimes resulted in a lot of free downloads (11,000 in the case of the anthology Haunted: Ten Tales of Ghosts, and even more with my dark epic fantasy novel Storm Dancer), but this doesn't mean all 11,000 read the book. Many people download anything that's free and have hundreds of books on their Kindle which they never get round to reading.

The best results with the five days free-book promo was when I made one of the Six Scary Tales books free. For a month afterwards, the other Six Scary Tales books showed increased sales. Whether or not that was worth removing the book from Kobo, Barnes&Noble, iTunes and Smashwords, is another question.

Since Amazon is reducing the impact of free downloads in the algorithms more and more, the five free days are no longer the effective promotional tool they once were anyway.

What are your thoughts and experiences?

Rayne wrote: "I have mixed feelings about about the KDP Select programme which a book needs to be enrolled for before it can be made free for five days.

The KDP Select is Amazon's push towards a monopoly, usin..."

I have tried KDP Select on two of my works and I won't be using it again. Few sales followed the free download of my serial novella (part one), and I never did a free promotion with my novel because I put too much work into it to hand it out indiscriminately. With the novel, I was wanting to capitalize on the borrows, but I never generated enough of those to justify the exclusivity of listing solely on Amazon.

Hmmm. Interesting feedback here. I haven't yet made a definite move toward KDP Select yet, for my first novel only since it's not available as an ebook anywhere else, though I'm still investigating the possibility. I'll keep reading other's comments here on their experiences while I ponder the choice.

I agree, and I did not select it. I prefer to use my digital marketing however I choose to- ePub or Mobi. I don't agree with their "exclusive" rights. In fact, I barely agree with their percent of the cut you get when you don't select it, so I hired a professional computer geek to create my digital files. I can sell them to whomever I choose and whenever I want.

Jason wrote: "Rayne wrote: "I have mixed feelings about about the KDP Select programme which a book needs to be enrolled for before it can be made free for five days.

The KDP Select is Amazon's push towards a ..."

A River Moves Forward