Authors, Writers, Publishers, and Book Readers

E- Book Promotion Days

Those of us in the independent sector of publishing will no doubt know that marketing a new book is akin to burning pound or dollar notes. You do all the promotion, you blog like mad, network like a social prostitute and throw money on great ideas, and all you get as a reward is one measly sale on Amazon.

But the other great thing you notice is that one measly sale makes a significant difference on your chart rating, promoting your book thousands of places up the scale. Many of us will know with the monolithic world of Amazon, that being at the top of your various genre charts is vital to the Mr and Mrs Bloggs of the world seeing your book and considering a purchase. But whilst you are dwindling in the realms of number 100 or even 1000 in the genre not even the most avid book searching geek is going to delve that far to find you.

This week I have attempted a bit of a promotion and it seemed to work in pushing my kindle book ( A Very English Revolution) to the front page of the Political Thriller chart, and that’s with only minimal additional sales (less than 10 I think). Maybe there is a chance that Bloggs will get his wallet out now.

This morning I thought of a great way for all of us to do something similar to help each other.

My idea is to promote our e-books as a collective. I have chosen e-books rather than paper copies because most of us sell e-books a much lower cost so it makes the exercise more viable than paper, although if it’s successful maybe we can consider paper as well.

Here’s the idea.

We create a list of interested authors who all possess a kindle. I can keep a register of interested parties or publish it somewhere, whatever we choose. Each author agrees a promotion day and the others share this on their blogs and social networks. When that day comes around each of us buy and download the book on the same day, therefore boosting that days sales ranking. If there are enough of us doing it then there is a chance of success.

Success breeds success, so if it works for one person then others will follow and each of us will have more of a chance to make front page heaven. Of course this does require trust in our fellow authors to do the deed, but what can I say? It’s an idea, if it works then we all win. You never know we might be downloading a great book we might otherwise totally bypass.

Interested to know what people think. Please share it around writer sites, as the more people are interested the more we can make this work. People can find me out in the virtual world but otherwise a mail at norristeve@gmail.com will engineer a direct response.

7 members like this

Comment by Steve Norris on January 3, 2012 at 4:15pm: Will do!

If Matt and Catherine are ready to go Friday we can't start with that. George and myself a few days later. CA and Stacy the following week. I haven't heard from C.A. I don't think so I need her to confirm she's on board. I have sent her PM but so far no response.

Comment by Stacy Eaton on January 3, 2012 at 5:14pm: Thanks Steve!

Comment by Amanda Chambers on January 3, 2012 at 5:33pm: So, the dates have changed? I'm good for whatever, I'm just confused.

Comment by Steve Norris on January 3, 2012 at 5:36pm: I want to start on Friday with the first promotion but need to know CA Lofton is with us as we haven't had a response.

Next a request was made to stagger the dates a bit and Stacy asked to be later in the month. I was just waiting for more feedback on the dates before confirming again.

If CA Lofton doesn't confirm by beginning of Thursday we will have to go ahead without her.

Comment by C. A. Lofton on January 3, 2012 at 7:38pm: I don't have a kindle yet but I have the Kindle app downloaded to my laptop and that should work fine. Also, I am going to add promo authors books to my wish list. Also the price of my e-book is $5.00. I lower the price down from the $7.99 as per your recent request.

Comment by Steve Norris on January 3, 2012 at 7:53pm: thanks CA

great to hear from you

Comment by Jeannie Faulkner Barber on January 3, 2012 at 8:12pm: Thanks, Steve for the invitation about the being included on the Kindle promo. What all is involved? Don't forget....I'm blonde...ha. Hope you had a blessed New Year celebration.

Comment by Steve Norris on January 3, 2012 at 11:05pm: Hi Jeannie - You need to post the book link on here and commit to buying the books of others on the list in the threads above. The purpose is to buy the books of a single author on a specific day therefore raising their visibility in the Amazon kindle charts for the appropriate genre. That way it increases the possibility of random buyers seeing the books.

We have produced a provisional schedule which I will update tomorrow

Comment by Catherine Green on January 4, 2012 at 12:03am: Hi Steve, I'm up to date and still good to go with the flow.

Comment by Amanda Chambers on January 4, 2012 at 2:36am: I'm enjoying the interview responses, and I'm sure my readers will, too.

A couple of things:

Be sure to include your name in your email.

If you want me to actually link to your site, Facebook page, Twitter, etc, please include the URLs. Links are not required, but people are more inclined to click than to go look something up.