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 Stacy Eaton on January 5, 2012 at 6:12pm: Probably the exchange rate - I didn't think about that.

Comment by Catherine Green on January 5, 2012 at 11:20pm: Got it, and I've written it on my calendar to remind me. Oh, and it's my birthday 22nd Jan, the big 30!

Comment by Stacy Eaton on January 6, 2012 at 1:08am: Man - to be 30 again!

Comment by Steve Norris on January 6, 2012 at 8:21pm: Right so we are on the eve of the 7th.

Tomorrow all those involved in the promotion should purchase the following books

Catherine Green Love Hurts $2.40

http://www.amazon.com/Love-Hurts-Catherine-Green/dp/1908200243/ref=...

Matt.T.Schott $1.48

http://www.amazon.com/Skyler-Earth-Defense-Force-ebook/dp/B004SI4AR...

It would be nice Matt and Catherine if you could record your rating where you start from at the start of the day and where you end up by Sunday, just to see if it works.

Also it would be nice if we all promote on twitter and facebook etc so we can support Matt and Catherine as much as possible

Hope it goes well. Any other suggestions please post.

Good Luck

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 6, 2012 at 9:24pm: I will post my rankings first thing in the morning. The price of Lord Skyler and The Earth Defense Force is $2.50, the short story was $1.48.

Comment by Stacy Eaton on January 6, 2012 at 9:34pm: Can Catherine and Steve please make up a tweet they would like us to use with their screen name on it and a shortened link so it is under 140 characters - that would be great help!

Comment by Steve Norris on January 6, 2012 at 9:44pm: Matt you mean, not my book tomorrow :)

Comment by Stacy Eaton on January 6, 2012 at 9:45pm: yes - thank you for that correction

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 6, 2012 at 10:01pm: My twitter account is @matttschott lets follow each other.

When I advertise on twitter I sometimes use this,

"Award Winning Space Adventure with non-stop Action"