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 Catherine Green on January 7, 2012 at 3:12pm: Thanks guys! I purchased Matt's book earlier today, and am just about to do my round of tweeting and promoting.

Comment by George Stringfellow on January 7, 2012 at 4:37pm: Just purchased Matt and Catherine's books. There's nothing like starting out the New Year with a couple of good books.

Comment by Stacy Eaton on January 7, 2012 at 4:41pm: George I agree. Funny... I just looked at the rankings on the books - Catherine's here in teh US has gone the complete opposite direction and Matt's hasn't moved.... Very strange.....

Comment by Steve Norris on January 7, 2012 at 4:42pm: It does take a few hours to change I think...hope...

Comment by Steve Norris on January 7, 2012 at 4:43pm

Catherine's Uk Ranking so far

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #6,333 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

#82 in Books > Fantasy > Paranormal

Comment by Steve Norris on January 7, 2012 at 4:45pm

Matt's UK Ranking

Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #7,992 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

#40 in Books > Fiction > Science Fiction > Military
#77 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Science Fiction > Adventure
#92 in Books > Fiction > Science Fiction > Adventure

Comment by Stacy Eaton on January 7, 2012 at 4:50pm: That is awesome guys!!!!!

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 7, 2012 at 4:55pm: I'm interested in seeing the lag time in sales. My ranking this morning (5:20) in the U.S. was 517,484 and its now (10:53) 517,314. I've average a 4,000 drop in rankings every day or 4,000 more away from #1.

Comment by Catherine Green on January 7, 2012 at 5:09pm: WOW! I am so excited! Have literally just checked my ranking and was amazed to see it is #6,930 - that's the best result I've had yet (apart from what Steve saw half an hour ago!)