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 Matt T. Schott on January 9, 2012 at 11:53pm: When is the next book buy and can some one post the links? I thought it was today?

Comment by Amanda Chambers on January 10, 2012 at 12:52am: The next one is on the 13th.

Comment by Steve Norris on January 10, 2012 at 7:54am: These ones are due on Friday 13th

Steve Norris A Very English Revolution $2.40

http://www.amazon.com/A-Very-English-Revolution-ebook/dp/B004NIFT88...

George Stringfellow Renegades $3.33

http://www.amazon.com/Renegades-ebook/dp/B004ZLE8QC/ref=sr_1_1?s=bo...

Comment by Steve Norris on January 12, 2012 at 3:02pm: Are we all ready for tomorrows excitement? I'm lining up my blogs etc...

Steve Norris A Very English Revolution $2.40

http://www.amazon.com/A-Very-English-Revolution-ebook/dp/B004NIFT88...

George Stringfellow Renegades $3.33

http://www.amazon.com/Renegades-ebook/dp/B004ZLE8QC/ref=sr_1_1?s=bo...

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 12, 2012 at 3:38pm: Yes I am ready. I am enjoying Love Hurts and will be writing a review on Amazon.

Comment by Sarah Luddington on January 12, 2012 at 5:22pm: See, I knew I had to add something to my list of jobs for tomorrow!

Comment by George Stringfellow on January 12, 2012 at 5:47pm: I'm certainly ready and will be posting an announcement on Facebook for my writer friends who are not members of Authors. com. I'd like to thank Steve in advance for creating this promotional idea, and the rest of you who are participating in it.

Comment by George Stringfellow on January 13, 2012 at 1:26am: If you haven't already entered your e-book titles into Amazon's Kindle Select Lending Library, you might consider doing so. Check out this press release from Amazon.

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsA...

Comment by Steve Norris on January 13, 2012 at 9:54am: This morning my kindle rating number in Amazon.co.uk is #107,905 (not sold anything since New Year)

US ranking is #335,425. Lets see what we can do

Comment by Steve Norris on January 13, 2012 at 10:05am: twitter post

A Very English Revolution. Story of Modern Britain, incredible cocktail of religion, politics, crime, romance, drama, http://amzn.to/zKKWpC

Comment