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 Sarah Luddington on January 17, 2012 at 3:06pm: I live abut 100 miles from where Catherine placed Redcliffe, it's one of the reasons I loved the book so much, she's nailed Cornwall.

Stacy - thanks for the retweet and tagging and buying and EVERYTHING. You to Matt, and lets not forget Steve... Feel the internet love (hippy alert)

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 17, 2012 at 3:08pm: Catherine my review of "Love Hurts" on Amazon will have to wait until my daughter gets home from school. I brought it on her kindle on her account so I have to write the review in her account.

Comment by Sarah Luddington on January 17, 2012 at 4:26pm: Fellow and doubtless more experienced Tweeters - I've just received a very odd personal message that doesn't make any sense.

Someone wants me to follow a link because he says I'm being talked about in a Bad Way - all a bit playground for me frankly, but does this happen on Twitter?

Comment by Steve Norris on January 17, 2012 at 4:27pm: it's spam message on some breached accounts. ignore it

Comment by Stacy Eaton on January 17, 2012 at 4:33pm: Sarah - you will get alot of those - report them as spam and block the account if you don't know the person.

Comment by Sarah Luddington on January 17, 2012 at 4:36pm: Doh! Cheers. Didn't think I could have upset anyone just yet! LOL

Comment by George Stringfellow on January 17, 2012 at 4:43pm: Bought it. Got it. Hope you sell a lot of copies. Another title that looks really interesting. It'll take me a good year to get through everyone's book but the reading will be a pleasure.

Comment by Sarah Luddington on January 17, 2012 at 4:48pm: Thanks George. Really kind of you.

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 17, 2012 at 5:00pm: I just got that spam thing to about someone saying something bad about me. It was from J.F Lorens