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 Kay Elizabeth on October 6, 2011 at 4:42am: Wow, I'm impressed how you've got it all worked out so smoothly! What a team effort and a brilliant idea, Steve. :) Guys, I'm sorry I can't commit to this. My hubby's ill and had to stop work so in all honesty money's tight, much as I would have loved to have read them. I'll help promote your efforts for you if I see the chance though.

Right now I'm not updating my own site much as I have little time for anything apart from work and my husband or I'd have added the reviews there for you. I wanted to remind you all there's a Book Reviews Group here that you can all add your reviews to as well as at Amazon. It currently has 49 members and counting. Good luck!

Comment by Nevada Drake on October 6, 2011 at 7:21am: So, I could purchase and download one of the books to my computer, but what if I want to read it on my smartphone while away from home? I don't know the first thing about products like Kindle, except that they are there and everyone wants one. I have a desktop, laptop, and smart phone. Do I really need a kindle?

Comment by Steve Norris on October 6, 2011 at 7:52am: Nevada, if you use the same account then you can access your books on each gadget.

In reply to your second point. I'm not marketing kindles, I'm marketing books. I'm just trying to work out a way for us to help ourselves to increase sales relatively cheaply. e-book sales are important to a writer's profile as much as paper copies and this is a way to do it without costing the earth with cheap kindle book prices.

Kay I'm sorry to hear your husband is ill and thanks for the links

Comment by Nevada Drake on October 6, 2011 at 8:43am: I'm just a bit confused. It's difficult to keep up with the quickly changing trends.

Comment by Stacy Eaton on October 6, 2011 at 12:34pm: Nevada - I hear you on that... The trends change so quickly. In response to your question above about if you really need a kindle... the answer is no. Any of those devices that you have, have the software download for Kindle. You would merely download the kindle application for your smartphone, whether it is a Iphone or a Droid or whatever and then your books would be right there. Or you could read them on your laptop or desktop after loading the software from Amazon for just that purpose. Amazon is trying to make it easy for everyone to have access to the kindle formatted books.

Kindle books are by far less expensive then paper printed books, that is why Steve came up with the idea. When we get 10 people how are serious about helping each other out - then we will proceed forward. But those 10 people need to commit to helping each other, promoting each other for a few days and buying the other 9 books.

Comment by Nevada Drake on October 6, 2011 at 1:15pm: Thanks. I appreciate the information. I'm not sure what Amazon's prices are like and having just moved, I'm strapped for cash. I'd love to say I can buy 10 books right now, but that won't be possible yet.

Comment by Stacy Eaton on October 6, 2011 at 1:19pm: Totally understand Nevada - I think most of our books are $0.99 to about $4.00 a piece.

Comment by Nevada Drake on October 6, 2011 at 1:25pm: Oooh, count me in!

Comment by Stacy Eaton on October 6, 2011 at 1:28pm: Ok - don't have to tell me twice!!

Steve Norris (Our main man here)

Stacy Eaton (yours truly)

George Stringfellow

C.A. Lofton

Catherine Green

J. Walker

Nevada Drake

We have 7 now - need just 3 more.