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Category Archives: Marketing

Giving Kindle Scout a Try

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Are you curious about my new novel?  Do you want to see what the cover looks like?  Read the first few pages?  Well, today’s your lucky day, because you can do all of that and help me out at the same time.

I’ve entered The Prophet of Marathon into the Kindle Scout program, and my campaign went live this morning.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with Kindle Scout, Amazon describes it as “a place where readers help decide if a book gets published.”  For each book that’s entered, they post the cover, a short description, and an excerpt from the manuscript, and they invite readers to nominate the books that they would like to see published. 

At the end of the thirty-day campaign, they give you a decision one way or another.  Amazon never spells out, precisely, their selection criteria.  Clearly, the amount of traffic that the book generates plays a role, but it appears that just getting the most nominations doesn’t guarantee you a publishing contract.  My guess is that you need to attract enough interest to get the editors’ attention, and then you’ll at least have a shot.

I would love nothing more than to see what Amazon’s marketing muscle could do with this book, so I’m giving it a try.

You can nominate me here.

If you like what you see,  tell a friend (or, more optimally, all your friends). Many thanks!

Summer Sale!

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Last September, I put the e-book version of Peripheral Involvement on sale for $0.99 for a limited time and ran a few advertisements.  The resulting sales boost (briefly) took it into the top 2,000 on the Kindle Best Seller list and the top 50 in Amazon’s Mystery, Thriller & Suspense subcategory for Literary Fiction.  Those rankings didn’t last, but it was a fun little experiment.

Now, as I’m slogging through the slow process of trying to find an agent for The Prophet of Marathon, I feel like I could use a dose of fun.  So, once again, I’m lowering the price of the e-book version of Peripheral Involvement. For the next week, it’ll be $0.99 on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Google, Apple and Smashwords.  If you’ve thought about taking a chance on it but haven’t pulled the trigger yet, now’s the time.

 

Movin’ on Up!

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So, I awoke this morning to find that Peripheral Involvement was ranked #3,138 on the Kindle Best Seller list, and #55 in the Mystery, Thriller & Suspense subcategory for Literary Fiction!  It’s the first time I’ve ever cracked the top 100 in a subcategory, so I’m pretty excited!

Yesterday marked my best day of sales to date.  Today, I’m featured on Kindle Books & Tips, Booktastik and Booksends.  Hope to keep it rolling!

 

Back to School Special!

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If you recall, some months ago, I said that I hoped to finish the first draft of my second novel by the end of the summer.  Since I turned on my TV last night and saw a college football game, it seems like that time has come (although, in our house, summer won’t officially end until the kids go back to school next Thursday).  At any rate, I didn’t quite meet my goal – I’m up to about 85,000 words and the end is in sight, but more work needs to be done.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

Meanwhile, in celebration of fall’s arrival, I’m putting Peripheral Involvement on sale.  For the next two weeks, you can get the e-book version for just $0.99.  That price will apply across all platforms – Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Google, Smashwords – wherever you can find the e-book, it’ll be $0.99.  If you’ve already read it (many thanks for that, by the way), this is the perfect time to recommend it to a friend.

Enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

Back to Regularly Scheduled Programming (for a moment, anyway)

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Oh… you though that I’d turned this into a full-time soccer blog?  Well, I suppose I can’t blame you for that.  It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted on anything other than the World Cup, and now that we’re getting to the knockout rounds (with the U.S.A still alive, no less), I don’t imagine I’ll be shutting up about it any time soon.  Probably not the best way to build my “brand” or my “platform,” or whatever else I”m supposed to be doing with this website, but sometimes you need to have a little fun.  I hope my readers will forgive me for indulging in this passion project for a little while longer.

My head may still be in Brazil, but the publishing business doesn’t pause for the World Cup, and Peripheral Involvement continues to make its way in the world.  I’m happy to report that it continues to sell, certainly not in any kind of earth-shattering numbers, but enough to make me feel like I’m slowly finding my audience.  Reviews continue to trickle in (we’re up to seven on Amazon, and three on Goodreads), and they’ve been very encouraging.

When I first released it, I made the decision to sell the e-book version exclusively on Amazon.  There are a couple of benefits that come with that, namely the ability to offer your book for free for a limited number of days, and the ability to run “Kindle Countdown” deals, where the e-book is offered at a discounted price for a limited time.  I don’t ever see myself giving my work away for free, on principle, but I was intrigued by the idea of the Countdown promotions.

Author blogs and forums are full of opinions an the usefulness of Amazon’s free/discount tools.  There are plenty who swear by free promotions, saying that it generates exposure and reviews which lead to bigger sales after the free promotion ends.  Others scoff at them, and point out that every book you give away is one less that you’ll sell.  Similarly, some have sold thousands of copies during Kindle Countdowns, while for others it turned out to be a damp squib.

My (very broad) takeaway from the experiences that others have shared is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to any of this.  It depends on whether or not an author already has an audience, whether or not they have multiple books on offer, and whether they’re able to combine their price promotions with advertising tools that let readers know what’s going on.  Dropping your price by 60% won’t get you very far if no one hears about it.

At this point, when I’ve still only got one book out there and I’m trying to attract new readers from scratch, I think that the benefits of making my work available on as many platforms as possible outweigh anything that I would get by remaining exclusively on Kindle.  So, once my agreement with Amazon expires on June 30, I’m going to make the e-book version of Peripheral Involvement available on Nook, Kobo, Smashwords and elsewhere.  It should start popping up all over the place next week (and, just to be clear, it will continue to be available on Kindle, just as before – it just won’t be only on Kindle).

Finally, on the contest front, a couple of months ago I entered Peripheral Involvement into Kindle Book Review’s 2014 Best Kindle Book Awards, and I understand that they’ll be announcing their semi-finalists on July 1.  Of course, I will let you know how it goes.  You’ll just have to wade through my thoughts on the U.S.A – Belgium game to find out.

An interview, a reading and a contest

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Promoting a book is challenging, but it’s also a lot of fun.  Over the course of the last week, I’ve done some pretty cool stuff:

First, I did an interview with Jeralyn Lash-Sands for her blog, Jeralyn Writes.  I really enjoyed answering her questions.  Many thanks, Jeralyn, for your interest in me and my book!

Then, I did a reading from Peripheral Involvement as part of the Audio Series on The Next Best Book Blog.  I’ve always had this fantasy of being on the radio or doing voice-overs, so it was really fun to record myself (although it took a few tries to get it right).  I love the idea of people being able to hear my words in my voice.

Finally, I found out last week that I made it to the second round of Amazon’s Breathrough Novel Award contest.  My entry there was a matter of lucky timing, as I had just finished finalizing the book for publication when the contest opened.  They announce the quarter-finalists on April 14, so I’ve got my fingers crossed.  I will, of course, let you know how it goes.