As most self-published authors learn a few months after they have nudged their literary child out of the nest to flutter its way into the Kindle world, sales don't come easy. A great deal of time and effort, perhaps even more than was put into writing the book itself, must be put into marketing the book. It would be nice if all you needed was a good product, and then people would be attracted to it like a BBQ stand in Texas, just by the scent of a delicious new story. Unfortunately, the internet is not scratch and sniff.
I have spent about 20.00 advertising my FB author page (you can see it here) but saw no sales and very few likes for my money.
I published my Christian Sci-Fi story, "The Amazing Adventures of Toby the Trilby" in November of 2013.
I worked very hard to get good reviews from friends and strangers and list it for free anywhere I could. Currently, I have 13 4 and 5 star reviews on Amazon. (You can read them here)
So where to list it? I currently have the book for 99 cents, in hopes that people will read the first one and want the sequel (You can find it here)
I found a good list of places at this link and began researching them to find the best places.
Most of them are pretty pricey. I also went to Fiverr and found a few gigs that advertised putting Kindle books on their blogs or FB pages, or they would do the work and submit your book for you. Here is the list of gigs I have tried so far:
http://www.fiverr.com/authorbookbuzz
http://www.fiverr.com/ryuken
http://www.fiverr.com/bknights
So far, I have only seen results from bknights, and I only sold two copies during their promotion. I am not saying they didn't do a good job, I'm sure other people have had better results depending on genre. Just saying what worked for me.
But there is one place I had spectacular results, and that was eReader News Today. (website here) In order to list with them, you have to have at least 10 ratings on Amazon and at least 4.0. They charge you a small percentage of sales made on the day your book is listed, but they are only paid if you make sales. I made 56 sales with them in two days during my promotional period, which was spectacular for me! They also promote free Kindle books as well.
I have heard from other authors that https://www.bookbub.com/ and http://www.bookgorilla.com/ are good places to promote as well, but so far, though they made sales, I haven't talked to anyone that made back the 40.00 to 300.00 it costs to list with these sites.
I have spent about 20.00 advertising my FB author page (you can see it here) but saw no sales and very few likes for my money.
Do you have any experiences to share about book marketing web sites? A great gig on Fiverr or a free Facebook page worth listing on? I'd love to hear about it, after all, we are here to help each other!
A lot of indies on the Writer's Cafe at kboards.com say that a newsletter is the single biggest way to sell books. Period. Get one at Mailchimp or somewhere, and link it in your book's back matter.
ReplyDeleteThe second thing is to write a series.
The third thing is just to write more books, period. Every book you write, particularly in a series, will give the others a bit of a sales bump. And most authors don't start seeing much of a profit until they have ten books out (or more), depending on the genre of choice.