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 Stacy Eaton on January 7, 2012 at 9:34pm: That is awesome Matt!!!!

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 8, 2012 at 12:20am: My ranking is starting to go the other away now. Its just over 40,000 at 6:15. I will be writing a review for Love Hurts as soon as I'm done reading it.

Comment by Catherine Green on January 8, 2012 at 2:37pm: I have just checked my rating again and although it has dropped to #18,759, that is still pretty damn good, so I think we will see some lasting effects of our promotions.

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 8, 2012 at 3:24pm: My rating hasn't locked in for the 7th but it's at 92,939. I think it peaked at 32,047 around 3:00 p.m. and it started at 517,665 at 5:30 a.m. I haven't seen any change in my sales and I think it will be up to 4 to 6 more weeks until I do. I will keep you all informed.

Catherine I am on chapter 9 and loving it.

Comment by Catherine Green on January 8, 2012 at 4:17pm: Blimey, I'd better pull my finger out Matt! I stupidly picked up a paperback to read the other day, and now I must finish that before I read anything else. Silly girl! Never mind, it won't take me long.

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 8, 2012 at 8:38pm: No hurries no worries,

Comment by Amanda Chambers on January 9, 2012 at 2:41am: Catherine, I had one Twitter follower reply that they liked the interview and would be checking out the book.

Comment by Stacy Eaton on January 9, 2012 at 1:11pm: Catherine - Matt - So... did you see a nice increase in your sales? Are your sales keeping up or did they go back down? Do you want to tell us how many books you sold during your day?

Comment by Matt T. Schott on January 9, 2012 at 7:18pm: I had 3 sales U.S. and 3 Sales U.K. In the past 7 months I've average between 1 and 2 books a month.

Comment by Catherine Green on January 9, 2012 at 11:44pm: That's great news Amanda, thank you!

Stacy - I have just checked on Amazon, and while my ratings have dropped slightly, they are still higher than they were on Friday so we are looking good. I don't know how many books I sold at the moment but I will check.

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