BOOK PROMOTION

Okay, so you've written your book, you've formatted it for Kindle. You've proofed the stuffing out of the thing and put it up on KDP.

The book's live—you can visit the catalog page on the Web.

Now what?

Maybe you've got a blog hardly anybody goes to. You make an announcement, hope for the best.

You Tweet your little lungs out, hoping someone will hear.

Basically, you're looking for two things (not sales, that's another world altogether): you need to get traffic to your site, and you need reviews of your book—preferably good reviews.

Unless the book is free, potential readers like to see someone has already made the plunge and survived to tell about it.

I've read it takes 1500 paid downloads to generate a review.

And 2500 FREE downloads.

Makes my head spin, that last one.

There are Web sites where you can go to offer free copies of your book in exchange for a review. Google them.

If your blog has any readers, you could ask some of them to check your book out for free. Some writers have collected a cadre of beta readers, who see stuff in manuscript form.

Maybe you can find other writers willing to swap.

But be aware Amazon is squirrelly about writers reviewing another writer's works. They're afraid folks might organize mutual admiration societies to populate each other's catalog sites with glowing reviews.

Amazon tends to weed them out.

Maybe fellow writers can appeal to THEIR fans for folks who would review somebody's new book. Worth a shot.

So, writers: Don't trade reviews, trade fans.

Writers without connections...should MAKE connections.

But barring that, another way to try goosing the process is to hold an Amazon giveaway. Go Kindle Select and get yourself on the FREE list for a few days.

That's what I'm about to do.

First, get the book scheduled. Go to your Amazon dashboard (aka, the Bookshelf), click a book, and select Edit book details. Click the Promotions Manager button in the KDP Select section.

From there you can type in a title and select start and end days. Confirm that information on the next page...

 

...and you're on your way.

So how do your get the word out?

Start by writing a blog about it, I guess. [viz: this blog post]

Then look into the many Web sites that will list your book for free—when it's coming out for free.

Some of these sites may be going away soon. Typically, these folk are Amazon Affiliates who get a piece of the action when someone clicks their way to Amazon from the promotion site.

Recently Amazon changed their policy, limiting the benefits for transactions that are strictly free, with no paid books.

Still, many of these free book list sites are still in business. They have a following to keep happy; they're looking for ways to stay afloat. Some offer services to writers: paid advertisement of books, "feature" positioning of books—if the author is willing to cough up some bucks.

There's even a site (ebookbooster) that—for $40—will register your book on nearly fifty of those "free books" sites.

Or you can visit the ebookbooster, harvest their list of promotion sites, and approach them on your own for free.

This is what I did.

I went through most of the list and added my book to 15 sites.

Now, the sites make no guarantee they'll select your book. (Actually, one site "guarantees" you'll be selected, for $5.)

Many of them have requirements I couldn't meet. They want your book to have multiple reviews, averaging 4.0 or better.

Several of them would like you to subscribe to their newsletter.

At least one of them REQUIRES a Twitter handle.

Here are twenty-five of the sites I visited.

First, the fifteen where I submitted a listing:

Armadillo Ebooks

Book Deal Hunter

Book Goodies

Free Book Dude

Frugal Freebies

Hunt for Freebies

Indie Book of the Day

Kindle Books and Tips

100 Free Ebooks

Sweetie's Picks

That Book Place

Ebook Lister

Freebooks

It's Write Now

Ereader Perks

My favorite site for submitting a book was Freebooks. You enter your ASIN, use their calendar gizmo to pick start and end dates, then Submit. Your book cover pops up with the free dates for you to Confirm. Done!

Other sites where I did not submit:

Digital Bookend – required a Twitter handle to submit.

Digital Book Today – required 18 reviews, averaging over 4.0.

Ereader News Today – required reviews.

Ebooks Free Daily – required at least five reviews.

Free Digital Reads – required reviews.

Free Kindle Books – wants a donation.

Free Kindle Ebooks – requires your book be free on Tuesday.

Free Stuff Times – a general listing of free stuff, including books; no covers or book description shown, just a list.

I Need Freebies – appears to be the same site as above, from another angle.

Book Pinning – seems to be just a site for submitting your cover image.

And a bunch of others I never got around to contacting. Check out Ebook Booster for the entire list. Or hire them to do all this for you.

Until the actual promotion dates, I won't know if any of the places that took my submission will actually list the book.

Another site (Indie Book Bargains) is a UK site that suggested my listing would be very low priority (for a lack of reviews). They offered to list me as an author willing to give a free copy of my book in exchange for a review. So I did. So far, without results.

And that kind of makes sense. There are a gazillion free books available out there, any one of which you can get WITHOUT the obligation to write a review after reading it.

Beyond Ebook Booster, you can Google "free Kindle books" and find more sites willing to consider listing your free book. Some also list so-called "bargain" books: books for 99 cents, or books under three bucks, in some cases. Do a search, see what's out there.

My book HOT STATUS will be free Friday through Sunday, next week (June 21 – June 23).

I'll let you know how all this turns out...