Marketing for Kindle
Link to Amazon Kindle discussion
forum
Marketing your work as any Kindle author will tell you is
the worst part of writing! Once you are satisfied your Kindle book ticks every
box and is ready to be published a new Indie author will heave a huge sigh of
relief and think they can sit back and watch the sales roll in. What a shock
when the sales don’t arrive in leaps and bounds! It slowly begins to dawn on
the author that something has to be done fast before their book disappears into
obscurity. But what can they do?
The press were at one time a little uncertain how to
market an author who does not have a paperback book to back it up and for them
to glance through. Now they have got used to the idea of ebooks and you’re
welcomed with open arms. Although it is useful to have a paperback to hand out.
Kindle is popular and so well known presenters seem to enjoy chatting it about
it as well as your book.
Facebook is a brilliant marketing tool, invite all your
author friends on to it and they in turn will invite their author friends. This
way you can discuss your books and see what books they have on offer and where
they are selling. Sharing marketing tips this way is excellent.
A blog is a good
idea - don’t forget you have to publicise your blog, you can do this via your
Facebook Page and Twitter and other blogs.
Twitter is a wonderful marketing tool, and over the years
I’ve made many new online friends via this and Facebook.
Have your own website and promote it every chance you get.
Try and devote a corner of your site to the particular genre of your book. My
books are mainly about ghosts and the paranormal, hence I have set up a Ghost
Corner where I am busy putting up different articles and hope to do readings
now and again. If your genre is about solving a mystery, you could have a
Mystery Corner and so on. Try and keep your website up to date, don’t let it go
stale. By introducing something new every week or so people will keep returning
to have a look. You can publicise it through your Facebook Page and your blog.
Put links through to Amazon in a prominent place on your
site, and also include an excerpt from your book/books and the book cover.
Include a page in about yourself people love to know about
authors!
There are free chat rooms on the Internet that you can
download to your site an ideal opportunity to meet up with like minded people
in a private room.
Above all make your site a nice friendly place where
people feel welcome.
Once you have set up your blog and website your next step
is to visit Amazon Kindle forums. This can appear daunting and confusing on
your first visit. There are after all over a thousand discussion groups. Which
one to choose is understandably a mystery. Unless you know the forum etiquette
(most new visitors don’t) then it’s so easy to make mistakes and sometimes a
few of the posters on the various threads get annoyed when someone flies in and
just leaves a link to their book without adding to the discussion! The best
thing to do is to take time and read the title of each thread to see what it is
about. Look for a self-promotion thread. There are many on the Kindle boards
and they welcome new authors. Some threads are titled ‘Indie authors post here.
Another might have the heading April (or whichever month is appropriate) thread
for Indie authors. Some threads are for the bargain books 99p. It’s advisable
to read the first post in each thread to see what the person who’s started the
thread wants you to leave before you post.
Once on the thread scroll down to the box beneath it you
will see the message (in bold) below when you reach the box.
Add your own message to the discussion
Click
inside the box and say a few words about your book and then click on where it
says, ‘insert a product link’, scroll down to Kindle and click on it. On the
right hand side type in the name of your book and your name click, when it
appears in the bar click again, and it will appear in the box below. That’s all
you have to do. Click where it says post and your post will be appear immediately in the thread. If you need to
edit your post, click on the edit button, you can add and alter whatever you
want and then simply repost your edited version. Your book/books will be
highlighted once your post appears in the thread.
I
only post a couple of times a week, normally Wednesday and Friday. It’s best
not to over post as a number of posters subscribe to various threads, and they
will receive every single post you make. It can be annoying!
Only
post in the few self promotion threads. Things constantly change on the
discussion boards. Never leave fly by posts of your book or you may well be
reported by a poster, and then banned by Amazon!
Our
friends across the Pond are very friendly, but posting on their Kindle Boards
is different, and I would advise you to read a few of the threads before you
post.
There is a Meet Our Author Forum. Do
not post anywhere else apart from this forum, should you do so Amazon will ban
you. I host a couple of threads on the
MOA Forum join me if you feel like a chat at anytime . Here’s the links.This is
the actual Discussion thread. We’re a friendly helpful group of people.
This is a useful link where you can promote
your book(s) we chat now and again.
Marketing
is hard work but extremely rewarding. The main thing is never to over promote
and don’t be afraid to try out new ideas. You'll soon find out whether they
work or not.
