Promotion Tips
Unless you already have a name and fans chomping at the bit to read your next great masterpiece, finding new readers is something you need invest time and even money in. Don’t be discourage if you don’t have a huge budget, though, because there are some simple things you can do to help boost sales and get your books noticed.
1. If you have a series, put the first book on sale or maybe even free to spark sales of the book after the promotion and for the entire series during and after the series. Let everyone you know about the sale and ask them to pass it on. Having a book for free multiple days at once gives you a chance at having enough downloads to result in sales for months to come. The more you give away, the more you will sell.
2. A good place to begin to offer freebies is to choose KDP select on Amazon and offer your book for free for five days every three months.
3. You can also put the first of your series with Smashwords and have the book go temporarily (or perma-free) across all distribution channels. (We do not recommend Smashwords as a middle man for any other purpose, however, because it lowers your direct profit and the lag time between reports makes it very difficult to judge the results of your promotions–upload all your non-free books yourself for more control).
4. Pay for a promotion to announce your book sale/freebie. Make sure they have a huge email list, though, or use only the free sites. Unless you get over 35,000 downloads, your boost of sales won’t last more than a week, if you see one at all.
5. Use twitter to announce your sale to people who offer daily sales to their followers.
6. Network with other authors. NOT to sell to them, but to learn what has worked for them.
7. Don’t spend too much time promoting until you have few books out. The best promotion is ALWAYS to write another book.
8. Make sure you have a web presence. That includes a personal website, Facebook, and Twitter.
9. Only publish good books with great covers. Don’t add to the mass of writing being published today that really isn’t up to par. Until you know what you’re doing, invest in YOURSELF with good editing and design. (After you do know what you’re doing, you’ll understand WHY you need all the editing steps and you will keep doing them.)
10. Do what you can do. Don’t wear yourself out. With indie publishing, you don’t have to worry about your book going out of print or making that big splash right this minute. You have years to promote your products and to write more. We know many authors who have between ten and twenty titles who are now supporting themselves with limited promotion time. Make a list, choose a few, and keep writing! Take time to develop your craft. If your books are good, you will build an audience.
HAPPY WRITING!