The last few posts mentioned that I undertook a complete editing and revision of the first book in the Sleeping Dogs trilogy. And that I published the revised version at the beginning of this week. Now the emphasis is on marketing the book. With something on the order of 1 million books published every year, unless you're an established writer, you're just the proverbial needle in the haystack. You have to differentiate your book from the mass. Among other things, here's what I'm doing.
I described the Kindle Select program in the most recent post. This enables me to offer the eBook version for free for a specified period of time. It also enables me to promote it on a number of websites and blogs that cater to thousands of Kindle users. I know that not all eBook readers use Kindles, but it's a large majority of the market in eBooks. To have my book promoted to many thousands of readers offers an opportunity to move a lot of copies. That's critical because it moves the book up the charts. Select also makes you eligible for the Kindle Owners' Lending Library in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France, and Japan. That's something on the order of $2.50 each time your book is borrowed.
The more people who become familiar with your work, the more word of mouth spreads the news, and the more copies you might sell. Afterall, the freebie is only a 2-day affair. The Kindle Select program also offers the opportunity to do a graduated price arrangement. For example, the book might be $0.99 on Day 1, $1.99 on Day 2, $2.99 on Day 3, and back to it's normal price of $3.99 as of Day 4. How did I settle on $3.99 as the everyday price of the eBook? An article in the Wall Street Journal mentioned a survey that determined that more books sold at $3.99 than at any other price level.
Another method for generating interest, particularly from the industry, is to build a social media platform. One plank in that platform is Twitter. One tip I found suggests identifying writers in your genre who are active on Twitter then go to their profile and click on the "Followers" link. Scroll through the list ignoring business accounts, accounts with no photo of the tweeter, and accounts with the words "social media" anywhere in the tweeter's bio. Click the "follow" button on the others. I know what you're thinking: this makes you a follower, when what you're seeking is people following you. What you will discover is that most of the people you follow, will also follow you. When they do, be sure to tweet them a "Thanks for the follow!"