Category Promotion

Going Under – special offer

November 6, 2013 Amazon, Promotion

Amazon have recently revamped their Select offer to include something called Countdown. This allows you to discount the price of a book for a set period (up to seven days) instead of making it free for five days. There are some obvious advantages to this - still getting royalties, the range of ways you can offer the discount, and the increase ins sales rank. More importantly, if you were on the 70% rating you still get that even if the price temporarily drops. It looks like a good offer, so I'm trying it out with one of the only titles I still have in Select.From 5th Nov to 11th Nov, Going Under will be slowly incresing from 99cents back to its initial price of 2.99.

"There are plenty of twists and turns that keep you wondering until the

Read More

Thoughts on Select

January 3, 2013 Promotion, Select

Amazon UK

Over the last two days I tried out the Free Days offered by Amazon Select. On the 1st January I scheduled a Free Day on Amazon Select for the short story Standing Guard to test how this worked.  I extended this to the 2nd January during the run, as it was gathering momentum. Here are my thoughts on the immediate results of the promotion. Where possible I will add hard figures, which should make this more useful:Starting Rank: nowhere. Final rank (at 8:20 3rd January):Amazon.com #4,117 Free in Kindle Store#76 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Short StoriesAmazon.co.uk#3,047 Free in Kindle Store#44 in Kindle Store > Books > Fiction > Short Stories#76 in

Read More

A Select Affair

December 30, 2012 Promotion, Select

I've put my first title into Amazon Select.

Usually when I release a story it goes to Amazon and Smashwords to get full distribution. However thanks to a computer issue I can't generate .doc files for Smashwords at the moment and I'm writing everything in .rtf,  so Standing Guard went onto Amazon only.  So this gives me a chance to try out Select.Select offers authors two things:  money for borrows,  and the ability to offer their book for free on certain days. For me, the second is the larger advantage. The ability to give away titles through Amazon free is something I usually can't do since Kindle Gifting is unavailable to authors outside the US. So I'm trying it out.

The Day:  New Years Day
The Title:  Standing Guard
The Place: 

Read More

Musings on Marketing

February 14, 2012 Promotion

This is an odd post, and one that I didn't expect to write.Before Christmas I went all out on marketing - blogs, promotions, even a book launch and signing. After Christmas I stopped. Aside from one token offered in a competition right at the start of January I have done no promotion at all for the last six weeks. My sales figures are exactly the same. This hard data is a telling comment on the effectiveness of my marketing efforts. It's also a good reason to stop spending any time or money on them and focus on writing. The only things I am likely to continue with are the Project Wonderful ads (since the publisher manages those) and sending out review copies. Anything else appears to have very little effect.Many indie authors take the line that the best marketing is the next book. I think

Read More

Widgets and websites and blogs

December 16, 2011 Interviews

The ongoing saga of the missing books continues - we're now at three orders not filled that I know of. Please could you let me or the publisher know if you ordered a book and it has not arrived.Moving onto a brighter note, there's new Smashwords widget on the blog, which is part of a whole third-party set of marketing tools in development to help authors market their Smashwords books.Also, I have a blog interview up today with J E Taylor: Dishing it up With VH Folland.

Read More

After the launch…

November 25, 2011 book launch

An interesting if quiet day at the signing, including a few interesting chats about crime novellas, short stories on Kindle and e-publishing, and small bookshops. I'd like to thank Annette at Farthing Books (again!) for hosting us, and putting up with me for the day. She got something out of it, since another author asked about doing their book launch there.I am still very tired so I'll settle for putting some photos up, snapped before it opened. The books were on a table here - it's right by the counter so it was a good location. What people were really interested in:While there is a lot of advice leading up to book launchs, most guides tend to miss the work needed afterwards. Helping put the shop back in order was fair, after everything had been moved around to accomodate the launch

Read More

Everything Arranged

November 22, 2011 book launch

Two days before and the books for the book launch are now at the shop. That's the last part of this sorted, so now it's down to waiting.The checklist was impressive and after the launch I'll put it up on here wit a list of what worked and what didn't. I've got some of the posters and bits I saved from the Fire Season launch at Salute, and copies of that book will also be available which should bulk the display stand out slightly. So far the snow has not materialised so several of the maybes should quickly become yes'es.Everything is working out. The only thing is the small issue of photos and a speech at the start. The gist as always is "Thanks for coming, books here, buffet there, thanks again", but I would prefer something a little more interesting.I'll blog again after the book launch

Read More

Premature worries

November 18, 2011 book launch

It seems I shouldn't have been concerned. I finished work commitments early and went to the bookstore. No photographer showed up so I spent a very nice day at a bookshop, discussing next week, fixing a computer, and generally browsing.It was something of a relief since last night I caught a cat with my face when it did a plunge off the wardrobe, and currently I look rather like I've gone a few rounds with a boxer with bladed gloves. Not exactly photogenic, although appropriate for The Docks.I've a few more people to contact about the book launch, and in general it looks like its going to be quiet, local and interesting. I am still slightly nervous because right now I have a lot of maybes and very few saying a definite yes, but it seems if it's too quiet we can always migrate to the pub

Read More

Interviews, promotion and penname problems.

November 18, 2011 Interviews

I've just had the local paper on the phone, who want to feature the book launch. This is excellent news. However they then finished by requesting an author photo. This isn't such good news.It's not just that I use a pen name for privacy as well as many other reasons. I dislike photographs in general. My stance on author headshots is well-known. Apparently the use of a penname (see reasons) is not sufficient signal that I do not want my personal and professional life confused, and that an author photo would not be a good idea.Fortunately work means I will be away when they wanted to arrange the photo shoot, but given everything, I am seriously beginning to wonder if I would be better off leaving this penname and the books and walking away. I wasn't exactly planning on a book launch for

Read More

The Docks Book Launch – planning

October 13, 2011 book launch

Well, it's official. The Docks is going into print. It can now be pre-ordered from the website, and the distribution chain is kicking off. I was holding off on updating because I wanted to submit a picture of the actual book, but that won't arrive for another week. (For anyone curious, Paypal is being used for pre-orders as it accepts dollars and euros)Pre-order "The Docks" in print£4.99 (Free P&P)**Overseas orders not guaranteed to arrive before christmas.What I need to plan now is the book launch. I have options: ask Waterstones, ask an indie bookstore or hide in a room above a pub. The only option not currently available is the Fire Season method of a very large games convention. I'd like to support an indie bookstore, but this leaves me with all the planning. As a

Read More