Running Two Books on Sale in Tandem on KDP Select

The first two Relic Worlds books went on sale today on Kindle, and they'll be on sale through the end of the week.  I made the first one free, and the second one on sale for 99 cents.  The idea is to entice readers with the first, and since the second is just a buck, hopefully the audience will just go ahead and buy it.

I'm going to monitor its progress and report how it goes, continuing to try to figure out how this self-promotion thing goes.

Here's how I prepared this time.

Two weeks before the sale, I applied for the big guys.  That's Bookbub, Ereader News Today, and Digital Book Today.  As usual, Bookbub and Ereader turned me down, but Digital Book took it.

One week before the sale, I went tot he paid sites that seemed to do pretty well before.  This includes Book Butterfly, Free Booksy, Book Sends, and Ebooks Habit.  I also posted it for free in Awesomegang, Indie Book of the Day, Ignite Your Book, and OHFB, and for $3 at Free Ebooks Daily.  In every case I chose one of teh books to post except for one of the sites, Ebooks Habit.  They were low price enough that I posted both.  The hope is that someone will see one, then the other, and realize they can get a couple books in the series for a deal.

Throughout the week before the sale I was very active in Facebook groups that I belong to which involve sci fi books and Kindle reads.  This was to sort of prime the pump, and for people not to think I'm just going to post my book and am not interested in what they had to say.  I didn't just post on these sites, I reacted to what other people said.  I made my presence known as much as I could.

The day it started, I registered for any site that only takes submissions on the day, such as Facebook groups that do free Kindle promotions.  Most importantly, though, I posted the announcement to Relic Worlds' Facebook page and I shared that with other groups.  The first step is very important; to post in my own page first and share it.  When I post in other groups, it links back to me.  But when I share from my page, it links back to the page, which is the series I want them to get into.

So that's where we are right now.  It's 4:30 and I'm at 635 free downloads of book 1, but 0 purchases of book 2.  Strangely, there have been a couple downloads of my other books, but that might be just coincidence.  I'mhoping the actual sales pick up.  I'll let you know as it continues.

For now, here are the links to the books on sale:

Relic Worlds, Book 1:
https://www.amazon.com/Relic-Worlds-Lancaster-Search-Promised-ebook/dp/B00JSW7EBY?ie=UTF8&keywords=Relic%20Worlds&qid=1465240389&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

Relic Worlds, Book 2:
http://www.amazon.com/Relic-Worlds-Lancaster-Secret-Padrone/dp/1530464692/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1465240389&sr=8-2&keywords=Relic+Worlds

KDP Select Free Promo Blog Entries

I promised to write about my experience with the KDP Select program as I did it, but, as often happens, I wound up being so busy doing it that I didn’t have time to write about it. I’m glad I did, as I feel that I stretched as far as I could with the information I had, and if I had taken time to write about it, I wouldn’t have done everything I hoped.

I’m now going to write about each part of the KDP Select free promotion as a separate blog entry.  The first one will be about selecting and preparing for the days of the promotion.  Each subsequent entry will then be about the promotion itself.  I’ll put the first few up today, then the rest will go up after the promotion is over.

In the meantime, the promotion itself is still going on through the weekend, and my book The American Game is available for free on Amazon at:  http://www.amazon.com/American-Game-Jeff-McArthur-ebook/dp/B00LJII7GG/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-1&qid=1435946633

Doing a Free Kindle Promotion of The American Game in Two Weeks

The American Game will be free on Kindle for five days beginning on September 26 and running through September 30th.  To prepare for this, I'm alerting several sites, including:

Pixel of Ink

Kindle Nation Daily

Ereader News Today

Digital Book Today

Book Gorilla

I'm also posting it on all my social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and Google +.  I'll also be telling every Civil War, history, and baseball group I can find.

In the past, I've separated my free days, having 2 early in the 90 days of KDP Select, and 3 near the end.  That way I can learn from the first.  This time I wanted to make sure I got some reviews first, then just had them all at once.  I'm hoping it will build in numbers downloading it as I would like to get it into the hands of as many people as possible.

This is a story I have been more concerned gets out there to the public than on having a huge profit.  While I believe this is a story that will appeal toa  large audience, I spent so much time on it over 20 years that no amount of money can make up for it.  I'd like this to build my reputation, and just to be seen.  I love this story; I always have.  I'll update this page to say how well my efforts are going.

Relic Worlds: Lancaster James & the Search for the Promised World Available for Free on the Kindle

It's that time; time to give away free promo copies of the book on the Kindle to give everyone a look.

I'm always wary of giving away my books for free.  After all, I spent months on them.  This particular Relic Worlds story has been in my mind since 1997.  So I'd rather get something for my efforts; after all, I promised my girlfriend a hammock and a lifetime supply of Bon Bons!

It is a bit frustrating to see mainstream books never having to go through this phase, but it's a necessity for independent books to get noticed.  I've made it a regular practice now to come out on the Kindle first, do the KDP Select program for 90 days to promote it with this free giveaway and other promotions, then do a wide release with other e-readers.

So today (May 29, 2014) to Saturday (May 31, 2014) Relic Worlds: Lancaster James and the Search for the Promised World, will be free on the Kindle at: http://www.amazon.com/Relic-Worlds-Lancaster-Search-Promised-ebook/dp/B00JSW7EBY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401383605&sr=8-1&keywords=Relic+Worlds

Relic Worlds Novel Free Today on Kindle through KDP Select

My latest novel, Relic Worlds: Lancaster James and theSearch for the Promised World, is now available for the Kindle on Amazon.  I had been releasing the series on Drivethru Fiction, and had even done this book as a serial there, releasing each chapter as I finished it.  As such, I was going to have the novel come out on Drivethru and all the other e-readers upon release.

However, I looked over the results of my last two books, Pro Bono and The Great Heist.  I released the former through the free on Kindle program, and even though I gave thousands of copies away for free, I sold thousands more after the promotion.  That book still sells better than any of my others.  Meanwhile, I put The Great Heist through Amazon’s other promotion program, Kindle Countdown Deal, where it is sold for a lower price for a limited time.  I had almost no luck with that, selling only a few copies during the promotion period, and it’s never taken off, despite the fact that the subject matter is even more appealing to the general public than Pro Bono.

Of course, none of the other major e-reader platforms have a good promotion program other than Drivethru, which, unfortunately, is not a site highly trafficked enough to get a huge amount of sales.  So as a result, I’m going exclusively with Amazon to give away those copies for free so hopefully those people will spread the word.

I am doing this promotion in two stages:

First promotion:  I’m making it free for two days over a weekend to give it away to all the fans of Relic Worlds and people who have been following me on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.  It’s a bonus to them, and hopefully those people will begin spreading the word in time for the second promotion.

Second promotion:  About a month later, I’m making it free for three days.  I will be promoting this one far more widely.  Those areas include:  Book Bub, Pixel of Ink, Facebook sci fi sites, Google + sci fi sites, Kindle Daily, etc.  This is the one I’ll really be pushing, and trying to get people to purchase.

The intent is to generate interest while there’s still time left in the exclusive Kindle deal.  The reason this is helpful is because it maximizes the book’s exposure in one area, making it more likely to get on their top books list.  If people have multiple readers, they purchase it on Amazon, and that pushes me up the Amazon list higher.  If it was on multiple readers, the book would go more evenly up multiple lists, thus making it so the book never reaches bestseller status on any one site.

Since the other e-reader sites do not have promotions that support independent artists like Amazon does, I chose Amazon Kindle.  Simple as that.  They all bemoan Amazon for having unfair business practices, but they do that while not improving their own services for independent authors like myself; so I don’t feel too sorry for them.