Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "facebook"
World Book Day 2012 and an update...
It's World Book Day today. Here's a link to the official site: World Book Day
I hope you'll be celebrating by reading a good book :)
I've just started reading a great book Caraliza by Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick. I hear that it's free on Amazon for Kindle, so I thought I would let you all know it about it:
Here's a link to the free book: Caraliza - Amazon Kindle ebook
In other news, I am putting the finishing touches to my second edition of Coincidences and hope to be publishing that in the coming months. I'll be revealing the new cover shortly.
Those of you who are on Facebook may be interested to know that I now have an author page there: Author, Maria Savva, on Facebook
I will be regularly updating that page with news about my writing. Hope to see you there!
Happy Reading!
I hope you'll be celebrating by reading a good book :)
I've just started reading a great book Caraliza by Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick. I hear that it's free on Amazon for Kindle, so I thought I would let you all know it about it:
Here's a link to the free book: Caraliza - Amazon Kindle ebook
In other news, I am putting the finishing touches to my second edition of Coincidences and hope to be publishing that in the coming months. I'll be revealing the new cover shortly.
Those of you who are on Facebook may be interested to know that I now have an author page there: Author, Maria Savva, on Facebook
I will be regularly updating that page with news about my writing. Hope to see you there!
Happy Reading!
KDP Free Promotions - a few things I have learned
This blog post is really for the benefit of authors who may not have promoted their Kindle books using Amazon's KDP Select Programme, but who may be wondering whether it's worth doing so. It will also be beneficial for readers who want to learn how they can help support their favourite authors when there is a free promotion going on.
There is a bit of controversy surrounding the whole KDP Select Programme. Indie authors and their books definitely benefit from promotion by a massive online retailer if they take part in the Programme, but the question remains: do the benefits of this type of promotion outweigh the detrimental effect? The result of KDP Select is that there are now millions of free books flooding the market. When will readers find time to read all of these books? Is it a fad? Will readers get bored of these promotions when their Kindles are full to bursting? Will actual sales of books diminish as a result?
I'm going to ignore the controversy for the moment, and tell you a bit about what I have learnt from my own experience of the KDP Select Programme. Right now, I'm thinking that, yes, maybe this promotion has helped me because a lot more people now have my book on their Kindles. Whether they ever get around to reading it or not is another matter. For now, I prefer to believe that they will read it, love it, and buy the rest of my books -- yes, my imagination is still working ;)
Here are some tips for those of you who are thinking of doing one of these promotions:
1. The first time I did the promotion, back at the end of July, I didn't know about all the websites and blogs that promote free books... I think I only tried to get listed with Pixel of Ink, as that was one that I heard has a big following. I now know that there are many similar sites, okay not all of them have a large following, but they are growing each day.
Here's a handy blog post I found about the list of sites that will promote your book. It also has a list of Facebook pages that you can post to. Bear in mind that going through this list takes a while, so don't leave it until the last minute! http://katrinaparkerwilliams.wordpres...
2. I was told about the benefits of Hootsuite by a few of my author friends. I used the free version during my promotion to schedule some Tweets on Twitter during the night when I couldn't be online. This service will send the Tweets out at any time you choose, so you can market your book taking into account different time zones.
3. Readers can help their favourite authors by posting links to the free books on their Facebook pages and other social networking sites and by tweeting and retweeting links on Twitter. I think it's important to have a more or less constant online presence during the promotion to get the most benefit from it.
4. Set up a Facebook Event for your free day and invite your FB friends and ask them to invite their friends. Everyone loves a freebie, so it's a good way to get extra promotion.
5. Goodreads allows you to set up Events. I did that for my first free promotion but not for the second one as I ran out of time! But I think it's also a good way of letting more people know about your free book.
6. Another tip I heard was that in the days following the promotion you should keep your book at a low price as there will be readers still seeing your book on the bargain ebook sites and if it's priced low there's more chance they will buy it. After my first promotion I priced my books at $2.99 and had quite a lot of sales in the month after the promotion. This time I've reduced the price to 99 cents to see if this will mean even more sales. In the past couple of days I have had more actual sales than I would usually have in 2-3 months, so it seems like a good tactic.
As indie authors we are always looking for ways to help more people hear about our books as our resources are limited and we cannot afford expensive advertising. I think Amazon KDP Select is a way to help promote and kick start sales. Whether those sales continue, I think will be based partly on luck, and partly on continued marketing after the promotion.
Good luck to all authors out there who are considering using KDP Select.
Here are some stats, from my promos:
In my first promotion, which was a 2-day one (and bear in mind that I didn't promote on the free sites), I had just over 1,700 free downloads of Coincidences.
This time, it was a 3 day promotion and I had just over 13,800 downloads.
The majority of the downloads in my first promotion were in the UK (about 1,400). On the second promotion, the majority of downloads was in the Amazon.com site (over 10,000).
I did the first promotion - 2 days - on the weekend Saturday & Sunday.
The 3 day one, I did on Sunday-Tuesday, as I had heard that weekdays are better for downloads. The Monday was the day I had most downloads in the Amazon.com site, over 6000.
Coincidences went to #1 in the UK free Kindle store in the Drama Category, and #5 in the top 100 free Kindle books
On Amazon.com, It went to about #18 in the top 100 free Kindle books, and went to #1 in two of the free Kindle store categories: Drama, and Theater.
I hope this information will help.
Remember, if you missed the free promotion for Coincidences, I am leaving it at 99 cents/77p for the next week or so. US/India:http://www.amazon.com/Coincidences-eb...
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coincidences-...
There is a bit of controversy surrounding the whole KDP Select Programme. Indie authors and their books definitely benefit from promotion by a massive online retailer if they take part in the Programme, but the question remains: do the benefits of this type of promotion outweigh the detrimental effect? The result of KDP Select is that there are now millions of free books flooding the market. When will readers find time to read all of these books? Is it a fad? Will readers get bored of these promotions when their Kindles are full to bursting? Will actual sales of books diminish as a result?
I'm going to ignore the controversy for the moment, and tell you a bit about what I have learnt from my own experience of the KDP Select Programme. Right now, I'm thinking that, yes, maybe this promotion has helped me because a lot more people now have my book on their Kindles. Whether they ever get around to reading it or not is another matter. For now, I prefer to believe that they will read it, love it, and buy the rest of my books -- yes, my imagination is still working ;)
Here are some tips for those of you who are thinking of doing one of these promotions:
1. The first time I did the promotion, back at the end of July, I didn't know about all the websites and blogs that promote free books... I think I only tried to get listed with Pixel of Ink, as that was one that I heard has a big following. I now know that there are many similar sites, okay not all of them have a large following, but they are growing each day.
Here's a handy blog post I found about the list of sites that will promote your book. It also has a list of Facebook pages that you can post to. Bear in mind that going through this list takes a while, so don't leave it until the last minute! http://katrinaparkerwilliams.wordpres...
2. I was told about the benefits of Hootsuite by a few of my author friends. I used the free version during my promotion to schedule some Tweets on Twitter during the night when I couldn't be online. This service will send the Tweets out at any time you choose, so you can market your book taking into account different time zones.
3. Readers can help their favourite authors by posting links to the free books on their Facebook pages and other social networking sites and by tweeting and retweeting links on Twitter. I think it's important to have a more or less constant online presence during the promotion to get the most benefit from it.
4. Set up a Facebook Event for your free day and invite your FB friends and ask them to invite their friends. Everyone loves a freebie, so it's a good way to get extra promotion.
5. Goodreads allows you to set up Events. I did that for my first free promotion but not for the second one as I ran out of time! But I think it's also a good way of letting more people know about your free book.
6. Another tip I heard was that in the days following the promotion you should keep your book at a low price as there will be readers still seeing your book on the bargain ebook sites and if it's priced low there's more chance they will buy it. After my first promotion I priced my books at $2.99 and had quite a lot of sales in the month after the promotion. This time I've reduced the price to 99 cents to see if this will mean even more sales. In the past couple of days I have had more actual sales than I would usually have in 2-3 months, so it seems like a good tactic.
As indie authors we are always looking for ways to help more people hear about our books as our resources are limited and we cannot afford expensive advertising. I think Amazon KDP Select is a way to help promote and kick start sales. Whether those sales continue, I think will be based partly on luck, and partly on continued marketing after the promotion.
Good luck to all authors out there who are considering using KDP Select.
Here are some stats, from my promos:
In my first promotion, which was a 2-day one (and bear in mind that I didn't promote on the free sites), I had just over 1,700 free downloads of Coincidences.
This time, it was a 3 day promotion and I had just over 13,800 downloads.
The majority of the downloads in my first promotion were in the UK (about 1,400). On the second promotion, the majority of downloads was in the Amazon.com site (over 10,000).
I did the first promotion - 2 days - on the weekend Saturday & Sunday.
The 3 day one, I did on Sunday-Tuesday, as I had heard that weekdays are better for downloads. The Monday was the day I had most downloads in the Amazon.com site, over 6000.
Coincidences went to #1 in the UK free Kindle store in the Drama Category, and #5 in the top 100 free Kindle books
On Amazon.com, It went to about #18 in the top 100 free Kindle books, and went to #1 in two of the free Kindle store categories: Drama, and Theater.
I hope this information will help.
Remember, if you missed the free promotion for Coincidences, I am leaving it at 99 cents/77p for the next week or so. US/India:http://www.amazon.com/Coincidences-eb...
UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coincidences-...
Reflections now available for pre-order!
Book 2 in The Mind's Eye Series will be published on November 1st, and is currently available for pre-order at Amazon for just 99c/77p!
The special price is just for the next couple of weeks to celebrate the launch, after that it will be priced at $2.99.
As many of you will know, the Mind's Eye Series began with Perspectives, which was a collection of short stories by me and Darcia Helle, inspired by Martin David Porter's photographs (Mart's Arts Photography).
There are 12 stories in Perspectives. Darcia and I had so much fun writing them that we decided to turn this into a series.
Reflections is the second book and includes stories by me and Darcia, as well as J. Michael Radcliffe, and Jason McIntyre. It also includes poems from Helle Gade, and Ben Ditmars.
The photos featured in Reflections are from Martin David Porter and Helle Gade (Helle Gade Photography).
You'll find three new short stories from me in there: Shadows, Escape, and The Great Flood.
We're very excited about this release and will be hosting a Facebook party on Wednesday 15th October. Come and join us for a day of fun. There will be chat from the various writers and photographers as well as giveaways, and teasers from the book!
Follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/events/58959...
The cover was designed by Jason McIntyre from a photo by Martin David Porter.
To pre-order the book at the special discounted price, please follow the links:
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Min...
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reflections-M...
Amazon FR: http://www.amazon.fr/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon CA: http://www.amazon.ca/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon AU: http://www.amazon.com.au/Reflections-...
Amazon DE: http://www.amazon.de/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon IT: http://www.amazon.it/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon ES: http://www.amazon.es/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon JP: http://www.amazon.co.jp/Reflections-M...
Amazon MX: http://www.amazon.com.mx/Reflections-...
Amazon BR: http://www.amazon.com.br/Reflections-...
The special price is just for the next couple of weeks to celebrate the launch, after that it will be priced at $2.99.
As many of you will know, the Mind's Eye Series began with Perspectives, which was a collection of short stories by me and Darcia Helle, inspired by Martin David Porter's photographs (Mart's Arts Photography).
There are 12 stories in Perspectives. Darcia and I had so much fun writing them that we decided to turn this into a series.
Reflections is the second book and includes stories by me and Darcia, as well as J. Michael Radcliffe, and Jason McIntyre. It also includes poems from Helle Gade, and Ben Ditmars.
The photos featured in Reflections are from Martin David Porter and Helle Gade (Helle Gade Photography).
You'll find three new short stories from me in there: Shadows, Escape, and The Great Flood.
We're very excited about this release and will be hosting a Facebook party on Wednesday 15th October. Come and join us for a day of fun. There will be chat from the various writers and photographers as well as giveaways, and teasers from the book!
Follow this link: https://www.facebook.com/events/58959...
The cover was designed by Jason McIntyre from a photo by Martin David Porter.
To pre-order the book at the special discounted price, please follow the links:
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Min...
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reflections-M...
Amazon FR: http://www.amazon.fr/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon CA: http://www.amazon.ca/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon AU: http://www.amazon.com.au/Reflections-...
Amazon DE: http://www.amazon.de/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon IT: http://www.amazon.it/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon ES: http://www.amazon.es/Reflections-Mind...
Amazon JP: http://www.amazon.co.jp/Reflections-M...
Amazon MX: http://www.amazon.com.mx/Reflections-...
Amazon BR: http://www.amazon.com.br/Reflections-...
REFLECTIONS is published!
You can now get book 2 in The Mind's Eye Series either as a Kindle download or a paperback!
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Min...
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reflections-M...
Reflections is a collection of short stories and poetry inspired by photography. It contains 3 new stories from me. Each of my stories is inspired by photos taken by Helle Gade.
My first new story, Shadows, follows a couple who return to the mountain resort where they enjoyed their honeymoon twenty years earlier. The husband is looking forward to the trip, whereas the wife is not so happy to be returning. It is quite a dark story and deals with the themes of regret, guilt, and relationships.
My second featured story, Escape, is about a man who has become tired of his 9 to 5 existence and wants to find a way out. He takes a trip to an ancient site and begins to wonder what life would be like in a place like that.
My last story is a paranormal tale about an old woman who lived by the sea.
There are also stories from Darcia Helle, J. Michael Radcliffe, and Jason McIntyre. A great mix of dark fiction and fantasy.
Reflections also contains poetry by Helle Gade and Ben Ditmars.
Photographs featured in the book are from Martin David Porter and Helle Gade.
This week, Reflections is spotlighted on Booktastik: http://booktastik.com/reflections-min...
We also have a Thunderclap campaign to help spread the news about the release. I'd love it if you'd support us. Here's a link to the page: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1...
All you have to do is add your support either from your Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr account and on the 30th November Thunderclap will automatically post something on your timeline about Reflections. It's free to add your support and only takes a minute. Thanks in advance on behalf of all the featured artists!
You can also join a Facebook event for the Thunderclap promotion to keep up with the news. One lucky supporter will win a paperback copy of Reflections: https://www.facebook.com/events/36893...
You can add Reflections to your to-read list here on Goodreads by going to the book page: Reflections.
I hope you enjoy the book! :)
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Reflections-Min...
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Reflections-M...
Reflections is a collection of short stories and poetry inspired by photography. It contains 3 new stories from me. Each of my stories is inspired by photos taken by Helle Gade.
My first new story, Shadows, follows a couple who return to the mountain resort where they enjoyed their honeymoon twenty years earlier. The husband is looking forward to the trip, whereas the wife is not so happy to be returning. It is quite a dark story and deals with the themes of regret, guilt, and relationships.
My second featured story, Escape, is about a man who has become tired of his 9 to 5 existence and wants to find a way out. He takes a trip to an ancient site and begins to wonder what life would be like in a place like that.
My last story is a paranormal tale about an old woman who lived by the sea.
There are also stories from Darcia Helle, J. Michael Radcliffe, and Jason McIntyre. A great mix of dark fiction and fantasy.
Reflections also contains poetry by Helle Gade and Ben Ditmars.
Photographs featured in the book are from Martin David Porter and Helle Gade.
This week, Reflections is spotlighted on Booktastik: http://booktastik.com/reflections-min...
We also have a Thunderclap campaign to help spread the news about the release. I'd love it if you'd support us. Here's a link to the page: https://www.thunderclap.it/projects/1...
All you have to do is add your support either from your Facebook, Twitter, or Tumblr account and on the 30th November Thunderclap will automatically post something on your timeline about Reflections. It's free to add your support and only takes a minute. Thanks in advance on behalf of all the featured artists!
You can also join a Facebook event for the Thunderclap promotion to keep up with the news. One lucky supporter will win a paperback copy of Reflections: https://www.facebook.com/events/36893...
You can add Reflections to your to-read list here on Goodreads by going to the book page: Reflections.
I hope you enjoy the book! :)
