Lincoln Cole's Blog, page 33
May 17, 2016
Raven's Peak - SELECTED - KINDLE SCOUT
I didn't think I would hear back that fast! I was expecting to hear something by Friday since the campaign only ended Saturday, but I will take it!
They updated the banner already and everything!
So now Raven's Peak is officially selected for publication and I'm waiting to hear back from Amazon about what happens next. They have a section for updates available, but I don't want to confirm anything until I know exactly what I am doing.
Thank you all so much for your support! I couldn't have done it without everyone's nominations and views. And hey, you'll be getting a free copy from Amazon, so it isn't too shabby of a deal!
Now I'm just excited to see what happens next!
Second Chances - Honorable Mention Amsterdam Book Festival
Second Chances was selected as an honorable mention in the Amsterdam Book Festival. Just received the news this morning in an email.
Unfortunately, it didn't get anything in the Paris festival. I think that is all of the festival results, and five of them went well!
May 14, 2016
Kindle Scout - Raven's Peak - Over!
Finally done with the Kindle Scout campaign! Now it's the waiting game, and it could take a couple of days (or even a week or so!) to hear back from Amazon about whether or not Raven's Peak is going to get a contract.
It's been a wild ride, and I want to thank everyone for their support! I did as much as I could and build up as many page views and hot and trending as possible, and now it's just up to Amazon to decide if it was enough.
Here is a link I created to store stats about the process as well as a lot of other information that can hopefully help people in building their own campaigns!
Kindle Scout
Chronicling the journey:
Again, thanks for the support. If any authors are interested in posting their stats onto the shared page I linked above, you can contact me directly at LincolnJCole@gmail.com and I'll update it for you! I'll let you know shortly whether or not the book was selected for publication (fingers crossed).
The five stages of Kindle Scout!
Stage 1 - Denial: "My book is the best in the world and will definitely be picked!"
Stage 2 - Anger: "Why aren't people nominating my book? Can't they see how great it is?!"
Stage 3 - Bargaining: "Hot & Trending doesn't really matter. A lot - no, most -books are picked with 0 hours H&T."
Stage 4 - Depression: "Oh, God! My book isn't going to get chosen for publication. It's hopeless! I ran an awful campaign!"
Stage 5 - Acceptance: "I'm fine with whatever happens. They can pick my book or not and I'll be okay."
Bonus stage - Purgatory: "The campaign ended a week ago and Amazon said they would notify me whether or not I was picked...how long do I have to wait?"
Kindle Scout -Raven's Peak - Over!
Finally done with the Kindle Scout campaign! Now it's the waiting game, and it could take a couple of days (or even a week or so!) to hear back from Amazon about whether or not Raven's Peak is going to get a contract.
It's been a wild ride, and I want to thank everyone for their support! I did as much as I could and build up as many page views and hot and trending as possible, and now it's just up to Amazon to decide if it was enough.
Here is a link I created to store stats about the process as well as a lot of other information that can hopefully help people in building their own campaigns!
Kindle Scout
Chronicling the journey:
Again, thanks for the support. If any authors are interested in posting their stats onto the shared page I linked above, you can contact me directly at LincolnJCole@gmail.com and I'll update it for you! I'll let you know shortly whether or not the book was selected for publication (fingers crossed)
May 10, 2016
Kindle scout - 5 Days Left - Raven's Peak!
Officially in the closing days of the Kindle Scout campaign! It ends on Friday, which also happens to be the thirteenth, and I ask you: how much more perfect could it be for more novel than to end on Friday the Thirteenth?
I've surpassed 4,000 page views and 400 hours in hot and trending. More than half the campaign has been on that list, and I've gotten a lot of people to look at and nominate the page. I've also learned a lot of lessons about the entire program. There were a lot of things I did wrong, and some things I did right.
Outreach was the most difficult thing. Getting on the Hot and Trending list in the first place is very important, because even if you send people to the web page, if it doesn't have that 'hot' tag, then people won't be as likely to stick with it. People like to bet on the winning horse, so if your book looks like it's getting a lot of support, then people will be more likely to support it.
It's the same as convenience stores. Stores deliberately overstock their vegetable sections because they know if people see one bundle of celery sitting on its own they will think "what's wrong with this one that no one likes it?"
Which means the most important thing to do is get on hot and trending. Reach out to people, but not all at once. I actually got kind of lucky. I found Kboards, but only about halfway through my campaign, so by the time I was begging for votes on there I didn't burn them out by begging for thirty days. The kboards team is amazing, and if you aren't on there, you're missing out.
Facebook was king. I asked in every group even remotely related to books, then I asked personally. There were some people who don't like being solicited (many of which seemed borderline illiterate) but there were quite a few more who were generous and more than willing to support an author.
I also managed to find some love in the reddit/r/wroteabook forum and a few others. I made a lot of tweets (something like 200) for the campaign and got a lot of interest from that. I also had a lot of friends from RRBC (greatest club for authors) who shouted out for me, so my social reach was huge.
Writeon was amazing for me. It's a great community and full of awesome people, so I really appreciate their support!
If you haven't checked it out, I have a stats page built for Kindle Scout:
http://www.LincolnCole.net/kindlescout
And if you want to add to the stats or look it over, please do. It can hopefully give some more concrete ideas about how to run your own campaign and get some interest! I'll be sad when it's over, but I'll be relieved as well.
May 4, 2016
Nine days left - KINDLE SCOUT - RAVEN'S PEAK
There are nine days left to nominate Raven's Peak on Kindle Scout! It's spent more than 50% of the time in hot and trending so far. If you nominate today, you can get a free copy of it as an advance copy from Amazon when it is published. https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/30UGNBVYVCL7W
That is, of course, if they select it for publication. I think I've done enough to get it at least considered by the Kindle Scout team, and with any luck they will want to publish Raven's Peak as much as I do.
Anyway, here are the ongoing stats for the campaign up through today. It runs until May 14th and then I'll be in the waiting period until I hear back from the Kindle Scout team about their decision.
Don't know if it is enough, because Amazon doesn't really say anything about what it actually takes. I think the competition has been ramped up in the program because there are a lot of books, but I've noticed that they definitely seem to come in waves. For example, today there are 11 books on their second to last day, and there haven't been any new books for about three days.
In any case, I've been winding down the campaign and running dry on who I can still ask for nominations. I started strong and the middle has been pretty strong, and now it's just a matter of trying to end strong as well.
Thanks so much for your support! I appreciate it greatly, and I'm hoping everyone gets a free copy because I'm hopeful that Amazon decides to publish it!
April 27, 2016
Kindle Scout, halfway!
After today, the campaign is going to be entering the second half. So far, I've gotten about 1300 page views and 167 hours in hot and trending.
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/30UGNBVYVCL7W
I've had no luck in pushing it back onto hot and trending after it fell off, but it sat there consistently for about a week. It got about three hundred page views in the last couple of days, so it's getting in front of people. Now it just needs some more nominations!
Anyway, right now my strategy has been to reach out on places like kboards and try to meet some more people on goodreads who might be interested in checking it out. With any luck it'll get pushed back onto hot and trending in the next couple of days and get some support.
Thanks to everyone who has nominated the book so far, and I appreciate all of your support! Half the campaign is gone now, so here's hoping the second half goes really well to finish it off!
I started a thunderclap as well if anyone is interested in signing up! It'll just post at a certain time to generate a lot of support all at once:
Thanks all!
April 22, 2016
Kindle Scout: Day 9
Reached the ninth day of the campaign, so twenty-one still to go. Raven's Peak has been in hot and trending every day, but it slipped yesterday by quite a bit. It's back up there today, and hopefully, it'll stay there for a while.
We're in the middle days of the campaign now, so it'll be harder to keep interest generated. I have my daily tweets (seven of them) and my blog post every 3 days (give or take), as well as a facebook post that I share to various groups.
Anyway, here's the results for eight days of the campaign:
I'm hoping that today I get quite a few more page views and nominations. If you still haven't checked it out and would like to support me:
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/30UGNBVYVCL7W
Thanks!
April 19, 2016
How Kindle Scout Works
It's Tuesday and the sixth day of the Kindle Scout running for Raven's Peak, so time to update a bit on the results as the campaign gets into full swing. The first few days were easy and went rather smoothly with the book on hot and trending until Monday Morning.
That's when it slipped back off. I started posting on facebook like crazy and reached out to a lot of people and managed to push it back onto H&T, but now it's getting a lot harder to keep interest generated.
In any case, I thought I would give a quick rundown about what Kindle Scout is, and then post the results for the first 5 days. Here's the link to my post:
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/30UGNBVYVCL7W
What is Kindle Scout?Kindle Scout is a reader-powered publishing platform. Amazon used to have a yearly contest where the winners received publishing contracts through Amazon Imprint (their publishing company). You can't submit to Amazon Imprint, they contact you (so I've heard).
Basically, you need a short blurb, a book description, a cover, some social media links, and the book. It has to be really clean so you want to at least do some heavy editing, and you give them the word document.
They look it over, create a page for it, and then send you links for your campaigns. After a couple of days, it goes live and you can start directing people to it to read the blurb. They put about 10% of your book up for people to read, and people can nominate. You can also do things like answering questions about the book, sharing an author biography, and even showing your backlist of novels if you have other titles available on Amazon.
BEFORE YOU DO THIS, however, you need to seriously consider the contract:
Basically, you give them digital rights (for all regions/languages) and audio rights. If they want to, they can publish in all of these regions and languages, but if they choose not to then you get the rights back. You also have print book rights, so you can make hard copies and paperback books.
They pay 50% (instead of 70%) and they set the prices, and they also load it into Kindle Select so it is exclusive to Amazon. For some people, this can be a deal-breaker if you want wide distribution in KOBO, B&E, etc. Another feature is, if you get picked, they pay an advance of 1500. This isn't a lot, but it's better than nothing, and even better than some publishers offer.
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/agreement
Your contract is for 5 years, and they guarantee 25,000 dollars over those 5 years or you can cancel the contract and get your rights back. This is 5 years and the royalties YOU make for THIS book, not how much the book makes in total. However, it can include all different channels, so it isn't 25,000 per channel. There are other ways out of the contract as well, but once you're in, you're in.
What Amazon offers: they might edit it for you (which can be costly) and they might promote it for you. They don't guarantee anything and give themselves the option. Which means you have to work really hard to get the book selected, lose 20% royalties, and you MIGHT get some promotion and editing.
So, is it worth it? I guess that is up to you. A lot of people say: Try a traditional publisher, then try kindle scout, then self-publish. Not many titles loaded onto Kindle Scout get chosen, and even if you don't get picked, it can be a part of your self-publishing marketing plan anyway.
What else do you get?Which brings me to how Kindle Scout works. You load a book, click the button, they build you a page and set-up a contract, and then it's live. During the 30 day campaign, you promote the book to friends, family, and everyone else you can think of. Your goal is to drive traffic to the page, and hopefully people who see it will like it enough to nominate it.
People who nominate it receive a free copy when it is published if Amazon picks it. If they don't pick it, then those supporters get nothing, but they are still added to a list that nominated your book. The nice thing about this list is that after your campaign when your book is made available, Amazon will email this list on your behalf to tell them the book has been published, where it is available (on Amazon) and send them a link to it. This might generate some sales for you, and can be added publicity.
One thing to note, nominations don't count at all until the campaign ends, so if someone nominates on day 2, then removes their nomination and never re-adds it later, then they didn't technically nominate and won't receive a copy or email.
***Some people nominate books near the end of their campaign in the hopes that they can rack up as many free books as possible. They try to pick the likely winners. You can hope to see these people near the end if your campaign is going well.
How do you promote a Kindle Scout book?Again, that's totally up to you and how much you're willing to invest time and energy. You can just drop your book onto the site and hope the Kindle Scout crowd really likes it, but you aren't likely to hit hot and trending. People like to nominate books that are already doing well, so you'll want to work hard to make your book as good as possible.
It needs a perfect cover, and it needs to be error free. If nothing else, make the first 10,000 words of your book perfect. People need to read it and say: "I need this book." It also needs a good blurb and description.
Facebook is huge. So is twitter. I schedule about 5-10 daily tweets in advance using the KS link and various wordings and I have a pinned tweet and facebook post. I've also joined a ton of author/publicity groups on twitter and share my post into those groups to put it in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
I also blog about it, but I think you already knew that.
Author communities are also fantastic. Join WriteOn and be a contributing member. I haven't had much success with Wattpad, but that's my fault and not theirs. Then, if you want to join in with a great group of people, join RRBC. I would avoid it, however, if you aren't prepared to promote your friends and put in the effort. If you're just hoping to find people to promote you, then it isn't the right kind of place.
Then, there are other things you can do. Boosted posts on facebook is an option. Also, some sites will promote Kindle Scout (paid services):
AuthorAdNetworkBooksButterfly (not listed as a service, you need to contact them directly)When I started the campaign I reached out to a lot of advertising sites I've used in the past to see if they were willing/able to promote KS books. It was more out of curiosity than anything else. Most said they either wouldn't, or didn't have the infrastructure but might do it later (ebookhound), but these two seemed genuinely interested in trying to put something together to reach their audiences.
It's just an added option, and is best served near the middle of your campaign (when things are stagnating) or the end (to finish strong). You can get some really good traction successfully using twitter and facebook alone.
Tracking and statistics:The nitty gritty. Amazon gives you access to page views, hours in hot and trending, and not much else. They will tell you how much traffic is coming from people browsing and how much is coming from outside sources.
These supplied stats can give a sense of how well your outreach plans are going and if/when you need to make a huge push.
For reference, here is the first campaign I ran last year...didn't go so well:
Naturally, that book didn't get picked...
Anyway, I hope all of this helps, and I would love if you were willing to check out my book. If you like it, please nominate! Anything helps!
For more information, check out:
Kindle Scout
How Kindle Scout Works: A guide to using Kindle Scout to promote your book or get a contract with Amazon Imprint
It's Tuesday and the sixth day of the Kindle Scout running for Raven's Peak, so time to update a bit on the results as the campaign gets into full swing. The first few days were easy and went rather smoothly with the book on hot and trending until Monday Morning.
That's when it slipped back off. I started posting on facebook like crazy and reached out to a lot of people and managed to push it back onto H&T, but now it's getting a lot harder to keep interest generated.
In any case, I thought I would give a quick rundown about what Kindle Scout is, and then post the results for the first 5 days. Here's the link to my post:
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/30UGNBVYVCL7W
What is Kindle Scout?Kindle Scout is a reader-powered publishing platform. Amazon used to have a yearly contest where the winners received publishing contracts through Amazon Imprint (their publishing company). You can't submit to Amazon Imprint, they contact you (so I've heard).
Basically, you need a short blurb, a book description, a cover, some social media links, and the book. It has to be really clean so you want to at least do some heavy editing, and you give them the word document.
They look it over, create a page for it, and then send you links for your campaigns. After a couple of days, it goes live and you can start directing people to it to read the blurb. They put about 10% of your book up for people to read, and people can nominate. You can also do things like answering questions about the book, sharing an author biography, and even showing your backlist of novels if you have other titles available on Amazon.
BEFORE YOU DO THIS, however, you need to seriously consider the contract:
Basically, you give them digital rights (for all regions/languages) and audio rights. If they want to, they can publish in all of these regions and languages, but if they choose not to then you get the rights back. You also have print book rights, so you can make hard copies and paperback books.
They pay 50% (instead of 70%) and they set the prices, and they also load it into Kindle Select so it is exclusive to Amazon. For some people, this can be a deal-breaker if you want wide distribution in KOBO, B&E, etc. Another feature is, if you get picked, they pay an advance of 1500. This isn't a lot, but it's better than nothing, and even better than some publishers offer.
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/agreement
Your contract is for 5 years, and they guarantee 25,000 dollars over those 5 years or you can cancel the contract and get your rights back. This is 5 years and the royalties YOU make for THIS book, not how much the book makes in total. However, it can include all different channels, so it isn't 25,000 per channel. There are other ways out of the contract as well, but once you're in, you're in.
What Amazon offers: they might edit it for you (which can be costly) and they might promote it for you. They don't guarantee anything and give themselves the option. Which means you have to work really hard to get the book selected, lose 20% royalties, and you MIGHT get some promotion and editing.
So, is it worth it? I guess that is up to you. A lot of people say: Try a traditional publisher, then try kindle scout, then self-publish. Not many titles loaded onto Kindle Scout get chosen, and even if you don't get picked, it can be a part of your self-publishing marketing plan anyway.
What else do you get?Which brings me to how Kindle Scout works. You load a book, click the button, they build you a page and set-up a contract, and then it's live. During the 30 day campaign, you promote the book to friends, family, and everyone else you can think of. Your goal is to drive traffic to the page, and hopefully people who see it will like it enough to nominate it.
People who nominate it receive a free copy when it is published if Amazon picks it. If they don't pick it, then those supporters get nothing, but they are still added to a list that nominated your book. The nice thing about this list is that after your campaign when your book is made available, Amazon will email this list on your behalf to tell them the book has been published, where it is available (on Amazon) and send them a link to it. This might generate some sales for you, and can be added publicity.
One thing to note, nominations don't count at all until the campaign ends, so if someone nominates on day 2, then removes their nomination and never re-adds it later, then they didn't technically nominate and won't receive a copy or email.
***Some people nominate books near the end of their campaign in the hopes that they can rack up as many free books as possible. They try to pick the likely winners. You can hope to see these people near the end if your campaign is going well.
How do you promote a Kindle Scout book?Again, that's totally up to you and how much you're willing to invest time and energy. You can just drop your book onto the site and hope the Kindle Scout crowd really likes it, but you aren't likely to hit hot and trending. People like to nominate books that are already doing well, so you'll want to work hard to make your book as good as possible.
It needs a perfect cover, and it needs to be error free. If nothing else, make the first 10,000 words of your book perfect. People need to read it and say: "I need this book." It also needs a good blurb and description.
Facebook is huge. So is twitter. I schedule about 5-10 daily tweets in advance using the KS link and various wordings and I have a pinned tweet and facebook post. I've also joined a ton of author/publicity groups on twitter and share my post into those groups to put it in front of as many eyeballs as possible.
I also blog about it, but I think you already knew that.
Author communities are also fantastic. Join WriteOn and be a contributing member. I haven't had much success with Wattpad, but that's my fault and not theirs. Then, if you want to join in with a great group of people, join RRBC. I would avoid it, however, if you aren't prepared to promote your friends and put in the effort. If you're just hoping to find people to promote you, then it isn't the right kind of place.
Then, there are other things you can do. Boosted posts on facebook is an option. Also, some sites will promote Kindle Scout (paid services):
AuthorAdNetworkBooksButterfly (not listed as a service, you need to contact them directly)When I started the campaign I reached out to a lot of advertising sites I've used in the past to see if they were willing/able to promote KS books. It was more out of curiosity than anything else. Most said they either wouldn't, or didn't have the infrastructure but might do it later (ebookhound), but these two seemed genuinely interested in trying to put something together to reach their audiences.
It's just an added option, and is best served near the middle of your campaign (when things are stagnating) or the end (to finish strong). You can get some really good traction successfully using twitter and facebook alone.
Tracking and statistics:The nitty gritty. Amazon gives you access to page views, hours in hot and trending, and not much else. They will tell you how much traffic is coming from people browsing and how much is coming from outside sources.
These supplied stats can give a sense of how well your outreach plans are going and if/when you need to make a huge push.
For reference, here is the first campaign I ran last year...didn't go so well:
Naturally, that book didn't get picked...
Anyway, I hope all of this helps, and I would love if you were willing to check out my book. If you like it, please nominate! Anything helps!
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/30UGNBVYVCL7W
