Lincoln Cole's Blog, page 39

Email Newsletter Giveaways!

Hey everyone!

I'm going to start offering weekly giveaways for subscribers to my newsletter, including exclusive content or looks at new projects I'm working on.

Email lists are one of the most important things authors have access to, so ideally I would like to be able to start expanding my list.  If anyone is interested in receiving free stuff (ebooks, paperbacks, and exclusive new content) then please sign up.  

Also, I'm not planning on only offering it to new subscribers, but rather each week will randomly select subscribers to receive this content, so the longer you are on the list, the more likely you are to win prizes!

Thanks!

Lincoln

April Book Signing

I'll be doing my first book signing in April out in LA at the AWP bookfair. It'll be on Saturday April 2nd.  I'll only be able to sign Ripples Through Time at the bookfair, but by that point I'm planning on having four books available. Maybe I'll be able to pass out some cards or bookmarks or something.

Still waiting for the booklife review on Graveyard of Empires.  I'm not sure how long it takes but it looks like they only post the new reviews once a week.  Might be this week, but might not be for a while.

Booklife Review

Graveyard of Empires was selected for a booklife review, so it should be available sometime in the next few weeks. I'm not sure exactly how long it takes to get the reviews back, but it'll be nice having another professional review to put on amazon in the reviews section.

I also tried out new keywords on all of the different books to put them in new categories and hopefully increase their visibility. Ripples Through Time has a lot of competition, but Graveyard seems to be fairly high in various categories so a few sales should push it up pretty fast.

Thanks!

Lincoln

Added some more books on the site

I added some samples on the site for all of my books, including the three that are upcoming. I would like to get UAV and Second Chances out by the end of the year, and Raven's Peak will come shortly afterwards.  All three have sample chapters available now.

Second Chances is complete and ready for publication as soon as the Kindle Scout campaign finishes. I don't think I'll put UAV up on Kindle Scout, so it won't be very long after Second Chances.

Raven's Peak is about 20% complete, so I still have a lot to write and then a lot of editing before it is ready. I'm hoping it'll be up and running by early next year.

Long term, I'm shooting for the sequel to GoE and a new series called Ninth Circle to get a first entry. That'll put me to the middle of next year.

Thanks!

Lincoln

Ripples Through Time is now Award Winning

Ripples Through TIme was just announced as an award winning novel by Literary Classics, and received a Gold Award label for the category: Inspirational/Visionary YA.

Updating covers to reflect the new badge.

Thanks everyone!

-Lincoln

Website Refresh

I redesigned the website to be more user friendly and easier to read. I think it works a lot better like this and feels like it has a cleaner theme.

Once the Kindle Scout Campaign is finished I'm going to go ahead and post the novel on kindle and createspace so people can purchase a copy. Then I might put UAV on kindle scout, or I might just go ahead and publish it separately on my own. I haven't decided yet.

Thanks!

-Lincoln

Five Days of Kindle Scout

So far, I have to say it is looking like the Kindle Scout is a popularity contest I wasn't remotely ready for. I've told everyone I know, had everyone sign up I have access to, and I still haven't spent a single hour in hot and trending.

Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting Literary Fiction to be an easy genre to crack, but it looks like people aren't even looking at my page, let alone nominating it.

I've posted on facebook, twitter, and pushed as far as I can but to no avail. In any case, the one thing I did notice is that, as far as the statistics go, amazon is full of crap.

I used a link tracker to keep track of how many different unique users were clicking to reach Kindle Scout, and it resulted in 140 unique clicks. This doesn't count the other clicks from Kindle Scout itself or places I wasn't tracking. However, for the day in questions where I received probably 200 link clicks, amazon reported 40.  So...

Apparently amazon is unable to do math, or they are full of crap. My guess is the latter.  I knew my book wouldn't get a lot of traction, because I've only been at this for a few months, but it still would have been nice to at least have accurate reporting of results.

Oh well.

Thanks everyone who has supported me in this endeavor!

Kindle Scout, Day Two

So, about halfway through the second day of Kindle Scout.  

My Day One Statistics include 72 page views. No time spent hot and trending, but one thing I figured out was that only twenty books at a time are allowed in hot and trending. There are quite a few books available on the website, and it looks like it blindly takes all of the books and sets them to hot and trending based on nominations. 

The thing I can't figure out is just how high the number has to go to hit hot and trending. I've had hour periods where I know there were about twenty nominations, which was not enough to get it to hot and trending.  It looks like the hot and trending numbers are high based on the novels competition, so it is definitely looking like a popularity contest at this point.

But, We'll see how things go. I'm fairly certain that if the Kindle Scout Editors look at the novel they will like it, the trick is just getting it in front of them.

I think for my next Kindle Scout Campaign, if this one fails, I'll do a thriller and see how that goes.

Thanks!

Kindle scout campaign is live!

The Kindle Scout Campaign for Second Chances just started, so anyone who is willing can go now and nominate it. 

If you do, you get a free advance copy of the novel before it is released.

I would really appreciate the nominations, and it doesn't take anything except an amazon account to actually nominate!  

Thanks everyone!

https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/EJH7...

Scouting About to Begin!

Kindle Scout approved the campaign to start on the 8th, so only a few days to go before it is up and running!  Hopefully things can kick off with a bang and really get going!

Thanks to everyone who has supported me! I appreciate all of it.

Also, on the 15th Ripples will find out if it was chosen for any awards, so here's hoping we get some good news!