Kindle Marketing Lessons Using The "Before You Go" Screen by Steven Lewis

I'm thrilled to introduce you today to our guest author, Steven Lewis, author and creator of the newly designed Kindle Self Publishing (formerly Kindle Writers). If you want to know anything Kindle, Steven is your guy.



Today's post is a taste of his expertise when it comes to knowing how to get the best out your your Kindle marketing activities. In it, Steven looks at Kindle Marketing Lessons Using The "Before You Go" Screen.



Steven, take it away...



To my mind there's nothing Elmore Leonard doesn't know about writing. If he writes it, I'm buying it. If he puts his name on a TV show, I'm watching it. And if he writes about writing, I'm living by it. But when it comes to ebook marketing on the Kindle, Elmore Leonard has a lot to learn. (Well, his publishers do, anyway.)



All books on the latest generation Kindle now bring up a Before You Go... screen with the last page turn of the book. The screen invites the reader to share with Twitter and Facebook that they've read the book; and they're invited to give it a rating. The page also shows other books by the same author and a list of books under the heading "Customers who bought this book also bought".









This presents Elmore Leonard and his publishers with two fantastic marketing opportunities.



1. It gives the reader the opportunity to buy another one of Elmore Leonard's books immediately - click the link, hit Buy, and your next Elmore Leonard book is on your Kindle in under a minute.



2. With a couple of clicks a reader can send a link to the book to an audience in the thousands. I have almost 2,000 followers on Twitter, Tony has nearly 10,000. That's one reader, two clicks, 10,000 potential readers.



So what are Elmore Leonard and Harper Collins doing wrong?



I have my Kindle set on the third smallest font size. Even at that relatively modest size, after the last screen of Leonard's novel Djibouti before I get to the Before You Go screen I have to plough through:



1. One screen of information about the author

2. Three screens of a list of other books he's written (which should be hyperlinked to the Amazon page for the book)

3. One screen of credits for the cover illustration

4. Two screens of copyright information

5. Two screens of HarperCollins' international office addresses



That means I've got to hit the next page button 10 times before I see the Before You Go screen.



Some readers will stop when they realise they're at the end of the story. Other readers, perhaps even most readers, will read the About the Author screen. But, I would suggest, HarperCollins is going to lose most readers when they get to the administrative bumph about acknowledgements, copyright and office addresses. Who wants to read that?



By putting too much distance between the end of the story and the Before You Go screen, HarperCollins has denied itself the word of mouth from readers who made it through to the last page turn and used Before You Go to share the book with Twitter and Facebook. Not to mention the reader who, basking in the enjoyment of Djibouti, might have immediately bought another of Leonard's books.



What do you need to know about Before You Go



1. Before You Go is a built-in feature in the latest generation of the Kindle. It's not an option publishers have to switch on or configure. It's just there.

2. Before You Go is not available on earlier model Kindles .

3. Readers do have to have entered their Twitter and Facebook account details into their Kindle in order to share.

4. Many readers have done this, which I demonstrated in a screencast of tweets generated by Before You Go.



Because Facebook pages are private, there's no way of knowing how many people are sharing on Facebook but more people use Facebook than Twitter (over half the population of most western countries); and the average Facebook user has 140-odd friends to share with.



What should you do to avoid Elmore Leonard's mistakes?



If you already have your Kindle book on Amazon, open it up and work out how many page turns the reader needs to make before they reach the Before You Go screen. (If you don't have a Kindle 3, you can fake it because you know Before You Go... comes up with the last page turn of your book.)



Experiment with the number of page turns at different font sizes (you can change the font using the AA button next to the spacebar on your Kindle).



If you haven't published your Kindle book yet, build Before You Go into your book design. Keep the backend of your book light so the reader reaches Before You Go... quickly.



Rather than including administrative bumph, acknowledgements and so on in your book, consider including a link to more information on your website. You might be attached to this information but is it worth more than thousands of potential readers seeing your book recommended by their friend?



--------



Steven Lewis is a bestselling Kindle author who writes about ebook marketing at Kindle Self-Publishing. His book In-Book Promotion covers how to use all the Kindle's built-in features to improve your promotion. The audio, video and ebook of his Kindle Publishing Roadmap is also available as a download.

















Contest Update:



The winner in yesterday's daily mini-prize package is Adam Lebrocq. Join with me in congratulating Adam. He won the following prizes:



April 25th

Joel Friedlander- Free Cover Critique Of Your Self-Designed Cover

Shaila Abdullah- Existing Website Review/ New Website Consultation

Tony Eldridge- Conducting Effective Twitter Contests PDF Download



Today is day five and we have a great daily prize package in addition to the amazing grand prize package. To enter for a chance to win today's daily prize and the Grand Prize package, visit the official contest page.





Today's daily mini prize package is:



April 26th

BookBuzzr- 3 Month Author Pro Subscription

Phyllis Zimbler Miller- 8 Social Media Marketing Mistakes

Tony Eldridge- Conducting Effective Twitter Contests PDF Download



Remember, visit the official contest page to see how easy it is to enter for your chance to win some amazing prizes.







 -------- Tony Eldridge is the author of The Samson Effect , an action/adventure novel that Clive Cussler calls a "first rate thriller brimming with intrigue and adventure." He is also the author of the Twitter marketing book, Conducting Effective Twitter Contests .