12 Days: My Self Publishing Journey (Part 2 of 12)

If you haven’t read part 1, then click here.

Otherwise, carry on…

Day 2: Promoting my second book by promoting my first book

I just got off the email (yes, email, not phone) with Stewart over at Exposure4all and I’ve just been verified and approved for his marketing services. He’s going to market my book to over 380,000 twitter followers. He’s going to send 30 of my tweets over a 6 day period for only $7.60. To me, that’s a great deal and I feel lucky he went forward with my book and is helping me with this promotion. He’s an extremely busy man, so I’m thanking my lucky stars. Now, let’s see if it gets me anywhere. I’ll let you know when the promotion is over, since, well, it hasn’t even started yet.

I also just got off the email with BookBub and they informed me, regretfully, that they had to turn me down. I had signed up with them to send my book to their readers. They have one of the biggest lists of readers looking for “Fantasy” books–over 230,000. I’ve talked with many authors who have used BookBub’s services and those authors went from very little sales to over, on average, $8,000 worth of sales in just one month.

I’ll just shake it off.

Okay, I’m back and I just figured out that life goes on.

Anyway, my book just didn’t quite meet their requirements. They wouldn’t tell me exactly why I wasn’t accepted, but my guess is that I don’t have enough reviews. I have fourteen 5 star reviews and one 4 star review. It seems that most of the books that I’ve seen advertised on BoobBub have over 50 reviews. My 15 reviews doesn’t compare. So, I’ve got to concentrate on getting reviews for my book!

My goal

I’m aiming high, but I want between 10,000 and 20,000 downloads for my free book. If I can get more, then I would love that. Again, the reason I want so many downloads is the potential to raise my book’s ranking on Amazon. I don’t know exactly how the Amazon algorithms work, nor does anyone else, but what we authors have seen through the years is the more free downloads one gets, the higher they are placed in the Amazon rankings AFTER the promotion is over, plus, it gives you the chance to do what I’m doing with this promotion–give away my first book, “The PureLights of Ohm Totem“, for free with the hope that some of those free downloads will transfer into sales for my second book, “The PureLights and the PureLight Order”, which will be on Amazon by the first day of this promotion.

“This” Promotion

I keep typing “this” promotion, but if by chance it’s been a while since you’ve read part 1, then I’ll give you a little reminder of what I’m doing.

Amazon gives each author 5 days of promoting their own book for free on Amazon. An author, if they sign up under a certain program with Amazon, will be able to do “this” promotion every 90 days. Now, each 90 days the author has the choice to promote their book for 1 day, 2 days, 3 days, and so on and so forth. So, if an author promotes their book for 2 days one week, then 3 days the next week, then that’s fine. They just can’t extend past 5 days for that 90 day period.

Wow, I hope that made sense.

Here goes…

What I’ve done leading up to this promotion are several things that I, like I said before, hope can get me between 10,000 and 20,000 downloads or more. I started this promotion and signed up for the programs you’re about to read about, months ago. My thought is that if you get in line earlier than the rest, then you get more of a chance to be seen. You see, not all promotion sites will guarantee you a listing. You can submit your book to them without knowing that on the day you want your book listed, it’s too full and your book got kicked off the train. Thus is the reason I planned early–too make sure I have a seat on the train.

Let me take you on a ride. Follow me…

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The absolute first thing I did was sign up with eBookBooster. They submit your book to 50+ sites. If they can get me on all of the free websites that help me promote to everyone out there that my book is free, then great! If not, well, I didn’t lose much. Last time I submitted to ALL the sites myself, it only gathered me 450 downloads. This time I let the pro do it. We’ll see how it goes.

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I then went over to the World Literary Cafe and signed up to their social media book buzz program. It only runs in July and August. Here is why it’s so cool.

From the World Literary Cafe, themselves: “WLC has partnered with FreeBooksy to help promote author’s free titles for the month of July/August. If your book is free, you can gain the exposure listed above (Standard Social Media Book Buzz without the excerpt) IN ADDITION, 30 lucky authors who purchase a Social Media Mania promotion for July and whose book is free will ALSO be included in Freebooksy’s daily email. The email goes out to thousands of readers who own Kindles and have specified their genre interests.  FREE titles may purchase this option only once/month per title. The Standard package may be purchased for multiple days.”

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I have over 7,000 followers on twitter, so I’ve set up 5 tweets with TweetDeck that will be sent everyday from July 27th (first day of my promotion) to July 31st (last day of my promotion).

I set the same type of tweet system up with Exposure4all, but to over 380,000+ twitter followers.

I went to BookBlast and signed up for their genre specific emails. They have subscribers/readers who are looking for certain genre’s to read. I signed up for their “Fantasy Subscriber List”. There are over 8,000 on that list.

I signed up with Kindle Fire Department where they will advertise my free book, “The PureLights of Ohm Totem“, to 52,000 of their fans.

And, I’m talking to you, who will send 10,000 of your friends, family, and associates to my book.

So, for you, I thank you muchly (new word).

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I don’t know why I’m not just typing, 1., 2., 3., 4.. I’m typing out the numbers and, to top it off, in a vertical format. I have my 2 year old daughter in my office with me as I type, so maybe that’s why. She’s giving me the “just have fun, DAD!” jive. And, right now she’s reading books to me…

…she’s making me play with a stuffed puppy dog, now…

…oh, wait, she apparently want’s me to dance with her. Hold on a sec…

…okay, I’m back.

A fellow author’s help

If you remember yesterday’s post, I mentioned a woman by the name of Claudia Harbough. She wrote the book, “Her Grace in Disgrace“. And in only a month, she’s almost hit the top 1000 most popular books on Amazon. It means she’s selling just over 100 books a day. Wow! I’m not selling that many a month.

She had asked for my email, saying that she would like to help me with my marketing, not because I’m neat or anything, but because she’s awesome. And, of course, I want to get my book out because I’ve written one that I think is wonderful, entertaining, well-written, and inspiring, so I’d love it if I could reach more people. Now, she hasn’t emailed me yet, but she said she would soon.

I’ll keep you updated. Until tomorrow…

Cheerio!