Marie Silk’s Comments (group member since Jan 03, 2017)

Marie Silk’s comments from the Navigating Indieworld Discussing All Things Indie group.

I've never run a free promotion for that long before but I discovered that it takes a LOT of free downloads to lead to sales trickling in. Mind you, I only have experience with Amazon, so it could be different with wide books. Usually I see 25-ish next day sales for every 1K free downloads. But I only run promotions one day at a time and advertise the socks off the promo. It's enough to give my book a boost in visibility and lead to sales across all my books. If you don't advertise your free promotion anywhere, it may be difficult to reach download numbers in the hundreds or thousands that will mean results for your other books. CL's answer about instafreebie sounds more promising imo than only listing a book for free and hoping people find it. Good luck, Alex :)

Yeah, my covers turn out really dark too :( Ingram and Createspace covers look the same though. The only noticeable difference is the interior of Ingram/Lightning Source books is in a bolder font than CS.

Sam (Rescue Dog Mom & Writer) wrote: "Ooh, good timing for you, Carole!! Hugs!!

Regarding ISBN's and ebooks, can you use the same ISBN for KDP and Kobo just as you can use the same ISBN for your paperback with Createspace and Ingram? ..."

The file formats for Kobo and KDP are different. When you upload to KDP, the file is converted to a mobi so that should have its own ISBN for the mobi format. Then when you upload to digital platforms that are not KDP, the file will be an epub. That one will have its own ISBN but it will be the same across all epub platforms (Nook, ibooks, Kobo, Draft2Digital). Smashwords requires some further tweaking to epub files so I think you need a separate ISBN for that.

Carole wrote: "Here's Stillwell. My son's bestselling book.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_no...

I think anyone looking at that thinks the book is out..."

Bummer :( it shows as "only 1 left in stock", and you're right, that looks bad on the author/book. Hopefully this gets resolved asap.

KDP is the name of Amazon's publishing service, Select is the enrollment that puts your book on the 90 day exclusivity contract. So you need to go to Bookshelf, then the ... button and click on "KDP Select Info". The default settings will auto-renew you for another 90 days so you will want to uncheck this box on the popup or click on "Manage KDP Select Enrollment" and uncheck the box there :). Then you need to wait for your enrollment to end before you publish to another digital platform.

Carole, you can keep your ebooks on KDP for only Amazon (just make sure your Select enrollment period is over and you uncheck the box to auto renew Select). Then publish your ebooks to Ingram but don't select Amazon. When I go wide, I'm going to publish directly to Kobo and possibly Draft2Digital and/or Smash. I don't know many authors who have published their ebooks to Ingram.

I went the blog review route last year. To say it was a tedious process would be an understatement. I ended up researching about 100 blogs. Of those 100, my book fit the submission criteria of about 20 who were also accepting review requests. Of the 20 submissions I made, I was accepted by about 10. Of those 10, I think I got 7 reviews. It took a lot of time and patience but those reviews were gold for me.

I was surprised at how many reviewers stated they would not read historical fiction. It seemed most of them were interested in contemporary YA, romance, scifi, and fantasy. The ones who did read histfic usually had very specific requirements of historical timeline and location. So if they only like books set in 16th century France, my series was out of the equation. I spent a lot of hours researching and submitting but it was worth it for the reviews. However it was a less effort and time to get reviews from goodreads by joining genre-related groups and offering books for review.

Thank you, Sam! So good to see your picture ♥

50 Shades was originally self published. Not really my genre but I think it's awesome that an indie book "made it".

Thank you, J.B.! ♥

Thank you, Carole! ♥

Alexis wrote: "Amy wrote: "Alexis wrote: "Amazon won't let me promote my book because it's erotic.
"

Yep that is also true. Annoying isn't it!"

Pissing me off lol. I don't want to do Bargain Booksy yet. I want ..."

Robin Reads takes "steamy romance"...is that the same as erotica?? My book does well with them under the mystery category. http://robinreads.com/author-signup/

There is also a division of Book Barbarian called "Red Roses Romance" that promotes erotica. http://redrosesromance.com/why-advert...

I have not advertised with RRR but I did get a feature with Book Adrenaline, which is also a division of Book Barbarian. I was happy with the results.

If you mean AMS won't promote your book, maybe it can help save you some money haha. I spent way too much on AMS with nothing to really show for it.

Good luck ♥

Hello everyone! Here is the link for my Goodreads giveaway open to U.S. addresses. It's for my new book releasing on 4/21! https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh...

Genre: Historical Fiction, Family Saga

The difference in society and servant life in 1909 America is explored in this prequel to the Davenport House series.

Sixteen-year-old Mary Davenport endures the drama leading up to her debutante ball in the family's mansion. Twelve-year-old Abigail is suspended from school while her family faces hunger and homelessness. A special connection is shared between the two girls who have never met.

Carole, just curious, but what do mass distribution sales look like? Are they listed with others on the Createspace dashboard or are they recorded somewhere else? Also do they count on Nielsen Bookscan as "sales"?

I didn't sell many paperbacks last year, especially on non-Amazon channels. However I just got my Lightning source statement and it says I've sold 13 paperbacks this year (after 0 sales last year). Well that's really neat, but what's even more interesting is when I looked at Createspace today (for Amazon sales) it looks like someone bought all the books except for the 5th book of my series. Book 5 is one of the books included in the swag bags so I thought I'd mention it here :).

Carole wrote: "gary.mlodzik@kidsneedtoread.org
8:33 AM (11 minutes ago)

to me
No deadline really. I take books when I can get them and work with what I have. However, best case scenario would be by the end of M..."

Wonderful, thank you!

I agree with Theodore's point about YA book performance on ENT. The times they listed my book in that category, it didn't have great results. When they listed my book as a mystery, it fared much better. I've only run free promos with them so far. I am glad you posted this though because I did not realize ENT would list a book that wasn't first in a series.

I have a historical fiction series of 6 books that had staggered releases all in the past year. I use the free promotion days offered by Select for the first book of my series. Sales across all books are always best on the day/week of my free promotions. Sales and ranks tend to take a dive about 3 weeks after a promotion. So I'm a believer in carefully planned free promotions.

It won't necessarily work for every book. That being said, the indies I've run into with the most (full price) sales have series with the first book permafree. I haven't tried permafree yet. Maybe someday :).

Something to keep in mind is that ebook promotion sites and newsletters, including ENT and most others, have an audience of primarily women age 28ish to retired. The highest genre in demand in mystery. The second highest is romance. If this does not sound like your target audience, you might have a more difficult time getting bang for your buck with newsletter advertising.

Goodreads giveaways are a great promotional tool imo. I do them every month.

Does anyone know when the books should be sent by? I have a new release on Apr 21st that I'd love to send their way, but not sure how soon they need it. Thank you :)

Thanks for the warning, Anna. I've been getting emails about "book promotions" from places I definitely never subscribed to. I'll be more wary of clicking on links.

Oh that seemed quick! Well done, Alex :)

Sent in my info. Thank you Carole and Brittney :)