Does The "Hot List" Matter?

[Justin]

Long story short, I got a Kindle Scout contract with only 330 page views and 71 hours on the "Hot and Trending" list. Maybe I'm an anomaly, but I feel like, if you have a strong novel then the editors will push it up the line for review.

I'm writing about the experience on my blog:

http://secondarysound.blogspot.com.

:)

[Tom]

Justin wrote: "Long story short, I got a Kindle Scout contract with only 330 page views and 71 hours on the "Hot and Trending" list. Maybe I'm an anomaly, but I feel like, if you have a strong novel then the edit..."

That's great news, Justin. Congratulations! I hope to give the Kindle Scout program a try next month.

[Justin]

Tom wrote: "Justin wrote: "Long story short, I got a Kindle Scout contract with only 330 page views and 71 hours on the "Hot and Trending" list. Maybe I'm an anomaly, but I feel like, if you have a strong nove..."

Thank you!!

[Clive]

Congratulations!
I want to thank you for writing about this. I'd already reached the conclusion that with 441 views and 78 hours in H&T (day 16 today), that probably wasn't enough. So I can hope!
My own feelings about the campaign ( https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2HK8... ) are, first, it helps to concentrate your thoughts as to getting the book faultless in formatting, good blurb, etc.
Then, obviously you should create social networking pages for it. So as to get the campaign off to a good start, I used social network marketing (Facebook) and tested the response in different markets, age groups, etc. - this allows me to also categorise my novel more accurately. Is it 'really' a YA novel? According to my responses, no. It isn't. Just because it's told from the viewpoint of a 14 y.o. boy doesn't make it a YA novel. It seems that the time setting is the thing. Anyway I could write a book on what I have learned so far. I'll shut up.

[Clive]

Well I see that Matthew's campaign has ended. Nice writing, by the way - but I hope you're going to have an original art cover made for it. Cover needs to reflect story, not be generic.

[Clive]

My campaign just finished. I learned a lot. The first thing I did was create a Facebook page for it; I then experimented with boosting various types of post in different potential audiences. I learned that the most expensive to target is the USA. I tried boosting a post in India and for $5 I got a reach of over 12,000 and a response of over 3,000 but hardly a single nomination. Why? I presume that hardly anyone has an Amazon account over there!
I ended with 124 hours in H&T and 800 views. Now waiting to hear.

[Lorri]

Hi P.! H & T is a moving target. The bar goes up all the time as more authors pay for Facebook ads and Fiverr promos - and there are sites which will take your money and claim to get you nominations. There's no way of knowing how many nominations your book gets. But honestly, that doesn't matter. It's just a case of whether you've written the sort of book Kindle Press thinks it can sell. I've had two books selected on Kindle Scout, and I didn't campaign, and my stats were totally unimpressive.

Lexi,
That's good to see. This is my first Kindle Scout campaign and I'm about 2/3 of the way through. While I've had good numbers, I've never been on H & T. I'm hoping my book will be chosen, but either way, it's been an interesting experience.

There were many books that dominated H & T for most of their run, but were not chosen, so we'll see what happens! Hope you don't mind that I've included my link. Thank you.
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/3PCU...

[Tiffany]

Hi Everyone,

I'm just a few days into my Kindle Scout campaign and I noticed some novels that came out the same day as mine were immediately on the H&T list. I have no idea how they accomplished that, but I'm glad to hear that H&T isn't the deciding factor for a book being chosen for publishing on KS.

My link for anyone interested in taking a look https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/2OJG...

[Clive]

I don't think the H&T list is actually a valid indicator. My own book spent 18 hours in H&T on day 1. How is that possible? Then later on, I noticed that "they" added it to H&T 2 DAYS LATE.

[Alicia]

Hey Everyone. I appreciate everyone's insight on the H&T list and other topics on the KindleScout program. That being said, I need your help! Please #Nominate Unknown Presence on #Kindlescout! If selected you receive a FREE eCopy!
https://goo.gl/gdC4IK