Indie Authors Monthly Magazine For Authors and Readers discussion
Opportunities!
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Promote your book with Indie Advent Calendar 2018
R.L. wrote: "Looks awesome! Count me in!"Woohoo! Awesome :D
Alex wrote: "I'll be there."Fantastic! Thanks, Alex :D
This is a great opportunity to promote your books during the holiday season. Kay does an awesome job with this event! I am excited to have bloggers involved this year as well.
Mod
Kay wrote: "Indie Advent Calendar entries are open! This is a fantastic event that runs from December 1st-24th and features different authors (and, new for this year, bloggers too!) every day in the form of an..."thanks, Kay, I'll be sending you info
Sounds awesome. Would love to get in if there's room. I PM'd you for your email.
Carole, there’s room for everyone! Just send your entries to my email and I’ll add you both in :)Judy and Rhonda I’ve replied to your messages!
Thanks guys.
I'm in this year. Thanks for doing it again, please send your email address to:editor@glyphus.com
Kay,A question. Can I offer two books? We are publishing two new books, one is out now and we are hoping our newest, Mythicals, will be ready for publication by the end of November. Mythicals is available for pre order now on Amazon. But we do not have it listed at Goodreads yet.
D.J. wrote: "I’m in."Awesome! Looking forward to your entry :D
Dennis wrote: "Kay,
A question. Can I offer two books? We are publishing two new books, one is out now and we are hoping our newest, Mythicals, will be ready for publication by the end of November. Mythicals is ..."
I'm sorry, Dennis but I can only accept one book per author. There's usually about 50 people that join in and it's a huge amount of work to set that up. If one person has two then everyone will want to and that's time taken away from me promoting the event and maintaining a high quality across everything. I hope you understand! If people love the book you are promoting then you should get them checking out the rest of your work anyway :D
Anita wrote: "Did you get mine?"
Yes! I did, I've replied to everyone that's sent me emails except any sent today, which I'll log and reply to in the morning.
Thank you, awesome people!
I'm in, if there's room for my latest book. I'm willing to donate toward the prizes. I have ebooks, bookmarks, stickers.
Angela wrote: "I'm in, if there's room for my latest book. I'm willing to donate toward the prizes. I have ebooks, bookmarks, stickers."That’s awesome, thanks! I’ve sent you a message :)
Kay, I've PM'd you for your email addy.This sounds amazing! Very excited to (hopefully) be involved.
Jo x
Hi, Neha! Love your channel! Kay is also featuring bloggers, including video book reviewers, during this event. If you haven't already, you should touch base with her about joining this event. It is free and will give you some extra publicity. I am a children's author, but my books may be a little younger than you are looking for. You can find out more about them at talkingtalesbooks.com. If you think you might be interested, let me know and I can send you more info. :)
Just sent you my entry, Kay.Please let me know if I've missed anything.
Thanks,
Jo x
Thank you Neha and J.S, I've replied to both of you guys!
Neha wrote: "Kay wrote: "Thank you Neha and J.S, I've replied to both of you guys!"Thanks Kay. If you would like to, maybe put in an update in this group of mine as well -
https://www.goodreads.com/group/sho..."
Sounds awesome! Thank you, I'll check it out.
I already sent my stuff right? I don't remember...
Alyson wrote: "I already sent my stuff right? I don't remember..."Haha, yep, I've got your stuff! Thanks :D
Kay, what is the deadline for bookmarks?
Judy wrote: "Kay, what is the deadline for bookmarks?"For people all signed up there isn’t really a deadline as long as it’s before the event. I’ll set up the prize page soon but I can add new prizes and pictures afterwards if you want to :)
Kay wrote: "Judy wrote: "Kay, what is the deadline for bookmarks?"For people all signed up there isn’t really a deadline as long as it’s before the event. I’ll set up the prize page soon but I can add new pr..."
Ok, thanks, Kay.
Kay,I have started to tell the bloggers on my lists of this event. My lists are so long that it will take me weeks to email all of them. I never send out an email unless it is personal. But it will give them time to get it on their calendars and prepare for the event.
Thanks so much for doing the wonderful event.
Dennis wrote: "Kay,I have started to tell the bloggers on my lists of this event. My lists are so long that it will take me weeks to email all of them. I never send out an email unless it is personal. But it wi..."
Thank you so much! I hope we get loads more bloggers involved :D
By the way, if anyone else wants to join in I’m happy to slot a few more authors in. You may not get as many bloggers requesting your book as it gets closer to the event but you’ll still get in the Calendar as long as I have a reasonable time to add your entry in. :)
Kay,I have heard back from some bloggers who say they are putting a notice in their next magazine/newsletter and asking me to alert them when the link is up.
I have only done about 1/3 of my bloggers lists, but will keep at it.
Thanks Dennis!If you give me their enail address or get them to email me I’ll send them the link to the bloggers request page :)
I entered a few ebooks as a prize but found out from Amazon I can only gift them in the USA. If that's a problem, I'll have to drop out I guess. :(
You can only gift from the US to the US. Not sure if we have gifting of ebooks from the UK to the UK. Anyone know?
Last year I participated in Kay's Christmas event. I set up an account on Amazon.UK, and ordered books on the UK site and had them shipped to Kay. If I could do that with print books, I expect I could also gift an eBook.
I have had the same problem with ebooks. Normally if I can't gift them the ebook, I create an account on their country's Amazon site and gift them a gift card for the cost of the book. Then is it up to them to actually use it on the book they won, which most people do. I didn't use to be able to purchase gift cards on the Australian site, but I believe they have now added that option.If you have a .mobi file, you should be able to send it directly to their Kindle device or app.
Erica wrote: "I have had the same problem with ebooks. Normally if I can't gift them the ebook, I create an account on their country's Amazon site and gift them a gift card for the cost of the book. Then is it u..."Hm... This is my first year participating, and I offered to gift ebooks but I was planning on just sending the mobi or epub file myself (or allowing Kay to pass them along). Is there a reason to do it via amazon instead?
The only reason I can see for not sending a file via email is that you’re then trusting that person not to put it anywhere online for others to download or to send it to other people. I’ve heard it has happened but I don’t know if it’s happened to anyone in this group.
D.J. wrote: "The only reason I can see for not sending a file via email is that you’re then trusting that person not to put it anywhere online for others to download or to send it to other people. I’ve heard it..."I see. Thanks.
Personally i feel more comfortable sending a mobi or epub over a PDF. It is fairly safe to send them directly to someone's device (not an expert, but from my experience). They have to change their settings to accept attachments from your email address. Then you simply send an email with your mobi or epub file to their device's address (it will be different than their regular email). You do not need to include a title or message.
That’s the bit I’m not sure how to do. Where do they change the settings to allow another email address to send to their device?
Erica wrote: "Personally i feel more comfortable sending a mobi or epub over a PDF. It is fairly safe to send them directly to someone's device (not an expert, but from my experience). They have to change their ..."Thanks Erica. That sounds better than sending to their regular email.
Kay wrote: "Thanks Dennis!If you give me their enail address or get them to email me I’ll send them the link to the bloggers request page :)"
I will contact them, you have enough to do. I have sent everyone I emailed your website link but I also planned to send out another email to remind everyone closer to the date.
Anita wrote: "Last year I participated in Kay's Christmas event. I set up an account on Amazon.UK, and ordered books on the UK site and had them shipped to Kay. If I could do that with print books, I expect I co..."I've done that with print books too. I've tried to send ebook from amazon.ca to person in canada and can't gift ebook so not sure for amazon.uk. I think gift card sounds like the best approach.
Erica wrote: "I have had the same problem with ebooks. Normally if I can't gift them the ebook, I create an account on their country's Amazon site and gift them a gift card for the cost of the book. Then is it u..."I think I'll go with gift card if needed. I've had all my books pirated before so don't want any more pdf copies floating about. Thx
You could also use Instafreebie or Bookfunnel if you don't feel comfortable sending the file yourself. Then you just provide them a link and they get a copy.
Oh. I had forgotten about instafreebie. I’d have to pay for that though as I’ve already used up my free month.
can't you buy the print book in Amazon uk, and have it sent to another address?I had no problem buying the book in Amazon Spain and having it sent to my brother-in-law in Barcelona
Yes you can. I have recently sent a print book from Amazon US to a blogger in Australia. It cost me £15 to do though!
R.M. wrote: "You could also use Instafreebie or Bookfunnel if you don't feel comfortable sending the file yourself. Then you just provide them a link and they get a copy."Thanks! Good to know.
Please read the whole post as it will explain different parts of the entry questionnaire.
Author Entries
Indie Advent Calendar entries will be accepted until September 20th.
Entries need to contain the calendar post, which can be anything to promote a single book including blurb, pictures, excerpt, interviews (author or character), links, author bio, or any other material. We promote every genre except erotica. You can see last year’s posts here if you need inspiration! http://kaymacleodbooks.com/iac2017/
Please also answer this entry questionnaire
• Would you like to donate any physical prizes to our three prize packs? (Please include photos and descriptions)
• Would you like to donate any eBooks to our daily giveaway? (Please let me know how many you can provide)
• Can you do a take over of our Facebook group, Navigating Indieworld, for a day during the event? (If you have days you cannot do, or days you would prefer, please include that information. I can’t guarantee a preferred day, but I’ll do my best.)
• Are you willing to provide a free copy of the book you have entered to our featured bloggers?
Please email me with your entry- everyone will be accepted unless there’s something really wrong with your entry. Message me for my email address if you don’t have it already :D
Prizes
Last year we gave away so much great stuff as you can see here http://kaymacleodbooks.com/indie-adve... and I’d love to make it even bigger this year.
Three physical prize packs will be given away using rafflecopter for entries. Everything we do is worldwide so please keep that in mind if you want to give paperbacks away. Don’t let that put you off though as you can usually get around high shipping fees by visiting the local site of the winner and ordering a copy from there. For example, I live in the UK, but I can log into Amazon.com to send a book to a US winner. You could also decide to give away some lighter prizes such as bookmarks or postcards. Entries will be open from 1-31st December and I will email the addresses of the winners to everyone who has pledged a prize, please send them out in a timely manner and let me know if you’re having any problems as soon as possible.
Prizes can be absolutely anything! Books, bookmarks, toys, bags, or anything else you can think of. You also don’t need to be a calendar author, if you have a business that would like to give away a product during this event then please get in touch and we will feature you as a sponsor on the Indie Advent Calendar site and during our social media promotion.
Daily eBook giveaways will be done in our Facebook group, a daily question will go up and everyone that answers will go into a random draw a week later. I will get the email address and preferred format of the prize from the winner and forward the information to everyone giving away an eBook that day.
Goes without saying but please don’t use the email addresses of the winners for anything other than giving them their prizes :)
Bloggers
This year I’m going to get bloggers involved as well as authors. I’m going to have a list of every book being featured in the calendar up on a page with a note of whether the author is happy to give away a copy to bloggers. The bloggers can look through and request any they like the look of, if they feature or review it on their site then the book will have a button saying something like “see what our bloggers are saying” on their Indie Advent Calendar post which will go to the bloggers review. If you’ve previously reviewed or featured any of the books, send me a link and I’ll include that too.
Any blogger that wants to get involved will go on our featured bloggers page and be promoted as a blogger of the day during the event. You don’t have to request or review any books to be part of this, and please remember that even if you do request a book you aren’t under any obligation to read or review it. All you have to do is get involved by helping to promote the event, either a blog post, social media announcement, giveaway, or just by telling your friends!
All types of bloggers can take part, whether you have your own site, a bookstagram account, a booktube channel, or a Goodreads blog. Everyone is welcome to join in.
Just message me to say you’re interested!
Facebook Takeovers
This year all of the Facebook side of Indie Advent Calendar will take place in the Navigating Indieworld Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/navig...
During your calendar day you are welcome to take over the group and post interactive or promotional posts such as games, questions, links, excerpts, extra giveaways etc. I’m asking in the questionnaire if you can do it so I can spread out those that have Facebook accounts across the event. You don’t have to take part in this area of the event though, it’s just a fun extra.
I think that’s everything, but if you do want more information, please just ask!