I’m watching the final minutes tick down and last I checked, I had 966 downloads processed for my books on Amazon Kindle. My book, Force of Corruption, reached #2 best seller in the Ghost Suspense category and #31 in Romantic Suspense, my main genre. Because of the top 100 Bestseller status, Amazon put my book in front of more people, leading to more downloads. This is a goal to strive towards. Have you ever checked your position in Kindle sales? The orders or downloads are just since September 1st. I was hoping to get 500 by the end of my pricing event. I found out there was a romance stuff your e-reader event happening, and I was able to price two of my books at $0.00 to coincide with the event and beyond. There are several things to break down here.
First of all, why wasn’t I in the actual event? Because I didn’t know about it when they had the sign ups. I have rectified that situation and through some intensive sleuthing I have discovered how to sign up and what to do for success. The idea of a SYK event is to price one book at $0.00 preferably book one in a series and then people will purchase book two and beyond. Ideally you can price book two at $.99 and entice an immediate download. You are forfeiting the download earnings on that free book, but you still get paid per page when they read it. Of course, the other benefit is lots of reviews, in theory. Unfortunately, only about 10% of readers actually leave a review. But if that happens, I should be getting about 90 reviews which would finally push me over the 100-review threshold, so fingers crossed people!
Now you’re wondering, “How do I get in on this whole SYK event thing?” Here’s where it gets a little tricky. You have to be invited. No, I can’t invite 300 people so please don’t ask. But I can tell you how I got invited. I sought out authors who participated in the event. SYK events are genre specific, so if you’re a fantasy author, you’ll want to sign up for the fantasy SYK. These events and their dates are kept top secret and quiet. There are strict rules you must follow. If you break the rules, you’re banned for life. I’m not kidding, banned for life. With one of the events, the big fancy one, they don’t tell you how to do anything. They have the author who invites you tell you what to do and all of your questions must go to them. You can’t ask questions in the group or of the admins. They don’t have time, it’s a huge event with thousands of authors and hundreds of thousands of readers if not millions.
The biggest event goes through Romancebookworms.com it’s where you find out who’s participating. It’s also where you can find authors in your genre to ask for an invite. Step one: Find authors who have participated and write your genre. Step two: Ask one or two if they’re willing to invite you to the group. If not, ask a couple more. Do this until someone is willing to invite you to the FB group. Step three: In that group you will learn the date of the next sign up and you’ll have the opportunity to fill out the form. Step four: The event date will be secret until it’s time for you to advertise that you’re going to participate. You’re also required to put it in your newsletter.
Surprise! This isn’t the only SYK event. There are two more that I know about, one is a “dark theme” event and the other is another romance event, but each one has specific romance genres. The dark event is held by an amazing dark group and covers dark romance, horror, Sci-fi, and fantasy. The other group is a more general romance group, and their romance events have a variety of romance themes that include less dark sub genres. Each group requires membership, sign up for each event, and approval of your sign up. I will name these groups below and if their links are public, I will include them. (The original event absolutely requires you to be invited by a member.)
Another important factor to consider is how many books you have published. If you don’t have at least two, they probably won’t let you participate. They have a formula that works, and they won’t let in if you don’t meet the threshold to make it successful. They want you to have success, not just them. They get nothing from your sales, so keep in mind it has huge potential for you and does nothing for them besides another author for readers to choose. If you have at least two books published, your chances of acceptance are high.
You also need to know how to make your book free. They won’t help you do it. If you don’t know how, learn before you apply. They will ban you for life if your book isn’t free on the day of the event. Make sure KU will allow you to make your book free for the event. If you’re “wide” or not on KU, make sure you know how to set your books to free at your chosen distribution platform. They include Barnes & Noble and Kobo, I’m not sure what other platforms are acceptable. If I find it before I publish this blog, I’ll include it below.
Why did I price my books at $0.00 even though I wasn’t in the event? A lot of readers just filter “free kindle books” on Amazon to search for books to stuff their kindle during the events. If anyone searched that way, my books came up in their search. So, I rode the event coat tails to get my books seen. I even got downloads in Japan, I’m not sure I ever had any sales there before. I also advertised my ass off, every day, multiple times a day, different ads, on EVERY social media platform on which I have an account. It was a lot of work; I normally don’t advertise much at all. I participate and interact on groups, but I rarely post about my books. I post about my blogs more than my books.
Another important takeaway for me is that I’ve been seeing some traction on my books since I did the horror SYK event the first time in June. Now that I have the second book in my romantic suspense series released, I’m seeing more sales of my first book in the series in general. That first horror event was focused on my first short story, Haunted Hunting Camp. I’ve gotten around fifty reviews on it, last I checked. That’s huge for a book I wrote as an experiment to figure out all the ins and outs of indie publishing. I can’t wait to see what happens when I release my next book and begin a new series, next month. I’ve said this before, but it warrants repeating, “Four published books seems to be the magic number where authors begin to see results from all their hard work.”
I’d like to talk about reviews for a minute. I’m in the midst of another ARC campaign and it’s very hard. Let me elaborate, you pour your heart out writing a story that matters to you. It’s an artistic creation from your soul. You go over it and over it fixing, rewriting, expanding, making it perfect. Then you hire an editor to take it apart and help you rebuild it into the best it can be. You hire a cover artist. You hire a proofreader and a formatting person. All experts to make your book baby beautiful inside and out. You finally upload it and it’s accepted for publishing and you’re so proud! Then, you hand out copies for free to a bunch of strangers solely for the purpose of them reading and reviewing your baby. What the f*ck is wrong with you!?! Why would you hand your baby to strangers hoping they’ll be kind and considerate?
Thankfully, most ARC readers are great. But there’s always one…they like tearing people down somehow it makes them feel superior. Because you know this, you don’t read your reviews. You try so hard not to look at them. But when that first one posts, you’re dying to know if someone liked your art, your story, your soul. If they do, it’s the best feeling ever. You created something and a stranger liked it. Wow. But if they don’t, it’s soul crushing. It’s that first review that kills you. Once you have one good one, it doesn’t matter anymore. If one person liked it, others will too. But if that first review doesn’t live up to your hopes, it’s painful. Because of the need for reviews to get the traction all authors seek; we have no choice but to subject ourselves to the torture of waiting for a good review.
I’ve decided that I won’t be reading most reviews anymore. I will read a five-star review after a few are posted and that’s it. I don’t mind one-star reviews. I mind spoilers and mean-spirited reviews. For some reason there’s always that one mean person and I just don’t want to see it. I have enough real-world things to stress me out. You may recall I am partially disabled, and I have a few autoimmune illnesses that are relentless.
I’m recovering from my most recent surgery and finally have the pins out of my thumb and the brace off my wrist. But it’s going to be about five more months before I have full use of my hand. Well, whatever full use will be for me now. I’m still hoping for some Terminator hands in the future. Does anyone have the Skynet website link?
If you haven’t tried threads, please try it for your author search to get your invite. You can search #AuthorThreads and find all kinds of helpful info.
The main romance SYK event is through Romancebookworms.com and you need to be invited to the FB Group ZoeBub, Zoe York is the mastermind of the event. This is the invite you want to seek out among your peers.
The slightly smaller Stuff Your E reader event is through Fireside café on FB. You can directly apply to join the group: The Fireside Book Cafe
The dark event is through FB group: Dark Mode SYK Authors. There’s a current event sign up form in this group. Read ALL of the instructions in the group before you fill out the form.
I’m still participating in the Readers Break the Internet Horror Edition, it’s been moved to 10/12, reader sign-ups: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdfdK684r5E44PaD6rmw9kXC7AQVr9Unx7EkLb1gfN_QZ1jpQ/viewform
My books and lots of info is available on my website: https//:www.enchantingauthor.com
As always, thank you for reading!