In the midst of the Stuff Your Kindle bonanza currently taking place I have figured out a few important facts. I just need to decide how to implement them.
1. Your title needs to include your genre and main tropes so that people looking through thousands of books on Amazon or a website can easily see what the book is about and decide at a glance if they want to download it.
2. You should offer all of your books at a discount when you have one or two set to Free so people will feel the urge to buy those too while they are discounted.
3. Advertise your ass off. Not just about the event, but all the time. I’m not up for doing it all the time but I think a daily goal of a few posts will make a difference. I'll let you know if that comes true over time.
4. When you’re designing your cover make sure it speaks to the genre. People choose books by the cover despite the saying advising against it. Your cover needs to draw in readers who enjoy your genre. Those readers are used to seeing a certain style in the genres they read, if they can pick out your book by the cover image, you’re three steps ahead.
5. Unless you’re Stephen King or J.K. Rowling, make your title larger than your name on your cover. Unless you can sell anything with your name on it, because you’re you, don’t put your name in a bigger font than the title. If nothing else, it’s kinda tacky.
6. A new release may suffer during large stuff your kindle events. Even though the hosts tend to keep the dates a secret, with past events known, you can guesstimate approximate event dates and avoid scheduling your release to coincide with a free book event.
7. It’s not just readers who stuff their kindle; other authors are readers too. Don’t forget them in your posts.
8. Scheduling posts ahead of time is a lifesaver. If you don’t know how to do this, watch a YouTube video and learn. Being able to post at all hours is a huge help. I can sit for an hour and schedule weeks of posts and not think about it for a while.
9. For the love of everything you care about, if you join a stuff your Kindle event MAKE SURE YOUR BOOKS ARE FREE THE CORRECT DAYS! I found multiple listed books that didn’t make it to free status. It’s a bad experience for readers and they might get mad. You also might get kicked out of an event, For Life! Don’t risk it, check, double check, triple check, and check it again before the start date.
10. I am having a hard time restraining myself, but you should try so you don’t lose your mind watching how many downloads you’re getting. My goal for these free days was to get over a thousand downloads. At last check, I had over fifteen-hundred, Goal Shattered! I also hit #1 on the horror kindle chart with Violent and Force of Corruption made it to #6 in romantic suspense. I can’t complain!!
I’m planning to use some of the things that happened during this event to advertise my books such as VioleNt being a #1 seller, even if it was only for a few hours, it happened. I’m always looking for interesting things to do and say online, it’s a constant struggle because I don’t want the life of a content creator, I just want to write books. But they go hand in hand sometimes and I have to embrace the not so fun with the awesome parts.
Speaking of writing books, I'm through with my first pass of Vile. I’m on my second pass and going through spell check and grammar check on Word. I’m also listening to it on the read aloud function of Word. It’s just another way to make sure what I wrote makes sense. You'd be shocked by the number of repeated words that happen in a book. How do you miss those?
I also had some difficulty with the program. It decided to stop auto-saving in the middle of my edits. It saved a copy to fix the issue. Now I’m editing the copy. This is how I end up with too many final copies and get confused about which one is the correct copy to send to my editor. I’m trying to keep track of them differently this time around and hoping it will help.
Also, since I lost that chunk of book edits once, I religiously email myself a copy every time I make any changes. It’s just a part of my sign out ritual: save, email, save, close. You should make sure to take steps to safeguard your work as much as possible. It’s a nightmare to lose data when you’re writing a book.
There’s one last day of Stuff Your Kindle events, I'll put the link at the end of this blog. I also have an author takeover on Saturday in Shalene Marie's Plot Twisters Facebook Group. It’s at 1pm until 2pm in the Central Time Zone. She’s a sweetheart, author, and great Group Host. I’m excited to offer some great items for a giveaway. Anyone who subscribes to my newsletter during the takeover will be entered in a drawing and the prize includes a $25 gift card, a skull bracelet valued at $50 and signed copies of my books and some other fun items. You guys have an edge, if you subscribe to my newsletter Saturday, you will be entered. The website link is below. Mark your calendar and even better attend the party Saturday and get a chance to enter multiple giveaways. I know one author, Megan Russ, is offering a role in her next book!! How cool is that? You’ll be a character in her book forever.
I hope you had an awesome Christmas and Santa brought you lots of books. I wish you a Happy New Year, filled with health, joy, and wealth, if you can’t have those, I hope you get lots of books to stuff your Kindle!
As always, thanks for reading.
Subscribe to my newsletter and get Origin of Violet FREE here: www.enchantingauthor.com
The final day of Stuff Your Kindle is here: www.DarkModeSYK.com
The take over party is here: https://www.facebook.com/share/g/CZSebdKAXdTNiRmH/?mibextid=wwXIfr