More Random Tips from PNWA 17

PNWA  Conference -- Part 2

I taught a class at the Pacific Northwest Writers' Association Conference, something I've been jonesing to do for years.
The class was called Survival Kit for Your Virgin Year - Tips for First-Time Authors.

Aside from having to speak in a microphone and stand at a podium (which I find terribly impersonal) it went well. OK, my new retainer thing in my mouth kept making me salivate and was distracting, and then there was that time I sneezed and it almost flew out on the stage, but I tried to rattle off as much info as possible in 90 minutes. People stayed and listened. I promised to send them my free KDP Select manual if they emailed me. Many did and I've sent it out to a bunch of new friends.

Here's the gist of what was said at the talk, for those who missed it:

You've written your book. Now what?


For self-pubbed authors...

1.       Cover-- Must catch the eye, be suitable for the genre, look professional, Kindle Cover Creator works too if you can’t spend money on a professional photo from Stock Photos, Dreamstime etc. Standards must be used to upload a photo. Professional cover creators charge from $100 and up, depending on the cost of photos. Find covers you like and email the author, or tweet message to ask who did the cover.

2.       Formatting-- Have it done professionally if you’re not sure.  Follow standards – 12 point, margins etc. At the beginning of your document, be sure to include Title page, Copyright page, Dedication, and anything else you’d like the reader to see before beginning the story. Remember Epages are free. At the end include Acknowledgements, Referral to web pages etc. Some writers put reader guides for bookclubs, some recipes, photos.

3.       Title – Must be catchy and genre appropriate, Use popular keywords in subtitle to aid in visibility, The title must be larger than your name until you have a readership. Font is important to genre.

4.       Content – Make sure you have a catchy beginning and keep the pace snappy. Imagine a contest submission for the first ten pages, then thirty etc. Use beta readers before you publish and listen to their comments, especially if several have the same criticism, Follow advice on how to write a compelling novel. Writing a good strong story without typos and problems is your best defense against fading into obscurity. Use a pro editor if you can afford one.

5.     Keywords and Categories – Amazon Keywords can make or break a novel, Make sure you have the ones that will put your book in front of readers, Learn how to request a unique category to boost sales.

6.     Promo – Free Days on Select, $0.99 Promos, Kindle Matchbook, Kindle Countdown Deals, Online ads, Some promos and sites are better than others for visibility.

FOR ALL AUTHORS--Self-Pubbed or Traditional

7.       Reviews – Must get reviews right out of the gate. Encourage friends and strangers to write you a brief review. Manage the review section of Amazon by engaging readers. (I thank every reviewer but don't comment on bad reviews!)

8.     Social Media – Pick two and do them well. Facebook has a wealth of groups you can join, use for promo, Photos! Make an Author Page and get likes, Pinterest is up and coming with a large female following, Twitter is a great way to spread the word. Follow back. Brand yourself.

9.     Friends – How to use your friends and family to get the word out without looking like a leech. Refer them to a blog on how to write you an honest review. Tell them you have a goal of 20 reviews by Month’s End. Use friends to find appropriate readers, share on Facebook, Give them a free copy to pass on.

1       Stamina – Pace yourself because you’re in this for the long run, Take short social media breaks, Keep writing, Set a 5 year plan with goals to release new books, Write short stories to promote your novels and give you a break from the full length commitment, Have short stories feed into the more expensive novels. Make them perma free, Accept the disappointments as challenges and keep going.

I have a manual on advertising and where to put money to have successful promotions on Amazon KDP Select. The booklet includes over 50 sites for free and cheap ads when you have a promotion and saves the author over 20 hours of searching for ad sites. email me for the manual and I'll send it.

Random tips

Create a great bio on Amazon's Author Central and link everything to social media

Mail Chimp for author newsletters

Don't include last names in acknowledgements or they may not be able to review

Start a group blog like this www.beachreadauthors.blogspot.com

Share readers with other similar writers- band together!

Always ask readers to sign up for your newsletter, collect readers like they are gold!

Have a pro author photo taken

I thank all reviewers bad or good to create engagement on Amazon

Ignore Goodreads reviews because their star system is brutal

Take out ads! Promo the heck out of your book like it's the best read since Harry Potter!!!

Email me for the KDP guide at kim hornsby @ yahoo .com (no spaces)

Go Get'em, Virgin!

Kim

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Keywords Are Key!

Are you published on KDP? 

I am, and have often wondered about keywords. Fretted is a better verb. 

How important are they? What do I choose to lead people to my book? If I use the absolute best keywords possible, will I shoot to super-stardom in the author world? 

Recently, I got one of those helpful, informative emails from Amazon Publishing and clicked on a few links only to discover that I could be using my keyword feature more effectively. Take a look at what they say below. I've highlighted the passages I found MOST helpful.

Best practices with keywords

Combine keywords in the most logical order. Customers will search for military science fiction, but probably not for fiction science military. 

Use up to seven keywords or short phrases. Keep an eye on the character limit in the text field. 

Experiment. Before you publish, search for your book's title and keywords on Amazon. If you get irrelevant results, or results you dislike, consider making some changes—your book will ultimately appear among similar results. When you search, look at the suggestions that appear in the Search field drop down.

Think like your customer. Think about how you would search for your book if you were a customer, and ask others to suggest keywords they would use.

Useful keyword types

• Setting (Colonial America)
• Character types (single dad, veteran)
• Character roles (strong female lead)
• Plot themes (coming of age, forgiveness)
• Story tone (dystopian, feel-good)

For suggestions on search keywords based on browse category, read more here.

Do NOT include the following in keywords

• Information covered elsewhere in your book's metadata—title, contributor(s)
• Subjective claims about quality (e.g. "best")
• Statements that are only temporarily true ("new," "on sale," "available now")
• Information common to most items in the category ("book")
• Common misspellings
• Variants of spacing, punctuation, capitalization, and pluralization (both "80GB" and "80 GB", "computer" and "computers", etc.). The only exception is for words translated in more than one way, like "Mao Zedong" and "Mao Tse-tung," or "Hanukkah" and "Chanukah."
• Anything misrepresentative, such as the name of an author that is not associated with your book. This type of information can create a confusing customer experience and Kindle Direct Publishing has a zero tolerance policy for metadata that is meant to advertise, promote, or mislead.
• Quotation marks in search terms: Single words work better than phrases—and specific words work better than general words. If you enter "complex suspenseful whodunit," only people who type all of those words will find your book. You'll get better results if you enter this: complex suspenseful whodunit. Customers can search on any of those words and find your book.
• Amazon program names, such as "Kindle Unlimited" or "KDP Select"

Note: This list is not exhaustive and all keywords must comply with our Terms and Conditions.

Other metadata tips

• Customers are more likely to skim past long titles (over 60 characters)
• Focus your book's description on the book's content
• Your keywords can capture useful, relevant information that won't fit in your title and description (setting, character, plot, theme, etc.)
• You can change keywords and descriptions as often as you like
• If your book is available in different formats (physical, audio) keep your keywords and description consistent across formats



Suspense Crime, Supernatural Suspense

• Make sure your book's metadata adheres to KDP's Metadata Guidelines

Good Luck Authors! And now I'm going to select the keywords for this blog...

Amazon publishing keywords, book promotion, KDP, KDP keywords, Keywords, Kindle Publishing, Using Keywords, what are keywords

Kim Hornsby is the Author of Award-Winning The Dream Jumper's Promise available on Amazon Books. She is a Bestselling Supernatural Suspense Author who lives in the Seattle area where she writes during the rainy months.

KDP SELECT FREE DAYS - guide

Ever wondered how some free books rocket to the top of the free lists while others get stuck at the bottom. Advertising plays a big part in a free promotion's success. Amazon Bestselling Author, Kim Hornsby, walks you through the steps to enroll in KDP SELECT and explains how to benefit from a FREE promotion. This booklet includes her magical list of over 50 advertising sites, including links to blogs and sites with more places to submit free ads to get your book in front of readers. Many of these sites will work for discounted books too. 

Giving your book away for five days every 3 months can be the difference between making it or breaking it for new authors who are just beginning to build a following. Free Days coming up? Isn't it worth the price of this booklet to get some free ads in place to showcase your masterpiece?
Get your copy HERE. Only $.99 for over 50 advertising sites!

WRITERS ARE BUSY PEOPLE. THIS IS AN INEXPENSIVE, CONCISE GUIDE--NOT A BOOK--INCLUDING LINKS TO OVER 50 PLACES TO ADVERTISE YOUR PROMO, MOST FREE TO YOU!

You're Welcome.

Kindle Direct Publishing Select Free Days. Read this First!

KDP FREE DAYS, OR NOT? THAT’s THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION.

There are thousands of readers out there who will pay for your books but many of them will barely look at your novel without a sign it's worth paying for. Especially if you are a new author and without a huge following. 

One way to help get sales is to offer your novel free. This generates free ‘sales’ and looks good on paper, even if you don’t see money for those downloads. And, if you’re in this for the money, I feel kind of badly for you right now. (Imagine me patting your back and handing you tissues) I have done KDP Select free days about 10 times now and feel like a bit of a Select Amazon expert.

Amazon Headquarters in Seattle

For free days, I upload a version of my book that includes a note after THE END to ask if the reader sees fit to review, the author would really appreciate it.

In the days after free days, sales escalate. So do the reviews a week or two later. The ranking looks much better approximately two days later. Don’t freak the morning after free days when your book is 164,000 in rank. It’ll decrease as the day goes on.  Soon after, you’ll get reviews. Many of the reviews that follow your promotion will start out like this “I wasn’t sure what to expect but …”
Why do they expect so little? Because it was FREE! The expectation is less than if the reader paid $12.99 for an e-book download. It’s no wonder some of the best books don’t have all 5 star reviews.  Novel readers want their moneys' worth. I have yet to read Gone Girl because of the cost. Just sayin’. Oh and now it's going to be a movie, without my help.

                                                              Gone Girl Cast Announced

 If you have lots of reviews that are above 4 stars, you'll get more real sales eventually. This is fact. The readers who don't subscribe to free day lists on a daily or weekly basis will jump on board to buy the book when they see more reviews. Books with 200 reviews and over a 4.7* rating are more likely to catch on than 6 reviews and a 3.2* average. Do some hopping around on Amazon, and check out Safe Haven, Sins and Needles and Warm Bodies. I use those three because my novel was lumped in with them and I spent weeks/months watching. Two were movies and one was a breakout series that came out boom, boom, boom and caught on like wildfire.

I'm a stat watcher. I watch my stats daily, sometimes three or four times a day. When things are going well with a book, I’ve been known to wake up in the middle of the night and check stats. By stats, I mean ranking, not sales. It’s not necessary to check my sales if I’m looking at ranking on the Amazon list. Ranking reflects sales. Another thing I do is keep track of books that were published the same week as me. I love to reflect on how their sales are better than mine. From this obsessive activity, I’ve learned a lot. Here’s some of what I know to be true. The ranking is directly related to sales and sales are affected by :

1. 'NY Times Bestseller' at the top of the cover, or something similar

2. Lots of good reviews – Over 100 is good, Over 300 is better

3. Amazon Ranking (or Kobo etc) Less than 10,000 in Kindle books is great

The above indicators help a reader to avoid paying for a clunker. And there are a lot of poorly written books out there right now, with self pubbing at an all-time high.

4. Whether you have the power of a publisher or NY publishing house behind you.

5. Whether it's a series, or not. Series are BIG!!

6. COVER! Non-pro covers are overlooked on a regular basis. Pay the $200.

7. Whether the author has a following. If this book is the third of a series, the sales should be better than a first one with no second published.

8. Ads, marketing, word of mouth, BUZZ!

9. If you love ranking, find a rare category and boast that you are top ten in psychic romance. Sure it might be Romance, Suspense, time travel, werewolf, psychics but you’re top ten!

I watched Safe Haven rise to the top of the lists this year. And stay there. For a long time. Yes, Nicolas Sparks has a huge following. Look at the list above and the only one not used was #5, the series, and instead of that he had a movie with Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel.

I also watched a novel (comparable to mine) rise to a USA bestseller in the last ten months. The author did free days with me, right after we both published late December 2012, both of our books did well, then she published the second and third in the series within two or three months of each other and her rise to stardom was imminent. The writing is pretty clean for a self- pubbed author, the cover is hauntingly compelling and she has over 200 reviews on each of the 3 books. Ta Da! She went free several times with the first one to get her stats up, published the second, went free to get those stats up and the rest is history. What this author did with her high concept romantic suspense novel that I did not do, was release 3 in one year, had a pro cover to start with, and who knows what else. I'm still watching her... Not that The Dream Jumper’s Promise was left in the dust. It’s done well for itself. Especially for a first novel, but without a second in the series to keep the readers engaged, I lagged behind.

And so, dear readers, these are my observations. I’m a huge fan of Free Days. And of marketing those days to the absolute max. When my thriller, Necessary Detour, went free over Valentine’s Day in 2012, with The Wild Rose Press, I had 42 ads out there to announce the deal. Some were free to me, some cost a few dollars. None cost over $20.  I got 35,000 downloads in 5 days and made almost $2,000 in the following month in royalties as well as landing #42 in Author ranking, above some very heavy hitters. That was a month to remember.

If you decide to do KDP and take advantage of the 5 Free days, here’s my gift to you. 

Do 3 of your 5 days at the beginning of the 90 days, and do 2 days, 60 days in. To advertise, log on http://authormarketingclub.com/members/submit-your-book/  to see 20-30 sites that will advertise for your free days at little or no cost. Then sit back and watch. 

You’re welcome.


 

Kim Hornsby is the  author of KDP Free Days, http://amzn.com/B00AFJ8BJS a cheap eBook on Amazon that elaborates on how to get the most out of your Select Free days.
She's also the Amazon Best Selling Author of Necessary Detour and The Dream Jumper's Promise. He highest ranking as of November 10, is The Husband Hunt, a perma free short story that reads like watching a series of THE BACHELOR.

  

FREE STUFF - READ ON

Free stuff is good. I think we can all agree on that one. When I lived in Hawaii and taught SCUBA diving I used to say that nothing in Hawaii is free but the sunshine. Customers used to laugh and nod knowingly at that one. Every once in awhile, you run across something entirely free and wonder 'what's the catch?' sometimes there's no catch. Sometimes your email address is needed by the good folks who offered you the free beauty product or free pair of pantyhose. That's when it's handy to have an address for junk mail only. Sometimes a phone number, or a friend's email address is needed, or signing away your first born.
Here's the beauty in Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Everyday the good people over at Amazon in Seattle offer the world FREE BOOKS. In every genre. Entirely free. All you need to get one, or a hundred, is an AMAZON account, which is also free. You can read these ebooks on your computer, phone, ipad, kindle, nook, and any mobile device just by downloading the Kindle App. You don't need to own a Kindle! Ever. At all! The catch has nothing to do with you. They are simply trying to generate eventual  sales by letting the publisher offer books free for a few days every 3 months.

You can even get on a list that sends you an email daily (or weekly)with free books in your favorite genre. There are about 50 sites out there that compile these on a daily basis. Check our Freebooksy, Kindle Books and Tips, Pixel of Ink, eReader Cafe, Free Book Dude, Awesome Gang, Bargain eBook Hunter.
As an author, going free is a wonderful marketing tool to generate interest in your book. Especially first time authors. Or Indie Authors. Building a readership is key to us new authors and getting 20,000 downloads on free days is going to look good for our book's ranking, as well as get reviews from people who don't expect much from something they didn't pay for. My latest review for THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE this morning said "I feel guilty for not having paid full price!" Those words were payment enough, Rhonda.

Here's my tips to authors when getting ready to go free on Kindle Select:

1. Do 3 days and save 2 for later
2.Two weeks in advance, submit your free day notice to as many sites as possible. See AuthorMarketingClub for a good start on this
3. Write some blog posts and set up several days of blogs during free days to lead readers to your book.
4. Get ready to Facebook blast and ask friends to do this by sharing. People love free stuff, don't be shy!
5. Prepare tweets on Hootsuite or another timed site, to go off every 30 minutes for hours on the first day. (Say something compelling and include #Free#Kindlefree)
6. Retweet, share on FB, and keep promo going the first day, especially from about 2 a.m. Pacific Time to noon. This is when you'll get your biggest 'sales'.
7. Set up some cheap ads for the day after you are free. Keep the book at .99 or 1.99 to avoid sticker shock for those lollygaggers who got their emails late about free days.
8. Keep the momentum going as long as you can for downloads- have a contest, do a radio interview, drop flyers from the sky.
9. Write the 2nd in the series ASAP and get it out there!
Remember free days isn't a time to make money, but to generate interest. Two to four days after the promotion ends on Select, you'll see a bump in sales and this is the golden time to keep the momentum going.
Enjoy all the free books out there, everyone and be sure to review as if you're saying this to the author's face.

Good luck Authors and You're Welcome Readers!

Kim Hornsby is the author of Amazon Best Seller The Dream Jumper's Promise

Kindle Select - FREE BOOKS!

Why would anyone want to give something away that they spent years creating? Aside from blatant benevolence, the answer could be to eventually direct you to something that does cost money. Like your second book. If you are a new author, building a reader base is extremely important. More important than money, unfortunately. Especially if you are in this for the duration and hoping to build a career. Getting in people's faces and heads is everything for a new author. visibility. Exposure.

And that is why Amazon Kindle has a program called SELECT where you can give away downloads of your book 5 days out of the 90 day program--free downloads of a book that you might have spent years writing. It seems like a terrible idea when what you want is to make money from writing books. However, if you can see ahead a year, the free days can help your ranking on Amazon, which helps to sell books. On Amazon, (the biggest book sellers in the world), ranking is everything. If you get yourself in the top 100 on the paid list, you can look forward to some sales that are generated purely by being on that list. No advertising necessary. Unless you want to keep the momentum and propel it farther up the list. Which you should. It's not a great idea to sit back and watch your success. Marketing is an ongoing process.
Unless you're Nicholas Sparks and wrote Safe Haven. Then you can sit back and rake in the money because your book reached #1 and stayed there for a long time.

Kindle Select gives you the opportunity to get exposure, but it's up to you to advertise your free days and get on lists with your generous offering. Over the last few months, I've compiled a secret list of forty publications who will announce your free days and direct traffic to download your novel. The higher your ranking gets, the more likelihood that when free days ends, you will maintain sales for a while if you play your cards right. And it's good to have a marketing plan for after free days like cheap ads, keeping the cost of the book low and good reviews to keep sales coming in.
Should you do all 5 days together or split them up? I've done both and I'm not sure what is best. When my Romantic Suspense did all 5 together it garnered 35,000 downloads and got some kick-ass sales for six weeks after. Then the publisher raised the price and things are not going as well. My Paranormal Romance has only ever split up the free days. Because it's self pubbed, I can choose and it does well enough with 3 days in a row. I would never do one day because you need the momentum to build. And five days feels like too much. I want to save two free days to give the book another shot in the arm next month. The Dream Jumper's Promise was free May 26-28 and after the first 24 hours, had 12,000 downloads, reaching #4 in the Kindle store FREE and  #1 in paranormal romance. The FREE lists are way different than the paid lists but still a good indication of how the public likes your cover and blurb. At the point of writing this, in my free days, I'm just hoping, that with another 40 hours to go, I can maintain my position or even reach #1 in the Free Store (above that dad-burned 160 calorie cookbook!)
Free Days has helped us self pubbed or newbie authors gain a fighting chance in this market. Since ebooks and self pubs have opened to writers who used to spend years trying to get an agent, editor, publisher and readers, there is now a lot of floatsum and jetsam out there and the discerning reader must sift through it to find a good read. But, if they like your cover, your blurb, you reviews, your name, anything, they might 'buy' it for free, read it, review and tell their friends to read it when it costs money.
Granted, many of the readers who buy your free book will never read it and those who do will probably never write a review or refer someone to your book but some might. There are millions of readers out there in the world, buying books, downloads, entertainment, and even if there is a slight chance of a hundred real sales and 2 reviews, it's worth it to do free days.
Even though it's hard to giveaway something that you value greatly, the idea behind free days is that you have to 'spend money to make money'. Give something away for the reward later. Readership. So go ahead and get writing that second book while free days are on because you know they're going to ask for it. And you'll probably have to offer that one free at the beginning too.
Good luck Writers and don't forget to check your SELECT actions on KDP to make decide if you want to re-enroll in SELECT when your 90 days ends. Otherwise it automatically gets re-enrolled for you.

Kim Hornsby is the author of NECESSARY DETOUR, published by The Wild Rose Press and
THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE
as well as a contributing author to SWEET SUMMERTIME LOVE