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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Kindle Countdown Deals Flops Big Time!

Update is below the post to describe why Kindle Countdown flopped!

December 1st at 8 a.m., my novel THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE goes to .99 from its regular price of $2.99. I'm trying a new thing on Amazon called Kindle Countdown Deals and I'm not sure this will be a good thing for this book but I'll see at the end of the week.
You tell them how many days to run the deal and give them a starting price point. They reduce the price then build back up incrementally over that time period. If I remember correctly, my book goes to .99 tomorrow morning and after two days goes to $1.99 then on the seventh day, back to $2.99. They put a little ticking digital clock beside the price to show how much longer at this price.
The idea behind this is sales for the week it's discounted and to create buzz and good ranking for the book after having it on sale. I'm hoping Amazon puts it on some list that readers can access for cheap books because I'm limited in what I can do promo-wise. I'll be away all week with limited internet availability.
I want to do free days at Christmas and Amazon insists I keep the $2.99 price point for two weeks after the last day on the promotion so that'll put me at about December 20th when I can reduce the price again.
As a first time author, I'm still trying to gain readers and convince people to read my book, take a chance on a new author, write a review.
UPDATE!!! You cannot do a FREE Promo after Kindle Countdown Deals. You must wait until the 90 days are up.

I'll update this blog next week when I have a chance to see if Kindle Countdown Deals works or not. I'm headed to Nicaragua tomorrow for some jungle time and won't be available online. This is me hiking in the jungle in Nicaragua.

Lately my book has not been selling at $2.99. It does far better at free :) or at $1.99 and although I never guessed that I'd be okay with offering my book for so little, I now realize this is the way to build a career.
The second in the series THE DREAM JUMPER'S SECRET will be out the first week of February and that should be a big shot in the arm for the PROMISE book, as well. Anyone out there have experience with Kindle Countdown Deals? I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Nominated for BEST INDIE FIRST BOOK by Indie RomCon

Amazon Bestselling Author Kim Hornsby

December 13th UPDATE: I really hoped there'd be some breakthrough sales of this book with Kindle Countdown Deals but I sold very few copies of the book at each price level. It was almost like there was a sign on it saying "don't buy this." My sales plummeted. Maybe they were going to anyhow, seeing it's the Holiday Season and romance readers enjoy reading Christmas Love Stories, (like Christmas by Candlelight) but I've never seen such poor ranking for this book since it was launched! Not just that, but now I can't adjust the price to where it does make sales because I'm locked in at the higher price for 2 weeks after the promo. All round, this did not work for me at all. Good thing I have other books and novellas out there. And I have a husband to support me while I try to make a go of it as an author!

UPDATE!!! You cannot do a FREE Promo after Kindle Countdown Deals. You must wait until the 90 days are up. This has successfully tanked my book sales now for 2 months. I will never do this promo again. Little did I know when I wrote this blog in December.

The Dream Jumper's Promise
Blurb

Tina Greene can't accept the presumed surfing death of her husband, Hank. Months after signing the death certificate, she trades mourning for saving her Maui dive shop from bankruptcy. When Jamey Dunn walks back into her life things take a strange turn. Dreams of Hank have the dive instructor questioning her sanity and leaning heavily on Hank's best friend, Noble. Jamey and Noble clash at every turn, both desperate to help Tina. When Jamey suspects Tina's strange dreams hold clues to Hank's disappearance, he must reveal his unusual ability to visit dreams. Trusting the man who once betrayed her doesn't come easily when the decision to let Jamey enter her subconscious has a price. As Tina, Noble and Jamey decipher the mystery of Hank's disappearance, grave danger sets in to reveal that one person is a traitor, one is flirting with insanity and one is an impostor.

Kim Hornsby is the AMAZON BESTSELLING author of THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE, NECESSARY DETOUR and THE HUSBAND HUNT. Visit her amazon page to find inexpensive downloads and print books.

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