Part of being a self-publishing author is the ability to self-promote and market your own book. It isn’t enough to ask friends and family to buy your book and review, you have to work hard at getting your book ‘out there’ to as many people as possible via all sorts of different avenues.
My book, The Soul Guide, has been on Amazon kindle since 8th February 2017 for pre-order and was released on the 18th February.
The e-book is vailable to purchase on Amazon UK here.
Amazon US here.
Amazon Canada here.
Okay, so you catch my drift! Apologies couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a bit of free self-promotion!
So, after initially doing well, the sales for The Soul Guide have slowed, which shouldn’t really come as a surprise as prior to Monday of this week I didn’t really do much of any promotion assuming my book would somehow finds its way into the general population’s consciousness!
Lesson one: Don’t assume anything! Promotion is key.
Not to be deterred I spent this past weekend researching a raft of e-book promotion sites both in the UK and the US, taking note of what the other self-publishing authors have had success with and, of course, what they haven’t. This can vary dependent on genre, so I had to do a bit of digging around to see what would work best for my fantasy book.
On Sunday, I took the bull by the horns and bought some promotions. I also submitted some FREE ones too (I have nothing to lose by doing this). Like other authors have suggested I’ve stacked them up, one day after the other (apparently its better to promote this way as sales generated by each promotion will increase Amazon ranking over the course of the promotional push).
I am still yet to see what effectiveness (if any) these promotions will have, but I am ever the optimist! Once I get any data back I will of course update this post with the **good** news. I told you I was an optimist!
The ‘big’ promotion site I’m aiming for eventually is BookBub, but I hear that they require at least 20 reviews before even considering a book. Even then, there is no guarantee that you’ll be chosen. BookBub is like the holy grail of promotion sites. Once you get on there, your pretty much guaranteed to sell your book and sell well. They have access to millions of dedicated readers who are actively looking for new books from new authors (and established ones).
But it isn’t cheap. Prices for my category range as below:
| Fantasy | Subscribers:
2,030,000+ |
Free:
£191 |
£1
£383 |
£1-£2
£654 |
£2+
£957 |
Free Book Stats Average download of:
31,700 |
Discounted Book Stats:
Average sold: 2,530 |
At first glance it seems like alot of money to spend, but if you do the math then it works out pretty darn good. Not to mention your book will sky rocket in the rankings and then the Amazon algorythms will start kicking – then the sky’s the limit (or so I’ve heard). Given what I’ve learnt, Bookbub is a no brainer and other self-published authors have found them hugely successful.
First things first I need to establish myself a bit more, get more reviews and then BookBub – I’m coming to get ya!
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