It’s finally here!
It’s been three and a half years since I’ve been back to Los Angeles, I’ve written a novel called “Three Questions” and am ready to celebrate the release of it with all of you crazy LA people. Even if you don’t read, can’t read or are allergic to paper, come on out for a whiskey, some good conversation and perhaps a little dancing.
A book release party in Hollywood wouldn’t be complete without the theatrical trailer! Check it out here: http://youtu.be/vVn5MMji5WY
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I wouldn’t recommend doing the free ebook promotion how I did it.
I was told to plan 30 days in advance – I started planning the night before.
Amazon gives you 5 days to promote your book for free out of 90 days. Most people tell you to only use 2 or 3 at the most your first time. I used 4 days.
One thing I did right – I tracked and didn’t give up until I reached my goal. I got people involved (on Twitter and Facebook), emailed all my closest friends and family and followed (some of) the wisdom of the authors who had previously gone before me.
I didn’t plan it, and I did it by the seat of my pants. I wasn’t even really sure what the point of giving a book away for free would be. Like I said in my initial post about why I was going to try out the promotion, I was afraid it would “devalue” my book (which was silly because it wasn’t selling more than a few a day anyway). What I didn’t mention was my fear that I was giving Amazon too much power. However, before I decided to enroll in KDP Select (Kindle’s monopoly on my book), my Barnes and Noble Nook ebook wasn’t selling at all. So, I figured I would try it out.
Amazon has 3,000+ new titles going for free nearly every day. The competition is tough.
I decided to start the promotion the day before I ran it. Every post I began reading over the next few days giving tips on how to run a free Kindle book promotion suggested planning a month in advance (giving websites at least three weeks notice about posting). For example, the top site “Pixel of Ink” asked to give at least 30 days notice (probably why I never got on their site).
Before the book promotion, I was selling at my peak 3 ebooks/day. I never reached higher than #300,000 on Kindle’s best seller’s list. The night before I launched the book, I was ranked about 1,500,000 in Amazon’s ebooks. Nothing worth noting. That night, I spent 4-5 hours researching how to promote it.
I had two goals:
I succeeded in both of these goals – I dedicated a LOT of time promoting it. Make sure you have reviews on Amazon before running a Kindle Promotion.
I knew that I needed to get a few of the heavy hitter free ebook blogs on board – ones with 1,000′s and tens of 1,000′s of followers. Every article that I read that night mentioned a few blogs that would help equal success. These are the blogs that the majority of free Kindle seekers go to, and these are the ones who come up first in Google searches. (Novel Publicity published one of the best articles that I found on tips for authors.)
(YOU CAN SKIP THIS PART IF YOU AREN’T AN AUTHOR INTERESTED IN PROMOTIING YOUR EBOOK)
Here’s where I submitted for FREE:
Other random sites that picked me up, but that you might consider submitting to!
Twitter accounts that tweeted about it and will help promote Indie authors:
Most articles suggest only promoting your book for 2 out of the 5 days at once. But for me, I was getting more and more momentum every day – I couldn’t give up after 2 days. Perhaps planning would have meant not giving up as many days. But the way I saw it, the more days I was ranking, the more exposure I was getting – to start from ZERO in a few weeks seemed pointless.
At the end of the first day, I was already #57 in the Kindle store’s free Contemporary Fiction, but hadn’t yet ranked anywhere in the entire Kindle store.
The end of the second day, I was getting closer! I was now under the top 200′s of the entire Kindle store, and had climbed to #16 in Contemporary Fiction. Over 3,000 people had downloaded the book so far.
But it wasn’t until the 3rd day (a Friday) that extraordinary stuff started happening. This is when the websites started posting about my book, and downloads were fast and furious.
When I hit #8 in Contemporary Fiction, and saw my name next to THE John Grisham – it was certainly a shock, and made me realize just how many people now had their hands on my novel.
I finally ended the promotion on Saturday night – and with over 11,000 downloads just in the United States (the UK hit didn’t garner nearly as many downloads) and hitting #28 in the entire Kindle Books and #6 in Contemporary Fiction at its peak – I felt like I had set out to accomplish my goals! Now, let’s see what I can do in a day knowing what I know.
The big question was – would I make any money after the promotion was over?
My ranking disappeared for a few hours, and when it reappeared, my novel was certainly higher than it had ever been. It’s now Tuesday and my book has remained around the top 3,000 to 5,000 paid Kindles and I’ve sold more in three days than I had ever sold before in the same time frame.
On a side note, the day after the promo ended – I received my first negative review and a second GREAT review. Unfortunately, the first reviewer didn’t take the time to read the entire book (that’s another blog post altogether – oy, it hurt!), and the second reviewer pleaded with people to FINISH it. YES PLEASE!
What would I do differently in promoting my Kindle?
I would have taken more time to plan, and put more thought into who I would have reached out to.
I would have jacked up the price the day before the promotion (value would have seemed better to those getting the free download).
I would have seeded the community with teasers.
But overall, I’m EXTREMELY happy with how it turned out, and HIGHLY recommend it to other indie authors. Now, it’s time to turn those downloads into a book deal!
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Today starts the first day of my FREE three day ebook promotion. Amazon gives authors the opportunity to run a free promo for 5 days (can be broken up within the month) total within a 30-day period IF you enroll in KDP Select. KDP Select means that you can not sell your ebook on any other platform (i.e. Barnes and Noble’s Nook), but you do get a few perks.
I was a bit hesitant to do this free promotion for a couple of reasons.
However, once I started thinking about the Pros…I couldn’t resist.
First of all, I would be getting incredible exposure that I hadn’t gotten before. This is an opportunity to get in front of possibly 1,000′s of people who will hopefully love the book so much that they won’t be able to resist telling their friends about it.
Secondly, I have a few relationships with mommy bloggers who blog about freebies, and can push it out to their community of 10′s of thousands of other mommys.
Thirdly, watching my book sail up the “Downloads” chart is incredibly exciting. While I’ve only ever cracked the top 30,000 Kindle paid downloads. This morning, I’ve already reached the top 1,000 downloads! WAIT!
As I write this and refresh my page, I’m now in the top 700′s and #57 in Contemporary Fiction Downloads. See what I mean?!!!
Finally, the end goal is publicity, more book sales once the sale ends and hopefully more write-ups.
I’ll keep you updated on how it goes!
One of my dad’s oldest friend’s, Jim Murphy, introduced me to a few women after he found out I was interviewing powerful, inspiring women. He’s a lucky man to have that many incredible women in his life.
Katie McGrath is Executive VP at Rodgers Townsend, a St. Louis-based, fully integrated advertising agency that serves national clients. She joined them in 1998 and can’t believe how the time has just flown by.
Prior to that she held leadership positions at DIMAC Direct and ClarionDirect. Her career path has been boosted more by great luck and wonderful mentors than sound strategy, and she’s loved every day of it (not counting a dreadful stint in Dallas working for a Sears siding licensee – she doesn’t like to talk about that).
She’s single but lives in a house big enough to accommodate frequent sleepovers with her nieces. Her life’s ambition is to be named Aunt of the Year. She’s the only one in her large family who decided to take a different path from the lawyer/doctor route. We laughed about this, but it’s amazing how much of an impact your siblings’ choices end up having on your life.
My favorite quote of hers was “I’m also better at laughing and sleeping. I wake up in a good mood and tend to stay that way until the day’s end.” – says so much.
1. You mentioned that you’re the only one in your family who isn’t a doctor or a lawyer. So, what do you do that’s better than anyone else in your family?
Katie: Years ago this wouldn’t have occurred to me, but now looking back I wonder if I was better at forging a different path than my siblings. My dad was a warrior and pioneer of sorts, the son of two Irish immigrants who were always broke. He won academic scholarships to high school, college and law school, so he was all brains, yet he also was a WWII hero, winning the Naval Silver Star for heroism aboard his battleship in the south Pacific.I’m not saying I’m smart or brave like my dad, but I believe am like him in that I didn’t feel it necessary to do what my family expected me to do, or anybody else, for that matter. My siblings seemed to feel compelled to walk a prescribed road.
I’m also better at laughing and sleeping. I wake up in a good mood and tend to stay that way until the day’s end.
2. If you could give one tip to blooming marketers out there, what would it be?
Katie: My first boss in my first marketing-related job said to me on my first day, “Honey, if you like being wrong you’re going to love it here.” What he meant was that in our line of business, direct response marketing, we were constantly testing things in a controlled environment to see which variables had the most positive impact on results, whether that be transactions, value of purchases, customer feedback, etc. He taught me that I could learn as much from the things that didn’t work as the things that did.
That’s still true. So my tip would be to stretch, to experiment, to use your imagination to do things your client hasn’t tried or customers haven’t seen. Some will work, some won’t. You’ll be ahead either way in the experience department.
OK, I have another tip, a related one: never take a job just for the money. I know that sounds pat, but by the time we get our second or third paycheck at a new salary level we’re accustomed to whatever type of living it allows. Other variables are at least as important. Will you be encouraged or allowed to learn new things? Is your supervisor someone you will enjoy and respect? Is it realistic to expect a decent quality of life? If you find something you love, s place you love, the money will come.
3. If you could pick one characteristic from each of the cities you’ve lived in, and mesh them together into one city – what would those characteristics be?
Katie:I’d love my family ties of St. Louis, the lakefront of Chicago and the vibrancy of New York. I want nothing from Dallas.
As some of you may know, I wrote a little book called “Three Questions” that is based off a couple getting to know each other through, well, three questions! I’m now doing an interview series based off this concept, but for AWESOME women from all walks of life.
This week, we have Brittany Laughlin who describes herself as someone who wants to do everything. This makes sense since she is one of the most successful female entrepreneurs that Chicago has (although now, sadly, she’s leaving us for New York to work an undisclosed project). She was recently named one of the world’s top ten trailblazing women travelers (right next to Angelina Jolie and Amelia freaking Earhart by Cheapflights.com).
She’s been to all 7 continents, 36 countries and hops on a plane nearly every other week, according to Business Insider. Previously, she co-founded gtrot - a local discovery tool. And, she launched new products at American Express OPEN.
So, yeah, I’m excited to have her answer these three questions.
1. What is the craziest mode of transportation you’ve ever taken, and where were you?
Brittany: I rode a mountain bike with broken breaks, down a mountain in Bariloche. It wasn’t until half-way down until I realized the breaks were broken. Talk about a surprise thrill ride.
2. What is the greatest thing you’ve learned being an entrepreneur?
Brittany: Anything is possible. I’ve gotten to meet people with huge crazy ideas and they’ve taught me that if you have an idea, it’s worth trying. If it fails, you’ll still learn something. It all starts with taking that first step.
3. What question have you always wanted to be asked, and never been? (Seems like a cop-out question, but it’s not. I think this question tells a lot about someone)
Brittany: (Oh, this is a good one, but tricky!) If you could go back in time and change your major in school, what would you study? Mathematics — I loved Calc and Calc-based Physics. I’m curious how much more I could’ve learned. Might be something to check out down the road…
So excited to have had Brittany on here. What question do YOU wish someone asked you, but never has?
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