Marketing Your Book: Part 6, Free Promotions

My book, Walk Forward, is free today at http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Forward-ebook/dp/B009H6Y7AC, and so far it has been downloaded almost as many copies as it has sold in its first two weeks, the book being two weeks old today!

What is fascinating is that sold copies increased immediately before the free book promotion began.

I do not see the ratings listed on the book during its free book promotion, but assume the ratings return after the promotion ends.

One side, Free Book Dude, sent me an email last night with the link where the book will be posted today.

Since the promotion began, this morning at 12:00 AM (Pacific Time), the book has been borrowed in the Kindle Lending Library too!

It is now 9:30 AM and I will add to this blog later in the day.

It is noon now and about 10 books are being downloaded for free per hour.

One of the best blogs for finding places to advertise the book is:
http://katrinaparkerwilliams.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/kdp-select-free-days-promo-sites/
as most of the links work and the explanation Katrina gives for each site is valuable.

The site that gave me the best promo and let me know about it is Free Book Dude at
http://www.freebookdude.com/2012/10/walk-forward-kindle-non-fiction.html

Per statistics, read this:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,717 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)

• #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Children's Nonfiction > History > Holocaust
• #5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Children's eBooks > History & Historical Fiction

Free Translations

My adviser of 40+ years from The Ohio State University, reminded me that you can post comments to my blog in your native language. Translation is available via such tools as Google Translate! I use free translation tools much from free language dictionaries to web sites that translate an entire page.

Herein is the link for Google Translate http://translate.google.com/ where you can enter a URL, add text or
use the browse feature to find a document to translate. If you prefer just using a button to your browser to translate web pages instantly, the browser Google Chrome has an extension for translations, check
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb

       

Marketing Your Book: Part 4, Tagging

A great explanation of tagging and why it is important to tag books is included at
http://trianglepubs.com/1762/book-marketing/sell-more-books-amazon-tagging/

Tags are a free way to help your book come up in a search on Amazon.com. To select a tag, think of terms
one might use to search for books like your book.

Those that view a book's web page on Amazon, have the option to "agree to" tags. I never noticed this until one of my LinkedIn groups noticed that I had not placed any tags for my book on my book's Amazon page.

One is allowed 15 tags, use them all! When my book has a free day in the Amazon Kindle Select program, I will remove two of the 15 tags and replace them with two tags to tag the book as a freebie.

Marketing Your Book: Part 5, Updating

I published my book, Walk Forward, about the ongoing search for my lost sister, Eugenia Chimowicz, on Amazon Kindle Select. In choosing the "Select" program, I agreed that the book will be an exclusive on Amazon Kindle for the next 90 days.

One reason I chose Amazon as in the publishing directions, it appeared easy to revise a book.  When the book was a week old, a newly found cousin in Israel read the book and emailed me that my grandmother had a brother, and that brother was a twin of one of my grandmother's sisters. This was new information for my book which could lead to new information about my lost sister. Since my grandmother's brother had offspring, it was important to include their male ancestor in the book as it identifies not only how they are related to me, but to my lost sister.

Those who purchased the book, tried to purchase the updated copy, only to find out that this is not possible. Amazon only allows an individual to purchase one copy of a book, even if the book is updated.

Herein is a reply which I received from Amazon this morning in response to my question as to how the 24 readers that purchased the first, original version of my book might obtain the updated version:

Email from Amazon this morning:

Regarding your inquiry about notifying your customers, we have received your request to provide updated content to customers who purchased your book. Thanks for providing specific details about the changes made. We’ll perform a review of the changes to determine the most appropriate way to describe the updates to your customers. This review will be complete within four weeks, and the possible results of our review listed below.

1. If the changes made to your content are considered critical, we’ll send an email to all customers who own the book to notify them of the update and improvements made. These customers will be able to choose to opt in to receive the update through the Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.com.  www.amazon.com/gp/digital/fiona/manage
2. If the changes made to your content are considered minor, we won’t be able to notify all customers by email, but we will activate their ability to update the content through the Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.com.
3. If the changes made to your content have caused unexpected critical issues with the book content, we’ll temporarily remove your book from sale. We’ll notify of you the issues found so you can fix them. Once the improvements are made, just let us know and we’ll then email customers as in case 1. Once our review is complete, we’ll email you to share the results and action taken.

Thanks for using Amazon KDP.

I am publishing this in my blog herein, for any authors needing information per updating a book on Amazon Kindle. 

Marketing Your Book: Part 3, Twitter

Since my book is free this Thursday, October 11, 2012, I have been tweeting about my book and making sure I direct it to like-minded persons.

I am using the following hash tags (#) at the end of my tweet about Walk Forward, per my upcoming first day promoting my book as "free" in the Amazon Kindle Select program.

The hash tags which I have been collecting include:

#FreeKindleEbooks, #freebook,  #free,  #ReadThis, #Kindle, #authorshelpingauthors, #amazon prime,
#book, #ebook, #read, #writing, #writechat, #storycraft, #amwriting, #litchat, #journalchat

The tags which I added to the Amazon page of my book include:

"free ebook," and  "kindle freebie." I had to delete two of my 15 tags to make room for these two tags which I hope the search engines pick up before this Thursday!

The hash tag #SampleSunday directs tweets to your book's website.

Walk Forward was published on September 25, 2012, and appeared on Amazon on September 26, 2012.
To date (October 9, 2012), a total of 25 copies have been sold. I gifted 40 copies, but unfortunately, those to whom  I gifted books, did not understand that one need not own a Kindle or any reading device to read an ebook.

One can read an ebook on the Amazon platform in the free Amazon Cloud or download the book to one's personal computer and read the book via the free "Kindle for PC."

I will report on the progress of the book in real time on Thursday and continue tweeting with hash tags!

Marketing Your Ebook: Part 2

Those experienced with marketing an ebook, say that marketing should start before the book is published. The author should have a market  of readers waiting to read the book, anticipating the publication of the ebook, which I think is a great idea, but I did not do it. If I had done it, the title of my book would not have been correct, as I changed the title several times in the draft copies of my book until I found the title which truly seemed to fit. I could easily fit two short words on the cover of my book, Walk Forward, comprising two short words not only fit on the cover, but is a theme of the book and repeated in the contents more than any other phrase. It was the perfect title!

I am trying to market my ebook, Walk Forward, after publication on Amazon Kindle Select.

I emailed family and friends and asked them to share the link. Putting the link in the email makes it easy for them to find the book. I purchased 10 ISBNs from Bowker as discussed in an earlier post, but in email to family and friends it is easiest for them if one includes the Amazon link, which includes the ASIN, a unique code assigned by Amazon to the ebook. The ASIN of Walk Forward is B009H6Y7AC.
Many ebook sites ask for the ISBN or ASIN of the ebook. 

The ASIN, the Amazon Standard Identification Number, is a unique identification number assigned by Amazon.com and its partners for product identification within Amazon.com

I emailed my LinkedIn  ebook publishing groups. These groups were tremendously helpful as they checked my book's page on Amazon. Members emailed me to select tags for the book on its page in the Amazon database. Amazon allows 15 tags per item and my LinkedIn group emailed that I should take full advantage of the feature and assign as many tags as permitted.

A few family and friends said they would like to write a review and I hope they do! I only have two reviews of the book to date.

Someone suggested  that I "gift" the book to family and friends, which I did, but only one or two of the persons I gifted actually downloaded the book.

The reason family and friends are not receipting the gifted book is because they thought they had to own a Kindle or other reading device. Now that I emailed them that they could read the book in the Amazon Cloud, download an appropriate apps, or "Kindle for the PC," they are happy campers!

I sent the link to hundreds of organizations, which I determined might have an interest, tweeted about my new published book, created a Facebook page for the book, a website for the book which includes photographs related to the story in my book,  and included relevant hash tags (#), the list of which I will include in a later posting.

Since I placed Walk Forward in the Amazon Kindle Select Program, I have 5 promotion days each 90 day period during which my book is free.  My first free day is this Thursday, October 11, 2012, and I am actively submitting my book to the many sites that advertise free ebooks.

What is really great about publishing a book on Amazon is that one see the sales of the book in their "Report Module," my favorite module! An author can easily review the current and retrospective sales of their book.

I identified some secrets to the selecting sites to which to post the free book promotion days, if they prove to work, I will post!

Marketing Your Ebook: Part 1

Many say that writing the book is the easy part, but marketing is the real challenge.

My book, Walk Forward, was published on Amazon Kindle Select on September 25, 2012. I told family and friends about the book, which because of some early purchases, had a high rating in its very narrow subject area of non fiction, historical, holocaust, young adult, and adult categories.

The reason the numbers were high on first publication was because family and friends purchased several copies, and because the book is in a very narrow subject area.

In hindsight, I discovered the secret of a preliminary high rating, a few sales in a narrow subject area, where relatively few publish. My subject areas not being in the mass market, nor would the masses have interest in my topic.

My book is about the search for my lost sister. A newly found relative read the book and emailed me that I left my great-uncle out of the book. I quickly added him and sent the book to Amazon to update.

Updating is easy, but for one problem. The author can not purchase more than one copy of a book, even if it is an update. I understand that this is true for everyone, one can not buy the original copy of a book and the update, a week or two later! Amazon will send the author the updated version, update the version of the book in the Amazon Cloud, but this might take a few days. Thus, it takes some time to see if the live links to websites included in a book, actually work.

Amazon is aware of the problem with readers wanting to purchase updates of books and I hope this issue is resolved quickly as in the case of my ongoing search for my sister, as more information is found, I hope to include it in updates to the book.

Since I had uploaded a MOBI file, the "preview" module does not include the option of seeing the HTML of the uploaded book. When I click on a live link in the book in "preview" mode, it links to the cover of my book, rather than going out to the link.

To revise a MOBI file, one has to recreate the MOBI file and upload the book once again.

Per updates, I emailed Amazon to find out if I could load a book in MOBI and update in HTML, for example, and they replied "Yes," but I decided to continue with MOBI, which was Amazon Kindle's native file, once-upon-a-time.

The "Look Inside" was immediately updated and Amazon sent me an email saying that my book, meaning my revision, was published. New customers purchasing the book would receive the revised book.

Come back to read "Marketing Your Ebook: Part 2," and follow my journey into the secrets and adventures in ebook publishing as it happens!

Walk Forward - Updating Book

I love Amazon Kindle's Report module, but not too happy about the steps I need to take to revise a duplicate content word entry and an extra space in a hyphenated word in them text of my book, Walk Forward.

Problem is that to fix the errors in the free part of the book, I can not go up to Amazon.com and just fix, as I did with the "Book Description", I have to redo in Open Office, convert to .mobi again, and send it through the Amazon grinder again. The steps seem to be overkill as all I need to do is fix a hyphenated word that has an extra space and delete a duplicate word!

I continue to Walk Forward m to uncover the secrets of ebook publishing! I love the picture of my Mom on the book's cover, hope you do to?

Walk Forward - Housekeeping

I felt courageous and clicked on the "look inside" my 3-day-old book, Walk Forward, and noticed two conversion errors in the first 10% of the book. One word was repeated, and a hyphenated word did not convert correctly. I had read about the second error type, but not the first. I wish I did not have any errors in my first few chapters and am perplexed as to how the errors happened. Fixing them is simple, if one likes to format and convert files, but I have no plans to format in the near future,  am seeing code in my sleep, and continue to search for any secrets to the process of ebook publishing!

When some of my paragraphs failed to indent, I could verify that code was missing, I saw the missing symbols, but no matter what I tried, I could not add the needed code. I finally had to alter my content to fit the formatting -- luckily, I am the author of the book and can add or delete content!


Many of you are formatting, please share any and all secret fixes, so that we might all save time!
Seems like a  list of common errors observed after formatting or sending a file to be ground up, would be well received, certainly by this author!

Starting with plain HTML is my secret and  made the process easier than those I read about. I had little manual labor to do, did not have to go through pages correcting code. I had no extraneous code in my manuscript. Using Open Office has some advantages and Word has others, but since I am not comfortable with the new Word program on my computer, I used Open Office and recommend it.

Breathing on a manuscript seems to propagate extraneous code, and holding one's breath, as I did, apparently makes some needed code mysteriously disappear!

There is much housekeeping to do the first days after publication for a single platform. I have not found
a "to do" list anywhere, but am  finding out by the helpful hints of those reading Walk Forward.

One reader emailed that she loved the book, would like to "like" my tags, but I have none!
Another told me she could not find me in "author central" -- maybe an issue per my maiden name?

Amazon prompted me for an RSS feed to my blogs, and I have no clue how to do, but will be reading about it in the wee hours of the morning!

I want to respond to the email and telephone calls I am receiving about the book. I am being asked "Rosa, where did you get all of those details?" -- the answer is that I was lucky that my mother kept a journal which I found after she died last year. Adding details to the stories I remembered was easy, as she wrote them down. This was long before I was serious about writing a book. It remains a very emotional process, because I miss her very much.

Summary, one can not do a half decent job if attacking all platforms at once. The housekeeping tasks are keeping me busy 24/7. I am glad that I am only on Amazon!

My book keeps moving from #6 to #4  and  back again, in several of its categories, and I can not help scrolling back and forth between Amazon's incredible report module and my book's web page.

I highly recommend checking Amazon's incredible report module which includes statistics on my book in real time!

Walk Forward

The picture on the cover of my book is a picture of my mother, Louise V. Shine, taken in 1938.

                                                          

I published my book, Walk Forward, yesterday, and am truly amazed at how quickly Amazon loaded the book on their platform!  I am also impressed with their "Author Central" option and "Report" module to keep track of everything.

I decided to try the Kindle Select program, which has an exclusive on my book for 90 days, as I like having the book available in the Kindle Lending Library. I love libraries and hope to get hard copies of my book into libraries one day.

The book is targeted to young adults and adults, has one five star review, and sold two copies in its first few hours of life on the Amazon Kindle Select platform. A few hours later, 5 copies of the book were downloaded.

I will be pleased if the book helps uncover a single new secret about my lost sister.

If you have any interest in family relationships or history, please send the link for the book to your family and friends:

http://www.amazon.com/Walk-Forward-ebook/dp/B009H6Y7AC