I haven't got more than about two minutes or my wife will roast me alive - as we're off to a family birthday party.
Just wanted to say that my children's adventure novel Smugglers at Whistling Sands is free today on Kindle. If you click on the links on the right hand side, you can have my book for free, instead of its usual price of £2.49.
Please give it a try and if you like it, consider leaving me a review!
(Sales - have picked up somewhat since I wrote my last review - 4 in week just gone and 5 the previous week. That, as any fledgling novelist will tell you, is a lot more than zero!
And now I better move it!
Showing posts with label Kindle free book promotion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kindle free book promotion. Show all posts
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Monday, March 05, 2012
Smugglers must move aside a bit as I turn my thoughts to book two
No-one hopes more than me that my children's mystery / adventure novel Smugglers at Whistling Sands will make it big one day. But I'm going to have to cut it loose a bit now to make space for turning my attention to a second novel.
Smugglers is out there, it is on Amazon, it is available for anyone who wants it and for only 77p, or the Dollar or Euro equivalents. I've had a fair bash at direct marketing and I've run three free promotion days on Amazon now, including the weekend just gone. I would like to spend more time pushing it but if I do, then I will leave myself very little time to write anything new.
I've spent countless hours on a major rewrite during the winter, particularly of its closing chapters and made it a much better book in the process. But psychologically, I've got to "put the book down" in my mind, to free myself up for the next one.
Readers will make their own minds up about Smugglers. I am strongly of the belief that a good book will ultimately sell itself and generate its own momentum, through customer reviews and word of mouth.
I am delighted that in the last few days alone, I've had two really positive reviews, one on Amazon.com and the other on Amazon.co.uk, this latest one as follows:
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent characterisation, 3 Mar 2012
By septempopuli (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smugglers at Whistling Sands (Kindle Edition)
A really well-written book, fast paced with excellent characterisation. It has echoes of Enid Blyton's holiday adventures, certainly, but is still wholly original. And just as Blyton was famous for her sequels, so please let's have a follow-up!
It is reviews like that, from complete strangers who owe me nothing, that can really help to launch unknown authors. That's why I would ask all of you out there who have downloaded a book you have really enjoyed - whether it be mine or someone else's - to take the trouble to leave a few words to tell others what you thought of it.
You don't have to write reams, or re-tell the plot in great detail (in fact, it's best not to!) - simply give your honest view and why you liked it. Very few people bother to do that but it is hugely appreciated by any author, particularly those seeking to establish their name.
So my hope for Smugglers at Whistling Sands is that it will get more reviews over time, particularly from another batch of free downloads. On which note, I was rather taken aback and disappointed over the weekend that I did not have anywhere near as many downloads this time during my two-day promotion. (By the way, you have to enroll in KDP Select in order to offer readers up to five days of free promotions over three months. This ties you to Kindle Direct Publishing for those months and you can't sell your book anywhere else in that period).
It was only intended to be a single day - Saturday - but I notched up only around 60 downloads so I let the promotion run on Sunday as well. But in total I managed only some 125 downloads, of which marginally more were on Amazon.com. How different from two weeks ago when I got over 300 on a single day!
Why the slow-down? I don't know. I think I wasn't picked up by the Twitter and website aggregators as happened the first time. On a brighter note, I had some excellent backing from a leading member of the Enid Blyton Society who downloaded my book, recommended it on the society forums and put out a tweet from the society to several thousand followers. So that might bear fruit in some form.
Nonetheless, more than 500 people have downloaded a copy of Smugglers now, if you add together free and paid-for copies. If it is a good book, as I hope, then momentum will start to build.
As I say, I would love to do more to make that happen but I must try to combine novel-writing ambitions with a full-time job and helping bring up our two young children - which is a job and a half in itself! Above all, I must create space in my head to think about my next writing project.
I am burning now to crack on with it so I will wish Lou, Jack, David and Emily well in getting more readers - I think they deserve them and I will write a sequel about them if they do. It was very pleasing that the latest reviewer expressed a hope that I would do so.
But my second novel is likely to be quite different. Different how, you ask? I don't know, I don't know what it is about yet. I haven't started it. I haven't even started planning it. I just know I'm really excited about knuckling down to it. Watch this space!
Smugglers is out there, it is on Amazon, it is available for anyone who wants it and for only 77p, or the Dollar or Euro equivalents. I've had a fair bash at direct marketing and I've run three free promotion days on Amazon now, including the weekend just gone. I would like to spend more time pushing it but if I do, then I will leave myself very little time to write anything new.
I've spent countless hours on a major rewrite during the winter, particularly of its closing chapters and made it a much better book in the process. But psychologically, I've got to "put the book down" in my mind, to free myself up for the next one.
Readers will make their own minds up about Smugglers. I am strongly of the belief that a good book will ultimately sell itself and generate its own momentum, through customer reviews and word of mouth.
I am delighted that in the last few days alone, I've had two really positive reviews, one on Amazon.com and the other on Amazon.co.uk, this latest one as follows:
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars excellent characterisation, 3 Mar 2012
By septempopuli (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Smugglers at Whistling Sands (Kindle Edition)
A really well-written book, fast paced with excellent characterisation. It has echoes of Enid Blyton's holiday adventures, certainly, but is still wholly original. And just as Blyton was famous for her sequels, so please let's have a follow-up!
It is reviews like that, from complete strangers who owe me nothing, that can really help to launch unknown authors. That's why I would ask all of you out there who have downloaded a book you have really enjoyed - whether it be mine or someone else's - to take the trouble to leave a few words to tell others what you thought of it.
You don't have to write reams, or re-tell the plot in great detail (in fact, it's best not to!) - simply give your honest view and why you liked it. Very few people bother to do that but it is hugely appreciated by any author, particularly those seeking to establish their name.
So my hope for Smugglers at Whistling Sands is that it will get more reviews over time, particularly from another batch of free downloads. On which note, I was rather taken aback and disappointed over the weekend that I did not have anywhere near as many downloads this time during my two-day promotion. (By the way, you have to enroll in KDP Select in order to offer readers up to five days of free promotions over three months. This ties you to Kindle Direct Publishing for those months and you can't sell your book anywhere else in that period).
It was only intended to be a single day - Saturday - but I notched up only around 60 downloads so I let the promotion run on Sunday as well. But in total I managed only some 125 downloads, of which marginally more were on Amazon.com. How different from two weeks ago when I got over 300 on a single day!
Why the slow-down? I don't know. I think I wasn't picked up by the Twitter and website aggregators as happened the first time. On a brighter note, I had some excellent backing from a leading member of the Enid Blyton Society who downloaded my book, recommended it on the society forums and put out a tweet from the society to several thousand followers. So that might bear fruit in some form.
Nonetheless, more than 500 people have downloaded a copy of Smugglers now, if you add together free and paid-for copies. If it is a good book, as I hope, then momentum will start to build.
As I say, I would love to do more to make that happen but I must try to combine novel-writing ambitions with a full-time job and helping bring up our two young children - which is a job and a half in itself! Above all, I must create space in my head to think about my next writing project.
I am burning now to crack on with it so I will wish Lou, Jack, David and Emily well in getting more readers - I think they deserve them and I will write a sequel about them if they do. It was very pleasing that the latest reviewer expressed a hope that I would do so.
But my second novel is likely to be quite different. Different how, you ask? I don't know, I don't know what it is about yet. I haven't started it. I haven't even started planning it. I just know I'm really excited about knuckling down to it. Watch this space!
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