USING THE KINDLE FIRE DEPARTMENT TO SELL YOUR BOOKS!

Okay, so yesterday my hockey/vampire novellete SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME appeared as the KINDLE BOOK OF THE DAY at the KINDLE FIRE DEPARTMENT – http://fireapps.blogspot.ca/2012/09/sudden-death-overtime-kindle-book-of.html.

Since I started this blog as an attempt to keep a record of how my e-publishing is progressing I thought I’d fill you folks in on the results of this promotion.

First off – the KFD gave SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME a GREAT review.

A delicious blend of dark humor, horror, hockey, and vampires, author Steve Vernon‘s highly rated Sudden Death Overtime is a fun read, plain and simple. With a vibe that reminds me of the movie Sean of the Dead, this is a story that will surprise you and carry you off to places you had no idea you wanted to go. And if you haven’t read anything by Vernon yet, get ready to have a new favorite author. Start with this one! – Kindle Fire Department

That’s a solid review and it’s hard to argue with that.

Ratings wise, the promotion gave a big bump to the little book. One day earlier the book had bottomed out at an Amazon Rating of 455,291. This morning SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME is sitting at 23,224.

(for those of you who do not know – Amazon ratings are a little like golf scores – the lower the number the better it is selling. Think of it as your ranking in sales. On Tuesday the book was ranked the 455,291th top selling e-book on Amazon – and this morning it is the 23,224th best selling e-book.)

That’s still a long way away from the top 100 – which is REALLY where a book or an e-book wants to be at Amazon. Books in the top 100 show up on the radar a lot more – and as a result are seen by more new readers – and hopefully sold to new readers.

So – on the face of it – this promotion was a good investment – especially when you couple it with tomorrow’s upcoming promotion – a REALLY entertaining guest blog appearance at the RG2E, (The Reader’s Guide to E-Publishing) complete with a giveaway – will hopefully bump that Amazon rating a little higher.

(and here’s a link to the RG2E – http://thereadersguidetoepublishing.wordpress.com/)

However – when I look at the number of copies that the promotion created it is a little less positive.

In conclusion I believe the KINDLE FIRE DEPARTMENT is a really great place to advertise your freebie promotions – but possibly less desirable a location to place your regular book promotions. A regular book might be lost among all of the freebies that are regularly advertised at the KFD. I’ll definitely use them again – although I might want to approach it differently next time.

A lot will depend on how far up the ladder I can push this little book. You see, the Amazon sales rating is basically a speedometer of books. The more books you sell in a short amount of time the farther up in the rankings you will climb. I sold some books yesterday. I need to sell some more today and some more tomorrow to really make a difference in the sales ratings.

That’s why it is important for an indie writer such as myself to create a promotional strategy. It isn’t all just about ONE promotional appearance. The key is to link these promotions together to create a momentum in sales. So, when you – as an indie self-published writer – are setting up advertising and/or promotion – keep the timing in mind. Try to clump them together so that each little oomph of momentum builds upon itself.

Lastly, I made a rash promise yesterday to my followers.

Let me quote this –

I promise to do a Snoopy Happy Dance on my front lawn in my pajamas for every copy sold today.

So – without further ado –

Since I began typing this blog entry SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME has climbed to 21,716 in the Amazon Ratings. Hopefully I will sell a few more copies today before the neighbours manage to dig out their pitchforks and flaming torches.

Yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon