Tag: ebooks

SFFMP 145: Using eBook Giveaways to Grow Your Audience and Sell More Books

Group Discussion, Podcast

On today’s show, we were joined by Ashley and Maura from Instafreebie. If you haven’t heard about the service yet, it’s a spot where you can upload free ebooks (previews, short stories, and novellas are fine), and it makes it easy for potential readers to download them and load them on their e-readers. You also have the option of requiring readers to share their email addresses in order to download the ebooks, so it can be a way to start growing a mailing list. A lot of our previous guests have used the service, and many authors attest to its usefulness, especially in conjunction with multi-author promotions.

Here’s some of what we talked about on the show:

  • How Instafreebie works and how it differs from Bookfunnel, another service that can facilitate giving away ebooks.
  • Giving away books (such as series starters) versus giving away short stories or previews of novels.
  • Making sure to put your call to action (i.e. buy Book 2 in the series here!) in the back of the ebooks you give away.
  • Using Instafreebie (and collecting email addresses) versus making books free on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, etc.
  • Whether cliffhangers, at the ends of free novels or previews, work or if the readers are left irritated.
  • Using a drip campaign (or auto-responder) to reach out to readers after they’ve shared their email addresses.
  • Instafreebie’s recommendation engine and other ways to increase discoverability outside of what you do for promo.
  • Organizing a group giveaway and asking them for a plug (submit requests to production@instafreebie.com)
  • How newer authors can leverage Instafreebie to build a fan base when they don’t have a big social media presence or mailing list for driving traffic.
  • How books are chosen to be shared on the Instafreebie blog for extra promotion.

If you’re interested in signing up for their service, find it at Instafreebie.com.

 

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SFFMP 92: How to Use KDP Select to Sell More Books with Susan Kaye Quinn

Author Interview, Podcast

We got a lot of great information from today’s return guest, science-fiction and paranormal romance author, Susan Kaye Quinn. In addition to writing genre fiction, she’s penned For Love or Money, a book that talks about the ongoing debate on whether to write to the market, to write your passion, or to try and find the spot where the two areas mesh.

Since Susan has been doing a number of experiments with Amazon’s KDP Select/Kindle Unlimited promotions lately, we focused on that during the show, trying to find the information that would help authors work KU to their advantage and do better with the promotions available to those in the program.

Here are a few specifics we covered:

  • Being wide (in all the stores) and having a permafree title versus being in KDP Select with a 99-cent title
  • How to have a successful free run while in KDP Select and why “getting the attention of borrowers” matters more than anything else
  • How borrowers are almost like an entirely different store with their own eco-system
  • What to do if you’ve been wide and are bringing older titles into KDP Select
  • What some of the problems might be if your books just aren’t selling as well as you wish
  • Figuring out if a book or genre is a good match for KDP Select
  • Whether pre-orders are a good idea when you’re in KDP Select and you’re relying on borrows (which can’t roll in until the book is live)
  • Dealing with readers who might be upset if you switch from being in all the stores to being exclusive with Amazon
  • Figuring out whether you should give KDP Select a try based on how well you’re doing in other stores
  • Whether you should save up books and launch them in a cluster or try to stagger them to release over time
  • Places to advertise KDP Select titles

Stop by Susan’s site, check out her books on Amazon, and sign up for her popular For Love or Money group on Facebook. Lindsay is there as are many other indie authors.

Also check out Susan’s previous appearance on the show if you haven’t already: Episode 36.

 

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SFFMP 49: Productivity and First Book Success with Zach Bohannon

Author Interview, Podcast

Today we interviewed fresh new horror/dystopian fiction author, Zach Bohannon. Despite a full time job and a family, he’s managed to write and publish five novels (and some short stories) already this year. He also got off to a great start with excellent sales and reviews of the books in his Empty Bodies series. We asked him how he got those early sales, whether being in Kindle Unlimited helped, and why his dog is named after a beer company.

Here are some of the highlights:

  • Managing a full time job and a family while writing and publishing multiple novels a year
  • Calls to action (CTAs) in the back matter of the book to ask for reviews and mailing list sign-ups
  • Calls to action in the front matter of a book, yea or nay?
  • Can you have too many CTAs? Should you just stick to one?
  • Challenges of marketing dystopian/post apocalyptic fiction versus horror
  • Having a great first book launch based largely on a good cover and low price in a popular genre (Zach also started in Kindle Unlimited and had lots of good things to say about his experiences in KDP Select thus far)
  • Appearing on podcasts as part of a promotions strategy
  • What Zach does for social media, and does he think it’s important for book sales?
  • Connecting with readers on Instagram (check out Zach’s page) versus Twitter — people pause and you can more easily grab their attention with images on Instagram (he goes and comments on other people’s photos, rather than worrying too much about putting up photos of his own)
  • Using auto-responders for your mailing list to connect with readers.
  • How Zach feels about advertising and sponsored posts on blogs/newsletters.

Visit Zach at The Horror Writers’ Podcast and on his website. You can check out his first book, Empty Bodies, on Amazon.

 

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