Mini Promotion Blitz

After the last promotion blitz that I did for The Kult, I decided to plan another one for the second book in the series, Killers. Using the results from last time, I am using the following places for ads to promote the 99c sale:

June 25th: Bookbub
June 25th: Ebook bargain news
June 25th: Indie Book Bargains
June 27th: Bookblast
June 28th: ENT
July 1st: Kindle Books and Tips

Three of those are prepaid ads, which have cost $325 ((£211). ENT charge after the promotion, asking for 25% of the money from the sales their ad generated. 

For the last promotion, Bookbub ran the The Kult as a horror novel, this time Killers is being run as a thriller. 


The results after the first day are excellent and any reservations I had about promoting the second book in a series have been blown away.

Amazon.com total sales: 811
Amazon.co.uk: 8

Amazon.com sales rank: #150 Paid in Kindle Store

Sales of the first book, The Kult at full price, 42

Barnes & Noble sales rank: 30 (won't know actual sales there until Smashwords updates)


http://www.amazon.com/Killers-Prosper-Snow-novel-ebook/dp/B005U3KOUI/

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Killers-Prosper-Snow-novel-ebook/dp/B005U3KOUI/

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/killers-shaun-jeffrey/1107044351?ean=2940032810643&itm=1&usri=shaun+jeffrey

Paid Promotion Blitz Experiment

My experiences with paid advertising have been mediocre, but in those cases, it's usually been a single random add posted now and again. Now I've planned a promotion blitz with my novel, The Kult, starting next weekend. I'm using lots of sites to see whether combining them over a few days will work better (of course what works for one book won't work for another and there are lots of variables).

 So first, the stats. The Kult has been out for a few years now, but I've decided to give it a big push. The story has been filmed by an independent production company and is currently in post production. On Amazon.com it has 28 reviews and an average of 4.4 stars. On Amazon.co.uk it has 25 reviews and an average of 4.4 stars too. (On Goodreads it has 191 ratings with an average of 4.02).

Now I've already reduced the price from $2.99 to 99c to avoid any mishaps for the planned week, and I'm promoting utilising the following sites: 

May 11th
http://www.bookbub.com/home/
http://bargainebookhunter.com/ 
http://storyfinds.com/ 
http://www.booktweetingservice.com/
http://www.indie-book-bargains.co.uk/
http://booksliced.com/
http://mommasaysread.com/
http://addictedtoebooks.com/
http://www.freebookshub.co.uk/
http://www.eBookLister.net
http://www.fkbooksandtips.com/ 

May 12th
http://www.freebooksy.com/
http://kindlenationdaily.com/ 
http://bookiniste.com/
http://www.ehorrorbargains.com/

May 13th
http://www.thekindlebookreview.net/
http://www.kboards.com/
http://thecheapebook.com/live/
http://www.ereaderutopia.com/
http://ereadernewstoday.com/

May 14th
http://www.bookblast.co/
http://thefrugalereader.com/
http://digitalbooktoday.com/

May 15th
http://www.kuforum.co.uk/ 

(I've also contacted the following sites, but promotion is not guaranteed and I've not heard back from them at the moment: http://www.pixelofink.com) and http://blog.booksontheknob.org/)

Of course I'd love any help people can give me by reposting any ads or links they see during the promotion.

The total cost of this promotion blitz is $613 (£393) and to recoup my costs I've got to sell 1751 copies. I'll post the results after the event. And here's a couple of links to the books:

http://www.amazon.com/Kult-Prosper-Snow-novel-ebook/dp/B004TGT3S6/ 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kult-Prosper-Snow-novel-ebook/dp/B004TGT3S6/ 

Barnes & Noble

Promotion. How far is too far?

I’ve been blown away to have already received six 5* reviews on Amazon.co.uk for the new Prosper Snow novel, Killers. A couple of said reviews have even said they think it’s better than the first book, The Kult!

Now I know I’ve been blogging and posting about the book’s release, but it still surprises me how many people in certain places, such as on the Amazon forums actively dislike authors promoting their work (Amazon.com even went so far as relegate such posts to a single area titled ‘Meet our authors' forum). I find all this animosity unusual for people who supposedly like reading. I read a comment on a post recently where the person said that they would never buy a book from an author that promoted their work, because if the work was good, then it would speak for itself and people would buy it. I thought WTF. The problem with this theory is that people first have to hear about the book, and one of the best ways to get the word out is to promote. It’s the old catch 22 scenario really. I personally have no problem with people promoting their books. Hell, I know how hard it is to find readers, so anything that helps in this respect is good. I wouldn’t have heard about half the books I purchase if I hadn’t read posts by the authors themselves.

So what do other people think? Can you promote too much? Does it turn potential readers away? 

Help needed from readers.

As a writer it’s hard to know what does or doesn’t work where trying to promote books is concerned, and so I would really appreciate it if anyone who has bought one of my books could let me know where they heard about it and what made them decide to purchase a copy. If you don’t want to post on a blog, please email me as I’m really interested in knowing what works and what doesn’t where promotion is concerned. Thanks in advance.

thekult_4(at)hotmail.com