In December of 2008, I was asked by one of my authors if he could publish his novel as an ebook for the Kindle on Amazon.com. I thought, why not? “Sure go ahead.” I had looked at the new Kindle and figured it would go the way of most expensive ebook readers… down the drain. I didn’t think it was worth my time and trouble to put our books on Kindle. After all, how many people would buy a $400 device just to read ebooks?
Just for grins, I signed up on the Amazon DTP (Digital Text Platform) site and went through the process of converting one of my books into Kindle format, uploaded it, made it available and then forgot about it.Moving forward a few months to January 2010, I was perusing my bank statement and noticed a payment from Amazon that looked a little different. I receive payments from Amazon 1 to 3 times a month for various selling programs on Amazon, so I don’t usually pay a whole lot of attention, but this particular payment said, “Amazon Digital.” Huh? I logged onto my Amazon account and browsed for several minustes before I remembered where I had uploaded that ebook. I finally found the Amazon DTP site and ran the report on my sales. I had sold 15 books in 2009 and Amazon had paid me more than $150 over a year’s time. Wow! I hadn’t done any work at all. That’s when I decided that I better look a little closer at this Kindle stuff.
Amazon was suddenly projecting ebook sales would surpass paper book sales before the end of the year. Whoa! I better get busy. We immediately started a program to convert all of our titles to Kindle and any new books that we publish are now simultaneously brought out both in trade paperback and Kindle. Our publishing company isn’t the only one. Just recently, Dorchester Publishing, publisher of Leisure paperback books, announced that they would no longer be producing mass-market paperbacks, but instead be bringing their titles out in Kindle first and follow it up a few months later with a POD Trade paperback starting with their September titles.Guess what? Promoting your books on the Internet is now more important than ever. Actually I should say, promoting your Kindle books on the Internet in now more important than ever. The Internet you say? Yes… well I think that’s where most Kindle lovers hang out… and BTW (by the way) the new Kindle is priced lower than ever. $139 for the cheapest version of the Kindle 3 and now, you don’t even need a Kindle to read Kindle books. There are Kindle apps that are free for the iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, PC, and Mac. There are literally millions of Kindle users now. The market is HUGE.
I have been researching a LOT on promoting Kindle books—what works and what doesn’t. I’ll post a series of BLOGs here over the next few weeks that deal with just Kindle book promotion. I’m not being a Kindle geek about this. We could just as easily started by talking about promoting books for Barnes and Nobles’ Nook, or the Sony Reader, or the Apple iPad, or any number of other ebook readers. The reason for Kindle? Depending on the source, anywhere from 60 to 90 percent of ebooks sold are for the Kindle. I’m going where the money is first. I’ve interviewed several bestselling authors—formally unknown authors before the Kindle—and compiled a stack of promotion ideas and information for you.While doing all this, I, along with author Dale Whisman, have tried out many of the promotion ideas on Dale's detective novel series, The Carl Jacobs Mysteries. There are now three books in this series. The first book, Friends, and Other Perishables was originally published in hardback by a publisher whose main customers were libraries. It received some great reviews from Kirkus, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and others, but didn't sell beyond it's first print run. I republished this book in trade paperback and now in Kindle along with the next two installments of the series. I thought these books would be my best bet on trying out Kindle promotion ideas, because they have what most of the interviewed bestselling Kindle authors say is the most important things for selling a Kindle book.
- A good book. What can I say? It better be a good book, or it won’t sell.
- Price - It’s very important to price your book right.
- Cover art. A professional cover speaks volumes.
- Title. More than what you might think.
- Description. You got to have a good hook here.
Friends, and Other Perishables - $2.99
A Witch among Friends - $2.99
Friends on Fire - $2.99
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ReplyDeleteIt is very easy to include on each of your blog posts.
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