Finally - An Effective, Low-cost Way to Promote KDP FREE Days!

The competition in the fiction market is fierce. If you're like me, the problem you face is not that readers don't like your story. It's the fact you're having a hard time getting your stories in front of readers.

Thus, the logic behind using KDP Select Free days, giving your book away for free in order to give readers a chance to "find" your books. Granted, it wrankles a bit to give away something so much time, effort and passion has been invested in, not to mention money, but, you have to help your audience find you.

Since my books are part of a series, I accepted the fact long ago the first book in the series will have to be a loss leader. It will either be free or for sale for .99 cents. Someday in the future is will likely become permafree.

If as an author you are going to give away free copies of your book as part of your marketing strategy, be it to find readers, gain reviews or try to boost sales of other titles in the series, you want to maximize your KDP Free days.

Experimenting with this marketing tactic can be a but frustrating as KDP only allows the author five days per 90 day enrollment period to give away books. Patience is not high on my list of traits when I'm trying to figure out how to best perform a task.

Enrolling your book in individual book promotion services is a time consuming, frustrating task and to be honest, not always particularly effective.

Book Marketing Tools offers a low cost, quick tool that allows an author to list their free days for a mere $29. For twenty minutes of my time and $29, my KDP FREE days were listed on 27 sites that feature free ebooks and have e-mail lists.

The result?

I gave away 3375 copies of The Predator and The Prey in just three days. 

To put that in perspective, the previous best giveaway for that novel was 475 copies in three days.

If I'm going to give it away, then I want to give away as many copies as possible. The KENP pages read for the sequel, Last Train to Nowhere, jumped from 0 to over 2,000 in just a few days and I sold 27 copies at $3.99 in the same time period, so I at least broke even.

In what is certain to be a marathon if I am to reach the size audience I hope to, this is a marketing tactic I will return to repeatedly.

How to Use GoodReads to Generate Amazon and GoodReads Reviews

I had no clue this was a legitimate possibility. Alinka Rutkowska, a successful children's author and author coach, has a new, inexpensive online course to show you how to go about connecting with readers on GoodReads in order to generate reviews.

In the course of the nine years I have been self-publishing, I have managed to waste a fair amount of money on books, courses, etc, claiming to help me sell more books. Some have been worth the money I spent. Most have not.

Alinka's course was not only inexpensive, I managed to reach out to multiple readers who like the style of novel I write and give good reviews! It took me 30 minutes to elicit 8 readers to accept a free copy of my novel.

Part of why it took 30 minutes was the need for me to re-watch the online class to figure out to how to work my way around GoodReads, a site I don't find particularly intuitive.

I've learned three things are going to be important to market and sell my fiction. 

• I have to get readers to discover the series.
• I have to get reviews for the first book in the series.
• I need people to sign-up for my e-newsletter list.

 Alinka's system will help with all three.

I realize this sounds like a cheesy sales pitch. I'm terrible at this sort of writing. Also, for full disclosure the link below is an affiliate link. I wouldn't pitch this if I didn't think the information was worthwhile.

http://alinkarutkowska.com/80k-free/ 

 

For purposes of comparison, I twice spent $47 for Bookrazor's service to obtain a list of 100 Amazon reviewers. Out of those two hundred plus names and e-mails, I generated a grand total of six reviews.

Alinka's course cost $15 and I learned how to find reviewers and how to contact them without spending money. My investment was time. 

 

I'm not unhappy about the money I spent with Bookrazor. They did exactly what they advertised. But learning how to find and contact reviewers for my book without spending any money is what my budget needs. 

 

 

 

Download a FREE Copy of The Predator and The Prey! Meet Inspector Thomas Sullivan!

From May 16 through the 20th, The Predator and The Prey, the first book in my Inspector Thomas Sullivan series of scifi thrillers is FREE via Amazon's Kindle.

Get your FREE copy!

Meet Inspector Thomas Sullivan as he arrives at his new home world, the frozen planet Beta Prime. Get to know how this tough inspector goes about cleaning up crime in the corrupt, often dark Capital City.

Along the way Sully meets a lot of interesting people, some of whom will join the Inspector in trying to make life better for others. Some of these people simply look out for Number One.

Visit the cold planet with two moons. See how you like it.

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Last Train To Nowhere Now In Print - Available for FREE in a GoodReads Giveaway!

The second novel in Inspector Thomas Sullivan Series, Last Train to Nowhere, is now available from Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions!

Enter to win a signed copy from a GoodReads Giveaway! The contest will end June 10, 2017.

 
 

    Goodreads Book Giveaway
 

   

       
   

   

     

          Last Train To Nowhere
     

     

          by K.C. Sivils
     

     

         
            Giveaway ends June 10, 2017.
         

         
            See the giveaway details
            at Goodreads.
         

     

   

   

    Enter Giveaway