Meredith Skye is a self-published indie author, who put out her first novel on Amazon, “The Gods of Garran” in September last year.
I GAVE AWAY 3,148 FREE KINDLE COPIES OF MY SCIFI NOVEL, “THE GODS OF GARRAN,” IN FIVE DAYS on amazon.com in March 2014—plus 100 in foreign territories. This is my best giveaway day yet. How did I do it?
THE AMAZON KINDLE KDP PROGRAM CAN HELP
First, I enrolled in the KDP select program on Amazon. (You don’t have to do this).
WHAT IS KDP?
This is the exclusive Kindle publishing that Amazon does. You can’t sell your digital book anywhere else while it’s enrolled in the KDP select program on Amazon. But there are some benefits. And you get 5 free giveaway days during each 90 day period you are in KDP.
Amazon says: “KDP Select is an optional program for you to reach even more readers and gives you the opportunity to earn more money. If you choose to make a book exclusive to the Kindle Store, which is a requirement during your book’s enrollment in KDP Select, the book is eligible to be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) and you can earn a share of the fund based on how frequently the book is borrowed (click here to see how payments are calculated).”
https://kdp.amazon.com/help?topicId=A6KILDRNSCOBA
I DID A FIVE DAY GIVEAWAY
This time I decided to use all 5 free giveaway days together, using my KDP (Kindle Direct Program) days. You don’t have to, you can do each day separately, if you wish. First of all, there are a lot of great sites on the Internet where you can list your book when it is free.
SPEND SOME TIME:
I spent the whole week of spring break twittering and spamming links on Facebook and listing in all these websites. There are a lot of sites to promote a free book or one that’s on sale. There’s a lot to slog through and it’s time consuming, so clear your schedule.
REVIEWS ARE IMPORTANT
Reviews show that people are reading your book. You don’t have to have these but there are a number of internet promotion sites that won’t take you if you have no reviews. So getting some reviews up on Amazon or Goodreads for your book before you do a promo is a good idea. And good reviews will boost your downloads.
NEWSLETTER:
Keep a list of friends and fans that might be interested in your novels. Send a newsletter out announcing your free days.
USING TWITTER
You might want to work on building your twitter list before hand by searching for twitter users with similar interests and adding them. Often, if you add someone, they will add you back. I started with 7 twitter followers 6 months ago, now I have over 1800! Remember, if they don’t add you back, they won’t see anything that you post.
Use FOLLOWERWONK
https://followerwonk.com
Use “Search Twitter Bios”. Enter in some keywords in your genre and start adding people. In the far column, they list “social authority”; higher is better. That means they use twitter more often and retweet.
SCHEDULE YOUR TWEETS
For your free book days, tweets should be sent out on the day that it’s free, so people can click your link and download immediately.
Maybe you don’t want to hang out all day tweeting. Get a free account on Hootsuite and schedule your tweets and even your Facebook posts in advance! This is a great tool.
Read my post on building a twitter following:
7 BASIC TWITTER TIPS: How to Tweet and Get more Followers. Retweets, mentions, hashtags, etc.
http://meredithskye.weebly.com/blog/7-basics-twitter-tips-how-to-tweet-and-get-more-followers
MEREDITH SKYE’S WEBSITE & BLOG:
Learn more about my books or read my blog.
http://www.meredithskye.com
MY BOOK IS ON SALE! $2.99 now .99c
During my book blog tour, my novel “The Gods of Garran,” normally $2.99, will be only .99c. Check it out!
THE GODS OF GARRAN
Once, the gods, called Borrai, walked among the people of Garran. Then invaders came from the sky and killed the gods–destroying all who opposed them. The tribesmen of Garran must revive the ancient powers of the Borrai to fight an oppressive and advanced alien race–or live as slaves.
U.S. http://amzn.com/B00FGLUI00
U.K. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FGLUI00
CANADA http://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00FGLUI00
GERMANY/AUSRIA http://www.amazon.de/dp/B00FGLUI00
INDIA: http://www.amazon.in/dp/B00FGLUI00
AUSTRALIA: http://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B00FGLUI00
MY BOOK BLOG TOUR:
Follow the rest of my book blog tour!
8/13/2014
3 Partners in Shopping, Nana, Mommy, and Sissy, Too!
http://3partnersinshopping.blogspot.com/
How to Promote Your Book!
http://www.melvagifford.com/category/rock-soup/
8/14/2014
Long and Short Reviews
http://www.longandshortreviews.com/
8/15/2014
Welcome to My World of Dreams
http://jhthomas.blogspot.com/2014/08/virtual-book-tour-gods-of-garran-by.html
8/18/2014
Deal Sharing Aunt
http://www.dealsharingaunt.blogspot.com/
8/19/2014
Bunny’s Review
http://blog.kybunnies.com/
8/20/2014
Into the Dreaming
http://christineamsden.com/wordpress/
8/21/2014
Room With Books
http://roomwithbooks.com/
8/22/2014
MichaelSciFan
http://www.michaelscifan.us/
