I belong to Loyalte Pays and once I started using it,  I had an idea on how I could use it to promote book series.  Loyalte Pays is a site that lets you download and share  pdf books, images, and videos for free.  If you want to understand how it works, take a look  at the video below.  My purpose here is not to promote  Loyalte Pays but my idea  will give you the option to use it.

My plan is to take the first  book of your series and put it  into the Loyalte Pays’  library.  Then members can download and share your book on their site and many social media sites.  They will do this because they may get paid for doing so.   The video explains this.  The problem is that you have to have a paid membership in order to upload material to Loyalte Pays.  Also you must have rights to the pdf and acknowledge the creators of the videos and images.  A paid membership is $37 dollars a month.

I thought to myself that this site would  be great for authors to put up the first book of a series.  Members will share the book if they like it, and will want to read the other books in the series as well as giving others the opportunity to read the book.  I also thought that $37 per month was steep for authors to give  one book away for free.  Then I thought I am a paid member and if I can convince the owner of  Loyalte Pays to allow me to act as an agent for the authors and  put up the books for them, it would be a win-win.  So I wrote Heide an email and we worked it out. This what we came up with:

1. The author of the series will  send the pdf or word file of the book to me (if they don’t have a pdf ) through email to janis@assistingauthors.com.  I will convert the book to pdf if it is not in that format.  The series does not have to be a new series.
2. The series can not have adult content (overtly sexual or deviant).
3. The author will join as a free member of Loyalte Pays.  The author will have all the benefits of being a free member of Loyalte Pays.
4. I will upload the book as the agent of the author.
5. I will promote the book  through Loyalte Pays to all social media sites and on my blog at no cost to them author.  The author can promote  the book through Loyalte Pays as well.

I know what you are thinking,  What does she get out of it?  I get one dollar for every person who signs up for a free membership.  I get the possibility to earn 50% of a monthly paid membership if a reader joins as a paid member.   I get to read a free book.   Finally  I get to work with authors who may want to launch their next series through Assisting Authors Online or use other services that we provide.  Seems like a fair trade to me.

If you want to take advantage of this great promotion,  email me and we will get started.  If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section for this post.

I received a comment on one of my posts from  Kathy Meis  who owns a Book Promotion site called Bublish  She asked me to check out  the site.  I was fascinated so I did.  It is a great site so I asked her to write a guest post about it  and agreed to do the same for her.  I will let you know when my post  is live.  Let me know what you think of  Bublish or ask any questions you may have and Kathy will answer them.  So let me introduce Kathy Meis and Bublish:

Book Marketing for the Digital Age

Come on…be honest…you HATE book promotion. It’s okay…we get it. You’d rather be crafting a love scene or concocting the next plot twist in your murder mystery or sculpting a complex, flawed hero. We understand. There’s just one problem. You don’t have a choice about promoting your book…at least not if you’d like someone to read it.

Never in the history of the world have readers had so many choices. We live in an age of extreme content abundance. Search “romance” on Amazon and you’ll get close to 400,000 hits in that category alone. Search “mystery books” on Google, and about 40,900,000 offerings pop up. That’s a whole lot of choices and most of the names at the top of these lists are well known. If you’re a first-time indie author, you are probably not near the top of these lists. So how do you get noticed and find your audience without annoying potential readers with constant sales pitches?

First and foremost, write a great book. Hire a professional editor and invest in decent cover art and formatting. Second, commit to a long-term marketing strategy. Unless you’re a brand-name author with a huge following and a publicity team supporting you, do not expect to be a bestseller overnight. It takes a good deal of time, consistent presence and creativity, and probably more than one book just to make a name for yourself. You might never be a bestselling author. That doesn’t mean you can’t be successful. It doesn’t mean you can’t make a living as a writer. But if you want to quit your day job and support yourself as an indie writer, you’re going to have to approach your writing life as a business person.

At Bublish, we think about the life of today’s author incessantly. We’re writers ourselves, so we get it. We’ve designed our social book discovery and commerce platform to give you the types of powerful social marketing tools professional publishers use. We enable you to share your stories and your voice without ever saying, “buy my book.” At its heart, Bublish is a storytelling platform that allows you to share the story behind your story in an “author insight” that accompanies your book excerpt. Think of it like a director’s cut for books. These elements are combined to create the book bubble. Here’s what one looks like:

Book bubbles are designed for today’s visual Web. When people are overwhelmed with choices, visual cues help them sort through information quickly. That’s one reason social sites like Pinterest have become so popular. Book bubbles are also designed for the social web. They allow authors to create original and engaging content in seconds and share it across multiple social channels where reads can enjoy it and share it with their networks. Over time, this network effect helps authors start conversations with new readers and build their fan base.

Book marketing in the Digital Age is all about selling into the “endless tail” – meaning book sales are no longerconstrained by such things as bookshelf space, print runs or seasons. Now, authors need effective, scaleable tools to help them maintain long-term relationships with their readers. The book bubble is one powerful tool available through Bublish. As the platform evolves, we’ll be adding more tools to help authors keep in touch with readers. Having a marketing tool kit designed to help you be successful in today’s transformed book marketplace will make a big difference in your writing career.

It’s easy to join Bublish. Simply sign up and create a profile. It only takes a second. By the way, Bublish is FREE for writers and readers. When a reader buys a book through a book bubble, retailers pay us an affiliate commission. If you’re an author, all you need to create a book bubble is an ePub version of your digital book.  If you’re a reader, all you need is a desire to discover new books and authors.

We host a number of weekly events to help promote our authors or “bublishers.” Each week we highlight the newest book bubbles in our #SampleSunday Marathon on Twitter @BublishMe. On Monday’s we create and share Bublish’s Floating Bookstore across multiple platforms, including Twitter, Facebook and Google+. Each Thursday, we host a live chat with someone in the Bublish community, which includes authors, readers, publicists, publishers and agents from around the world. Finally, we have special social events and webinars on a regular basis. It’s fun! We hope you’ll join the Bublish community of writers and readers as we partner to shape the future of social book discovery and commerce. it for

So there you have it.  If you need an epub version of your book, contact me. janis@assistingauthors.com for a discount. Then head over and give it a try: http://www.bublish.com/

I would like to welcome  Peter OchsII   to our blog as a stop on his virtual book tour. I invited him to write a guest blog.  I am sure you will find it interesting.  I have also included an excerpt from his book,  For a complete description of the book,  Eye of the Sagc; click on the Amazon link below.  Please give a generous response by commenting or asking questions below. 

Guest Post

I wrote this shortly after the events of 9/11. I include it here as a blog-post because it is a story about Oman, and it is just as relevant today as it was twelve years ago.

A Voice from the Sands
A Personal Recollection

September 23, 2001
For many of you who don’t know me, I am an American working as a tour operator in the Sultanate of Oman. Everybody knows me as Peachey. I design adventure tours for the local and international travel market. My company offers a variety of activities mostly focused on FITs (Free Independent Travelers): desert safaris, jebel (mountain) trekking, wadi bashing (river/river bed hiking and exploring), canyoning, spelunking, and so on.The Sultanate of Oman is on the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula facing the Indian Ocean and bordering Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Yesterday I got a phone call from a person I barely knew and over 150 miles away from my office in Muscat, the capital. When I hung up the phone I felt moved in a strange way I have never felt before. Like many of my experiences in Oman, it will be one I will cherish for the rest of my life.

The caller was a woman named Aliya and she was the daughter of a Bedouin tribesman living in a tract of land on the Eastern fringe of the R’ub Al Khali, the Empty Quarter, known as the Wahibah Sands. The Wahibah is a stretch of rolling dunes running north to south and are about 120 miles long and 75 mile wide. They are situated in the province of Sharqiyah, in eastern Oman and are about a two+ hour drive to reach the northern tip from Muscat.

The Bedouins of the Wahibah are the hardiest lot of people you will ever find. In spite of living in some of the severest conditions on the face of the earth, they are quite contented with persevering under extreme circumstances. They are a generous and gregarious people, only too willing to greet a passing traveler or lend a hand in time of distress. They understand that in an environment that is so unforgiving, someone or something has to be.

The Bedouins’ life has changed drastically in the last thirty years. Most now are semi-nomadic, some living in fixed domiciles in oasis towns surrounding the Wahibah, leaving their “barasti” (palm frond) huts in the sands for more agreeable seasons of the year. They drive trucks, carry pagers and cell phones, and may even own a TV with a satellite dish. They raise camels for racing, husband livestock, dabble in farming along the oasis and hold down regular jobs as laborers, drivers, etc. By and large, however, they are still independent from the settled population: a Bedouin is guided by his own set of rules and his own priorities.

I was out in the Wahibah a couple of weeks ago doing a tour that was a little bit out of the ordinary for me. My clients were an ad agency in Dubai. They came down to scout locations for a photo shoot for an automobile ad campaign. Once they had found their locations, we came back for the shoot with production entourage in tow: photographers, models, art directors, assistants, agents, wardrobe, drivers and vehicles.

During the scouting phase we were aided by a kindly old Bedu named Hamad who effortlessly unstuck one of our clunky vehicles that managed to get stuck in the soft sand. And on completing our scouting task, we were invited to his house, a cinderblock compound in the oasis town of Ar Rakah on edge of the sands, to have coffee and dates. Here we met his wife Selmah and daughter Aliya, who spoke English and was able to translate for us and convey our gratitude for their kindness. We asked Hamad if we could use some of his camels in the photo shoot a few days hence, to which he readily agreed.

A few days later, when we finished our shoot, we received the same hospitality, this time extended to the whole crew (about 20 people), and Hamad and is family once again had us over for coffee and dates, melons and oranges. Selmah entertained the ladies in our crew, bringing out her craftwork of trinkets and jewelry and Bedouin attire. Aliya told me she knew who I was because she saw me come into the desert many times and recognized me from the trademark white hat that I always wear.

We ate and drank our fill and after profuse expressions of thanks, we continued on our way to the next location and next shoot. After the job was finished a few days later, the crew went back to Dubai, and I to my home in Muscat.

Yesterday I got the call. It went something like this:

“Hello. Is this Mr. Peachey?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Mr Peachey, this is Aliya from Ar Rakah.”

“Yes, Aliya, Salaam Alaykum. Kayf halesh? (Peace be upon you. How are you.?)”

“I am fine. Mr Peachey, you didn’t come to Wahibah after long time? Are you OK?”

“Yes, I’m fine Aliya. I have been very busy in my office and not had much chance to get out.”

“Is your family OK?” (It is customary in Arabic greetings to look after, i.e. inquire intently about one’s own family and their well being.)

“Yes we are all fine.”

There was a pause.

“Mr Peachey, the reason I call is I am very sorry for you. I am sorry for you and the American people. We heard of this tragedy and we are very worried for you.” She was of course referring to the attacks in New York and Washington.

Then it hit me. She was enquiring not about my immediate family here in Oman, but my family back home, a place which is, I am sure, too vast, too large and beyond her ken. I assured her that my family was all fine, but we were all staggering to grasp the immensity of the blow.

Aliya continued. “We don’t know why this happen. This thing is unthinkable to us. Why would someone do this? It causes us pain and we are very, very sorry.”

Her condolences verged on the apologetic, as if she felt she was at fault. I of course was at a loss for answers too. I was on the verge of tears.

I reassured her that we were all OK and when I came to the Wahibah, I would stop to see her and her family.

Before we hung up she said, “We are praying for you.”

And so it is this. I’m sending this letter out, first to my friends and contacts. And if you could pass this on to anyone you know, or don’t know, who needs comfort and love to ease us through, please note this: There are prayers coming to you from a place in the desert, in the heart of Oman, from a heart that is as big as the desert itself, from a mind that doesn’t know the meaning of hate, from a body that endures all privations, from a will that knows that God is here to guide us and help us every step of the way.

Fiy imin Allah. God be with you. May God be with us all.
Peachey

PS. Update 2013

Although I have been back to Oman many times since 2001, I have not had the chance to meet up with Aliya and her family.
You can purchase the book on Amazon: http://amzn.to/17nItHe  and visit his website: http://ochsbooks.com

Book Excerpt

Hatcher picked his way into the new planetarium under construction. Along the entrance hall were an array of wallboard pieces, planks, joint compound, bags of nails and buckets of paint. Hatcher stepped inside a door and made his way along a narrow curved hallway and into the planetarium proper. The interior was almost complete. Some loge-style chairs sat, newly installed still covered in wrapper on their backs and seats. Hatcher made his way behind a panel to a control room. Curtiss was inside reviewing a copy of the printout code.

“Hi, Curtiss, whatcha got for me?”

“Dr. Hatcher. It’s a glitch about five minutes into the program. Let me set it up.”

“Okay. I’ll be out here.” He motioned to the auditorium.

Hatcher made his way to a seat on the aisle in the back row. He settled into the seat as the plastic wrap crackled underneath. Curtiss dimmed the houselights and turned on the globe in the center to represent the earth. The sun appeared on the western horizon and dim points of light were projected onto the dome of the planetarium.

Curtiss called over the PA. “Okay. I set the program to start. The computer timer matches up to today’s time and advances to sunset. I’m doing a manual override to cut to the audio and start from there.”

Hatcher looked on but his mind was elsewhere.

The authoritarian voice of a narrator broke the silence. Suitably spacey electronic music played in the background.

“…and we begin our journey just as it would look when the sun sets over the campus this evening. As the stars make their way across the night sky, we speed up the process to just under a minute to give you an idea of how the stars travel across the celestial plane.”

The stars began to move across the ceiling. Some of the more prominently named stars had labels that moved along with them. Hatcher nodded and blinked his eyes.

Curtiss cut in over the PA, “Okay, here’s where it screws up.”

The narrator continued, “Now we shift our position to the North Pole where Polaris appears directly overhead to see the full complement of stars that make up the Northern Hemisphere.”

The stars began shifting in unison, but quickly reversed field and moved in another direction. Hatcher didn’t see this as he had closed his eyes and was drifting off.

Curtiss broke in again. “For some reason, it settles on Canopus in the Southern Hemisphere and I can’t figure out why.”

When Hatcher heard “Canopus” he opened his eyes and stared up.

The ceiling appeared to close in on him. Canopus moved into place at the top of the ceiling and the stars now revolved around it. They started spinning faster as Canopus grew in size, extending a beam of light down to the floor illuminated by motes of dust that were now kicking up in the auditorium. The stars were now a blur, spinning faster and faster. Watching them spin made Hatcher dizzy. The wind blustered, apparently kicked up by the swirling stars moving at ever increasing speed. Hatcher stood up but was immediately knocked down between the chairs. He crawled to the aisle and made his way to the back wall. Now dust was flying everywhere. It was blinding.

The shaft of light in the center of the room was the only thing that could be seen through the dust. Hatcher shielded his head from the stinging sand that blew everywhere. Suddenly, Hatcher felt something grab his leg. The figure of a man was lying just behind him in the beam of light coming from the center of the auditorium. The figure staggered to stand against the wind. He was blown on his back to the floor. He stood up in the aisle and moved closer to Hatcher, who was huddled against the back wall. Step by step he staggered up the aisle towards Hatcher periodically losing ground to the stiff wind. The man collapsed and crawled the last few feet and reached out to grab Hatcher’s ankle again. Startled, Hatcher looked down. The man pulled himself up to Hatcher and looked him in the face. It was Farley Whitman.

“Russell! I need your help!”

Hatcher suddenly recognized an old friend.

“Farley—?! Where are you?”

“I’m here! In the desert! Help me, please!” His raspy voice choked out the words.

“Where, Farley? What can I do?”

Whitman pleaded, “In the Southern Arabian des—”

The words were lost. The wind tore Whitman away. He crashed into a row of
seats and disappeared into the maelstrom.

Hatcher screamed at the top of his lungs. “Faaaar-leeeey…!”

Curtiss looked up from his notes in the control booth. He threw a switch, jumped out of his seat and ran out. The houselights were now on. Everything was quiet. Hatcher sat slumped and disheveled in his chair with a perplexed look on his face.

“Dr. Hatcher!”

“Uh… yeah. I’m Okay,” he replied.

“You were calling someone. Who’s Farley?”

Hatcher reached into his pocket and pulled out the note.

“Farley Whitman. He’s an old college friend of mine, when I was an undergrad at Princeton. Curtiss, I think I know what the problem is. Give me a couple of days and I’ll get back to you, Okay?”

Hatcher gathered his things and left the room leaving Curtiss standing alone in the cosmos.

“You sure?”

Hatcher called back as he left the building, “I’m sure.”

The book is available in paperback and Kindle on Amazon.

Now that you have decided to do a book give-away, it is time to get the word out. Thanks to Kindle Boards, I have found and tested sites where you can get free book promotions and/or reviews. So here are the links I have tested and find to be worthwhile::

Addicted to Books (http://addictedtoebooks.com/submission) :  This site is great because you can rate your book’s content for the reader so they know what they are getting.  Also  you will have your book on the front page of the site for one day and on subsequent pages after.   The requirements:

1. You must register an account and you may list more than one book but only once.  Please read this requirement on the site because it is really important.
2. You must have 5 reviews on Amazon to have the book accepted.
3. No Erotic books, graphic content, or  you must have family friendly covers ie. no shirtless women on the cover.
4.   Your book must be priced at $5.99 or less.

Ask David (http://askdavid.com/free-book-promotion).  It is amazing how much they will do for your book at no cost.  There is no catch.  They make a commission on each book that is sold because they are Amazon Affiliates but that does not affect your royalties.  They have a lot of visitors to the site so your book will get great exposure.

1. You get a whole book promotion page for each of your books on their site.  The do not limit the number of books or ebooks, the do not have the rights to your book, and your books are on the site permanently.
2. They link the page to your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Linkedin and Pinterest.  This will get you a boost in Google Search because the more credible links to your site the better.
3. If you have a book trailer or other video related to your book, they will display it.
4. They will display your profile picture.
5. Visitors may review your book and you can copy the reviews for your website. You will get automatic notifications of new reviews of your book.
6. Visitors will promote your books on Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
7. Your book will be linked to your Amazon purchase page so people can buy it.
8. The will send a tweet about your book to their 13,000 + followers.

Digital Books Today http://digitalbooktoday.com/join-our-team/:This  site has free and paid promotions.   Authors that are enrolled in KDP select can combine their marketing efforts by also getting their book listed on The Top 100 Best Free Kindle Books List.Here are the free promotions:

Weekly Featured Great Reads

1. Amazon rating of 4.2
2. A minimum of 25 reviews on Amazon
3. Full length novel
4. Priced between $.99-$5.99
5. Featured for 7 days from Wednesday to Wednesday starting at 2:00 p.m.  CST.
6. The first half of 2013 is filled, they will start taking new books in June.

I mentioned the last post that it is important  to have from 5-10 or more book reviews on Amazon before you launch your book give-away.  I suggested that one way to get reviews is to go on a Virtual Book Tour that promises some reviews.   I also suggested that you have a contest and give-away an Amazon Gift Certificate for a Kindle Fire .  In the Rafflecopter form (see the previous post),  I give away 10 entries for a book review (honest review) that is put on Amazon.  In order to review the book they have to purchase it and I give away 25 entries for a purchase.  That is a good way to get reviews and sell your book at the same time.    Here are more ways to get reviews:

• Go to book blogs that provide reviews and submit your book.  Some want print copies.  It is up to you if you want to go through the trouble and expense of sending print copies. Here are some links:

1. :http:// www.stepbystepselfpublishing.net/ reviewer-list.html
2. http:// www.onlinecollege.org/ 2009/ 09/ 15/ 100-best-blogs-for-book-reviews
3. http:// www.bookreviewblogs.com
4. You can also join book groups in your genre on http://www.goodreads.com then talk up your book and ask fro reviews
5. .http://bookblogs.ning.com has groups that are set up to do book reviews, so once you join you can submit your books to the groups.
6. Another option is to go to book blogs and start commenting.  You can also ask to do a  guest blog for the site:  See image below.  Feel free to share it.
   

About a week before your Give-away start tweeting, blogging, posting on Facebook and Linked in  all about your free Give-Away.    Do this every day before the launch and you should have  a lot of downloads.  One more thing,  go to  http://onehundredfreebooks.com and sign up.  Then scroll to the bottom and contact them about your free give-away.  If they include it in the daily email, you could have some great exposure.  I have downloaded a lot of interesting books through this site.


]]> http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/preparation-kdp-book-giveaway/feed/ 4 http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/preparation-kdp-book-giveaway/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AssistingAuthors/~3/taiWheBC6A8/ http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/prepare-kpd-select-book-giveaway/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:09:48 +0000 jfriesler http://www.assistingauthors.com/?p=1719

Please read my previous two posts in this series  to make sense of this one.  Kindle Publishing Direct Select or KDP  will allow you 5 days during the 90 day period to give away your book.  I suggest that you use one or two of the days for a  Book Launch.  Your book does not have to be new to launch.  A launch is a good way to draw attention to your book,  Over the next couple of posts , I will suggest a  blue print to follow to  prepare for the launch and the Book Give-Away.  Let’s start with a Virtual Book Tour.

The Virtual Book Tour should drive your launch.  I select the date of the launch a few days after the tour is over.  The tour will help get you and your book branded (known to readers).  This is where you will pick up reviews, interviews, blog talk radio gigs, spotlights, and a chance to interact with your targeted audience.  It will give you fodder for your blog , Facebook and Twitter posts. Here are the steps to find and manage a Virtual Book Tour:

1.  Do Not Plan Your Own Tour:  Planning a tour is very time consuming.   The tour is actually a stop at various blogs where the hosts promote your book in various ways: guest blogs,  interviews, spotlights, and reviews .  For you to plan your own tour would be a very difficult endeavor and a study in hit and miss.  I do not plan the tours for my clients although I do find some additional stops especially if the target audience is small especially looking for book review blogs.
   1. s use the Virtual Book Tour Cafe, http://www.virtualbooktourcafe.com. because B.K. Walker has a lot of authors that do reviews  and reasonable  prices for her tours. I find the hosts to be very cooperative and professional.  You don’t need to be available on the day you are featured but you need to check in to respond to questions and comments.
2. Most of the tour directors will target blogs that fit with your book.  I alway
3. You need  at least 5-10 reviews before you do a  launch and especially a book give-away.  The tour is a good way to get some reviews.
4. Prepare for your tour: Although B. K.  gives the tour hosts quite a few things for your tour, I like to introduce my clients with a  booklet of information to make the procedure easier on the hosts. Make a Press Kit to send to all the tour hosts. The  following should be contents of the kit:

Name, Title of the Book, Amazon link, URLs for the author’s website, Facebhook Fan Page, Twitter, and Linked in.

Author’s bio and book synopsis.  You can use your Amazon synopsis or your back cover text.

My clients always have a Rafflecopter contest.  They give away a Kindle Fire.  I tell them to look at it as a $159.00 advertising cost.  They use an Amazon Gift Certificate to send to the winner so they don’t have to pay for postage   You design the form at no cost at http://www.rafflecopter.com.  When I design the form, I have different tasks that advertise the book.  The more time consuming or expensive the task,  the more entries I assign to the task.

 Once the form is designed, I copy the embed code and put it in the press kit for the hosts to use when your tour stops at their blogs.  I also  put it everywhere I can: my blog and Facebook page, the author’s blog and Facebook page, and tweet about it.  I have the author tweet about it, and use it as a task for entries to the contest.   The neat thing about the form is that when you edit it, it will update where ever it is displayed.

I also include  the embed code for videos that are made for the book such as video book trailers,video author interviews,  and video book reviews.  Always upload your videos to YouTube so you can easily get the embed code.

5. Manage Your Video Book Tour: Always be on top of your visits.  Put the stop dates on a Calendar and look at what is coming up a week in advance.

About a 4-5 days before a stop, email a thank you to the host for hosting the author,.  attach the blog, interview answers, or spotlight information, the authors image, the book cover image, and the tour banner to the hosts. ( See the image of a banner above. It is really a great deal larger than I had room to show here).

The day of the visit, go to the blog several times that day and answer questions or respond to comments, and thank the host again in a comment.

The next Post will talk about more preparation for your Launch.  So far you should have gotten your book formatted and uploaded to Kindle,  signed up for Kindle Select, and start looking for an affordable blog tour.


]]> http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/prepare-kpd-select-book-giveaway/feed/ 0 http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/prepare-kpd-select-book-giveaway/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AssistingAuthors/~3/MIMZTsOxqRg/ http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/promote/#comments Sun, 17 Feb 2013 19:43:00 +0000 jfriesler http://www.assistingauthors.com/?p=1704

This is t he second  post of the blog series Why Give Away Your Books for Free.   This post will explain why  Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing Select program  (KDP) is a fantastic tool to use to  promote your book.   I will explain what the program is, why you should take advantage of it, and how to use it.

 

Let’s get started.

 This is a program Amazon offers where you as an author can:

• Earn higher royalties  Earn your share of the KDP Select Global Fund amount when readers borrow your books from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. Plus, earn 70% royalty for sales to customers in Japan,India and Brazil.
• Make your book free to readers worldwide for a limited time The Promotions Manager tool will allow you to directly schedule and control the promotion of free books.  You will get 5 times in 90 days.
• Reach a new audience  Distribute books through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library and reach the growing number of Amazon Prime customers on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de and Amazon.fr
• To be apart of thiis program, your eBook must be on Amazon exclusively for 90 days.  You must suspend or remove it for sale anywhere else for that period of time.   However, you may have your print books for sale on other sites.
• You need an eBook formatted for Amazon.  We provide this service at a reasonable price.  We will also distribute it to iPad, Sony Reader, Barnes and Noble Nook, Kobe, and Google Books once your  90 day Amazon promotion is over.
• Your eBook needs to be uploaded to Amazon if you need instructions how to do this please email me at Janis@assistinauthors.com.   I will be happy to help you through the process at no cost.

If your eBook is already on Amazon, Do these steps

1. Log into your Amazon account.
2. Click on this link to sign into KDP  https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/signin
3. You should be on the entry page of Kindle Direct Publishing.  You also will see your titles that are published on Kindle..
4. Look at the title you want to enroll in the Kindle Select Program all the way to the right of that row is  a link (Enroll in Kindle Select). Click on that link and it will ask you to confirm that you want to enroll and will guide you to enroll

As part of the program your get 5 days to give away your book  6 times in the 90 days  Why would you do this?

1. KDP gets publicity boost from Amazon in the paid rankings  The more downloads your free eBook gets the more Amazon will help promote it
2. Amazon will give free publicity after the program,  For each person that downloaded your book, they have downloaded other free or paid books.
3. Amazon calculates which books were most likely to be from the same customer and will include them in  “Customers who Bought this Book also Bought”
4. Soon your book will start appearing up on other book pages and will get free advertising which will help your sales and rankings. This happened to one of my Clients.  Just after his first free day his book rose to #3 in his category on Amazon.   I am anxious to see how your  book does when Amazon starts to get involved with promoting the it book. So send me an email and I will put your experience on our blog.
Your assignment today is to have an eBook,  put it on Amazon, and  put it in the Kindle Select program.  Your first free book day, should be your book launch.  All our clients have a  book launch and I encourage them to make it a free book day because many books will be downloaded that day and will help the book’s Amazon rankings.

Don’t start a free book give-away on KDP yet.  In the next post in this series,  I will is show  you how to get ready for your first KDP give-away.  

Notice  on our right sidebar thatr we have a new free book give-away if you subscribe to our newsletter and Pinterest Video Course with a new lesson every week.   If you are already a member of our newsletter,  I will be send you a separate email with both the link to download the book and the video course.


]]> http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/promote/feed/ 2 http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/promote/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AssistingAuthors/~3/Dd8CqeueHdY/ http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/aurhors-giveaway-books-free-intro/#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2013 20:35:41 +0000 jfriesler http://www.assistingauthors.com/?p=1679

You all know that I love to write series of posts on our blog.  This is the start of a new series.  If you think that giving away your book is counter productive, think again. There are a number of reasons authors have Give-Aways for their books.  In this new blog series I will discuss:

• Why give away eBooks
• Kindle Direct Publishing Select as a way to start
• Preparing for A KDP Select Free book day/days.
• Where to publicize your free book day/days

 Why eBooks?

When new authors publish a book, some think the most important thing is to sell the book.  This brings to mind that you can’t sell a book if no one knows about it or the author. It is necessary to establish a relationship with your audience. One way to get the word out is to give your book to readers for free.  I think eBooks are the way to go because they are free to download, You do not have to pay for a book printed on demand or postage.  Therefore, it is an opportunity for your book to reach a world wide audience.

It has been proven that readers who download free books, will often look for the author’s other books and purchase them. It is very important to give the first book in a series away to hook the readers into wanting to read the other books in a series. Many readers who like the eBook will purchase the print copy as well.

People are attracted to free books.  The more downloads you have the more people you reach.  They will spread the word about the book.

You will gain recognition and branding through publicizing your give-away on book sites and social media.  You can get people to talk about your book which creates buzz.  It will even attract reviews for your book that you can use to spread the wordby putting them up on your website. Facebook page, Linkedin profile, etc.

What Authors Who Give Away Books  Have to Say:

Authors that give away books have found that there sales have increased sometimes dramatically after the give-away period is over.  Here are a couple of things authors have said about their give-away experiences:

Lizzy Ford is a prolific author of paranormal, contemporary, and fantasy sweet romance; literary fiction; and fantasy fiction, most of which is suitable for Young Adult audiences.

“First, downloads of my free books range between 10,000-17,000 a month, whereas my initial sales were only 30-40 a month.  Do I want 10,000 people exposed to my book or 30?  You can read the rest of her post with statistical proof.” Click here to read the whole post:

http://jm-harrison.com/2011/07/12/does-giving-away-free-books-work/

David Wiley and  John Hilton interviewed 10 authors who have given their books away.  Below are some excerpts from John’s blog.  The link to the post is also below:

“I think that openness has extended the long tail of my book. It may not have sold a large amount when it was first released, but it continues to sell well. I think part of that is the visibility that open licensing created and the good will it has created.” — Kembrew McLeod

“The number of people who tell me they would never have seen the book had it not been freely licensed is extraordinary.” –LawrenceLessig

Eric Von Hippel reported that sales of his book were double the publisher’s initial estimates. In addition to these sales, Von Hippel’s book was downloaded 90,000 times from his website.

“The number of people who wrote to me to tell me about how much they dug the ebook and so bought the paper book far exceeds the number of people who wrote to me and said, “Ha, ha, you hippie, I read your book for free and now I’m not gonna buy it.”” –Cory Doctorow

http://www.johnhiltoniii.org/interviews-with-ten-authors-who-give-away-their-books/

Please leaaves comments on your book give-away results!

Janis Fries;er
Assisting Authors Online
http://www.assistingauthors.com
http://www.facebook.com/jfriesler

 


]]> http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/aurhors-giveaway-books-free-intro/feed/ 0 http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/aurhors-giveaway-books-free-intro/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/AssistingAuthors/~3/kr4Wj64HsZA/ http://www.assistingauthors.com/2013/google-books-free-promotion/#comments Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:43:52 +0000 jfriesler http://www.assistingauthors.com/?p=1655

Now that we are in the New Year,  I am exploring the world wide web looking for free ways for you to promote your books and brands.  I found a great one in Google Books.

Inclusion in Google’s Search Results

Google Books allows publishers and authors to submit their books for inclusion in Google’s search results. Whether you’re a large publisher with thousands of titles or an author that publishes just a few titles, participating in Google Books can: increase awareness of your book at no cost, reach Google’s worldwide user base,, refer qualified traffic to your website

Great for Kindle Direct

Clicking on your book from a search results page takes users to a limited preview of your title – just enough to give them a taste of the book, as if they were browsing in a bookstore or library.

Links to bookstores and online retailers make it easy for users to go from browsing to buying. If you sell your books directly from your own website, your site receives “top billing,” appearing first in the list of purchase links. Google Books previews also appear on book-related sites like online retailers and social book networks.  What is great about it is if your book is in Kindle Prime, you can still use  the Google service because they will link your book to Amazon,

Once you send Google your titles (or upload them as PDF files), they will add them to their index for free. By matching the content in your books with user searches, Google Books connects your books with the users who are most interested in buying them.

Each Google Books result will display the book’s title and author, a short excerpt containing the highlighted search terms, and other public data about the book.

The Users get a Preview not the whole book, Users get a taste of your book—but only a taste. They scan the full text of your book because they want people to be able to search all its content. But users can only access a limited number of pages to determine whether they’ve found what they’re looking for. They understand that your books are valuable, so they treat them with special care. All the books you send us will be hosted on Google servers and protected by the same security as Google.com’s search data. To further protect your book content, printing and image copying functions are disabled on all Google Books

As a Google Books partner, you have access to Google Preview – code that allows you to embed previews of your books right on your website. With Google Preview, you can easily enhance your site, for free.Visitors to your site can browse and search within your books right on each book’s product page.

Analytics

You can even track how your book is doing,

Online reports let you manage your account information, view how many consumers have looked at your titles, see click rates on purchase links, and review other stats related to the Google Books program. You can customize reports to view results by date, title or ISBN.

Warning:  Make sure you choose book.google not google play to get options to purchase other than google play.

This program  has more bang for no pay.  Click here to get started:  publisher and author signup

Leave a comment to let me know how you like it or any other free opportunities to promote  our readers’ books.

 

 

 


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Everyone can be an Author is a Guest Blog by Linda Forshaw.

Author Bio

Linda Forshaw is a Business Information Systems graduate from Lancaster University in the UK. She is the main contributor to Degree Jungle http://www.degreejungle.com, and is also a full time writer and blogger specializing in education, social media, and entrepreneurship.Contact her on Twitter @seelindaplay



Are you tired of sending your masterpiece to publishers and receiving rejection letters in return (or worse, not hear anything)? Spending months, if not years, writing a book, only to fall at the publishing hurdle makes no sense. Sure, it would be nice for a big publishing house to snap up your book, but sometimes authors need to take things in their own hands. If that sounds like something of interest, you might consider self publishing via Amazon.

The global retailer’s publishing program, Kindle Direct Publishing, otherwise known as KDP, allows authors to self publish their work on the Amazon Kindle Store. They are then made available for readers to purchase via Kindle devices.
It’s an attractive option, especially when one considers that Kindle ebook sales outstrip those of printed books at a rate of 114 to 100 (figures exclude free kindle books). Amazon has consistently refused to release figures relating to either the sale of its digital books or of the Kindle devices themselves, so it’s difficult to truly gauge the size of potential readership. What we do know is that UK newspaper The Telegraph ran an article reporting that one in 40 adults were given a kindle for Christmas 2011. If the U.S. figures are comparable, the numbers run into the millions. Thanks to Forrester Research, we also know that almost $3 billion will be spent on ebooks in 2015. That’s a lot of potential readers to be had and conceivably offers a greater opportunity to sitting around waiting for a traditional publisher to snap up your book.d apps for PC, iPad, iPhone, Mac, Android, and Blackberry. Notwithstanding the time to write your book and format for publishing, authors can complete the publication process in a matter of minutes. There is no requirement to provide an ISBN number and the process of publishing a book is free. Amazon takes a percentage of ongoing sales (typically 30%).

What about success stories? Most authors will want to know they’re in with a chance of having their book in front of a decent number of readers. It seems they might be in luck. With CNN lauding self-publishing on Kindle as a cure for rejection letter fatigue, Amazon have announced that 27 of their top 100 Kindle books were self published via KDP. We have authors like Hugh Howey, whose “Wool” series not only earns him six figures a month, but has also reputedly caught the attention of director Ridley Scott . Of course, that’s not the average, with most DIY authors earning around $10,000 a year. Even that is a not insignificant figure, especially when we take the viewpoint of Bernard Starr at the Huffington Post into account. He opines that unless you are really high profile, a traditional publisher will not exactly pull out all the stops to promote you anyway. Their contribution will probably start and finish at editing and printing.

No longer is self-publishing so-called vanity publishing. Rather, it offers talented authors the opportunity to put their book where it should be – in the hands of readers.



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