Last week I decided to do a short test for Praetorian Rising. I wanted to see what KDP Select was all about, but I also wanted to understand how to promote my Ebook for more downloads.
The number one piece of advice I could give to any author out there is that you must accept that Book #1 will not make a dime. In fact, most likely, Book #1 will in the end cost you WAY more money than you make. However, if you are serious about writing, then you will understand that this is par for the course when writing for an Indie world. To pile on a bit more advice, you will need to actually GIVE AWAY YOUR BOOK FOR FREE in order to gain ANY advance in the reading world.
You will need to actually GIVE AWAY YOUR BOOK FOR FREE in order to gain ANY advance in the reading world.
In general, it’s very hard to look at a book and think, “Yes, I will pay money to read this!” If you know nothing about the story, the author, the characters, the style of writing, or even if it has MORE of the series to come; why would ANYONE want to actually buy the book? I rarely have had strangers buy my paperback copy, and honestly if they do it’s because they know me, or have been following me on Instagram therefore they are aware of the story and characters. Those that purchase a copy of my book are 90% of the time (total random percentage, but it feels correct when I say it) purchasing Praetorian Rising because they want to support me.
So once you get past the hundred or so people that buy your book out of support, then what do you do? Well, you have to reach out further and find people that want to read your book because it intrigues them! That is hard to do, but after using KDP Select and purchasing a Promo platform to showcase Praetorian Rising on a five day free download release, I can see the benefits!
Jan 25th was the first day of my free ebook giveaway. I used a company called Freebooksy to post on their newsletter my free ebook. If you look at the first day of this promo I was able to get 2.4k downloads! For the full five day promotion I was able to get 4,294 downloads! That is pretty incredible.
I received 4,294 Downloads in just under five days!
Soon after the promo started I was able to see how many pages were read of the ebook overall. As of today, after a week of the promo, I have 2,158 pages read and that number will keep climbing from everyone that downloaded the book from the Kindle Select option or the free giveaway download.
The main goal for these giveaways isnt to make money. Like I told you, your first book isn’t about making money, it’s about gaining followers and reviews! And I dont mean reviews from your friends but solid, personal reviews from people who dont know you at all. The main numbers you need to hit is 50 reviews. Once amazon can see your pull of attention, they will begin to promote your book as well!
There are other ways to find success with book promos, and I plan to continue to experiment. For now, if you are on the fence about KDP Select or using a platform to promote a book giveaway, I’m happy to chat more details with you. It can be intimidating for sure, but the data I’ve collected shows that there are ways to reach beyond your inner circle to the reading group you’ve always dreamed of.
