So you want to publish a (Kindle) book? (2 of 2)

In eighteen months Amazon have turned the publishing industry on its head. You could not deny them any of their success. Ebooks had been around for a while. Publishers were puzzling the long term impact of digital books and charging more for the convenience of reading them while they deliberated. The Kindle for me was a natural evolution of technology and consumer needs. Today consumers expect a book to be on the Kindle, where a year ago they might just have been grateful it was. Buying Kindle books gives you an almost limitless personal library never to be lost, that can be accessed practically any where, any time. With Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) anyone can publish a book for free and it would seem many have. This post though, is not about that. It's NOT about making a Kindle book, designing a snazzy cover or making the content a thrilling, error free ride. This WHOLE site is about that. This post IS the second in two detailing what happens after you have published on Amazon. The first was about printed books, this is about Kindle books.

We should start with a repeat of the parameters.

1. I've started every single stage of this writing/publishing journey with my eyes wide open and little comprehension for what I was getting into
2. I REALLY didn't have any clue at any stage for what I was getting into
3. I'm constantly analysing, absolutely everything. I hope this analysis is at least interesting. I'm human and sometimes do get things wrong. Sometimes I get it horribly wrong

We start with Amazon. As an ebook publisher there are many places to pitch your stall. Mine for the time being is set in Amazon alone. Many people don't subscribe to the Amazon world view. They will buy from Barnes and Noble, or Kobo or from the Apple store. If I want to hit these stores then Smashwords will publish there for me. I know I'm missing out on a lot of potential sales by sticking with Amazon. Here is why I am staying with Amazon for the time being.

1. Smashwords do not accept pre-formatted ebooks. You give them a word doc and they will convert your book into the different formats. I'm obsessive about quality, I will always be reluctant to use a distributor if I don't have control over the quality. I don't know enough yet about how Smashwords works as a distributor and promoter, especially promotion. That said I'm probably going to add Chasing Innocence to Smashwords later in the year (2012)
2. Amazon Select is a program that requires selling your book on Amazon alone. In return for not selling anywhere else the Select program will promote your book as a free download for a maximum of five days every three months. The Select program allows you to potentially make more money by loaning your book to Amazon Prime customers, than you do in sales. This is unlikely for indie authors though as it's only available to US Prime customers
3. Time is the biggest reason for staying at Amazon. I have so little spare time outside of a job, commuting, a wife and writing. I need a sales mechanism that functions with little maintenance. That I trust. Amazon Select is all that right now. I'm busy writing two back-to-back books that will be published in 2013. Multiple good books multiply the chances of success. I only have one right now. I need to finish these other books to build success. I could push Chasing Innocence a lot harder right now, across multiple platforms, but it would take me away from writing. Success in 3-5 years time means I need to be writing now and not actively selling

Amazon Select has been a blast. The key is the five days of free promotions every ninety days. During these promotions Amazon will put your book in-front of their customers. This will also suck it into the Amazon trending and recommendation tools, as well as the charts. Here's a few things I've learnt along the way.

• Amazon is almost totally automated. It's a giant shiny machine that constantly analyses trends across continents and millions of buyers. It's not interactive. Learn how it works and adapt. It's not that it doesn't care, it's just too big to change direction quickly or go back for bits that fell off. Work with it but don't expect interaction. When you're emailing people at Amazon remember they're likely to be very busy and equally bound by the mechanics of the system, they just know a little more about the cogs and where they all are
• For the reasons above Amazon provide a lot of very informative documentation. If you're publishing a Kindle book you should probably read it. http://kdp.amazon.com
• The higher priced your book is immediately prior to any promotion the more often it will likely be downloaded during the promotion
• Never, ever start a promotion at the weekend. The Amazon databases are very busy and the promotion might not even start until the Monday. Each weekend promotion day will be counted against your available days even if the promotion doesn't start that day. Sending Amazon an indignant email isn't going to change anything
• Likewise, if your promotion is scheduled to end at the weekend, don't be surprised if your book keeps getting downloaded for free right up to the Monday
• Never, ever change the pricing or product detail of your Kindle book in the THREE days leading to the start of a promotion. Sometimes the changes can take a while and MAY hold up the start of the promotion
• You will NOT be paid for any books downloaded for free, even after your promotion ends
• Promotions start at midnight Central Standard Time (CST) which is seven hours behind British Summer Time (BST). If you're in the UK the promotion won't start until about seven AM and finish at the same time
• I've found sales and free downloads alike, dip daytime during the weekend. The busiest download day for me has been Thursday
• The KDP sales reporting tool is not always to the minute or hour accurate. If you're refreshing this every two minutes to check on sales you're wasting your time
• The book's sales rank on its product page IS an hourly updated and pretty accurate indication of sales. Remember there are different sales charts for the printed and kindle books, the ranking is displayed on the relevant product page. Here's my rough approximation of Kindle sales against ranking

• #100 - 150+ books sold in the last 24hrs
• #1000 - 20+ books in last 24hrs
• #3,000 - sold 5-8 books in last 24hrs
• #10,000 - sold two books in the last 24hrs
• #14,000 - sold one book in the last 24hrs
• #20,000 - not sold a book for 24+hrs
• #25,000 - not sold a book for 36+hrs

• You will very likely sell a higher proportion of books after a promotion ends. In the week following each of my two day promotions I sold a figure roughly equating to fifteen percent of the total books downloaded for free
• Promotion one: Chasing Innocence £3.45 - downloaded for free 3800 times. 550 copies sold
• Promotion two: Chasing Innocence £1.53 - downloaded for free 360 times. 60 copies sold
• Do not underestimate word of mouth. I have lost count the number of times I've heard: 'I'm reading Chasing Innocence because my friend...' These free downloads matter in getting the book out there
• Expect refunds after a promotion ends even if your book is only 99 pence or cents
• It is very easy to get hooked into your books position in the Kindle charts. You can find yourself doing bits here and there to promote it and get it up the charts. It is very painful to see your book slip down the charts. It is very easy to find yourself not writing the important next book. Probably the best thing you can do to promote your book is to write two or three more that are at least as good
• About half of one percent (0.5%) of people that buy your book will write a review without coercion
• About two percent of the people looking at your books product page will click the Helpful Yes/No button on reviews
• Twitter can be a good tool for discovering people that are reading your book. If you're using Twitter to find an audience you'll likely be disappointed. You will probably meet lots of writers that had the same idea
• Goodreads IS a great tool for discovering people reading your book 
• I have found people to be very helpful. I'm not sure I thought they wouldn't be, but it has been heart warming to discover just how helpful. If you are nice to people they are generally nice right back. They might even write you a review

Finally, I did a lot of research into ebook pricing before I published Chasing Innocence. Initially I priced the Kindle as I had tried to with the paperback, to be contemporary with authors like Lee Child and a little bit cheaper. £3.45 was the first price but I discovered this was too much for an unknown author with only one book. I've had some people say they won't buy a Kindle book from an unknown author for anything more than 99 pence. I hadn't even thought about that. The wave of indie author's publishing on the Kindle has driven down prices. If you're an established author then people will pay, otherwise you're in the mix vying for attention. I've tried all kinds of pricing, from £0.99 pence to £1 to my preferred price of £1.53, which is the minimum you can sell a book on Amazon's seventy percent plan. This plan is key for me as this last price means I make £1 on each sale. I've sold a thousand books so far and need to sell another two thousand by the end of the year if I'm to break even on the cost of copy/proof editors and graphic design. Which is vital because my mantra is to produce books at LEAST as good anything produced commercially. I found I sold EXACTLY the same number of books priced at £1.53 as I did at £0.99 pence. I'd like to think that's because most of my sales are recommendations.

I think that's about it. While I'm busy writing the next two books I'm going to stay with Amazon Select. It can be frustrating being tied into one sales platform when the sales start to dry-up, but for now a combination of time and only having one book makes it a necessity.

I hope this and the previous post have been informative.

Nine Days in February (An alternative approach to marketing)

On January 17 the Kindle version of Chasing Innocence became available on Amazon. 21 days later it had sold 21 copies and I knew each and every one of the people that had bought it. I was one of them. My search for an audience led me to Twitter, where I found a lot of indie authors. None of course were particularly interested in my book, because like me, they were looking for an audience for theirs. One author did lead me to the Kindle Book Review, resulting in my first 5 star review and my first interview. This same author was marketing the hell out of her book with great success. The author was also a successful businesswoman. In describing her book's success she detailed the need to create a platform. Hers was the Twitter community.

As much as I admired her drive and was a little envious of her success, I knew pretty quickly her platform wasn't mine. For a start, I just don't have the time between a wife, full-time job and writing the next book, to build a second career in marketing. The reality, even if I did have time, is I don't have the marketing brass balls, or desire, to do it. Commercial marketing is part of a world I'm trying to escape from. It probably sounds awfully naive to ignore the power of digital marketing, especially from someone that has spent their entire career neck deep in the digital industry. But it's my experiences over the last two decades especially, that drives me to sidestep viral marketing campaigns, and to offer instead a friendly smile and a great book.

Of course, I still need a platform to get going. In this case I need people to start reading my book and talking about it. To this end I signed up to the Amazon Select program. Among many other things Select will offer your book for free. Amazon will then tell Kindle owners who like your kind of book, that it's there to be downloaded. I set my promotion to start 8 Feb and to run for two days. I had no idea what to expect at all. Having sold 21 copies of Chasing Innocence to friends and family, I hoped some people would download it and eventually read it.

36 hours into the promotion Chasing Innocence had gone from unranked to #2 in the overall free UK Kindle charts, and #30 in the US. A position it maintained right to the end of the promotion. Over 48 hours Chasing Innocence averaged a download every 45 seconds. It's success within a crowded marketplace of free books, was testament to the quality of the cover art, product description and Sarah Burns' excellent 5 star review, given on behalf of the Kindle Book Review.

There was more to come. Chasing Innocence hit the paid charts. By Sunday the 12 Feb it had reached #71 in the UK Kindle store and was #21 in thriller fiction. Nine days after offering Chasing Innocence for free it had been downloaded 4,400 times. And I can't say I wasn't caught up in the whole chart thing. The reality was, apart from a great cover and a handful of 5-Star reviews on Amazon, there was nothing to keep it in the charts. It had built momentum though. Word of mouth, some dedicated friends, the increasing number of Amazon reviews and the mechanics of Amazon's website, mean Chasing Innocence continues to sell at a steady volume. Something I could only have dreamed of nine days ago. That volume wasn't enough to keep it in the charts though. I could have dropped the price and started marketing. It was real tempting. I didn't for all the reasons I have explained.

My hope is that a portion of the people that download Chasing Innocence, will read it. I know it won't be for everyone because twelve people have gone to the trouble of returning it. It is after-all everything it says on the cover. The chances are, if the reader is gripped by the prologue, they'll turn the last page of the Epilogue about two days later. They might then tell someone just how good it was. And maybe even write an Amazon review. Then, in a year or so, I might be able to tell you how great books and a smile did make for good marketing after all.