It's the 5th of April, exactly 4 days after my free day with Sweetwater Springs. And I gotta tell ya - I'm happy about it. I have now passed my all time monthly high in paid sales, and it's only the 5th! Yeah! Plus - I'm getting more 'Borrows', then I've seen ever! And that's always good too. : )
I'd like to post just a note about some of the thing I'm learning.
#1 - Patience is the name of this game. I went into this reading lots and lots of success stories about big numbers and big money, and I guess I kind of expected the same, but more moderately. I posted Sweetwater Springs in early September of last year. sales trickled in the single digits for the first couple of months. But I persisted and tried and read and studied and now I'm seeing more results. Patience is truly the game here to wait for things to propagate and get to know the tips and tricks.
#2 - Speaking of Tips and Tricks. There are Millions! of them online. It simply takes time to find them and read them and find out how to implement them into your strategy. But therein lies the tip! Find, Read, Implement!
For example, I recently read about a trick to garner more attention and downloads when you run a free promotion on Kindle Select. The author of the article/blog/thread suggested changing the display price of the book up a few dollars more than it's normally listed for. Then when the book goes free, it looks like an even better discount. Who doesn't love a great discount!
#3 - Free Days on Kindle Select work wonders! Sure, you give away hundreds or thousands of books for free, but it generates lots and lots of 'talk' and increases your position in the ranking system. This, in turn, puts your book in front of more people, more often, which, after your book converts back to paid (and you change the price back to your 'normal' price), you'll see lots more sales. And sales I'm seeing! In fact, in another day or so, I'll have more sales in April than I'll have had in all the time I've had my book listed - combined!
#4 - Success is fleeting at best and the winds of non-control will always keep you on your toes. You can't change the internet. You can't change company algorithms. You can't control who randomly will love your book and choose to do an entire blog post on it (I'm still waiting on that one). And there are myriad of things you can't control. So don't try to. Go along for the ride and do your best at what you think you can do. With a little bit of #1 above, you'll see success.
#5 - Promotion. There are some authors that can get by without manually spreading their names much and I say good for them. The luck lands on them. But I'm not one of them. I update my blog semi-regularly, I tweet fairly often and I post on Kindle Boards. My facebook page is updated sometimes. Telling people about your book, without 'pushing it on them', can only do you good.
But in the end - patience with study and practice will get you results. But mostly patience. :)
Care to comment? You are welcome to do so in the comment area!
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