Top Of The Pops - Promoting your book

I am working my way through the survey questions and this week it's a bit of a poser.

Why do some people seem to be at the top of the bestseller list with what seems to be no promotion and no previous publishing background? It mystifies me.

I think the simple answer to the question is that the author has used some means of promotion that may not be immediately obvious to you. If you publish through Amazon, there are a number of promotional tools at your disposal, particularly if you register your book for KDP Select. It may be that making good use of those tools is the secret to their success.

My first appearance in the Amazon Top Ten

KDP Select caused a bit of a stir when it was first launched about eighteen months ago. If you do a search of the Internet, you will find that there are plenty of articles available offering different opinions on KDP Select. Initially I was very wary of using it due to the fact that the eBook must be exclusive to Amazon during the 90-day period that you are registered. If I am honest, I would rather sell my books through the Apple iBookstore as it guarantees 70% return regardless of the price of the book, but the simple truth is the iBookstore offers little in the way of promotional opportunities and unlike Amazon, Apple doesn’t seem to push independent authors in a way that would allow us to compete with those who have been published by a company. As I wasn't selling books in any great numbers on other platforms, I decided to take the plunge and removed my first book from all the other stores and made it a Kindle exclusive.

There are three main ways that your book can be promoted when you are registered for KDP Select. By default your book is available to Amazon Prime users to ‘borrow’: the book is downloaded to their Kindle for a limited time. You are paid a share of the monthly pot, depending on how often the book is borrowed. This has meant some of my books have earned more per copy borrowed than sold. That’s not to say I’m making more in total as the numbers are relatively low, but the good thing is the customer gets to try your book for free and you still get some cash back.

The second promotional opportunity comes in the form of free giveaways. These are important in boosting your profile and hopefully, generating reviews. Reviews are currency on Kindle and more than anything else they will help to sell your books. There are many sites across the web that allow you to promote the days that your book is free, and I think that the people referred to in the question will have made good use of those sites as they raise your profile and increase the breadth of your potential readership.

The most recent promotion to be added to KDP Select is the Countdown Deal. This allows you to set your book at a lower price for a number of days and Amazon will still pay you the full royalties based on the original price. This is an excellent addition to the tool set and I have seen real improvements in sales as a result.

I will add a caveat to the information on KDP Select; many authors feel it works best if you have more than one book, as you can use the various tools on different books every month. If you have only one book, it might be more helpful to stay with multiple outlets for your work.

The other factor that puts you close to the top of the chart is momentum. If you can increase sales, even for a short time, your book will be closer to the top of the rankings and people will find it more easily which will help with further sales. It won’t last forever, but if you can promote your book into the upper reaches of the charts, the momentum will hold it there for a little while.

There are any number of ways to promote your book, including social media, newsletters, personal appearances and many more, but I hope this has offered one possible answer to what was a tricky question. KDP Select is covered in more depth during our self-publishing training courses at Indie Authors Scotland.

Have a great weekend, and I’ll be back with more self-publishing information next Friday.