Interviews with Indie Authors

I published my second book, The Fall of Anne Boleyn: A Countdown (a non-fiction book about Anne Boleyn), at the end of April 2012, and I wanted to get the word out about it and to create some buzz.

I had enrolled it in the Amazon KDP Select program and so decided to list it for free on the 18th and 19th May, which coincided with the anniversary of Anne Boleyn’s execution – 19th May 1536. I was expecting a few hundred downloads but instead I got nearly 27,000 over those 2 days and my book shot up to number 2 on the Top 100 Free Kindle chart. It wasn’t luck, it was hard work on my part and these are the steps I took:

• Contacted Digital Ink Spot and Indie Author News to tweet about the free promo
• Added my book to yourbookauthors.com
• Contacted Dori at http://freekindleebooks.com/ ([email protected]) to get her to post about it
• Added my book to snickslist.com
• Posted on Indie Exchange Facebook page on 18th to get it added to their May promo thread
• Booked WLC Today’s Hot Titles for 20th May to keep the momentum going after the free days – www.worldlitcafe.com
• Booked Digital Book Today social media for 29th May, again to keep the momentum going
• Asked the following Twitter services to Tweet my book: @DigitalBkToday @kindleebooks @Kindlestuff @KindleEbooksUK @KindleBookKing @KindleFreeBook @FreeReadFeed @4FreeKindleBook @kindle_promo @writersRT @indieauthornews
• Set up Goodreads event and invited my followers and fans
• Listed on Free Ebook Deal
• Listed on Free Kindle Books & Tips
• Wrote a post on my website about the offer, sent an email to my subscribers, posted on my Facebook page and tweeted about it.
• Posted on Google+
• Alerted my Linked In friends
• Ran a competition – Anyone who retweeted or Facebook shared got their name put into a draw for a $25 Amazon gift card
• Contacted http://www.indieauthornews.com for them to tweet about it
• Paid for a 2 day tweet plan with booktweetingservice.com
• Submitted details to Ereader News Today
• Paid for social media package (1 post and 1 Tweet) at the Frugal Ereader
• Paid for Kindle Nation Daily Free Book Highlighter Service
• Submitted details to Digital Book Today
• Sent email to [email protected] for listing on Free Ebooks Daily and Free Ebooks Daily Facebook page
• Submitted to http://www.pixelofink.com/ free kindle book section
• Bargain Ebook Hunter – paid $5 for guaranteed free book listing on 18th May
• Sent free listing dates to FK Books and Tips
• Listed on Kindleboards and Mobile Read author promo page

The Results

Before my free promo days, I was selling 20-30 copies of The Fall of Anne Boleyn but after the free days I was selling over 200 copies a day. It also had a knock-on effect with my first book, which was an added bonus. It’s now a month later and I’m still selling over 100 copies of my second book, so it was definitely worth doing.

It’s important to keep the momentum going after the free days so I advertised on Digital Book Today and WLC (see above). Indie author Jeff Bennington explains his marketing strategy of “layering” in his blog post http://thewritingbomb.blogspot.com.es/2012/01/layer-your-book-marketing-efforts-for.html and it really does work.