N0te: This blog charts my progress from unknown aspiring author to international publishing phenomenon in 3 years (1095 days)

On Tuesday ‘The Guest Who Stayed’ was featured on The Fussy Librarian. I came across this site when reading one of Joanna Penn’s very informative blogs.

The Fussy librarian describes itself as ‘Your Personal Librarian - emails you with the ebooks matching your unique interests and content preferences’

It sets quality thresholds in terms of the number of reviews a book must have received

‘In order to be considered, your ebook should have:•10 reviews and a 4.0 rating on Amazon or Barnes and Noble or 20 reviews and a 3.5 rating. If you have 10 reviews split between Amazon's various stores -- like US and UK -- your book is eligible. •A price of $5.99 or less.’

So I was delighted when The Guest Who Stayed was accepted for the promotion about a week after I had submitted it. Here at last was a site where readers would actually purchase my book rather than gorge themselves on free downloads. I prepared myself for being wealthy.

I was e mailed the day before the promotion with some blurb to paste into my Facebook and twitter accounts. It all seemed very professional.

On the day of the promotion, I sat by my computer waiting for the e mail with the promotion to arrive. It was a long wait. It eventually appeared about lunchtime – getting out of bed time in North America.

I was impressed with the look and impact of the promotion. There were eight books being promoted that day in different genres. Mine was 6th on the list. Each book had its cover image displayed, a description, and the option to purchase from different sources (Amazon, Smash words etc.)

Then within minutes of the promotion appearing, I had 2 sales on Amazon UK. This was amazing. I ran to make a cup of tea so that I could calm my nerves as I saw the sales come tumbling in. When I got back – there were still 2 sales. An hour later there were still two sales. I comforted myself with the thought that the US market was still half asleep. There would be a frenzy of buying in the late afternoon when our American cousins turn to literary pursuits.

I walked the dog. Still only two sales. I got a very nice message via Goodreads from a lady in Canada who had seen the book promoted on Fussy Librarian and had made a mental note to read it later. (buy it now for God’s sake).

It slowly dawned on me that 2 sales plus a nice note from a lady in Canada was going to be my sum total. Am I disappointed? Not really. Two sales is better than no sales and may be better than 98 free downloads (My last KDP Select day). The Fussy Librarian will continue to promote my book for a year so I will continue to follow the site avidly and bring you news. I believe it is still a young site and is still developing its reader base.

Tomorrow is my second free day on Kindle KDP Select linked to a ‘book of the day’ on Kindle Users Forum (UK) Let’s see how many books I can give away then.

Best Wishes

 

Roger Penfound

Stop Press:

I’ve just discovered that The Guest Who Stayed is being featured on The Fussy Librarian tomorrow for the first time. ( www.thefussylibrarian.com ) Is this the big break through? I’ll report back.

Main Topic.

For new readers of this blog, the purpose is for me to unload my feelings of panic, desperation and occasional euphoria as I travel my three year journey from unknown self-published author to international global phenomenon. This is day 17 of 1095.

My ‘quibble’ today is about the way Amazon treats reviews. I mean a review is a review (good or bad) wherever it comes from. Now I’m in The UK and so my 14 reviews (which are generally great) appear on Amazon.co.uk. But until recently I had no reviews on Amazon.com and understandably no sales. I mean who is going to buy a book that doesn’t have a review – unless it’s your Mum.

However, Amazon.co.uk does provide the option to see the reviews on Amazon .com but not vice versa. I don’t see the point of this as it clearly restricts sales of UK books in the US and after all – everyone is out to maximise sales.

This came to a head recently when I was contacted by an author in Australia (the network is beginning to work). Brian Robertson has published a book called ‘Diggers Story’ – an amazing account of an Australian POWs incarceration by the Japanese in World War Two  -providing great insights into the relationship between captor and captive. (highly recommended).

Like me, Brian is a new comer to marketing in the self-publishing environment and so we’ve been swapping tips. We both agree that good reviews are vital. So in the spirit of international fraternity we would read each-others books and post reviews. As I had already purchased a copy of Brian’s book from Amazon.co.uk  he agreed to gift me another copy from Amazon .com so I could post a review there. However, Amazon wouldn’t let me accept the gift because it knew I had already purchased the book from Amazon.co.uk. Instead it offered me a gift voucher.

Undaunted, I tried another tack. I have a second e mail address which I used to register on Amazon.com with a pen name. And hey presto it worked. I could accept the gift and can presumably post my review which will be accepted as an ‘Amazon Verified Purchase’.

So I got thinking. It’s not difficult to set up any number of alias e mail accounts………………..do you get my drift?

But wouldn’t it be simpler if Amazon just allowed all reviews to be posted on all sites?

Anyone from Amazon out there listening? …….hello

Check back in a couple of days to see how my ‘Fussy Librarian’ listing went.

Thanks for reading.

Roger Penfound

 

 

So yesterday was the beginning of my campaign in that I actually did something. It was one of my free promotion days on Kindle KDP Select for my novel ‘The Guest Who Stayed.’  I combined this with a ‘free book of the day’ advert on Kindle Users Forum (UK edition). It was a good ad – very prominent. My only concern was that it described my category as ‘Romance’ when my Amazon listing is Historical Fiction. I queried this with KUF and was told that they use the information sent to them by Amazon but were in the process of improving the interface

The free KDP listing applied to all markets but the KUF ad applied only to the UK so I was keen to see if the ad bumped up the downloads in the UK.

The results for the day were Amazon.com =  34; Amazon.co.uk = 63; rest of the world = 5

So not stunning. Also bear in mind these are free downloads. I have read that the free KDP promo boosts ‘paid for sales’. I have yet to see any evidence of this.

On the positive side, people are reading the book which is good. My Amazon ranking for free books rose to 473 at one stage in the day but the paid for sales still languish around the 160,000 level.

I’ve got another KUF ‘book of the day’ advert on 14th of December, so I’ll monitor that and report back.

In the meantime I’m about to launch into Michelle Campbell-Scott’s book, ‘Goodreads for Authors’ – about which I’ve heard great things.

So in summary – no break-through yet but I’ve still got 3039 days left.