Publishing on Amazon Kindle: How to Become a Bestseller
Note: Get the most current list of free promotion sites and resources for free at http://www.tckpublishing.com/list-of-sites-to-promote-your-free-amazon-kindle-books/
Watch this video to learn my system for launching a very successful KDP Select Free Promotion.
If you’ve never done a KDP free promotion before or if you have but didn’t get the results you wanted, I’m going to share with you my personal free promotion launch formula that has always produced at least 638 downloads in 5 days (and as many as 22,257 for my nonfiction books).
Why Do A KDP Select Free Promotion?
For brand new self-published authors with no platform or marketing experience, it can be very hard to “break into” the world of publishing and sell any significant amount of books. By offering your book for free for up to 5 days, you can get hundreds, thousands and even tens of thousands of downloads from readers.
This does several very important things:
1. Confidence
When you see thousands of people downloading and reading your book (even if it was free), it gives you the confidence to know that you’ve created something valuable and worthwhile. You’ve got thousands of people who took their time to pick up your book and read it! For many first-time authors (myself included when I first started), this early success is crucial in cementing your confidence so that you will keep writing and promoting your books no matter what happens.
2. Readers!
If you have 10,000 downloads that means you have 10,000 new readers! They know your name and, if your book is good, they see you as an expert in your field. Of course, not everyone who downloads the free book will read it. Some might never even open it. But a good number WILL read your book. And it’s 50 times easier to sell an existing reader one of your books than someone who doesn’t know you at all.
If you have 10,000 free downloads, I guarantee you will have at least 100 readers who love your book and will be willing to share it with their friends and buy more of your books in the future. Every big following starts with a small group of interested people. And every loyal, raving fan reader you get will help you build the foundation of life-long success and financial freedom as an author.
3. Increased Rankings
If your book has never sold a single copy before your KDP Select promotion, I guarantee it will start selling after your free promotion. Amazon has separate sales rankings for paid books than for free books. This means the competition is much less for free books – and you’re going to sell A LOT more because it’s free.
If you choose your categories well as we talked about earlier and follow the marketing system you’re about to see, you’re pretty much guaranteed to become a #1 best-seller in your free category (often, my book will be the only free book in my category). This will get your book a lot of attention from browsers and will lead to new paid sales when your book’s free promotion ends.
4. Reader Feedback
This is possibly the most important benefit of doing a free promotion for new authors – your readers will tell you how to improve your book! I’ve received reviews, emails and Facebook messages from readers and friends who read my book and told me about a typo I could fix or a question they had that wasn’t clearly answered in the book. All of this feedback helps me improve my books – and it will help you too!
With a Kindle ebook, you can edit your book, re-upload it in 2 minutes and within 24 hours anyone who buys your book will get the new, edited version. So don’t be afraid if you have a typo in your book – just publish it and you can fix it later! Perfectionism has killed the careers of many would-be best-selling authors.
Just make sure you do respond to feedback and improve your book if you can.
Now it’s time to learn the Free Book Promotion Marketing System. Ready?
Choosing Your Free Days
The KDP Select program allows you to list your book for free on Amazon Kindle for up to 5 days. These 5 days can be all at once or in any combination of days you choose. For example, you could do a 5-day promotion all in a row or a 2-day and 3-day promotion, or 5 1-day promotions, etc… you get the point!
Because I write lots of books and I’m very busy with my other businesses, I choose to only do 5-day promotions and get it done with. This way, I can spend all of my marketing energy and resources for that 5-day time period and get the most results with the least effort.
I highly recommend doing 5-day promotions – this will give you more time to get more downloads and break into the top #100 free books, but some authors still prefer to do 2-day or 3-day promotions.
For 5 Day Promotions
If you’re going the simpler 5-day promotion route, then you want to start your promotion on a Saturday and run it through Wednesday. Why?
Because that’s when most books are purchased on Kindle! According to a study from Digital Book Today, here are the rankings for the most book sales per day on Amazon (the percentages are the percent of total sales for the week):
1. Monday 17.6%
2. Sunday 17.4%
3. Wednesday 13.8%
4. Thursday 13.5%
5. Tuesday 13.0%
6. Saturday 12.5%
7. Friday 12.2%
By Starting your promo on Saturday and ending on Wednesday, you’re capturing 74.3% of the weekly sales potential in just 5 days – without any marketing (yet).
For those of you who want more data, you can read the whole article about the Kindle book sales study results here: http://bit.ly/U0JDiu
For 2-day / 3-day Promotions
For a 2-day promotion, start on Sunday and end on Monday.
For a 3-day promotion, start on Sunday and end on Tuesday.
Pre-Launch Strategy
Okay you’re ready to launch your book! The first step is to schedule your free promotion dates at least 3-4 weeks ahead of time. This will give you enough time to do all the pre-marketing to make your launch a huge success.
Press Releases
The first thing to do is write and schedule up to three press releases about your book’s release and promotion. In The Society, we talk about writing press releases that “build on each other” meaning they start to tell a story and the story gets better and better in each release.
You can get a good basic, internet-only Press Release for $25 from Webwire.
For those on a tight budget, you can use Prlog.org for a free press release (with limited distribution).
You can get premium press releases from other sites for a few hundred dollars or so for even more exposure. I don’t recommend premium press releases unless you have a very advanced PR strategy. Otherwise, go with the cheap or free press releases.
The first press release should announce your book’s launch on Amazon exclusively, due to KDP select, and the date it will be available for sale (or mention that it’s already available). The story for a non-fiction book is “Good news! There’s a new book out that will help (insert type of people you help) get (insert what you help people get).” For a fiction book, the story is “Good news! There’s a new book out that will whisk you away on a magical journey… (tell the story of your book).”
The second press release should announce your book’s free promotion and the dates of the free promotion on Amazon. The story here is “Even better news! That new book that (repeat the story of the first release) is now FREE on these days.”
The third press release should announce a special “bonus” or opportunity for people to learn more. You can do a Google+ Hangout, a webinar, teleseminar, or Q&A session with readers – whatever you want. It’s just a way to give even more value to buyers of your book and connect with your readers more. The story now is “Even better news WOW! Not only do you get this amazing book that (tell your story) but you also get it for free AND you get this really cool bonus (insert your bonus offer) that makes applying the information in the book that much easier.” For fiction authors, you may have to be creative about the bonus. For example, you can create a high quality Desktop background wallpaper with characters from your book and give it to your readers during your promotion.
If you don’t know how to write a press release, just search Google for press releases and copy their format. Then you will know the format of your press release is professional. Then just proof read it and make sure it sounds how you want it to. No need to hire a PR expert!
Here are some press release examples from my own books:
http://www.prlog.org/12031094-how-to-earn-full-time-income-self-publishing-your-books-on-amazon-kindle.html
http://www.prlog.org/12023396-how-to-make-money-with-facebook.html
http://www.prlog.org/12011722-for-those-who-want-to-work-from-home-the-network-marketing-manual-goes-free-on-amazon-kindle.html
http://www.prlog.org/11993038-the-blog-business-book-now-free-on-amazoncom.html
http://www.prlog.org/11984840-how-to-make-money-with-twitter.html
Free Kindle Book Listings
Did you know there are hundreds of sites where you can list your free Kindle book promotions and they will give you FREE publicity and promote your book to avid Kindle readers?
List of Free Kindle Promotion Sites
It’s important to plan ahead your marketing for your free promotion. This list of sites require 7+ days notice of your promo in order to post it.
Let These Sites Know 7+ Days Before Your Promo Starts
Fiction or Non-Fiction Sites
The Best 2 Sites (usually get 100-1000’s of paid sales, more for free downloads):
Buck Books
Totally free. Huge list of email subscribers so guaranteed sales if your book makes it into a bundle. See the blog post for more info on Buck Books: http://www.tckpublishing.com/buck-books-book-promotion-site-for-indie-authors/
Bookbub
Costs money, but the results are incredible due to their millions of email subscribers: https://www.bookbub.com/partners
Other Sites
http://bargainebookhunter.com/contact-us/
http://indiebookoftheday.com/authors/free-on-kindle-listing/
http://the-cheap.net/authors/free-promotion-opportunities/share-your-deal/
http://www.fkbooksandtips.com/for-authors/
http://ebooklister.net/submit.php
http://www.frugal-freebies.com/p/submit-freebie.html
Fiction Sites
http://freekindlefiction.blogspot.com/p/tell-us-about-free-books.html
Post On These Sites The Day Your Promo Starts Or 24 Hours Before
http://www.freebookclub.org/kindle-books/book-submissions/
http://addictedtoebooks.com/free
http://www.daily-free-ebooks.com/suggest-free-ebook
http://www.ereaderiq.com/contact/
How To List Your Books
Just click the links on the sites above and give them the information they need to post your book and promote it for you. Most often, you’ll need the book title, link to the book on Amazon, ASIN (Amazon Sales Identification Number), a description, category and a few other items. It’s pretty simple and should take less than 30 minutes to list a book on all 12 sites.
Make sure you list your book on all these sites AT LEAST 1 week in advance so that they have time to post it for you.
Free Book Twitter Influencers
Twitter is a great way to market your book during your free promotion and it’s 100% free!
These Twitter users all have medium to large followings on Twitter who love to hear about free books. Send them a Tweet the day your book goes free and let them know! They just might retweet it to their tens of thousands of followers.
@BookYrNextRead
@CheapKindleDly
@4FreeKindleBook
@wlcpromotions
@Kindle_promo
UK Twitter Users:
@free_uk_ebooks
Facebook Groups For Authors
These are all great groups to join on Facebook to network and connect with other authors, share marketing ideas, ask questions and build relationships. I highly recommend you join these groups if you’re a serious author!
Don’t post your free books in these groups – instead, use them to network, learn and interact with other authors.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/kindleauthors/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/357112331027292/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bookmarketing/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/512098985483106/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/291645554239114/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/apablog/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/204725947524/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/204968026218845/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2204546223/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/179494068820033/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/borntowrite/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/6092061939/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/135486133130440/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/110604178950149/
Facebook Groups For Fiction Authors
https://www.facebook.com/groups/fiction.nonfiction/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/174995555883415/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2207480509/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/fanfictionlookout/
Facebook Groups For Promoting Your Free Books
https://www.facebook.com/groups/270558336379692/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/126278657527255/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/freebkrus/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/FreeTodayOnAmazon/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/215918835174776/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1013820968756497/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/426282137432533/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/freeebooks/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/341840249197060/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/182637088529255/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/294455560643884/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/370900356880/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/236927589749427/
Facebook Marketing
If you have a Facebook profile or Fan Page, here’s what I recommend you do to get the most exposure.
First, upload the image of the cover of your book to your Facebook profile and/or fan page. Then, post it with a description explaining your book is now free and anyone can download it, giving them the link to do so.
Here’s an example of my free promotion post on Facebook – feel free to R&D (Rip-off and Duplicate!)
Here’s the text I used to promote this book in the description of the picture:
“My new book Facebook Marketing For Business Owners is now FREE on Amazon.com! Grab your copy here:http://amzn.to/ZO5FsS
You do NOT need a Kindle to read the book! You can still read it for free on ANY computer, smartphone or tablet using Amazon’s free software available here: http://amzn.to/QFexMk
If you live in the UK you can download it for free on the UK website here:http://amzn.to/QP4W9z
Facebook For Business Owners is the complete guide step-by-step for creating a Facebook Fan Page and turning it into a marketing machine for your business, attracting new leads on a daily basis.
If I can do it you can too!
Grab your free copy today (only available until Nov. 21st).”
Notice that in the description, I let people know they do NOT need a Kindle to read a Kindle book (which is a big misconception in the market, and since only 10% of people own Kindles, 90% of people won’t buy unless you tell them they can read it without a Kindle!). I also give people the link to the free Kindle reader software to make it easier for them to buy and read the book. Always remember – the easier you make it to buy, the more people will buy!
Promoting Your Post
Facebook now has an option where you can Promote a post for both fan pages and personal profiles. When you click “Promote” underneath the post, you pay Facebook to show your post to more people. If you have a great cover image, this promoted post is likely to go viral and lead to hundreds if not thousands of new downloads for just a few dollars.
The Promote button should be right under your picture or status update post between the Comment and Share buttons.
Other Marketing Opportunities
There are millions of other ways you can promote your book during its free promotion period to maximize your downloads, new readers and ranking in the Kindle store. Out of everything I’ve tested, these strategies I mentioned above have been the most effective by far.
Action Steps
If you’re planning a free promo, plan it 3-4 weeks out at least so you have time to prepare for it. Then just follow this marketing system step by step.
