On our January 31 webinar, Cashing in with Kindle Books, Howard VanEs offered a lot of really solid information for authors regarding how to sell more Kindle ebooks. And because traditionally published authors don’t have access to KDP, a lot of you were asking the question, How does all of the good stuff Kindle allows for self-published authors pertain to my book?
Here’s the scoop:
If you’re traditionally published, you cannot sign up for a KDP account with Amazon because your publisher controls the flow of information to Amazon, which you cannot override or control. It does this through a continual feed. Most publishers use a data solutions program called ONIX to do this.
But if you’re traditionally published, it doesn’t mean that you don’t have any control over what’s happening with your book. It does behoove you to be proactive, and to ask your publisher a few questions.
If you’re a backlist author especially, your publisher is probably doing nothing or next to nothing for your book. It’s your responsibility to keep it alive. Some authors are great at this; others not so much. If you’ve let your own book fizzle out, you want to be careful about how you approach your publisher. Publishers aren’t always super excited to hear from backlist authors. After all, you’re asking them to spend time and energy on a book that’s possibly not doing very much for them. In essence, you’re asking them for a favor.
Know this going in. Be tactful and ask if they’d be open to the following possibilities:
- lowering the price of your kindle book
- doing a zero-cost promotion for your kindle book
Other possibilities include nominating your book for Kindle promotions, like the Top 100 or the Daily Deal. These nominations can only come from publishers, but you should note that they’re very competitive, so your book (especially if it’s older) is hardly a shoo-in. Still, you can ask!!
A publisher is not going to do anything to promote your zero-cost or discounted Kindle book, so you want to go to them with a plan. This is where Howard’s 4-week webinar will come in handy for you traditionally published authors. You need to promote your own ebook, and you do it in exactly the same way a self-published author would. You get reviews, you ask for likes, you blast your lists, and you work your butt off to get those downloads.
I spoke to an old colleague of mine in book marketing about this last night and she said that the sales spikes you see after a free or discounted campaign are very real, and that these kinds of promotions are smart—IF you can get your publisher on board. Lots of them won’t want to do it, which is why, again, you need to go in with a plan.
I hope you’ll all consider Howard’s four-week webinar (SEE OFFER HERE) for this. We’re eager to help you sell more books and to help any author (self-published or traditionally published) figure out how to work what Amazon has to offer. Admittedly, it’s a lot.
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