As I write this a few days before, I have already accumulated seven reviews from its pre-order status-all good, so I’m happy about that. I accepted those I agreed with and ignored the rest, which was my prerogative. There were other edits, some a matter of style, others punctuation, some just nitpickers. It required a rewrite of nine pages and became a better book because of it. The editor found a big plot hole that all my previous readers and personal editors didn’t catch. I imagine part of their decision is based on a writer’s sales history and part on what the Kindle Press people feel has potential to be a good seller. I do know that people with more Hot and Trending hours than I had weren’t selected, and others with even less were chosen. I don’t know what criteria the Kindle Press people use to make the final determination. That means promoting it to readers who don’t know my work and hope they find me. Bad because so many people get it for free that when it goes on sale, many of my readers already have it. Good because the nominations result in success for the book.
Nominations cost nothing, and if the book is finally selected, the nominators get a free copy two weeks before the book is released. I know the couple of Facebook groups I belong to were very supportive, and most of them nominated the book. There’s always been a bit of the “preaching to the choir” element of Twitter, at least for writers. I always wonder how much of my tweets are actually read, or do they just turn into retweets. Surprisingly, very few came from Twitter. Some came from my website, and others from the blog site, The Blood Red Pencil. 51% came from the Kindle Scout site and 49% came from external links, mainly Facebook. I had 370 hours of Hot and Trending out of the 720 hours in the thirty days. When the thirty days were over, I had some stats. I’d give another push on social media and hope my fate improved. Those thirty days were very stressful, especially when my book went off the H &T list. I tweeted and Facebooked, and posted on the many loops I belong to, which really isn’t that many, to get people to nominate the book if they like the sample read. Then, for the next thirty days, my book had to remain “Hot and Trending,” as much as possible. To win a Kindle Press contract, I first had to be accepted into the program. This isn’t my first book, but after my very first book, my debut written under a pen name, this is probably the biggest deal for me. I just launched my Kindle Scout winner, Indiscretion.
Please welcome author Polly Iyer, who will describe for readers her experience with the Kindle Scout program.
0 kommentar(er)
