Kindle Book Promotion: Tips To Get Your Next eBook Into Readers’ Hands!
A Kindle book promotion can be a great way to boost your sales, but how do you do it? Here are some tips on how to promote your eBook online in 2020.
The Kindle Book Promotion
A Kindle book promotion can be a great way to boost your sales, but how do you do it? There are endless ways to promote a Kindle eBook online. Many of these are already shared across the internet. They also claimed to be ‘magic bullets’ that can swiftly get you to the top of the Kindle charts.
However, this is not the case. The reality is, if everyone loaded up these ‘magic bullets’ for their next Kindle book promotion, we would all be millionaires, and there would be no need for creative writing blogs like this.
As I went through planning and structuring this blog, I wanted to consider approaches that I have tried on a Kindle book promotion of my own in the past. There is no doubt that some of the strategies worked, but there are others that failed and cost me money.
Throughout this blog, I will give you some tips that may help you with your next Kindle eBook promotion. I will also share my experience and how I felt this tip worked for me, which may include some honest advice about how I would adapt the campaign and do things differently.
As we move into a new season, I want to start with optimism and hope to help you grow your next Kindle book promotion in 2020. Here are some tips on how to promote your next eBook online in 2020.
Tip One: Blog About It
As you are here reading my creative writing blog, you will be aware that I have a blog and use it to help my Kindle book promotion. I also use it to give fellow writers with tips and advice that could help them in their author journey.
The benefits of blogs that are done correctly cannot be overstated. Working as a freelance copywriter, I talk until I’m blue in the face about how a Search Engine Optimised blog can drive traffic to a company’s website. Some listen and come on board as a client. Others want an instant investment and choose to spend their money elsewhere.
It is the same for author blogs. There is no understanding of how you can help get traffic to your website by writing a blog. There is also the misconception about how to write a blog. It must be useful in pulling traffic into your website for the keywords that are linked to your genre.
It would help if you also were linking your upcoming novel into your blogs months before its release. This includes:
- Your progress in redrafting,
- Your cover reveal,
- The author proofs arriving, and,
- Polls on promotional posters.
These are just some ideas that you can share in your blogs, but they also allow your audience to feel involved in the process. You are also drip-feeding them as potential readers when the time comes to launch the book.
When it comes to Kindle book promotion, I have found this method very successful for getting traffic to my website. When I get people onto the site, I have also been able to visitors to download my free Inside Iris chapters. In turn, this helps to generate sales after people read and enjoy the free sample.
I previously wrote how a fiction author blog could help you generate website traffic. Click on the image to read the full article.
Tip Two: Use Social Media Ads
Social media is an essential tool in Kindle book promotion. There is no doubt that those who utilise their chosen social media channels well can get a lot of visitors to their website, blog, and grow their online following at the same time.
I have three main social media channels that I utilise; they are:
These three are the ones that have generated the most website traffic from blog posts and promotional materials over the last six months. By utilising Google Analytics, I have been able to see exactly how many visits I have had and from which social media channels.
By sharing blogs, promotional videos, and promo slides on social media, I have been able to generate more awareness of me as an author as well as Inside Iris and Anna’s Awakening. All of the content and traffic I generate when promoting my Kindle books has been organic in the last six months.
However, when I launched Inside Iris in September 2018, I used a lot of Facebook and Instagram ads to generate awareness of me as a writer as well as grow my social media following.
When promoting Inside Iris, I saw lots of impressions (ads on screens) and engagement (interacting with ads), but I would have liked to have seen more sales. Yes, I did sell three times the average amount of copies of Inside Iris, but I would have liked more for the number of people I reached with my ads.
When using paid ads with a low-cost product, it is unlikely that you are going to make much, if any, money. If you consider a Pay Per Click campaign for a Kindle book promotion could cost you £0.40 a click, you need to take that out of your generated royalties. If you then take into account the fact that maybe one in ten people will buy the book, this means that the one sale of £1 royalty could cost you £4 in ads.
The £3 loss means that the paid ads campaigns generally aren’t worth it, especially with social media.
Another article I composed to help fellow authors was this one on how the author can use social media networks in 2020. Click the image to read the full article.
Tip Three: YouTube Content
One area I use to promote my creative writing workshops, creative writing tips and Kindle books is my SG Fiction YouTube Channel. Here, I found it incredibly useful to share video content about my current and upcoming releases on Kindle and paperback.
By opening up the ability to use YouTube for readings, promo extracts, and promotional flash fiction, I like how I can engage with my audience in a different manner. Utilising audio and video to this extent means that we, as authors, can let people see who we are as the people behind the fiction.
When I released Inside Iris, I recorded the first three chapters for free so that people could listen to the pieces read by the author. This was a great way to hook people initially and, as they were able to hear the author read the article, it made it more interesting than downloading and reading the chapter from the website.
YouTube also offers the capability of sharing ads across the format. Again, I used these and had more success with campaigns through Google Ads. The utilisation of the 5-second ads before videos got me some clicks and engagement.
The key here is to make videos no more than 15 seconds long. This means you get the message across before the viewer has the chance to ‘Skip Ad’.
On the downside, these videos were time-consuming to create and, as YouTube likes videos to be over 5 minutes in length, the recording, editing, and piecing together of lengthy pieces can take hours if you want to do them right. There is also the added cost of bespoke audio and video software and equipment, like Adobe Premiere Pro, Logic Pro X and Final Cut X.
The image above is a thumbnail to one of the Anna’s Awakening promotional flash fiction pieces I wrote to promote the launch of the novel. Click on the image to go to the SG Fiction YouTube channel. There are other Anna’s Awakening videos there to enjoy.
Tip Four: Website Landing Page
Once you have the book in the bag, it is a case of creating a website landing page for the book you are releasing. When I worked on my website, I created a landing page for my current book release and also a landing page for my fiction books.
I would utilise these pages in different posts, depending on the particular book or books I was promoting. The landing page you use for the Kindle book promotion you are creating needs to reflect the message you put across in the social media post or the blog.
If I were talking about my upcoming release of Anna’s Awakening on March 3rd 2020, I would link the post to the current book release page.
On the other hand, if I were talking about my next book of short stories, The Hexingham Chronicles or how I am a fiction author of several Kindle books, I would link the post to my fiction books page.
Either way, creating pages that are there solely for the reason to see your books and see them quickly is vital. You should have a possible free download and have clear Call To Action buttons for visitors to click if they are interested in making a purchase.
Look at your website structure. Consider whether you have a landing page for your upcoming book release or at least the books you have written. By having a separate page, you will make your Kindle book promotion that bit easier to publicise.
Click on the image to see the fiction books I have released so far. Both Inside Iris and Anna’s Awakening are available for purchase on Kindle and paperback from Amazon.
Tip Five: Share Positive Reviews
Throughout my website, I have multiple reviews of Inside Iris. I decided to do this as the website theme I used on WordPress gave me the option.
Failing this, you should at least create a book reviews page for your novel or novels. By allowing visitors to see this clearly, you stand a higher chance of converting them to a possible sale if they like the sound of the reviews.
This was a tactic I employed on my previous WIX website. Even though the website was difficult to get found on Google, the reviews page was a success because those who visited the site could access the Inside Iris book reviews with ease.
When I got feedback from subscribers, they said the reviews helped them to make the final decision whether to buy the novel or not. Don’t underestimate the power of a positive book review!
Just one of the 5-star reviews received by Inside Iris. Get your copy today and read the compelling story of Iris through Inside Iris and into Anna’s Awakening. Both Kindle editions available for £1.99 each for a limited time.
The Kindle Book Promotion Takeaway
When I researched and composed this blog, I wanted to make sure it was filled with tips but also words of warning from my own experiences as a UK fiction author.
I hope you have found some of the information useful and can utilise it when compiling your next Kindle book promotion. I also hope you have been able to take something away from my experiences with paid ads and creating specific pages on websites to promote my books.
The main point you should take away from this blog is to ensure potential readers are aware of your novel; whichever way you choose to promote it. Whether you use a blog, social media, paid ads, or YouTube, you need to use a mixture of all approaches to run a successful Kindle book promotion.
Unfortunately, there is no ‘magic bullet’. However, you can load up a magazine and fire as many promotional ads, videos, blogs, and images as possible to ensure readers experience that book you are so proud of.
Such a Helpful article…Thanks!
Thank you so much!