Increasing Sales and Reviews
Writing a book is hard work. Many authors find promoting a novel even harder, or may think of it as a necessary evil for increasing sales and reviews. I encourage a shift in that line of thought to discover the rewards, and (dare I say) fun to be found in promoting a novel.
Promoting a novel can entail public appearances, which range from small book club meetings to giving a speech at a conference. As you launch into the promotion journey you may need to stretch beyond your comfort zone of sitting behind your laptop. Or maybe not.
After the successful independent publication of your novel, the obvious path in the promotion journey is to send an email blast and social media posts to your family, friends and acquaintances. These actions will ensure you reach a few hundred potential buyers. You need to do more to promote the novel you’ve spent untold hours creating.
Websites abound to guide authors through the process of increasing sales and reviews without leaving the comfort of their homes. With the completion of my fifth book, Secret Vows, I took the dive into the online world to discover ways of promoting the novel to increase sales and reviews.
Writing Contests
First, I decided to enter writing contests. What better way of promoting a novel than to have an advertising tool of awards given by panels of independent judges? The contests that met my needs included: the Maxy Awards; Readers’ Favorite Book Awards; The Book Fest Awards; Kindle Book Awards; Best Indie Book Awards; Storytrade Book Awards; Indie Author Project contest; Royal Palm Literary Awards; and Writers Digest Self-Published Book Awards. Although the deadlines for many of these contests run from April to June, the award selections are made in September and October. A word of caution: research the contests before you invest time and money.
Promotion Packages
While waiting to hear news on any wins, I started the second prong of the promotion journey to increase sales and reviews. There are several websites that offer packages to promote your novel. Again, do your research on these websites before investing time and money. As a starting point, I chose Freebooksie to help in promoting my novel. After using the KDP website to reduce the price of the Kindle version of my book to zero for one day, I purchased a package deal on Freebooksie that would reach a potential of one million readers. For one day, my book was offered for free on both the Freebooksie and Fussy Librarian email blasts.
The result was both encouraging and a bit discouraging (in the short term). Over 4,300 people downloaded my e-book during the one-day promotion. My goal was not to make money through promoting my book in this manner. I was seeking reviews on Amazon and increasing sales of my other four novels. Patience is not an easy partner for me. Both sales and reviews have been slow in coming. However, I realize that many readers download free books for future reading.
The bottom line is that I will stretch my patience meter to wait for the results of the writing contests to claim any fame. In the meantime, I will continue to use online packages in promoting my novels with the aim of increasing sales and reviews.