STEP ONE: write a book.
You don’t need to know how to write, and it doesn’t have to be a great book. Don’t even think of it as a book. Think of it as a product. Based on their reviews, many of the writers on the Amazon Kindle freebie bestseller list don’t really know how to write, and many of those who do are giving away a single short story or essay, not an entire novel or nonfiction book. You don’t have to write a masterpiece, just something you can slap a title and cover on and call an e-book.
STEP TWO: give it an enticing title and a nice cover.
You don’t really have to know anything about book design. There are places you can buy premade covers for $50 or less. If you are low on a budget, Fiverr is a great place to get High Quality kindle cover done. Here is a professional kindle book cover designer i can personally recommend. For more information click here.
STEP THREE: ask friends and relatives to post 5-star reviews for you.
I recently got into an argument with a writer on Amazon because I said her suggestion to write reviews for your own book is unethical. She argued that it is common practice. As a former consumer columnist, I consider any attempt to mislead consumers unethical, and I think putting your words into someone else’s review is misleading consumers.
However, there are apparently people who have no problem with it, and that’s the competition those who join the KDP Select program are up against. Remember, you’re all getting a portion of the same pot, so if someone has better sales, it’s at your expense. If you have a kindle ebook and can’t wait to become a bestseller. Now this is the time to get these amazing strategy that most sellers use to on become Amazon Bestseller without marketing or promotion in no time.
STEP FOUR: get a Twitter account.
The longer you’ve been on Twitter and the bigger following you have there the better.
STEP FIVE: sign up for KDP Select.
Mark the five days you’ll be giving your book away for free on your calendar.
STEP SIX: buy some Amazon gift cards.
You can start with just one $10 card and then build up from there. If things pan out, you might give away up to six $25 gift cards, which is one for every two weeks you’ll be in the KDP Select program.
STEP SEVEN: go on Twitter to announce you’ll be giving away a free Amazon gift card, and repeat this step over and over.
Make the giveaway conditional. For example, you’ll give away a gift card to someone who re-tweets about the contest when you reach 1,000 borrows or 5,000 free downloads. You can even give away some of the cards when you get a certain number of Twitter or blog followers, 5-star Amazon reviews, or Facebook fans. Use the correct hashtags so that people looking for Kindle freebies or contests can find your tweet easily. Your tweet would look something like “#Win a $25 #Amazon gift card when my #Kindle #ebook reaches 2,000 #free downloads! Buy here (link) and RT to enter #giveaway”.
Notice how that tweet says nothing about the book itself? That’s because with this method, you’re not selling a book—you’re selling an opportunity to win a free Amazon gift card. You’re essentially selling free raffle tickets to get people to do what you want!
If you don’t think people are doing this, go to Twitter and see just how fast the #free or #giveaway hashtag flies there. It’s dizzying.
There are thousands of people on Twitter who are looking for free stuff, and they’ll be more than willing to download your free e-book to get it.
So writers are posting tweets like the one I wrote above, and those tweets are getting people to download their books in droves. They might download your book and never read it, but what difference does it make? Your book will be a bestseller. It’ll appear on the Amazon bestseller list along with all the other bestsellers. You can even put “Amazon bestseller” on your book jacket. And that will help you get a bigger share of the KDP Select pot, because all that attention and the bestseller status will help you get your book borrowed more times than the next guy’s book.
3 REASONS WHY I WON’T BE JOINING AMAZON’S KDP SELECT
NUMBER ONE: I know how to play the numbers game—and I don’t want to play it.
I want people to buy or borrow my books because they want to read my books, not because they want to win some sort of giveaway.
NUMBER TWO: I don’t want to compete with writers who are willing to play the numbers game.
I’m a writer, not a salesperson, and in the KDP Select program, salespeople have a distinct advantage over writers. That would make my book look bad, because it would be lower down in the bestseller list, and other books—many of them poorly written—would be above it. How would that look if my free book didn’t sell as well as someone else’s book an Amazon customer tried and hated?
NUMBER THREE: giving your book away for free once devalues all of your work forever.
They do say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”
Someone once did a psychological study to see if people enjoyed a piece of cake more if it was served on a fancy dish. It turns out they do. They also discovered that a $100 bottle of wine actually tastes better if you know it costs $100. In fact, a $9 bottle of wine tastes better if you think it costs $150.
So what happens when you give your book away for free?
Those who are in the KDP Select program find they sell the most copies when their book is free and within the few days after those free days, which is when your book is riding the bestseller list high from all those free downloads. The sales and free borrows for that particular book often stay high for a while and then gradually drop off.
However, the increased sales rarely carry over to the author’s other books—and a few writers have noted that some readers who picked up that one book for free have expressed that they expect to get the writer’s other books for free too. Instead of enticing readers with a free book, these writers are actually losing potential sales on their other book
courtesy: shevi.blogspot.com
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