At our April meeting, during the Q & A, we briefly discussed how we, as independent publishers, might best use this pandemic period.
Maybe it doesn’t feel right to be plugging your books, and besides, bookstores are closed. Maybe the best approach is to think of how we can give back.
Karin Fisher-Golton decided to make a video about gratitude, since that’s the subject of her children’s book, My Amazing Day. Check out her story and video here — Thanks to BAIPA, I Made a Video about Gratitude.
What about you? Have you reworked your promotion or marketing strategies? Let us know in the comments, or, if you have a story like Karin’s, send it to [email protected] and we’ll post it on the blog.
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It need not be long. Here’s mine:
Through Kindle Select, I made the ebook of my most recent novel, When I Killed My Father: An Assisted-Suicide Family Thriller, free for three days in April, and then I promoted it through my email newsletter, Facebook, and I paid $93 to be listed on five free-ebook promotion sites, including Digital Book Today, Free Kindle Books and Tips, Just Kindle Books, and The Fussy Librarian.) I ended up with about 2200 downloads, as well as ten $.99 sales the day after the free period ended.
In one case, exactly what I hoped would happen did. One reader who downloaded When I Killed My Father gave it a 5-star rating on Goodreads, and then, following my suggestion at the end of the book, bought the $.99 ebook of my first novel, Bones in the Wash: Politics is Tough. Family is Tougher, read it in a couple days, and gave it 5 stars as well.
I also hosted an online book tour in April — three early evening events, on Monday, Thursday, then Tuesday. The first attracted more than a dozen people, the second only three, and the third only one. Despite the limited success of the online tour, I sold a few more books than usual, got more reviews, and attracted more visitors to my website.
