New Promotion Idea!

This is my new idea for promotional ideas!

It's a bit of a laugh I know, but it would be great if my books actually did show on buses like this. Joking aside, I have been looking on Vistaprint recently and found some exciting deals. I have created a T-shirt anf mug combo to promote my brand when I'm out and about. I have also created 500 business cards with my books front cover on. My mother works in a shop and is allowed to show my book by the till. I figured that if people like the book, they could take a business card with all the details and either download it or order the paperback online. Worth a try I thought and it only cost me a minimum.

FREE PROMOTION 31/03/2012

Pookey The Mousepig The Backyard Rainforest is FREE to download on the 31/03/2012

Available to download onto your Android phone, Blackberry, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Kindle, Mac or PC with the FREE Kindle App 

Using Facebook For Promotion.

Facebook is used by over 845million people worldwide.

Everybody I know has a facebook account. When I fiirst started writing, I wasn't aware of the scale off promotion I would have to do to get my book noticed. It's a tough world for new author's. I didn't want to spend any money promoting, as I wasn't sure if my work would be worth it.

Immediately after publishing onto Kindle, I updated my facebook status letting all my friends know about my book. It proved to work, as I recieved lots of comments asking where they could get it. Now, I only have about 200 friends, so that wouldn't make my book a best-seller. So I searched for similar pages that related to what I was selling/promoting. I searched for Kindle naturally and posted a small link to my book. It worked, I had a few sales from this. My searches kept going and every time I logged onto facebook, I would search for another page that would help promote my work.

I also looked into creating a facebook ad. I noticed you could cap your personal spendature to a value desirable. However, I didn't think that my allowance of £10 for advertising would cause that much of a stir. So, I abondoned the whole idea. That was until facebook e-mailed me saying they noticed I had tried to set up an advertising account and they offered me £25 free advertising. GREAT!!!

I set up the account (which didn't take long) and I watched my clicks soar. The ad reached out to over 2 million users interested in children's books. The ad proved to be a success and made my book more noticeable. Now, I wouldn't spend the money on the advertising again just yet, because I believe that the visibility the ad gave me wasn't worth the money. But hey, when facebook offer me £25 worth of free advertising again, I'll snap their arm off for it.

Hunger Games, Harry Potter and other films made about the books. Is it a good idea?

It is something I have been scratching my head about recently.

The Hunger Games movie is being released on 22nd March 2012 in the UK. It is quite obvious, that when your book is considered for a film, you can officially say you have made it. The Harry Potter films, have raked in over $300,000,000 worldwide. Don't get me wrong, I have enjoyed most films that have been inspired by books, but the films don't always show the books off to their full potential.
I have read all of Roald Dahl's books. I have watched several of the films after reading the books and have found them not to entertain me as much as the books did. Roald Dahl is my favourite children's author, he is my inspiration. I would look forward to going to bed of an evening and lose myself in one of his imaginative books. The movie equivalent never does the book any justice. Often the film makers leave out crucial chapters or characters to ensure smooth running of the film and to keep the running time to the recommended average.
Having a book made into a movie brings in a large sum of revenue. It also helps to boost sales of the books, due to worldwide publicity. I wonder, if letting your book become a movie can sacrifice all the hard work that you have put into writing the book. Afterall, with most movie producers deleting chapters and characters and sometimes changing the titles, the end product may be considerably different to the original book itself. The book being a mere skeleton frame for the special effects and famous cast.
My most worrying thought as a writer, is that if I had any of my books made into films, would I lose my soul because of the large sums of cash and would I still have my drive to write as my heart has always wanted to? I would like to feel that no amount of money would be enough for me to let some movie producer strip my book down to its bare bones and make a film based upon it. If I have put my heart and soul into writing the book, having somebody do such a thing would be soul destroying.
I wish the greatest amount of luck to any author who has landed a movie deal about their book. However, please stay true to your heart and remember what your first objective was when you first starting writing. Never lose the spirit that you put into a book.

Pookey The Mousepig The Backyard Rainforest FREE FOR DOWNLOAD TODAY!!

KDP select. Does it work for you?

I have enrolled my books into the KDP select programme.
The basic incentive behind this programme is for Kindle to have your book exclusively. This may seem daunting to some author's; it did to me at first. However, I decided to enroll my books into the programme on a trial basis. You are tied in to the programme for 90 days, but after which you can opt out. I guessed it was worth a try.
When you enroll a book, KDP allow you to promote your book for free on any 5 days you please. I chose to seperate my 5 days over a few weeks, some author's choose for a 5 day run. I had virtually zero sales when I first uploaded my book. On my first day of free promotion, my sales rocketed to nearly 200. The next few free days, I watched the sales soar to into the 1000's. Obviously I didn't recieve any revenue from these free sales, but my sales ever since have been steady. With that, it would seem that the free promotion has aided my books exposure and sales.
The other benefit from the programme, is that the book will be available in the Kindle lending library. Kindle has a monthly kitty of roughly $500,000. If a book is borrowed from the library, then the author will recieve a share of the $500,000. This to me is what bent my arm into submission. After the first few weeks, none of my books had been borrowed. I was beginning to think I had made a wrong decision. However, my books pulled through and my first borrowed report came in. Working out how much my book is borrowed for with Kindle's estimated calculations, state my borrowed book earned me $5. Not bad considering the revenue I usually earn from that book is only $0.60. Since the first lending, I have subsequently lended another 5 books. That's $30 in total.
The KDP select programme doesn't always work though. I have had one book that has lay stagnant in the lending library. I have hardly recieved any free sales in comparison and no borrows what so ever. The game we play as author's, regarding self publishing is that it is definately a game of luck. It is down to us to promote our work and us alone. KDP do nothing to promote our work unless it reaches the top 100 list. I do believe that the share of $500,000 is a good incentive, but if my books were on other sites such as Barnes&Noble, would I have accumilated the same revenue anyway?
In conclusion, the programme works for author's in the same way a bet works for a gambler. It can go in any direction. I have found success with one book and misery with another. The upside to my stagnant book, is that after 90 days I can publish it onto numerous sites. I have opted to do this with my other books, even though they are doing well in the lending library. The key to self-publishing success to me, is the exposure. Having my titles on Kindle alone, doesn't get my name noticed by people who don't own a kindle. Hopefully by uploading my titles to many different websites, I will increase my visibility and therefore sell more books.

Using newspapers for promotion!

I recently wrote to a local newspaper about my first children's book. What harm would it do, right? Well, they rang me up immediately and was really interested in the story. Maybe it was lack of news or something, but hey it got my name in the paper. I think using free promotional tools such as newspapers are a great way for a first time author to gain exposure.
Has anybody else tried this type of avenue? I strongly suggest everyone who is an unknown author to try this out. I've had lots of my friends and family comment to me about the article, so it obviously has reached out to the community. Give it a whirl, like I said, it can't do any harm.
If anybody else has already tried this, feedback please. Also, has your sales increased because of this?

Happy writing.

New book ideas!!

Just started writing my new children's book. Billy Dean and the T.V Time Machine is a story about a boy with the ability to time travel. He travels through time to the land of the dinosaurs. He confronts his fears and learns a  wise lesson. He uses this to his advantage.

I've had lots of input from readers of my previous books. Lots of my readers want me to name characters after them or their pets etc. I am flattered by the responses I have had. Then I had an idea. Maybe my readers could have a say in what characters were in my next book/future books.

If anyone has a character idea that you may want to see in one of my books, get in touch. I will see if I can develop a story for the character.

Self publishing?

I have recently come across a few self publishing sites that print on demand (POD). Has anybody else used any of these sites to self publish?