I have just completed the first draft of my new e-book which I plan to publish using Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP). Even before I publish my e-book, I have already started thinking about how I’m going to promote it to generate sales. There are plenty of things you can do to make your readers aware of your new book and here are the top five promotional tips.
1. Charge 0.99c for your e-book.
If you want to reach as many people as possible, start by pricing your e-book at 0.99c.
If you are a new author, charging your e-book at 0.99c may make readers feel that there is very little risk in giving your new e-book a try. If they don’t like your book, they won’t feel as though they have lost much money.
On the other hand, if they loved your book, this may lead them to look for other books you have written. If you publish one book, make sure you have two or three other books readily available that your readers can purchase.
2. Use the KDP free e-book promotional tool.
As an unknown author, you want to create exposure for yourself and your new book. One of the ways you can do this is by using the free e-book promotional tool provided by KDP.
First, you need to enroll your book in the KDP Select program. Your e-book has to be sold exclusively on Amazon and nowhere else. The program lasts for three months.
During that time you are given 5 days to promote your e-book for free. You can choose the days you want to promote your e-book. You can choose to use the whole 5 days or you can promote your e-book one or two days every few weeks.
This will get a lot of people to download your e-book for free and will help you to generate sales when the free promotion period has ended.
3. Submit your e-book to free book promotion sites.
Whether you run a free promotion period or decide to make your e-book permanently free, you can expose your e-book to a wider audience if you submit it to free book promotion sites.
The advantages of using free book promotion sites are that it won’t cost you any money to promote your e-book and most of these sites have a large mailing list which they send emails to thousands of readers every week. If you are able to get your book featured on one of their mailing lists, your e-book will be exposed to thousands of readers.
The downside, however, is that you’re not always guaranteed to get space in their mailing list to promote your book and you also have to submit your e-book at least two weeks in advance. So you need to plan your free book promotion period for the time when your e-book will appear on their mailing list.
4. Announce the release of your new e-book on social media.
If you have a Facebook page, a Twitter handle, or an Instagram page, you can promote your e-book on social media.
You can post an image of your e-book’s cover, post a short summary of what your book is about, or you can show the ranking of your book on Amazon and thank your readers for downloading your book.
You can also announce that your book is free to download for a certain period of time. This will help to increase exposure of your new e-book.
5. Submit your e-book to a paid book promotion site.
To ensure that your e-book is included in a readers’ mailing list, submit your e-book to a paid book promotion site. If you pay to promote your e-book, the book promotion site may not only feature your e-book in their email which goes out to thousands of readers, they will also promote your e-book to their thousands of Twitter followers.
Whether you are a new author or an established one, these promotional tips are the easiest and most effective ways to reach thousands of readers and to increase the exposure of your e-book.
