Promoting E-books again! 5 Day Promos.

Thought this might interest anyone thinking of doing the 5 day promos. I lifted it from Meet Our Author forum. Didn't get the name of the author.


I am at 33hrs of day one promo with 12,550dls. Shameless plug to get a few more goes here--->http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007W9F4A8

Now, what I did and didn't do. I ran my promo for 5 days consecutive, because I figure I did this for 1. Exposure 2. "Likes" 3. Reviews. Why would anyone start a promo for less than 5 days? I have 40 likes in one day...why wouldn't I build on it? In short do the 5 already. You'd be mad as hell if you landed on a blog or some other sites radar after your > less than 5 day promo ended right?

I put word out on these FREE sites.
pixelofink.com
icravefreebies.com
centsablemomma.com
thedigitalinkspot.blogspot.com 
Reviewers Roundup on FaceBook
LinkedIn Writers Groups
My FaceBook Page(only have 200 friends or so)
Kindle bazaar forum.

** Some sites above take a day or two to get to your book, so sign up THE LATEST a day before you start your 5 day promo.**
See? NO TWEETING or whatevering, Google plus oneing,lol(still not sure to what those two are:) THERE YOU HAVE IT 100% FREE

Trouble with Ancient Futures

          Ancient Futures picked up a very bad review the other day, not that the reviewer had read the book. But the reviewer said the book was so strewn with proof-reading errors and it seemed like some of the original scan hadn't been corrected. One of the pages had all the letters O replacing all the letters A, and that is what sometimes happens when you scan a document into the computer. The reader never got passed page ten and this is very unfortunate since she said she was really looking forward to reading the book. 

          This seemed like a bit of a disaster, so I deleted the book and contacted the reviewer with profuse apologies.

           Last night I downloaded my copy of Ancient Futures, a word document (I don't have a Kindle) and was prepared to start correcting it. I only found two mistakes in the first seventy three pages!!!

            So I have no idea what's happening here. My friend, who did most of the uploading of the other books himself, and I uploaded Ancient Futures a good year before we ever did anything else on Kindle, just as an experiment. We must have uploaded the wrong document though I don't see how.

             I wasn't looking forward to looking at Ancient Futures again by any stretch of the imagination, but was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Now that I've started it, I'll finish it and make sure there are no other errors in the text. Then I'll upload it again.

              If anyone reading this has Ancient Futures on their Kindle, how's about having a keek to see if it's a mess and letting me know? And if you've any idea as to what might have happened here, I'd be glad to know that as well!

Bugtown review! Five stars!

I've just come across a five star review of Bugtown! I must say I think the criticisms within both the long reviews this book have had have been spot on. What's great about the arrival of independent publishing (Kindle) is that I couldn't get an agent or a publisher to read it despite being a school librarian and having had adult novels published before. Anyway, here's the review.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Very entertaining. Not perfect, but great fun., April 21, 2012

By 

J Bryden Lloyd "J Bryden Lloyd" (Author - UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bugtown (Kindle Edition)

Book Review: Bugtown by John McKenzie
Reviewed by J Bryden Lloyd

Writing Style - 3.5/5.0 (Good)
This is a fun book, more than a demonstration of writing prowess, and as such it offers plenty to the younger readers who will undoubtedly have a lot of fun reading it. The narrative is good and flowing, the dialogue between the siblings who are the two main characters is fun, and typical of children in their age-group, although from time-to-time I felt it could have been a little tidier.

Character Development - 4.0/5.0 (Very Good)
At the start it isn't obvious where the characters are meant to go in terms of development. The older sister, although a leading presence, does appear to remain the most two-dimensional of the main characters, while the younger brother claims the lion's share of the work the author seems to put in. Added to this you have the `bugs' of the title, who it seems are not what they appear to be, the baby... who isn't a baby, the beggar... who isn't a beggar, and even Santa makes an appearance, but guess what? Yup! He isn't Santa.
On top of that lot, the sister appears to be some sort of body-guard at points during the story, while the brother becomes Robert The Bruce incarnate, complete with a craving for - and the ability to wield - a `great big Scottish sword'.
Each develops in their own way, and although there are occasions where an adult reading this might frown and question what they have read, these characters are built very cleverly to encourage a child's imagination.

Descriptive - 4.5/5.0 (Excellent)
From the start, the author carefully builds the world the children find themselves in, along with the clothing and the events happening around them. The walled town with the castle at its centre is nicely vivid and the varied residents of the town, as well as the children's reactions to them, are nicely defined.
The banquet hall scene is very well built and described, and the subsequent happenings within it are cleverly entertaining. This leads on to some fast-paced scenes where the author keeps up some quality descriptive whilst keeping the action running.

Language & Grammar - 4.0/5.0 (Very Good)
This is clearly aimed at a young audience and with that in mind, it keeps a rigid level of understanding and a considered language level designed to challenge, but not overwhelm.
I found a few little foibles and minor technical issues in the grammar. Primarily the creeping use of terms and words more local to the author than to the potential general audience of the book. There were also a handful of editing issues, but these were not significant and not widespread.
In an ideal world, perhaps anglicising some of the text would make this a more appealing read to a wider audience.

Plot - 4.0/5.0 (Very Good) - MILD SPOILERS
Admittedly, the main plot is a little drowned amongst the sub-plots, and there are things that remain frustratingly unexplained, specifically the how and why of what the children are doing there in the first place.
The supposed `rescue' of the baby turns out to be far more complicated than it sounds, and ends up as a kidnapping, which leads to a kidnapping from the kidnappers, and then the actual rescue by the initial kidnappers, to retrieve the baby from the second group of kidnappers in order to help the baby get back to where he started... are you following this?
In fact, this is a very entertaining element within the plot, and one that does appear to serve to tie up a few of the loose ends.

General - 4.5/5.0 (Excellent)
Once you get past the opening section of this book, things begin to happen at a reasonably fast pace. No, not everything is explained as you might like, but I don't think this is the point of the story, which takes these two ordinary siblings and throws them into a place where even they don't know what's going on.
This fact alone makes certain reactions, arguments and events in the story entirely realistic, as the sister's sole purpose is to get home, and the brother just wants to rescue the baby... and occasionally have a big Scottish sword.
No, this isn't a great work of literature, but it is light-hearted, cleverly original and a lot of fun.

Worthy of four stars, but I have to admit the brother and the baby characters made this much more fun. I more-than liked this story, so five it is.

Selling and Promoting Ebooks on Kindle

Selling and Promoting Ebooks on Kindle

          Someone told me on the Meet Our Authors forum that the "sweet spot" for selling and thus promoting your ebooks on Kindle was 99cents. So I've just reduced all the prices to 99cents and that comes to about 75 pence in British money.

          The ten books of mine on Kindle were selling at $1.60 in the states and about £1.04 here in Blighty for the first nineteen days of this month and sold in total twelve books. That's about £4 in royalties. But some of the books are hardly selling at all. The main sales are in Ancient Futures, followed by Bugtown and The Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf. I have no idea why those are selling and the other ones aren't!!!

First American Review for TheBlissBook

          I was very pleased to come upon this review of TheBlissBook today! It was written by an American lady from West Virginian whom I encountered on one of the threads at Meet Our Authors on Amazon. This is the second review (there was one for Remote Control a couple of weeks ago) that has come about from posting on one of these threads. Both books were found by the reviewers from posting on the thread about the free five day book promotions, so they have worked to that extent.

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully funny!, April 12, 2012

By 

Jimelle Salyers (Spencer, wv, US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

This review is from: TheBlissBook (Kindle Edition)

This is a story about a frustrated and manic school librarian who must deal with the red tape, bad teachers, and clueless administrators that seems to be a part of all school systems. and boy, does he deal with it! A romping, hilarious, fun read!

Free Ebook promotions - Second stint of the Five Days free stuff!

          Thought I'd post how my second go at the five day free promo was going.

          Last Tuesday I put my ten books up free and the downloaded about 1,000 times. I then put them up free for the Saturday and Sunday of the Easter weekend and they downloaded about 500 times. For ten books these are very small figures of course. Also, two of my novels downloaded about a third of the total for no good reason that I can see!

          For the last five weeks my books have been set at over $3 and they've been bought at a rate of less than two a week. Previously, when they were at rock bottom they were being bought at about one a day.
If gettting reviews is what selling these ebooks is about, then it would make sense to put the books back to a far lower price and hope for more sales and more reviews. So far I've had one review from free downloads. I think a review I got otherwise for Bugtown is why folk are downloading it for free. Can't see any other reason.

          I've decided then to cancel next weekend's free book promotion because of the laws of diminishing returns, and reduce the prices to about a pound or so that I get about fifty pence a book.

          Later: The books in the states are now at $1.60 which makes them cost £1.01 in Britain. I'd really like to just forgot about these books for a while!! There's something out there called an indie publisher and I'm not it. Park the books, walk away, que sera sera!

Free Ebook Promotion on Kindle yesterday!

          Yesterday my ten free kindle books were downloaded just over 700 times in the United States and just over 300 here. Almost half of the numbers of downloads in the states were for Ancient Futures and Bugtown. I can only imagine this is because folk fancied the covers. Of the 300 downloaded in Britain, Ancient Futures was way ahead again, but second most downloaded one was The Buddha and the Big Bad Wolf. This was rather pleasing since that's one I'd like folk to read!!

            I got this message yesterday on the Meet Our Authors forum.

            Jimelle Salyers says:

LOL, John! Never hand someone your book and say, "good luck with that"! It's bad marketing:) J/K

I was a school librarian for a year and so far, according to your book, Scottish schools are EXACTLY like American schools. Too much admin, not enough learning. I'm just not as imaginative as your protagonist. Probably a good thing. This is such a funny book so far - and I have a pretty demanding sense of humor. Thanks for a fun couple of hours this afternoon; I can't wait to finish it.

         The books will be free again on Saturday and Sunday this weekend and next!

Promoting Ebooks again and again!

          I took part in the 5 Day Free Book Promotion for ebooks on Kindle beginning at Christmas. About 3,000 downloads resulted from this. This isn't a lot. Someone on a Meet Our Authors forum post got 12,000 downloads for one book. I got one review, a good one, for Remote Control.
         
           During all of March the ebooks were on sale for just over $3 and five books were sold all month. That's five books sold between the ten books on Kindle.

            Much as I would like to just forget about promoting these ebooks, I think you'd got to make a wee effort anyway. So I've made all my books free on Tuesday, April 3rd. Let's hope for lots of downloads and a few good reviews!