Hi everyone. I am just popping in to post my progress so far and recap my experiences so far.
On May 9th I uploaded 2 books for sale on Amazon and B&N. One is my novel Give Me Forever, the other is a novelette Give Me Your Trust.
I have done zero promotion for my novelette and have just focused on my novel at this time.
Here are the things I've done to promote Give Me Forever:
Joined Twitter and created a Facebook page. On Twitter I have posted about my book (announcing its release and the contest for a free copy), I've tweeted with other authors, and have only a handful of followers. (16 to be exact) I'm not really good with Twitter and personally am not really comfortable with it. On Facebook I'm a little more active but only have about 9 likes so far.
I started a blog and that has gotten some traffic, a couple of followers but hasn't really taken off. I'll admit, I'm not on top of it as I should be.
I joined Goodreads and this has really worked well for me. I've joined in groups with readers of the genre I write and have met a lot of great people! I've done a giveaway promoton on there and it will be over on June 9th. I am offering 2 copies of my novel for free that I had printed out through lulu just for this promo. Currently I have close to 300 people that have entered the contest. I have 60 people that have the novel on their "to read" list and I also have 5 people with my novelette on their "to read" list. I was also able to promote my book within these groups which helped me gain interest in my novel & novelette.
The best news is I had a blogger from Goodreads contact me for free copies of my book and a promise to review them. I took a leap of faith and gifted her the ebooks on Amazon and it actually paid off! She loved them both. Gave me 5 stars and a review on Goodreads, Amazon, and her blog! Her blog is strictly for reviews of books in my genre.
I have gotten other reviews from readers too! All 5 stars which was mind blowing for me!! One was on Goodreads, the other on Amazon and one on B&N. Hopefully this will help with my sales.
My stats for the month of May:
Give Me Forever: Sold 11 copies (10 on Amazon 1 on B&N)
Give Me Your Trust: Sold 3 copies (2 on Amazon 1 on B&N)
Both have reviews on Goodreads, B&N, and Amazon
I'm hoping that once the Goodreads Giveaway contest is over my sales will increase. I know that doesn't always happen, but I'm hoping it does! Trying to keep a positive outlook ;-)
I'm very happy with my results so far. I went into this hoping that I would have just 1 person read my book and like it, lol. I have 3 more books in the works (2 novels, one novella) so I'm trying to focus more on writing right now. I'm going to leave the marketing to my husband who is dying to have at it!