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| Have you heard of Kindle Scout? It's a great way to get new books and have a say in what is published next. |
My campaign started off very strong, and I spent the majority of days 2-14 on the Hot and Trending list. I fell off about three and a half days ago and can't get back on to save my life. Granted, I haven't tried much in the way of paid promotion the last few days, but I have done a lot of social media marketing myself, and none of that seems to be very successful. I have managed to trump up about 50 page views per day, which isn't awful, but there have been a lot of books added to the site the last few days and they seem to be dominating Hot and Trending, along with the books in their last few days.
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| For better or worse, these are my stats so far.... |
If you are thinking about launching a Kindle Scout campaign, my strongest piece of advice would be to go to KBoards and read the entire thread about Kindle Scout. It's very, very long, but it is full of tips and information about how to launch a strong campaign. You can also read a book by Lincoln Cole, a Kindle Scout winner, entitled Kindle Scout Guide. You can find his book and a ton of information and statistics on his website here.
I believe part of the reason I was able to stay on Hot and Trending so long was because I ran a promo with Scout Boost one day early on. Scout Boost is a new option through the same people who brought us Genre Pulse and BookGrow. I've had a lot of luck with them in the past.
I also contacted my friends at Books Butterfly to see if they did anything for Kindle Scout, and though they don't advertise it much, they do. I saw a big spike in views on that day as well. I've also had some Tweets of my blog scheduled through Books Go Social, and they'll be doing more the last week of my campaign.
You probably don't have to run promos to be a winner on Kindle Scout. There have been several books chosen who really didn't have a lot of views or hours in Hot and Trending. However, my thought was, I want to get this book in front of as many people as possible, and since I had some money in my promo budget, I decided to invest it here. Hopefully, it will pay off as a good launch whether I end up self-publishing or winning a contract with Kindle Press.
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| What I look like trying to get back to Hot and Trending |
Even though I wrote what I consider to be a great novel (betas agree on that as well), it's been edited by three different qualified individuals, and I have an amazing cover, I am not particularly hopeful that I will win. There are a lot of great books out there, and they only take about 3% of those that are entered. One thing is for certain, though. Over the course of this month, literally thousands of people have seen my cover and my name, and that can't hurt. Fingers crossed for a big win in a couple of weeks, but either way, at least people are seeing Ginny and Spencer's story and can decide for themselves whether or not they want to read it.
Please consider supporting my Kindle Scout campaign for Beneath the Inconstant Moon. You can read the first 5000 words on Kindle Scout, if you'd like, and decide for yourself if I've earned your nomination. If you like the book, it only takes a minute to click the blue "Nominate me" button and then leaving stars for the various items (cover, blurb, etc.) are optional.
You can find it here: https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/OT9F85ZHLEKL
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| The nomination screen. Click the blue button--please! |
