Marketing Kindle Fiction

8 replies
I recently finished my first science fiction novel (in the hands of my editor now) and have been digging through lots of different marketing ebooks and other material in preparation for my launch coming soon, but I'm finding that the vast majority of product for Kindle marketing is directed toward non-fiction.

So my question is, does anyone know of some solid information that would be more applicable to marketing fiction on Amazon?
#fiction #kindle #marketing
  • Profile picture of the author Paul Gram
    Do what Amanda Hocking did...she built a strong author brand and created lots of raving fans which ended up making here a millionaire many times over...all with Ficiton.

    She blogged 2-3 times per week for over 2 years, communicated with her target market, promoted, wrote great books, etc. That is the hard stuff but it's also the stuff that can mean the difference between making hundreds of dollars versus potentially thousands of even millions of dollars.
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    I agree with Paul, a strong author brand is the way to market fiction. You do that by getting your book in front of as many people as possible who want to read books in your genre. For a new author, it can be helpful to join KDP select so you can offer your book for free (make sure you promote the crap out of it at all the sites that take submissions for free books)

    It's a slow process, but it builds on itself and builds momentum the more books you publish.

    So, make sure you have an author blog and a fan page and twitter if you like to tweet. Put links to those in the back of your book. Also, ask your readers to signup to your email list to get notifications of your latest book releases.

    As your fan base grows, you will get more and more purchases for each new book you publish. The more purchases you get, the more Amazon (and B&N and Apple etc..) will promote your book to other potential fans.

    Eventually you won't even have to offer your books for free anymore and each new book will bring you an explosion of sales for all your books. Take time and work, but well worth it…if you tell good stories.
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  • Profile picture of the author SurrealPSD
    Im sorry I can't PM you back Ron, Warrior Forum is playing up.

    It's great that you've approached the cover design yourself, however it looks very amateur. I'd highly advise you get someone to else to do the cover - it will make a massive difference in sales.

    Just think, your work will be standing shoulder to shoulder with the professionally designed covers of other authors, what choice will the customer make? Especially important when you do not have a brand to leverage upon.

    Regardless of who you get to do this for you, I do hope you take this point on board

    Much respect

    Conzz
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  • Profile picture of the author rontheitguy
    Thanks for the input!

    I've been trying to do some brand building with a short story that's been in the Kindle store for 4-5 months now. The story is a prelude to the book, so I've kept it priced as cheap as Amazon allows and made use of the free promo time twice now. To date, I've managed to sell around 100 copies and on the free promos, I've given around 4000 copies away, give or take. Reviews are mostly positive as well. Haven't done any other outside marketing though, so I've been impressed with the results for not doing much more than publishing to Amazon!

    I'd like to do more with the book though. I've already had great feedback from several beta readers on the story, so I'm confident its not just me that thinks it's good! And it's being professionally edited as I write this (not cheap!), so the final draft will at least beat most of the unedited works I've read on Amazon!

    I've got maybe $1000 or so to put into marketing. So I'm just looking for some other potential methods that might be worth investing in.
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    "Do, or do not. There is no try."
    The Wisdom of Yoda
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  • Profile picture of the author GobBluthJD
    Do a Free KDP Promotion. There are MANY more sites devoted to free fiction books than there are for non-fiction. Sign up to them and they'll post your book for free. Usually generates quite a few downloads, which builds your customer base, yada yada.
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    • Profile picture of the author TinkBD
      There is a lot of good advice in this thread, but... ;-)

      Start the next book ASAP... and if it isn't the second book in a series, DO make sure that it is aimed at the same readership.

      Certainly, marketing can be productive, but in fiction, the odds of knocking it out of the ballpark with one book, and especially your first book, are pretty astronomical.

      And... you are spending the time and effort to send them to a single product with a relatively small payout.

      So, promote, but make sure that BIC (Butt in Chair) is your main priority... having a library of titles is where long term fiction profits come from.

      The good news is that if you have that library of titles AIMED AT THE SAME READERSHIP, there can be a snowballing geometric progression in sales... far and above your expectations ;-)

      One of my favorite examples -- CJ Lyons. Starting in July 2012 she reached her tipping point and was selling 100k BOOKS/month.

      She discussed it here.

      SPP 032 – How to Sell a Metric Crap-Ton of Books, with CJ Lyons

      And, btw, she is a crazy smart business person.

      Note her system - CJ’s formula is 1) write great books, 2) give it time to find an audience, 3) encourage that audience to tell their friends, and 4) repeat. Not easy… but simple.

      Best of luck!

      Tink
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  • Profile picture of the author cashcow
    What Tink says is true. The best thing you can spend your time on is writing another book.

    If you have to choose between doing marketing stuff and writing another book, chose the writing.

    Pretty much every fiction author making lots of money will agree.

    Lee

    P.S. Is your blog broken or something? It looks like the .css file is missing or not being read. there's no style to it.
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