I received an email fromSDRandCo (6) Peter Piazza, who recently published I’ve Nothing To Offer on Amason as a POD book. Peter asked me how to market and promote books.  I wrote back that was the $64,000 question all indie and hybrid authors are asking these days with the evolution and revolution of self-publishing.
I also promised I would write more about what I’ve learned in this past year and especially what my marketing plans are for this year, so here goes.

Do What I Say, Not What I’ve Done

I  currently have 13 books on Amazon, not counting my short stories, special reports or books in the queue about to be published. Of those 13, I’ve only promoted 2 of them to any degree. Ouch! That hurts just to write it.
Well, that trends ends in 2015, to never be repeated again. My ‘stretch goal’ is to promote a new book every month. My minimum acceptable goal is to promote a book every other month. If I hit anywhere between those two targets, I’ll be a happy author. But how? What will those promotions be like?

Start with KDP Select

Most of my books are part of Amazon’s KDP Select which means they are exclusively on Amazon. Okay, that makes sense to start with but not to maintain that exclusivity forever. Having books on KDP Select gives an author two powerful promotional tools:

The catch is an author can only use one of these promotions in one 90-day KDP Select period. I think these are pretty nifty promotional tools especially for new authors trying to get their books noticed. This gives Amazon exclusivity for either 3-months or 6-months. But after that?
My plan is to do either a Free Book Promotion, a Countdown or both. After that, I’ll remove the book from KDP Select while keeping it on Amazon, of course. Amazon is still the largest sellers of e-books, but there’s no reason to continue giving exclusive distribution rights to Amazon. Right? Well, not in my way of thinking.
So, after the initial three to six-month period of Amazon exclusivity, I’ll make the book available to the other stores (Nook, Kobo, Apple iBook, Xin Xii, maybe Google Play Store). I’ll also offer them on my websites (Here and, for some of the books, at Life On Purpose Institute.)

Write, Publish, (Promote), Repeat

I’ve enjoyed listening to the Self Publishing Podcast (though I do wish those guys would stay on topic a bit more). I’ve learned a lot from Johhny, Sean and Dave including from their book, Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success) (The Smarter Artist Book 1). Still, it seems they’ve left out a step, at least in the book’s title. Without promotion, published books languish in cyberspace like a lonely, spider who’s set up its web off the beaten track waiting for some poor fly to stumble upon it. And just like the spider, non-promoting authors are likely to find themselves starving as well. So the next question is how to promote? Just put the book up on Amazon’s KDP Select for a five-day Free Promotion or a seven-day Countdown. That’s a start, but alone it won’t get the job done.

Spread the Word

There are now a ton of websites and Facebook pages in cyberspace offering free or discounted books to their subscribers, fans and visitors. Many are free, some charge a small fee for their premium positioning, and a few like Bookbub.com charge heavily (and in BookBub’s case reportedly produces the desired results). The problem with Bookbub.com is that they are so good, they can be picky…very picky, and on top of that they charge more than what many newbie indie authors can afford.
So, I’ll be sticking with the free or low-end sites, at least for starters. I also hope to have some of my books offered through a fairly new up and comer — Buckbooks.net. I like how they’re trying to help both their readers and their authors, including new authors. I think they have both their head and their heart in the right place.

Wifey and Fiverr

I’m so fortunate to have an amazing wife (we’ll be celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary this summer) who supports me completely in my indie authorpreneur career. She’ll be helping with a lot of the promotional work, but we’re also looking at some strategic outsourcing through Fiverr.com.  We’re going to try Facebookprogig’s offer submit a free Kindle bookSeedsOfaNewBirth2015 to 20 top book promotion sites and 60 Facebook Groups for $5. I’ll keep you posted on how that works.
(The book I’m promoting from January 28 through February 1 is
Seeds of a New Birth. More about that soon.)

Be Social

And of course, a marketing plan wouldn’t be worth anything these days if it didn’t at least mention social media. My personal preference is Facebook though it’s a bit of a love-hate relationship. I’ll be sharing about the monthly promotions and letting people know about new blog post through Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, and Google plus. Most of that is done automatically with my social media plug-in.
But mostly on social media, I plan to be social and to let people get to know me as a visionary author and indie authorpreneur.
Okay, there you have the bare-bones outline of my 2015 marketing plan.
Now, fellow writers and readers, it’s your turn. Let me know what you think. Let me know what else I should consider including in the plan or should eliminate.