Carey Lewis said:
Got my second rejection from Scout today, so I feel like a battered Scout Warrior.
Is there anyone out there who has had a successful launch and can offer advice? I've been through the forums and the methods seem to vary. I'm thinking of putting the book on pre-sale just to get the ASIN, then running an AMS ad for it, then trying to get bargainbooksy or something for when the book goes live. Was toying with the idea of having the presale at .99 then going to 2.99 or 3.99 after launch.
I'm also very much on the fence about going into Select now with all the problems that have been reported with no news on the horizon as to when it'll get fixed.
All other books I've had, I just literally hit the publish button and let it go.
I'm so sorry to hear that your book wasn't accepted--though it doesn't shake my confidence you will be very successful at some point.
Here's a link I bookmarked about promo sites that will take new releases:
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,236763.0.html It has a lot of information.
I haven't done preorders before, but I always have started out with a $.99 intro price, and that does seem to encourage sales.
AMS ads work, though they take experimentation to stay within reasonable costs but still generate enough clicks to get sales. They do move books, though.
I have tried online release parties (Facebook events), and I have mixed feelings. The first couple I did definitely boosted sales and early reviews. The last one didn't, and I haven't tried since. It is a bit of a cash investment, since the most common ways to get people to engage are games with prizes and small giveaways.
Fun fact: if you do an FB release party, there's a way to have your guests interact with the book characters! You can create an FB page for a fictional character. If you then make any character pages cosponsors of event, those pages can post as if they were real people. It does create an interesting effect. If you don't go the release party route, you can use the same technique on your author page and sometimes post as your characters. Depending on your audience, that can sometimes give engagement and the book you're advertising a little boost.
I haven't tried this, but I've known people who did a reading of the first part of their book and posted the result on YouTube. (The visual is usually a montage with the cover and other suitable images.) They claim to have gotten some extra traffic that way, and it doesn't cost anything.
As far as Select is concerned, I firmly believe every author should experiment. Some people make almost no sales outside Amazon, but some people make significant sales that way. I've tried going wide twice, and both times I made less in a year on all the other outlets than I make in one month through KU (even currently wonky KU). However, I know other people who get 20 or 30% of their income from other sites, in some cases even more.