One of the most serious drawbacks to driving sales on Amazon (in the past) has been that an author can’t directly promote to her Amazon readers. It’s in the best interest of both Amazon and the author that the readers most interested in the author receive information that leads to future sales. Amazon has done its own promoting to its customers at its sole discretion until recently. To benefit from this type of promotion, an author had to generate robust sales and strong and numerous reviews. I can still remember clearly the first time I learned Amazon had emailed customers about one of my books. It was like winning the lottery. Heck, it still is. I’ve had most success with it recently when I put my books up for Kindle pre-order (although the pre-order strategy overall is not as impactful as it was in the past; read more on that, HERE). Here’s an example of the randomly wonderful e-mails Amazon sends, from August 13 (not in conjunction with a pre-order, but a week after a new release):
Those Amazon emails are great, and they drive sales, but the followers of an author have indicated that they want to hear more about the author, and recently Amazon starting giving these followers (and the authors) what everyone really wanted: personal new release emails from the authors to their followers.
It helps to know what I mean by follower: Followers in this instance are people that have clicked Follow on the author’s Amazon page, and thus to hear from Amazon when the author has a new release. Amazon knows who those people are and how to contact them, but the author does not. Yet if anyone wanted to hear from the author personally out of all the people that shop on Amazon, these would be some of them.
So, for the first time ever, here’s what I got from Amazon last week when I released Earth to Emily (Emily #2):
My reaction: O M G!!!!!!!
Um, YESSSSS!! So I drafted the message I wanted my followers to get, and here’s what Amazon sent me:
I saved you the “Read More” text (you’re welcome)! And I just now saw the typo. Ay Carumba. Next time I’m running the text by my editor!
Here’s what followers got:
I wish they hadn’t had to click to get the message, but . . . Amazon is moving in the right direction, so I’ll quit kvetching.
Or maybe I won’t. Now, here’s the drawback: there’s been absolutely zero reason to promote Amazon author page follows in the past. I have 12 books out. I’ve followed my own Amazon author page since the beginning. I’d never received an email (to my knowledge) as a follower. If I only published on Amazon, maybe I would have promoted it, but I publish in wide distribution, so instead I promoted my webpage with links to all my retailers. Yet 60% of my sales come from Amazon, so all of a sudden, I’m rethinking this and trying to decide how to gently introduce my contacts to the urgent need for them to follow my Amazon author page. I take that back. My contacts hear from me in many ways. They don’t need this follower new release email from Amazon. I need it to go to the Amazon customers I don’t already know, and I can’t promote my own Amazon author page to them for that very reason. Only Amazon can.
Dilemmas.
I guess I should still promote to my contacts and ask them to promote it to theirs, and hope for some social networking magic.
Meanwhile, though, I’m thrilled about this development/feature. I hope this acknowledgement of the desire of readers to hear from authors is a trend Amazon pursues enthusiastically.
I’d be really interested in your thoughts on how best to promote your author pages in the comments below . . .
Pamela
Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes overly long e-mails, award-winning and best-
selling mysteries, and hilarious nonfiction, chairs the board of the Houston Writers Guild, and dabbles in employment practices resources investigations from time to time. She is passionate about great writing, smart authorpreneurship, and her two household hunks, husband Eric and one-eyed Boston terrier Petey. She blogs on writing, publishing and promotion at Skip the Jack and on her beleaguered family, and much-too-personal life at Road to Joy. She also leaps medium-tall buildings in a single bound (if she gets a good running start). Check out her USA Best Book Award winning novel, Going for Kona, her permafree mystery (and series lead), Saving Grace, her writing/publishing/promotion Bible, What Kind of Loser Indie Publishes, and How Can I Be One, Too?, her newest mystery, Earth to Emily (Emily #2).