No matter how you approach it, Jamie McGuire’s new deal with WalMart is groundbreaking. Jamie left her sweetheart Atria deal to go indie—for happiness/control reasons, I hear—and parlayed the success of a (traditionally published) novel into a trilogy that has resulted in landing one of her indie books on WalMart’s shelves in select stores. A CreateSpace […]
Category: Promotion
Indie Publishing: 3 Chances to Work With Successful Indie Author Pamela Fagan Hutchins
1. Indiepalooza: 1 hour, plus conference 2. Indie Fest: 3-hour workshop 3. Indie Writers Retreat: two-day retreat
Indie Publishing Success Retreat for Writers
For reviews and more information as well as registration, visit http://pamelahutchins.com/speaking/writing-retreats/.
Amazon Giveaways: An Update
A few weeks ago, I blogged on giveaways on Amazon and Goodreads. For us, Goodreads was an ongoing strategy, but Amazon was completely new. Pamela Fagan Hutchins tried it for her mystery Heaven to Betsy. The promo ran for one week, which was the set period and not something that could be changed. That matches the time […]
New and Nifty Feature: Author e-mails to Amazon Followers
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 […]
Has the Amazon Ranking “Algorithm” Changed?
Amazon ranks product sales within categories on its website. That includes books. Amazon allows pre-orders (pre-sales) of e-books by both traditionally published and independent authors. In addition, traditional and independent authors both promote their books through non-Amazon sites and sources. A few months ago—April 2, 2015 to be exact—I released Heaven to Betsy. I offered it […]
Online Paperback Giveaways: Amazon versus Goodreads
We’ve long been fans at SkipJack of giving away paperbacks on Goodreads to create impressions on the cover, title, and author, as well as to increase “to-reads” and potentially drive reviews from the winners, but we’ve yet to try the new Amazon Giveaways feature. First, Goodreads. Goodreads allows authors to give away paperback copies of […]
Congratulations to SkipJack Author Ken Oder: #57 on Amazon
Congratulations to SkipJack author Ken Oder. His debut legal thriller, The Closing, hit #57 overall on Amazon, and #1 in the legal thriller category. Ken’s next novel, Old Wounds to the Heart, comes out this summer. Ken achieved his bestseller status with a ten-day promo blitz modeled off SkipJack’s strategy (here) for past bestseller-run-promos that included: 1. […]
Do Facebook Book Promotion Groups Make Sense?
Yesterday someone innocently posted a question on Facebook about book promotion groups. It triggered an epic rant by me, so I thought I would share it here, and see if it warranted anymore discussion. There, I feel better with that off my chest. What questions, issues, concerns, or rants of your own does this trigger? […]
If you don’t enter, you can’t win.
We’ve preached the value of entering contests many times here on the Skip the Jack blog. Brush up on all that HERE. Meanwhile, we are super excited to announce that our own Ken Oder received word that his debut novel, The Closing, is an INDIEFAB mystery/thriller finalist. If he hadn’t entered, he couldn’t have won, and […]