Tag: kindle

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 […]

Selective Quality Control Courtesy of KDP?

Interesting. I’d heard people were starting to get threatening emails from Amazon about pulling their books down for spelling errors. I’d even heard some had their books pulled. I just hadn’t received any emails myself. I use multiple layers of professional editing and as a result, my books (not my blog posts; they are not […]

Kindle-Power Your Direct Email Promotion to Readers

Direct email contact is the most sure way to get in front of potential readers. But how do you achieve it? One way is to build your own list of interested opt-in subscribers that you administer through an online application like Mailchimp or Constant Contact, through your friends and contacts, through your website and blog, […]

How Bookbub and Permafree Changed My Life Last Week

So if you follow this blog, you know a) I’m a huge proponent of Bookbub and b) I’ve been lucky enough to have them feature my books three times, the third being Friday June 27. I wrote about the first two times HERE and HERE. They were great. This third time literally is a game […]

How to Sell a Ton of Books with BookBub: A Tale of Two Authors

This post is a follow-up to Holy Crapoly: You’re Going to Want to Hear This! Recently two Amazon bestselling authors set out to promote their second novels. A lot had changed in the world of ebook promotion since each of their debuts, however. When Rodney Walther first released Broken Laces, he had great success with […]

Holy Crapoly! You’re Going to Want to Hear About This.

Well, give us 10 days to collect all the data and we’ll have quite an indie publishing story to share with you. What, you ask? What story? What happened? Well, I finally, after six applications and five rejections, got a BookBub day. I got it for the book I wanted, too: Saving Grace, the lead […]

What’s good for the goose is NOT good for the gander, on Amazon.

I LOVE Amazon. Please understand, as an indie author, I make the bulk of my $$$$$ on Amazon. In many ways, they single-handedly caused the leveling of the traditional publishing playing field so that indies have a chance to publish on their terms. I don’t love EVERYTHING about Amazon, however, because I’m not a robot. […]

Interesting, and not in a good way: sales crash post KDP Select.

The latest tale in the saga of our indie publishing is a tragedy, not a triumph. We plan to turn it around, and you’ll get a ring side seat, but here’s the scoop for now. Some of you may recall that we had a tremendous run on KDP Select with Saving Grace, first as a free […]