There is a wonderful initiative that is run by one very busy lady, a pro-active author who helps other authors. Yes, you are quite right there are lots of people out there who do a lot to support the Indie community.
What makes this initiative special? This one could really work if more people took part.
The idea is that each week there is a spotlight author/book, for that week you have to either have your book priced at .99c or .99p or for free. Then then members over the space of the week buy this book. If they are so inclined, they can read and review also, but that isn’t a necessity. There is no spotlight for the weeks over Christmas and New Year, so the most you commit to is £50.00 or $50.00 per year. You don’t have to buy each and everyone but to make it work it would help. If you already have the spotlight book, you just write that in the comments box.
So what does that do? The increased sales, especially spread out over the week takes you up the Amazon rankings and once you get within the top 100 in a category you may get sales from randoms because if we’re honest how many of us have the patience to trawl through 500 pages to find a book we might be interested in- it doesn’t really happen. If you disagree with me, please feel free to scroll through until you reach mine, pick it, send me a screenshot of your purchase and I will be happy to eat my words. No really, please do that…now!
I was lucky enough to be the spotlight author during the week of the 15th February. I also followed this up with a BookHippo promotion. My Novella’s fall below the word count allowed for BookSends and BookBub otherwise I would have kept the momentum going with them.
So what happened for me? Before the spotlight my sales chart was flatlining, I was waiting for the time of death statement.
I am going to attach more screenshots here than you may want to see, but please feel free to scroll from the top to the bottom to give you the picture.
Amazon UK:
14/2/2016
15/2/2016 – Spotlight starts (5 sales)
16/2/2016 (3 sales)
17/2/2016 (3 sales)
18/2/2016 (1 sale)
19/2/2016 (0 sales – 1 review)
Didn’t do a screenshot
20/2/2016 (6 sales – Book Hippo that day also)
21/2/2016 (1 sale) last day
1 week later with no additional sales
Can you imagine what those figures would look like if more people participated, worth thinking about.
Amazon US:
14/2/2016 (2 sales) presumably the difference in time zones attributed to early sales
15/2/2016 (1 sale)
16/2/2016 (0 Sales)
17/2/2016 (1 sale)
18/2/2016 (0 sales)
No screenshot today
19/2/2016 (0 sales)
No screenshot today
20/2/2016 (1 sale)
21/2/2016 (0 sales)
One week later with no additional sales
Amazon Canada:
I didn’t have any ranking on the Canadian site, so anything was a bonus. I won’t post every day.
18/2/2016 (2 sales)
19/2/2016 (1 sale)
20/2/2016 (1 sale)
One week later with no additional sales
I would love to have been able to report that my sales had continued but alas that isn’t true but maybe had the amount of participating members been higher the rankings may have risen higher and stayed there for longer. I certainly enjoyed being part of this and will continue to support the spotlight each week.
If anyone hasn’t bought ‘As Dreams are Made on.’ I have left it at the sale price 0.99 in whatever country you are in.
I would like to thank everyone who bought the book, read or reviewed or still plans to do so.
I would especially like to thank Tanya whose hard work makes this group possible. I want to end by doing a mini interview with Tanya.
Me: What was your motivation behind the Spotlight of the week?
Tanya: I was frustrated at how the big publishers are able to set a book off at a run when it’s released because of having such a larger support network. I wanted to see if we could develop a similar type of network for indies.
Me: What would you like to see from the group?
Tanya: I’d love to see it grow into the thousands and potentially branch off by genre.
Me: You are an exceptionally busy woman who not only works but writes so where do you find the time to help other people so much?
Tanya: There’s a saying, “if you want something to get done, ask a busy person” lol. I love helping people, it’s inherent in my nature, as such I tend to make the time to do the things I love. It helps that I don’t have a social life too haha.
Me: You have published your own book, ‘Dreams of Beautiful Whisper.’ when do you plan to make your book the spotlight of the week?
Tanya: My plan was to wait until I had book 2 completed, though that’s been delayed a bit, so I’m not sure on my timing. I also didn’t want members to feel that the purpose of the group was self-serving for my own book, so I haven’t made my book a priority for the Spotlight. I’ve also tried to stress to those submitting their books for the Spotlight that it’s important to have supporting marketing lined up for before, during and after a Spotlight position in order to maximize the benefits from it. I don’t have that stuff lined up for my own book yet, so that’s another factor in me holding off for now.
Me: Have you got a release date in mind for book two?
Tanya: Originally I was aiming for, well now lol, but a variety of circumstances in my life has caused a delay. So at this point I’m really not 100% sure when I’ll get it finished. But I am hoping to at least have ARCs available before the summer. (It is coming along nicely and my read along editors are loving it!)
Me: What advice would you give to anyone starting out on the journey of writing?
Tanya: As for the writing side – just do it. Make sure you’re writing something (anything) every day. Keep learning about the craft and always aim to improve your grammar, spelling, punctuation and word choice. For the rest of it, don’t try to rush the process. Do your research, learn the ins and outs and then approach it all very methodically. This can be a huge challenge for creative types as we do tend to be more sporadic and random by nature. But if you’re wanting to publish your work (by any means) it’s important to treat it as a business and to make sure you have a well thought out plan in place that you then consistently execute.
Please check this group out on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1675211409402187/
or on the website:
http://panopticnews.com/bookshopbistro/
Maria Gibbs 