Wicked Wednesday - promoting tips and one day until The Marquis

One more day until the first book of the 13th Floor series is officially released. I'm hyperventilating a little bit and eating too much chocolate. I worry about whether I'm doing enough to promote the series. So I've been reading articles about self-promotion. When I'm anxious about something, research does help. Or it's enough to distract me from my worries!

Here are a few things I've learned about promoting your books:
1. Word-of-mouth is extremely important. When people get talking about your book, it can snowball. Especially on sites like Twitter.
2. Reviews are also very important. Encourage readers to leave reviews on their blogs and from wherever they purchased your book. Send your book to review sites.
3. Samples and excerpts will let readers who are unfamiliar with your work get a peek. Pick something that will hook them.
4. Have an awesome cover and blurb. These will attract readers who randomly come across your book.
5. If you can afford it, use paid advertising.

Tomorrow I begin my eight day blog tour for The Marquis. My first stop is at Cherie Reich's blog. We'll be starting the excitement right off with a giveaway. Every day during the tour, I'll be posting a tidbit about The Marquis or the 13th Floor series. On the 21st, I'll be revealing the cover to the second book in the series, The Alpha.

And then I'll be taking a little Christmas break to catch up on my sleep!

Release Round-up

Thank you so much to everyone who helped make my release week a success. You guys are awesome!

Here's some things I learned while promoting FEARLESS.

1) Blogs are the most powerful tools for promoting. Arrange a blog tour. Even just a shout-out from a blogger friend makes a big difference. I got a lot of positive comments from my interviews and guest posts. Also, the blogfest was a huge success. I never imagined the response I received. It was simple and fun. Something everyone could participate in. It linked to a theme in my book: monsters! That's attention grabbing in itself.

Speaking of the power of blogs, I have 360 followers. Welcome to all my new friends! I follow back if you provide a link.

2) Twitter was my second most powerful social media tool. I tweeted about my book and the blogfest a lot, but not so much it became spam. Friends retweeted my tweets. Thousands of people might have seen my blurbs for FEARLESS. I have over 600 followers on Twitter now. I'll still continue to promote my book on there at least once a day.

3) People like free things. If your book isn't free, have a couple of giveaways. FEARLESS is free on Smashwords. Here's how many copies I've sold on each site:

Smashwords - 476

Kobo - 0

Amazon Kindle -10

B&N - 0

CreateSpace (print) -  4

The figures very clearly speak for themselves. I'd love to see it price-matched on Amazon and see what it does to sales on there. Please, if you've a minute, copy the Smashwords link and paste it into the price-matching tool on the FEARLESS Amazon page where you see the link under Product Details. I'd greatly appreciate it.

4) FEARLESS on Smashwords is doing wonderfully. I found the site easy to use, and if you don't want to load your book up to any of the other sites, Smashwords eventually does it for you unless you opt out. I don't know if I would have seen that number if I charged for the book, but it's a fantastic way of getting myself out there and hooking readers in.

What I've heard is that sales should rise if you continue to promote and get more reviews. Also, sales will rise if you have more books out there for people to buy. Right now, series are very popular. They do help sell your books.

5) I sent FEARLESS to a bunch of review sites. I haven't gotten a review yet. I know they're very busy, and so if they do happen to do a review, it might take a while. If you are brave enough to get your book reviewed, send a copy to sites like Bitten By Books or Smexy Books a good couple of months before your release. Some of them do not take self-published books. Make sure to read their submission requirements before you send anything.

I hope what I've learned can help you too. If you have any tips, please comment and share them with us.