What makes a best seller on Amazon?

This whole indie publishing thing is a daily learning process.  Just when you think you've got it worked out, your formula doesn't work.  When I wrote "The Christmas Cottage", I did not set out to write a best seller.  It just happened.  Only I didn't realize that until about two months after its release.  

What does that mean?  Well, here I was thinking that I was doing something phenomenal with my cheap and free marketing.  The truth was that I released a romantic holiday novella at Christmas time and people enjoy a holiday themed book.  It was priced at .99 cents as an ebook and so basically, the planets lined up on that one and I had a best seller.  

When I wrote the follow-up, "Ever After", there was no hook; there was no holiday that it was tied into and so I was just hoping to ride the coattails of the success of "The Christmas Cottage".  I marketed the same way; utilized a lot of the same websites that offered free or low cost promotions.  And I got two VERY different results.  "The Christmas Cottage" went into the top 100 Best Seller List in the Kindle Store in eight days.  "Ever After"?  It has never gotten that high on the list.

Well, that's not totally true; let me clarify.  The Kindle Store is the listing of ALL Kindle books.  Then it gets broken down into genres.  So while "Ever After" has (just recently) been on the best seller list, it was in sub-sub-SUB genre categories.

I did the free promo option on "Ever After" and STILL didn't break the top 100 in the Kindle Store.  And I did not get the bounce-back sales that I've heard people talk about, either, after their free days.  

I have blogged, tweeted, Tumblr'd, Facebooked...everything I could to spread the word about BOTH books and lightning did NOT strike twice.  I've come to learn through multiple indie authors that what happened with "The Christmas Cottage" sales-wise, was not the norm.  What I am experiencing with "Ever After" is.  A month after it's release, some random romance web-site promoted it on their bargain e-book day and I sold almost 800 books on that day alone!  That was more than I had sold in the month!  That was pure luck.

I'm learning to not obsess about the numbers and to not rely on this income.  I thought that I was going to be a bit more on easy-street when I was seeing the sales from "The Christmas Cottage" but have quickly learned that that was a seemingly one-time deal and I was lucky to experience it.  

So what makes a best seller on Amazon?  There seemingly is no direct answer.  They took away the like button so there goes that.  You need to get reviews.  THAT is a biggie.  The more reviews the better (and even more so when they are GOOD reviews).  But I've seen well-known authors having to essentially beg for reviews so imagine how hard it is for little ol' unknown me to get them!  

I'm going to keep writing.  I'm going to keep marketing the way that I do and maybe someday I'll luck out and get noticed by a big review site or by someone who just likes my work and I'll be able to get on and stay on the best seller list again.
 

Countdown to "Ever After"

So we have less than five days to go until the release of my newest book, "Ever After".  I am learning so much about publishing and marketing and promotion and I'm hoping that it will get easier with each book because right now it is still exhausting!

I feel like we are all over the web and very easy to find and follow.  That is truly the best way to market your book.  I am still feeling no love whatsoever from the local community - bookstores, newspapers, etc.  It was kind of depressing at first but then I realized that I want a much bigger audience than they have to offer and so, really, they are doing me a favor.  Plus, they are missing out BIG TIME!  LOL

I was blessed this week by two great websites.  Riley Banks did a wonderful interview with my alter-ego and published it two days ago.  It's titled "Samantha Chase gets her happily 'Ever After'".  Pretty clever right?  You can read it HERE.

Then the wonderful blog, Book Addict Mumma not only is promoting me as the author but is doing a giveaway for the set (The Christmas Cottage AND Ever After)!  You can go to the site HERE and enter for your chance to win the ebook set.

Both of these sites are amazing and it would be greatly appreciated if you shared the links with your friends, too.

So if you're thinking about doing any book marketing and promotion, where should you go?  Well here's the list of where to find me on the web (besides here at All Stace - lol):

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/SamanthaChaseFanClub 
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/SamanthaChase3
Tumblr:  http://samanthachasewriter.tumblr.com/ 
Website:  http://samanthachaseauthor.com
Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Samantha-Chase/e/B006CZWRGC/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1

I'll be honest with you, there is about another half dozen sites to go to but these are the main ones.  Check them out, like the pages and mark your calendars for Monday, February 25th, for the release of "Ever After".

And with a week to go...

So I am about a week away from the release of my next book, "Ever After".  I have gone with a new approach on this one - I've done a lot of pre-launch marketing and promotion.  We're going to find out if it actually has done any good.  

I got the contract in the mail from my agent. 

My agent.

I get to finally say that I have an agent!

Anyway, I finally got the contract and I am very excited to get started with them.  I have some edits to do on the book; nothing major, just my usual punctuation stuff and some wording changes.  All in all, I was very pleased that they didn't want me to do a whole lot of changes.

I'm going on a writing retreat next weekend.  It's a time for me to just get away from normal life and just sit and write all weekend long.  I tend to get a LOT done when I go on one of these and the timing couldn't be better.  Basically, with "Ever After" getting ready to release, and the edits on the agent book, I have a full-length novel that I want to release in March that needs some polishing AND I am in the middle of writing another novella that I want to release in April.  

Do I need to have my head examined??

Just smile and nod; I know that I do.

So in the midst of this madness, I have gotten heavily into the social media.  I created a Tumblr account for my alter ego.  We're going to see if this does anything for me.  I'll keep you posted on that endeavor.  Click HERE for the Tumblr link to "Chasing Romance".

And we're off... 

 

New Release Anxiety!

Okay, so here we are, mid-February and it has begun; the pre-launch marketing hooplah for the new book, "Ever After".  I'm not going to lie to you, I really enjoy getting the word out and seeing people share it but this is the first time that I've ever done it PRE release!

When I wrote "Jordan's Return", I sort of just published and waited.  Not a good plan.  Clearly you have to market and promote your book in order for it to sell.  Then with "The Christmas Cottage", it wasn't supposed to be anything but a way to keep my name out there until I possibly heard from the agent in New York on a full-length novel I had written.  My assistant was AMAZING in getting the word out on it and we sold 15,000 copies of it in the e-book format!

Not too shabby!

So now here we are with "Ever After".  The release date is February 25th and we want to hit the marketing bandwagon hard so that we generate excitement and get people ready to purchase.  I am not going to lie to you, I would LOVE to match the number of sales that we had with "The Christmas Cottage" and even surpass them.  Realistically?  I'm not sure that lightning will strike twice.

So what's a writer to do?

Well, we keep moving forward.  Each book is it's own entity.  I have learned that sometimes even your favorite author - whose work you love - can sometimes put out a book that is less than stellar.  I can name a few right now but I'm not going to.  That just wouldn't be right.  I'm not here to bash anyone, I'm just saying that even the best writers can't put out books that are awesome all of the time.  All I can do is sit and wait and pray that people will enjoy it.

We're hitting the Samantha Chase fan page hard; I'm hitting my own personal Facebook page hard.  I will be blogging, I will be using Twitter.  My son is making me a Tumblr page and basically, anywhere and everywhere that I can get the word out about "Ever After", the better.  You know where I CAN'T promote the book right now??  Amazon!  The one place that will be primarily selling the book will not let me do any pre-launch, pre-release stuff on it!  How wrong is that??

Won't you help spread the word too?  Tell your friends!  Share the links!  Share this post!!  Send them to the Facebook fan page.  Let's make the week of February 25th a huge success!!

 

A Teaser, a Tumblr and a Thank You

Just when I think I am finally getting the knack of the whole internet and social media thing, something new comes along and suddenly I feel like I am still using a hammer and chisel while writing on a piece of slate.  Good grief is there a lot to learn!  I barely know how to use my iPhone and my computer is 8 years old and I am barely even wanting to know about anything new because as soon as I think I've got it all figured out, something new will come along and once again I'll be in the dark.

I have been charging forward with all kinds of internet marketing and promo stuff and I felt pretty good with the whole thing. I have the blog, I have a website, I've got a Facebook page, a Twitter account, I'm on Pinterest and Google+ but the other day I was out with my now-21 year old child and he's like "you should totally be on Tumblr".

Tumblr?

Really?

Like it's not enough that I have no idea what he's talking about but when I looked it up and saw the spelling I wept for our youth.  What in the world??  Can someone please explain the spelling of that word to me?  

*Note: For those of you interested, visiting time at the old-folks home is between 5 a.m. and noon - then I go down for a nap.

So I had to admit to my cluelessness and he promised that once he got settled at school that he would set one up for me and this would be HUGE for my book promotions.  Sure, we'll see.  Everything that has "guaranteed" me huge success for my book has fallen short of my expectations.  

Today I got a very sweet note from one of my dear aunts.  It was just a quick note telling me that she's proud and that she loves me and that she thinks that it's wonderful that we're experiencing some success.  I cried.  I literally cried when I read that because there are many CLOSE relatives that haven't said a word to me about the book's success.  I thought that it was amazing that my aunt took the time to just send me a note that was just so encouraging to me!  Don't you love getting a little uplifting surprise like that in your in-box?

I've received so many kind words of support from people that I barely know!  I had the opportunity to meet some great people last week at my cousin's house and one great lady friend requested me on Facebook and then promoted my book on her page!  She wasn't looking for anything in return, just wanted to be encouraging.  Love that!

I reached out to a fellow Indie author - Noelle Adams.  She's written three novella's and I've enjoyed them all - and so I reached out to her on Facebook and asked if she'd be interested in a little cross promoting and so she promoted "The Christmas Cottage" on her page and liked my author page, while I did the same for her with her newest release, "One Night With Her Bodyguard".  If you're looking for more novella's (until my next one comes out in March!), then check out Noelle Adams works.  She's wonderful!

So the next book - yet to be titled - is going to be released (hopefully) by the first week of March.  Want a sneak peak?  Here's a tiny peak:
 

When Ava Callahan walked away from her fairytale wedding, it was in search of her true happily ever after.

She hadn’t counted on it coming searching for her.

Keep watching here for more peaks at Ava's story!