Five Killer Tips Every Kindle Author Should Be Using

Please note: there is now an updated and superior version of this article over on my new author website, The Outdoors Author. 

It's been a while since I posted here, what with all the many developments in the Armadaverse lately. By way of apology, this post is for my author colleagues — primarily those who publish through KDP and perhaps Createspace.

In this post we will look at five strategies every Kindle author should be using to maximise return on investment, increase market penetration for their series, provide best value to fans, cooperate with other authors, and make the most of their sales data.

Why am I giving away such useful information? Pretty simple really: as I have said before, I don't consider other indie authors to be 'the competition'. You are colleagues.

Use SumoMe to Drive Sales from your Book Site

It's every author's nightmare.

Your new site is looking awesome. You are about to hit "go" on some well-tuned Facebook advertising, and you hope this will give sales a bump, since most of your books' rankings have started to drop off on Amazon.

The advert goes live. Impressions start coming in, and soon you are racking up the conversions. Yes, people are going to your site through the ad! Money well spent.

But then the book sales don't really move. At all. They stay stubbornly on trend, and that trend is "meh".

What to do?

Well, as luck would have it, this exact scenario happened to me shortly after I created the shiny new ArmadaWars.com web site. Because I don't believe in holding back strategies that would help other authors (you're my colleagues, not my competition!) I'm going to share my solution with you now.

Use Scrivener's Keywords to Manage Your Series

I'm having a little break from writing The Ravening Deep, so I thought I'd share a technique I'm using now that I have moved my entire Armada Wars operation from Open Office to that unbelievably good writer's app: Scrivener.

In this article, we'll start with the premise that you are writing (or starting) a series of novels set in the same universe. Here not only will you discover how to manage the books from your series in a single project file, but you'll also learn how to make the most of the keywords feature in Scrivener by setting up keywords in a structured fashion.

Wollen Sie diesen Artikel auf Deutsch lesen wollen? Gehe hier hin.

Don't forget that this blog is now for behind-the-scenes reporting on the Armada Wars universe, and RCV's posts on writing and for writers. All of the current news and events going on in the Armadaverse can now be found on the all new web site at www.ArmadaWars.com!

Donation Made: Save the Children campaign for the Nepal Quake

You might remember that back at the start of May, in the wake of the disastrous Nepal earthquake, I pledged all of the May/June author profits from the Armadaverse to the Save the Children relief campaign.

That donation has now been made.

It's sod's law of course that May and June were the slowest sales months so far this year for the Armada Wars books on the Kindle store. The paperback sales were surprisingly healthy by comparison to previous months (although still in single digits most months; I don't think my target audience likes paper very much.)

Towards the end of June I went to the length of promoting List of the Dead with a double-pronged attack: a Kindle Countdown discount on that book, with a giveaway of Steal from the Devil to get people interested.

Obviously many, many more people downloaded a free copy of Devil than bought a discounted copy of List, but I am fairly certain from looking at the monthly and daily trends that this tactic meant there were more sales than there would have been without the offers. Which meant a larger donation for Save the Children!

The total profits that would have gone into my pocket came to just under £50 GBP, which is not very much at all but it will still save lives. I rounded it up of course, from my own money. Because I am a UK citizen there is also an additional 25% whacked on top of that through the "Gift Aid" tax relief system, so the campaign will actually receive £62.50.

I look forward to the day when regular sales are good enough that I can donate much larger sums!

The effects of the quake have still not gone away, even though the world's reporters appear to have done. If you wish to make your own donation, you'll find the option on this Save the Children donation page.

May/June Profits to go to Nepal - Save the Children

Unless you have been visiting another world recently, you will know that an earthquake struck Nepal on 25th April 2015.

More than 7,000 people are known to have been killed, and there are potentially many more yet to be located.

The legacy of this quake is that there are now thousands of people in need of urgent medical attention, food, clothing, and shelter. Hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed by the quake.

Nepal is one of Asia's poorest countries by GDP, and it is no slur to say that they are struggling with the aftermath of this disaster.

To try and help in any way possible, all of the author profits generated by the Armada Wars universe in May and June will go to Save the Children's campaign for the victims of the Nepal quake.

If you wish to donate to the appeal, but not buy into the Armada Wars brand, you can make a direct donation on the Save the Children Nepal Earthquake Appeal page.

Another Scam to Avoid...

You may remember that I posted an article a while ago about a site claiming to allow downloads of a pirate copy of List of the Dead, before I had even finished writing it.

Thanks to Google Alerts, which I use to notify me automatically when people write about the Armada Wars universe, I have now identified another scam. This one is similar but much more sophisticated.

Google Alerts found what it thought was a genuine link (now removed), to a site called fire-italia.org. When you click the link, it takes you through a series of redirects (one page forwarding you to another page on a different server) until you land on what appears to be a discussion forum. In this case, the topic under discussion was Steal from the Devil, and the thread starter said they were looking to download it cheaply.

That was my first clue, since it's only $2.99 (£2) on Kindle anyway.

You Really Matter! Why your views should be in REviews

This article was — I have to admit — prompted by a couple of reviews on one of my own books, my début novel Steal from the Devil. While I will refer to SFTD as an example to illustrate some of my points, what I'm going to talk about here applies to all books, whether they be fiction or non-fiction, traditionally published or self-published, paper or eBook, as well as other products.

The basic foundation of this article is this: any given reader is not just a lone "end customer". They are part of a community of readers, and also part of the ongoing life-cycle of books.

I'm going to talk about the problems with reviews, the value of good and bad reviews to writers, their value to readers, and what each group will find useful. So if that is the sort of thing that will interest you, read on!

Updated: "Steal from the Devil" Second Edition

While writing List of the Dead, I learned a few things about writing fiction which were all news to me. They are little twiddly bits which don't typically get taught at school, and which are generally only of interest to editors. But every one of them is something which works to improve the structure and flow of text. Some are typographic (like proper use of the em-dash), some are to do with breaking and closing dialogue, and so on.

So I have gone back over Steal from the Devil with a fine-toothed comb, and applied what I have learned. The difference — I think — is subtle but effective.

While I was at it, I also weeded out some split infinitives. I say 'some'... turns out that when I looked for them specifically, there were a lot. A few sentences and bits of dialogue have been restructured for clarity.

Plot is not affected, and perhaps the only really significant change is in the first chapter. Because a minority of readers found it 'choppy' and 'disjointed' (real words from real reviews), I have de-chopped and re-jointed it. The Hammer's emergence from the wormhole now runs straight into the passage which introduces Captain Aker Santani, and the passage in which we see Caden's dream now runs directly into him waking up and contacting Rendir Throam.

All in all, I think it's a much better read. Had I not rushed so much to get it out last December it is probably the text I would have ended up with.

The paperback has been updated to the second edition, and new Kindle customers will get it automatically since it's now live on the Kindle store. Existing customers on Kindle need to visit their "Manage your Content and Devices" page on Amazon to get the updated file (it's easy).

A Progressive Learning Experience

This is a blog post with two purposes, and one that I have been thinking about writing for a couple of months now. It's partly for the fans of the new universe I've apparently unleashed, to tell them what to expect next, and partly for other independent writers who are either headed towards their first release, or thinking about how to get on with their next book.

Beware Pirate Scam Sites

As part of my marketing strategy, I have a couple of saved web searches which let me see quickly what is being said about Armada Wars and Steal from the Devil. Something I have noticed becoming increasingly more prevalent in the search results is a particular type of pirate site offering a "PDF copy" of SFTD.

After I found the first one, I filed a DMCA notice. But before that notice could even be processed, the site had been taken down by the host company for breaching their terms (i.e. for being pirates).

By modifying my saved search slightly, I found a good half a dozen more similar sites. One thing has become clear as I examined them: these sites are not simply pirate sites; they are scams.

The scam goes like this:

• The scam site "scrapes" stores like Amazon for trending and popular digital items;
• A product page is made for each interesting item. This often includes bogus information such as a "stock" number which changes at random every time the page is loaded (how exactly would one keep a stock of eBooks anyway?)
• Clicking on the link to "Download the PDF Now!" opens a new window which requires the "shopper" (read: cheap, gullible future con victim) to complete an "offer" first;
• Assuming the "offer" points to a genuine site, and not a nest of malware, the scam site owner profits from farming out a paid task;
• The "shopper" gets either nothing, a PDF full of junk, or a download that turns their computer into a zombie or holds the personal drive to ransom.

I can understand why people wouldn't want to invest $4.49 (£2.99) in an untested author. But there are other ways to get Steal from the Devil for less, and even for free. I'd much rather people put it on their Kindle wishlist and wait until it's on offer, than pull the double-whammy of circumventing my rights as the author and putting their own computer at risk. It's just the better option all around!

In short, I would rather take a hit to my own royalties than see the scummy, thieving, pretend pirate sites cream a neat referral profit by exploiting readers.

Seriously. Wishlist. Discounts and giveaways are announced on Twitter and/or Facebook, so just give me and Armada Wars a follow/like.

Launched: "Steal from the Devil", Armada Wars Book 1

Steal from the Devil was launched on the Kindle platform on 20th December 2013, marking the beginning of the Armada Wars universe.

The novel is the opening to the first five-part story arc, and introduces some of the key people, planets, and concepts.

All alone at the edge of human territory, a clandestine Imperial facility has suddenly fallen silent, and operative Elm Caden has been tasked by the Empress herself to find out why. Haunted by his past, in a series of unprecedented and increasingly unnerving episodes, Caden wants and expects a straightforward mission with a simple conclusion. What he finds is a woman whose mind is missing.

As the evidence of a hostile incursion mounts, and the Imperial Combine begins to mobilise a massive retaliatory strike against a neighbouring power, Caden and his companions discover a web of intrigue which becomes steadily more disturbing. One thing is clear: the threat is very real, very dangerous, and it has its origins somewhere in the Deep Shadows. Out there, in the darkness between the bright arms of the galaxy, something subversive and malignant is preparing for a conflict capable of changing the face of the entire Milky Way.

Driven by its personable characters and heart-thumping battle scenes, and eschewing the traditional clichés of science fiction, Steal from the Devil imparts a sense of believable events unfolding in a realistic universe. After all, in a galaxy with billions of stars, sometimes reality is stranger — and more terrifying — than any fiction...

Fill the Silence. Light the Dark.

 

"Steal from the Devil" is available on all the regional Kindle store fronts. You can find all regional links on the official web site.