Tag Archives: Kindle unlimited

SPFBO #Fantasy books to add to your TBR. Free to read with #KindleUnlimited

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Many people in the self publishing world will be aware of the annual ‘Self Published Fantasy Blog Off’ competition set up by Mark Lawrence. 300 hundred books are whittled down to just 1 winner.

A great community has sprung up around this competition. Part of that has been authors coming together to share news of their books, price promos and today I’m sharing the page set up to showcase some SPFBO authors, past and present, whose books are free to read with Kindle Unlimited.

J Elizabeth Vincent has kindly put this together, please take a look here.

SPFBO-KU

Both of my books, Visions of Zarua (entered 2016) and The Lost Sentinel (current entry), are on the list.

Talking of The Lost Sentinel I just found out at the weekend that Lynn, the judge with my book in her group of 30 books has picked The Lost Sentinel as one of her second batch reads this month! That means in a few weeks time I will hopefully know if The Lost Sentinel is still in the running. Check out Lynn’s post about her latest choices over on Lynns book blog.

I have everything crossed, but the competition is very strong. I know I would make a useless judge, but thankfully I only have to read for the pleasure of it and don’t have to pick any winners.

I have purchased a number of titles thanks to this competition. Here is a link to my post about the books I’ve bought and why.

Thanks for reading, and I hope to be back tomorrow with my first book review in a while.

Happy 2nd Birthday to Visions of Zarua my debut #standalone #epicfantasy – It’s #giveaway time!

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It has been two years since I published my first book, Visions of Zarua. This time two years ago I was buzzing with fear and excitement, and still in shock that I had actually released my baby into the world.

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Now, with two books published and a third planned for next year, I feel more confidant as a self published author.

On the anniversary of Visions of Zarua’s Ebook publication, I’ve enjoyed reading through the reviews on Amazon and Goodreads to appreciate how well received it has been by the public. I thought I’d share the latest stats with you, before announcing my two giveaways…

Goodreads: Visions of Zarua has an average rating of 4.32 stars with 28 ratings and 16 reviews. It’s currently on the bookshelves of over 1520 people.

Amazon UK has 19 reviews and an average of 4.5 star rating.

Amazon US is a bit behind with 12 reviews and a 4.3 star ratings.

And now here’s the link to enter my Goodreads giveaway. It’s open worldwide, so why not have a go.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Visions of Zarua by Suzanne Rogerson

Visions of Zarua

by Suzanne Rogerson

Giveaway ends November 24, 2017.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

 

I’m also giving away an Ebook on my blog! All you have to do is comment on this post and I’ll pick a random winner on 24th November, the same day the paperback giveaway ends. If you’ve already read it, you can still comment and nominate a friend to receive an early Christmas present!

I’d love you to retweet and share this post with as many people as possible too, but it’s not a requirement for entry.

You can find out more about Visions of Zarua – A standalone epic fantasy, by following the links below (don’t forget it’s also available to read for free on Kindle Unlimited);

Amazon UK  and  Amazon US.

And if you have read Visions and would like to leave a review, I would love to read your thoughts. I’m still hoping to break the 20 review barrier by Christmas, so it would be great if you could help me out.

I’ll end with my favourite photo quote from the blog tour last year…

cathy - pyre picture quote

Today is publication day for The Lost Sentinel! #fantasy #epicfantasy http://mybook.to/LostSentinel

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After years of writing, months of editing and weeks of planning, The Lost Sentinel is now available to buy on Amazon and free to read if you are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited.

I’m keeping the 99p / 99c pre order price discount running for the duration of the blog tour, so it’s not to late to pick it up at the bargain price.

Talking of the blog tour I’ll be sharing two posts today on day 6 of the tour. A guest post aimed at writers ’12 questions to ask yourself before writing a trilogy or series’. And a book review.

There’s plenty more to come on the blog tour as well…

I hope you can join me on the rest of the tour. And if you do decide to take a chance and pick up The Lost Sentinel, please consider leaving a review.

The Lost Sentinel – Amazon universal link

Have a wonderful Friday everyone!

#wwwblogs 1 month to go: The Lost Sentinel 99p / 99c pre-order http://mybook.to/LostSentinel #fantasy

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There is just under a 1 month to go until the publication of The Lost Sentinel and I’ve been very busy.

The paperback cover is complete and I love the design. Thanks so much to The Cover Collection for their brilliant artwork and swift service.

image paperback full spread

The proof copy is ordered and already on its way from Createspace.

I’m adding the final touches to the kindle edition (hyperlinks etc).

ARC’s have been going out to reviewers.

I’ve agreed a book stall at my daughter’s summer fair, and am thinking of contacting the local newspaper to see if they’d be interested it featuring the event.

Oh and I’m about to be 40! I have a couple of cool birthday treats lined up; visiting the caves at Cheddar Gorge, the Roman baths at Bath, and a falconry day. All great fun, but also research and photography opportunities.

Back to the book;

image kindle and pb

Oh, I love it!

I haven’t decided whether to do a blog tour or not yet, as I’m struggling to think of material. Some book reviewers and bloggers have already agreed to do posts around the publication date so I need to get organised and book in some dates.

This is where I put out the call for help. Would you be willing to post something about The Lost Sentinel before or after the 16th June?

I’m happy to do interviews etc.

I’m also still looking for more reviewers. You don’t have to commit to the publication date, I’m happy to be reviewed however it fits in with your schedule.

And of course, don’t forget you can pre-order your kindle copy now for only 99p / 99c The Lost Sentinel

 

Lastly, I was very happy to see this email in my inbox this morning. You’ve got to love Amazon and Author Central – follow the author facility. It’s a must for all authors.

Please get in touch, and have a great day.

#Mondayblogs #fantasybook update and new #kindle #countdowndeal for Visions of Zarua

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I’ve taken a long break from blogging to concentrate on my next book, The Lost Sentinel – Book 1 in the Silent Sea Chronicles.

I’m pleased to say it’s now with my editor for an edit and proofread, so fingers crossed I’ll soon be able to set a publication date. I can’t wait to do the cover reveal and to start contacting book reviewers to offer ARC of the finished book. And I can’t wait to finish book 2, which I’ve also been neglecting for too long.

In other news, Visions of Zarua has finally been seeing some action on Kindle Unlimited which I’m really pleased about. There’s nothing quite like checking the pages read to see it spiking over 1k pages in a day. That’s the equivalent of 2.3 books read and although that may seem small to many authors, I’m chuffed.

Now I need to convert some of those reads into reviews! The reviews have slowed down, nothing since late December, so if anyone is interested in reviewing Visions of Zarua please get in touch for a review copy.

Or you could pick it up for 99p on Thursday 23rd March when the Kindle countdown deal starts in the UK & USA. It’ll then be 1.99 on 24th March and revert to its usual price on 25th March.

Here’s the book link Amazon UK & Amazon USA

Visions of Zarua Book Cover.jpg

cathy - pyre picture quote

I’ll be blogging about it throughout the deal, and I’d love your support in sharing the posts. Thanks very much.

 

 

Visions of Zarua – Christmas #goodreads #giveaway #fantasy

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To get in the Christmas spirit, I’m giving away a paperback copy of my standalone, epic fantasy Visions of Zarua. I opted for UK only this time, but I’ll run another international giveaway in the new year.

Two wizards, 350 years apart. Can they save the realm of Paltria from Zarua’s dark past?

The ebook is still available free on Kindle Unlimited UK and US.

 

Book Giveaway

Visions of Zarua by Suzanne Rogerson

Visions of Zarua

by Suzanne Rogerson

Giveaway ends January 01, 2017.

#Mondayblogs KDP select, updates, reviews & competition news

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It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, so I thought it was the perfect time for a little update.

Review News

Firstly, Visions of Zarua had two reviews within hours of each other over the weekend! I’m suffering with a cold at the moment and these reviews were the perfect pick me up. See them on the Goodreads book page and Amazon UK.

One reviewer even said Paddren was one of her top five favourite characters of the year. That is amazing to hear and really makes me smile, thank you Karen.O.

Visions of Zarua has received some wonderful feedback over the last year with 17 reviews on amazon UK and 15 on goodreads. These reviews have been my inspiration to keep writing and I never tire of re-reading them.

New Competition

A UK only Goodreads competition will be running over the Christmas period. 22nd Dec to 1st Jan 2017.

I’m also about to set up a Rafflecopter giveaway, something I’ve not done before but we’ll see how that works out.

Next Book News

My first two beta readers reviews are in. The consensus is that The Lost Sentinel is almost ready to publish! There’s still a few tweaks and mistakes to rectify, but it’s pretty much complete. Then it’ll just need a professional edit and book cover.

Book 2 is written but awaiting the insertion of many, many scenes. I hope to start planning book 3 soon with a view to writing the draft during Nano next November. Scary to think of Nov 2017, but it’s good to have a plan.

One of my beta readers is really pushing me to approach agents before I self publish The Lost Sentinel. She thinks it’s a much stronger book than Visions of Zarua and the fact its book 1 of a trilogy might make it a better prospect for agents and publishers to consider. What do you think of switching directions?

I’ll be researching my options over the next few months. It’s exciting, but I’ve enjoyed self-publishing and I’m not sure I want to hand over control to others. There’s also the rejections to face again. Am I ready for that?

Reading challenge

I beat my 25 book target on Goodreads, which I’m really pleased about. There’s still time to get another book or two in and I’m hoping to post a review tomorrow of A Wedding in Cornwall by Laura Briggs.

There are plenty of book tags around that I’d like to have a go at, and maybe I’ll try to select my favourite book of 2016. It’s harder this year as I’ve read more books than I’m used too. 2015 my fav book was Ink and Bone’ by Rachel Caine.

KDP Select / Countdown deals & Amazon Ads

Well the exclusive publishing is not going well and Kindle Unlimited KENP has gone down to zero pages for the last two months. At the back end of October this was looking like an exciting new way of reaching readers, now I don’t know. I’m stuck with it until Feb 2017, after that it will be decision time.

The second Countdown deal didn’t go to plan. It worked in the UK and US, but seemed to start at different times. The Amazon Ads I’d scheduled didn’t work properly and the book price didn’t increase on the second day for some reason. This isn’t really an issue, but it just made my blog/tweets about it harder – I didn’t want to mention price in case it suddenly hopped up to 1.99. I made a few sales, but nothing to worry the bestseller lists!

I spent more on Ads with Facebook, Amazon and Goodreads than I made in sales. Still, it’s all exposure for the book.

Call for help

If you have Kindle Unlimited, don’t forget Visions of Zarua is free to read in the UK here and the US here.

I would really appreciate it of someone who has the facility would read a couple of pages and let me know when, just so I can check the pages read are being registered.

Also, I had this crazy idea that I’d like to hit 20 reviews on Amazon before the end of the year. If you have read Visions, would you consider posting a short review? It really does make my day to read them.

I’m sure I’ll post again soon, but if not before the big day…

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

#WWWblogs 1 week to go with #KDPSelect – My thoughts & why I’m renewing #indieauthor #indie

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The first 3 months

It’s been an interesting 3 months using KDP Select for the first time. So far the biggest impact has been having my book enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. The page numbers read has increased each month from 0 in Aug, 768 in September and 786 in October. The figures are modest, but they are still readers, that’s what matters most to me!

I’m always so happy when I check the daily report to see the line on the graph has moved up. Thank you unknown readers, whoever you are.

I’ve yet to see an increase in reviews or sales through KDP Select, but I’ll take this success and continue to be positive about it – after all I sold nothing through Smashwords and the various retailers after the pre-order buzz for Visions of Zarua.

So based on the small success of Kindle Unlimited, I’m going to renew for another 3 months. At least I no longer feel as if my book is completely lost amongst the thousands.

5 day free promo or Kindle Countdown deals?

The next question is shall I run a 5 day free promo or go with kindle countdown deals again? People seem to have mixed opinions on what works best. I suppose it depends on the outcome you require. I want to encourage readers to read and review my book, I’m not so interested in hitting Amazon’s best seller lists for free book downloads. That would be great of course, but my genre is too big to get near those rankings.

With the Countdown Deals at least I understand how things work this time around. I’ll make sure I run the UK & US deals starting on the same day! Thanks Terry Tyler for pointing that one out!

Amazon Ads

I’m also going to promote the Kindle Countdown deal this time, which I plan to do via Amazon Ads: Sponsored Product and Product Display Ad for the sale period and maybe a few days after as well.

My current Amazon Ads have cost me quite a bit with only one sale coming out of 64 clicks! I don’t understand why so many people have clicked on the Ad (which shows the book cover, tag line, cost and star rating) and not followed through. Maybe some of them have gone on to read it via Kindle Unlimited. I have asked Amazon if there is more data available regarding these clicks, and will let you know if I hear back from them.

Hopefully combining the Ad’s with the Countdown Deals will see a better return.

Other book sales sites

I want to try other sites that promote book sales, can anyone recommend any that aren’t too expensive?

***

I hope you’ve found my 3 month experiment with KDP Select helpful.

My other posts were 1 month in with KDP Select and 2nd KDP update

What are your thoughts and experiences on the scheme? If you have any tips to share, I’d love to hear them!

And of course, if you have read Visions of Zarua, would you consider leaving a review? Just a short one, letting other readers know what you think and what you liked / didn’t like.

 

#WWWblogs – My 2nd KDP Select update on Ads, Giveaways & a review request #indie

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I had some great responses to my post a few weeks ago about my experience 1 month into Kindle Select. See original post here. There were many people who were struggling with it like me, and others who had advice to make the experience work better for you.

Here’s a quick update of my findings:

  • Stick with KDP Select – Most people believe KDP is the best place to sell your indie books as Kindle is the highest retailer of ebooks.
  • You still have to do ALL the marketing yourself – I had been naïve enough to think that once you went with Select, they would promote your book to all their unlimited subscribers.
  • Reviews – Once you hit a certain amount of reviews, Amazon does start to help you with promotion. This is one I’ll be looking out for with interest once I hit that magical number, whatever it is!
  • Countdown Deals – You can run them in the UK & US at the same time, but not if you put in different starts dates as I did. You NEED to promote Countdown deals yourself. Pay to advertise your sale on the many different book ad sites out there. I haven’t used any paid ad sites myself, but will be looking into this option. Any one have any recommendations?
  • 5 Free book days per enrolment period – Best to do when you have more than one book published. Others have reported success with lots of downloads on their free days, and if it can help get those sought after reviews, all the better. I may hold off setting up my free days until my next book comes out though. Don’t forget to advertise.
  • Free Copies to reviewers – This one was a real issue for me, but I have since heard back from Amazon who stated a free copy of a physical product is permitted if the author states they welcome positive and negative feedback, and the reviewer states a free copy was received in exchange for an honest review.
  • Other ad options – There are other marketing options to try with KDP Select – I’ve set up several ad campaigns.

Sponsored products – You only pay when someone clicks on your ad, which is shown on the Amazon website when your selected key words are searched for. I’ve had this running a while and according to them I’ve had over 3k impressions but only 3 clicks. So far this hasn’t resulted in sales, but maybe the people who have seen the book cover a few times will get intrigued enough to click on it and find out more.

Product Display – This is where your book will appear on people’s kindles and Amazon.com when they search certain genres. I held off with this as you have to set a minimum budget of $100, but they only start billing you when people start clicking on your ad. Mine only went live today so I don’t know if it will help with sales.

And finally the big news, I’ve just set up my first ever Amazon.com Giveaway. Anyone in the US can enter for a chance to win my paperback. I’ve set it that they have to follow me on Amazon.com so we’ll see if anyone is interested and if this will help me get more coverage in the US.

If you’re in the US and want a chance to win a paperback copy, please check out the link here.

A note of caution for those wanting to set up an amazon giveaway – as per the set up rules the details cannot be changed once submitted. I misunderstood what the Welcome message was, I assumed it was once someone had clicked to enter. But it appears with the ad so would be much better suited as the blurb or tag line of the book. Now I have to plug my giveaway, the whole time feeling like a fool for getting something else wrong. (This indie author learning curve is a steep one, and never seems to end!)

UPDATED 4.40pm 20th Sept 16. I don’t understand the Amazon giveaway. It closed after less than an hour and a winner has been picked after only 57 entrants. I set it up to be 1 winner in 100. The upside is now I can redo it without my mistake on the Welcome message, not allow everyone to share the giveaway, set it up to have a higher amount of entrants. The downside is, I have to pay for another giveaway already, I thought this one would last a week! 

Now over to you – Have I inspired you to try Kindle Select, or put you off trying it altogether? Have you any findings to share or tips on improving sales whether through KDP Select or other means? Maybe you’ve made some mistakes you’d like to share. I’d love to hear your views.

***

Finally my cheeky request.

I’m looking to reach that magic number of reviews on Amazon, I’ve read that it could be 20. I have 14 great reviews so far, and I’m really hoping to reach 20 reviews by the end of the year. I’ve been researching book reviewers and will be contacting some over the next few days, but I thought I’d also put the request out to you guys. If any of you are book reviewers and are interested in reading Visions of Zarua, please get in touch in the comments or via my ‘contact me’ page.

I’m also willing to take part in Q&A sessions and author interviews if anyone would like to feature an indie author on their blog.

I’ll leave you with the Amazon link here if you want to find out what the book is all about. Obviously its free if you’re a Kindle Unlimited customer (Amazon suggested I tell reviewers that!).

Thanks for reading.

1 month into KDP Select – my thoughts so far… #indiepub #selfpub #writetip

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I signed up to KDP Select in August 2016. It was a horrible experience to unpublish with Smashwords after all the work that goes into preparing the manuscript for them. It feels like a step backwards to remove the book from so many book buying platforms, but I decided it was worth it to go exclusive with Amazon Kindle.

I came into KDP Select with high hopes. There seemed so many benefits of offering them  exclusive ebook rights, and being enrolled in Kindle Unlimited seemed like a win win for everyone.

Well, I’m disappointed to report the results so far are no better than when I was going it alone. I don’t see any benefit to being exclusive, rather I feel tied to Amazon with no help in return. Even running the Kindle Countdown deals has been a disappointment. They haven’t help with the promotion. All it has done is made me clutter my twitter feed, facebook etc with buy my book posts, which I hate. But if I don’t try to spread the word, whose going to know there is a sale on and what’s the point of doing it in the first place?

I did rush into KDP Select without reading the small print, but they draw you in by saying you can reach more readers, earn more money and maximise your sales potential. However, you can only run one promo in one enrolment period. I opted for UK countdown deals, not realising I couldn’t run the US one  at the same time. I also wanted to use their ‘5 day free’ book promotion, but do I want to tie myself to them for 6 months?

I had big plans to approach lots of reviewers in September, but I cannot give away copies of my own book. How ridiculous is that? I believe I may be able to gift copies, but I’m waiting for Amazon to get back to me on how this is done without going against their terms and conditions.

Anyone out there have any advice on how to make the most of KDP Select?

This is a very dispiriting time for me. I don’t like to be negative in my posts, and I’m sure when the next marketing opportunity comes up that I’ll feel more positive again. I suppose I just need to let off steam and then I can focus on finishing my next book. That is why I’m doing this. I love writing and I’ve loved sharing Visions of Zarua with the world and reading the wonderful reviews people have written.

I would just like to thank all those who have supported me. Without you guys, I’m sure I would have given up on self publishing by now.

***

I’m feeling a bit blogged out at the moment, but I hope to start sharing book reviews, writing advice and my photographs again soon. Thanks for bearing with me.