Marketing for Kindle Scout


Marketing has negative connotations in my mind. I know this is silly, but I tend to think of it as “convincing people to do things against their best interest”. Yeah, no wonder I hate marketing! But with Kindle Scout and asking people to nominate my romantic suspense, Sky Garden, for consideration by its editors, I don’t feel as if I’m trying to convince people to do something “bad”, so I’ve embraced the whole marketing buzz.sky garden, kindle scout, kindle scout promotion,

[I think authors might tend to share my funny idea of “marketing” as negative, hence our tendency to refer to it as the cozier, “promo”.]

You can draft a marketing plan any way you like. I haven’t written mine down before, so I hope I don’t miss an important point. Here goes…

Experts talk about funnels in marketing. Go wide, scoop in everyone you can, and convert those leads. This article on purchase funnels in Forbes covers the idea. In a sense, Kindle Scout is a funnel. It brings your book to readers’ attention, and it gives you something to promote (i.e. the book that needs readers’ nominations) which allows you to get out there and reach more people because you have a clear and meaningful reason to engage with them. As a side note, I’m curious if this funnel-effect will increase sales of my other books available in the Amazon store.

All of my marketing for Sky Garden in Kindle Scout is online. This is great because I’m already online promoting my other books, so I can leverage some of my existing capabilities and networks. Never, ever forget to appreciate your strengths. The first step in my marketing campaign was to tap my existing social media presence by changing Facebook and Twitter headers to ask people to nominate Sky Garden for Kindle Scout publication, posting that request, and writing these blog posts on my Kindle Scout experience.

Yep, these blog posts reflecting on my Kindle Scout journey are content creation, which can be a difficult thing to add to your day. I’m pretty good at curating content (i.e. resharing interesting things on Facebook and Twitter), but creating new content takes time, energy and inspiration. Nonetheless, it’s important, especially if by tagging these posts and getting engagement on them I can trigger Google’s algorithms to bring you here to my website when you search for Kindle Scout. Google’s gotten savvy though, so my posts have to offer something valuable. Also, having new content enables me to share it on Twitter, Facebook, etc, and make it re-shareable by others.

But there’s only so much I can do myself. Increasingly, getting eyeballs on things requires paid advertising. Sorry…I fought that realisation, too. So, I’ve included a low-budget Facebook ad for the length of Sky Garden‘s Kindle Scout campaign.

But I think the bulk of my marketing energy went into the things I did before Sky Garden‘s Kindle Scout campaign went live. For a start I wrote a book with as strong a hook as I could devise: not just a medium, but one who’d been kidnapped by a serial killer; not just a commitment-averse landscape gardener, but one with aristocratic family issues. I also wrote Sky Garden with a tagline in mind, on the rooftops of London, you can be anyone. I used that tagline for the Kindle Scout campaign, and it’s the guiding concept for the cover. The blurb, my bio and the questions I’ve answered on Sky Garden‘s Kindle Scout page all support these ideas. As best I could, I devised a marketable idea for a novel (and one which utterly engaged me as an author), and then, aligned everything to it.

Sometimes marketing is as simple as being true to yourself.

I don’t think I’ve forgotten to mention anything. How about you? What do you expect to see in a marketing campaign? What do you include?

Kindle Scout, romantic suspense, Sky Garden, Jenny Schwartz, contemporary romance, London, kindle unlimited,

 


9 responses to “Marketing for Kindle Scout”

    • Hi Felipe, thanks for commenting 🙂 I wish I could say Kindle Scout is a successful funnel, but half-way through the campaign for “Sky Garden” I’ve yet to see it affect the discoverability of my other books. Maybe that will come, or maybe I needed to do something different with how I presented “Sky Garden” i.e. a different cover or blurb. But I think the concept of using Kindle Scout as a funnel ought to work – I hope you make it work!

      • Hi, Jenny, I’m thinking, based on comments like Bates (Bbates024) made, he wasn’t picked for publication but is selling really well, maybe because of the mail-out to everyone who’d nominated him that his book is now out. He’s mentioned it a couple of times, like at: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,213112.msg3146987.html#msg3146987

        And you have quite a collection of work for folk to discover! http://www.amazon.com/Jenny-Schwartz/e/B0042MAD86 – nice! 🙂

        I saw Texas Kisses, are you originally from Texas but now in Australia? I live in Austin.

        So anyway, back on topic 🙂 I’m thinking the real funnel effect isn’t till after the nomination period. But just guessing of course.

        Oh, and have read a ways into the beginning of hour preview. Interesting fast start. Am sending to my Kindle Fire to read more leisurely as time frees up.

        I’m 65 and doing a lot of PT and it tends to wear me out, even if it also does me tons of good. 🙂

        • Bates is inspiring! His post, suggesting that Kindle Scout was picking up mystery/suspense was one of the deciding factors in me trying it 🙂

          As for Texas, I haven’t even visited! You have no idea how much I want to. So big with so many different regions. I don’t where I want to start first! One day (when my books sell…)

          Thanks heaps for the encouragement, and keep on with the PT 🙂

          • Yes, born and raised in Texas and still amazed how distinct each region is, but all Texas – one of the defining characteristics of folk in our state. But gotta say how similar in character the people of my wife’s home state, Vermont, is to people here. We really all are more similar than different I think 🙂

            Yes! PT is a must. Long term. “Very.” 🙂

            Downloaded your Texas Kisses Book 1 via KU. My time is so tight, but it looks like a doable short story. Take care then, best wishes 🙂

        • Felipe

          I think we are all more alike than we think. I think Aussies and Texans share that independent mindedness — I always blame (praise?) all the space we have.

          Thanks for picking up Texas Kisses. I hope you enjoy it 🙂

  1. You thought of everything, Jenn! Sounds like a great read and I love the tagline. Nice hook! You’ve done an amazing job, something to be immensely proud of, no matter what!! I can’t wait to read this book! Love the cover, and I’m a sucker for beautiful covers. I loved, loved, LOVED
    THE ICCARUS PLOT and if this book is as wonderful as that, I’m stoked!! Good luck!!

Leave a Reply to Felipe Adan LermaCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.