Free Ways to Market Books

Photo by Balázs Kétyi on Unsplash

I sold four Kindle copies of my poetry book for $0.99 this last time, and one other person downloaded and read a KU (Kindle Unlimited) copy. It's not much, but it is still encouraging. The first couple times I tried to give "Un-Clenched Emotion" away for free, there were no takers. Then I gave away 1, then 6, then 70! I tried some Amazon Advertising this time and wasn't very successful, but that's okay, marketing is a learning process!

Photo by Robin Pierre on Unsplash

Of course, I use this blog to market. I'm not sure how successful it is. I do get a lot of traffic that you can see by looking at my counter. I'm not sure how I did it! Just showing up helps. I don't have much interaction, only 4 comments and no subscribers' through blogger, but people are looking and that makes me happy. Then I do have some subscribers on Goodreads that I just found out about. When I post my new blog posts on Facebook, I usually get a consistent 7 or 8 people who look. (My blog has a reports section, that's how I know). I want to thank all of you who do look at my writings! I have over 1000 X (formerly twitter) followers, but I don't get many looks from there. I'm working on being more active on X, there are a lot of authors helping authors on that platform. I'm not sure how many followers that aren't family or people I know on Instagram. It's a big sized number I think, but not so much as X. I don't get that much interaction with Instagram yet either. The Goodreads author program is also free and there are many groups you can participate in. I belong to some and have gotten a few reviews from there. There are a few people who also marked "Un-Clenched Emotion" as want to read. So Goodreads is also a good marketing platform. The cool thing is I don't have to pay anything for these platforms.

Photo by Carl Heyerdahl on Unsplash

There's a couple of other of things that aren't costly that I could do to market my book. I could create a separate Facebook page and invite those interested. It seems like so much work though, added to this. And then I could attempt to create a newsletter, but that seems like A Lot of work. You may have noticed, I'm not extremely consistent in simply writing this blog.  It takes awhile for me to come up with a subject to talk about and sometimes I just don't feel like doing it. If I make a newsletter, it's got to be consistent. And then, of course, I have no idea how to get subscribers. So there are a lot of things I do to market my book, and somethings I could be doing but don't.

Success

 

I am really happy to report that the free promotion I ran for my poetry book, 'Un-Clenched Emotion' was a huge success. So successful in fact, that I made Amazon's Best Seller List for free poetry. I also made the best seller list for free books in 45-Minute Literature & Fiction Short Reads. Check out the following screen shots taken on April 7th, 2023; the first day of this promotion:

It took a lot of work just to give my book away. I have tried running a free promotion a handful of times. Some promotions I didn't manage to give any free books away at all. Then I got listed in freebooksy for the final days of one of my promotions and gave away 6 books.  I was happy about that. I applied with them this time but they did not pick up my book again. However 3 other places did decide to promote my book. They are: It’s Write Now, Armadillo books (under the promoting name Crave Books), and Sandra's Book Club. I am happy to say I did not have to pay any money for these programs to promote my book! So, I'm sure you're wondering how many books I gave away this time. The answer is seventy, 70, and I am still blown away by this success.  I had to take another screen shot just to believe it! Here it is:

If you're wondering, I do not make any money when running these promotions. I did get 3 reviews of my book doing this, and obviously there is still time for other people to review. Even though I didn't make money doing this, I still feel successful. All I wanted was to get my book out there for people to enjoy. Making the Best Seller Lists was not even a goal. I am pleased and proud that it happened. I don't think I'll be running a free promotion for this book again. I do plan on trying a 99 cent promotion next time but it will be awhile yet for that. Amazon only allows authors to run a promotion like this once every 3 months.  

If you're reading this, it's probably likely you downloaded my book. I wanted to thank you for that. I also wanted to let you know my book is ALWAYS free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers. I do get a miniscule amount of money if you download and read it from there. My goal was and is not to make money with this book, my goal is to share it with the world. Thank you for helping me succeed!

The Sea from "Un-Clenched Emotion"

I made another video of one of my poems on my YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@natashamckinley1387

The description and video, which I think you find enjoyable, are as follows:

Natasha (Gruss) McKinley #reads her #poem "The Sea" from her #poetry book, "Un-Clenched Emotion". This is the second poem of the #book and is in the #Kindle Look Inside section of #Amazon. The Kindle version of the book can be found at: https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Natasha-Gruss-ebook/dp/B01LZNVH4Y 

The print version is at:https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Collection-Poems/dp/1537725327 

Enjoy!

What to do for Poetry Month

It is the month of April, and the month of April is poetry month.  There are many things people can do besides write poetry.  Most obviously, they can read poetry.  Of course, you can read the classics like Shakespeare or Dickon's, but you can read current day poets too, (like me).  If you read a poet's work on your kindle, they would appreciate a review or at least a star rating.  All you have to do is click a star.  I decided to read a poetry book for this April.  

This month I decided to read Misha Collins poetry book: "Some Things I Still Can't Tell You."  Misha Collins is not famous for being a poet.  He is famous for playing the character Castielle (an Angel), on the T.V. show Supernatural.  I was very excited when I found out he was into poetry.  I saw him recite some on my Instagram account, thought it was great, and asked my husband for his book for Christmas. My husband got for it me!  Misha Collins is a very good poet, and I am very glad that I have his writing in my possession.

If you are a poet, and are published with Amazon, you can give your book away for free for up to five days.  You won't get any royalties when you do this, but you might spread your work around the world a little more.  I chose to give my book away for 3 days at the beginning this month.  Four people took advantage of the offer.  I may give "Un-Clenched Emotion" more free days in following months.  It is on Kindle Unlimited, so if you have that, it is always free.  I found out that I do get royalties if someone buys my book that way.

Naturally, if you would like to, you can write your own poetry in the month of April.  There are many poetry challenges online where they ask you to write a poem a day for the whole month of April.  I have done this in years past, but did not do a poem a day this year.  I did write a few poems this month, which I plan to submit to publication.  They are speculative poems, poems that follow a fantasy or science fiction theme.  I have a title for the other poetry chapbook, (or perhaps whole book), this time, and some more of this book to put together. The theme for this book is the Seasons. I still have a long way to go to get this finished.

I challenge you to read and/or write poetry this month.  Promote what you have already written, or write a review for an author you have read.