Author Natasha Gruss McKinley shares her experience with poetry and poems, (both with the reading and writing aspect,) with the public, interested readers and authors. She promotes her first published book.
It's been a long while since I've written a blog post. I've been having a writer's block when it comes to the blog. I do have good news now, "Un-Clenched Emotion", on the Kindle is on sale for 99 cents Black Friday- Cyber Monday. I didn't know if I was going to be able to do it. Amazon's promotion program wouldn't let me set a promotion for these days until this week (I knew much earlier I wanted to put my book on sale today). Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Natasha-Gruss-ebook/dp/B01LZNVH4Y/
You can also buy "Un-Clenched Emotion" in print. Unfortunately, you can't get it from the same link. I accidentally gave each version of my book different isbn numbers. I think that's why I can't put them on the same page. Anyway, this physical copy of "Un-Clenched Emotion" would be great as a Christmas gift, or for book sniffers. Or for book collectors like me and my husband. We have 3 bookshelves in my living room and 2 in our bedroom. Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Collection-Poems/dp/1537725327/
Un-Clenched Emotion, Kindle Edition, will once again be on sale for ninety nine cents (.99) for poetry month. The book normally costs $2.99. Get it by going to this link: https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Natasha-Gruss-ebook/dp/B01LZNVH4Y The sale starts on Monday April 22nd 2024 and will end Monday April 29th 2024. I have not been successful with these sales before, but maybe this time will be better. I wasn't ordinally successful giving my book away for free at first either. However last year, I made the best seller for free books list on Amazon. I have set some advertising up this time which I haven't tried before. Fingers crossed. It's also April, poetry month, and this blog get more traffic this month. Here's one of my poems from the book to give you a taste of what it is like:
Obviously, for poetry month I have been working on marketing. I learned about Amazon Ads. There was a rumor going around on Facebook that a book would get in Amazon's newsletter if it had 50 ratings and over a four star review. I asked Alexa, and she said it was not enough. She pretty much said that it was secret the way Amazon chooses to place books in their newsletter. This stuff is hardly poetic. I have done a lot of work on my next book, Seasons of Sensation. It's still nowhere near complete but is really coming along. That's what I have REALLY done for poetry month. I haven't decided how I am going to publish Seasons of Sensation, whether I'll try a traditional publisher or if I'll publish on my own. I hope that you choose to buy Un-Clenched Emotion this time and decide that you would like to read more of my stuff.
First, for those of you are curious, I was once again unsuccessful in selling "Un-Clenched Emotion" for 99 cents. I had made 2 full price sales before that, so not the end of the world. Speaking of selling books, I recently sold to 2 other countries. Usually KDP reports shows how many sales you have a week (or how many Kindle Unlimited pages are read) a month, year etc. So I waited a week to check the reports, and those foreign sales were not on my KDP reports. However, I did get money in my bank account for those sales. All is good. Speaking of making money, for the first time since I published my book in 2016, I was emailed a tax form for the royalties on my book this year. What I made is in the extremely low double digits, but it was still exciting to get that tax form.
I do believe in order to make money and more sales, I need to spend something on advertising. Previously I was questioning whether Amazon Ads was worth it. Now, I am pretty sure it is. Many Indie Authors that I am in contact with expressed their success with the program. I really need to take a closer look on how to use these ads. Amazon has a lot of guides. I looked at some of them and find them daunting. I have bought some marketing through other companies in the past. I have to say, never pay for social media shout outs. You can do that yourself for free. Many people on X (Previously twitter) will retweet your post for free, especially if you retweet their posts. Someone once even made an unsolicited post advertising my book on Instagram. You can get Facebook friends to help you too. I really need to make a Facebook page to promote my writing.
I may soon have free advertising through Amazon. It has been said that if you have over 50 reviews of above a certain star rating, Amazon will put your book in their newsletter. I have strong doubts about this. I am not that far away from 50 reviews. My star rating is definitely high enough. I am hoping that I will be pleasantly surprised and get "Un-Clenched Emotion" in a newsletter because of this. For all of those Indie Authors out there, I wish you success in your marketing ventures. For curious readers, please leave reviews for those authors!
I admit I had an alternative motive for posting my poems on social media all week. I am trying to sale my book once again. "Un-Clenched Emotion" is 99 cents on the kindle from Thanksgiving to the 29th, which covers both Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The link is: https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Natasha-Gruss-ebook/dp/B01LZNVH4Y
However, I did think people might like a sample of my work whether they end up buying my book or not. None of the things I shared do I officially plan to publish, and they are here on this blog. You can find the link to the page on the right under the heading: The Written Poetry of Natasha Gruss McKinley
Amazon Prime Days are Tuesday July 11th, and Wednesday July 12th 2023. I decided to try an experiment. I am reducing the price for "Un-Clenched Emotion" from $2.99 to $0.99 on the Kindle! The book will be on sale the day before Prime Days, Monday 7/10/2023 until the day after, Thursday 7/13/2023. If you haven't found the link yet, it is:
I have done this 99cent deal before, but completely failed at it. It doesn't hurt to try again! To get you interested in my book, I'll show my YouTube Teaser once again:
I believe I failed on the first go around because I am not the best at advertising. When I self published my book with Amazon I naively believed that Amazon would help me advertise....for free. It might be needless to say that I didn't really know what I was doing. I just did it. The final product, the book "Un-Clenched Emotion", turned out great. Promoting the book didn't turn out so great, and it's still been a struggle, but I learn more everyday.
Amazon does have a marketing section for authors and an advertising section, but you have to pay for advertising. I'm always trying to save a penny or two, so I haven't looked into this as much as I should because it looks expensive. I am just making my 99cent sale coincide with Prime Days; instead of buying Prime Day Ads. Another reason I haven't looked more into advertising on Amazon is because I've heard other authors recommend it not be used. Now I'm seeing authors that Do recommend it! Who knows? The same goes for Goodreads Ads.
I have found another free way to advertise "Un-Clenched Emotion". Many book promotion websites offer free author interviews. So I answered a bunch of various questions about myself multiple times. You can't beat free advertising. I believe that the interviews I have posted so far have added traffic to this blog and have enticed some people to download and read my book on Kindle Unlimited. I have 3 interviews published online. They are at:
I've wondered for awhile if blog tours worked for selling books. Some of them are pricey. I figured doing these Author Interviews will give me an idea if they will work or not. I also am not sure how well they work for poets. Book blog tours seem to be geared toward other writing genres. If you're a poet and have gone on a book blog tour, let me know how it worked out for you. Let me know about Goodreads and Amazon paid ads too.
Happy Easter and Happy Poetry Month. To celebrate, I am once again offering my kindle ebook, 'Un-Clenched Emotion', free to everyone! The promotion for this book runs from Friday April 7th, 2023 to April 11th, 2023. Last time I offered my book for free, I gave away 6 books. I'm not sure if I'll run this promotion again, right now I am not planning on it. The link for the this is: https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Natasha-Gruss-ebook/dp/B01LZNVH4Y Of course the link is all over the site. I'm sorry to bombard you, but I want to make it easy for you to get my book!
I don't make any royalties ($) when I give out my book for free. I do make some pennies when someone downloads and reads my book on Kindle Unlimited. You heard me right, cents, not dollars. I also recieve a few cents a month for being enrolled in the Kindle Unlimited program. When someone actually buys the book, I get a couple of dollars. And my Sales Ranking goes up. So of course I am always hoping to sale. I haven't sold many copies, but I have sold some. For me, that's reason to celebrate!
I also believe the reviews I have received for "Un-Clenched Emotion" is reason to celebrate. Right now I have an average rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 (out of 25 ratings). That's pretty great! I've received so many honest reviews by belonging to review programs myself. Right now my favorite review program is Sandra's Book Club. It's at: http://sandrasbookclub.blogspot.com/ It is awesome, and if you are an author and decide to join, please mention my name. Anyway, one of my favorite 5 star reviews for my book is as follows:
If you want to know what's inside the book, here are a few of my YouTube teasers:
I hope you seize this opportunity to get my book for free and I hope you enjoy!
First, right now, 10/15/22, until the 18th of October, the "U)n-Clenched Emotion," kindle book version, is on sale for 99 cents on Amazon. It normally costs $2.99. It's always free on Kindle Unlimited. If you haven't already found the link on this blog, it's at: https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Natasha-Gruss-ebook/dp/B01LZNVH4Y This book is authored by Natasha Gruss, which is me, even though I am now Natasha McKinley. Amazon does not let people change the name of the author of a published book, which makes sense.
I found some other interesting things about how I can edit and promote the books I write. Even after it was published way back in 2016. I have not yet had my 2 of the same books, (the kindle version and the print edition,) linked. Hopefully this is in the process of happening. I thought that I had messed up by not originally linking my books. Well, I just found out it wasn't my fault. Author's used to publish their books with Create Space. That's where I published my print book. Now, you can not publish your books with that. I had to go into Create Space and transfer the print book to Kindle Direct Publishing, where are where all book versions are published now. I had published my delightful book when Amazon was making this change, so my linking got lost in the cracks. I have changed the book descriptions, the subtitles, and the keywords to match. Hopefully this will get my books linked in a few days; after my promotion ends.
Kindle does not let you price your book at 99 cents all the time. You have to do a promotion to do that. You get one count down deal during a promotion period which lasts for a few months. Hopefully I will be able to do another free promotion for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Amazon also added another way to promote my book. I was able to nominate it for Prime First Reads. That's where Prime members get to download a free book, out of a list of a limited amount of books, once a month. I doubt they will choose my book, but it was an easy click to nominate it. Doing is risk-free. I hope I have given authors some good information on Publishing and promoting their books. And if you are not an author, I hope this was still an interesting read.
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