Free Music Trial and Other Updates

 

Wow! Apparently if you buy a printed copy of my poetry collection, Un-Clenched Emotion, you get a 90 day free trial of Amazon 🎶 Music. I had nothing to do with this, but am glad they are offering this incentive. I have no idea how long it will last. The printed copy of Un-Clenched Emotion is $9.99. The link to buy is: https://www.amazon.com/Clenched-Emotion-Collection-Poems/dp/1537725327 

In other news, I finally made a Facebook page for Author Natasha Gruss McKinley. You can go to: 

https://www.facebook.com/authornatashagrussmckinley/  to see.

It's been in the back of my mind to create such a page since I published Un-Clenched Emotion. I never did because I thought it would be too much to keep up with. It is a lot to keep up with, especially with this blog here. And now I've got a writing gig to keep me busy as well.

I'm writing for an app called ThingsBook about music. I agreed to do that until December and I have to do 10 posts a month to write plus bonuses. The app is like a social media app, but it's a place where you can store book collections, or music collections, or things collections. Then you can write about the things in those collections....or not. If you want to see, click on: My ThingsBook Account

I've also been busy taking writing classes (I've got one to go to tonight) and doing open 🎤 mics. Last Thursday was my last one. I've entered various contests, none of which I won, but I did it! I also want to see if I can sell Un-Clenched Emotion on consignment in some local bookstores here. I want to start actually submitting some of my poems for publication. And I definitely need to continue to work on my next poetry collection, Seasons of Sensation. I'm still doing the Amzon Vine program where I get products in exchange for reviews. I'm also helping a friend write his book. I better get to it then! Thanks for reading.

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.

Selling Indie Books

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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.

Photo by Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash

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.

Photo by Kendall Scott on Unsplash

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!