By Betty Kuffel
Writing a compelling novel and getting it published is a great accomplishment. Then comes marketing, the bane of Indie publishers like many of us. I decided to take a stab at trying some of the paid sites this year and bought a few media ads for a couple of my books. It seemed to take forever to accomplish the task, but the worst part was making myself do it. A few hours of research, filling out applications and using PayPal turned out to be painless.
The advertising marketers make it easy, but you need to be ready with your ASIN number for all of them and page count for some. Their templates take the book description and cover image from the Amazon sales page.
The idea is to generate interest in your book by offering your book free or at a reduced price, and as a result, generate both reviews for your Amazon sales page and generate purchases. Amazon KDP has some marketing options and I plan to try those, too.
The following sites I used are BookGorilla.com, DigitalBookToday.com, and HotZippy.net that covers a number of portals: Bargain Ebook Hunter and Pixelscroll. HotZippy also has horror and romance genre portals. Of interest, Digital Book Today has a promotion for new books. All of them have various promotions and costs to make your book visible to thousands of their followers. Amazon has listings for the top 100 free books and your goal is to move up to #1 for visibility during your marketing pitch.
Start with making your book free on Amazon for a few days via KDP Select. Make the dates a few days in advance so you have time to organize your sales, get the ads purchased and scheduled, and then prepare short informational splashes for your websites and Facebook page. Include other social media you use, such as Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. If you don’t use Pinterest, check it out. It is a good place to have your books visible.
Once you have accomplished this, you can periodically check the Amazon Top 100 free list and see how your book is doing. Be ready to do a screenshot when it hits #1!
Good luck marketing in 2020. Don’t forget local bookstores and donation of your books to libraries for local visibility.
Montana Women Writers 
Thanks Betty! This sounds like a really useful post. I’ll get on it, but hoping the expense is minimal. I always thought my books ‘should stand on their own two feet,’ but hey, not finding that’s working too great for me these days. Aren’t you part of Authors of the Flathead? I don’t think we’ll have vaccine by September, so wondering if you guys are going to try to do a zoom. Again, many thanks for the Indie advice!! Sandy O.(Helena)
Thanks for this post, Betty. Marketing is often like a shot in the dark nowadays. Many of the best sites that produced good sales and was free or reasonably priced (like Pixel of Ink) have been gobbled up by the bigger, more expensive sites like BookBub. A definite plan is needed, followed by an analysis of the number of books sold verses your ad costs. Takes time that could go for writing. But, the end goal is to get your book into the hands of the reader. Thanks again.
Deborah E.