Have finally decided to have a free promo for Trevor. So it is free to download today and tomorrow. Has been up there since about lunchtime and so far 30 downloads in the US and 14 in the UK.

So whilst it won't make any money it may raise the book's profile.

I have also added a discussion forum on Amazon.com under their Meet Our Author section for British authors seeking American reviews, as apparently UK posted reviews don't cross the pond, but the US posted ones do.

Sorry not been back to the site have been under the weather with a cold and been getting frustrated by lack of progress on the sales front. So far have sold 1 in the US hurrah. and 6 in the UK.

This is despite promoting it on FB and joining a number of forums.

Trying to find a site that reviews self published fantasy books on kindle but so far no good. If anyone has any advice - gratefully received. Anyway onwards and upwards. Back to getting on with the marketing - oh and finishing off my second book ;)

OK so have just uploaded details of Trevor to to my Facebook page and just looked at the sales figures and whoopee I have sold 3 books - Hurrah and thank you to the people who bought it. Please add a review if you enjoyed it ;)

Have also found a post on the UK forum asking for a fantasy book for teenagers - well that is what Trevor is, so I have recommended it.

So still no US sales but I am just going to go into the German, French and Spanish sites to upload my biog. I am still working on the press release for the local paper.

Also now that I have got over my reticence to promote the book to my friends, have started to mention it to people :)

So another day, still no sales and rather depressingly since 23rd April my book has dropped from number 33,031 in the bestsellers ranking (I use the term bestseller loosely) to number 50,372. Oh well still early days I keep telling myself.

So what advice from other Amazon authors?

Apart from some favourable comments about the title and Millie on the cover and some surprise at the use of - ' - for speech instead of - '' - (is this a literary difference between the UK and US?) - the message coming through load and clear is nothing much works :(

So that is the bad news.

Some other more helpful suggestions include - getting the cover on Facebook, YouTube (I already have a video for my other book there) or providing a copy to the local paper. Or getting your family to buy it and review it as a last resort. I think I am going to try the local paper option first - so watch this space. I will let you know when I do the press release and what happens - if anything.

Helping to promote ebooks on Amazon

BTW when I referred to the tips above, they are taken from the great 'Smashwords book marketing guide' produced by Mark Coker and available free from http://smashwords.com but what I want to do is to try these suggestions out, and others that I come across, to see what works best when trying to sell my recently published book. 

So what have I found out today - well that if you enter your biography, photo and video on Author Central on Amazon.com it doesn't update your profile on Amazon.co.uk. So presumably there is no information on the other versions of Amazon in Europe either. Will raise a question and update this as and when I hear if there is an easy way of doing this.

I have had one favourable review on the .co.uk site but again these don't feed through into other sites so presumably I will have to target marketing at the US site specifically. Or find out how you can share the reviews. 

I am now going to register and raise a question on .com as I am still not sure how it works and will see if others can help me.

My weekend

Uploaded and started promoting my novel on Amazon

This weekend I have published my first novel on Amazon - see the following link : http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007VT33OI 

It is the story of the mayhem that a teenager experiences when she finds a goblin in her school bag. What would you do if you found a magical mythical creature in your bag?

So it is available on Amazon with thousands of other books and I am trying to find out how Amazon works and  how you get people to find and read my book.

So far Tip 1 is to put details in your email signature - so I have done that.

Tip 2 is to post a notice on your website or blog. 

I already had a website so that is all up to date - see the following link: http://www.jonathanevans.info/

But I didn't have a blog - so here goes.

More tips on book promotion to come.

Thoughts

Re the Marathon and the Olympics - why are we Brits really good at solo sports where we sit down? Wheelchair racing; cycling, show jumping; sailing; rowing; F1, but put us in a team and we are a bit rubbish?

A priest told me over the weekend that last weekend he went to a funeral in Ireland. Then he corrected himself and said a wedding - 'but either way the man was condemned.'