http://AmyHarrop.com Learn how to run a book giveaway and promote your published Kindle or book.

1. The importance of excellent self promotion.

2. SELF PROMOTION
Every self-published
author will at some point
learn the importance of
excellent self-promotion
in the success of his or
her book.

3. DREAMS OF SUCCESS
We all dream of the runaway success of self-published
writers such as Amanda Hocking, but without the
right promotion we know our books could languish at
the unattractive end of the Amazon rankings.

4. THE BEST TECHNIQUES
The problem is that there are no real tried and true
techniques to ensure a runaway success. Your book
might be better than anything else in your genre, but
even a full time promotion schedule may fail to get it
the attention it truly deserves.

5. TIPS FOR SUCCESS
A well-orchestrated book giveaway could be just the
thing you need to bring your work to a wider
audience, and here we’re going to look at three quick
tips to help you spring your book to success.
1. Share
2. Advertise
3. Target

6. SHARE
Any author who has run a book giveaway will know
that it’s vital to get the word out well in advance. If
you run your own blog, post several times in the days
and weeks running up to the promotion. If you’re on
Facebook, create a fan page and ask your friends to
like it.

7. ADVERTISE
Paid advertising can play a large role in promoting a
book giveaway. Popular review sites such as Pixel of
Ink and Kindle Nation Daily can increase downloads
during a giveaway by thousands of copies per day. In
fact, the most popular free books on Amazon are
usually those that have been promoted by one or
both of these sites.

8. TARGET
While this may seem obvious, the trick to a successful
giveaway is to get your book in the hands of people
who are predisposed to enjoy it.
If you’ve written an excellent romance novel you
could give away a million copies, but if the recipients
are all single-minded fans of science fiction you’re
unlikely to see many post-giveaway sales or positive
reviews.

9. FINDING GOOD TARGETS
Sites such as Goodreads offer the chance to connect
with fans of every genre at the click of a mouse.
Before running your giveaway you should build a
presence on the site, joining groups devoted to your
appropriate genre and, where permitted, promoting
your book to your target audience. One targeted
reader will be worth dozens of untargeted readers.

10. THE IMPORTANCE OF PROMOTION
As an author you’ll no doubt already understand the
importance of promotion in making your book a
success.
While traditionally published authors usually have the
luxury of an agent and publishing house to handle the
heavy lifting of a marketing campaign, self published
authors must take the lead in running their own
campaign, getting the word out to potential fans and
influential reviewers.

11. GOODREADS
Fortunately, in this connected age we no longer need
face the horrors of an extended book tour to find our
audience.
Sites such as http://Goodreads.com bring our readers
to us, and by leveraging the power of the Internet we
can find an audience without leaving the comfort of
our homes.

12. GOODREADS GIVEAWAY
Perhaps one of the most powerful promotional tools
available to the exposure-hungry author today is the
Goodreads giveaway. The site, a social network that
operates much like a book club with millions of
members.
IT offers authors the chance to get their book in front
of countless potential readers, and by offering a
giveaway you can not only generate interest in your
latest book but also generate immediate sales and
reviews.

13. HELP TO PROMOTE YOUR WORK
So, how can a Goodreads giveaway help you promote
your work? Why is it such a powerful promotional
tool, and how can you make the most of it?
Here are two ways it helps promote your work.
1. Awareness
2. Reviews

14. AWARENESS
Plain and simple, a Goodreads giveaway will get your
name out there to your target audience. Whether you
offer a single free copy or 100 in your giveaway, an
average of 60 entrants (according to Goodreads
statistics) will add your book to their ‘to-read’ list. This
is, of course, no guarantee that they will actually read
it, but all publicity is good publicity.

15. REVIEWS
On average, 45% of giveaway winners will go on to
review your book. While this may not sound like a
great return, the truth is very different.
One in five Goodreads members runs their own book
blog, so not only will each review be seen by each of
the reviewer’s Goodreads friends, there’s also a very
good chance it will be published on a popular blog,
spreading the word even further.

16. TIPS FOR GOODREADS
Goodreads members who have run successful
giveaways recommend that authors offer as many
free copies as they can afford.
They advise that the contest should run for a good
length of time (several weeks to a month), and that
during that time the author throws him or herself into
promotion to spread the word about the giveaway.

17. EXPOSER TO POTENTIAL READERS
There are a few things you should already have in
place. It is important that you have a blog or web
presence in which you can offer your temporarily free
e-book to your readers, or even your friends.
There are a few simple steps you can take to make
sure that your e-book gets exposed to as many
potential readers as possible.

18. SOCIAL NETWORKING
Pay Close Attention To Social Networking: You can
use social networking sites to your advantage without
much effort. Simply put on your Twitter and
Facebook account that something you wrote will be
going for free in the Amazon store a few days before
hand.

19. USING TWITTER
On the day that it happens, make sure you mention it,
and let people know that they can only get it for free
for a limited time.
For twitter use hashtags like #bookgiveaway or
something similar.

20. DOING A SERIES OF BOOKS
This is good especially if you are doing a series of
books instead of just the one and have several on
Amazon at the same time, but only one of them is
free, because if your book is good, it will spark up
interest in the rest of your work.

21. FACEBOOK GROUPS
Here is a Facebook group you can join that is for book
giveaways:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/BookGiveaways/
Submit your book to general book giveaway sites. These sites offer a variety
of giveaways, not just books:
http://bloggiveaways.blogspot.com/
http://winningmommys.blogspot.com/2009/01/sites-to-list-your-giveaway.html
http://www.squidoo.com/giveawaylinkie

22. LINK-AGGREGATOR SITES
Use Link-Aggregator Sites: These sites can be a bit
scary and intimidating, because they tend to be so
very big. You might feel like your link might be lost
within a sea of other links.
Most link-aggregators have subsections, thankfully,
and you can just find the subsection that suits you the
most to promote your book.

23. REDDIT
Reddit, for instance, has an r/selfpublish and r/write,
dedicated exactly for this purpose. You might not
become a front-page sensation but a few extra hits
could make the difference between connecting with a
reader and not being able to.

24. THANK YOU!
AND GOOD LUCK!
Amy Harrop
Avid writer Amy Harrop’s Blog