Week Forty-Nine: Harnessing The Power of YouTube to Promote Your Books

 So, the age of technology has finally caught up with me, or I've caught up with it, not sure which!

I spend a great deal of time promoting my books, and during the Covid-19 pandemic, I've seen many fellow authors turning to videos and live streams on Facebook.

Unfortunately, I live out in the sticks of rural Cornwall, and my wifi is too pathetic to allow live streaming even for only a few minutes. 

 But I did want to harness the power of visuals - watching an author, hearing an author - and after experimenting with my own digital radio station a couple of years ago for the same promotional reasons (sadly a bust; great fun, but wildly expensive and hardly anybody listened!) and podcasting (again, most people seem to prefer pictures to audio, though I freely admit I didn't make as much of an effort with my podcasts as I could have done) I felt I had some hard-won skills with audio editing and arranging that I could bring across to video editing.

I already had a Jane Holland Author Youtube channel with about 10 subscribers. Bit rubbish, but I'd only posted half a dozen videos in ten years! You get back what you put out, I guess. :)

So I recorded some new book promo videos and also some 'how to write' videos, which I felt might draw in some new punters. In my video 'blurb' or description, I put links to my Amazon Author page and my social media, hoping to pick up at least a few extra readers over a long period of time. This has been a slow process, but I have noticed a small uptick in sales soon after new videos are released, so that's a sign that it's working. But my viewing figures are still too small to really make a difference. If I start hitting 100's of views per video, at some point in the misty future, that may change. Fingers crossed!

There are two types of YouTube content, in general. The first is topical, relying on a 'moment' for views - a book launch, for instance, or news item. You may get a flurry of views when it first goes live, but not much further down the line. The second is 'evergreen content' and this - as the name suggests! - deals with a more longterm issue, such as 'how to write' topics, and may not be so sensational, but is useful for bringing in new views and subscribers long after the video is published. For instance, your channel 'trailer' is evergreen content, a slow burn perhaps, but should keep getting views over the years, while book promo videos barely get any new views after the first year or so. 

 In general, it's best to aim for a mixture of topical and evergreen videos. If reading an extract from your book, it's a good idea not to make this too long, though this may work for some authors with a big following. Try to be personable and informal, but give good content - everyone loves an insight into an author's lifestyle or working methods!

 

Now, I also happen to have a Certificate in Astrology from the Faculty of Astrological Studies (UK, London-based) that I passed back in the mid-90's. Ever since, I've been reading new astrology books, looking at astro charts and generally developing my skills there, and I even anonymously run an Etsy side-hustle as a horary astrologer (don't ask) which brings in a few extra quid most months.

So I decided to also launch an astrology channel, as these are quite popular and I follow a number of big name astrologers there myself. And in the video description, I put the SAME links to my author page and social media, trying for a double whammy effect. This is because my particular astro channel caters for creative or artistic people like myself - novelists, artists, actors, playwrights etc.

This new astrology channel - Jane Holland Creative Horoscopes - has been rather more successful than my straight author channel. It seems in these troubled times that people are hunting for answers wherever they can find them, and astrology does provide an interesting alternative view on our current situation, so fair play to them. 

 

 

My set-up is fairly simple. I use the webcam from my computer - because I can't afford a 'proper' vlogging camera, frankly - and a Blue Yeti mic. (I experimented with a wireless clip-on mic, but it kept cutting out and distorting my voice. Others may find them more useful.) 

For most of my videos, I have a prepared script and run it via a Teleprompter app on my iPad, which plays behind the camera on a tripod while I record, as I found reading it from the actual computer screen made me look shifty!

It's early days yet, but I expected that. It can take several years to grow an audience on YouTube, even with regular concerted effort. But I have committed to posting at least 12-14 videos every month for my astrology channel, and 2-3 for my regular author channel. It's fun at the moment, though hard work, but it's one way of keeping my name in the public eye during a time when few of us are able to get out and about. And it also keeps my brain active - never a bad thing!

Here's one of my specific book promo videos - this one for my spooky thriller THE HIVE. Look at the expression on my face! Gulp ...

The big thing with Youtube is getting more likes, views of videos and new subscribers. THOSE are the things that drive traffic to a channel. The more you get, the more likely YouTube is to show your content to new people browsing the site or searching for keywords. And that means the more people see your name or your content, and are more likely to ... yes, you've guessed it ... to buy your books!

So please visit one or both of my channels above, 'Like' some of my videos and Subscribe to my channels - you'll need a Google or YouTube account to do this - and hit the bell for notifications of new videos as they arrive.

Thank you!

Do YOU have a YouTube channel, maybe to help you sell your books or for some other purpose? Let me know in the comments below, feel free to link to it, and let me know how it's been going for you.

Week Forty-Seven: Experimenting with Unusual Story Ideas

Sometimes you get an idea for a story set-up that doesn't fit what's selling out there, or you know most publishers would pull a face if presented with the idea. Yet you can't get it out of your head.

Amazon UK

That's what happened to me when I came up with my idea for the Stella Penhaligon mysteries.

Stella Penhaligon is an astrologer who helps the police with their enquiries.

As someone with a background in astrology, this was a fun idea for me. I could use all my knowledge and skill with astrology (basically my hobby for the past few decades!) and merge it with my knowledge and skill as a novelist (my job, in other words). 

The merger was a dream come true for me.

The only fly in the ointment was that my idea didn't fit with the kind of books I'd already been writing under my Jane Holland - very straight, hard-edged contemporary psychological thrillers. And I suspected that most publishers would have a hard time with an astrologer as a main character helping the police.

To add to this, I'd never before written a story with a police officer as a main character!

Yet I knew I wanted two main characters in this series - Stella, the astrologer, and DS Jack Church, the local officer with whom she has most contact.

Finally, I was aware of a need to make money as a novelist, which means not wasting time on books that might never get published. But also that self-published books provide a small amount of money to keep me ticking over from month to month, while book contracts can take anything up to six months to produce any income from the point of acceptance by a publisher, sometimes longer.

I approached my agent and we discussed this. I suggested that I self-publish a short series of novellas about these characters, and see how readers took to them. Thankfully, she agreed. (Coz she's amazing!!)

And so I sat down and wrote the first novella. It's called UNDER AN EVIL STAR. (See below for US link.)

The series is set in Cornwall, where I live, which feels like a suitably spooky, gothic region for a crime novella involving astrology.

A severed head is found by the police. Stella's father, a local vicar, is missing. She casts a chart to find him and falls under suspicion when the severed head turns out to be his ... But who would kill a vicar and why?

I put the novella on pre-order, and had a few sales come in at once. Not so shabby! So I made a space in my writing schedule and wrote a second and third novella, THE TENTH HOUSE MURDERS and THE PART OF DEATH. I then put all three on sale at Amazon.

All are now out on sale. Early days yet, but after a sluggish start, I changed the covers and sales have become more promising. I will need to leave it a while to get an overall sales picture, but if it seems worth doing, I may write a full-length Stella Penhaligon mystery in the next year or so, and see if any publishers would like to acquire it for a series.

Sometimes, you need to take a punt on an unusual idea, and hope it works out. Some ideas flop. Others need some massaging to succeed. What you need for them as a writer is CONFIDENCE and TIME. Be bold and write it, regardless of your fears that it won't succeed. Stay true to your vision and see it through to the end, never abandon the project partway through.

You can't tell if an idea is 'bad' until you've finished it, and that's a simple truth most newer writers don't get. Most writers have a tendency to panic, jump off too soon, and start afresh with a different idea. A "better" idea, or so they tell themselves. But they are likely to get scared again with this new idea and repeat the cycle.

Until you've gone the distance with a story and reached the end, you can't be sure if it was working or not. Because you can't see the pattern clearly when you're too close to the loom. Keep weaving, steadily and confidently, and not listening to internal or external voices, and when it's done, step back for a better look.

Only time will tell whether it was worth my while making these three novellas. Meanwhile, new readers are finding them every day. Will you be one?

UNDER AN EVIL STAR: AMAZON UK

UNDER AN EVIL STAR: AMAZON US

Week Forty-Five: Making Use of Fabulous HOW TO WRITE Resources!

Sometimes, even experienced writers need to take an overview of their writing, research how to move between genres, or just take a breather and look at how other writers build their careers.

For new writers, learning how to do things professionally, or getting hints and tips that prompt fresh writing or help them shift up a gear career-wise, can make the difference between finishing and giving up, or getting a book ready for publication. (See below for a list of fab 'how-to-write' research books, all ON PROMO right now!)

I am a bestselling author who writes in several different genres and publishes with some of our so-called 'Big 5' UK publishers. Yet I frequently consult 'how to' books, and in some cases would never sit down to plan a new book without checking some of my favourite 'how to' manuals.

My mother, Charlotte Lamb, published over 170 novels during her 30-year writing career and was a global million bestseller. She absolutely adored 'how-to-write' books and bought every one that she found on sale. She had a whole bookcase devoted to those books near her desk in her study.

My mother was adamant that good writers never stop learning. She loved sitting down in her spare time to study such manuals and make notes, even for genres she didn't write in. And she passed that obsession on to me ... :)

As for me, I not only write bestselling fiction, but also 'how-to-write' books!

In fact, I have several Writing Prompt books available for Thrillers, Romances, Poetry, and How To Write A Novel In A Month.

Look, my 'how-to-write' book is only 99p this week!

 

Best of all, one of my top-selling 'how-to-write' books is on a 99p promo right now, along with some fellow writers with their own writing books, all at reduced prices!

My 99p book is '21 Ways To Write A Commercial Novel' and is based on this very blog, containing huge amounts of writing tips, plus various industry anecdotes about being a professional writer - not just from me, but also from a range of other novelists. 

Bursting with up-to-date information and entertaining anecdotes from the world of writing and publishing, this guide also features helpful comments on writing from both new and established writers, including Rowan Coleman, Katie Fforde, Judy Astley, Lesley Cookman, Nuala Ni Chonchuir, Alison Morton, Elizabeth Moss and many, many others.

A goldmine of advice for writers from an author of over thirty commercial novels under various pen-names, including an award-winning novel, WITCHSTRUCK, and a UK number one Kindle bestseller, GIRL NUMBER ONE.

Why not check out some of these fab 'how-to-write' or publishing industry books below, all on promotion this week?

Or see this wonderful 'how-to-write' page from Rhoda Baxter, displaying all these titles with covers and Buy Now buttons.

Nina Harrington - How to Write Short Romance	https://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Short-Romance-Kindle-Books-ebook/dp/B00UDP3XBU	B00UDP3XBU
Liz Fielding - Little Book of Writing Romance	https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fieldings-Little-Book-Writing-Romance-ebook/dp/B006YQCE5I/	B006YQCE5I
Kate Harrison - Pitch Power	https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pitch-Power-discover-makes-irresistible-ebook/dp/B081HDC6F3/	B081HDC6F3
Liam Livings - Marketing the Romance	https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07DW9R6GJ/	B07DW9R6GJ
Jane Holland - 21 ways to write a novel	https://www.amazon.co.uk/21-Ways-Write-Commercial-Novel-ebook/dp/B00TRPN8I0/	B00TRPN8I0
R Baxter and J Lovering - How to write Rom Com	https://www.amazon.co.uk/Write-Romantic-Comedy-Rhoda-Baxter-ebook/dp/B07RL6YR7W/	B07RL6YR7W

Amazon Publishing acquires GIRL NUMBER ONE

I'm utterly thrilled to announce the sale of my self-published debut thriller GIRL NUMBER ONE to Amazon Publishing's crime and thriller imprint, Thomas & Mercer.

GIRL NUMBER ONE: a No. 1 Bestselling Thriller

Some of you will recall the convoluted history of this book, which was rejected last year by well over a dozen publishers. I believed in the book, and wanted to find it a readership, so decided to put the book on the market myself. I did everything on my own: editing, cover, blurb, marketing, and published the book in September 2015 at 99p, under my maiden name Jane Holland.

After a slow start, GIRL NUMBER ONE entered the UK Kindle Top 100, and reached Number 1 in the UK on December 10th.

It stayed in the Number 1 position for five days, when I cannily put the price up to £1.99. It began to drop, but thankfully slowly, and remained in the Top 100 for 84 days. The book has sold coming up to 44,000 paid downloads to date, plus over 4 million reads via Kindle Unlimited.

I was called by an editor from Amazon Publishing back in November, who had read GIRL NUMBER ONE and was very excited about it. Although I had already made some super sales on my own, she felt that teaming up with Amazon would open up new territories for the book, and after some research and discussion with other authors, I had to agree. I was particularly pleased that she wanted to acquire a second thriller from me as well.

I took the offer to my agent, and finally signed the contract last week. GIRL NUMBER ONE will be re-edited and republished with a new cover by Thomas & Mercer later in 2016, keeping all its current reviews. Meanwhile, I will be working on a second psychological thriller for them, which we are currently discussing.

This whole experience has been a real vindication for me of my personal belief in this novel. So if you're out there now, with a rejected novel, and you're unsure whether or not to self-publish, I would say, don't wait for someone else's permission to believe in your book, just go for it. If you go down the same route I did as a self-publisher, you will have little to lose and a great deal to gain.

I've also used this opportunity to make my first-ever podcast, to announce this publishing deal and also discuss my screenplay entry in the Red Planet Prize. Why not check it out? It's only 5 mins long - and I'll be starting a whole series of writing podcasts soon, so you might want to subscribe.

My other novels like MIRANDA are selling well too, on the back of GN1's success

My self-published thriller hits Number 1 spot in UK Kindle store

I'm utterly thrilled to announce that my self-published thriller, GIRL NUMBER ONE, hit the coveted number 1 spot in the UK Kindle store two days ago, on December 10th after 40 days in the Top 100.

I wasn't sure if it would stick there more than a few hours at first, but it has so far, apart from a few sideways shifts, but then returning to the top spot. Maybe a few days longer, if I'm lucky?

I was so shocked at first, really stunned, and only found out because the previous occupant of the top spot for many weeks, Kat Croft, author of The Girl With No Past, tweeted me to say I was #1. What a fab person she is.

The kids were even more excited than me and started making out revised Christmas lists, as you can imagine. And I spent the next 24 hours with my nose glued to the screen, sure that it would all end as suddenly as it had happened. But it clung on there, and I have never been so happy to stay in one ranking spot in my whole time as an indie author!

So now I would like to thank everyone who's been involved with helping to promote this book and getting GIRL NUMBER ONE to number one.

No one gets to a top ranking spot with an indie book without legions of friends on social media, tweeting and retweeting, sharing posts, and generally backing up an author and letting people know about their work. As far as I'm concerned, I could not have done it without you. Thank you!

Grab your own copy of GIRL NUMBER ONE on Amazon UK

You can read more about this title here, how it was rejected by over a dozen major UK publishers, and subsequently rewritten and self-published. I am completely thrilled to have hit the top spot in the UK ebook chart with my baby, and even if it only lasts a couple of days, I will never forget the wonderful feeling of being able to click on the Kindle Bestsellers' chart and see my OWN BOOK and name up there at the top.

Thank you all!

And for those who might like to see their own books up at the top of their charts, I have laid out some tips and pointers describing how I did it, on this blog.

GIRL NUMBER ONE: AMAZON UK

GIRL NUMBER ONE: AMAZON US

Eleanor Blackwood discovers a woman's body in the same spot in local woodlands where her mother was strangled eighteen years ago. But before the police can get there, the body vanishes.
 

Is Eleanor’s disturbed mind playing tricks on her again, or has her mother’s killer resurfaced? And what does the number on the dead woman’s forehead signify?

Week Twenty-Seven: How To Make Your Novel A Bestseller

Yes, this blog is about How To Write A Novel, and we have been straying quite deep into How To Sell A Novel territory recently, but bear with me. Normal service will be resumed next week with a post by the lovely and talented author Samantha Tonge on books and writing.

Some weeks ago, the more attentive among you may recall me blogging about how I wrote a thriller last year, but it was rejected umpteen times, so I gave up trying to place it traditionally and self-published instead. The whole story of that decision is here: Writing My First Thriller.

That was GIRL NUMBER ONE, which I self-published September 21st.

Seven weeks ago.

I tweeted about the book, shared it repeatedly on Facebook - which I bet was annoying to some of my long-suffering friends, but what you can do? - and organised a Thunderclap (see this post) to push it up a notch.

Last night I checked the book's UK ranking and was over the moon to see how far it had risen.

As you can see, after only 49 days on Amazon, GIRL NUMBER ONE had broken the Top 50 barrier in the UK Kindle store and was, spookily, at No. 49. One place for every day! (Though it changes hourly.)

UPDATE (December 10th 2015)
GIRL NUMBER ONE reached the #1 spot in UK Kindle store, following 40 days in the Top 100

Basic Promo
This achievement is something I never believed could be possible for any self-published book of mine. Especially given my rather haphazard approach to promo. I don't blog very often, and mostly just tweet my book links or chat about my writing on Facebook. I don't keep an email list - which I should, and probably will have to in the future - and although I initially paid a few quid for two ad campaigns on Facebook and Amazon, they were both of only a few days' duration and didn't make any marked difference to my sales. I currently have a Goodreads Giveaway in hand, but that's only after the book reached the Top 50!

So how on earth did I manage this? How did a disorganized mother of five who homeschools and writes her books in odd, snatched moments possibly manage to sell quite so many books?  Here are some thoughts on what has happened ...

Key Ingredients For An Indie Bestseller
The first thing that got my book into the Top 50 10 on Amazon UK is LUCK.

I know that sounds horribly random. But it is true. No one really knows what makes one book sell and another equally good book struggle. Most experienced book trade professionals will admit this. Without good luck, you might as well pack up now and go home. So one of the key elements of big book sales, whether traditional or self-published, is totally out of your hands. I hope that's a comfort. It is to me, because I know that if I fail to sell well in the future I can blame my lack of success on bad luck.

So make sure you get lucky. But okay, let's assume you can make your own luck, or at least facilitate it. How might you do that as a self-published writer?

Have a good title. By which I mean a title that works extremely well within its genre. A title that lets a reader know what kind of book it is, and therefore indicates if they might like it. But it should be a title that does all this without - if possible - being too derivative or unoriginal. In some cases, an eccentric, standout title could make sales explode. In other cases, a title like that could kill an otherwise good book. So be careful.

Have a great cover. Again, this is often about genre. The cover must reinforce the title and be genre-appropriate. At the browsing stage on Amazon, it's all about visuals. If the main font isn't readable in a thumbnail, or the cover itself looks indistinct, confusing, or just plain dull, then you could be in trouble. This doesn't demand great skills. I can only draw stick people, I am no talented artist. Yet I made my own cover for GIRL NUMBER ONE by buying a spooky-looking woods photo online, then fiddling with it on Pic Monkey. During this process, I kept in mind the colours and fonts and design features commonly used in other psychological thrillers so that readers could see at a glance what kind of book it is. And it seems to have worked.

GIRL NUMBER ONE (UK)

Write a strong, succinct, genre-appropriate blurb. This is not the place to get creative and show off your purple prose. Be clear and tempting at the same time. Suggest something intriguing where you can. If your genre is popular fiction, do not be afraid to be a bit crass with your book description if it works. Present your book confidently, as you hope a publicity team would do if you were traditionally published. (Not all traditional publishers make an effort to help writers with promo, by the way. Just in case you are dreaming that they do.) In other words, it should look and sound exactly like something on the back of the kind of books you are in competition with in your genre.

Get your Amazon categories and keywords working for you. These are very important. When you self-publish, you can choose two categories where your books should be listed, and seven keywords for other elements of your story. Some keywords will get you into bestseller lists once your book begins to sell, and this can help readers 'discover' your book. Discoverability is absolutely fundamental to selling books on Amazon, which has gazillions of books on sale. Your book is left to drift on that vast ocean,and you need to find ways to draw attention to it. Not just in the first weeks or months of publication, but sometimes up to a year after publication. After that, your best bet for making sales is to publish another book.

Start to build a backlist. You need to build a readership and a brand identity as a writer, because branding your books will appeal strongly to readers. Readers like to know what to expect from a writer, just like you want to know what flavour crisps you're about to eat, in case it's Worcester Sauce and not good ol' Cheese 'n' Onion. That's always been a problem for me because I write so many different books under different names. And this being my debut thriller as Jane Holland meant I had no reassuring 'brand' to offer any would-be readers. Looking at my other books would show them only poetry. They had to take everything on trust.

So I polished up two other thrillerish books I had in the bottom drawer, and published them alongside GIRL NUMBER ONE. Hey presto, I had created an instant portfolio!

Now when people buy either of those other books, they see GIRL NUMBER ONE in the Also Bought strip, and vice versa. And that gives my debut title, I like to feel, more validity. Borrowed pedigree. Because it's no longer alone but part of a 'list'.

Keep belting them out to build your portfolio.

Get your price right. Unfortunately, the craze for free books has led to readers expecting something for nothing, or at least for as little as possible. While big names can still attract healthy sales with large price tags, most writers need to be modest with their expectations of wealth. So price your book appropriately for its genre, length and general market fit if you want to make strong sales. I had to drop my price from £1.99 to 99p to crack the Top 100, and while that was a large drop for me (only 35% royalty instead of 70%) the increase in sales volume has been worth it.


Finally, write a page-turning book that fits the market as well as bringing something new to it. To succeed in a mass market arena, a book that is not being championed by some external factor, like a book prize or the fact that its author is a celebrity, needs to be gripping above all else. I don't mean in a thriller sense, but simply in the sense that once you have started reading this book, you simply must finish it. That's what you need for lasting success. So write clear, consistent prose that will appeal to a broad swathe of readers and keep those cliffhangers coming. Otherwise you will not attract a mass readership who will buy all your books and - most importantly - trumpet your books to other people. If you're a more literary writer, that's fine but you can't expect to sell heavily unless you can win a prize or attract attention some other way; the readership for literary fiction is not broad enough.

Because the final element in selling books is to get other people to sell it for you. Past a certain sales point, the author ceases to perform a practical function in actual day-to-day sales, and that is when high visibility and readers take her/his place. The kind of readers every author wants, the lovely ones who connect on social media and say spontaneously to their friends, 'Listen, you MUST read this book!'

And if you think that sounds like a tall order, you're right. Which is why I'm already working on my next novel, suspicious that I'm going to wake up soon and discover it was all a dream ...

QUESTION: What makes you buy a book on Amazon? What makes you choose to pass on it? How can you apply your findings to your own promotional efforts?

Week Twenty-Five: Promoting Books, or, We Interrupt this blog for a THUNDERCLAP

UPDATE: July 2016

The new revised edition of GIRL NUMBER ONE is out August 9th 2016 with Thomas & Mercer, and I'm running a NEW Thunderclap Campaign to help promote it. 

Do support me by clicking the link below!

Girl Number One on THUNDERCLAP 

Forgive the theatrics. But it's all in a good cause. Honest.

As a writer, you may have heard of 'Thunderclap'. It is rapidly becoming THE new method of promoting books on social media. But what on earth is it? And how does it work?

Let me explain ...

You may have 100 followers on Twitter or 5000. Fair enough. You may even have a few thousand friends on Facebook. Great stuff. But using Thunderclap, you basically harness the combined social reach of 100 or more friends and followers, giving you a MASSIVE group to which you can promote your book.

You join up at Thunderclap and decide on your goal - 100 people tweeting a link to your book on Amazon along with a short promotional message is the method I went for - then start asking other people in your social media reach, i.e. your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or LinkedIn, to "support" the campaign.

Supporting a campaign means visiting the Thunderclap site, agreeing to let them access your info on one or more social media accounts - just like when you access any app like Instagram that posts elsewhere for you - and clicking Support This Campaign.

You can choose which social media account you want to use for supporting it, then Thunderclap will post the other person's campaign tweet or post ONCE ONLY on a certain date at a certain pre-arranged time.

That's the THUNDERCLAP effect. One hundred people or more at once saying, 'Read this book!'across a range of widely differing social media accounts.

And for those who feel this will be an annoyance, I doubt it. Many of the people who are supporting my campaign do not particularly overlap in their friends with my own, so a hundred or so tweets or posts going out to several hundred thousand people is unlikely to cause much annoyance.

And it's FREE. No obligation to buy and no hidden cost to you. Just an agreement to let Thunderclap post my chosen tweet on your account come Monday October 19th.

But there's a catch ...

If you don't reach your chosen number of supporters - which is 100 for me - then it will not happen at all. The campaign will have failed, and no messages will go out anywhere.

To help boost my numbers, I joined the Thunderclap Campaigns Facebook group and agreed to reciprocate with other campaigns in return for votes. Without that help, I doubt I would have made my goal. Worth considering.

A large proportion of people who share your message asking for supporters WILL NOT support the Thunderclap campaign themselves, for whatever reason: some may dislike allowing access to their account even for a one-off tweet or share; some openly dislike book promotion in any form (a staggering number of these also believe it's possible for independent authors without publisher back-up to sell books without actually telling anyone about them, just by being nice and hoping people notice they are authors, LOL); others may not want the kind of book you've written to appear on their social media feed. I myself discreetly passed on reciprocating with some of the writers who backed my campaign, mainly because I did not want to seem to be supporting certain kinds of dodgy erotica. I felt bad about that, but staying 'on message' is important on social media.

UPDATE

After The Thunderclap

Following my Thunderclap on Monday at 5pm, when 117 people on social media reposted my message to a social reach of nearly 655K people, to check out GIRL NUMBER ONE on Amazon, at first nothing seemed to happen.

It was a little worrying.

Then slowly sales started rolling in late that evening, and the day finished at 100 copies sold at £1.99 during that 24-hour period. The borrowed pages read (via Kindle Unlimited) reached 14,000.

The ranking shot up 70 places to #150.

That was the Thunderclap effect and I was fairly pleased with it. It's now starting to subside a little, as one might expect. But you can help stop the slide by sharing this post, my book details, or buying the book itself in paperback or ebook.

Many thanks!

UPDATE ON THE UPDATE 

November 16th 2015

It is now almost ONE MONTH since the Thunderclap for Girl Number One.  

Today, the book is at #14 in the UK Kindle chart.

As far as I'm concerned, a well-organized Thunderclap campaign with strong follow-up promotional efforts on social media can reap huge rewards.

Overall, feedback and response have been very positive. One (male) writer on Twitter told me it was a mistake to do a Thunderclap as it would 'put people off the book' and was annoyed when I disagreed. I believe it's safe to say he was mistaken.

UPDATE ON THE UPDATE ON THE UPDATE

December 6th 2015

It is now a little short of two months since the Thunderclap.

 GIRL NUMBER ONE is #5 in the UK Kindle store

A few days ago it reached #3, my highest-ever ranking with any book.

Nuff said.

UPDATE:

GIRL NUMBER ONE 

reached #1 in the UK Kindle chart

mid-December 2015

and stayed there nearly a full week.

THANKS!!!

GIRL NUMBER on Amazon UK and on Amazon US.  

UPDATE: July 2016
The new revised edition of GIRL NUMBER ONE is out August 9th 2016 with Thomas & Mercer, and I'm running a NEW Thunderclap Campaign to help promote it. 

Do support me by clicking the link below!

Girl Number One on THUNDERCLAP