Kassidia Pike has kindly given us permission to reblog her original post.
Self-published authors get used to surges and dips in sales, often due to whatever’s happening on the calendar. Summertime* sales slumps are normal, planning promos for holidays when no one’s going to be reading books is problematic, and Autumn* means kids are back in school and parents get more time with their ereaders. By far, my favorite author season is Kindlemas.
A lot of authors call the time after Christmas Kindlemas, since it is when the new Kindles get used. This year Amazon sold a tablet on Black Friday for less than $40, designed for ebooks.
Getting ready for this sales spike and the promise of a new year, I have put together a challenge for you, called The Twelve Days ‘Til Kindlemas. It is twelve steps toward improving your marketing and upping your word count.
How do you participate? Choose any twelve items from the list below and complete them before Christmas Day. I know we’re all at different levels of experience and types of circumstances, so I tried to have a range of ideas.
You In? Just add your reply below, and list the twelve you complete. When you’re done, finish up by posting HAPPY KINDLEMAS!
THE KICKING ASS AT KINDLEMAS LIST:
- Improve one thing on your web page
- Setup a squeeze page or free download for newsletter subscribers
- Newsletter – send one out, or set one up
- Set up an affiliate account, and make sure all your webpage links for Amazon books have affiliate links
- Have a 5k wordcount day
- Write something interesting on Twitter, Facebook, or Twitter, that is NOT you trying to sell books. What adds value to your readers’ lives?
- Take a look at your previously-published stuff. What can you bundle together, or run through Grammarly, or promo?
- Tighten up one blurb. If you need to, have a friend look it over for critique.
- Freshen up or redo one cover. Check out the top 100 books with that genre/topic, and see what SELLS.
- Publish one book
- Promote some other author on your website or newsletter. It is the time of giving, after all!
- Schedule promotions for the next six weeks
- Write 3000 words for three days in a row
- Got stuff you’ve started and abandoned? Go through those files and see how much it would take to get them published!
- Well, kinda 14A. Smack one of those unfinished manuscripts around and FINISH IT. At least to first draft status, anyway.
- Join a group project, or set one up!
- Set up your writing goals for the next month…or the next three months.
- What’s holding you back from getting what you really want? Write it down. How can you solve that issue? What steps are you willing to take? What will you be doing a year from now?
- Get a writing buddy who will exchange emails with you daily, so you can let each other know what you’ve accomplished.
- Write 50K before Christmas Day.
- What have you been procrastinating on? DO THAT FIRST.
- Join some fellow writers for real time word sprints.
- Start using a timer or app (Pomodoro, 5,000 WPH, etc) to do word sprints.
- Nothing fits? How about this. What could you do that would be outside your comfort zone and move you closer toward where you want to be? What could YOU choose?
I wish you all the most festive Kindlemas you’ve ever had!
Warmly,
* Northern hemisphere seasons
