When selling your book on Amazon, you can’t simply list your title on the massive eCommerce site and wait for the sales to roll in. You need to make readers aware of your book, and then keep them interested in your work and updated on your new books.
Fortunately, Amazon is helping with that process via Amazon Follows. Amazon allows readers to “follow” you as an author. On every author page there is an orange button under the photograph that looks like the one in the image to the right.
Amazon Follows allows Amazon customers to follow your work and receive email updates about your new releases. This is important for authors, because the more people Amazon alerts about your upcoming book, the more sales you will make.
The Amazon Follows program doesn’t just alert customers about new releases, it can also give updates about your book reviews. If someone leaves a glowing five-star review on your latest novel, your followers might be alerted, and will have a call to action to check out the book that was reviewed. It really does pay to have a large following on Amazon. If you are interested in growing your Amazon Following, these tips can set you up for success.
Run an Amazon Giveaway
Everyone loves free stuff, especially when it requires minimal effort to claim the free items. To boost your Amazon Following, you can run an Amazon giveaway, and set it up so that “following the author” is a requirement to enter.
Before setting up the giveaway, you must decide how many prizes you want to give out. You pay for each book you plan to giveaway. But if your prizes are your books, and you are on KDP, you will receive royalties back on them. Furthermore, each book given away will count as a sale towards your sales rank. Amazon will refund you for any books that are not given away. It’s best to give away as many books as you are comfortable with. In general, the more you give, the more followers you will get.
Once you have determined how many prizes you will hand out, you can start setting up your giveaway. On your Amazon book’s page, scroll down to the bottom and click “Set up an Amazon Giveaway”. For the giveaway type, select “Choose Lucky Number Instant Win.” Then, under the heading “Select the lucky number for the winning entry. Winners are selected by entry order,” choose the lucky number. If you choose 100, then every 100th person to enter will win. Amazon will also have a heading that reads “require entrants to.” In this category, set it so that entrants must follow the author on Amazon. The discoverability should be set to public, so anyone can find your giveaway.
Boost Your Amazon Giveaway on JustKindleBooks
Once your Amazon Giveaway has been set up, you can boost your giveaway via JustKindleBooks. Boosting your giveaway is actually simple. Visit justkindlebooks.com/giveaway-submission-form to start. You will have to include the URL of the giveaway and a one-sentence description of the book.
For a limited time, you can boost your giveaway for just $5. JustKindleBooks will promote your giveaway to its followers.
Promote Your Giveaway
Although JustKindleBooks will do a lot of the heavy lifting to boost your Amazon giveaway, you can also promote your giveaway on your website and social media. Be sure to include a photo of your book, the link to the giveaway and the hash tag #giveaway.
On your website, you can add a post about the giveaway on your front page or on the product page of the book.
Leave a Note for Readers
Another way to get followers it to appeal to the readers you already have. At the back of your book, where you would typically put acknowledgements, you can take the time to acknowledge the importance of Amazon Followers. You can ask readers to follow you on Amazon. Explain that they will receive emails about new releases and book reviews.
How Many Amazon Followers Do You Have?
Unfortunately, you will never know exactly how many followers you have. Amazon doesn’t share that information with authors or readers. However, just because you don’t know the number, doesn’t mean you should ignore Amazon Followers. The more people that follow you, the more customers will know when your book is released. Hopefully that knowledge will turn into dollar signs. By taking advantage of Amazon giveaways and boosting your promotion via JustKindleBooks, you will see your sales thrive the next time a title is released.
