Do you want more mileage from your ebook? Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) gives you several tools to help you promote your ebook and get more readers. Here are five easy tools you can use today.
Kindle Instant Book Previews
Kindle Instant Book Previews allow you to share a link to your book in an email or embed a preview on your website. Go to your book page on Amazon and look in the right column for the pricing and purchase button. Scroll to the bottom to find the embed code link.
Here is the magnified view of the embed link at the bottom of the buy panel on your book’s Amazon page.
When you click on <Embed>, it brings you to a screen where you can choose to embed a link or embed on your website. Include your Amazon Associate account number or sign up to earn a little extra on each book you sell through the link. https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/.
Here is what my book preview looks like for The Self-Publishing Roadmap:
Kindle Free Promotions
When you enroll in KDP Select, you have the opportunity to offer your ebook for free. Why give your book away? More readers equal more exposure to your work and more reviews. More reviews drive sales. KDP Select books are eligible for a free promotion for five days in a 90-day enrollment period.
From your KDP Bookshelf, click on Promote and Advertise.
You have the choice to run a Free Book Promotion or a Kindle Countdown Deal (which I’ll explain in the next section). Select the radio button for Free Book Promotion and click the button to select the dates you’d like it to run.
Kindle Countdown Deals
You can access Kindle Countdown Deals from the same window. Kindle Countdown Deals allow you to offer an increasing sales price for your ebook to encourage readers to buy before the price increases. From this screen, you can select the marketplace (Amazon.com or Amazon.uk), dates of the promotion (up to 7 days), the starting price, and incremental increases in price (i.e. $.99, $1.49, $1.99, $2.49).
Kindle Pre-Orders
A great benefit of publishing your ebook with KDP is the ability to offer pre-sales. Pre-sales are available for any new ebook. You may offer your ebook for pre-sale up to 30 days in advance of your launch. You must upload a copy of your book prior to signing up for pre-order and upload a final copy up to 10 days before it is scheduled for release. Your book will be reviewed for compliance with their terms as they do with all ebooks. After review, Amazon generates a book page.
That means you can promote your Amazon book page on your website, on Amazon’s Author Central, on Goodreads, and on all of your social media channels up to 30 days prior to your launch. That fuels your sales numbers and early reviews.
This feature is available on the ebook setup page on KDP.
Advertise with KDP Select
A benefit of using KDP Select is your ability to advertise your ebook. You can target readers based on interest or product. If you target based on interest, Amazon shows your ad based on a subject, like gardening or marketing. Ads targeted based on interest get shown on Kindle devices, as well.
Ads targeted based on product are shown when a specific product is shown. For example, if you wrote a motivational book, you can target books penned by Tony Robbins. When someone searches for books by Tony Robbins, your ad is shown on his page. You know you have someone specifically looking for the topic you are selling.
You can select a budget for the ad with a minimum of $100. You can also select your price per click (PPC). Try manipulating the campaign or using multiple campaigns to test which ad works best and produces the highest sales. The ad will lead readers to your book. The cover and, ultimately, the reviews will compel them to buy.
Access the advertising feature from your Bookshelf and click on Promote and Advertise next to the book you want to advertise.
You get a lot of features to promote your ebook and even more options when you enroll in KDP Select. Vary your promotions to reach more readers and get your book into more readers’ hands.
Great article. Could you show an example of an embed preview link with an affiliate id in it? I want to do your suggestion, but I’m not quite sure how to add my affiliate ID so I get that extra kicker. Thanks.
Great question. After you click on the embed link on your ebook page, select the radio button for either the link or to embed. Under the radio buttons there is a link for the Amazon Associate ID. Click on that and there is a box for your ID.
Thank you, that is very interesting information for all the would-be authors wanting to publish their own books. This seems like a great way to go.
Kathleen
Thanks learned something new today
Best Wishes
Thanks, Raj. I’m glad I could help.
Does Amazon (KDP) not promote books/ebooks of self publishing authors? What are their services for the compensation they get (say 65% in 35% royalty program). If they do the promotion / marketing what is the basis of such campaigns?
Hi Rajeswaran,
KDP doesn’t promote books. It is a tool for distributing books/ebooks on Amazon and other places. They don’t charge you for publishing, but they do take their cut when you sell books. If you publish your ebook using KDP Select, you can create ads through their platform to promote your book to a wider audience. You can decide how much you’d like to spend on each ad. I hope that helps!