A Cloud with a Silver Lining

I’m sure that many of you that supported my Kindle Scout campaign have received notification that my book, Blood Match, was not selected.

This message awaited me in my inbox yesterday:

Sure, I was disappointed. Anyone who has ever received a rejection letter from an agent or publisher feels that chipping away at your self-esteem.

When I looked at the statistics behind the campaign, however, I was encouraged.

The Kindle Scout program has this thing called the Hot List. The book started out on the list and ended very strongly on it.

 

The graph shows that the book was on the hot list 11 out of 30 days and, more importantly, was on it consistently the last 6 days of the campaign (209 out of 720 total hours). Also, the campaign was viewed by over 4,000 people.

These statistics are much better than I expected with a first effort in the program. I had read a number of articles and a book on successfully conducting a Kindle Scout campaign and these numbers exceeded the predicted outcome from those sources.

So, I didn’t get a contract. That’s okay. I know that, when I do publish Blood Match, in the next month or so, the people that voted in the campaign will be told it is out and that’s a good jump-start.

As I looked at the top 50 referral spots to my campaign, many of you that have blogs were mentioned. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. I value this community and the support I have received.

This won’t be the last Kindle Scout campaign that I try. I’m encouraged to try it again in the future. I’ll make some adjustments and hope for the best.

Thank you to all of you for your support. The destination wasn’t the desired one, but the journey was rewarding.

A Big Thank You – Only 3 Days Left

My book, Blood Match, is in the home stretch in the Kindle Scout program and I’m pleased to see that, with three days left, it’s on the hot list.

I really appreciate the support of this blogging community and everyone that voted and signed up for my Thunderclap effort.

Being on the hot list doesn’t guarantee selection by Amazon, but it doesn’t hurt.

If you haven’t had a chance to vote, or you are considering voting for my book, you can get to the Kindle Scout campaign HERE.

The campaign ends this coming Friday. I won’t know the results for at least a couple of weeks after that, I believe. No matter the outcome, this has been a great experience.

Thanks,

Don

Thank you for a great start to my Kindle Scout Campaign

I can’t thank this blogging community enough for a great start to the Kindle Scout program for my book, Blood Match. On it’s first full day, it cracked the Hot & Trending list.

This is difficult to do as it has to knock off other books to get there. I received almost 500 nominations just yesterday. I really appreciate it.

If you haven’t had a chance to vote, you still can over the next 28 days HERE.

An Exciting Adventure to Take My Writing to the Next Level – Please Help

You’re among the first to know about this

I’m extremely excited to announce that my new book, Blood Match, is enrolled in the Kindle Scout program.

What is the Kindle Scout Program?

Kindle Scout is reader-powered publishing for new, never-before-published books. … Selected books will be published by Kindle Press and receive 5-year renewable terms, an advance,  royalties and featured Amazon marketing.

Why is it important?

If my book is selected for publication by Kindle Scout, it can help take my writing to the next level.

How can you help?

First and foremost, you can vote to nominate my book. The campaign goes up on September 20th at midnight and will continue through October 20th. You can vote for it and preview the opening of the book by clicking HERE.

As a blog follower, how can you really help?

Spread the word. I’ve made that easy for you using something called Thunderclap. Thunderclap is a social media tool that allows you to effortlessly spread the word using your social media accounts with a pre-written message. All of your followers will receive the message. You can help by signing up for the Thunderclap campaign HERE.

What’s in it for you?

Apart from my eternal gratitude, if my book is selected, you will receive a free pre-launch copy from Amazon and will have the opportunity to officially review it before its launch. That is a free book for you, but it also helps me, yet again, by launching with established reviews.

Please check out the Kindle Scout page and vote if you’re so moved. If you want to enroll in the Thunderclap campaign, I would really appreciate it.

Thanks,
Don Massenzio

A Plea for Help From the Wonderful Blogger/Author Community

As I seriously took on blogging two years ago, I set out on a mission to do a couple of things:

• Get some exposure for my writing
• Meet other authors and learn from them
• Help other authors get exposure
• Provide helpful information to the communigy

I’ve been humbled as my blog has grown to over 1,500 followers in the past 24 months.

This is one of those rare occasions where I am actively asking for help.

This is so counter-intuitive to my nature, but I could really use your help as I spread the word about my Kindle Scout campaign for my new book.

It’s really simple. A Kindle Scout Campaign lasts for 30 days. Mine starts tomorrow. I’ll have a general blog announcement about it, but, after the initial fanfare, it’s those remaining days of the 30-day time period that are crucial.

I was hoping that I can get some volunteers to post the campaign information to their blogs over the next 30 days.

I will make it extremely easy and painless for you. I’ll provide the post an I’ll devise a schedule. All you need to do is send an email to me at don@donmassenzio.com with a projected date when you’d like to post. I’ll send you the HTML post with instructions (if you need them) on how to post it to your blog.

It’s that simple. You can feel free to change the post, add a heading along with Categories and Tags as you see fit.

I’m excited to be taking a shot at this Kindle Scout program, but I realize, it takes a village of authors, readers and reviewers to succeed.

I look forward to hearing from those of you that can help.

 

 

An exciting, yet scary, venture

This has been a year of taking big steps in trying to accelerate my writing career. Ironically, it has been my slowest year for publishing books. I have two of them written and one completely edited and ready to go, but I’m holding back for a couple of reasons.

First, I recently released an audio book version of Blood Orange. It was a new market and will be followed soon by the first book in the Frank Rozzani Detective Series in audio format.

Second, I wanted to try something totally new with one of my unpublished books. I want to submit it as a candidate for the Kindle Scout program. I’m not doing this lightly. I want to market and promote it correctly and take my best shot. I truly believe in the merit of the book I’m submitting and want to do it the right way.

It’s a very scary proposition, however. I’m not an overly confident person by nature. I also abhor promoting myself and patting myself on the back. I’m hoping to leverage whatever reputation I may or may not have as an author for some of the promotion that I’m going to undertake for this effort. I’ve also put aside some funds to outsource some of it.

From what I’ve learned and continue to learn, the key to success in the Kindle Scout program is sustained promotion and visibility over a 30 day period. This is going to be difficult and, for my followers and newsletter subscribers, perhaps a bit annoying.

I’m hoping that I can prevail on some of you with blogs to help me out with this effort. The more I can spread the word and keep things going, the better chance I will have.

In fact, if you’re interested in helping me out by allowing me a guest post or a promotional spot on your blog, you can let me know by emailing me at don@donmassenzio.com and I’ll try to schedule these out to sustain the momentum.

It will probably be 2-3 weeks before I get all of my ducks in a row to submit my book. In the meantime, any advice that you might have if you’ve gone through or thought about going through this process would be greatly appreciated.

Please look for upcoming information on the book and on my push for the Kindle Scout program on this in the coming weeks. If nothing else, it will be a learning experience and will give me a barometer of where I’m at against where I need to be.