My Kindle Scout Experience

My Kindle Scout campaign for SOUL CATCHERS has ended, and I'm pretty happy with the results. I don't know yet if my book has been selected, but I'd like to think with the amount of time it spent on the Hot & Trending list, that it is at least being considered. IT WAS SELECTED!!!

I thought I would break down my stats for anyone who might be interested. First, here is the cover and blurb that I submitted for SOUL CATCHERS, a young adult fantasy:

Soul Catchers Cover
Whoever kills the wolf becomes the wolf…
 
Rowan Lewis shouldn't be alive. Magic is illegal, making her mere existence a crime, and if the government ever discovers the truth about her powers, she'll be killed on the spot. Or worse. But when she uses her magic to kill a wolf that's attacking her mom, her abilities are exposed and the animal’s evil spirit possesses her. Unable to control the beast inside her, she flees the city in search of a cure before the wolf spirit consumes her soul, turning her into a murderous monster permanently.

SOUL CATCHERS spent a total of 658 hours in the Hot & Trending category and had 6K page views.

Here's how the Hot & Trending hours were broken down over the course of the month:

And here is how the page views were broken down:

That huge spike on the 12th happened when I sent the link out in my newsletter, and another author also included it in hers that day. The spike on the 26th happened when I sent out another newsletter reminding my readers to nominate the book, and another author sent it in hers, too. So, sending it in two newsletters on the same day makes a huge difference in page views!

How did I manage to keep my book in Hot & Trending for so long?

68% of the traffic on my book's page came directly from within Kindle Scout itself. I think my awesome cover had a lot to do with my book getting lots of internal clicks.

32% of my page views came from external sources...my own readers and marketing efforts.

So, here is what I did:

Newsletter swaps: I already have decent sized newsletter, so in addition to telling my own readers about the book, I also swapped with 7 other authors to have my book included in their newsletters throughout the campaign.

Facebook & Twitter Posts: I posted on my Facebook author page and my Twitter account throughout the campaign.

Boosted Facebook Post: I spent $10 to boost a post on my author page, which resulted in 940 people reached and 53 clicks on the post.

Just Kindle Books: I used the paid Kindle Scout Promotion on Just Kindle Books. The cost is $33 at the time I'm writing this post.

Lincoln Cole: I used Lincoln Cole's Kindle Scout book promotion, which you can find HERE. Packages start at $8, but I used the Silver Package, which was $16. He also offers a wealth of information on the program, and I highly recommend you check it out HERE.

Author Shout: I used the $10 Kindle Scout Nomination Campaign on Author Shout and I definitely recommend this one. They make graphics for your campaign, and that alone was worth it for me! They also tweet your link throughout the campaign to keep the nominations trickling in.

I think having a professional cover and good blurb makes a huge difference, especially in getting internal traffic. The sample pages also need to be intriguing, well-written, and clean to entice people to click the nominate button once they're on your page. Between those things, that's how I kept SOUL CATCHERS on the Hot & Trending list for most of the campaign. 

Now it's in the hands of Kindle Press! I will update this post as soon as I hear from them as to whether or not the book was selected!