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Originally Posted by Gregg Bell
Hey, "getting there is" is awesome. Glad it's working for you. I'm really leaning toward (I've got three novels pretty much ready to go), doing the first one totally free and then the other two for 99 cents. The Amazon Monster is still lurking, though, with its warnings and delays (see below--the last two paragraphs are from KDP Forum). I don't know, I guess I could do the first book in the KDP Select for three months and then go totally free with it. Still batting it around. I hope you don't mind but I'm kind of using you as my guide. (So if you have any more info for me I'm all ears.) Thanks.
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Make your first book GREAT. Best cover art you can afford (mistake I made). You can darn good pre-made covers for $25-$50 that are professional looking. Your cover is critical for your first book. Google up "pre-made book covers" and you will find them by the 100's.
Make sure your books are FULLY and PROFESSIONALLY edited before release (mistake I made) and post the heck out of the free one everywhere that accepts free book adverts all at once. Your goal is to spike downloads as early as you can and get about the top 1 or 2 thousand on the Kindle Free boards. Once you cross that line you get in all kinds of "also bought" lists, and "you might be interested in lists." Head over to Kindle Boards, they have a yellow pages of sites that let free books get listed.
Have book two and three ready to go and advertise them in your first book, at the very end of the book. Almost all readers skip all front matter, but adverts that are done well that follow the text in the last chapter seem to work well. Until you have your mailing list ready this is by far your best advertising medium.
Setup a mailing list with someone like MailChimp (free for small fries like us). This will be your BEST source of advertising by far once you develop it. Put links in your ebook to the subscribe list and then protect that list with a vengeance. Only send out announcements about new books and that kind of rare update. Never give up or share your mailing list. Geting this list can be a long painful process, but if you build it, it will pay you back a gazillion times over.
Make out plan before you release of all the places you will hit with advertising, all the people you plan to announce too, and etc. Make sure your web site, facebook, twitter and mailing list are ready and look mature before you release.
Also price your books at 2.99 or 3.99, not 0.99. Studies have shown (and been linked here) that the 0.99 price looses sales compared to 2.99. 2.99->5.99 seems to be the best range for a new indy.
Hope that helps. I wish I knew all this when I got started. My free book hit #5 on Amazon for several weeks... but was not edited and had no advertising in it. I lost all of those readers who only know by the unedited work and I have no way to reach them now.