Summary: We got together this Fourth of July to talk about the launch strategies we’re using for The Dream Engine [link], the book Sean and Johnny wrote in 30 days for Fiction Unboxed. Along the way, they talked about how to pre-sell a book without a presales page from Amazon, how to get into more than two categories, the importance of building a team around your publishing business, and why Sprite Zero has no idea how to make a publicity-friendly aluminum can. Why Ray Chase is Awesome Listeners get a real treat at the start of the show because Johnny plays a sample of the first chapter of The Dream Engine in audio, read by the ever-talented Ray Chase, who will be on next week’s show. We even get to hear part of it twice because we can’t help but screw stuff up on the show, like always. Ray will basically be one of our go-to guys for audio from now on, so if you love his reading, you’ll love the next year or so here at Sterling & Stone. We Answer Voicemails, Like the Pros We Are Victoria asked about pre-ordering on Amazon. Apparently, if you know the right people in Amazon, you can get pre-orders as an indie, which is what Jason Gurley did. But for the rest of us… well, see below for Johnny and Sean’s solution. Then Gayne from Texas asked about checking out reviewers that give you bad reviews. Sean admitted to doing that, because it helps you know how seriously you should take any negative reviews. Pre-Orders for Indies on Amazon (Sort Of) Finally, the guys talked about what Johnny calls the poor man’s pre-order. They’ve published The Dream Engine on the down low, not even telling their list, so they can collect reviews before the official launch date and promote on BookBub and elsewhere. By the way, if you want to help out, you can totally buy The Dream Engine on Amazon here [link] for only 99 cents, and then post a review for it here. That would totally help us out! Plus, you know, you’re getting a 4 or 5 dollar read for less than a buck, so there’s that. How to Get into Phantom Categories on Amazon That’s what David Gaughran called them in his epic guide, Let’s Get Visible. We talk about how Johnny, with Darren’s help, got The Dream Engine into more than two categories. Not only that, but he also got into categories that you simply can’t register for when you publish the book through the KDP dashboard. No matter what kind of book you’re writing/publishing, you totally want to know this stuff. By the way, the link that Johnny mentions in the show is here, all about how to use keywords to get into those phantom categories. Really awesome stuff. ACX—Your Best Audio Option to Date Finally, Johnny talks about how we tried to get The Dream Engine into ACX directly, after hiring Ray to do the audio, only to discover nothing is that easy. After doing research and asking around, we ended up putting it through ACX with the exclusivity option checked, meaning we can’t even sell the books on our new site, Sterling & Stone. It seems going through ACX is still the best deal in town for indie authors, even if the royalties recently dropped like a ton of bricks. Here’s the video version of the show: A Special Thanks to Our Sponsors Sprite Zero has a pretty awesome logo. They just apparently don’t know where to put it on their cans. Just ask Dave. But if you already know where you want to put your logo or book cover design, you should totally think about using 99 Designs for your designer needs. In fact, if you go to 99designs.com/spp, you can get a free Power Pack upgrade, valued at 99 bucks, allowing you to get even more designer time and attention. And of course, where would we be without our amazing Superfriends over at CaptionAccess, who provide all our transcription needs, while at the same time fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. If you ever need transcription work done, shine your bat signal over to captionaccess.com and tell them you heard about them on SPP and get 30% off.
