Reprinted from Kathrin Lake’s blog
(campaign page here: Https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/6RZV8XHY3K9H)First, thanks to everyone who nominated The Happy Hammock already. I hope we succeed as a team effort, meanwhile…
Let me tell you what it feels like to have a Kindle Scout campaign for Day 1 and into Day 2… nerve wracking. My husband says as a Theatre major I have a tendency to overdramatize, and I admit I can go there. So the overall lesson to this learning is keep calm. I have already learned a ton about KS and documented my lessons here:
1) The time zones. One thing I didn’t realize was that because the campaigns start after midnight on the day of your campaign – this is East Coast time, that on the West Coast (where I live) your campaign will become live at just after 9pm the day before it is scheduled. News to me. Anyway, I had a few screw ups in getting excited and getting dates confused and my intended preprogrammed blog post went out too soon, so the link was not live. Did I keep calm, no I freaked out and swore at myself and tried to take things back, which didn’t work and may have made things worse. While I am trying to correct this at just after 9pm, I get an email that it is live now! Lesson: East Coast time, wait for the email.
2) Your first day stats. Lesson two in staying calm was that I couldn’t see the votes that my husband and first friends made in my campaign page. Well you are not given vote counts and YOU DON’T GET ANY STATS UNTIL DAY TWO. It said this in the info but I had to have my husband keeping me calm enough to have the presence of mind to go back and reread this. It shows views not nomination votes and all your stats come in Day Two, nada in Day One. Not good for drama queens. I will discuss these stats later but more on keeping calm.
3) Can’t vote. Lesson 3 in keeping calm is a good friend in Canada said her Amazon.ca account wouldn’t let her vote. Well I asked everyone and their dog that I knew if that could be true. I sent a message to Kindle Scout and posted a query on kboards (I’ll talk more about kboards in a future post). They all said no that wasn’t true and sure enough late in the day my friend said she had gotten through. KEEP CALM. Kindle Scout said that some people may have to use another browser or delete their cached browser but that’s rare. Lesson: Ask your person who says they can’t get through to try later &/or try another browser.
4) Hot and trending. One thing I did know was that I did not skyrocket to the Hot and Trending list but Martin assured me I’d get there just by virtue of having a good product. Thanks Martin for keeping me calm. I did notice the types of books that went direct to hot and trending and my book is different so we’ll see, and I wouldn’t have it any other way as I am not writing to
be conventional, nor unconventional. I’m just me. Like it or not.
5) Views. More important was that I did have over 400 views in one day. Some of these did nominate me but by staying calm and reading the info KS gives you I found out that they add to your stats anyone who liked you enough to click another button marked Save For Later. KS considers you have piqued enough interest to consider that a win. I did not know that.
6) Challenges make you creative. As we speak, the other side of the wall to my normally serene home office writing sanctuary has drills and power tools going off with a reno happening next door. And yesterday I was in the dentist, so why the universe wants my first two days to include drilling I am not sure, but it has driven me to my fave cafe where I have friends, peace and good Wifi. I also know the owner who has let me put after a chat and his interest let me put this poster up in the café (the new Cuppa Joe currently changing names from Swift on Rosser Ave. in Burnaby – its awesome and very writer friendly, say hi to Monty for me). Monty and I laughed that in brackets I said: author regularly seen in this café.
7) Blog about it. I also learned that blogging about this whole experience not only helps you keep calm but also really great community writer guys like Steve Vernon will repost your blog on his blog! This is among other ways Steve helps the community (see next post where I will talk about kboards). Thanks Steve!
I sure appreciate everyone who has supported me so far and has been sweet enough to let me know. I’m a people person but like all writers I have an introvert side and being the popular kid in school, so NOT, so the popularity aspect always makes me nervous. But, necessity is that I am still chasing the “hot and trending” list and you can help me since the majority of my views are not my own network but stats say they are people who go to KS normally. My contacts I have been messaging, Facebooking, tweeting and of course, this, blogging. Today I actually start emailing and hope people will forward some of the emails too. The results could show up in Day three. But I am chilling as much as possible for the weekend… I said as much as possible. Post again next week.
In case you want to check this all out, and not even nominate my book but save for later, here, again, is the link:
https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/6RZV8XHY3K9H
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