My Kindle Scout campaign for my novel, Descending will end at midnight on the 15th.

I’m kinda freaking out. Just a bit. I have a touch of anxiety issues, and I can easily trap myself in shouda-couldaland. I’m trying not to pay too much attention to the campaign.

Except I totally am. I can’t keep my eyes off of my campaign stats. I’m expecting rejection, so as not to get my hopes up, but I keep hoping nonetheless.

I could go to Cataract, check out the falls.  No, wait…I have to check my stats!

My campaign stats were decent for the first 3-4 days, and then they slumped into dismal. I’m not kidding. An average day was less than fifteen page views and no hours at all in Hot and Trending.

Then my fanfic readers showed up to the party. Bless their hearts! I don’t have the number of readers I had back in the day, but the ones I have rock my socks.

Because of the awesome fanfic reader brigade, I’ve learned some things. I’ve learned that even a small amount of page views (22) can get you on the H&T list for the entire day. I think I understand why. People stopping in, clicking the nominate button, and then leaving–like most of our friends and family do–don’t spend much time on the page, and don’t hold much weight in the stats. My fanfic readers are another story. They are avid readers, fans of my work, and excited about me possibly having a book out. They are the kind of folks who are going to find the page, check it out, read the entire excerpt, and leave comments. Not lots of page views but lots of page time = Hot and Trending.

Even this chapel was hot and trending, once upon a time.

Now, anyone can tell you that being in Hot and Trending on Kindle Scout is no guarantee of successfully getting published. KS isn’t a popularity contest–thank all the gods, because I’m just not that popular– and regardless of hours in H&T, an editor is going to read at least some part of your book. I’ve seen campaigns with wildly high page views and H&T stats get declined. I’ve seen campaigns with mediocre stats get accepted. It’s not about the stats.

So, what is the campaign for? Why does H&T matter?

Kindle Scout isn’t only looking for books to publish, they are looking for books that will sell. A huge part of whether books on Amazon will sell is how many positive reviews they have. By using this campaign hoopla, KS gets a list of people to send advance copies of the book out to. That means when it’s publication time, the book will already have reviews, which increases its chances of sales.

If publication isn’t about the campaign, how can you get published?

Same as any place you send a manuscript, make sure it’s a well written book, edited, and polished until it shines. KS is an awesome opportunity to get eyes reading your pages with the possibility of publication. However, the same rules apply as they do for any of the Big Five. It has to be a well-written book that isn’t too much like all the other well-written books out there.

If you want to get published, you just keep trying.  In the meantime, make some cookies!  Cookies make everything better.

I’ve read a lot of excerpts out in KSland lately. Seen some folks get selected, and many people whose books do not get published. I was not actually surprised by some of the books that didn’t get published. Here’s some reasons why.

-One book was written as if badly translated by someone who was English as a second language.

-While I didn’t see typos willy-nilly in any of them, in many books, the writing simply isn’t there yet. One had used a word which was the opposite of the word needed in the first paragraph. One started with a prologue that was all tell not show, which I did not find engaging at all. One started in the action, but it was too hard to tell what was going on. These are people who needed a few more books under their belts to finesse their writing.

-One book seemed like the same old same old as many other books in that genre.

-One was focused on a love triangle, which doesn’t interest me. It’s an old trope that isn’t very popular right now. It did not seem in any way unique from other love triangle books; it didn’t offer a fresh perspective.  I imagine Twilight gave birth to an ocean of love triangle books.

Some of the books not selected looked awesome to me. As we’ve discussed before, it could be a matter of the publisher already having a similar book, or having enough in that genre for the time being. When the writing is good, sometimes ‘not unique enough’ comes into play.

Will Descending get selected? Who knows. My writing has improved greatly over the years but I don’t know if it’s good enough. I guess I’ll just have to wait a bit and see.

Time is running out! I submitted my book, Descending, to Kindle Scout.  Descending has to get nominated to be noticed by the Kindle editors.

What to do:  If you have an Amazon account and you want to help, go to this link  https://kindlescout.amazon.com/p/1GSTCATCKN5TS   and nominate Descending.  Each Amazon account holder gets 3 votes for books they’d like to see published.

What’s in it for you: If Descending is chosen for publication, every person who votes for it gets a FREE advance copy of the e-book, and an opportunity to review, if you wish, before anyone else.

How you can help: Vote, if you can.  Share this post with friends if you are willing.  Vote now!  Get a free e-book!