New Amazon Kindle Countdown Deals

As I am sure you are aware Amazon wants you to be a successful author as this benefits both you and them. Amazon will market your book for you using a range of methods including “customers also bought,” targeted emails, advertising, and the “look inside” feature.

Amazon also provides you with a range of tools to do your own promotions. The latest addition to the toolbox is Kindle Countdown Deals – you can promote your book at a reduced price for up to a week. You can select either a single reduced price or have the price increase back to the normal price in increments. Typically you would reduce the price to £0.99/$0.99.

Now you may ask why not just reduce the price yourself for as long as you like? If you use Countdown Deals Amazon will put a box onto your sales page which states your book is on offer, how much the original price is and when the book will go back to that original price. They will also list your book in the separate Countdown Deals section giving your book another opportunity to be seen by potential buyers. As an additional bonus you will still receive 70% royalties even if the reduced price would normally attract only 35% in royalties.

To qualify for this benefit you need to enrol your book into KDP Select which means you cannot sell the electronic version of your book elsewhere, there is also a minimum time you have to have your book available at the original price both before and after the promotional price (a bit like sale prices in shops). Also note that if you use the Countdown Deal feature you cannot then make your book available as free of charge using KDP Select until you have started a new KDP Select period.

I have tried this and saw a significant increase in book sales both during and after the deal period. Sign into your KDP account to find out which of your books are currently eligible then promote at least one of them using this tool. All you have to do then is sit back and watch your sales grow.

Happy writing.

Do you want to achieve your goals?

If you have ever struggled with achieving your goals and living life on your terms then take advantage of the Countdown deal and purchase Life Unleashed - living life on your terms, ate the reduced price of £0.99/$0.99 from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com. 

This book is only available at this reduced price for the next few days.

This book contains actions to complete and enable you to create the life that you want, live life on your terms, and become a success in your own life. Experience improved health, wealth and happiness as you identify what you want and take action to achieving your goals. 


Complete the actions in this book and you will:


- Identify your dreams and goals, and start achieving them
- Recognise your values and use them to make the decisions that are right for you
- Experience the freedom of living your life your way
- Allow your friendships to flourish
- Stop living by the expectations of others
- Experience the joy of living in the now
- Develop your creativity- Realise your full potential
- Recognise what you have in your life that you would not want to lose
- Experience the benefits of kindness- Create abundance in your life
- Experience increased happiness as you live life on your terms.

Download today and start making those desired changes to your life.

Happy writing.

Kindle countdown deal - Write it! available at a discounted price

Write it! - How to write your book in 30 hours or less is available on Amazon for the discounted price of £0.99/$0.99 during this weekend.

Happy writing.

Rewrite an existing novel and create a new bestseller

It is often said that there no new plots or stories, originality comes from how you tell the story. 

Many great writers have used great stories from the past and turned them into great stories today – one example is Romeo and Juliet/Westside Story.

Why not take an existing novel and rewrite it to create something entirely new by making a few changes. 

Here are some ideas:

• Change the genre – could a crime thriller become science fiction?
• Change the period – a story set in the 1960s could be told in the 21^st century or the 18^th century.
• Change the setting – a hospital setting could become a cruise ship.
• Change male characters into female characters and vice versa.
• Consider names – change Susan to Chantelle and you get a whole new character.
• Physical features – hair colour, scars, etc. Add some new ones such as long painted nails.
• What about age – could a character in their early 40s became a character aged 15?
• Characteristics – pipe smoking could become gum chewing.
• Dress sense – conservative could become trendy or controversial.
• Think about occupations – could a doctor become a scuba diving instructor?
• Obstacles can be changed – that bomb that will explode in 30 minutes could become the oxygen system on a space craft about to fail.

Take a novel you like or know well and complete character and plot outlines. Go through these outlines and make the desired changes. You will end up with a set of new character outlines and a new plot. Give your planned novel a title and write the “new” story in your own voice. At the end you will have a novel that may or may not be recognised as a similar plot to the original – it doesn't matter if it is compared to the original because, as stated previously, there are only so many plots anyway.

When you have finished and edited your novel why not self-publish and let the readers decide if they like it? You never know this might just be the next bestseller.

Happy writing.

What will you get done in ten minutes a day?

Do you ever find that you get to the end of the day and you have not achieved as much as you would have liked, perhaps you have not actually done anything towards your writing goals. Yes you are busy and have a lot of priorities however if you have too many days like this then you are unlikely to complete much work.

One way to make improvements is to start small and develop habits that support you reaching your writing goals. Don’t think too big, 1000 words a day may be doable but if you don’t do it then you will feel a failure.

Start off by taking one of your writing goals – this might be enter a short story competition, write and submit an article or write and complete a novel.

Set yourself a 10 minute time and place session that you are going to use each day to write – you may have a different weekday slot and a weekend slot. Think carefully and creatively about when and where your session will be as you do not want any distractions. For some working at your desk over lunch might be fine, for others this will be an invitation for colleagues to hijack your time. You might find that 10 minutes in the morning works well for you, or you may find other family members think of you as up and available and will ask for coffee, an ironed shirt or even a cooked breakfast.

Consider going to work a little earlier and, if you drive, staying in the car for 10 minutes to do your writing. If you use public transport pop in your earphones (you don’t need to have your music on), and write. How about going out for lunch and writing in the park or a coffee shop.

Once you have identified and committed to your session then use it to write every day without exception. Never think you do not know what to write, or you don’t feel inspired, or you are writing rubbish so you may as well stop – just write. At this stage it does not matter how good your writing is, this is a first draft, you edit later.

If it helps you try these techniques to help overcome that feeling of not knowing what to write:

• Finish a writing session partway through a scene and sentence; this can help you get back in the flow quickly as you read the last sentence from the previous day.
• At the end of each session make a note of which scene or section you are going to write the next day.

Commit to developing this habit for a month. At the end of the month this habit will be embedded into what you do each day and you will have increased your word count considerably. At this stage you can now add another habit – this might be increasing your 10 minutes to 20 minutes; it might be doing your writing related admin every Monday evening. Whatever it is commit to it, do it and then add another.

Happy writing.