Pro Tips From Instafreebie: Finding Your Next Favorite Authors #IndieMonth2017



I’m excited to welcome Felicity Henson from Instafreebie to chat about how you can download free books in genres you like and easily find new authors who are just right for you. Did you know that marking a newsletter you signed up for as Spam can hurt the author? Have you ever wanted to reach out to an author but didn’t know if you could? Wondering how to find the authors that are just right for you? Read on for Felicity’s advice!

Discover and Engage with New Authors
By Felicity Henson

Instafreebie, the leading platform in author discovery, is a starting place to find new books and authors you love! Instafreebie features free books (and group giveaways) and new authors in genre-specific categories every weekday, making it easy for readers to discover books in the genres they like. However, the real benefit of Instafreebie lies in the potential of readers building relationships with authors they care about after they’ve read a free book. This is how to start taking those first steps!


Download Books You’ll Actually Read

There are a lot of free books out there. It can be tempting, but don’t download every single one. Claim books you think you’ll enjoy, and have the time to read. You don’t want to drown in more books and author newsletters than you can keep track of! This way you’ll be able to decide whether you like their content and emails, and won’t have to unsubscribe simply to keep your inbox clean. Authors will appreciate this too. They put a lot of hard work and thought into creating their content, and it can be frustrating for them when a lot of people download their book with no intention of reading it.

Join Author Mailing Lists

Some free book giveaways ask you to join the author’s mailing list in order to download their book. If this is the case, make sure that the book is one you want and will read before downloading it. If you sign up to a lot of mailing lists you don’t care about, it will frustrate you and clutter up your inbox. It will also hurt authors, who pay more money for each subscriber they have.

Some authors won’t require you to join their mailing list in order to download their books, but will give you the option. If you plan on reading the book, consider joining their mailing list. If you end up loving the book, you’ll be able to keep up a relationship with the author, find out what new things they’re doing, where to get the rest of their works, and how you can give them feedback. They might also become a place to find new authors and books you’ll love! If you join the mailing list and end up not wanting to hear from the author, you can always unsubscribe later.


gravetells.com/category/events/indiependence-celebration/2017-indie-month/discovery-week/

What it Means to Unsubscribe

For authors, every unsubscribe comes with a question. Why? Did the reader unsubscribe because they didn’t like their book? Was it because the reader didn’t like the amount of emails they received? Was it because the reader never intended to read those emails in the first place? Authors’ livelihoods depend on their engagement with readers. Give them a chance before unsubscribing by reading their content and learning if it’s for you or not. If you try what they’ve written and decide it’s just not for you, then it’s a good idea to unsubscribe from their list. You should also unsubscribe if you don’t like the author’s email habits – if they send emails too frequently or you don’t like the content they’re sending you. However, if you do choose to unsubscribe, give feedback as to why you are. Usually there’s a poll when you unsubscribe where you can explain. This way the author will learn and improve their email practices. 


Pro Tip: Take a couple seconds to fill out the post-unsubscribe polls to help authors improve their email practices

What It Means to Mark as Spam

Marking an email as spam is not the same thing as unsubscribing from an email list. When an author is marked as spam, it hurts their credibility, and often results in their email service blocking them from sending any emails. When you download a book and give your email address, you’re signing up to get emails from the author. Spam emails are emails sent to you without your agreement. Since you agreed to receive emails from the author when you downloaded their book, these emails aren’t spam. If you want to unsubscribe from an author’s email list, you can usually find a button to unsubscribe either at the top or the bottom of the emails they send you. If you can’t find the unsubscribe button, email the author and ask for their help. They can remove you from their list. 


Engage With Authors

The more connected an author is to engaged readers, the more encouraged and successful they’ll feel, and they’ll reciprocate by writing more and more content that you’ll get to read.


Authors you engage with are more likely to feel encouraged and write more content you’ll get to read

If you’re on an author’s mailing list, read their emails! Authors will give you information on how to get more freebies (if they’re offering any), how to find the rest of their books, and recommendations for other books you should read. They might also tell you about their life and ask you about yours. 


Don’t be afraid to engage with authors you like. Authors want to hear what you have to say, even – especially – if you haven’t interacted with them before. Do you have an answer to a question the author asked? Respond to their email and tell them! Did the author send out a poll looking for information about readers? You’d really be helping the author by responding, and they’ll remember you fondly for it. Do you want to do something more for the author and are willing to put in a little effort? Leave a review of the book on Amazon or Goodreads and look into joining the author’s street team, if they have one. Street teams are groups of readers that help the author grow, usually by leaving reviews or promoting the book to the other people they know (often in exchange for free content!). Street teams can also be a way to meet readers who are interested in the same books, so you can meet new friends while you’re at it.
 

Authors want to hear what you have to say, even – especially – if you haven’t interacted with them before.

Even if you’re not responding to a question or joining a street team, don’t hesitate to shoot an author an email if you have something you want to tell them. They’ll always appreciate it, and might even respond. You could become friends with your favorite writer, someone you respect and admire.

So if you’ve downloaded a bunch of free books and are wondering what the next step is, try reading emails from authors and start interacting with them. Authors love to hear from you and by giving feedback and reviews, you can even influence their next work! Start finding new authors today by joining the Instafreebie community

 
About Instafreebie 

Instafreebie was created in 2014 with a mission to accelerate great stories and big ideas. As the book world’s leading platform for exclusive access to sneak peeks, advance previews, and special giveaways, we live our mission every day and give readers a chance to SEE IT FIRST™.

Instant Connection
For our author partners, See It First means an instant connection to engaged fans in our rapidly growing reader community. Instafreebie builds the trusted and lasting connection to the right readers–the ones authors knew were there all along




Develop Your Author Brand Through Reader Connections

By Felicity Henson

Giveaways

Many successful authors feature giveaways on their sites for potential readers to sample their writing or reward fans. A lot of authors share short stories and book previews. You can also permanently give away the first book of a series for free or give away a work for a limited time. Use Instafreebie to set up giveaways - we host giveaway links, landing pages, and handle reader tech support, all for free. Plus, the more you promote your giveaway - and your author brand - the more Instafreebie will promote you too, giving you the chance to be featured on our blog, newsletter, homepage, and social media, which will drive up downloads and increase your connection to the right readers.

Expert tip: Giveaways build a sense of trust between you and readers, which reflect well on your author brand. By providing readers a sample of your writing, you’re letting readers see for free that you are who you say you are. In fact, we’ve found that readers who read free books tend to buy more often.

Communicate with your Readers

If you receive comments and messages, that’s a good thing! Readers are interested in you, developing trust, and the more you engage with them, the more they’ll remember you. Try to respond to any comments and emails you get and build relationships with fans. Through Instafreebie, you can offer devoted readers exclusive free content as a thank you for reading and for talking up your brand. You can also distribute private Advanced Review Copies. With more reviews, more people will find and buy your work when it’s published.

Collaborate with Authors

You can find writers you read through their blogs and websites, and on social media. Talk to people about their experiences and make new connections.

Connecting with other writers is not only fun, it can help build your reputation with readers! Have you ever thought about the people who recommend you? What if you also recommended your favorite authors? One way to recommend great books is to participate in a group giveaway, where multiple authors promote their free books to all of their fans. Recommending high quality books you love to your readers will boost your connection. Your passion will come through and readers will get excited too. They will trust you more and appreciate the thought you put into giving them more of what they like. You’ll also be recommended to the readers of authors that are similar to you, so you’ll be able to create connections with more of the readers you want.

Between recommendations, collaboration, and social media, there are a lot of ways for you to connect with readers and start building a brand. Want to start developing your brand? Then come join Instafreebie


Author Brand Basics by Felicity Henson
 

SAFE HAVEN On Sale for #99cents!

This week only! SAFE HAVEN by Lisa Mondello, book 2 of the Heroes of Providence series, is on sale for just #99cents!

Safe Haven
Heroes of Providence
Book 2
Lisa Mondello



   
When someone you once loved wants you dead, is there any SAFE HAVEN?

Finding out her ex-husband hired a hitman to kill her didn't leave Daria Carlisle all warm and fuzzy. But Detective Kevin Gordon's suggestion she flee the only home that had ever truly been hers was downright crazy. Forget that the sexy police officer made her heart pound and her blood stir. She'd worked too hard to get what little she had. She wasn't leaving.

Kevin Gordon didn't make mistakes, but he'd made a big one in letting Daria's ex slip through his fingers. Although he tried to make it very clear to Daria that the fixer upper home she considered a palace was no safe haven, she just dug in deeper and insisted on staying, leaving him no choice but to be her protector. Left on her own, she surely faced murder at an assassin's hand. But can Kevin spend every waking hour sleeping on her doorstep just to keep this stubborn woman alive without risking his heart to love?

Amazon      BN      Google Play     Kobo     iTunes


On Conversations: #bestselling #author Rebecca York

Please join me in welcoming New York Times bestselling author Rebecca York to Conversations today! Rebecca is here to talk about her new paranormal romantic suspense novel, BOXED IN and it's priced at just 99¢ as a new release special price for the month of June. BOXED IN is the 16th Decorah Security Series book, but can be easily read as a standalone novel. So be sure and check out the cover and blurb below! And don't forget to check out her bio too and get to know Rebecca York.

Lisa ~
__________________________________________

BOXED IN

Olivia Weston is sure her boss has imported a shipment of stolen antiques. And when Decorah agent Luke Garner handles one of the items, an ornate puzzle box, the spirit of a warrior, locked away for centuries, takes possession of his body. Zabastian, the guardian of the box, forces Luke to help him return the object of power to its rightful owners. As Olivia sees Luke change before her eyes, his transformation both frightens and arouses her. And both men who inhabit Luke’s body want her. But they must also learn to work together to protect the mysterious artifact from a trio of murderous thieves who will risk anything to steal the prize. And in the end, will the warrior allow Luke and Olivia their happily ever after?

Purchase BOXED IN for only 99¢!
Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Kobo




A master of paranormal romantic suspense, Rebecca York is the author of over 150 books. A New York Times and USA Today best-seller, she has written paranormal romantic thrillers for Berkley and romantic thrillers for Harlequin Intrigue. Her romantic-suspense series, Decorah Security, is set at a detective agency where agents have paranormal powers or work paranormal cases. She also writes an Off-World series where each story is a science fiction romance taking place on a distant planet in the far future.

The first of her Berkley Sensation paranormal romantic suspense novels, KILLING MOON, was a launch book for the imprint.

She also wrote the popular 43 Light Street series for Harlequin Intrigue. In addition, as Ruth Glick, she has authored or co-authored 15 cookbooks.

Rebecca’s many awards include two Rita finalist books. She has two Career Achievement awards from Romantic Times: for Series Romantic Suspense and Series Romantic Mystery. NOWHERE MAN was the Romantic Times Best Intrigue of 1998, and the book was selected as one of their Reviewers' "all-time favorite 400 romances." In addition, she received the 1998 Affaire de Coeur's Critics Choice Award for Best Contemporary Novel, also for NOWHERE MAN. Ruth's book, KILLING MOON, won the 2003 New Jersey Romance Writers Golden Leaf Award for best Paranormal. AMANDA'S CHILD won the 2001 Golden Leaf Award for Long Contemporary and was nominated for Best Intrigue of 2000 by Romantic Times. She is one of a small group of authors to have won the Romance Writers of America Centennial Award.

Ruth and her husband travel frequently to research settings for novels and taste new dishes for cookbooks. Her many unique experiences are apt to end up in her books--like the time she encountered a coral snake in the Guatemalan jungle or took a flight in a glider plane.


Website: rebeccayork.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Rebecca-York

This site participates in the Amazon Affiliate Program where the site owner receives payment/credit for books sold by clicking through to Amazon. Clicking on the slideshow or carousel will bring you directly to Amazon.