Reviews can help sell more copies of your books, including Kindle ebooks. However, many authors are unsure about how to send review copies of Kindle ebooks to potential reviewers. It turns out that Amazon provides a simple way to send copies of your ebook to anyone. The above video explains it in more detail.

To send a review copy, get the email address of the reviewer’s Amazon account. Go to your book’s page on Amazon and click on the “Give as a Gift” button near the buy button. Enter the email address of the person to whom you want to send the book. They will receive an email that the ebook has been gifted to them. When they accept it, the ebook will be delivered to their Kindle device or app. One caution: they can decline the ebook and elect to receive a gift certificate instead. Make sure you only gift books to people who have expressed a willingness to receive, read and review your book.

You will pay full price for the book, but you will receive a royalty. That means that your net cost is the sale price less your royalty. If your ebook sells for $2.99 with a 70% royalty, your cost will be just over $.90 (Amazon’s 30% plus a small download charge, usually a few cents). That is a small price to pay, especially when you compare it to the cost of printing and mailing a paper book.

There is another reason to choose this method instead of simply sending a file to the reviewer. When their review is posted to Amazon it will include the notation, “Amazon Verfied Purchase.” There are authors who post fraudulent or paid-for reviews on Amazon, so showing that the reviewer actually received the book from Amazon gives more credibility to their review.

(Note: Paying for reviews is against Amazon’s terms of service. However, providing a free copy to a reviewer is specifically allowed.)

I won’t lie to you – book marketing online takes a lot of hard work. We spent many hours setting up our author platform and preparing for our launch day. We set up a custom landing page on Facebook as well as a customized YouTube background. We also began posting on our blog and recruiting others to share their stories of forgiveness on our blog as well.

Hosting a Free Online Conference to Generate Buzz

We also decided to host a free 4-day Christian conference online to generate buzz, interest and a list of people who might be interested in buying our book on launch day. We secured four speakers whose topics fit well with our target audience and then conducted live audio interviews over the phone using the free service, Freeconferencing.com. We also made these audio interviews available afterwards on our website as an online replay. We had over 350 conference registrants and a great response to the speakers and their topics.

Not only did the conference build momentum for our launch day, but those that attended the conference got to know us better. In marketing, it’s important to build relationships with your customers (in this case, our readers) to gain their trust. You want them to get to the place where they “know, like and trust” you. An audio conference is a great way to build these relationships with your readers.

Book Launch Day

Currently, we give away the MP3 downloads from the conference as well as the PDF transcripts as a bonus for those who purchase our book. On launch day, we also had other Christian authors, musicians and ministries offer bonus gifts. In fact, we gave away a total of 43 prizes worth over $1150 and 19 gifts worth over $100 available on launch day. We decided to offer a grand prize of one Kindle Fire, iPod touch or Nook (winner’s choice).

The Final Result?

We published our book on August 24th and on December 6th, just over 3 months later, our book became a #1 Amazon bestseller in inspirational Christianity for both books and ebooks! Wow…what an amazing journey it has been. And we give all the glory to God.

We are finishing up our four month book marketing plan with a virtual book tour. We thank Cathy for hosting us and allowing us to share about our book marketing strategies. And we pray our book impacts many lives for years to come.

Shelley Hitz is the co-author of Forgiveness Formula: Finding Lasting Freedom in Christ, along with her husband, CJ. Visit their website to find out more about their book and the special gifts they offer with purchase at: www.TheForgivenessFormula.com. Shelley also helps authors get published and market their books at her website www.Self-Publishing-Coach.com.

Amazon.com has announced the KDP Select program for independent and self-publishers who offer their books for the Kindle. Let’s take a look at the terms of this new program and see if you might benefit from it. In a nutshell:

Ebooks offered through KDP Select with U.S. rights will automatically be included in the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library where they can earn a share of a fund totaling an estimated $500,000 monthly. The publisher’s share is based on the number of times the book was loaned as a percentage of all books loaned in that month. The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library is a collection of books that eligible U.S. Amazon Prime members can borrow for free once a month with no due dates.

Books available for loan will still be available for purchase. That means that people who are not eligible to borrow ebooks through the Lending Library, or those who borrowed the ebook and loved it, can buy it.

Publishers may choose to offer books in KDP Select free for up to five days every 90 days. This is not something that has been available to independent Kindle publishers before now (at least not officially). Although you do not get paid for books downloaded for free, your book gets lots of exposure and downloads when it is free. Offering one title for free can be a good way to get attention for a series, for example.

To participate in KDP Select, your ebook must be exclusive to Amazon for a period of 90 days. That means the ebook may not be sold in other ebook stores or available on your website or blog.

New books as well as books already available for Kindle may be enrolled in KDP Select. You click “Enroll” from the Bookshelf for existing titles.

Should you enroll your Kindle titles in KDP Select? Here are some things to consider:

If your ebook is one that readers will want to own, either in digital or print format, making it available for loan allows them to preview it and discover that it is a book they should buy. Although this is not likely to happen with fiction, it may with at least some non-fiction titles. Will readers want to refer to the book often? Giving them a taste through the loan program may convince them to buy the book.

Although fiction titles may not sell better as a result of the loan, other titles by the same author may benefit. For example, currently many fiction authors offer one title for $.99 and others for $2.99 and up. The idea is that readers will sample the $.99 ebook then want everything else the author has written. Enrolling one title in KDP Select allows them to try that book for free as a loan or by making it available for free to everyone for a five-day promotional period.

The loan program also offers the opportunity to make money. The monthly fund will be divided among eligible KDP Select titles based on how many times they were borrowed by Prime members. The example given by Amazon is that if the fund for a particular month is $500,000, your Digital Book is borrowed 1,500 times, and all participating Digital Books are cumulatively borrowed 100,000 times, your Digital Book will earn $7,500 ($500,000 x 1,500/100,000 = $7,500).

Although it is unlikely that the typical book will earn thousands of dollars a month through lending, it is another source of income from your book. As long as the lending program does not cannibalize your sales, it is extra money.

You may want to give KDP Select a try and see how it works for you. Keep in mind that you can not sell the digital version of your book elsewhere while it is in the KDP Select program, and you are committing to an enrolled book being in the program for at least 90 days. This is the biggest negative I can see with KDP Select; however, at this time the majority of ebook sales for most books are made through Amazon, so not selling through Barnes and Noble, Apple, et al for 90 days may not be a problem. However, if you want your ebook to be available everywhere right away, KDP Select will not be an option for you. It also may not be prudent to enroll all of your ebook titles in KDP Select. You might try one title, or one title at a time, and see how it goes.

Amazon wants to be the ebook leader and KDP Select gives them an edge by giving them an exclusive on many books. Can you benefit from KDP Select, too? Maybe. Although it will not be right for every publisher and every book, KDP Select will definitely help many authors find an audience and make more money with their books.

Right now, Amazon has several books of interest to writers available free in the Kindle store. They will not be free forever, so go download them right away. Here is a list of the free Kindle ebooks for writers that I found today (November 8, 2011):

The Complete Guide to Self-Publishing: Everything You Need to Know to Write, Publish, Promote and Sell Your Own Book

Getting the Words Right

Write That Book Already!: The Tough Love You Need To Get Published Now

How to Be a Writer: Building Your Creative Skills Through Practice and Play

The Complete Handbook Of Novel Writing: Everything You Need to Know About Creating & Selling Your Work (Writers Digest)

Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go

Add these ebooks to your collection now, while they are available at no cost, then use them to become a better, more successful writer. After reading these books, you may want to add others from these authors to your library or purchase the print versions to keep handy for reference. Enjoy!

Why Would You Want To Read Kindle Ebooks On Other Devices?

You may wonder why anyone would buy Kindle ebooks if they don’t own a Kindle. However, the fact is that most Kindle ebooks are very competitively priced – some are even free – making them more affordable than many other books and ebooks. There’s also a huge convenience to getting your ebooks delivered instantly, instead of having to go out to the store or waiting for items to be delivered. By making Kindle ebooks available via multiple types of devices, Amazon makes it easy to buy and read ebooks from them.

Whether or not you own a Kindle you may want to download one or more of the free apps so you can check the formatting of your ebook before publishing to Kindle.

Kindle For PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod Touch, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7

Amazon offers free applications for reading Kindle books on both Mac and PC. The app is simple to use and makes use of the full size of your screen for reading ebooks.

If you own an iPhone or an iPad then don’t think you’re limited to Apple’s own ebook reading app. In fact, go to the app store and you’ll find Kindle available to download for free, helping to expand its use even further.

Amazon has also made apps available for other smart phones, including Adroid, Blackberry and Windows Phone 7.

If you wish to buy any Kindle books, all you need to do is sign up for an account through Amazon and purchase in the same way as you would with any other item on the Amazon website.

Shopping For New Books

In addition to reading ebooks in the Kindle app, you can also buy them through the app. (Due to Apple’s terms of service, the buy buttons have been disabled in apps that run on Apple devices. However, you can still shop for ebooks in your browser and send ebooks to your Kindle app running on an Apple device.) Search for and download free samples of books you may be interested in reading, and buy the full version if you like it. Or buy from the Amazon.com website – the choice is yours.

Whispersync Between Devices

The best thing about using the Kindle app on all of your devices is that it’s so easy to switch between them when you’re reading ebooks. Ebooks you add to the Kindle can be accessed by any of the devices running the Kindle app. For example, if you download an ebook on your Kindle iPhone app and then later open up Kindle for PC, your new ebook will be there waiting.

Even better, the Whispersync feature means that the furthest read page will automatically be updated. You won’t need to remember where you got up to on the last page you were reading from – the Kindle apps will automatically do it for you. I sometimes start reading a book using the Kindle app on my iPhone when I am away from home, then switch to the Amazon Kindle later. No matter which device I use, Kindle knows exactly where I left off.

Go to Amazon and download one or more of their free Kindle apps, then start shopping for ebooks. If you have not already tried the Kindle, you will be hooked!

1. Surfing the Web: Using the browser in Amazon Kindle is not the same as surfing the Internet from your laptop or other computer, but Kindle can get you online when you don’t have your computer handy. You can use it with public Wi-Fi hotspots, and the 3G Kindles give you free access to the 3G network – very handy for checking emails or other simple tasks when you don’t have a Wi-Fi connection!

2. Listening to music and audiobooks: Do you love audiobooks? You can load your favorite audiobooks or music on Kindle for listening on the go. Kindle has a headphone jack for private listening.

3. Converting Text to Voice: Kindle includes a text to speech setting that will read ebooks to you, when needed. It is a synthesized, unnatural voice, but it can be useful when you need to hear something read to you, such as instructions, or if you absorb text best when you both see and hear it.

4. Dictionary: See an unfamiliar word? Quickly look it up with Kindle’s built-in dictionary. And if you want to learn more you can easily surf to Google or Wikipedia to do a search. .

5. Taking Notes: If you are making notes for research, or you just like to annotate your books as you read, you can easily do so with Kindle without damaging the book or making it hard to read through highlighting, underlining and notes in the margins. Kindle has functions that help you add notes, bookmark points of interest, or highlight sentences and passages. With the new @author program, you can even submit questions and comments to the author while you read. (@author is presently limited to just a few authors, but is expected to be expanded soon.)

6. Reading Newspapers and Magazines: Many of your favorite newspapers and magazines can be delivered directly to your Kindle. You get fast access without ink-stained fingers or those annoying subscription cards that fall out while you are reading.

7. Reading Blogs: Many blogs also offer subscriptions through the Kindle. Even though there is a fee (usually about $.99 a month) to read blogs that can be read for free online, the convenience of having your favorite blogs send their most recent posts directly to your Kindle can make this an efficient way to keep up with the blogosphere.

8. Reading PDF Files: Do you download PDF files and then find it hard to get around to reading them? You can send PDFs to your Kindle and they will be waiting for you the next time you turn on your reader.

9. Shopping For New Books: You can access the Kindle store through Wi-Fi or 3G (depending on the Kindle model you own) and get the latest books delivered straight to your Kindle. Because Kindle allows you to download samples of books you are considering, you can download samples. When you want something new to read, just scan the downloaded samples, find the book you want to read next and download it in seconds.

10. Searching for Information: Although you can search books in your physical book library, or use the index to find the passage you want, it’s not nearly as easy as doing it on the Kindle! The Kindle comes with search functions that let you find things fast. You can even organize and personalize the way you store your books based on a number of different criteria.

Kindle makes it easy to take hundreds of books with you and easily read wherever you are, but it does much more. Try some of Kindle’s other functions to get the most out of your ebook reader.

Want to make it easier for customers to find your book or other product on Amazon.com? One simple way to get more visitors to your product page is to use the product tags feature on Amazon. This video shows how to easily add tags to your product. It takes just a minute to do and makes your book more visible to customers who are viewing similar products on Amazon.

To add tags to your book’s product page, start by navigating to the product page. Scroll down the page to the section titled “Tags Customers Associate with This Product.” Enter from one to five tags (keywords) that customers looking for a book like yours might enter in a search. You can also find tag ideas by looking at the pages for books similar to yours to see what tags customers have entered on those pages.

Now, when someone goes to the page of one of the books that shares a tag with yours, your book may be displayed immediately above the tag section, in a section titled, “Looking for [tag] Products?” The tags may also influence search results in Amazon, helping customers to locate your book when they search for related keywords.

This is a simple way to make your book more visible to Amazon customers. It takes only a minute or two to do, costs nothing and could help you to sell more books on Amazon.com.

When a reader asks a question, Amazon will tweet it to the author and post it on the Author’s page. You will be notified by email if the author responds to your question. Other readers can also answer questions from the author’s page, so readers may find themselves in an impromptu book club, discussing their favorite author’s latest book.

Because @author is in a limited beta, only a few authors are currently participating. (See the list below.) No word from Amazon about when or if the program will be opened up to other authors or made available to all Amazon authors.

• Ted Dekker: (@tedDekker) Forbidden and The Priest’s Graveyard
• Timothy Ferriss: (@tferriss) The 4-Hour Body and The 4-Hour Workweek
• Marie Force: (@MarieForce) Ready for Love and Fool for Love
• Barbara Freethy: (@BarbaraFreethy) Love Will Find a Way and One True Love
• Steven Johnson: (@stevenbjohnson) Where Good Ideas Come From and Everything Bad Is Good for You
• Robert Kiyosaki: (@theRealKiyosaki) Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Rich Dad’s Cashflow Quadrant
• J.A. Konrath: (@jakonrath) SERIAL and Endurance
• John Locke: (@DonovanCreed) The Love You Crave and Lethal People
• Elisa Lorello: (@ElisaLorello) Ordinary World
• C.J. Lyons: (@cjlyonswriter) Blind Faith and Borrowed Time
• Debbi Mack: (@debbimack) Identity Crisis and Least Wanted
• Brad Meltzer: (@bradmeltzer) The Inner Circle and The Zero Game
• Scott Nicholson: (@hauntedcomputer) Ashes and Write Good or Die
• Susan Orlean: (@susanorlean) Rin Tin Tin and The Orchid Thief
• Deborah Reed: (@DebReedAuthor) Carry Yourself Back to Me and A Small Fortune
• James Rollins: (@jamesrollins) The Skeleton Key and The Devil Colony

Source: Kindle Daily Post

All you need to buy ebooks from Amazon without a Kindle is one of the many free Kindle reading apps available. Start by going to Amazon.com. In the left navigation, click on Kindle, then Free Kindle Reading Apps. On that page you will find links to download the Kindle reading app for the Windows PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod Touch, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7.

With the app installed you can download free and paid ebooks from the Kindle store and read them on your favorite device. (Because of a recent change in the terms of service for Apple apps, ebooks can not be downloaded via the Kindle apps running on an Apple device. However, ebooks can be purchased through a web browser and delivered to the Apple device.)

Even if you own a Kindle, you may want to use one or more of the Kindle reader apps. Using an app on a mobile device allows you to buy from anywhere, and read anywhere, even if you don’t have your Kindle with you. Most people have their phones with them wherever they go, so anytime you have a few spare minutes you can read a bit of that novel you are having a hard time putting down. Any of the Kindle ebooks already in your library can be transferred to other devices, and the ebooks can be accessed from more than one device. For example, I have some of my Kindle ebooks on my Kindle, my PC and my iPhone.

Amazon’s WhisperSync automatically synchronizes the last page read across multiple devices. That means that you can start reading an ebook on your Kindle, then pick up right where you left off when you turn on the Kindle app on your iPad or Windows PC.

Another advantage of the free apps is that most of them allow you to view photos and other images in the books in full color, instead of the black and white of the Kindle e-reader. Some Kindle ebooks now include audio and video that is only available when the ebooks are viewed on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad Kindle apps, making them more interactive and visually interesting than just words on the page.

I own a Kindle and I love it, but I also love the flexibility of using the Kindle apps for my other devices. And if you do not yet own a Kindle, the apps give you access to nearly a million ebooks, many of which are only available for the Kindle and its apps. You can be reading your favorites in just minutes.

Cathy Stucker is the founder of http://SellingBooks.com/. Visit SellingBooks.com to learn about writing, publishing and marketing books, including how to publish your ebook on the Kindle.

Amid all this, Amazon softly introduced a 3G variant of their Kindle, bundling it with special deals that display on the Kindle when used. This same bundle is the strategy used to take $25 off the price by using the platform for targeted ads.

6 weeks ago, the Wi-Fi Kindle shipped for 14 and according to Amazon’s sales data, it has become the best selling Kindle version to date. This version featured the same offers and targeted advertising that helped lower the 3G Kindle’s cost.

Is It A Good Move?

Amazon stays ahead of the pack by keeping a price lead on devices that straddle the 3G and Wi-Fi spectrum. This makes it the only e-reader maker that has 2 device type and one of two players that has a 3G product, with the other being Sony’s Reader Daily Edition. Other figures in the market, like Barnes & Noble and Kobo only have Wi-Fi devices in the competition. While these competing devices introduce features such as a touch screen, all of them are still trying to catch up to the Kindle.

The real points of interest are:

1. What can Amazon do to keep ahead of competition?
2. What can Amazon do to meet the competition head-on?

These are not simple to answer. While Amazon does have controlling power in the niche that is in, its future must be determined by striking new ground with its device maybe starting with a touch screen for example. It has to be more than reducing the Kindle’s form factor and improving on its efficiencies. Planning for the long term, however, Amazon should consider incorporating Android into the Kindle. This will open the Kindle up to much needed apps and equalize its footing with the new devices revealed by rivals like Barnes and Noble.

Whatever path Amazon takes, what is clear to see is that it has to innovate in order to stay ahead and if there is anything Amazon is known for, it is that they are capable of such innovation. Only time will tell what they have up their sleeve.

Yan is the co-founder of www.kcover.net – an Amazon-affiliated ecommerce site that sells Kindle covers for those who have just made the switch from paperback to digital.