Are you considering enrolling your new ebook in the KDP Select program? You’ll be given the opportunity to do so when you upload your ebook.

Amazon has just released a new press release which indicates that authors are having some success with the program.

In this press release, Amazon Media Room: Press Releases, Amazon reports:

“Amber Scott is a romance writer and earned $7,650 from the KDP Select fund in December. “Enrolling in KDP Select utterly transformed my career,” said Scott. “I’ve experienced not only a surge in royalties but a surge in readership thanks to the increased exposure. I love the chance to earn new readers through the innovation of the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library. What an exciting time to be an author!””

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Most writers are shy of promotion. And yet, they need and want readers.

Our favorite fantasy is that we’re “discovered”. Someone else does all the work, and we just get to sit and write…

I love this interview, Kindle Author: Kindle Author Interview: Consuelo Saah Baehr, because the writer “gets” promotion:

“CONSUELO SAAH BAEHR: I began a blog and diligently post every two or three days. I also comment on sites like The Huffington Post and The Daily Beast and invariably I get views to my blog and my books. I am a frequent participant on the Kindleboards and find the camaraderie very inspiring. I do guest blogging and interviews every chance I get and have also taken out two small ads on the Kindleboards. I did a Goodreads giveaway and attracted almost 900 participants. I send review copies to reputable reviewers and hope they’ll take the time to look at the book. I just keep doing what I can. I’m not very savvy technically but I cobble things together. I spend a part of every day doing some sort of marketing.”

What promotion will you do, today, tomorrow, this week?

I encourage you to learn advertising and branding. Learning how to do it is key. Once you know how, you may cringe initially, but then you’ll find that you enjoy it, and accept that promoting is a part of your writing life.

What will you promote today?

A tip: promotion starts while you’re writing your book. Start a blog, get known. Take baby steps.

Here’s an interesting experiment at the Boulder Book Store in Colorado. Print on Demand (POD — self-publshed) authors sell their books on consignment on the bookstore shelves, and pay for the privilege.

The Boulder way: A bookstore’s experiment with microdistribution » Nieman Journalism Lab reports:

“…The store charges its consignment authors according to a tiered fee structure: $25 simply to stock a book (five copies at a time, replenished as needed by the author for no additional fee); $75 to feature a book for at least two weeks in the ‘Recommended’ section; and $125 to, in addition to everything else, mention the book in the store’s email newsletter, feature it on the Local Favorites page of the store’s website for at least 60 days, and enable people to buy it online for the time it’s stocked in the store.

And for $255 — essentially, the platinum package — the store will throw in an in-store reading and book-signing event.”

If you’re a new author, and haven’t set up your own marketing, it sounds like a great offering to me. You’re getting your book out there, and that’s important.

Few bookstores will stock POD books, so let’s hope that more of them develop this distribution model for their local authors.

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This press release Cookbook Author Sues Jessica and Jerry Seinfeld for Copyright Infringement and Defamation states: “Attorneys for Missy Chase Lapine, author of ‘The Sneaky Chef,’ today filed a lawsuit against Jessica Seinfeld and Jerry Seinfeld for copyright and trademark infringement and defamation in Federal District Court in New York.

The lawsuit alleges that Jessica Seinfeld blatantly plagiarized Ms. Lapine’s book, ‘The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals,’ a critically-acclaimed and commercially successful cookbook with an innovative approach to improving children’s eating habits. ‘The Sneaky Chef’ shows parents how to, among other things, camouflage purees of carefully selected fruits and vegetables as ingredients in less healthy foods that kids like, such as cheeseburgers, pizza and brownies. Running Press Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, published ‘The Sneaky Chef’ in April, 2007, generating positive reviews and quickly becoming a New York Times bestseller.”

You have to wonder whether this is a publicity ploy.

PublishersMarketplace notes that “Bookscan figures for 2007 tracked sales of approximately 581,000 copies for Seinfeld’s book through mid-December; Running Press says The Sneaky Chef currently has approximately 190,000 copies in print.”

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Many authors have touted the effects of publishing your book on the Web as a promotional tool for bookstore sales.

This New York Times article Crossover Dreams: Turning Free Web Work Into Real Book Sales reports regarding the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which was published free online: “Mr. Kinney, a design director at Family Education Network, a unit of Pearson that operates Funbrain, where ‘Wimpy Kid’ first appeared, spent 10 years writing the book and always intended to publish it in print form. But after discussing it with his boss, Jess Brallier, the publisher of the Family Education Network, Mr. Kinney decided to serialize his book on Funbrain.com in part to attract children to the site during the summer. As an unknown author, he figured he might gain more exposure if he published the book — which looks as if it could be a hand-written diary of a mischievous middle-school boy — on a Web site with thousands of daily visitors in his target market.”

However, PublishersLunch Deluxe, from PublishersMarketplace says:

The NYT cites the illustrated children’s novel DIARY OF A WIMPY KID as the latest example that material available for free on the internet can still have value in traditional book form. In this case, Abrams has sold 147,000 copies tracked via Bookscan, and a larger version of what became the book (1,300 online pages in all) remains posted at Funbrain.com, where it has been a popular feature. But at least one retailer says the sales are due to good word-of-mouth for the book rather than viral attention driven by the web version.

So what’s best? Should you publish your book online free as a promotional tool as you write the book?

My gut feeling, if you’re a new writer, and don’t know much about selling your book is – yes.

You get these benefits:

* a readership

* publisher interest once the readership is big enough

* confidence in yourself – readers tend to give you confidence

* motivation to continue writing, because of the interaction with readers.