Douglas Gibson

Wanna Go to Tuvalu? Become a Knight Ambassador!

by Douglas Gibson | Leave a Comment

Well, actually, you can’t get posted to Tuvalu. Sorry. But—

We’re now a month into the release of Tales of a Fifth-Grade Knight, and things are going swimmingly:

  • Last week Knight was given a “Best Seller” badge on the Capstone website.
  • On Amazon the sales ranking commonly bounces between about 500,000 and 50,000, which means that out of the million or so books on sale via Amazon, Knight is selling better than most, and sometimes selling better than almost all of them.
  • Also on Amazon, Knight has six reviews; half of the reviewers have given the book four stars, and half have given it all five!

Of course, all this is driven by you (you beautiful readers, you), and I can’t thank you enough. Seriously. I could say “thanks” as many times as there are stars in the sky, and still not have covered the subject.

And so, of course, I’d like to ask for more help to get the book out to more people.

Ways to help

If you’ve got a phone, a blog, an e-mail address, a Facebook page, a voice, or a homing pigeon, you can help.

I’ve prepared a handy list below. Do what feels fun, sincere, useful, and easy.

If you’ve got a blog… hello! you can…

  • read the book (I can get you a digital or print copy.)
  • review the book on Amazon.

Amazon uses customer reviews to create an algorithm that puts highly rated books in front of more potential buyers (mostly through the “You might also like…” section of their pages), so every review (especially the 5-star ones) makes a big difference. How do you leave a review? Easy:

  • Just Google Tales of a Fifth Grade Knight and the Amazon listing will come up at the top.
  • Click on the link and scroll to the bottom of the page, and you’ll see a button that says, “Write a Customer Review.”
  • You don’t actually need to have bought the book from Amazon to leave a review. And feel free to leave an honest response.

The sooner you can do this the better. The review could be super short and simple and still be effective. Here are some questions you might want to use as a springboard for review:

  • Does the author do a good job of making you feel like you are in the action? How?
  • Are the main characters believable?
  • Do you know anyone like them?
  • Can you share a scene that really moved you?
  • Would you recommend this book to your friends?

If you’re on Facebook, Twitter, or other social media:

Well, you know what to do – share away!
A possible message could be…

“I just read @DougGibson’s Tales of a Fifth Grade Knight. It’s a super fun read! If you want to find out more and buy the book (and I hope you will!), you can go here: http://tinyurl.com/5thgradeknight (Amazon) or here: http://bit.ly/1He2DjD (Capstone Press – Doug’s publisher).”

Finally, hear me saying, “Thanks.” As many times as there are stars in the sky.