My fellow author, Sanjiva, had a bit of a chuckle and said that we five, were the “Famous Five“, the five authors who responded to my invite to collaborate in a shared promotion on St James Day, 25th July.

This post is a sort of behind the scenes of an author life, how do we promote our books and how and why. It’s a mystery why out of a membership of 800+ Camino authors, only a few responded at all. And only five joined in on the promotion to share our books for free or at a discount. Those great camino authors are in the previous post – go check them out here.

We had a wide selection, despite the small number, from travelogues, inspirational. transformational and historical fiction, there was something for everyone, or almost everyone. I could only download one book, because I had already bought the others. 

So why only Five

Some authors could not join as they were traditionally published, and not allowed to by the publishers – a valid reason for you to check out why you need to join the disruptive publishing revolution

Some authors said they never do free or discounts. That’s a personal choice, but one that is mystifying to me. As part of the Camino community, giving and sharing is integral to how we live.

Others just did not respond at all – I suspect they did not see my post at all, because they don’t take part in the community unless they want to sell a book – or announce a publication.  The community is called “Camino Authors”, the aim is to help each other and promote each other’s books, not buy or make sales. I can understand the blurriness, as authors we are good at writing, and less good at the subtleties of marketing. Especially marketing a book, which needs a different type of marketing, a more gentle approach that doesnt continuosly scream buy me.

With Book marketing, “Read me” is way better, or is it? What do you think?

Are Freebies any good?

But why is a freebie still a good tactic? Because it gets eyes on your books – isn’t that the primary reason for writing a book in the first place?

And even though there are those who say that not all free downloads are read, that’s the same odds as a non freebie never being seen or read.

And ranking in the top echelons of Amazon still rocks..check the images above, all taken on 25th July. Thanks St James, and readers. You rock my world.

What did we do?

We set all our books on KDP (that’s Amazon) to be free on July 25th, that’s St. James day, and this year being a holy year, it’s a huge celebration.

Apart from that we shared the list of all the books to all our lists and newsletters, social media and blogs. In this way we can share our audiences, since all our books are Camino books, our readers are likely to enjoy another Camino book. The cardinal rule of is that

There is no such thing as too many Camino books.

What is a Himalayan book doing in the Camino?

Nothing really, except that whenever I offer a free download, I offer all my books for a day or two, just for fun, and to allow readers to read more books. So far no one has objected.