Kindle Scout Submission and Campaign Approval

I did it. I finally did it, and I'm so unbelievably excited.

I submitted my book, Everyday Monsters to Kindle Scout, and got my campaign approval email from them.

I'm so incredibly nervous.

For anyone that doesn't know what the program is or how it works, the official guidelines from Amazon are here. Basically it's something Amazon has recently come up with called "crowd-sourced publishing" for their ebook publishing imprint, Kindle Press. You submit your ebook via their website, then they respond to the email address on your Amazon account (not the email address you entered when you filled out the submission information, FYI) within 1-2 business days with your campaign approval and the URL your campaign will be listed at. The "campaign" is a 30 day period that the book will be listed on the Scout website for "Scouters" (basically anyone with an Amazon account) to look at and nominate for publication. Your book will either stay on the Hot & Trending list, depending on how many page views and nominations it gets per day, or it will fall off this list to chill with the rest of the not-so-popular books. Which is also fine.

It sounds a lot like a popularity contest, but apparently it's not. There have been several books that stay on the Hot & Trending list for the majority of their campaign, but don't get chosen for a publication contract, and there have been quite a few with great Hot & Trending numbers that have. It's entirely up to the Scout staff, who actually read the book sometime in the whole campaign + 2 weeks decision making period, and then decide from there whether or not Kindle Press will be choosing your book to publish.

So, the 30 day campaign isn't a popularity contest, but more of a genius marketing tool. Which makes sense, being Amazon and all. Authors generally stress out about their page views and nominations for the whole 30 days, doing their best to stay in the Hot & Trending list, thereby increasing their book's visibility on the page. They scream for attention from friends, family, coworkers, social media platforms and strangers on the street much like former CEOs of the failed tech-bubble wonder companies from the early 2000s. However, unlike most other programs in which people have to vote for their favorites, you actually get something out of this if the book wins.

The geniuses at Kindle Scout have decided that if a book is awarded a contract, everyone that voted for it is given a free ebook copy 2 weeks before it goes live for publication on Kindle's platform. Yay! Free ebooks for everyone! This is done in hopes that all of the people that voted for it will submit reviews for the book, thus giving it a great starting point in the Kindle rankings, and of course, increasing visibility so that new readers can find it organically as they shop. Brilliant. Reviews are any author's bread and butter in this industry, and Kindle has done a great job of making sure that your book is put in the right hands for maximum effect early in the book's release.

This is a great idea, and in light of that, I think I'm going to do the same thing if Everyday Monsters isn't chosen by Kindle Scout. If you vote for my campaign and it isn't chosen, I'll email you a copy of the .mobi or .epub file, if you sign up for my newsletter or like my Facebook author page and send me a screenshot of Everyday Monsters in your Scout nominations. Because I appreciate your support, and readers mean more to me than anything. I would love to know that I've written a story that people enjoy, that helps them relax and have a nice time in my world, and that gives them even half of the joy that my favorite books have given me.

Because you guys are the best, and I love each of you.

So, after all of this hubbub, the most exciting part of this post for me is that I GOT MY APPROVAL EMAIL!! YAY!! I submitted Everyday Monsters on Saturday morning around 1 am after agonizing unnecessarily (I have anxiety issues, don't judge me lol) over all 3 of the questions that I answered as part of my author bio section, not to mention the bio itself, and I just got my email at 9:18 am CST saying that I'm approved for a Kindle Scout campaign. Yay!

Everyday Monsters will be listed here at 12:00 AM on Wednesday, August 24, 2016.  I'm super excited, and yet terrified, all at once. It's a good thing there's no turning back now, as once you submit, you can't change your mind and pull your book back out. So here's to 30 days of stress, excitement and daily blog posts with all of the Scout information I can possibly give you,