I ❤️ YA Scavenger Hunt

Welcome to my tour stop on the I ❤️ YA Scavenger Hunt, sponsored by the authors of Cursed Lands!

All the hunt rules are on the main website: http://cursedlandsboxedset.com/scavengerhunt/. But a quick reminder: Find the secret word in BOLD in my blog post below and string it together with the words from all the other hunt stops to win the grand prize $100 Amazon Gift card!

I’m also hosting another giveaway, so make sure you read all the way to the bottom of my post for your chance to win!

Today’s post is a reflection on Boxed Sets and hitting the USA Today Bestseller list! What does it mean? What does it take? Well, read on and you’ll find out!

What does it mean to be a “USA Today Bestselling Author?”

This is a title of prestige. Any author who sells enough copies in the United States in the time frame of “one week” on multiple retailer platforms will be reported to USA Today. USA Today will compile the numbers and make a list of 150 books (including boxed sets) that sold the most copies!

Once an author hits this list, even just once, even if their name is in a boxed set with the collaboration of other authors, their name is forever forged in the book of USA Today Bestsellers! USA Today keeps a master list that can be verified by anyone reaching out to them. Once awarded, this title can be placed on book covers, used for ad copy, and tooted when querying agents. It is a dream for many, but only a reality for a select few!

What does it take to hit the USA Today Bestseller List?

It’s hard, rough, work! It takes thousands of dollars of advertising as well as a lot of elbow grease to get the set out in front of as many people as possible. A team of authors working together to get enough preorders the week of release all in one fell swoop is a strategy most use, spreading out the advertising cost to manageable sums and using the power of teamwork to get a lot more sales than the standard author can alone. Remember, the bestselling list includes books backed by the publishing giants that can easily throw $20,000~$30,000 at a book. That’s hard to compete with, so those books will take the top spots. Luckily, there are 150 spots every week, so indies like us often come in around the 100~150 mark on the list.

However, just because authors are working as a team doesn’t make it easy, and advertising often only accounts for some of the sales earned so it can’t be relied on, and I can attest to that! Everyone has to work together and promote the set as much as possible. The rule of marketing is you will get sales numbers based on how many eyeballs see it. The more people who are exposed to the set, the more people who will buy it! Hitting the list is a matter of mathematics; did you put enough eyeballs on the set to get the sales you need? Some people need to be exposed or encouraged multiple times before they click. No one can deny 20+ books for 99 cents isn’t a great deal! Many are interested, however it still takes time out of someone’s day to go onto a retailer and click buy. We’re working to encourage as many people as we can to do just that.

How Can I Help?

Our goals are steep, but if you would like to help, you can do so by purchasing the set on Nook and iBooks! When the set comes out on Amazon, you can purchase that as well! Join my Mailing List to be notified when the list releases on Amazon!

If you can’t purchase, or you wish to do more, you can recommend the set to family and friends. Post this scavenger hunt on Facebook! Do you know anyone with an iPhone? Pull up the iBooks app and search for Cursed Lands! (I might have done this with a few friends of mine and grinned at them like a lunatic.) We know that achieving a goal like this is a team effort, not just from the authors participating, but by those who support us.

What’s in it for Me?

We want to make sure we reward those who help us. There is a weekly giveaway sponsored by us that can be found at http://cursedlandsboxedset.com/giveaways/. And yes, there’s a giveaway going on right now, and every week until release! So click and enter!

We’ll also have special giveaways which will be announced in the party room, so be sure to hang out there as well. I just checked and there are loads of special giveaways going on in there, so hurry and check it out! We want to give back as much as we can, so we hope you enjoy the fun!

Win an Ebook Copy of Valkyrie Landing!

Thank you for reading this far! You can enter my personal giveaway for a chance to win an eBook Copy of Valkyrie Landing! Just click here to find out if you’re an instant winner! I will renew this giveaway through Feb 14, so there is a potential for multiple winners 🙂

Valkyrie Landing is Book 1 in the Valkyrie Allegiance Series!