Free Author and Book Promotions on Indies Unlimited

Indies Unlimited is one of the only (if not THE only) place where indie authors can promote themselves and their books for free. That’s really the heart and soul of IU; helping each other without trying to make money off our friends and colleagues. And the really good news is that there are lots of ways to take advantage of these opportunities. We’re going to break those down for you here.

Book Promotions

Every week, IU has a minimum of three types of free book promos that everyone can use. They’re simple, and they get a ton of participants, which means there are a lot of books for readers to browse through. This is one place where you don’t need to be shy — list all your books, as long as they comply with our rules of usage and do not include erotica, religious, or political books. All you have to do this is enter the requested information as a comment down below the main post. This is what we request (and only these things):

1. Book title and price
2. Author name
3. A short one sentence book description (140 characters ONLY please)
4. One AMAZON link to purchase the book.

Comments that do not follow the above format may be removed by the administrators, so please color within the lines.

These promos appear as follows:

Thursdays: Free and 99 cent eBooks — any eBooks you have that are currently free or 99 cents, whether permanently or on sale. If it’s a temporary sale, note the dates the sale price is good.

Sunday: Paperbacks — any print books you have that are $15.00 or less.

Wednesday: Kindle Unlimited — any books you have enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. For these postings, also include the regular price of the book, so the KU users know how much they’re saving. These features run once a month, usually on the third Wednesday.

Author Promotions

At other times, IU allows us to promote ourselves in an effort to connect with others and boost our online presence. Every Wednesday there is a likefest of one sort or another: Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Author Central pages on Amazon, Wattpad, Pinterest, Instagram, Youtube, Tumblr, etc. Again, simply post in the comments a link to your profile in the social media site featured that day. Don’t forget to reciprocate by liking the profiles of everyone else who lists that day. Remember, we’re all helping each other out.

Writing Skill Promotion

Last but not least, IU has ways to showcase our writing skills. Every Saturday is a Flash Fiction contest. If you’re not familiar, the IU administrators post a prompt — the beginnings of a story — then leave it to the rest of us to finish that story in 250 words or less. As always, post your story in the comments, and make sure you stay within the word limit or your work won’t be eligible for the voting. The voting takes place every Wednesday, and the winner is announced on the following Saturday. If you enter, you may win a spot in the yearly Flash Fiction anthology published by IU.

Finally, there is always the opportunity to write a guest post for IU. Indies Unlimited is absolutely a superblog, rating in the top percentage of websites out of the 1 billion in the world. We have tons of faithful followers and appearing on IU can be a big boost to your online presence. Remember Lynne Cantwell’s post about effective frequency? Here’s a great way to get your name in front of lots and lots of readers. If you have an idea for a blog post, contact the administrators via the contact page. We’re always eager to hear about lessons learned, things that have helped you in your writing, marketing, and promotion efforts, what works and what doesn’t.

If all of this sounds a little overwhelming, don’t forget that by simply commenting on a post, you post your gravatar and website link as well. If you leave helpful advice, insightful alternatives, even thoughtful arguments, you’re still increasing your online presence. People can get an idea of who you are and what you’re like from your comments, and you never know — they might just look you up and buy one of your books! Remember that we’re all in this together, and high tide raises all boats.

Author: Melissa Bowersock

Melissa Bowersock is an eclectic, award-winning author who writes in a variety of fiction and non-fiction genres. She has been both traditionally and independently published and lives in a small community in northern Arizona. Learn more about Melissa from her Amazon author page and her blog. View all posts by Melissa Bowersock