Tag Archives: sales rank

Final results of the free give away promotion

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Okay, this is good, as a result of this promotion I’ve sold enough books to buy a new car!  Yup, a new Corvette…and here it is:

NewCar

 

 

 

So lets look at the final results.  First, we need to understand the distribution.  BIL is currently exclusively listed by Amazon, both in softcover and, via Kindle, as an ebook.  (The Collingwood Legacy is not.  Hence, it is available via Smashword, Kobo, Barns and Noble, etc.  Someday, when I’ve figured it out I’ll make an educated guess: exclusive to Amazon or not.)  Anyway, back to the grist of this.  There are eleven Amazon sites, e.g. Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, etc.  They are as follows:

• UK Kindle Store: United Kingdom (including Guernsey, Isle of Man, and Jersey)
• DE Kinde Store: Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Switzerland
• FR Kindle Store: France, Monaco, Belgium, Switzerland, and Luxembourg
• ES Kindle Store: Andorra, Spain
• IT Kindle Store: Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, and Switzerland
• Japan Kindle Store: Japan
• BR Kindle Store: Brazil
• MX Kindle Store: Mexico
• CA Kindle Store: Canada
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I’m prohibited from telling you the numbers downloaded at each site.  However, I will say that I was a bit surprised by the results.  By the end of the promotion Betrayal in the Louvre was ranked #102 on the list of Free Amazon Kindle books and #3 in Historical fiction!  (See attached)

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Now, at the risk of Amazon being upset, well north of two thousand downloads were made in the USA alone.  So the question becomes “How did that translate to sales?”

Honestly, I don’t know if I have a good answer.  Certainly some sales of the book have occurred, witness my new car above! 🙂  But not a great number.  Interestingly, nearly as many sales (as opposed to free downloads) have occurred in France than even here in the USA since the promotion.  I find that interesting because the book is in English, about a couple of Americans and not advertised there a great deal.  So, thanks to the French!  There have been a few sales of the next book, The Collingwood Legacy.  And, that was really the goal wasn’t it?  The people who enjoy reading an indie author tend to get their books from giveaways.  I would to, its the way the industry is right now.

Lets face it, an indie author doesn’t have a lot of cash to spend on advertising.  The only mass outlet is a free giveaway.  Paid advertisements, even if the author makes the decision to spend the coin, are expensive.  Until that author has a substantial following, and I believe, a substantial number of books to sell I really don’t see the return on investment.  I’m setting a goal of four books listed on line before I start spending any money on advertisements.  Lets keep in mind the original goals: 1)  Tell a good story for the family;  2) This is just for fun, not for profit;  3) Learn a little bit about the indie world and share it with others.

So, here’s the most important thing.  On the three nights of the give away Eve and I checked the Amazon site every couple of hours.  We were nuts, absolutely caught up in the excitement of watching the book rise in the rankings.  It was fun. Mission accomplished.

Two other amazing things happened.  One lady posted a review on the Amazon site saying that she would rank the book 5 stars because my bio sounded like I’m a guy it would be fun to sit and talk with.  How cool is that!?  What a nice person to write that.  Some may question her ranking a book before reading it to which I reply, “C’mon, let’s not get too serious over a free ebook.”

The second amazing thing was a note I received via this web site from a lady in England. She was a bit miffed about some misspelled words.  I’m truly sorry those mistakes caused irritation.  I wrote her back and told her how embarrassed I was, how much her feedback was valued and hoped she would forgive me.  Guess what…she wrote back, said she enjoyed the story and after she’d received my reply any additional mistakes she made simply made her smile.  So, I had two takeaways on that, first and most important, I made someone smile (mostly by looking like an idiot that can’t spell but hey, a smile is a smile) and two, I’ve got to go back and reread the book, correct any misspellings and replace it on Amazon.

One word about editing.  When a book is written it is read and reread a dozen times.  Misspellings are difficult to catch after the second or third time through because the mind knows what the word is before the eyes finish seeing all the letters.  Take this sentence for for example.  Did you catch that?  I’ll bet you missed the second ‘for’ didn’t you?  Enough said.  I’ll work harder. (Oh, and remember, no paid editors, this is for fun and I’m cheap.)

 

Update on free promotion

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Here we are a day and a half into the free promotion of my book BETRAYAL IN THE LOUVRE.  The book promotion was advertised on the sites listed previously.  The give-away began at 0001 on the morning of 27 Sep 13 (one minute past midnight).  I checked status at 0745 AM on the morning of the 27th.  At that point 24 downloads had been made and the book ranked #8987 on Amazon’s free list.

I then checked all the web sites which had solicited my input when conducting a free ebook give away.  I found the book on only two sites of the 18 sites.  Only “Indie Book of the Day” and “BookGoodies” had the book.  Though to be fair, I cannot now find the book on Indie Book of the Day, nor the post from yesterday.  Its possible they didn’t have it at all as I’d not had my coffee yet when doing the search.  And, BookGoodies uses a link to the Amazon site.  Where that link is on their site I still don’t know.  I only found the book using the search function on the site.  But, as I said, no one promised anything, but the NUMBER of free ebooks listed each day by the sites is, shall we say, limited?  I wonder why they solicit free notifications, other than to gather email addresses of authors and attempt to sell them something.

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Thanks for your support and please leave your comments and be sure to leave an Amazon ranking if you’ve downloaded the book.  Thanks again!

Ready for the give away weekend!

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As mentioned in a previous post my goal is to promote my books using as small an advertising budget as possible.  I know, makes me look cheap, but the fact is that a huge, HUGE percentage of indie books only sell to friends and family.  I’m experiencing that with BETRAYAL.  Since publishing the book in May, I’ve sold only a small number via Amazon to people that I didn’t know.  Only one book to a customer in England, none to any other foreign market.  Also, as I stated in the last post, this is kind of an experiment.  My goal when I began writing was not to get rich (sadly, that goal has been achieved!) rather, it was to put a published book in the hands of my mother.  She’s a bibliophile, approaching her 91st birthday, it seemed a good way to honor her. Ah-hemmm…please forgive the digression… anyway, I’ve attempted to notify the world by informing twenty-four websites which are involved in the ebook world.  On Friday, 27 Sept, I intend to review each of the websites and see if any mention of my book is made.  I’ll do that again on the 28th and 29th.

In fairness, many did not promise to post anything about the book.  They “will consider” or “if they have room”.  They’re looking for a paid advertisement, I understand that.  A person has to make a living, got that.  So the real question is; “What percentage of requests, using the sites free book advertisement form, are posted on the site?”.  Obviously, I’ll not be able to answer that question, only the site owner can answer for their specific site.  The experiment goes on, I’ve notified the below listed sites, found via Author’s Marketing Club and my own search.  Check back in a few days and we’ll see what happens.

Pixel of Ink

Free Book Dude

Kindle Book Promos

It’s Write Now

Free & Discounted Books

eReader News

Orangeberry Book Tours

eBooks Habit

Ignite Your Book

eReader Utopia

The Kindle Book Review

The eReader Cafe
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eReader Girl

Bargain eBook Hunter

Indie Book of the Day

Bookgoodies

eReader News Today  (Same site as eReader News above)

Pixel Scroll

The following sites I attempted to notify, I’m not sure if my note/application got through, or there was some other issue.  Remember, I’m doing this on the cheap, so if a fee was involved I passed.

World Literary Cafe

Kindle Nation Daily

Addicted to Books

eReader IQ

Free Kindle Books & Tips

The Digital Inkspot

Marketing for the indie author

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Since my main source of income is not revenue from books I’ve decided to make this one giant experiment in internet marketing.  I’ve spent a great deal of time reading other indie author’s sites, blogs, watching their YouTube videos and generally poking around in this ‘new’ industry.  It seems there are more scams, con artists and amateur experts than during the gold rush years of the dot.com era.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far.  First, basic truths:  1. The CreateSpace store is much more profitable than selling on Amazon (by nearly a factor of two). 2. Amazon loves reviews.  The more reviews, the better.  Note, I do not think the number of reviews ups the ranking of the book in their ranking list, not sure on that however.  3.  A book signing is a wonderful, fun event and the profit per book sold CAN be higher than selling on Amazon.  But, it is impossible to sell enough books via that method to really make a large impact on yearly income.

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So, here’s what I’ve done.  I’ve enrolled in “The Author’s Marketing Club” (the free version, remember, this whole thing is about keeping costs to an absolute minimum.)  They seem like a good bunch, there are a lot of PAID services there, okay, a guy has to make a living…got that, but there is also a bunch of free advice and help.  Anyway, on their site they provide a ‘Free Amazon Kindle Book Submission Tool’.  While it doesn’t fit my definition of a ‘tool’ it is a page with links to the free book submission form for twenty-four ebook reader sites and blogs.  I’ll provide a list of the sites in the next few days, suffice it to say I’ve listed BETRAYAL on the sites and created a banner for the front page of this site.  Now, we’ll ride this part of the experiment out and see what happens to downloads.