Countdown Recap
As I was starting up the countdown deal for my books a few weeks ago, a friend expressed concern that the countdown deal would not be successful. I told them what I had told others: "I've sold one book since the beginning of May. So... if I top that, I'll be happy."
I am thrilled to say that I DID indeed top that goal of one sale. I did not see the success that I have seen in the past with free promotions, but I did not expect to. It's hard to compete with "Free." I do have a more reasonable expectation that people who took advantage of the countdown deal may actually read my book, as they spent real money on it. The down-side to free promos is that there are people out there who just like to grab any free book they can... but that doesn't guarantee they'll ever read it.
So, how did it go?
Well, I don't mind sharing that I did sell 158 books total. Which I felt was rather impressive.
125 copies of King's Warrior. And for a beautiful, brief instant, King's Warrior was #4,138 in the paid Kindle store, as well as #57 in Kindle Sword & Sorcery, #66 in overall Sword & Sorcery, and #100 in Epic!
33 copies of Second Son.
For two weeks straight, my books not only managed to make it under the #1,000,000 mark on the Amazon best-seller list, but actually remained under #100,000. They're climbing back up there already, but hey, for 2 weeks they managed to come at least partially out of obscurity.
How did I promote the sale?
I contacted the following sites and submitted my book for their consideration:
- Pixel of Ink
- Indiesunlimited
- ebooklister.net ($5.20) (posted Second Son)
- bookbub
- daily-free-ebooks
- theereadercafe
- thefussylibrarian ($6) (posted King’s Warrior)
- book praiser
- ereadernewstoday ($15) (posted King’s Warrior)
There are far fewer options for posting a "bargain" book than there are for posting a "free" book, and as far as I can tell most of these sites will charge you in some way if they agree to post your book during its promo. Either they will ask for an up-front fee if they decide to post your book (The Fussy Librarian and E-ReaderNewsToday are this way), or they will charge you a small percentage based on your sales on the day they post your book (ebooklister). Since you are actually making money off this promotion, this seems fair to me. So, although I spent more money on this promo (I did not spend any on my free promo last year), I still feel like it was a good promotion to do.
I also had a giveaway running throughout the promotion of Second Son to try to get the word out. Thank you so very much to all who participated in the giveaway in some fashion! Your help was wonderful. As I said earlier, I couldn't do any of this without you, dear Reader.
What did I learn?
I learned that doing two promos right next to each other is not necessarily as wonderful of an idea as you might think. It might seem great in theory, but keeping the momentum going for 2 weeks over 2 different books is quite difficult. Also, if your second book does not have as many reviews, fewer people are going to be willing to spend money on it before reading the first one.
(So, you know... if you've read Second Son and want to leave a review on Amazon... feel free!) GRIN.
I learned again that I hate marketing. Hate it. Particularly when I'm marketing something for myself. I can promote other authors, my sister, a friend's adoption, etc all day long and never bat an eye at the effort. But for myself? I just feel guilty the entire time. Every post to remind people about the promo or the giveaway was a massive effort, and I felt like every stereotypical image of a sleazy used car salesman ever. Shudder. So, I learned again that marketing myself is my least favorite part of self-publishing. (I already knew that, I guess, so I suppose it can't really go under, "What did I learn?" But, I did kind of learn it, because this promo was different. I wasn't just giving away books. I was running a bargain, the price was low, but there was still a price. So, it was different and I suppose I can actually categorize it as something I learned).
What would I do differently?
I would only run a countdown deal on one book... and I would wait 3-6 months before doing the next one.
I would read websites more carefully before submitting my book and make sure I'm not caught off-guard by fees. The ereadernewstoday one was clearly listed in their "pricing" area, but I did not see the link to it until they emailed me and said they would send me a bill shortly... you do have to hunt a little bit to find it on their site if you don't know to look for it. While that is my fault and it's not really that much money, had I known the cost would be $15, I might have passed on submitting to that particular site.
I would run the giveaway with the first (and only) countdown deal, and try to find a more tempting prize. :)
I probably would attempt not to completely forget about goodreads as a viable place to promote the deal... but the folks over there have a tendency to respond pretty negatively to promotional stuff in general, and I haven't had as much time on my hands lately, so I've sort of neglected goodreads lately.
So, that was my first countdown deal experience. I know that most of my readers over here are also writers. Have any of you run a countdown deal or free promo, or promo of any kind on your books? Was it a good experience, bad experience? I'd love to hear how your promo went and what you learned from it!