This past book release has been my most successful so far in many ways. I’m going to logically attribute some of that to the fact that with each book I’m potentially increasing my small, but loyal, readership. However, there were some real surprises this time that I wanted to share. So, I’ll explain what I did and the results of those actions.
- Amazon Free Day
- I wasn’t able to figure out a way to make the day of my release of Circe: The Beginning a “free” day through the Kindle Select Program, however, I made the second day a free day.
- This proved to be an awesome idea that I intend to repeat. In total, I gave away about 6X the amount of stories than I have in the past. I’ve also already had a few reviews trickle in.
- Additionally, I had consistent sales for about a week after the giveaway.
- Amazon Promo for “To Kill a Wizard”
- I made my book .99 during the week I released Circe: The Beginning.
- This was not a “move” I thought would result in many sales. This book is written for young adult readers, verses dystopian sci-fi readers, so the two stories don’t really link.
- To my surprise, I made the most money off of this promo. In total, I sold nearly as many copies of my book this past month as I did the first month my book was available.
- I’ll definitely be doing this again.
These two promotional tools gave some unexpected results, however, the biggest surprise to me was the weeks that followed the initial “boom” in sales after the promos. I have sold and gave away less books in the last two weeks than in months. Somehow, I expected that my sales would decrease after the initial release, but I didn’t expect them to go below what I normally sell. I’m interested to see what the next month brings, because I’m hoping for better long-term results.