Monday 20 May 2013

Promotion results for 'One Summer in France'.

Right!  It's time to reveal the results of my free three-day promotion of 'One Summer in France'.

Before I do, I'd just like to thank the people who tirelessly supported me and kept me going during the process.  I did make a list of all the people who put me on their blogs, websites, retweeted me, chatted to me and generally made things happen.  I am more grateful than I can say to everyone who took the time to help.  I will work to support my fellow writers and book-promoting sites as they have supported me.  Thank you.
 

The nitty-gritty.

I advertised in the usual places, according to the lists made available through the KDP site: http://theselfpublishingtoolkit.com/kdp-select-free-promo-resources/ and paid for one promotional site (£26), which I won't mention, because I don't think it made any difference.  I did submit to Boobub but they turned me down.  Don't know why, but I'm guessing that I needed more reviews.  Difficult to launch a new book when the rules require lots of reviews.  Never mind though, I might try them again with one of my other books at a reduced price. They are expensive, but seem to achieve a high number of free and paid downloads.

So, I got just under 700 free downloads, slightly more in the UK than the US and a smattering from other countries too.  I was happy with this figure.

In the week that followed the promotion I have had 40 paid downloads, mostly of 'One Summer in France' (29) but also of 'Bunny on a Bike' (10) and one of  'A Good Day for Jumping'.  I have had four new (great) reviews for my promo book so far, for which I am extra grateful.

Was it a good thing to do? 

I am certain it was.  I have a greater chance of marketing a book that has received exposure to 700 people than if I had done nothing.  I would like to have simply reduced the price, but I think a book has to be fairly well known for this to be effective.

I have only ever promoted individual books once.  I don't know what would happen if I tried it twice with the same book - it's certainly not something I would think of doing all the time.  The next free promotion I do will probably be for 'A Good Day for Jumping', which has never been promoted.  After that, I'll probably try some reduced price offers, probably with Bookbub (if they'll have me!), and with some of the more select sites that demand a minimum number of reviews. I don't know how well this will work, but have read various posts that seem encouraging.

I note the new rules for free book promotion recently brought in by Amazon and am glad that something is being done to limit the number of free books out there.  Going free is a strategy, as far as I am concerned, and not a way of life.  But then I'm just doing what I think best and am happy to learn from others along the way.  In an ideal world, where the playing field was level, there would be no free books and authors would be paid for their work by readers who would be happy to shell out a reasonable amount for a good book. 

One thing I can say now for sure is that, if you have a book with a sequel, readers will look for it and buy it if they enjoy the free download.  That has got to be a good thing, don't you think?

Once again, thanks to all who rallied to my support - couldn't have done it without you.

Bon courage!

2 comments:

  1. I'm so glad it worked out so well for you - and that amount of after sales is amazing for the relatively small amount of free downloads, which is really encouraging! Should get you more of those lovely review type things, too - of my 5 books, I have only put 3 of them on free, but those 3 have far more reviews than the other two (although the one with the least has only been out for 5 weeks so I can't complain!!). Also, yes, what you said about sequels, etc, is so right. I've only had one very recent experience of this, and a very nice one too - Dream On had always sold the least of all my books, on a month to month basis, but bringing the sequel out has finally made it start to take off a bit.

    Let's hope all these downloads and after sales will get you more reviews and start to get them selling as well as they should!! I've read bits of OSIF, and it's much more amusing than half the books on Amazon that are supposed to be that sort of humour. With a bit of luck you will start to get a bit more recognition soon - and I will read it when I've got my new Nexus, if it ever arrives!!

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  2. Very posh - is a Nexus in the same league as a Lexus?? Thanks for your comments Terry,as always. Glad you're reaping some benefit from sequels also. I've started the next one 'Stranded in the Seychelles' - pages of memories and anecdotes. Just got to re-write about a million times to get the flow and the humour right! Someone said: 'There's no great writing, only great re-writing.' I know what he means! Hope you like OSIF - should make you smile:)

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