Tuesday 28 May 2013

So what effect does a free promotion have?

Over my three-day promotion, which ended at midnight California time, a total of 1248 books were downloaded. All but 13 from amazon.com, .co.uk, and .de . During the promo, Despite the Angels rose and fell, its highest ranking of free books was #455, which was at 2.15pm Irish time on Sunday. It hit a high point of first place in 'Romance-paranormal-ghosts' for a few hours, and then settled to #3. This was a little mystifying, as there are no ghosts at all in the book!
I decided eventually that someone in Amazon must have seen the phrase 'spirit guides' and latched on to 'spirit'. But of course spirit guides are definitely not ghosts!
The book also got up to 8th position in 'romance-paranormal-angels'.
All that is of no importance really, it is what happens now that is of significance. And sadly, that is not likely to amount to much. The book is at 315,003rd overall in amazon. This is probably about half way up, but it is still totally invisible. It would be similar to your book being stocked by a big bookshop, but left in the storeroom!
People who specifically look for either ghost or angel books may stumble across it, at #204 out of 1399 for ghost, and #128 out of 633 for angels; but looking at the others in those lists (only the covers, admittedly) made me feel they were not attracting the readers who would want and enjoy my kind of angels!
So I have more research to do, to work out where to market it next. if any of you have read "Despite the Angels" and are familiar with Amazon's genre selections, maybe you would be kind and give me your opinion?

7 comments:

  1. Sorry you did not get the results you wanted. Your book sounds really interesting and I am looking into buying the paperback version. You are doing great, putting yourself out there. I really wish you all the best, just do not give up.

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  2. Thank you, Murees!The support is really wonderful.

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  3. When I ran a free promotion, I was fascinated by the statistics. My books are quite low down in the rankings at the moment, but one sale can propel them above #100,000. I've learnt to forget about the stats, because so much relies on the books around you. I've been given the advice that ebooks slowly gain a wider audience, whereas print books have a huge initial burst but fall away quicker. I hope that makes you feel a little better :-)

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  4. Hi Madeline. Thanks for popping in at my place and leaving a comment. Congratulations on self-publishing your book. That is a major accomplishment!
    Good luck with your marketing drive!

    Writer In Transit

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  5. I watch authors experiment with the amazon programs and free days with interest, but the results vary so drastically from book to book and author to author that I can't get a handle on what works and what doesn't.

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  6. KDP Select free promos don't work as well as they used to, unless you get lucky. But just think there are over 1000 people who are potential new fans. :)

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  7. Thank you everyone! That is all encouraging, I reckon Despite the Angels is in for the long haul! I hope those 1248 people all read it....
    I have some other ideas to work on...

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