Because book marketing is tricky and what works is constantly changing, I have to be experimental, agile, and forgiving about my misfires. (And there have been many misfires.)
And quite a few lulls.
that spike on June 23? It’s a giveaway of about a 900 books. Kicked things into high gear for about a week and then it flattened out again.
So then I was sent a link to this book:
How to Hit #1 in the Amazon Free Store by Jeff Bennington, and I decided to apply his steps. Come to find out that first giveaway, wasn’t big enough. I needed a giveaway that was enormous and would move me up the Amazon rankings. And to do that my friends I would have to spend some moolah.
I set my free days for August 15, 16, 17. At first it was for Bright, then I added Beyond and Belief too. See that negative dip above? That’s probably someone who bought my books saying, hey, what the heck, refunding them and getting them for free instead.
See this graph below? That’s the free books in that first green hump, mid August:
First, I asked Bookbub.com to promote my giveaway, they’re expensive, also considered the lead-maker, also too exclusive for my books, they turned me down. So whatevs, this is what I did instead:
- DigitalBookToday.com ran a free promo for Bright, but then I added the $30 Deal/Book of the Day
- Booksends.com cost $60 for Bright on August 15th in the Young Adult category
- FreeBooksy.com cost $75 for Bright in Young Adult on August 16th
- I asked BKnights@fiverr to run a promotion for Bright on August 15 to 4800 for $5, but to schedule it fast I paid $11
- Fussy Librarian $5 for a listing for Bright
- Then on the days of the giveaways I boosted two posts through Facebook.com/hdknightley, they were photo memes and cost $25
I did the math, total: $206
During the giveaway I got to the top of the Amazon Bestseller list for Dystopian (Free books, which is seperate.) for both Bright and Belief, and Beyond was just a page down. I was really psyched.
But I realized I made a mistake. I paid for marketing for the first two days then continued the giveaway for another day with no buzz. That day my book downloads fell off sharply. And then when my books went to full price there were barely any accidental or intentional buys. Oops.
Then it seemed like not much happened for a few days and then this:
see that rise in the blue? Those are page reads through the Kindle Unlimited program. It took a few days but readers were findng my books. And this happened:
On August 28, Bright jumped to #88 on the Amazon Best Sellers Dystopian Romance paid list. That’s top 100, baby, same list as Divergent. Not overall, but still, so good compared to what came before. And readers read the heck out of my book that week, too.
In the three weeks since the Giveaway of Bright, Beyond, and Belief started, I made back $132.49. Not in the black yet, but hey, I’ll let you know how it goes.
I hope that helps you as you strategize and market, I’d love to hear your successes and failures. I’m scoring this a success, though I need another soon.
xox,
H.D.