The 2-Day Amazon Free Promo Aftermath

Posted by Sarah on Jan 15, 2012 in Sarah's Corner | 6 comments

Have you ever had your mind blown? I’m not talking about being surprised or shocked. I’m talking about going beyond surprise and shock into mind blown the f—- off territory. If you’ve visited ‘mind blown the f—- off territory’ before you must excuse my jaw hanging open because this is my first visit.

I will preface this by saying that I don’t think I have ever hit the refresh button as many times in a 48-hour period as I did over the course of Friday and Saturday. If there is a world record for such obsessive behavior then I probably broke it.

Now, as many of you already know… I made the decision to join Amazon’s KDP Select program and go Amazon exclusive on January 10th. This decision was basically a “What the hell!” decision brought on by the fact that my debut paranormal mystery novel Wildflowers Come Back needed a serious kick in the ass (as did I). I released WCB on September 27th, 2011 and since then the book has received eight 5-star reviews between Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. (None of those reviews belong to my mom). Since it’s release WCB has experienced paltry sales. What do I mean by paltry? In the month of December I had 6 sales on Amazon, 2 sales on B&N, and 1 sale on Smashwords for a grand total of 9 sales for the entire month of December. Not a pretty picture.

I should mention that I pretty much neglected my marketing efforts during the month of November, so my sales numbers during November and December are not exactly those of an author who is actually putting forth an effort. Why did I neglect my marketing efforts? I was scared. Plain and simple. The day I released WCB was such a frightening day for me. I can’t even begin to count how many times I thought, “I need to just unpublish the book before anyone buys it!” I was sure I would receive nothing but 1-star reviews that would reduce me to a blubbering pile of tears. (Obviously I’m one of those over-confident types. ) So when the new year rolled around I made a resolution to myself that I would grow a thicker skin, do my best to shake off the voices in my head that tell me I suck in sing-song voices, and freakin’ fight for what I want.

 

The Decision To Go Free

After joining Amazon’s KDP Select program I started to consider taking advantage of the free pricing promo that they offer for up to 5 days every 90-day period. I talked to other authors who had put their ebook up for free, and I read blogs from authors who had done the same. The results were varied. Some authors had crazy results with thousands of downloads during their free period followed by steady sales after the promo which trumped any of their previous pre-promo sales. Some had more modest but still quite successful results that gave their post-promo sales a  nice enough boost. Meanwhile, there were some who had experienced what can only be labeled as crappy results. Of course these results varied due in part to the variance in genres. Some genres just have a bigger audience than others.

I made the decision to go ahead and give it a shot. It’s not like I had much to lose with my ranking of #273,483 paid in the Amazon.com Kindle Store and #178,371 paid in the Amazon.co.uk Kindle Store. So, I set up a 2-day free promo scheduled for Friday, January 13th and Saturday, January 14th.

Being Free

I woke up the morning of Friday the 13th with a sense of dread in my stomach. My luck I would be one of the poor saps with 15 downloads over the course of two days. Those massive download numbers don’t happen to me…they happen to other people.

As I groggily turned on my computer and logged into my account I was surprised to find that at 6:30 AM MDT I was ranked #3,856 Free in the Amazon.com Kindle Store and #1,836 Free in the Amazon.co.uk Kindle Store. I was also ranked #28 in the Ghost Horror Top 100 Free list.

My numbers continued to grow steadily as the day progressed. By 2:40 PM MDT on Friday I had hit #147 Free in the Amazon.com Kindle Store and was also ranking #5 in the Ghost Horror category.

 

By 5:30 PM MDT on Friday I had cracked the Top 100 Free in the Amazon.com Kindle Store coming in at #98. The numbers continued to rise through the evening and by the time I went to bed at a little after 10:00 PM MDT on Friday I had received over 8,000 downloads which put me at #37  Free in the Amazon.com Kindle Store and left me in the #1 spot for free in the Ghost Horror category and the #3 spot for free in the Mystery/Thriller category.

When I awoke on Saturday morning I was at over 11,000 downloads and was holding the #14 spot on the Top 100 Free list on Amazon.com. (Wedged right between Pride and Prejudice and a copy of The Holy Bible which probably amused me more than it should have).

WCB briefly captured the #12 spot on the Top 100 Free list in the afternoon on Saturday, but soon moved back up to the #13 spot where it spent most of the afternoon and early evening.

When I went to bed on Saturday night at  11:30 PM MDT my free promo had a little over an hour left until it ended. I was #13 Free in the Amazon.com Kindle Store and #37 Free in the Amazon.co.uk Kindle Store. As of 11:30 PM MDT on Saturday night my free promo totals for Friday and Saturday combined were as follows:

Free downloads on Amazon.com: 18,568

Free downloads on Amazon.co.uk: 1,091

Free downloads on Amazon.de: 25

Free downloads on Amazon.fr: 2

Free downloads on Amazon.es: 1

Free downloads on Amazon.it: 0

Friday & Saturday Combined Free Downloads Total = 19,687

My mind is blown. Wildflowers Come Back received 19,687 free downloads in TWO DAYS. The number far exceeds any of my expectations. Now it is yet to be seen if my post-promo sales will fall flat, but I’m hopeful that this free promo will help my book find its groove. I will be posting a blog toward the middle to end of the week to update y’all on if my sales fell flat or not.

Thank you to everyone who helped promote the free promo and thank you to everyone who downloaded it!