Sadly, there was only one single person that responded to any of the Craigslist ads we posted offering to give away the book during these days. This morning I sent out that email reminder.
As of this morning at 8 a.m. we've given away 39 free units. The result of that is a #6 and #7 rank on Amazon for the two categories we're under:
During the next few days, I'll report back the results several times a day. Hopefully we can hit #1 in at least one of these categories and see a boost in sales after the promotion runs.
A few notes:
- While the response to the Craigslist ads was dismal, I think it's worth noting that after the first few ads were posted, I quickly changed the wording to actually include the dates the book was available. My original intention was to build up an email list and as such, they were being directed to our website to fill in their Name and Email Address to be reminded. However, since I was getting zero response, I figured it was better to be more transparent and let people know the dates so it didn't feel so shady.
- During the same week, we also decided to start promoting our free giveaway for the paperback copy. I'm afraid mixing the two might have been a bad idea and one or the other could have gotten lost in the mix.
- We're on Hawaii time, so while I say 8 a.m. above, the book had already been available for free roughly 11 hours.
Edit/Update #1:
We're up to 70 free downloads of the book, and we're at #4 in both categories (Supernatural & Unexplained Mysteries).
Edit/Update #2:
As of 8:45 p.m. we're now up to 102 free book downloads and we've hit #1 in Unexplained Mysteries and #3 in Supernatural! We still have two solid days remaining to gain some more downloads and tomorrow we're going to make an announcement on the Facebook page to our fans about the free promotion. Most of them should know - but we're hoping it will spread around and get another good chunk of interest.
I've also setup another small ($6.00 lifetime budget) Facebook ad. I told myself I wasn't going to do anymore until we got some actual sales, but much of what I've read says that it's important to gain as much attention as possible during the free promotional days. I'm taking the advice and trying to push the number as high as possible.
I'll probably do one more update tonight before I call it a day and then report first thing tomorrow morning. Here's to another 100+ a day!
Edit/Updated #3:
Final update for today: We hit 110 downloads of the free book. Ranked #1 for Unexplained Mysteries and #3 for Supernatural. Hoping tomorrow we break #1 for both categories! :)
Edit/Update #4:
As of 8:30 p.m. we're now at 157 downloads. We've held the same position at number #1 and #3 since we hit it earlier this morning. Tomorrow is the last day of the free promotion...and today was about half the number from the previous day so we may do well to break 200. We plan to put the word out via Facebook tomorrow, after we announce the winner of the free Paperback giveaway.
Will give one final update tomorrow night after the free promotion ends with a final count of free downloads!
Final Update #5:
Alright, the promotion was ended about 12 hours earlier than I intended because I was trying to do some new promotional stuff with Amazon. We ended up with 176 free downloads of the book and we stayed at #1 & #3 in Unexplained Mysteries and Supernatural categories respectively.
Why did it end early? Well, Amazon now has a new promotional tool for Kindle Select members, called Kindle Countdown Deals. It lets you drop the price of your books and show customers a countdown before the book returns to normal price.
It sounds like an interesting idea and I wanted to try it out as quickly as possible because they will have a new section to discover countdown deals and I thought we might be in a smaller crowd right off the bat.
However, they have some restrictions which I wish I had known about sooner because I would have loved to start this promotion instantly and trying to do so caused me to end the free promotion.
- You can only run the free book promotion or the countdown promotion in your 90 day enrollment to KDP - so you can't run both at the same time.
- You must wait 30 days after a price change to run a Countdown promotion; though you can set it up, the start date will be thirty days from the last price change.
- You must be enrolled in KDP at least 14 days after the Countdown promotion ends.
- You can edit the settings of your Countdown Promotion as long as it is 24 hours before it is set to begin.
You are able to run the promotion for up to seven days and during that time, it allows you to increment the price back to the original list price up to three times. So for example, you may start at $0.99, then it will increase it to $1.99, then $2.99 then back to your original list price of say $4.99.
While the promotion is running, you will still be able to gain 70% royalties (if you are using that option) even if the price drops below $2.99 -- which I was excited to read.
I stopped my free promotion because I didn't realize I wouldn't be able to start the free version back up along side the Countdown. Oops!
I've set my Countdown promotion to begin on November 25th (as that was the soonest available since I changed the price not too long ago) and it will run for 160 hours. During the promotion, I'll post updates on how it is going.
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