Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Yet Another Kindle Select Promo Post?

Do we need another Kindle Select Results Post? Most likely not, but since you're on my blog, I'm gonna tell you anyway.

I scheduled my promo for April 15 and 16, probably the two worst days for book downloads, as US Income Tax due date this year is April 17, 2012. However, the WorldLiteraryCafe.com  (WLC) has a FreeForAll Event on the 15th of every month, and I did not want to miss it.

I had heard other authors tell of dismal download results when they went alone, garnering maybe 300-1000 downloads over a two or three day period. Another author said he quadrupled his downloads by joining the WLC Event.

WLC provided a special page directing readers to all the free books of the day, as well as tweet team support around the clock. My book was featured visibly on their home page as part of the banner to click to the FreeForAll page. WLC also provided a hashtag #WLCFreeToday so that readers can search the hashtag and conveniently download all the books listed.

So I plunked down my $10 entry fee and scheduled my free days to coincide with WLC, extending it out a second day to the 16th. Here is a graphical representation of my results:
The red line shows the price at $2.99. Where the red line ends is where I went FREE. A few hours later, around 6:00 am Eastern Time, my rank exploded.

At the end of the first day, April 15, I was at rank 29. By the next morning, my rank rose to 19, and I stayed in the vicinity of 18-20 from 7:00 am to 5:30 pm Eastern time.

This chart shows why you should go two days free. I peaked in ranking in the middle of the second day. Had I ended after one day I would not have experienced my highest ranking 18, where downloads happen at a rate of 100 every 10 minutes.
I ended the day around the same rank as I began. Therefore a third day would have been of diminishing returns. I averaged 5500 downloads per day and ended with almost 11000 downloads. Not bad for Sunday and Monday before Income tax due date.

In an earlier post Publicizing Kindle Select Free Promo, I listed several websites, blog and Facebook pages to notify.

The following four sites were especially helpful for me this go around.

1. EReader News Today
Early Sunday morning, Michal's Window appeared as one of the first books they recommended, and I was off to a great start.
http://ereadernewstoday.com/free-kindle-books-4-free-books-for-4-15-12/6712766/

2. Free Kindle Dude
Josh Cook of Free Kindle Dude notified me the night before that he would post my book and he did.
http://www.freekindledude.com/2012/04/michals-window-free-kindle-book.html

3. Free Kindle Books and Tips
I received an e-mail from Mike Gallagher that he would be posting my book for free and he did, too.
http://www.fkbooksandtips.com/2012/04/15/michals-window-free-from-amazon-kindle-store/

4. The Digital InkSpot
I sent e-mail to their gmail address and the next day, they created a link for my book and tweeted for me throughout the day

http://thedigitalinkspot.blogspot.com/2012/04/michals-window-by-rachelle-ayala.html

Thanks also for my personal friends and members of the WLC Tweet Team who supported me by tweeting and sharing on their blogs and Facebook pages.

Grace Elliot's Guest Spot [this link might expire when another guest replaces me, see the article here.]
Melisa M Hamling - King David Article
Rebecca Berto - Novel Girl - Writer's BFF

A shout out to WLC, Grace Elliot, Melisa Hamling and Rebecca Berto, Facebook Groups: Indie Authors Promo, Great Indie Authors, and WLC Book Marketing & Branding for the tweets, support and cheerleading.

See my Pinterest for further fun: Michal's Scrapbook and Michal's Window Fantasy Cast [not for real]

If you want to join Indie Authors Promo, please click on the link and request membership. Thanks, Rachelle.

7 comments:

  1. Strange that you didn't hold a higher rank longer. Hmmm?

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  2. Thanks so much for the info! I'm planning to go KDP Select in May, and have been doing loads of research to figure out how best to optimize my sales during that time -- this post is a tremendous help on that count!

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  3. Thanks Jen, hope it all works out well for you.

    @Digital Ink Spot- the two graphs are different scales, first graph, low was 61,000 high is 30. Second graph, lowest rank was 40 and highest is 18 for 24 hours. That is fantabulous! And you and WLC were tweeting me during that time. So I am thankful.

    Of course once you go back to paid, it drops. But as far as the support I got from everyone, I am grateful.

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  4. Congrats on your successful free days. I hope it brought in many sales for you after they were over. I did two free days around that same time - April 11-12 - for my romance novel Memories and it did quite well. Personally, I think that KDP Select Free days is a great publicity tool for indie authors. It gives us a chance to be seen. :)

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  5. Great post, Clare!

    ***This post has been sitting open on my computer for 24 hours! Yikes! Forgot to post it, lol. xox

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  6. Thanks! At least your computer didn't crash!

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  7. Thanks for all the great info, Rachelle. I'm planning a couple of free days and this really helps : )

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