Mclesh's Mad Self-Publishing Diary
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I'll have to figure out something for all of those bananas.
Ooh awesome!
*marvels*
*pats Hedgie's widdle head*
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Update on Kindle Countdown Deal
This update is geared towards anyone enrolled in Kindle Select who might be interested in running a Countdown Deal.
First off, the main attraction (for me, at least) is the fact that Amazon pays a 70% royalty when you discount your ebook to 99 cents as opposed to the regular 35% royalty rate on a 99-cent ebook, which makes it easier to make your money back on your ad.
I ran a Countdown Deal in February for Let Me Get This Off My Chest (nonfiction). About three weeks prior, I contacted BookSends and ENT to book spots. Once I was approved, I set the dates for the deal. I also booked a spot with BKNights and decided to stagger the dates to see if I could get some kind of momentum going. I saw spikes after the BookSends and ENT spots ran. My total sales for the promotion were 146 units, bringing my February total sales for LMGTOMC to 228--164 Kindle and 60 paperback. (My monthly average for LMGTOMC usually falls between 100 to 150, Kindle and paperback combined), so running the Countdown Deal did end up paying for itself, but my Kindle sales otherwise for February were very slow.
As an aside, I did run a Countdown once with no promotion at all just to see what would happen, and, surprisingly, my sales seemed to take a downturn during the week! (Not sure why.)
The last time I ran a Countdown Deal, I took out a BookSends ad but saw a spike in sales of 120 units the day before my BookSends promotion ran, which brought my overall Amazon sales rank to 1800, so I immediately wanted to know why. I couldn’t figure out why I'd gotten such a bump in sales, and eventually, through my Internet searches, I found that someone saw the Amazon Kindle Countdown Deal listing and featured it on their Kindle review blog. That free mention ended up being more effective than anything else. (That particular site does not accept advertising, so it was just a luck thing.)
So my takeaway is if you’re planning to run a Countdown Deal, use some type of promotion, otherwise people won’t know about it unless you get lucky and your book ends up being featured on page 1 or 2 of the Amazon Kindle Countdown list.
My sales from BookSends and ENT this last time seemed comparable at about 70 units sold after each ad. (Although ENT doesn’t seem to have the return that it used to have when they were more selective.) And BKNights, at $5 a pop, is inexpensive and effective. I've used them three times now with different books and have seen sales each time.
That's about all I can think of. I hope this is useful!
This update is geared towards anyone enrolled in Kindle Select who might be interested in running a Countdown Deal.
First off, the main attraction (for me, at least) is the fact that Amazon pays a 70% royalty when you discount your ebook to 99 cents as opposed to the regular 35% royalty rate on a 99-cent ebook, which makes it easier to make your money back on your ad.
I ran a Countdown Deal in February for Let Me Get This Off My Chest (nonfiction). About three weeks prior, I contacted BookSends and ENT to book spots. Once I was approved, I set the dates for the deal. I also booked a spot with BKNights and decided to stagger the dates to see if I could get some kind of momentum going. I saw spikes after the BookSends and ENT spots ran. My total sales for the promotion were 146 units, bringing my February total sales for LMGTOMC to 228--164 Kindle and 60 paperback. (My monthly average for LMGTOMC usually falls between 100 to 150, Kindle and paperback combined), so running the Countdown Deal did end up paying for itself, but my Kindle sales otherwise for February were very slow.
As an aside, I did run a Countdown once with no promotion at all just to see what would happen, and, surprisingly, my sales seemed to take a downturn during the week! (Not sure why.)
The last time I ran a Countdown Deal, I took out a BookSends ad but saw a spike in sales of 120 units the day before my BookSends promotion ran, which brought my overall Amazon sales rank to 1800, so I immediately wanted to know why.
I couldn’t figure out why I'd gotten such a bump in sales, and eventually, through my Internet searches, I found that someone saw the Amazon Kindle Countdown Deal listing and featured it on their Kindle review blog. That free mention ended up being more effective than anything else. (That particular site does not accept advertising, so it was just a luck thing.)So my takeaway is if you’re planning to run a Countdown Deal, use some type of promotion, otherwise people won’t know about it unless you get lucky and your book ends up being featured on page 1 or 2 of the Amazon Kindle Countdown list.
My sales from BookSends and ENT this last time seemed comparable at about 70 units sold after each ad. (Although ENT doesn’t seem to have the return that it used to have when they were more selective.) And BKNights, at $5 a pop, is inexpensive and effective. I've used them three times now with different books and have seen sales each time.
That's about all I can think of. I hope this is useful!
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Update (and some thoughts on self-publishing)
Normalish and Finding A Man For Sylvia have now both been re-released in ebook format. I should be getting the paperback proof for Normalish any day. (I went for the matte cover, even though I first planned for glossy. FAMFS will also be matte.) We’re in the final tweaking of the paperback for FAMFS before uploading the files to Createspace. So now I’m managing four SP books, and each one is a different category--Nonfiction memoirs, YA, MG, and Chick-lit. I definitely did NOT plan that well.
What I learned back at the end of 2012, when Normalish and FAMFS were published by the small digital publisher: Selling books is really hard. Surprisingly so. People may seem interested and excited beforehand, but a lot of the time they’re being polite. (I don’t blame them at all.) And I think there’s a fair amount of skepticism a new author encounters; we have to prove ourselves one reader at a time. I had wrongly assumed that I’d have--oh, I don’t know--maybe a couple hundred ebook sales per month? I mean, that sounds reasonable; right? I thought, well, I won’t get rich, but maybe I’ll receive enough in monthly royalties to pay a bill or two. What I very quickly found out was that I had to basically work for every sale. The publisher provided editing and art, but that was it. (And an education.) In a sense, I feel like I was a self-publisher with my first two books.
So now that I’m managing four titles and have two works in progress, I can definitely say that it would have been easier sales and promotions-wise to stick to one genre and write a series. (My MG book is part of a series, but I had to put the sequel off for a while because of the re-releases.) When my WIPs are finished, I’ll have one more MG title and one more YA title. Having my books spread over categories, though, it is much tougher to build my audience. My true fans (I mean friends and family) do end up reading everything, but they’re nice that way.
On the other hand, when I was reading over Normalish and FAMFS, getting them ready to re-release, there were several times I laughed out loud (and cried in the case of Normalish), and that’s really important to me as a writer, to be able to entertain myself with some dumb thing I’ve written. (And FAMFS is very dumb.)
Since the two titles have been out for over two years now, pretty much everyone in my social realm that’s interested has bought them already--some ebook holdouts may buy the paperbacks--but the only way I’m going to sell these two is to connect with new readers. So I decided to run a 99-cent promotion this week on Normalish with a couple of inexpensive ads, and I’ll run another promo next month with FAMFS and see how that goes.
In the two years the two titles were with my publisher, they were available through several outlets including the publisher’s own site, Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, Omnilit, Google Books, ARE, and others. I’d say probably 95% of my sales were through Amazon. I waffled over whether to sign up for Select with both or distribute widely and decided to experiment. With Normalish, I’m selling through Amazon, B&N, and Kobo. With FAMFS, I decided to sign up with Select and see how things go with a Countdown Deal next month. Of the two so far, my sales up to this point, Normalish has outsold FAMFS about eight to one--which is the opposite of what I thought would happen. It just goes to show, you never know!
Hopefully I’ll have good things to report back after my sale. *thinking good thoughts*
My biggest challenging now is finding the time to write. So often it feels like I’m trying to wrangle the squirrels in my brain, who are burying their nuts ALL over the place. Mostly, though, it’s fun. So I’ll not complain. Much.
Normalish and Finding A Man For Sylvia have now both been re-released in ebook format. I should be getting the paperback proof for Normalish any day. (I went for the matte cover, even though I first planned for glossy. FAMFS will also be matte.) We’re in the final tweaking of the paperback for FAMFS before uploading the files to Createspace. So now I’m managing four SP books, and each one is a different category--Nonfiction memoirs, YA, MG, and Chick-lit. I definitely did NOT plan that well.
What I learned back at the end of 2012, when Normalish and FAMFS were published by the small digital publisher: Selling books is really hard. Surprisingly so. People may seem interested and excited beforehand, but a lot of the time they’re being polite. (I don’t blame them at all.) And I think there’s a fair amount of skepticism a new author encounters; we have to prove ourselves one reader at a time. I had wrongly assumed that I’d have--oh, I don’t know--maybe a couple hundred ebook sales per month? I mean, that sounds reasonable; right?
I thought, well, I won’t get rich, but maybe I’ll receive enough in monthly royalties to pay a bill or two. What I very quickly found out was that I had to basically work for every sale. The publisher provided editing and art, but that was it. (And an education.) In a sense, I feel like I was a self-publisher with my first two books. So now that I’m managing four titles and have two works in progress, I can definitely say that it would have been easier sales and promotions-wise to stick to one genre and write a series. (My MG book is part of a series, but I had to put the sequel off for a while because of the re-releases.) When my WIPs are finished, I’ll have one more MG title and one more YA title. Having my books spread over categories, though, it is much tougher to build my audience. My true fans (I mean friends and family) do end up reading everything, but they’re nice that way.
On the other hand, when I was reading over Normalish and FAMFS, getting them ready to re-release, there were several times I laughed out loud (and cried in the case of Normalish), and that’s really important to me as a writer, to be able to entertain myself with some dumb thing I’ve written. (And FAMFS is very dumb.
)Since the two titles have been out for over two years now, pretty much everyone in my social realm that’s interested has bought them already--some ebook holdouts may buy the paperbacks--but the only way I’m going to sell these two is to connect with new readers. So I decided to run a 99-cent promotion this week on Normalish with a couple of inexpensive ads, and I’ll run another promo next month with FAMFS and see how that goes.
In the two years the two titles were with my publisher, they were available through several outlets including the publisher’s own site, Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, Omnilit, Google Books, ARE, and others. I’d say probably 95% of my sales were through Amazon. I waffled over whether to sign up for Select with both or distribute widely and decided to experiment. With Normalish, I’m selling through Amazon, B&N, and Kobo. With FAMFS, I decided to sign up with Select and see how things go with a Countdown Deal next month. Of the two so far, my sales up to this point, Normalish has outsold FAMFS about eight to one--which is the opposite of what I thought would happen. It just goes to show, you never know!
Hopefully I’ll have good things to report back after my sale. *thinking good thoughts*
My biggest challenging now is finding the time to write. So often it feels like I’m trying to wrangle the squirrels in my brain, who are burying their nuts ALL over the place. Mostly, though, it’s fun. So I’ll not complain. Much.
Sounds like some very good lessons learned. I too have learned that writing across genres makes it harder to gain momentum. But it can also lead to surprising successes at times, too.
And agreed on the whole one sale at a time as a direct result of your efforts when you're starting out. (Courtney Milan has a great talk she does on that.)
Just wanted to pop in and suggest that you apply for a Bookbub ad for your chic lit title. They did a Q&A thread on kboards recently and in it said that they never get enough chick lit or slow cooking books. Doesn't guarantee you'll get in and people probably closed that gap as soon as it was mentioned, but if you could get a BB ad that'd shoot that book into the stratosphere. (So I've heard.)
Good luck!
And agreed on the whole one sale at a time as a direct result of your efforts when you're starting out. (Courtney Milan has a great talk she does on that.)
Just wanted to pop in and suggest that you apply for a Bookbub ad for your chic lit title. They did a Q&A thread on kboards recently and in it said that they never get enough chick lit or slow cooking books. Doesn't guarantee you'll get in and people probably closed that gap as soon as it was mentioned, but if you could get a BB ad that'd shoot that book into the stratosphere. (So I've heard.)
Good luck!
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This is true. Each book has been a unique experience with its own rewards, so thank you for saying that. I have no regrets. I think.
M.H. Lee, thanks for the head's up about Bookbub. Chick lit and slow cooking books--how oddly specific! Lol.
Best of luck to you as well!
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Currently Normalish is showing up in a top 100 category on Amazon:
#24,529 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#62 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Emotions & Feelings
That hasn't happened with this book very often. Hopefully it hasn't peaked yet--I have another ad scheduled to run, but they weren't able to fit me in until the 22nd, so they'll be spread out quite a bit.
Green beer is on me today.
#24,529 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#62 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Emotions & Feelings
That hasn't happened with this book very often. Hopefully it hasn't peaked yet--I have another ad scheduled to run, but they weren't able to fit me in until the 22nd, so they'll be spread out quite a bit.
Green beer is on me today.
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Quick update; plus a confession
My confession is that I check my Amazon sales rankings way too often. I have a problem, and I just want to acknowledge this. (And this WIP is not going to write itself, so I need to stop.)
Because of the aforementioned checking, I saw that my paperback for LMGTOMC is currently sitting at #4 in its category, while the Kindle is #80. This month my paperback has outsold the Kindle version four to one. It consistently outsells the ebook unless I put the ebook on sale. (My original plan was ebook only.)
And yesterday I sold a copy of FAMFS without any promotion. This book's sales have been so poopy, like one very blue moon. So, thank you, Dear Reader, whoever you are.
And my Normalish sale has gone pretty well, I'd say. Hoping for a nice bump when my other ad runs on the 22nd. So far, all sales have come from Amazon, none on Kobo and B&N, so I may dump out of those two and go with Select.
I almost forgot. I received my proof for Normalish yesterday and am, once again, very happy with the Createspace quality. I chose the matte finish. It's very nice. One tweak to the spine, and it'll be ready to go. And I ordered the paperback proof of FAMFS. (I chose the slow boat option for both to keep costs down, so I won't have it in my hands until the 29th.)
Now I think I'll try and write something. (And taking the opportunity to celebrate the little things. )
My confession is that I check my Amazon sales rankings way too often. I have a problem, and I just want to acknowledge this. (And this WIP is not going to write itself, so I need to stop.)
Because of the aforementioned checking, I saw that my paperback for LMGTOMC is currently sitting at #4 in its category, while the Kindle is #80. This month my paperback has outsold the Kindle version four to one. It consistently outsells the ebook unless I put the ebook on sale. (My original plan was ebook only.)
And yesterday I sold a copy of FAMFS without any promotion. This book's sales have been so poopy, like one very blue moon. So, thank you, Dear Reader, whoever you are.
And my Normalish sale has gone pretty well, I'd say. Hoping for a nice bump when my other ad runs on the 22nd. So far, all sales have come from Amazon, none on Kobo and B&N, so I may dump out of those two and go with Select.
I almost forgot. I received my proof for Normalish yesterday and am, once again, very happy with the Createspace quality. I chose the matte finish. It's very nice. One tweak to the spine, and it'll be ready to go. And I ordered the paperback proof of FAMFS. (I chose the slow boat option for both to keep costs down, so I won't have it in my hands until the 29th.)
Now I think I'll try and write something.
(And taking the opportunity to celebrate the little things. )
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Just as I was preparing to remove Normalish from kobo and enroll it in Select, I found that I'd made a sale.
So is this the first of an avalanche of sales to come? Or is the Universe just messing with me? (I'm thinking it's the latter.)
So is this the first of an avalanche of sales to come? Or is the Universe just messing with me? (I'm thinking it's the latter.)
My confession is that I check my Amazon sales rankings way too often. I have a problem, and I just want to acknowledge this. (And this WIP is not going to write itself, so I need to stop.)
We need to start a support group
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We need to start a support group
Excellent idea! I'm officially nominating you as president.
Excellent idea! I'm officially nominating you as president.
I had a feeling that would happen. Only if someone seconds, though...
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Normalish is now #26 in its category. 
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,523 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#26 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Emotions & Feelings
Sales have now surpassed it's debut month sales with two important distinctions: Then, everyone who bought was a friend or family. This time, it's readers I don't know. And price, of course. 4.99 on release versus a 99 cent sale.
I was curious to see how the new cover would go over, and I think this is a sign that it's working. Getting my book back was an unexpected gift. I'm not sure how long I'll leave it at the sale price, probably a few more days.
Happy, though.
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,523 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#26 in Books > Teens > Literature & Fiction > Social & Family Issues > Emotions & Feelings
Sales have now surpassed it's debut month sales with two important distinctions: Then, everyone who bought was a friend or family. This time, it's readers I don't know. And price, of course. 4.99 on release versus a 99 cent sale.
I was curious to see how the new cover would go over, and I think this is a sign that it's working. Getting my book back was an unexpected gift. I'm not sure how long I'll leave it at the sale price, probably a few more days.
Happy, though.
That's the best feeling. It's even better when these unknown readers leave reviews, or recommend you to friends, or track down your e-mail address and contact you to tell you that your story made them cry.
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Short Update On My Re-releases
I haven't been online much lately due to a combination of life events and also working on this book--which is kind of funny. I've been writing and editing at the same time, and, I swear, for every 200 words I add, I seem to subtract 250. And I'd really like to up the word count by about 10K words. But I'm not necessarily in a big rush. I guess I'd like to finish in the next couple of months.
Okay, so that was a digression.
The past few days, I've been running a Kindle Countdown Deal for Finding A Man For Sylvia, which has been out five weeks now, and I'm 3 sales away from hitting my total sales when it was with my former publisher. (Those sales took place in just over two years!) So I'm happy with my sales, but at the same time, I'm shaking my head when I think of all the promotion I did during that time period for such meager results.
For my other re-release, Normalish, I was approved and have a BookBub ad coming out April 27th, which I'm pretty stoked about.
I went ahead and enrolled Normalish in Select about a month ago after only making one sale outside of Amazon. The really good thing about this is that I was able to schedule my BookBub ad during a Kindle Countdown Deal, so I'll get the 70 percent royalty, which should help me make back my return on the ad much quicker.
I've been through the BookBub experience twice now and both times experienced very positive results. Back in 2013, when Normalish had been out six months and wasn't making many sales, I was approved for a BookBub ad. My publisher okayed it (I paid for it), and even after splitting the royalties with them, I still managed to cover the cost of the ad. Nothing really amazing happened--not as I'd hoped--the sales did drop off quickly after the ad ran, but a book club did end up selecting it as their book of the month. That pretty much by itself made the experience worthwhile. (One of the book club members contacted me through Goodreads to let me know they'd picked my book. What a thrill that was!)
My other experience with BookBub was with my memoir. That time, I ended up doubling my money on the ad. Afterwards, I had steady sales, and the book stayed in the top 100 of its Amazon category. A year and a half later, it's ranked in its category pretty much the whole time. I'm not necessarily attributing all of that to the BookBub ad, but I think it did give it a significant push as far as visibility goes.
So I'm looking forward to next Monday. I'm not expecting anything amazing, but I remain hopeful.
(Did I say short update?)
I haven't been online much lately due to a combination of life events and also working on this book--which is kind of funny. I've been writing and editing at the same time, and, I swear, for every 200 words I add, I seem to subtract 250. And I'd really like to up the word count by about 10K words. But I'm not necessarily in a big rush. I guess I'd like to finish in the next couple of months.
Okay, so that was a digression.
The past few days, I've been running a Kindle Countdown Deal for Finding A Man For Sylvia, which has been out five weeks now, and I'm 3 sales away from hitting my total sales when it was with my former publisher. (Those sales took place in just over two years!) So I'm happy with my sales, but at the same time, I'm shaking my head when I think of all the promotion I did during that time period for such meager results.
For my other re-release, Normalish, I was approved and have a BookBub ad coming out April 27th, which I'm pretty stoked about.
I went ahead and enrolled Normalish in Select about a month ago after only making one sale outside of Amazon. The really good thing about this is that I was able to schedule my BookBub ad during a Kindle Countdown Deal, so I'll get the 70 percent royalty, which should help me make back my return on the ad much quicker. I've been through the BookBub experience twice now and both times experienced very positive results. Back in 2013, when Normalish had been out six months and wasn't making many sales, I was approved for a BookBub ad. My publisher okayed it (I paid for it), and even after splitting the royalties with them, I still managed to cover the cost of the ad. Nothing really amazing happened--not as I'd hoped--the sales did drop off quickly after the ad ran, but a book club did end up selecting it as their book of the month. That pretty much by itself made the experience worthwhile. (One of the book club members contacted me through Goodreads to let me know they'd picked my book. What a thrill that was!)
My other experience with BookBub was with my memoir. That time, I ended up doubling my money on the ad. Afterwards, I had steady sales, and the book stayed in the top 100 of its Amazon category. A year and a half later, it's ranked in its category pretty much the whole time. I'm not necessarily attributing all of that to the BookBub ad, but I think it did give it a significant push as far as visibility goes.
So I'm looking forward to next Monday. I'm not expecting anything amazing, but I remain hopeful.
(Did I say short update?)
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Yay on all counts!
Ahh, thank you!
*is thinking of an appropriate wedding gift for Pensul and Buz*
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Good luck with your Bookbub ad!
It's all set for tomorrow. I'll try to keep myself from refreshing my dashboard all day long. (Like maybe just once an hour.)
It's all set for tomorrow. I'll try to keep myself from refreshing my dashboard all day long. (Like maybe just once an hour.)
Good luck with Bookbub...never done one myself, but I've heard very good things from just about everyone else who has!
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Thanks, WriterBN! They certainly seem to have things dialed in. I probably won't be very productive tomorrow. I should just give up now, buy a box of donuts, bag of Funyuns, sit back and enjoy myself.
*along with several tacos*
Thanks, WriterBN! They certainly seem to have things dialed in. I probably won't be very productive tomorrow. I should just give up now, buy a box of donuts, bag of Funyuns, sit back and enjoy myself.
*along with several tacos*
I can't think of a more productive way to spend your day tomorrow, tbqh!
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