I'd love to hear from anyone whose book is being borrowed what their numbers are looking like.
Right now, this is looking like a colossal Fail for me.
(Hatchings isn't a great book, but it's not that bad)
It's interesting to note that there are now 3 of us seeing decreased sales in December. I wonder if Amazon shot themselves in the foot with this one?
Well, my overall sales increased in Dec from Nov, by a third, and I had an very sig increase from Nov to Oct. That extra third seemed to happen the first week of Dec and right around the holiday weekend. Big lag mid-month there...got a little worried for a min.
(I link to all books and my site-always have-in all my books, btw. No clue if it works, but I always do it. What's been more concretely successful? I bought el cheapo business cards for my site and I write the coupon code for a free book on the back and hand them out like candy. I leave them everywhere I can, and I have my husband and teenage son do it too. Turns out my son uses it as a way to break ice w those girls...sigh...anyway. Now
that has worked, freebies. But that's all I've done to market. Sorry. And I do use psuedos exclusively. Six. Based less on genre than brand. Because privacy is priceless.)
Jan seems to be down a bit, more what I was pulling in Oct. Still very okay, but not as good as the holidays.
The catch? Several of my adult books are holiday-themed...and all my royalties go to children's charities...so.
Anyway, I put one children's book w select, just cause it's new and children's and you know how that goes. I ran 4 of my 5 free over the holiday.
The free went great.
Sales are negligible as well as borrows. I'm not surprised.
What did happen is I'd raised the price of another children's book in Nov as it doesn't sell as well as my others and figured I might as well to make more $ on less sales...and those sales shot through the roof during the other book's free period. They're still strong into Jan, w the higher price, while the once-free one is eh.
Go figure.
So, ime so far, free works. But the borrow and exclusivity is a fail for me. I won't be adding any others (or continuing once my time is up) unless terms change.