Happy Spring everyone!!! I don't know about you, but I am SOOO happy to put that long, frozen winter behind us!
My vegetable plants are in, my flowers are in process, and I am loving the warm weather. I could do without the torrential rains that washed out some of my seedlings last week, but hey, at least it wasn't snow.
I have updates! I couldn't be happier with how April turned out for me. I did my first book signing on the 26th and it wasn't a total disaster! WOOT! I even stopped shaking about half an hour in! LOL As I mentioned before, I did my first signing at a local community yard sale. It lasted five hours and the yard sale attracted well over a thousand people. They put me in a great spot, overlooking the main road, so I actually got a lot more exposure than I was expecting to, which was wonderful. I had both books on the table, a big bowl of saltwater taffy (its a Jersey thing) and I printed up flyers on flourescent paper with the book descriptions and a few reviews from Amazon on each side. I also included my About the Author on the flyers and had my business cards on the table. I went a little overboard with the cute factor by going to Michael's Crafts and buying bright-colored paper bags with handles to put the sold books in, but they're fun, if nothing else.
I had two 8x11 copies of the book covers laminated and put them in plastic sign holders behind the books, and I hung my logo banner from the front of the table. All in all, I think it looked pretty fun and professional. I'll be putting a picture up on my website later today if you want to see how it all came together. In the five hours, I sold 4 books, which is less than I was hoping for, but I'll take it. I did, however, hand out a lot of flyers and I had a steady stream of people stopping by to look at the books. All in all, I was happy with the exposure. People saw my name out there. I do think that I'll have better luck with sales in craft shows and, of course, the big Collingswood Book Fair in October. People were looking for deals at the yard sale, and $12 a book was not cheap enough for them. BUT...it was experience for me.
I also ran some Amazon deals in conjunction with the signing. I used 3 Free Promo days for Next Exit, 3 Miles over the weekend, and starting Monday, I ran a week long Kindle Countdown for Next Exit, Pay Toll. Those results stunned me. They really did. Over the weekend, I had 1,423 downloads of 3 Miles and it sat steady at #15 in the Amazon Suspense category in Kindle!!!
It topped out at #14, I believe, on Saturday, then went back to alternating between #15 and #16. Over the weekend, while 3 Miles was free, I also sold 4 copies of Pay Toll. I'm pretty sure that was a direct result of 3 Miles being free. The free promo ended on Sunday night, and Monday morning the Kindle Countdown for Pay Toll began. I used two price points, $1.99 and $2.99 and split the week in half for both. It ends tonight, so I'll update tomorrow with the final totals. However, I am thrilled with how the Countdown did for me this time around. All told, I have sold 14 copies of Pay Toll, not counting today. The only promotion I did for these two sales was on my Facebook pages and Twitter. It was all last minute and the week has been insane, so aside from one mention on my website, I did no other promotion or marketing for the sales. Therefore, I am thrilled with the results! Next time, I will plan better and do some promoting and see what kind of difference it makes.
Here are the results for April:
April Sales for
Next Exit, 3 Miles:
Kindle: 6
CreateSpace: 0
Hand Sold: 2
Total Sold: 8
Free Downloads: 1,423
Grand Total to: 74
April Sales for
Next Exit, Pay Toll:
Kindle: 12
CreateSpace: 1
Hand Sold: 2
Total Sold: 15
Grand Total to: 44
