Scrambling on the Boat...before it leaves

Or at least, that's how I always thought of self-publishing. Right now, Amazon KDP is really kicking some serious butt, and I want a piece of the pie. The bigger the better, but hey, I can dream, right?

So...basically, I did an experiment 2 Christmases ago. I released a short historical romance story set in the Wild West during, uh, Christmas. To be honest, it was a total mess. Bad formatting, plot moved way too fast, and most of the time I was writing it, I think I was seriously high on caffeine.

But I digress.

Anyways, I put it up on KDP on that free promotion thing. I only posted in two different blogs that my book was free and people should get it while it was free and available for download.

I had almost 10,000 downloads in three days. Also, the free book was bought by 26 people.

...I find it kind of ironic that while none of the 26 people returned the book, out of the 10,000 people who downloaded the book for free, 4 of them returned the book. For free. Yeah, I laughed too.

Anyways, it was an interesting experiment.

So this time, I'm taking this out of the lab and, er, into the proverbial field.

I released a new book today called Waiting for Darkness. Okay, technically it's not "new" but it was read so few times and was published by a tiny epublisher, it might as well be free. It went on sale at 4PM today. that's 3 hours ago. The only advert I did was on Facebook. That and I added it to my Goodreads acccount.

I've already sold one copy already. And I only had one other book on Amazon, although that particular one was through an epubber.

Tomorrow, the $1.99 price goes down to free for 48 hours.

*cracks fingers*

Let the game begin!

THE UPDATES: (so no scrolling necessary!)

4/7/2013
4/12/2013
4/17/2013
4/18/2013
4/24/2013
4/30/2013
5/5/2013
5/12/2013
5/21/2013
6/3/2013
12/2/2013
12/9/2013
12/15/2013
12/22/2013
12/29/2013
1/5/2014
1/18/2016
2/1/2016

Just an update: I have sold 5 books so far and given away twenty copies. The time is now 7:03am CST. It should be interesting to see how the numbers go today.

Button said:

I don't think this 'boat' is going anywhere. Yay for selling!

Click to expand...

Thanks and love the Sebastian avatar ;_; favorite demon yet!

As far as updates go, Waiting for Darkness has been free for twelve hours and I've "sold" 85 copies so far. Not sure how people are finding this book considering the lack of promotion I've done, but it's good news. Tomorrow, I'll hit a few places and see if I can't get some more exposure.

Just found out my book is being pirated. Already. It's not the pirating I mind so much, but it's the fact they can get this book for free and they're still refusing it that kills me. I mean, if you're going to read my book for free, the least you can do is help me with my rankings, right?

merrihiatt said:

Unfortunately, it's a commn occurrence when an e-book is offered free.

Click to expand...

Ah, no...the link was posted before the book went on the promo

merrihiatt said:

That happens, too, I'm afraid. At least with physical books, the buyer will either receive the actual book or be notified that the seller can't provide the book/doesn't have it in stock.

Click to expand...

Ah well.

UPDATE. Almost 24 hours since the promotion started, I've sold 5 books and had the book downloaded 251 times for free.

Already hard at work with the next book of the series.

Thanks!

UPDATE: I've got about 4 hours until promo closes. Free copies are over 600. Have booked a few advert slots in some paranormal romance review blogs.

Honestly, I just googled "fionn jameson waiting for darkness" and there it was. The second link on google. *dies*

UPDATE 4/7/13

Extended the free promo period to cover today so I can get a bit more of the weekend Kindle crowd. So far, I'm still at 5 sold (which was before the promo began) with 895 freebie promos downloaded.

On an upside though, had one sale of my short story His for Christmas, so that's good. I have two new releases coming up within the next couple of weeks, so we'll have to see how that affects my numbers.

Alitriona said:

I downloaded a copy and tweeted it out(twice because I forgot the link the first time. lol). The cover is eye-catching and the summary gained my interest. I look forward to reading it.

I would suggest you add your website to you signature here and your amazon page. All your covers caught my interest and I google searched to find out more but links are handy.

Good luck

Click to expand...

Thank you so much! I feel a little bad about the last two covers...they're actually not released yet. >.> But I kind of wanted to show them off because I designed the cover for them. I have them lined up for a late April release, although as to whether that will actually happen will depend on life/work. Hubby's going through a job transition and there's a big chance we'll be moving to China where he's been offered a teaching position at a technical university....

Quick update: 1.5k books given away during a three day promo period. Waiting for Darkness went up to 1.99 on Monday and I have sold 14 copies. None borrowed although that could be due to the low price? Got three great reviews on Amazon so I am pretty chuffed.

I have a new book coming out today so it will be interesting to see how my numbers change. Wish me luck!