Post by shawninmon on May 14, 2014 12:56:00 GMT -5
Hello! I know I have been MIA for a few days again... never quite enough time for everything, is there?
I'm going to write a guest blog about this for Indies Unlimited, but I thought I'd give my friends here a sneak preview.
First off, I am in KDP Select with all three of my full-length books. I understand that many (most?) people aren't these days, but it continues to work for me.
I have only done modest free runs (5-7000 downloads) on my short fiction for the last nine months or so, and I decided to see what a massive free run (25,000+ downloads) might do in May of 2014.
So, I took my second book in the series and submitted it for a Bookbub freebie ad, which cost $180. I elected not to do any other marketing for that title during this free run to double check whether the Bub and whatever free sites pick you up without submitting can drive a successful promotion.
Nothing too new, there, I know, but here's the little twist I added: I took my newest book, which I've only gotten minimal traction for, and also scheduled it to run as a free book over three of the same days as the first book. This second book has been a little problematic to promote - it doesn't fit within a neat genre, and it's short (40k words.) Six weeks after release, it only had 22 reviews and a little more than six hundred sales.
On the day the first book had its Bub ad, the second book went free, and it wasn't generating many downloads. In fact, at 9 AM, it had 100. Blech. On the first book's Amazon description, I added a line that said "Shawn Inmon's Rock 'n Roll Heaven is also free today!" Since RnR Heaven was high in the Also Boughts of the first book, I knew it would be easy for a reader to find.
Once the Bub ad hit and the free downloads starting coming in like a torrent, the second book started getting more downloads, too. In fact, after the ad hit yesterday, it never got fewer than 120 downloads per hour. It ended up picking up 3500 downloads yesterday and got into the Top 50 overall on the Free Chart, with no paid advertising at all. I think of this as the "tagalong effect."
If you have a book that won't qualify for the Bub, (too short, like this one, not enough reviews, whatever) this is a good way to get a residual effect of the original ad that you placed.
Here are some results: The Bookbub book has been downloaded over 52,000 times and has spent the last 18 hours or so in the #1 slot on the Amazon Free Chart. The tagalong book is approaching 4,000 downloads (I have Freebooksy and Booksends ads scheduled to hit for it today) and has been in the Top 50 for the same period of time.
The additional sell-through to my other titles has really surprised me. The companion book to the Bub book had been languishing around the 100k mark on Amazon. Yesterday, it sold 180 copies and is now in the Top 1500. My five short stories sold a combined 70 copies yesterday, which is what they sell in a normal month. A lot of the residual benefits will come later: More FB likes (I've picked up about 20 so far) reviews, blog traffic, mailing list signups, etc. All of that doesn't take into account at all the "post free bump," which has lessened substantially, which is the reason most people have abandoned KDP Select.
Anyway, kind of a long post, but I thought the idea of tying one book to the other like that might be helpful for some of us!
I'm going to write a guest blog about this for Indies Unlimited, but I thought I'd give my friends here a sneak preview.
First off, I am in KDP Select with all three of my full-length books. I understand that many (most?) people aren't these days, but it continues to work for me.
I have only done modest free runs (5-7000 downloads) on my short fiction for the last nine months or so, and I decided to see what a massive free run (25,000+ downloads) might do in May of 2014.
So, I took my second book in the series and submitted it for a Bookbub freebie ad, which cost $180. I elected not to do any other marketing for that title during this free run to double check whether the Bub and whatever free sites pick you up without submitting can drive a successful promotion.
Nothing too new, there, I know, but here's the little twist I added: I took my newest book, which I've only gotten minimal traction for, and also scheduled it to run as a free book over three of the same days as the first book. This second book has been a little problematic to promote - it doesn't fit within a neat genre, and it's short (40k words.) Six weeks after release, it only had 22 reviews and a little more than six hundred sales.
On the day the first book had its Bub ad, the second book went free, and it wasn't generating many downloads. In fact, at 9 AM, it had 100. Blech. On the first book's Amazon description, I added a line that said "Shawn Inmon's Rock 'n Roll Heaven is also free today!" Since RnR Heaven was high in the Also Boughts of the first book, I knew it would be easy for a reader to find.
Once the Bub ad hit and the free downloads starting coming in like a torrent, the second book started getting more downloads, too. In fact, after the ad hit yesterday, it never got fewer than 120 downloads per hour. It ended up picking up 3500 downloads yesterday and got into the Top 50 overall on the Free Chart, with no paid advertising at all. I think of this as the "tagalong effect."
If you have a book that won't qualify for the Bub, (too short, like this one, not enough reviews, whatever) this is a good way to get a residual effect of the original ad that you placed.
Here are some results: The Bookbub book has been downloaded over 52,000 times and has spent the last 18 hours or so in the #1 slot on the Amazon Free Chart. The tagalong book is approaching 4,000 downloads (I have Freebooksy and Booksends ads scheduled to hit for it today) and has been in the Top 50 for the same period of time.
The additional sell-through to my other titles has really surprised me. The companion book to the Bub book had been languishing around the 100k mark on Amazon. Yesterday, it sold 180 copies and is now in the Top 1500. My five short stories sold a combined 70 copies yesterday, which is what they sell in a normal month. A lot of the residual benefits will come later: More FB likes (I've picked up about 20 so far) reviews, blog traffic, mailing list signups, etc. All of that doesn't take into account at all the "post free bump," which has lessened substantially, which is the reason most people have abandoned KDP Select.
Anyway, kind of a long post, but I thought the idea of tying one book to the other like that might be helpful for some of us!
