So the last post I had the blues and this post color me happy. Several interesting things happened. First, Walking with Elephants was awarded the Awesome Indies Seal of Excellence. Really swell, really an uplift. Then Awesome Indies started a FB private secret group and what a great group. All the members are super supportive and we are figuring out how to gain strength and sales as a group–group ads for starters–promos. Our motto is–what’s better than a free book? A good book. We are differentiating ourselves on quality. Creating our own niche, sailing over the indie sludge that is out there. And maybe the sludge will go away for lack of interest. So being in this group, I learned something. I learned places to advertise my book. Promote. And I did just that.
I reduced the price of Sunspots to $.99 on Amazon for the two days of the promo. I used Ereader News Today (ENT), an email service promoting books in your inbox, their list of subscribers. They promote bargains and freebies and they take a percentage of sales. No upfront cost.
I have sold 100 copies of Sunspots in this promo and it hit #7 in ghost stories. Now here’s the thing. When you run a freebie, after it’s over your sales rank goes in the toilet again. BUT my rank is among the books sold not freebies. So this good rank will stay and slowlygo back to yucksville. So I will see some benefit, maybe. And ya know $.99 is still paying something and maybe these 100 folks will actually read the book. No big money maker for me, of course, but much better than free. I hope Amazon gets sick of the whole free thing and ditches it. I think it is the bane of publishing right now. But guess what I found out. People will PAY. Okay, so it’s $.99 but still it’s something.
Moral–if you feel like crap–wait a bit, take a beat. Just wait. The cosmos has gifts that you had never even thought, realized were waiting for you.
