Promo redux - How it went.

Off the top I have to admit my fondness for the word redux - I dunno, it's just so European or something.

Now, if you popped by the blog, or follow me on twitter (or even live near me, or work with me, or... you get the picture) you know I had Correction Line on its final promo event this weekend. I say final because the promotion achieved what I want - to gain some more readers for the book. Some sales have been trickling in, a definite bump, but nothing majorly substantial. Still, I am very pleased with how things went - and therefore, I don't feel the need to put the book up for free again.

Damn, I sound like an English Gran there - you know, it was all quite pleasant.

In actuality - It was fucking awesome!

Whew - good to get the true emotion out on the blog there.

I did a lot of legwork for this promo. Lest you think I pounded actual pavement like a good gumshoe - no, I just spent a lot of time on the internet. I have been gathering articles from people that have had successful promotions - just to see what they did. Twitter and facebook do play a significant part, as do being a part of a community like Goodreads. But, it seemed, that the overall success had to do with where the book got listed and promoted.

Some sites want to know about a promotion well in advance - Pixel of Ink wanted at least a month, others wanted a few weeks, some a few days - and then there were a few sites that would only promote the work if you contacted them the day the free day began.

Now, last time I hit 800 downloads in 24 hours. And I was delighted by this. So this time, obviously, I wanted more or I would be horribly depressed. (Hey, piss off, I am a writer! We're fickle and grumpy by nature). Last time I felt the downloads were mostly from social media, and some great retweets by known authors, or places with lots of followers, like Scrivener App. Add to that it was a new book, with (I think) a pretty decent cover and description, and bam, I went to 800. Oh, I should add the site snickslist was also a contributor to the success - downloads went up, as more people visited the snicklist site (which has a views counter next to the ad).

So this time, I extended the reach. I contacted about a dozen promotion sites - doesn't matter which ones, just google and you will find tons. Notably I sent info to Pixel of Ink, almost 30 days in advance. Note the almost. (They didn't list).

And e-reader news today got the info about 2 weeks ahead of time.

On Friday (the first day) sales started to pour in, but they seemed slower. I contacted snickslist again, and a couple more "day ofs". Tweeted some more (but not in a desperate way - no... really). But by the end of the day I was only at about 400. Half of what I had done on the first promo. Now, weird algorithm driven Amazon, still placed me in the top 25 by end of day for suspense, and I think the top 30 for literary. Never can figure out that pattern.

By mid-Saturday, I felt like the promo was a bust. Yes, I am that fickle. I had about 500 downloads by 4:00 in the afternoon. The promo ended at midnight PST on Saturday.

I tried to figure out what went wrong - I had put way more work into this promo. Searching through the internet I saw that the promo was not being mentioned, and in fact was not even on the sites that I had sent info to (it was on some of them, about half). Notably Pixel of Ink was a no show - ditto the e-reader news. 

I decided to lick my wounds by going to the lumber store with my wife. Hey, whatever works. While I was looking for some obscure screw for my bathroom, I checked the count. WTF? I jumped from 500 to 780 on the drive over. I went back to the hardware section, searched again on my iphone, and saw the count jump to 900. This was in minutes. My wife had wandered over to the seasonal displays (really, do we need more Xmas decorations? - we have more than the Vatican. I digress.)

I said to her, something is going on. She thought maybe in the grout aisle - but I said, no, with the book.

I didn't want to troll through the sites on my iphone to see what had happened. So, we just bought our stuff and went home. I thought to myself, somebody or some site posted it somewhere, and I figured it had to be one of the two big ones.

Sure enough (don't you sound southern when you use that expression?), e-reader news daily had put it up as one of their 5 book picks. I couldn't believe how one site had that much of an impact. But I guess, people know where to go for their free books. The downloads continued to soar. Interestingly, I didn't go up in the charts that much. Again, go figure the Amazon algorithm. And if you do, please send me a note.

By end of day - 2600 downloads. Most in North America, but a handful in the UK and Germany. 

Wow.

Yeah, fucking awesome. Like I said.

Now, if this was earlier this year, before Amazon changed how they count free downloads in their rankings, I think the impact would have been much greater. But still, I gained over 2000, hell, almost 3000, readers. Nothing to sneeze at. As well, sales after the prome have increased. Though, I do always wonder if some poor shmo hit the download button and thought it was free, and that's why they end up buying it. But even at this writing, the sales bump continues. Hey, I am not looking for that summer home in Provence just yet - but it is still nice to think that people actually want to drop the six buck (actually, 5.99 for you bargain shoppers!) on my book.

So the lesson of the day - get onto those big sites, and get on there early. Oh, and you should try to have a good cover. Oh, and better yet, write a good book. I think that's best.

Thanks to all that picked up Correction Line. I really look forward to ALL of the feedback/reviews. And, I do mean all.

Cheers.