# My First Free Book Promotion, One Week After



## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

I was just accepted for a free book promotion with ENT for Fallen Out in Action/Adventure. It won't be eligible for a BookBub spot until late February, so I'm sort of testing the waters here. I've run five pretty successful BB paid promos, but this will be my first free promo. I set it up through KDP and it's scheduled to go free on 12/2 for five days. I was surprised there wasn't a start and end time edit for it, like there is with a Countdown Deal. I assume it will go from $2.99 to $0.00 at midnight Pacific time. Is that correct? The ENT ad is on 12/2, should I set the Free Book Promo to start on 12/1, just to be safe?

I want to add more paid ads to this promo, for the days after ENT. My fallback advertisers for reduced price promos are AwesomeGang, FussyLibrarian, eBookSoda, BKnights, and FKB&T. How are these for moving free downloads? What others do well or better? How many downloads can I expect by advertising on these and maybe a few more?

My lineup for this 12/1 to 12/5 promo is:
Day One: FussyLibrarian
Day Two: eReaderNewsToday
Day Three: FreeBooksy
Day Four: AwesomeGang
Day Five: FreeKindleBooks&Tips (not verified yet)

ETA: Using the previous ten days, which has been close to Fallen Out's average income for the first two weeks of November as well, I'll lose $130 in revenue, while it's free for five days. Ad costs are at $137. That will mean about 100 sales higher than normal over the other four books in the series to break even. The question isn't whether I'll get a positive return on the investment, but how soon. If I get 5,000 downloads and only 10% read through the whole series, the ROI will be in the neighborhood of $5,000. But how soon they get to the other books will be the question. It might happen so slowly that I don't even notice.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Ooh, I can answer some of these!



Wayne Stinnett said:


> I assume it will go from $2.99 to $0.00 at midnight Pacific time. Is that correct?


Yes - around then (it's not guaranteed to be precise to the second, but mine pretty much was).



> My fallback advertisers for reduced price promos are AwesomeGang, FussyLibrarian, eBookSoda, BKnights, and FKB&T. How are these for moving free downloads?


I did well with BKnights, almost 800 downloads over 2 days, which I felt was good for a small fish like me (fantasy). You should do better. General consensus is that BKnights is much better for free promos than paid. I haven't tried the others yet.

I have my remaining 3 days on 3/4/5 Dec, overlapping yours. It'll be interesting to see the difference, although I'm only doing a few sites (BKnights, BookButterfly, GenrePulse, PixelScroll, ENT) since I'm still dabbling in this promo business. Plus I only have one book, so no point pushing the boat out.


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## Guest (Nov 28, 2014)

Freebooksy is pretty good for free books, although it costs a bit (around $100). I've received at least a few thousand free downloads from Freebooksy before. BookBasset isn't bad and you can advertise more than one book in the same ad, but they need to be $2.99 or less. They'll do a post for you with up to 5 of your books on the same ad. Only problem is they tend to be booked for a couple of months ahead, but I think it only costs about $25. Maybe you could keep BookBasset in mind for later. ENT is great for free downloads so you should do well with them. Pixel of Ink is also great but I'm not sure if they're accepting people now. Good luck!


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Absolutely apply for one of TheMidlist's free spots, and OHFB.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

OHFB has many eyes.  If you want to look at the Facebook site for OHFB,  it is one of my likes.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks, Kitten. I added FreeBooksy for 12/3. It's only $75 for Mystery/Thriller.

What is OHFB?


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

One hundred free books.  Sending you a pm.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks, Cindy. I'm sailing off my chart into unknown water here.

I changed the Free Promo Date on KDP to start on 12/1 and run through 12/5, Monday through Friday. Not sure if free works the same as a Countdown Deal, but I'm betting it is. The first day of free with no advertising should get fair results just through Amazon's free store. ENT on the second day of free and FreeBooksy on the third day of free, should help move it up in the free rankings. That is, if things work for free like they do with a CD.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Yes, best to set up the KDP select free start date one day before the ads hit.

I think this is going to be MASSIVE - all those sites combined should amount to a huge number of downloads. Please let us know how you do in terms of sell-throughs to the other books after the promotion period is over. 


Philip


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Philip Gibson said:


> Yes, best to set up the KDP select free start date one day before the ads hit.
> 
> I think this is going to be MASSIVE - all those sites combined should amount to a huge number of downloads. Please let us know how you do in terms of sell-throughs to the other books after the promotion period is over.
> 
> Philip


I will, Philip. My last BookBub ad hasn't had much of a tail. Sales of Mangrove (featured in BB) are now below what the average was before BB on 11/16, but still about double the sales of the other books, which is where it's been since it was released on 10/1. Palm through Pride are back to their consistent 10-20 per day. Sell through should be highly noticeable. Would 10K downloads be out of the question, without BookBub?


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## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

I've run a bunch of freebies, and when set up properly, Amazon has always set the book to $0.00 right after midnight, PST. That said, I often use Day 1 to test out a couple of smaller sites before launching ENT on Day 2. You'll still get some downloads on Day 1 regardless, because there are sites which monitor Amazon's price changes and alert their readers. But in terms of effectiveness, I think ENT is about as good as it gets after BookBub.

My freebies without either BB or ENT generally get around 1,500 downloads, using maybe 15-20 sites (I apply for twice those, about half run them and I pay for a few ads). My freebies with ENT generally garner another 7,000 downloads (again with about 15-20 other sites), and I've made it as high as #44 on the Amazon Top 100 free. Bear in mind that without BookBub, your downloads will drop considerably by Day 4 and 5. With BB, my freebies usually surge past 50,000 overall and stay strong for a few days after they run the ad. As you well know, BB is in a league all its own.

There are a lot of websites out there that will run your free promo, the link below gives you a good number of them, along with prices, should you choose to "guarantee" they promote your freebie. There are more out there, you just need to hunt a little bit. I normally buy ads in 5-6 sites and then apply to a bunch of others for free. I also run many of these sites through Alexa and W3 Snoop to measure their traffic, but that's a little tricky since some low-traffic sites actually have decent email lists. The challenge is to focus on the ones who might have a lot of readers of your genre. It's a bit of a crap shoot. Here's the link:

http://www.winchad.com/blog/top-100-websites-for-book-promotion-and-author-promotion

Best of luck, Wayne. You should see a nice sales boost for about a week after the freebie ends. I've found things slow considerably after that, but you will definitely get some readers who like your book and will buy the rest of your series.

The minor downside to free is you'll inevitably get some people who aren't really into your genre, get annoyed that their time has been "wasted," and it may lead to a few one and two star reviews. I've finally concluded that all you can do is cry all the way to the bank....


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks, David. Right now, I'm only going to go with a few advertisers, a different one on each day, so I can see the results.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Hi Wayne

I normally break up my KDP days across the 90 days so this will be interesting to watch. I seriously think that people get tired of seeing a book free on Amazon after the 3rd day and downloads stall. Did you submit to Awesomegang already?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Not yet, Vinny. Can you do it on such short notice? The promo is Monday.

Perhaps you're right. Like I said earlier, a free promo is something I've never done.

I just applied to BookBub with Fallen Palm for a free promo, hoping it's later in the month, after Christmas would be perfect.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

I just submitted it for a feature on the 4th, Vinny. I'm going to leave it at five days, just to see for myself the results.


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## AA.A (Sep 6, 2012)

All the best Wayne!


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## Justawriter (Jul 24, 2012)

Wayne,

If you want to do a BookBub on Fallen Out in Feb, I wouldn't do an ENT on it in Dec or they probably won't take it in Feb. ENT is great, but there's no comparison so you won't get a true test of how free will go for you.  BB requires a minimum of 90 days at a higher price before you discount.

Can you switch them around and do Fallen Palm with ENT instead and Fallen Out with BB? 

First in the series is way more powerful with BB.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

Last month I used ENT and Freebooksy on the same day and ended up in the top 50 free. That was the first time I ever made it into the top 100 free. You might even get picked up by Pixel of Ink. Then you'll be set if you also have a bunch of other promos lined up! You'll probably hit #1. I got picked up by Pixel yesterday and with no other paid promos, that alone took me to the first page on the free list. 

Best of luck!


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Stacy Claflin said:


> Last month I used ENT and Freebooksy on the same day and ended up in the top 50 free. That was the first time I ever made it into the top 100 free. You might even get picked up by Pixel of Ink. Then you'll be set if you also have a bunch of other promos lined up! You'll probably hit #1. I got picked up by Pixel yesterday and with no other paid promos, that alone took me to the first page on the free list.
> 
> Best of luck!


You also got picked up by OHFB. That is where I found you.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

PamelaKelley said:


> Wayne,
> 
> If you want to do a BookBub on Fallen Out in Feb, I wouldn't do an ENT on it in Dec or they probably won't take it in Feb. ENT is great, but there's no comparison so you won't get a true test of how free will go for you. BB requires a minimum of 90 days at a higher price before you discount.
> 
> ...


Fallen Out's Select period renews in late February and won't be eligible for BookBub again until 3/1 since it was last featured with them on 8/1. This price reduction will only add a day to its ineligibility. I'll be submitting it for BB in late February.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Short notice is fine. I like having 48 hours but to be honest when we get a featured ad it is usual set up within an hour or so. I will be looking forward to the results! We both have different agendas and I don't use BookBub so I don't have to worry about dates.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> You also got picked up by OHFB. That is where I found you.


Good to know! Thanks for letting me know.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Vinny OHare said:


> Short notice is fine. I like having 48 hours but to be honest when we get a featured ad it is usual set up within an hour or so. I will be looking forward to the results! We both have different agendas and I don't use BookBub so I don't have to worry about dates.


I'm experimenting, Vinny. Results vary from genre to genre, so I want to get as much data as I can on my own books. In December, I'll do a free promo on Palm, revising how this one is done, then again in late January with Hunter and in Early March with Fallen Out again. By spring, I'll have real good data doing both paid promos and free promos to compare.

This one, will be a little like I do the paid promos, by stacking advertisers, but here they're stacked singly to see individual advertiser results. In December, the free promo will probably look more similar to my paid promos, but ENT scheduled me real fast and I couldn't inver things this time.


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## SkyScribe (Aug 18, 2014)

Here's my breakdown of free promo sites in terms of volume of downloads that can be generated

God Tier --- BookBub

Top Tier --- ENT, Booksends, Pixel of Ink, My Romance Reads

High Tier --- OHFB, Freebooksy, BKKnights, The Midlist, FKBT

Mid Tier --- AwesomeGang, Readcheaply, Ebooksoda, Fussy Librarian, KND/Book Gorilla, Book Butterfly

Low Tier --- BookBasset (their heavy reliance on Facebook has diminished their value), Fantasy & Sci-Fi Rock My World, Pixelscroll,


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

SkyScribe said:


> Here's my breakdown of free promo sites in terms of volume of downloads that can be generated
> 
> God Tier --- BookBub
> 
> ...


Good list. I like your breakdown. I would also add I Love Vampire Novels for paranormal/fantasy. They would be mid-high tier depending on the promo you choose. I've heard good things about My Romance Reads, but haven't used them personally since they don't take PNR.


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## anniejocoby (Aug 11, 2013)

SkyScribe said:


> Here's my breakdown of free promo sites in terms of volume of downloads that can be generated
> 
> God Tier --- BookBub
> 
> ...


For romance, I would put My Romance Reads into the top tier. And, for me, Freebooksy has always been in the top tier.

I've been seeing lots of mentions of OHFB, so I'm going to apply there right now.


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## SkyScribe (Aug 18, 2014)

Stacy Claflin said:


> Good list. I like your breakdown. I would also add I Love Vampire Novels for paranormal/fantasy. They would be mid-high tier depending on the promo you choose. I've heard good things about My Romance Reads, but haven't used them personally since they don't take PNR.


Thanks! I couldn't speak to those sites from experience, and I realize there are actually tons more that could be included. My Romance Reads does get quite a bit of praise as far as I can tell.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

On your ENT day, be sure to ask your fans to comment on ENT's Facebook post. That will get more eyes on it.


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## SkyScribe (Aug 18, 2014)

anniejocoby said:


> For romance, I would put My Romance Reads into the top tier. And, for me, Freebooksy has always been in the top tier.
> 
> I've been seeing lots of mentions of OHFB, so I'm going to apply there right now.


Okay, I edited in My Romance Reads there on your recommendation. I think most of these sites could jump up or drop depending on the book's genre or the advertising option chosen. For One Hundred Free Books (and Midlist as well), I'm talking about the free to submit option. I don't think there's any added benefit to OHFB's paid option, and I think how they promise to boost the Facebook post is particularly a huge waste.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Cherise Kelley said:


> On your ENT day, be sure to ask your fans to comment on ENT's Facebook post. That will get more eyes on it.


Thanks, I'll remember to do that.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

The price must have gone down to $0 a few minutes after midnight, last night. I managed to squeak two sales in before it changed. But, it's free now and will be until midnight Friday. Not a lot of downloads yet, but it's still early. The first ad will be Fussy Librarian, which comes out at 0730. That will move enough to get the ranking algorithm started.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

At 0600 Eastern time, Fallen Out had only 1 download. At 0730, it was up to 22. The Fussy Librarian ad came out at 0636 and now at 0830 downloads are up to 73.

I noticed at 0600, there wasn't any ranking information on the product page. Since it was no longer for sale, I figured on that. If the free ranking works like the paid ranking, I should see something five hours after the movement, or about the noon update. 

Does free ranking show up on the product page, like it does for paid? If not, where do I follow its ranking?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

At 10 am, downloads are up 209 and Fallen Out now shows a ranking of 17,316 in the Free Kindle Store. That's probably reflective of the first few downloads early this morning. I'm guessing the noon update will be in the top 500. The product page also shows its old paid ranking in Sea Adventures again. That will probably drop, right?


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## Chance (Jul 2, 2014)

Got a free copy   Been wanting to read this for a while. 

I would pay for the book(s), but things lately have been tight especially with my parents being robbed recently (even living in the suburbs of Los Angeles is dangerous!). But if it's as great as everyone's saying, I'll definitely pay for the rest.

Good luck with the free book promotion!


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks Ersatz.

The 11 am ranking is at #5,528 with 310 downloads.

I'd originally planned to leave today ad free, to see how simply being listed in the Free Store would work. I changed my mind at the last minute and shot Jeffrey an email last night. He was gracious enough to include it in today's Fussy Librarian email.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne I spotted you at 1020 am on EReaderiq.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> Wayne I spotted you at 1020 am on EReaderiq.


Oh well, so much for measuring each advertiser independently. 

The ranking as of the noon update, is #871, with 405 downloads. The big swing in ranking happened exactly when predicted, but I missed the ranking number by a few hundred.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

I'm liking the numbers I'm seeing. Out of the 405 free downloads showing on the dashboard, 385 are showing on the Month To Date Unit Sales, meaning they have read past the 10% mark. It's a shorter work, only 54K words, so 10% would be the first chapter. 

Is it normal to get read through results that fast?


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne with most authors I would say that is an anomaly.    
With you, it looks like many people were waiting on your book.
You have made it to the big league.


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## SkyScribe (Aug 18, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I'm liking the numbers I'm seeing. Out of the 405 free downloads showing on the dashboard, 385 are showing on the Month To Date Unit Sales, meaning they have read past the 10% mark. It's a shorter work, only 54K words, so 10% would be the first chapter.
> 
> Is it normal to get read through results that fast?


Downloads register in reports as soon as people click the buy button, not when they've read 10%. As for some downloads appearing at the end of November and mostly today, that probably just has to do with something about the time zones. It's easy to get carried away and think everyone is going to read your book immediately and all at once and go on to buy the others, but that's just not how it works.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

SkyScribe said:


> Downloads register in reports as soon as people click the buy button, not when they've read 10%. As for some downloads appearing at the end of November and mostly today, that probably just has to do with something about the time zones. It's easy to get carried away and think everyone is going to read your book immediately and all at once and go on to buy the others, but that's just not how it works.


Ah, of course. I'm thinking KU. Sorry, it's my first giveaway.

Ranking updates have been happening about every 70 minutes, not hourly. So the next update was closer to 2 pm than 1 pm. Current ranking is #510 with 610 downloads.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Ah, of course. I'm thinking KU. Sorry, it's my first giveaway.
> 
> Ranking updates have been happening about every 70 minutes, not hourly. So the next update was closer to 2 pm than 1 pm. Current ranking is #510 with 610 downloads.


And #2 in War and Military.

But your ranking in Sea Adventures is not showing up for me. However, if I were to search for it, I'd expect it to be #1.

I've noticed this before on my books - the rankings in main and sub categories appear and disappear from the book page seemingly randomly, even though they are ranking highly in those categories if one searches the categories. Just not consistently appearing on the book page itself.

I'm not sure if this is a glitch on Amazon's part or if it's something that only occurs on my computer/network.

Are you seeing Sea Adventures on your bookpage from where you are?

Philip


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Philip Gibson said:


> And #2 in War and Military.
> 
> But your ranking in Sea Adventures is not showing up for me. However, if I were to search for it, I'd expect it to be #1.
> 
> ...


I'm not real sure what to expect so far as genre ranking. In paid ranking a #2 spot in War & Military is a lock for #1 in Sea Adventures. It's not in the top 20 on either genre page, though.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I'm not real sure what to expect so far as genre ranking. In paid ranking a #2 spot in War & Military is a lock for #1 in Sea Adventures. It's not in the top 20 on either genre page, though.


You are currently #3 in the Sea Adventures free listing.

http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Kindle-Store-Sea-Adventures-Fiction/zgbs/digital-text/7588737011/ref=zg_bs_fvp_p_f_7588737011?_encoding=UTF8&tf=1

Philip


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## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I'm guessing the noon update will be in the top 500. The product page also shows its old paid ranking in Sea Adventures again. That will probably drop, right?


Pretty darned accurate! You're at #510 and it's almost noon. You're also #2 in your category for free. Paid rankings disappear until it rolls off free and back to pay in a few days.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

3:30 update has it ranked at #321 with 940 downloads.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne, 
You are in the afternoon featured picks at Ohfb.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> Wayne,
> You are in the afternoon featured picks at Ohfb.


I was gonna apply to them. 

The last hour had a big download surge. It had been steady at about 100 per hour, then from 5 to 6, I had 384. Total downloads is now at 1719, just shy of my last BookBub paid promo. Ranking was steady for two hours at #272, but is now at #171.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I was gonna apply to them.
> 
> The last hour had a big download surge. It had been steady at about 100 per hour, then from 5 to 6, I had 384. Total downloads is now at 1719, just shy of my last BookBub paid promo. Ranking was steady for two hours at #272, but is now at #171.


No need, they picked you up anyway.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

I've been tracking downloads pretty close to the top of the hour all day. Nothing unexpected there. A jump from 60 or so an hour to 100 an hour about lunch time lasting three hours, which covers lunch from coast to coast. A huge jump at quitting time that's lasted all evening at about 300-400 an hour.

Currently ranked #85 in the Free Kindle Store and:
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > War & Military
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Sea Adventures
#6 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure

Total downloads so far is at 2.377. Today's ad was probably the lowest producer of the five I have lined up, but just being in the Free Kindle Store probably accounts for quite a few. Tomorrow is ENT. I'm betting the results after tomorrow will put me half way to my goal of 10K and should be ranked in the top 20 at least. 

This is proving to be a lot better than I thought it would. From now on, Free Promos for Fallen Out and Fallen Palm, with discounted promos for the others.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Way to go Wayne.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks, Cindy. 

Finally got a response from FKB&T and it's a go for Friday. Nothing like cutting it close.

As of 10 pm Eastern time, Fallen Out is ranked #51 in the Free Store with 2801 downloads. Not even 24 hours into this promo, I'll need only 3% sell through to the other four titles to recoup the investment at this point. 

Why have I waited so long to do this?


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Now at #42 in the overall free store. You must stand a fair chance of cracking the #1 spot when your ENT ad goes live. Wouldn't that be something!?

Of course, such an achievement, while awesome, only gives bragging rights - I don't think they give #1 bestseller labels for free offerings. As I see it, the major benefits you can hope for from what looks certain to be a very successful free run are:

1. Major sell-throughs to the paid books in your series
2. A big increase in sign-ups to your mailing list/newsletter and website visits
3. Many more reviews
4. Appearing on many more also-bought lists of many other books (I believe free books do populate also-bought lists)
5. Some unpredictable beneficial contacts as a result of the more widespread exposure (word of mouth, interview requests, etc.)

Anything else?

Hopefully, you will be able to use your tracking methodologies to ascertain the extent to which you have profited from the above 5 benefits. It will be tricky due to overlaps, time delays with sell-throughs/reviews, and figuring out what you would have got without the free run. But if anyone can do it with a reasonable level of accuracy, it would be you.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the benefits you get from this and hoping you do manage get close to that #1 spot, since you are doing it without the Bookbub behemoth.

This is so exciting! Thanks for sharing it with us.

(Edited to add: Now at #38 in the overall free store. The book jumped 4 places since I started posting this!)



> #38 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
> #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > Sea Adventures
> #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure > War & Military


Philip


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## Amanda M. Lee (Jun 3, 2014)

My peak is number two, and that's with a BookBub ad. It's hard to hit the top spot. I'm happing if I hit the top 100 these days, especially if I don't do any promotion. You always have to throw half the "buys" in a free promotion out the door. Half the people will never read it. It's still a great boost. I never do more than two days in a row, though. You're often throwing the other days away if you do it. I do free promotions, and then roll through the other books in the series with Kindle Countdown deals with a week in between. It works well for me.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Still inching upwards: #34 in free, now.


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## Guest (Dec 2, 2014)

You're doing very well Wayne. I must say I'm very impressed that all of your books have an average of over 4 stars. That's difficult to achieve!


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks, y'all. I woke up this morning to find that I'd had a total of 3,405 downloads yesterday and a ranking of #34 in the Free Store. Not sure exactly when the ENT ad goes up. I see David Chill's "Post Pattern" is the Book of the Day on their website. Congrats, David. How far in advance do you have to apply to get that?

If ENT can't carry me into the top 10, then FreeBooksy tomorrow ought to. I'm hoping for another 4000 downloads today and already have 171 in the first four hours. That's about ten times more than yesterday at this hour.


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## zoe tate (Dec 18, 2013)

Wishing you great success with this, Wayne.

I noticed _Fallen Out_ listed yesterday on DigitalBooksToday and downloaded it: looking forward to it.


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## AA.A (Sep 6, 2012)

You are the Man, Wayne!


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## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

Heh, Wayne. You and Elizabeth are neck-and-neck. We just launched "first free" yesterday as well and have had roughly 3000 downloads since. Ranked #47 in the free store, but not much in terms of follow-on sales yet.


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## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Thanks, y'all. I woke up this morning to find that I'd had a total of 3,405 downloads yesterday and a ranking of #34 in the Free Store. Not sure exactly when the ENT ad goes up. I see David Chill's "Post Pattern" is the Book of the Day on their website. Congrats, David. How far in advance do you have to apply to get that?
> 
> If ENT can't carry me into the top 10, then FreeBooksy tomorrow ought to. I'm hoping for another 4000 downloads today and already have 171 in the first four hours. That's about ten times more than yesterday at this hour.


Interesting you brought this up, Wayne. I had initially applied for a Book Of The Day spot with ENT when I ran my 99 cent promo for Post Pattern back in July. They notified me in early November that they had reserved December 1 for me. I guess this feature has quite a bit of demand. Fortunately, I had not employed my promo days with KDP Select so far in the 90 day window for Post Pattern, so I was able to use it for another 99 cent deal. Even more fortunate -- it was Cyber Monday! I had 74 sales, which came pretty close to paying for the $60 promo in 1 day, am sure I will see more residual sales this week, as well as in the future as some of these readers buy the rest of the series.

Your results so far are remarkable, Wayne, I think you have a real shot at cracking the Top 10 today. Making it to #1 without BB or POI may be a challenge, but it should be very interesting to see how far you can go. Great job!


----------



## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Congratulations, Wayne. It looks like you're doing well with the new strategy.

I've been wondering whether to try ENT myself since they relaunched. Does anybody know whether they are effective for discounted books as well as free ones?


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## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

Lydniz -- See my post above. I've done well with ENT for 99 cent promos. Not so sure about books priced higher.


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## AA.A (Sep 6, 2012)

Lydniz said:


> Congratulations, Wayne. It looks like you're doing well with the new strategy.
> 
> I've been wondering whether to try ENT myself since they relaunched. Does anybody know whether they are effective for discounted books as well as free ones?


 I got around 150 Sales, maybe 170 not sure from my ENT ad, The Gardener of Baghdad was priced 0.99$. so it is much worth it


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

David Chill said:


> Interesting you brought this up, Wayne. I had initially applied for a Book Of The Day spot with ENT when I ran my 99 cent promo for Post Pattern back in July. They notified me in early November that they had reserved December 1 for me. I guess this feature has quite a bit of demand. Fortunately, I had not employed my promo days with KDP Select so far in the 90 day window for Post Pattern, so I was able to use it for another 99 cent deal. Even more fortunate -- it was Cyber Monday! I had 74 sales, which came pretty close to paying for the $60 promo in 1 day, am sure I will see more residual sales this week, as well as in the future as some of these readers buy the rest of the series.
> 
> Your results so far are remarkable, Wayne, I think you have a real shot at cracking the Top 10 today. Making it to #1 without BB or POI may be a challenge, but it should be very interesting to see how far you can go. Great job!


Wow! A five month waiting list? That's insane.

My ENT ad still hasn't come out. Fallen Out has been hovering at #35 give or take a few spots for the last 11 hours, with now 599 downloads for the day and a total of 4,004. Whenever ENT comes out, I should see a marked rise in ranking about five hours later. I have to take my daughter to the dentist, so if anyone sees the ENT ad, let me know what time it came out.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Ahmad_Ardalan said:


> I got around 150 Sales, maybe 170 not sure from my ENT ad, The Gardener of Baghdad was priced 0.99$. so it is much worth it





David Chill said:


> Lydniz -- See my post above. I've done well with ENT for 99 cent promos. Not so sure about books priced higher.


Thanks, both. I might give it a go then.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> ... if anyone sees the ENT ad, let me know what time it came out.


Fallen Out is currently up on the ENT website. I haven't see any emails yet, but I'm not sure if I'm subscribed.

Philip


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

I just got the ENT email with the Fallen Out ad.

It arrived at 4.22 p.m. EST.


Philip


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Philip Gibson said:


> I just got the ENT email with the Fallen Out ad.
> 
> It arrived at 4.22 p.m. EST.
> 
> Philip


That explains the 650 downloads in the last 90 minutes. I saw it on the website, but the email ads seem to get more response.

Up to 1,694 downloads for today and just over 5,100 total. Ranking has fallen to #52, but should climb a lot with the 10 pm update, five hours after the ENT email went out. FreeBooksy is tomorrow. It was the most expensive ad and I've never used them, so I'm not sure how much to expect.


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## Chris Fox (Oct 3, 2014)

This has been fascinating to watch, Wayne. Thank you so much for sharing your numbers.


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## Scottish Lass (Oct 10, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> ... I'll need only 3% sell through to the other four titles to recoup the investment at this point.
> 
> Why have I waited so long to do this?


Hi Wayne, thanks for sharing with us again.

I'm curious if you've seen any sell-through yet, and/or if you'd be disappointed if you didn't?

BTW I downloaded it earlier (in the UK) - but from seeing it here on kBoards, not on any ads


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Roz Marshall said:


> Hi Wayne, thanks for sharing with us again.
> 
> I'm curious if you've seen any sell-through yet, and/or if you'd be disappointed if you didn't?
> 
> BTW I downloaded it earlier (in the UK) - but from seeing it here on kBoards, not on any ads


Thanks, Roz. Yes, I've had some sell through it looks like. All four of my other books are up for both borrows and sales yesterday. Highest in over a week. Today looks like it will beat that, as well.

Downloads today are running about 250 higher than this time yesterday. I tried to record yesterday's downloads every hour on a spreadsheet and got most of the numbers from 6 am to 11 pm. Today's only about 1400 downloads shy of yesterday's with five hours left to go in the day. Ranking dropped to #54, but the affects of the ENT ad won't show on the ranking until for another three hours or so.


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## Daniel Kenney (Sep 18, 2014)

Just got my copy Wayne, thanks for running this promo. And I agree, this has been fascinating to watch and learn from, really appreciate it. I plan on running a free promotion in my next select period so I'm hoping to learn a few things from this. Thanks!  Dan


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Daniel Kenney said:


> Just got my copy Wayne, thanks for running this promo. And I agree, this has been fascinating to watch and learn from, really appreciate it. I plan on running a free promotion in my next select period so I'm hoping to learn a few things from this. Thanks! Dan


Thank you, Dan.

Fallen Out moved slightly upward at the 9:30 update. I'm guessing this reflects the hour's sales just before the ENT email went out at 4:22. The next update should show a stronger climb based on more than 500 downloads the hour after the ad came out.

Currently at #38 in Free Kindle, with 2,996 downloads today. If downloads continue to midnight Pacific, today will easily beat yesterday. I'm guessing 7,500 total by the end of the day. That's about what I was expecting by the end of tomorrow, so 10K should easily be doable.

Does anyone know what time FreeBooksy sends their emails? That's tomorrow.


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## 鬼 (Sep 30, 2012)

I dunno about anyone else but I get Freebooksy early in the morning. Like before 10 am EST. I, too, picked up your book.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Neverland said:


> I dunno about anyone else but I get Freebooksy early in the morning. Like before 10 am EST. I, too, picked up your book.


Thanks, Neverland. That's good news. I've never used them and balked at the price, but others have said they more a lot of product, so I went ahead with it. And thanks for the download.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Since ENT sent out their emails at 4.10 pm EST (seems odd that - only about 8 hours left of waking time for most people) and if Freebooksy send out theirs in the early morning EST tomorrow, you will have overlap of the two ads since many people will only be opening their ENT emails in the morning and at the same time as others open Freebooksy emails.

Probably, you should only definitively attribute additional downloads to Freebooksy as the additional downloads you get after 4.10 pm EST tomorrow when all of the ENT emails have been opened. 

While it is the middle of the night in America and most people are asleep, it is the middle of the day here in Laos and Number One Son is cooking me roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

This is a good thing.

As are your latest rankings:

1 am EST: #31 in the overall free store
2 am EST: #29 in the overall free store
3 am EST (midnight PST): #29 in the overall free store
4 am EST: #29 in the overall free store

Hoping you wake up to even better results.

Keep us informed.


Philip


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks, for keeping tabs, Philip. A couple of observations, one I think I can explain and the other I'm at a total loss.

1) Downloads yesterday from ENT (early online and later by email) only barely surpassed the previous day. My guess is that downloads as a direct result of the ENT ad far surpassed those that were a direct result of Fussy Librarian on Monday. There's a segment of Kindle readers who look only for free books. They browse the genres in the Free Store. Much like the first day of a Countdown Deal, readers scarf up the bargains, browsers of the Free Store grab all the freebies. My guess is only half of Monday's downloads were a direct result of the Fussy Librarian ad.

2) Ghost sales. Monday at 6 am, Fallen Out had 4 sales and just a couple of free downloads. I attributed that to the price not dropping to $0 right at midnight. I generally get 4-8 sales per title overnight. However, Tuesday morning, it showed 5 sales and this morning, 6. To what do I attribute these ghost sales? The price dropped some time after midnight on Monday and shouldn't go back up again until Friday night. Are some banks really slow in processing a transaction? I can understand two hours for an electronic transaction to go through, but two whole days? Ghosts in the machine.

Yesterday ended with 3,631 downloads, just edging out the 3,405 from Monday. Today, so far, I've had 91 downloads in the first three hours of the day. That's slightly higher than the same time yesterday. It's ranked at #30 in the Free Store and the FreeBooksy ad should be out in an hour or two. Apparently, the 500 download surge yesterday from ENT only produced a movement of 10-14 places in rank. Those coveted top 20 spots must be moving a hell of a lot of books. Imagine that. There are 20 some books that are being downloaded at a rate greater than 150 per hour, every hour of every day. It's staggering.


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## Lydniz (May 2, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Those coveted top 20 spots must be moving a hell of a lot of books. Imagine that. There are 20 some books that are being downloaded at a rate greater than 150 per hour, every hour of every day. It's staggering.


When I did my BB freebie (which I will probably be telling my grandchildren about in 30 years as it's the only BB ad I'm ever likely to get) I got to #2 in the free store, and was getting something totally ridiculous like 1,000 downloads an hour. It really does take a lot.


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Yeah, I figured you wouldn't crack the Top 10. When I did my BB I moved 35K and got to #2. You're up against Monday's, Tuesday's, and today's BB books now, and they have--and will be--shifting massive amounts in a very short time.


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## 鬼 (Sep 30, 2012)

Hey Wayne,

Freebooksy just went out. 9:39 am. Your book was there.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

SevenDays said:


> Yeah, I figured you wouldn't crack the Top 10. When I did my BB I moved 35K and got to #2. You're up against Monday's, Tuesday's, and today's BB books now, and they have--and will be--shifting massive amounts in a very short time.


I hadn't even thought of that. Maybe with all the ads on the same day, it'd do nearly as well as BookBub.

Thanks, Neverland. It was on my email at the top of the list and downloads jumped pretty quickly in that hour. At 6 am, today was ahead of the previous two days, but started to lag right after that. At 10 and 11 am, downloads were well ahead of the previous two days. Already up to 711. Ranking is hovering around the mid-30 range again, now #33. Maybe it'll move up into the mid to high 20s about 2 or 3 pm when the ranking reflects sales from 9 to 10. I doubt I can break into the top 20 competing against BookBub advertised books.

Sell through is already pretty strong. Up considerably from previous days at this time of day. I'm estimating a positive ROI before the promo even ends at this point.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne, 
Amazon processes credit card transactions in batches.    Just lIke most other places.
Charges on credit cards usually pend for at least 24 hours at your bank.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

cinisajoy said:


> Wayne,
> Amazon processes credit card transactions in batches. Just lIke most other places.
> Charges on credit cards usually pend for at least 24 hours at your bank.


That just gave me an idea. I checked the dashboard and sure enough the graph for Fallen Out shows no sales at all since 11/30, yet the Month To Date data shows six sales in December. They must have been sales from 11/30 that were pending in banks. This reenforces the idea that the graph represents orders placed at time of purchase and the MTD data represents completed transactions, some time after purchase.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne that would make sense.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Still holding steady in the mid to low 30s, #34 right now. It's been between #29 and #54 for more than 48 hours. Currently at 1,372 downloads for the day, which is 200 higher than this time yesterday and more than double what it was at this time on Monday. Total downloads for the promo are just over 8,400. I'm certain to meet my 10K goal for the five day promo before this day is over. 

Maybe 20K?


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

20K would be nice. I am really surprised that the download total has not gone down since its been free for so many days. Proves my theory wrong for sure.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

It's on you tomorrow, Vinny.   

If I can maintain a mid-30s ranking until Friday when the FKB&T ad comes out, I think 20K might be attainable by midnight Pacific time. But for a promo that cost about 70% of what BookBub charges it ain't too bad. Plus, you don't have to wait six months to do it again. 

I have a boxed set with some other authors coming out just before Christmas and I'm doing a BookBub free promo with Fallen Palm on 12/31, so that'll make for a great start to 2015. I have a new book coming out at the end of January, so that'll make for a good end of winter. At the end of February, Fallen Out will be eligible for BookBub again and I'll do a free promo with it to get spring going. Then I can do this kind of promo for Fallen Palm and my 7th book in the series should be out by the end of May. That should kick off summer with a bang. After that, I'm going to let off the gas. Just a little. My next release after that won't be until October, we're taking the summer off to move to the coast. That will be 24 months of planning and hard work to achieve a dream that started almost 30 years ago.


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## AJStewart (May 10, 2014)

Wayne, I'm not only enjoying the series as a reader, but also as a writer I'm learning a lot from your posts. I've just released and book 3 and am only now really getting into marketing them, and you provide lots of excellent food for thought.
Thanks


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne,
I only have one problem with this thread.  I have read ALL your books.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> If I can maintain a mid-30s ranking until Friday when the FKB&T ad comes out, I think 20K might be attainable by midnight Pacific time. But for a promo that cost about 70% of what BookBub charges it ain't too bad. Plus, you don't have to wait six months to do it again.


Plus, by spreading out your ads you will have achieved higher visibility for much longer than you would have with a single Bookbub ad.

Your KB&T ad comes out on your last free day. I wonder if you'll see the same thing I did when I had it on my last free day. I had very good results (for me - 1,330 downloads) but the interesting thing was I had a bunch of unusually high paid sales of the same book in the two days after the promo ended. I believe that happened due to some people only opening their emails on the following days and downloading the book thinking it was still free. I think that because one-third of the books were quickly returned, which is also unusual.

I'm sure that happens even more with ENT since they send out their emails late in the afternoon.

I'm sure you'll do great with KB&T on day 5. Here's hoping for the 20,000 download mark and lots of sell-throughs, good reviews, sign-ups, plus more also-boughts exposure and word of mouth.

Philip


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## Michael Buckley (Jun 24, 2013)

I downloaded the free book and I can see why there selling well. Nice read, I can see where others would want to read them all.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks, y'all. 

Downloads have slowed. Today is no longer ahead of this time yesterday. It's dropped to #40 now. I'm close to 10K, but it will probably be tomorrow morning.


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

You continue to amaze me Wayne!


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Three new reviews for your book in the past 5 hours - all 5-stars. If you look at the dates of your reviews, these three are clearly as a result of the free promo - one actually states that she got the book for free. Another states that she has just bought the next book in the series.

Cool!

Shows that free offerings do not mostly attract 1-star reviews.


Philip


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

And all three are from women, Philip. I'd always figured my target audience to be men about my own age, but the vast majority of reviewers, newsletter subscribers, Twitter followers and Facebook page likes are women.

I've been staying up late and waking up early for three days now and I'm tired. So, I'll be going to bed soon. Right now, it's still holding at #39, but the download rate has slowed. It's about 400 downloads behind this time yesterday, with 2580 and a total of 9616 over the three days of the promo so far.

I hope Vinny and his AwesomeGang crew can pull a rabbit out and keep the pace going through tomorrow.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne,
Why wouldn't women like your books?


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## nico (Jan 17, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Right now, it's still holding at #39, but the download rate has slowed. It's about 400 downloads behind this time yesterday, with 2580 and a total of 9616 over the three days of the promo so far.


I have noticed the download rate on our new freebie also slowed today. I didn't have an ad scheduled today to offset the decline, so we've drop just below 100 ranking, but tomorrow i have two ads scheduled. Maybe we'll both push back into the top 30!


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

cinisajoy said:


> Wayne,
> Why wouldn't women like your books?


A bit of "Ouch!" there on Wayne's behalf.

Wayne is sleeping at the moment, but as his unappointed, unwanted public relations consultant, I would advise him to put out the following public response:



> No reason at all, Cindy. Just an ill-informed (but now corrected) assumption on my part.


Same with me. I would have thought that mostly men would have been interested in my books about World War II and Space Travel. Turned out not to be the case. I was wrong, and that was great! If data like these change our basic demographic assumptions, that's wonderful! And interesting.

Of course, we know (from demographics provided by the multiple ad sites we deal with) that most readers of all genres (what %?) are in fact women so that kind of skews the data.

Philip


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Yeah, pretty much what Philip said.  

I'm from a different generation. I grew up in the '50s and '60s when boys read the Hardy Boys Mysteries and girls, Nancy Drew. Call me a dinosaur, but part of my little lizard brain is still stuck in a decade long past.

So, FreeBooksy grossed fewer downloads than either FussyLibrarian or ENT. More to the point, their ad cost was more than double that of Fussy and ENT combined. Guess my reservation early on about using them was right. Maybe it was the tides, winds, or some other force that kept downloads down, but in my opinion, FreeBooksy just didn't perform as well.

Total downloads yesterday were 2,987. That's more than 400 less than Monday and more than 600 less than Tuesday. Ranking this morning is at #45 with 63 downloads for the day at 0600.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Your ranking now is 35. This morning when I looked it was 32.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Vinny OHare said:


> Your ranking now is 35. This morning when I looked it was 32.


Yeah, and last night when I went to bed it was #40 and this morning at 0500 it was #45, so the ranking's holding well. But, the number of downloads is way down compared to this time on the previous days. Less than a third, in fact. Might be a slow download day for everyone.

Some time about 11 am, it did go over 10K downloads, so I'm way happy.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Like you said in the other thread 4 days might be too long with people getting your book from other places the last 4 days. We will see what the rest of the day brings. Maybe you will get a spike from the review I just left


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## I&#039;m a Little Teapot (Apr 10, 2014)

Pixel of Ink picked you up for today's newsletter, so I bet this day goes better than expected!


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

SevenDays said:


> Pixel of Ink picked you up for today's newsletter, so I bet this day goes better than expected!


just came here to say that!


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

LMBO!! Yeah, I just got home and saw it. I've applied to them twice with three weeks notice both times and they didn't run me. This is the third time they have, without me applying to them.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Two hours ago, downloads were almost 1000 behind yesterday at the same time. An hour ago, it was only 450 behind that time yesterday and just now, it's ahead of yesterday and nearly caught up to Tuesday's 5 pm numbers. This should show a big swing in ranking about the 9 or 10 pm update. 

Right now, downloads are at 1,843 and it's ranked at #43. To date downloads number 11,866.


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## philjson (Nov 25, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Two hours ago, downloads were almost 1000 behind yesterday at the same time. An hour ago, it was only 450 behind that time yesterday and just now, it's ahead of yesterday and nearly caught up to Tuesday's 5 pm numbers. This should show a big swing in ranking about the 9 or 10 pm update.
> 
> Right now, downloads are at 1,843 and it's ranked at #43. To date downloads number 11,866.


You can probably attribute this boost to Awesomegang. Fallen Out is literally the first thing you see when you go to their webpage.

Congrats Wayne!


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Yeah, pretty much what Philip said.
> 
> I'm from a different generation. I grew up in the '50s and '60s when boys read the Hardy Boys Mysteries and girls, Nancy Drew. Call me a dinosaur, but part of my little lizard brain is still stuck in a decade long past.
> 
> ...


Child of the 60's here. Us girls just borrowed our brother's library card so we could read the Hardy Boys.

Oh and at Philip and Wayne. I am bored. I need a new book. Will you please learn to write as fast as I read? And sorry if I am built wrong but I do love both of yall's books.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Pixels of Ink turned things around big time this afternoon and evening. Had POI not picked it up, AwesomeGang would probably have moved about 2000 for the day. Being the smallest subscriber advertiser in the lineup, that's good. Vinny does everything he can when it's one of us. When the POI ad came out at 2:30 Eastern, AwesomeGang was moving in the neighborhood of 90 an hour. I hope POI starts taking paid spots, their subscribers must be close to BookBub status. When they picked it up at 2:30, downloads were about 1000 behind yesterday at 2 pm, then leaped to more than 600 an hour for three hours. Right now, downloads have already surpassed yesterday's total and closing on Tuesday's. 

Current downloads are at 3500 even for the day, just 131 shy of Tuesday's total, with six hours left in the day. Total downloads are at 13,523. Fallen Out is ranked at #38. The next update should show an increase to the low 30s at least.

Tomorrow's FKB&T. Their email comes out at 3 pm. Does anyone know what time their ads appear on their website?


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## philjson (Nov 25, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Pixels of Ink turned things around big time this afternoon and evening.


I thought POI was on hiatus?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

philjson said:


> I thought POI was on hiatus?


They're not taking applications. Frankly, I can understand why. They don't charge anything, making money on affiliate ads instead. And they move a ton of books, so they were probably getting a huge number of requests. They're still doing email and website ads, but they find what they want to advertise themselves.


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## philjson (Nov 25, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> They're not taking applications. Frankly, I can understand why. They don't charge anything, making money on affiliate ads instead. And they move a ton of books, so they were probably getting a huge number of requests. They're still doing email and website ads, but they find what they want to advertise themselves.


Oh, interesting. Well, I can respect that. If it works for them.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Glad to hear we did our part to get you over 10k mark.


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## KL_Phelps (Nov 7, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> They're not taking applications. Frankly, I can understand why. They don't charge anything, making money on affiliate ads instead. And they move a ton of books, so they were probably getting a huge number of requests. They're still doing email and website ads, but they find what they want to advertise themselves.


and they are also now on youtube, cute couple. She always seems a bit nervous in front of the camera and he seems to share my geeky t-shirt addiction.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Tomorrow's FKB&T. Their email comes out at 3 pm.


That will mean there will be thousands of subscribers who will not be opening their emails until the following morning when the book has come off Free. It's likely many of those will download the book thinking it is still free. Although some of those may return the book when they realize they have to pay for it, their downloads will still serve to improve your PAID ranking and compensate for the rank you lost while the book was free.

Fallen Out was #37 in the Free store at 11.30 pm EST yesterday your time, #34 at 1 am EST, and currently #33 at 2 am EST.

So, climbing again even though the FKB&T ad is yet to hit.

I'm hoping this run of yours can establish two things:

1. FREE still works in terms of sell-throughs, mailing list/newsletter sign ups, good reviews, also boughts, etc.

2. That it can work effectively with a staggered combination of the smaller promotional sites - not only with a one-time Bookbub blast.

Philip


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Philip Gibson said:


> That will mean there will be thousands of subscribers who will not be opening their emails until the following morning when the book has come off Free. It's likely many of those will download the book thinking it is still free. Although some of those may return the book when they realize they have to pay for it, their downloads will still serve to improve your PAID ranking and compensate for the rank you lost while the book was free.


Oh!  Interesting observation, even though it feels a bit sneaky, to me. I was getting worried about my ENT promo, which will be 4pm Eastern on my final free day, in case it led to a rash of accidental full-price buys, followed by a rash of returns and a lot of disgruntled punters. But it won't be so bad if there's a ranking upside.

I'm still learning about this promo business, but boy oh boy, is there a lot of subtlety in the way it works.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Overnight, there were a few hundred more downloads, ending the day with 4,519, the best day of the promo. At 4 am, it was ranked at #30, currently #32 with 131 downloads in the last three hours.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> I'm from a different generation. I grew up in the '50s and '60s when boys read the Hardy Boys Mysteries and girls, Nancy Drew. Call me a dinosaur, but part of my little lizard brain is still stuck in a decade long past.


Wayne--

I grew up in the 50s and 60s, and read the Hardy Boys, Tom Swift and Rick Brandt but NOT Nancy Drew.  So even then girls were not doing what was expected.

Just sayin'! Congrats on how well you're doing! Thanks for sharing the information as you do.

Betsy


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Thanks, Betsy. Just trying to pay back in some way for all that I learned here. I'm a numbers guy and when I first started these kinds of posts were the most interesting. Real time data on what kind of advertising works, when it works best and how to take advantage of it.

I just got an email from FKB&T, their post on the website will be at 9:30am Eastern time. That's good news. Total downloads are at 14,711. If they do as well as POI and AwesomeGang did yesterday, the total will be almost 20K.

With 20K new readers, if only .1% read through the whole series this month, that's 80 full price purchases, or $220. That pays for the ads right there. 
If a .5% read just the next book this month, that's 100 purchases, or $225.

But what if sell through were 10%? Now, I'm looking at 2000 purchases, or $5,500.
20%? $11,000

With my BookBub free promo coming up on 12/31, I can easily see making what used to be a full year's income as a truck driver in just a matter of two months, with only a 5% sell through rate. If half were to buy all four of the other books (extremely doubtful, but let's dream), that would equal a staggering 100K sells, or $275,000.


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## AJStewart (May 10, 2014)

I'm doing my first prawn promo next week and this and Wayne's other posts and similar post by other folks have been like an MFA in Book Marketing. And I worked in marketing for 20 years. Thanks all. Even if Wayne's numbers are very intimidating, I look at it as what is possible.


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> With 20K new readers, if only .1% read through the whole series this month, that's 80 full price purchases, or $220. That pays for the ads right there.
> If a .5% read just the next book this month, that's 100 purchases, or $225.
> 
> But what if sell through were 10%? Now, I'm looking at 2000 purchases, or $5,500.
> 20%? $11,000


I really hope you can figure out and settle on a sell-through percentage, Wayne. With your next promotion coming up on the 31st., maybe you can crunch the numbers between now and then to come up with a figure - 3 weeks would seem like a reasonable amount of time for many people to read the book and go on to the next in the series, although the real number of sell-throughs will continue to increase almost indefinitely.

And there's also the number of good reviews (currently 7), newsletter sign ups and also-boughts as a result of this promotion to figure into the equation.

Philip


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

Wayne I am  curious about how many email subscribers you are getting. You will have a nice list when your next book comes out.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Philip Gibson said:


> I really hope you can figure out and settle on a sell-through percentage, Wayne. With your next promotion coming up on the 31st., maybe you can crunch the numbers between now and then to come up with a figure - 3 weeks would seem like a reasonable amount of time for many people to read the book and go on to the next in the series, although the real number of sell-throughs will continue to increase almost indefinitely.
> 
> And there's also the number of good reviews (currently 7), newsletter sign ups and also-boughts as a result of this promotion to figure into the equation.
> 
> Philip


That should be easy enough. My books have a pretty solid average when not being promoted. Sell through is already up enough to pay for the ads, so everything now is profit.



Vinny OHare said:


> Wayne I am curious about how many email subscribers you are getting. You will have a nice list when your next book comes out.


No big increase yet. The usual 2 or 3 a day over the promo.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

As of 2 pm Eastern, downloads are about 430 ahead of yesterday at this time and about 300 ahead of Monday, with currently 905 downloads for the day. But, that number's almost 470 behind Wednesday and 270 behind Tuesday at the same time.

Without question, I'll be doing multiple ads per day with the next one. The difference in the time they send the email can create overlapping spikes, if matched up right. I subscribe to more than a dozen, so have a pretty good track record of who emails when.

Current ranking is #35 again. I averaged the hourly ranking over the last five days and that's less than a percentage point from the average of 35.7. My guess is that every book ranked #30 or better in the Free Store are being advertised on multiple sites at the same time. The top ten are probably all BookBub advertised.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne,
Hello.  I will gladly throw some money your way if you will kindly throw me a new book.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Keep nagging at me and I'll put you to work.  

FKB&T isn't performing at all like I thought it would in the first hour since the email came out, only slightly above the pace for the rest of the day. Downloads are now less than any other day at this time. My ad was way down near the bottom of their email. I've always thought that ad placement in the email was important. Right now, I have 1161 downloads for the day and ranking #35 still. Total downloads for the promo are at 15,703. That's 50% more than I'd hoped for, so I'm very satisfied.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> Keep nagging at me and I'll put you to work.
> 
> FKB&T isn't performing at all like I thought it would in the first hour since the email came out, only slightly above the pace for the rest of the day. Downloads are now less than any other day at this time. My ad was way down near the bottom of their email. I've always thought that ad placement in the email was important. Right now, I have 1161 downloads for the day and ranking #35 still. Total downloads for the promo are at 15,703. That's 50% more than I'd hoped for, so I'm very satisfied.


And just what will you have me do?


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> FKB&T isn't performing at all like I thought it would in the first hour since the email came out, only slightly above the pace for the rest of the day. Downloads are now less than any other day at this time. My ad was way down near the bottom of their email. I've always thought that ad placement in the email was important.


It's less than an hour since I got the FKB&T email. Probably someone has good data on when the majority of emails get opened - it would be interesting to know. I have the subjective impression (can't even remember how I formed it) that the early morning and early evening hours are the peak times for email openings.

Philip


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

With every email promo I've ever done, results start happening immediately, once the email is sent. I think it's the placement near the bottom of the email. It's the 6th of 7, not counting the featured ad at the top. It's not even performing as well as the $9 ad with FussyLibrarian on Monday.


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## A past poster (Oct 23, 2013)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> With every email promo I've ever done, results start happening immediately, once the email is sent. I think it's the placement near the bottom of the email. It's the 6th of 7, not counting the featured ad at the top. It's not even performing as well as the $9 ad with FussyLibrarian on Monday.


There were another 7 after yours. That's a lot of books to accept for one day. I wonder if people even bother scrolling down past the first seven. I almost didn't bother. The results at the bottom must be dismal.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

It was averaging about 60 an hour, before it was posted on the website (where they were lined up in the same order as the email), then it went up to about 110 an hour. When the email came out, it went up to about 120 an hour. It's now a hundred downloads behind Monday, which was 1000 behind Tuesday through Thursday. Current rank is #46, down nine spots.


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## daveconifer (Oct 20, 2009)

Hey, Wayne, off-topic here, but you are a smooth writer.  I'm enjoying your work to the max!


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

daveconifer said:


> Hey, Wayne, off-topic here, but you are a smooth writer. I'm enjoying your work to the max!


Thanks, Dave. Fallen Out skips through time pretty quick, covering over two years. Hope it's not too off putting. I wrote it in answer to a lot of readers questions about the characters' pasts.

Here's the initial tallying of sell through so far. I'm a math nerd, so it's hard to resist, once I felt the numbers were close to a positive ROI. The promo isn't even over for another six hours, but I'm calling it a complete success, even with the lackluster performance of FKB&T.

The week previous to the promo my books average sales per day were:
Fallen Out: 13.7
Fallen Palm: 11.6
Fallen Hunter: 11.7
Fallen Pride: 13.3
Fallen Mangrove: 25.4

Up to this point, my average sales over five days were:
Fallen Out: 1.2 (6 sales from Sunday were posted early Monday morning, but I won't count them.)
Fallen Palm: 17.8
Fallen Hunter: 15.6
Fallen Pride: 15.4
Fallen Mangrove: 29.4

That's an increase in sales of the followup titles of: 
Fallen Palm: 6.2
Fallen Hunter: 3.9
Fallen Pride: 2.1
Fallen Mangrove: 4.0

That's a total increase of 16.2 books per day, or 81 over average, which equals about $220, more than the cost of the ads already. I expect those numbers to slowly climb over the rest of the month and will be glad to start entering something other than goose eggs under Fallen Out on the spreadsheet.

Right now, downloads are still holding at about 100 per hour, with no spike at all from FKB&T. Total for the day so far is 1,848 downloads and ranked #50 and sliding. Total downloads for the promo are at 16,390 and will probably wind up about 17,000, way higher than I'd hoped for.

I'll post the final numbers in the morning. My next promo is in 26 days, with Fallen Palm in a BookBub free promo.


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

Thanks for all the data, Wayne. It's awesome to see you go out of your way to share all of this.

Anyhow, you said Fallen Out was placed low in FKB&T's email. How was it placed in some of the other ads? I'm assuming higher up?


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## Philip Gibson (Nov 18, 2013)

You've already had 9 new reviews as a result of this free promotion. That's eight 5-star reviews plus a review from someone who thought the book was great, thoroughly enjoyed it and... gave it 3 stars.

We can't put a monetary value on reviews, but those authors who pay for reviews would likely be prepared to pay big money for the 9 reviews you've had in just the past couple of days.


Philip


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

M Stephen Stewart said:


> Thanks for all the data, Wayne. It's awesome to see you go out of your way to share all of this.
> 
> Anyhow, you said Fallen Out was placed low in FKB&T's email. How was it placed in some of the other ads? I'm assuming higher up?


The other ads had far fewer books in them. FKB&T had about 15, which really diluted its effectiveness as a marketing tool in my opinion. In most of the other ads, Fallen Out was at the top, or the second of three. Until Michael Gallagher revises his approach and starts limiting the number of books he promotes, I won't be using FKB&T again for a free promo. While I'm sure the top few had better results, I'd be surprised if the bottom two had any more downloads than if they hadn't advertised at all.

Yesterday's final count was 2,258 downloads. That's one download less than half the previous day's total and 1150 less than the first day with Fussy Librarian, the lowest priced ad of the bunch.

The overall total from all five days stands at an astounding 16,800 even. Far better than the 10K I'd hoped for. But, had FKB&T lived up to their billing and surpassed the other advertisers, that number would have been closer to double my goal.

The final ranking at midnight Pacific time was #44. Fallen Out never got higher than #29, nor lower than #54, over the whole 120 hour promotion. It pretty much stayed glued to the mid-30 range, sitting at #35 more than half the time of the promo, 67 of the 120 hours. The average ranking over the 120 hours was #36.8.

Surprisingly, it didn't fall in the paid rankings when it went back to $2.99. I was worried that it would drop out of the top 10K. When it went free, it was ranked at #7,161 in the Paid Store and when it went back to regular price it was ranked at #5,013. I'm at a complete loss to explain this. With no sales it should have plummeted, yet it rose. It did have 42 borrows during the promo, but that's not enough to support the ranking over five days. Perhaps Amazon counts free downloads as .1 sale?

All in all, I'm really pleased with the results and sell through has already paid for the ads and the five days of lost revenue on Fallen Out. I have two more Free Promos coming up and learned a lot from this one. The next one will be on 12/31, featuring Fallen Palm in a BookBub ad. Then some time in January, I'll be running a boxed set of seven authors, called Seven Seas Mysteries, in a BookBub free promo. The collaboration will be out just before Christmas.


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Although the number of downloads was high, for a non-BookBub ad, I can't say that I'm overly impressed with the results. The results being sell through to the other titles, not in giving away free books.

Average sales per day for 11 days before the promo, 11/20-11/30:
Fallen Out:          13.1
Fallen Palm:        12.1
Fallen Hunter:      13.2
Fallen Pride:        13.3
Fallen Mangrove:  29.2

I only took the average for 11 days prior, because 12 days prior was the end of a BookBub discounted promo on Fallen Mangrove.

Average sales per day for 12 days during and after the promo, 12/1-12/12:
Fallen Out:          15.4 (up 2.3/day)
Fallen Palm:        19.0 (up 6.9/day)
Fallen Hunter:      18.2 (up 5.0/day)
Fallen Pride:        15.5 (up 2.2/day)
Fallen Mangrove:  25.0 (down 4.2/day)

The average for Fallen Out is only 12/6-12/12, as it was free from 12/1-12/5.
Fallen Mangrove is a new release and was in a BookBub promo, so it's still experiencing the tail somewhat.

While the numbers are up, they seem to have peaked for Palm on 12/7, Hunter on 12/8, Pride on 12/11, and Mangrove is unknown, because of it's higher than normal sales at the end of November, due to the BookBub ad. Sales yesterday were close to what they were on 11/30. I'm estimating total revenue above average to be somewhere in the $500 range, throwing out the loss on Mangrove. Subtract the cost of the ads and the lost revenue during free days and it was only a net gain of less than $200. 

Again, this wasn't a BookBub free promo, I'll be doing one with them on 12/31 with Fallen Palm. After that (and pending the results of it), I'm only going to do free promos with BookBub only, and only with Fallen Out. I say pending the results of the next one, because if sell through is low, I won't be doing free promos at all. That means just two free promos a year if it goes well. Others have said their sell through after a BookBub free promo has lost some of it's shine. I'll continue to do discounted promos using BookBub and other advertisers in the stacked manner I've found to be so successful.

While I'd call this promo a success in every sense of the word, it seems the sell through just didn't come in the numbers I'd anticipated. Maybe it will, slowly over time, but it will be in such small numbers as to be unnoticeable. There's still about 16,000 unread copies of Fallen Out sitting out there on people's Kindles. But I'm guessing the majority of those people have dozens, or even hundreds, of free books on their devices.


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## Vinny OHare (May 3, 2013)

I have an interesting thought. Not as a promo site but as a reader. Maybe others are doing the same thing?

I got your Fallen Out book probably from one of the first promo's you did with Awesomegang and then I didn't read it until a month or so later because of the amount of books I have on my device. After I started reading it I couldn't put it down and then read Fallen Palm in record time for me. I am now 25% done with Fallen Hunter, between the Holidays and starting to read another book. I just haven't got the the last 2 books yet or found it necessary to buy yet since I am not done with the previous book. That would explain the numbers when it comes to Mangrove being lower since the people reading the books in order usually don't purchase all 5 at one shot.

Just a thought!


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

Unless you have really caught my eye, it will be ages before I read your book.


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## A.E. Williams (Jul 13, 2014)

Wayne Stinnett said:


> There's still about 16,000 unread copies of Fallen Out sitting out there on people's Kindles.


Well, it's 100% READ on MY Kindle!

And so is Fallen Palm.

I'm still upset with you, and you know why.... 

A.E. Williams


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Vinny OHare said:


> I have an interesting thought. Not as a promo site but as a reader. Maybe others are doing the same thing?
> 
> I got your Fallen Out book probably from one of the first promo's you did with Awesomegang and then I didn't read it until a month or so later because of the amount of books I have on my device. After I started reading it I couldn't put it down and then read Fallen Palm in record time for me. I am now 25% done with Fallen Hunter, between the Holidays and starting to read another book. I just haven't got the the last 2 books yet or found it necessary to buy yet since I am not done with the previous book. That would explain the numbers when it comes to Mangrove being lower since the people reading the books in order usually don't purchase all 5 at one shot.
> 
> Just a thought!


Mangrove is dropping, due to its tail more than anything. It did great as a new release and six weeks after release it was in a BookBub ad. The ad was just two weeks before this promo, so declining sales would be normal. The sell through to Palm and Hunter seems to have peaked, but only a few higher than normal. Sell through to Mangrove would still be diluted by its tail, so the peak of sell through might not even be noticed. It will look more like a slow in the rate of descent.



A.E. Williams said:


> Well, it's 100% READ on MY Kindle!
> 
> And so is Fallen Palm.
> 
> ...


As someone else wrote in another thread, "That's what really happened."


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## Stewart Matthews (Nov 21, 2014)

Isn't it still too soon to tell the effectiveness of your promos on sell-through rates? I would guess most people get through a book a month, and, as you pointed out, Wayne, we're talking about people with free books stacked pretty deep. Again, as a guess, I think you'll see a higher sell-through rate over the next 6 months or so, as people get a chance to get into your series.

With this kind of promotion, I think you have to take the long view to get a true idea of its value.

This is a completely uneducated guess by a first time author, so take it for what it's worth.


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## cinisajoy (Mar 10, 2013)

A.E. Williams said:


> Well, it's 100% READ on MY Kindle!
> 
> And so is Fallen Palm.
> 
> ...


I know Wayne got a message threatening to disown him if he killed off a particular character in Fallen Mangrove. It is good that he kept that character alive.
PS is the new one live yet?


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## Wayne Stinnett (Feb 5, 2014)

Those early results on sell through are people who don't download every free book they see. They're people who buy books at full price and take advantage of a free book, when they see it. That said, yeah, there's thousands unread on Kindles all over the worlds and they may or may not ever be read. The results of those sell throughs can't be even estimated over a long period of time.

Sorry, Cindy, no joy yet. I'm told there was a problem with the upload. But, it should be up today.


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## Darryl Hughes (Nov 17, 2014)

I've been following this thread and am glad that all those free downloads finally translated into some post ad campaign sales. With all the hoopla about the number of free downloads you were getting of your book with the paid ads you were doing the point of the free promo and the ads is the tail and the sales the free promo/ads generate once the promo/ads are over. Otherwise it's a loss. Yours clearly wasn't. Two thumbs up.

Dee


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