# Book 4 Launch Promo: A 5-Day Mega-Push [NOW WITH TWO MONTH UPDATE]



## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

{Gone}


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

Nice. Good luck! Looking forward to see it how it goes!


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

Congrats on the new book. Good luck!


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## Lizzie G (Oct 12, 2012)

Good luck! Fingers crossed for you!!!


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## MalcolmRichards (May 20, 2015)

Sounds like a smart plan. Looking forward to see how it works out. Good luck!


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## Angela Holder (Mar 19, 2014)

Following.  Good luck!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Thanks, everyone! It's lovely to be sharing a launch promo once again!


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## Adair Hart (Jun 12, 2015)

Good luck, Pauline! 236 preorders, yowzas  You're already on a roll!


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## Susanne123 (Jan 9, 2014)

Watching and cheering!!!


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## dmburnett (Feb 4, 2011)

I will be watching! Best of luck!


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## Joe M (May 23, 2015)

Go get'em tiger.

Sent from my LG-F410S using Tapatalk


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

P2F.  Wow, so many pre-orders.  Could you imagine if all of those hit on day 1?  

Good luck Pauline!


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Best of luck, Pauline. Hope you crush it right out of the gate.


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## damienboyes (Sep 12, 2015)

Good luck. I'll be following along.


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## Kenosha Kid (Jun 23, 2011)

Thanks for sharing! I find these posts extremely helpful in curating my own list of promotional sites.

Best of luck!


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## N R Hairston (Oct 5, 2014)

Good luck! Seems like you have a solid game plan.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

B. Magnarella said:


> Thanks for sharing! I find these posts extremely helpful in curating my own list of promotional sites.
> 
> Best of luck!


Don't we all?


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## Jordan Rivet (Jan 13, 2015)

Good luck! Can't wait to see how this goes!


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## vlmain (Aug 10, 2011)

Wishing you much success, Pauline. Can't wait to see your results.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Thanks for the good wishes, everyone!



Nicknacks said:


> Cheering you on as always, Pauline! How long did you have this one on preorder?
> Oh, and you're hardly a 'slow' writer to most standards, considering how chunky your novels are!


This one went on pre-order the full 3 months ahead of release date, the first time I've set one up so far ahead. I didn't do any promotion, apart from my very small mailing list, and linking from the other books. But when I had promotions on the other books, it fed through to the pre-orders for this one.

I don't feel like a fast writer, though, compared to some of the folks here! I first started work on this book 14 months ago. That's a long time to write, edit, polish and prep for publication. I'm trying to be more efficient - using Libbie Hawkes and Chris Fox's books - but I don't see me getting the process down to less than a year or so.


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## My Dog&#039;s Servant (Jun 2, 2013)

Slow? With 500+ pages in 4 months?! 

You go, girl!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

My Dog's Servant said:


> Slow? With 500+ pages in 4 months?! You go, girl!


LOL. It's not really 500+. The paperback is 480, and it should be around 440, but I made a mistake when I was estimating the size for the cover designer. Oops.

*Release day numbers: new sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank this morning (8am UK time, about midnight PST) 11K*

That's better than I would have expected, considering the only 'promotion' was an email to my bijou mailing list of 41, most of whom will likely have pre-ordered. Rank is a little better than usual for the number of new US sales (10), so there must be a few borrows in there, but not many pages read yet.

Today and tomorrow are low-key: a blog post, a few tweets, a mention on my critique group, so not expecting much from any of that. The serious promotion starts on Monday, with OHFB.


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## WDProsapio (May 22, 2015)

Watching with interest. Did you have a plan within the launch for getting reviews quickly?


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## C. A. Mitchell (Aug 6, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> I'm a slow writer, putting out a book every 4 months or so.


Ahhh... I love indies! 

If I publish three books in one year I'll be cartwheeling through the streets.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

WDProsapio said:


> Watching with interest. Did you have a plan within the launch for getting reviews quickly?


Not really. The promo sites I use either don't require a certain number of reviews, or allow for new releases, so it isn't critical. I send out ARCs and hope, basically. 



C. A. Mitchell said:


> Ahhh... I love indies!  If I publish three books in one year I'll be cartwheeling through the streets.


I know, I know, it's all relative! But there is a certain momentum that builds when you publish more frequently. I found with books 2 and 3 that the tail from a good launch lasts for a couple of months, but after that it drops off alarmingly. The ideal, for me, would be a new book every 3 months, but I don't see that happening. A book takes as long as it takes, and it's better to take it slow and get it right than rush and make mistakes.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Yup, in my profession we say you can have something done well, on-time, and under-budget, but you can only choose 2 of the 3.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Another day without any paid promo, sales slipping back but pages read way up. Rank holding steady.

Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
* Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]*

This is a higher rank than anything I've managed with a previous launch before any paid promo. It sat at 7K for most of yesterday. I'm setting that down to borrows - fantasy readers must be big subscribers to KU.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> ... I'm setting that down to borrows - fantasy readers must be big subscribers to KU.


No kidding, I'm not seeing many borrows on my Sci-Fi compared to Fantasy genres, but three books hardly make a case for any reliable conclusion. I'd love to see that many pages read on a 99 cent release LOL. Best of both worlds! Great start with no paid promos, so Go Girl!


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## fantasy-writer (Dec 12, 2014)

Good luck, Pauline.


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Looking good already and the promos haven't even begun!


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## J.T. Williams (Aug 7, 2014)

Good luck!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Yesterday: still no paid promo; sales down, pages a little down, rank holding steady (hmm, how does that work?).

Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]
*Sun 27 Sep: No ads, social media only. [Sales: 4; pages: 6K; rank 9K ]*

I posted to the blog I contribute book reviews to, but that was all the promotion I did (I forgot to tweet; but there again, when I tweeted on Saturday, I forgot the link to the book; sigh - I'm terrible at this social marketing business).

Today (thank goodness) I hand over to the professionals. First up is OHFB, who've always done well for me in the past (48, 79, 39 sales), so I'm hoping for a nice big bump in sales and rank.

One other comment: although yesterday wasn't quite as good for the new book, I had 4 sales and 4.5K pages read spread over the other 3 books, which made it my best day for non-promo sales for quite a while, and my best EVER total pages read haul (10.5K). Not sure if this is sell-through or just happenstance, but it makes me very happy.


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Yesterday: still no paid promo; sales down, pages a little down, rank holding steady (hmm, how does that work?).
> 
> Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
> Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]
> ...


Forgeting a link doesn't make you bad at social media.. just make you human.. those blunders happen often.. 

Congrats on best day yet! Small things add up to bigger things so just keep working every day and you'll grow (think of it like compound interest effect).


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I'm liking that you're human too    For a very long time I thought you were a painting  

Anyhoo, congrats on the boost to your other books! I think that is awesome and not happenstance.  It seems that a new release brings more attention to an author's entire backlist and what you're posting doesn't surprise me.  Good luck with OHFB tonight (they always come out in the evening for me).


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> I'm liking that you're human too  For a very long time I thought you were a painting


LOL.


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> One other comment: although yesterday wasn't quite as good for the new book, I had 4 sales and 4.5K pages read spread over the other 3 books, which made it my best day for non-promo sales for quite a while, and my best EVER total pages read haul (10.5K).


This is great! I would love a 10.5k page read day. I know I need to get book 3 written, especially after seeing your results, but I feel my motivation flagging. How do you keep going?


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

artan said:


> This is great! I would love a 10.5k page read day. I know I need to get book 3 written, especially after seeing your results, but I feel my motivation flagging. How do you keep going?


My books are l-o-n-g, (800-1200 KENPC) so that's partly why my page count is high. And I've been told they're an easy read, despite the length, which helps.

What helped was that I took everything very slow before I published anything. I wrote the first book, set it aside, wrote the second. Then, while I was titivating the first one ready for publishing, I wrote the third. So by the time book 1 came out, I already had 2 other books written, awaiting polishing. And by then, I'd worked out ways to speed up the process, so books 4 and 5 were a bit quicker. And book 5 was shorter! That speeds things up, too. 

The other thing that helps (me, anyway) is that my books are generally stand-alones. It would drive me nuts to start all over again, with the SAME characters. I love starting afresh - new characters, new setting, new problems for them to solve. It's like a new year at school - that feeling of starting with a clean slate. That really works to enthuse me about each new book.

But in the end, it's just a matter of bum in seat, and keeping at it. I try to write every day, although I don't always manage it. When I do write, I try to get a good chunk written (1,500 words is good for me). And I edit as I go, so I don't have to do it later. And as soon as one book's done - on to the next! It's just a matter of finding what works, and keep pegging away.


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## RuthNestvold (Jan 4, 2012)

Congrats on all the preorders, and good luck when the ads come out!


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> The other thing that helps (me, anyway) is that my books are generally stand-alones. It would drive me nuts to start all over again, with the SAME characters. I love starting afresh - new characters, new setting, new problems for them to solve. It's like a new year at school - that feeling of starting with a clean slate. That really works to enthuse me about each new book.


I'm actually thinking about doing the same thing with a new dystopian series next year. I can see why writers stop writing a series after a while. I need to get into the head of another character for variation.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Yesterday was OHFB: 31 sales, pages read down to 3K, rank not shifting (yet).

Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]
Sun 27 Sep: No ads, social media only. [Sales: 4; pages: 6K; rank 9K ]
* Mon 28 Sep: Day 1: OHFB $75 [Sales 31; pages 3K; rank 11K]*

This was interesting, because my book went out in the morning email from OHFB, which resulted in a slow trickle. When I went to bed (which would have been early evening eastern time), there were still only 8 sales on the board. Woke up to 28, and it crept up even after that. OHFB people must be night owls. The extra sales haven't filtered through to the rank yet.

Pages read declined again, to 'only' 3K - still a good haul, and still giving me tidy numbers for the 4 books as a whole - 6.5K.

Today I'm hoping for a good second day bounce from OHFB, and I've also got some of my reliable mid-rank sites: GenrePulse, AwesomeGang, BettyBookFreak and Bknights. Another 25+ day would be awesome. Consistency is what I'm after - I've always been more interested in steady sales than big spikes.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

That is sometimes the danger of having run several promos, we can achieve a certain number and anything less than that moving forward can seem like we're moving backwards progress wise.  Personally, I'd kill for your page reads, hehe    Also, you've got some heavy hitters coming up and don't forget how many pre-orders may have ate into your sales.  I think there is a pro and a con to a long pre-order time.

I always receive OHFB around 7 pm EST and saw your title there.  Should have been around 1 am your time.  I'd expect you to get some action from OHFB this morning, just now 8 am here so should be interesting to refresh your graph the next few hours.

Good luck today!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Personally, I'd kill for your page reads, hehe


I've always done well with borrows, don't know why, and after the last release, they just went through the roof - from 3-5 per day to 40+ per day. It'll be interesting to see if the pages read does the same thing after the price goes up.

One of the interesting aspects of Angela Holder's launch was that the pages read were sky high - 50K+ on some days, even when the book was still $0.99. I've had a small surge of pages read from (presumably) people who were waiting for the book to be released, and you've had surprisingly low pages. Intriguing. I do wonder how much genre has to do with it.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Yes, will be interesting to see if the borrows/pages read move at all once the book goes up to $3.99 at the end of the week.  For now, I'm in the same boat you are and hoping for some sort of tail that lasts longer than a few days 

You got some nice sites still to go, so I'm watching with interest!  Good luck today!


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## Dhayaa Anbajagane (Feb 23, 2014)

I've actually had ZERO KENPC throughout the entire promo I'm having right now. Not sure if it's cause the only paid book I'm promoting is my second book which is a Novella (KENPC of 157) or if there's some other reason I'm not aware of. Hopefully it picks up soon :/


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## Elliott Garber (Apr 8, 2013)

Looks like your rank is catching up to all those sales yesterday: $6,150 now! 31 sales seems pretty good for just the one promotion, but I bet you'll get a lot more than that today.


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## Amy Corwin (Jan 3, 2011)

Hi!
Thanks for this thread, and be sure to keep us updated.
(I'm going through a similar process--I am a very slow writer, but this year, I had a couple of books for which I got the rights back, so I was able to put out more than usual.) 

I am curious to see what promos work and what don't. I've been created a promotion spreadsheet and trying to highlight the advertisers who seem to "get the job done" from the threads here. So I try to keep up on the promo threads.

Here's hoping you get a BUNCH of sales as this continues. And congrats on the pre-release sales. That's always been a tricky area for me, i.e. sometimes it works, sometimes it just serves to bring the beginning rank down (or is that up? since higher is worse) for release day.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Dhayaa Anbajagane said:


> I've actually had ZERO KENPC throughout the entire promo I'm having right now. Not sure if it's cause the only paid book I'm promoting is my second book which is a Novella (KENPC of 157) or if there's some other reason I'm not aware of. Hopefully it picks up soon :/


The whole borrows business is a mystery to me. Why do some books attract KU people and some don't? I have no clue.



Elliott Garber said:


> Looks like your rank is catching up to all those sales yesterday: $6,150 now! 31 sales seems pretty good for just the one promotion, but I bet you'll get a lot more than that today.


Yes, OHFB is a late-bloomer (almost as bad as ENT), and the rank uplift is several hours after that, so it takes a while to sort itself out. 31 is great and I'm very happy with that, but it's still the lowest result I've had from OHFB (I've had 48, 79 and 39 previously). Promos just seem to have been lower over the last few months. Today I've got a bunch of promo sites, but they're all mid-rank performers for me. Reliable, but not superstars. So I'll be happy with anything over 25.



Amy Corwin said:


> And congrats on the pre-release sales. That's always been a tricky area for me, i.e. sometimes it works, sometimes it just serves to bring the beginning rank down (or is that up? since higher is worse) for release day.


Yes, I didn't have any cunning plan with that, I just thought since I knew it would be ready in time, why not bang it up there? Then anyone who finishes one of the others and likes it has somewhere else to go. I was astonished at the number of pre-orders. As to whether it depresses release-day sales - I don't imagine for one moment that all those people would have rushed out and bought the thing otherwise. So it's a bonus (for me, anyway).

And yes, I'll be updating every day, and for the tail afterwards (if any!  Please let there be a tail...).


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Yesterday: sales down, pages read up, rank improving.

Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]
Sun 27 Sep: No ads, social media only. [Sales: 4; pages: 6K; rank 9K ]
Mon 28 Sep: Day 1: OHFB $75 [Sales 31; pages 3K; rank 11K]
*Tue 29 Sep: Day 2: GenrePulse $32; BettyBookFreak $8; Bknights $21; AwesomeGang $10 [Sales 20; pages 6K; rank 5K]*

20 sales yesterday was not quite as good as I'd hoped, but pages read jumped up again. I do wonder if some of the potential market for discounted books is now in KU and downloading rather than buying. The rank is consistent with a sizable number of downloads. I'm quite happy with that - I make $4.66 from a full read through on this book, and only 35c from the current price. 

The rank of 5K is good, but I'd like it to be a little higher. 4K would squeeze me onto the first page of bestsellers for my subcats. I'm currently #8 in HNR, but I'd need to rank at 2K or better to get into the all-important top three. Amazon asked me a few days ago if I wanted to send an email to my followers (ooh, let me think about that...YES!), but it hasn't happened yet. 

Today's promo sites are BargainBooksy, Booktastik and FlurriesOfWords. Again, I'd be happy to make 25 sales, but I'm not optimistic. BargainBooksy has brought in 39, 28 and 22 sales on the last three outings, which is a distinct downward trend, and the other two are reliable but not big hitters.


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## Northern pen (Mar 3, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Yesterday: sales down, pages read up, rank improving.
> 
> Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
> Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]
> ...


How did Genre pulse do for you according to their data?


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Robyn Wideman said:


> How did Genre pulse do for you according to their data?


The Bitly report shows 48 clicks. It will increase over the next few days, but it's still well down on previous outings with them, which is what I've been seeing all summer - reduced sales from all promos. Not sure whether that's me, or the genre, or a general trend. Promos are still effective, but it's more muted, and the tail seems to be more in borrows than sales (which is fine by me).


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

PaulineMRoss said:


> The Bitly report shows 48 clicks. It will increase over the next few days, but it's still well down on previous outings with them, which is what I've been seeing all summer - reduced sales from all promos. Not sure whether that's me, or the genre, or a general trend. Promos are still effective, but it's more muted, and the tail seems to be more in borrows than sales (which is fine by me).


How often did you run these campaigns? Could it be that most people on those sites have already seen the book so it needs some more time to get new subscribers in to work well?


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## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

C. A. Mitchell said:


> Ahhh... I love indies!
> 
> If I publish three books in one year I'll be cartwheeling through the streets.


Take your time... do your thing.
Just downloaded your book


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## DashaGLogan (Jan 30, 2014)

Good luck for the campaign!


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I think your rank will get 'stickier' in a week or so.  After my first couple of day promos I fell quickly into the 6k range and then it started to 'stick' higher despite fewer downloads.  I think those algos still give a book credit (partial) over each day over how many days?  Also, I am wondering if a very long time (or at least 30 days) on the pre-release list hurts one's rank in those algos.  Would be nice to know from one of the whales.

FWIW I have 169 bitly's hit on my GP, they do come in over a few days.  Good promo still, love watching you go girl!


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Not sure whether that's me, or the genre, or a general trend. Promos are still effective, but it's more muted, and the tail seems to be more in borrows than sales (which is fine by me).


I'm having the same problem. It does feel like the promos have a shorter tail since this spring. Not sure why. More books being published? Algo changes to like newer books?


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

RBC said:


> How often did you run these campaigns? Could it be that most people on those sites have already seen the book so it needs some more time to get new subscribers in to work well?


This promo is for a brand new book, so it's not that folks have already seen it. I did have a lot of pre-orders, though, so maybe that mopped up quite a lot of the potential buyer market? Who knows.


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## R. M. Webb (Jul 24, 2014)

Pauline-

I always appreciate your well thought out promotions. I know I've said it before, but I LOVE your covers. And for the record, getting a 500+ page book out to the market every couple months is NOT SLOW!


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## RBC (Feb 24, 2013)

PaulineMRoss said:


> This promo is for a brand new book, so it's not that folks have already seen it. I did have a lot of pre-orders, though, so maybe that mopped up quite a lot of the potential buyer market? Who knows.


Ah probably not then. Maybe just bad timing or something. There are lots of things that impact this.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Another OK day, very similar to the day before.

Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]
Sun 27 Sep: No ads, social media only. [Sales: 4; pages: 6K; rank 9K ]
Mon 28 Sep: Day 1: OHFB $75 [Sales 31; pages 3K; rank 11K]
Tue 29 Sep: Day 2: GenrePulse $32; BettyBookFreak $8; Bknights $21; AwesomeGang $10 [Sales 20; pages 6K; rank 5K]
*Wed 30 Sep: Day 3: BargainBooksy $40; Booktastik $10; FlurriesOfWords $5 [Sales 22; pages 4K; rank 5K]*

Some interesting comparisons (well, interesting to me, anyway, and any other number junkies):

For The Fire Mages launch in January, the $0.99 promotion period saw 289 sales and 58 borrows (sales 83% of transactions), and the post-promo $3.99 period saw 221 sales and 223 borrows (sales 50%).

For The Mages of Bennamore launch in May, the promo period saw 294 sales and 35 borrows (sales 90%), and the post-promo period saw 146 sales and 369 borrows (sales 28%).

For the new launch, promo period so far is 100 sales and 26K pages (equivalent to 28 full reads) over 6 days. However, the current rank of around 5,500 in the US store is equivalent to around 30 sales/borrows per day, but only 20 sales show up. Therefore I estimate around 10 borrows per day. So sales are only 66% of transactions. [I've excluded pre-order numbers]

Which is a very long-winded way of saying: sales may be lower than expected for the promos, but borrows are higher. And for me, that's very good news, since a full read through is worth way more to me than a $0.99 purchase. It will be interesting to see what happens when the book goes to full price.

Today I've got BookScream, ChoosyBookworm, Ebboksoda and SweetFreeBooks. Another 20+ sales would be good to keep the ranking up there. Then Friday is ENT, EreaderCafe and RobinReads, the final day of the promo - hoping to go out with a bang!


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Very interesting data and I liked reading your conclusions. I agree as well about the pages read, that is why I'm vexing at my lack of them LOL.  Have a good promo day today!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Yesterday: sales and rank slightly down, pages slightly up.

Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]
Sun 27 Sep: No ads, social media only. [Sales: 4; pages: 6K; rank 9K ]
Mon 28 Sep: Day 1: OHFB $75 [Sales 31; pages 3K; rank 11K]
Tue 29 Sep: Day 2: GenrePulse $32; BettyBookFreak $8; Bknights $21; AwesomeGang $10 [Sales 20; pages 6K; rank 5K]
Wed 30 Sep: Day 3: BargainBooksy $40; Booktastik $10; FlurriesOfWords $5 [Sales 22; pages 4K; rank 5K]
*Thu 1 Oct: Day 4: ChoosyBookworm $18; Ebooksoda $10; SweetFreeBooks $5; BookScream $3 [Sales 15; pages 5K; rank 6K]*

Yesterday was pretty much as I expected. I'm happy that things are relatively steady, which was what I was aiming for. Today is EreaderCafe, RobinReads and ENT. It would be nice to hit 50 for at least one day of the promo, but I'll be happy with anything over 25.


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## Adair Hart (Jun 12, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Yesterday: sales and rank slightly down, pages slightly up.
> 
> Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
> Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]
> ...


Appreciate your updates Pauline! I was on the fence about setting up a preorder for my second book out in December and adding it as a mention in my first book for my first promo. I have never done a preorder, but this promo has sealed that decision for me to go ahead and try it. Hope today is a big day for you! 

I didn't know your avatar was a painting until I saw it on a TV commercial. I did a double take and thought to myself, "Wow, Pauline is everywhere!"


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Great update, but I'm wondering if the season/time of year is important?  It seems this promo is a tad under the last two in terms of sales, though pages read seem to be very nice.  Hard to say if there is something to glean this time around.  Still, the main payoff is the tail, that is where we must root for you!  

Long live the tail!  I'm very hopeful for you with ENT, you should have your best day today, imho.  Good luck!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Adair Hart said:


> Appreciate your updates Pauline! I was on the fence about setting up a preorder for my second book out in December and adding it as a mention in my first book for my first promo. I have never done a preorder, but this promo has sealed that decision for me to go ahead and try it. Hope today is a big day for you!


I've done pre-orders for every book, just because I could, basically. But I tried not to advertise them until the last few days before release to start things off with a good ranking. Otherwise there's a risk of trying to swim upstream from a telephone number ranking. This book was the first really long pre-order, and I've been pleasantly surprised how effective it's been.

Thanks for the good wishes. I'm hoping to finish with a bang. 



> I didn't know your avatar was a painting until I saw it on a TV commercial. I did a double take and thought to myself, "Wow, Pauline is everywhere!"


You're not the first to do that, LOL. The girl with the pearl earring (by Vermeer) is my favourite painting in the whole world. I love all the Dutch school, but Vermeer in particular. I've seen the picture for real in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, and it's a million times better that way.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Great update, but I'm wondering if the season/time of year is important? It seems this promo is a tad under the last two in terms of sales, though pages read seem to be very nice. Hard to say if there is something to glean this time around. Still, the main payoff is the tail, that is where we must root for you!
> Long live the tail! I'm very hopeful for you with ENT, you should have your best day today, imho. Good luck!


I can't say about seasons. This time a year ago I was still a wet-behind-the-ears plankton, and hadn't yet discovered the joys of promotion. But I have noticed that with each promotion, more of the tail comes from borrows/pages read rather than sales. So we'll see.

ENT will be interesting, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high. My last promo with them only brought in 41 sales. Still, with EreaderCafe and RobinReads as well, it should do OK.


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## A Woman&#039;s Place Is In The Rebellion (Apr 28, 2011)

Adair Hart said:


> I didn't know your avatar was a painting until I saw it on a TV commercial. I did a double take and thought to myself, "Wow, Pauline is everywhere!"


This made me laugh! How kboards manages to permeate our brains.

Good luck with the final blast of promos. Can't remember if I've ever used eReaderCafe but RobinReads should do well for you.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Finally - a day that exceeded expectations! 78 sales (thank you, ENT, RobinReads, EreaderCafe).

Fri 25 Sep: Release day! No ads, mailing list only. [New sales: 15; pages 1,220; rank 11K]
Sat 26 Sep: No ads, social media/blog only. [Sales: 8; pages 7K; rank 9K]
Sun 27 Sep: No ads, social media only. [Sales: 4; pages: 6K; rank 9K ]
Mon 28 Sep: Day 1: OHFB $75 [Sales 31; pages 3K; rank 11K]
Tue 29 Sep: Day 2: GenrePulse $32; BettyBookFreak $8; Bknights $21; AwesomeGang $10 [Sales 20; pages 6K; rank 5K]
Wed 30 Sep: Day 3: BargainBooksy $40; Booktastik $10; FlurriesOfWords $5 [Sales 22; pages 4K; rank 5K]
Thu 1 Oct: Day 4: ChoosyBookworm $18; Ebooksoda $10; SweetFreeBooks $5; BookScream $3 [Sales 15; pages 5K; rank 6K]
*Fri 2 Oct: Day 5: EreaderCafe $35; RobinReads $15; ENT $20 [Sales 78; pages 4K; rank 2K]*

*Final numbers:*
Sales since release: 193
Pages read: 36K
Royalties: $207
New reviews: none (apart from ARCs)
New mailing list signups: 1
Sell-through to other books: nothing obvious

On the subject of declining promo performance, when I launched The Fire Mages in January, ENT alone brought in 80 sales. Yesterday it took three promos to bring in 78.

The rank is still drifting slowly downwards, but it's not enough to get me into the top 3 of any HNR sub-cats.  I'm #9, #11 and #15 in bestseller sub-cats, though, which is good. However, I expect the rank to crater fairly sharply now.

Today is a no-ads day, but the price is still $0.99, to mop up late bargain-hunters (I like to leave the discounted price for at least 24 hours after the last paid promo). Tomorrow, it will go to $4.99, like the others. Then we'll see what happens. Previous experience has been that sales drop off but borrows increase, but we'll see. I will post details of the tail (if any!) on a weekly basis.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Hehe, is a 'I told you so' in order?  You did very nicely your last day and congrats on finishing it with a bang!  

Still rooting for a tail!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Hehe, is a 'I told you so' in order?


Yes, it is! 



> You did very nicely your last day and congrats on finishing it with a bang!  Still rooting for a tail!


Thanks. Yes, a tail would be good. We'll see.


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## G. G. Rebimik (Sep 4, 2015)

Thank you for this open and truthful reporting.  That is a lot of effort you have put in.  It has to follow up with loyal readers which will pay off for the future, no?  Without this kind of effort, it seems one can expect little as the shear number of authors is staggering...

g.g.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Hey Pauline, you're at 2007 and I'm at 1990, only 17 spots from each other out of 4 million +?!?


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

G. G. Rebimik said:


> Thank you for this open and truthful reporting. That is a lot of effort you have put in. It has to follow up with loyal readers which will pay off for the future, no? Without this kind of effort, it seems one can expect little as the shear number of authors is staggering...g.g.


I don't do it to gain readers (although Kboarders are very generous about supporting each other). I offer my numbers as a way to help fellow prawny authors. It's my way of saying thanks for all the help I've had from folk here.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Hey Pauline, you're at 2007 and I'm at 1990, only 17 spots from each other out of 4 million +?!?


Cool, eh? But we've both moved up a bit now, and you've moved up a bit more than I have - 1,781 against 1,897. That's... um {counts on fingers} 116 difference?


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Cool, eh? But we've both moved up a bit now, and you've moved up a bit more than I have - 1,781 against 1,897. That's... um {counts on fingers} 116 difference?


Must be those extra 4 sales, 82 to 78


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Must be those extra 4 sales, 82 to 78


LOL, yeah, that must be it. I love ENT, though, because there are always sales the next day, too. I've already got 14 on the board, plus 5.5K pages read, and a lot of America is still digesting breakfast.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

I promised an update on the tail (if any!), so here goes. WARNING: lots of numbers, so my apologies if your eyes start to glaze over.

So the launch promo went well: I had 236 pre-orders, and another 201 sales of The Magic Mines of Asharim, a total of 437, plus 41K pages read. The highest rank achieved was 1,883 following the final day of the promo with EreaderCafe, RobinReads and ENT. So, a success, right?

And yet…

Sales have dropped almost to nothing (2-3 per day). Pages read remain steady at around 4K per day. Sell-through to the other three books is virtually non-existent. So as tails go, this is a pretty thin one.

If I compare it with the two previous books, the promo sales were not dissimilar (274 and 252, against 201), the pre-orders were worse (19 and 34, against 236), and the highest ranking was comparable (1957 and 1576, against 1883).

BUT a week after those high-point rankings, the previous two were doing far, far better in the rankings (6347 and 4848, against 21031). And sales were better too: The Fire Mages, released in January, had 105 sales and 51 borrows in that first post-promo week, and The Mages of Bennamore, released in May, had 51 sales and 76 borrows, against Magic Mines’ 18 sales and 29K pages read (equivalent to 32 full read-throughs). Both the previous two dropped in ranking and sales immediately after the promo ended, but after a few days they picked up and sales and ranking increased. This book has just slid and slid.

So what went wrong? Well, nothing, really; 450+ sales and 70K+ pages read since release is a success by any measure. But of course it would have been nice to equal (or ideally, beat) the numbers from the previous two books, and naturally I’m curious about why that hasn’t happened. Having been a programmer all my working life, when something breaks, the first question is always: what changed? I’m going to ignore imponderables like seasonal variations, and possible algorithm changes, and look only at changes that are down to me. I’ve identified four possibilities:

1) Pre-orders: this book was on pre-order for three months and did surprisingly well (for me). So maybe that mopped up some post-release sales.

2) Length of promo: this time round, I only scheduled promo for 5 days, instead of 7 for the previous book, and 12 for the one before that. Even though the results were similar in overall sales numbers, maybe it wasn’t enough to tickle the Amazon algorithms.

3) No other promo running: on the previous book release, I had two other promos which overlapped with the launch promo. The combined effect gave me two spectacular months for sales, borrows and revenue. 

4) Price: previously the post-promo price was $3.99, but this time around I’ve raised all my prices to $4.99. Maybe the jump from the $0.99 pre-order price to $4.99 for the other books has dampened sell-through.

Well, there’s nothing at all I can do about points 1-3. That’s all water under the bridge. But the prices are mine to change, so that’s what I’m trying - I’ve reduced three of the four to $2.99 (a price I’ve never tried before). The Fire Mages is still $4.99 because I have some promo booked where I’ve given the regular price as $4.99, and I don’t want to mislead anyone. The price will come down after the promo.

Oddly, the first day of the new prices saw sales double the usual number, but that could be coincidence. I’ll report back when I have more data on that.

But if anyone wants to chip in with other theories, I'm happy to hear them.


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## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

Thanks for all the numbers. Super helpful. 

TLDR of below: high on contradicting myself and theorizing, low on tangible evidence.

Original (likely off base) thought: My totally unscientific and anecdotally based opinion (from reading many of these threads and experimenting on my own) would be #2 - the length of the promotional period. It seems the longer you have a sustained "spike" above baseline, the more Amazon's algorithms take that as a sign of organic readership (e.g. word of mouth). 

Then again, if that were completely true, I guess people who use PPC ads to bump their books up high in the ranks for weeks or months wouldn't see said ranks plummet as the ads lose their effectiveness (or they stop the campaign entirely). 

New thought: probably a combination of all four, in varying degrees. Preorders don't trigger a huge spike in rank on the day of release, which limits browser sales from visibility spikes on certain lists. Do you know if you got on the HNR list? I haven't ever done this with my launches, so I don't know if it's as big a factor as some of the threads suggest. Length of promo definitely a factor, as you gain more traction in the beginning with more sustained sales over a longer period. Also, non-algorithm related, maybe with a longer promo period you get more of a chance for word of mouth to kick in - if you write epic fantasy, then people need time to read the book. This could also affect the timing of the sellthrough.

No other promos might impact the tail, as people might see an ad for one book and then find the others discounted as well, and pick them up all at once (or put it on their wishlist). Multiple points of entry gives you more exposure. Although your initial promo-week numbers seem pretty similar, so I feel like this would impact the promo week more than the tail, although I could be wrong. 

And $4.99 usually sells less copies than $3.99, though not always. I think this might be a big culprit, as you said sales doubled when you switched to $2.99.

In isolation, I don't think any of those would result in a ~60% week 1 drop in sales, but altogether, maybe. 

Or maybe it's just luck. I've seen plenty of people do promos with far less organization/attention to detail, and they seem to soar and stick. Which isn't a criticism of your approach - it's a compliment. I think everything here was done pretty much right. Sometimes 'zon doesn't comply.

In any event, I think your promo was pretty successful (and the preorder numbers are really great). Congrats and thanks again for sharing the numbers.

Nick


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Nicholas Erik said:


> Thanks for all the numbers. Super helpful.


I'm glad if it's useful. I'm a numbers junkie myself, so I tend to spew out too much data, sometimes!



> Original (likely off base) thought: My totally unscientific and anecdotally based opinion (from reading many of these threads and experimenting on my own) would be #2 - the length of the promotional period. It seems the longer you have a sustained "spike" above baseline, the more Amazon's algorithms take that as a sign of organic readership (e.g. word of mouth).


Yes, the time period was experimental, trying to stack promo sites over a short period to get a more intense, but shorter, effect.



> New thought: probably a combination of all four, in varying degrees.


I think this is very likely the answer. Thanks for laying out your thoughts in so much detail. It's very helpful to see someone else work through the problem. And thank you for the kind words. I agree that this launch was successful - it just wasn't AS successful as I've come to expect. And expectations are the very devil.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> 1) Pre-orders: this book was on pre-order for three months and did surprisingly well (for me). So maybe that mopped up some post-release sales.
> 
> 2) Length of promo: this time round, I only scheduled promo for 5 days, instead of 7 for the previous book, and 12 for the one before that. Even though the results were similar in overall sales numbers, maybe it wasn't enough to tickle the Amazon algorithms.
> 
> ...


I'll jump in here and preface my remarks by saying that I'm speculating so take it with a grain of salt...

I'd say in order of importance, #2, #1, #3 and then #4.

Why? No one really knows how to get the Zon's algos to kick in, some is mathematics, but I'd say a healthy dose of luck and timing play a role as well. To maximize those chances I'd say any promo needs to sell a lot of books and for a long(er) period of time. I think 7 days is the minimum and their algos may even work on a 14 day schedule. Who knows for sure? What I do think is that a book needs to get as high as it can get, for as long as it can get, to have the best chance for algo help. So I think that had more to do than anything else, though some of the other issues are close as well. Summary for #2 is do a longer promo.

Those pre-orders if spread out over the first week, or added to a week after the initial five days, could have made a difference imho. I think your pre-order number for us prawns is a huge success. You have a dedicated fan base, but still prawny sized. I noticed Wayne's thread on his launch had no pre-orders and I think he does that on purpose to ensure maximum launch/ranking on day 1. Summary for #1, hold off on pre-orders or minimize their length till you can get the HNR lists to make them worth while.

Promo more than one book. Get eyes on as many of your books as possible. Someone who doesn't find the 'Mines' book, may find one of your others and if those lead to cross overs then it can go across your entire list. Summary for #3, promo a second either free or 99 cent.

Finally, I don't think the $4.99 vs the $3.99 is a huge difference, but when you're trying to get noticed those few fence sitters may be better served by giving them a price point that they can live with. I'm really liking the $3.99 price point as $2.99 seems at the bargain basement of the 70% royalty curve and $4.99 seems pretty close to that indie maximum for new authors. Again I could be wrong, but it seems like $3.99 is a sweet spot imho and you should be able to boost some sales at $2.99, but I don't think this one is as important as the others.

All just speculation from your one man peanut gallery


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> I'll jump in here and preface my remarks by saying that I'm speculating so take it with a grain of salt...


That's all any of us can do... 



> Those pre-orders if spread out over the first week, or added to a week after the initial five days, could have made a difference imho. I think your pre-order number for us prawns is a huge success. You have a dedicated fan base, but still prawny sized. I noticed Wayne's thread on his launch had no pre-orders and I think he does that on purpose to ensure maximum launch/ranking on day 1. Summary for #1, hold off on pre-orders or minimize their length till you can get the HNR lists to make them worth while.


The pre-orders were a big surprise to me. The thing is, they couldn't all have come just from existing fans (ha!) or people who read one of the other books and clicked the link at the end. There were just too many for that. But that book was on the HNR list for its subcategories the whole time, mostly on the first page. I'd estimate that I got perhaps 150 new readers from that, people who wouldn't otherwise have seen the book until it was released.

Wayne doesn't do pre-orders because he has a huge mailing list, which gets him way up the rankings as soon as a book's released. Pre-orders would dilute that effect. But my mailing list is still inching towards its first 50 names, so there's really not much point holding out for a big release-day burst. I'm better off with pre-orders which might produce some sell-through.

The rest of your comments I don't have any argument with. All good, sound advice.



> All just speculation from your one man peanut gallery


Thank you!


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

Thanks for sharing the numbers, Pauline.

I really do think there might be something in the algo with Amazon that is killing the tail of promos. Last year, the minor promos I did had a long tail (for a least 2-3 months). But this year, it seems all the promos have a tail of about 1.5 months if I'm lucky. I'm starting to understand the churn that other writers are talking about at Amazon.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

artan said:


> Thanks for sharing the numbers, Pauline.
> 
> I really do think there might be something in the algo with Amazon that is killing the tail of promos. Last year, the minor promos I did had a long tail (for a least 2-3 months). But this year, it seems all the promos have a tail of about 1.5 months if I'm lucky. I'm starting to understand the churn that other writers are talking about at Amazon.


I don't know enough about the algos to say. I know Amazon have taken steps to mitigate the effect of big sales spikes, and especially Bookbub, and that's bound to affect the tail. But whether there have been any changes this year, I couldn't say.

The other factor is the sheer number of authors and books coming onto the market. Established authors are continuing to write more books, new authors join the party and if even a tiny percentage of the newbies are savvy enough to hit the genre sweet spot, or learn how to promote effectively, that's going to mean more and more books getting their moment in the sun, which inevitably becomes shorter and shorter. We have to run faster just to stay in the same place.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

A small update: yesterday Amazon sent out an email to my 'followers' (those who've clicked the follow button on my author page) telling them that Magic Mines was out. Now, I'd have thought that a) I'd only have 3 followers anyway, and b) if they were going to buy the book, they'd have already done it. But not so. Sales started ticking upwards almost at once. Not big numbers, but I'm currently at 24 sales for Magic Mines for the day, and a ranking of 6K again. I've had far worse days with paid promotion, so I'm very happy about that. A most unexpected bonus.


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## markhealy (Jun 5, 2014)

By my standards you've done really well.  Great numbers on the pre-orders!  I did a 2 month pre-order on my latest book (book 2 of my second series) and only got 15 pre-orders.  Totally demoralising.  Seems practically none of the fans from my first series have checked out the new one.

Hope you get a bit more of a tail anyway!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

markhealy said:


> By my standards you've done really well. Great numbers on the pre-orders! I did a 2 month pre-order on my latest book (book 2 of my second series) and only got 15 pre-orders. Totally demoralising. Seems practically none of the fans from my first series have checked out the new one.
> 
> Hope you get a bit more of a tail anyway!


Thanks! I still seem to be getting a bounce from the Amazon email, so a mini tail, at least.

I have no logical explanation for the pre-orders - I wish I had, so I could repeat it.  15 is more my usual number.


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## Chinese Writer (Mar 25, 2014)

markhealy said:


> By my standards you've done really well. Great numbers on the pre-orders! I did a 2 month pre-order on my latest book (book 2 of my second series) and only got 15 pre-orders. Totally demoralising. Seems practically none of the fans from my first series have checked out the new one.
> 
> Hope you get a bit more of a tail anyway!


What price did you set the pre-order? When I did mine for the second book in the series, it was mostly crickets until I drop the price to $0.99. I have a pre-order up now, but I might drop the price at some point too just because it wouldn't be fair to pre-order fans to pay full price when I'll run a $0.99 promo after the release.


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## JalexM (May 14, 2015)

artan said:


> What price did you set the pre-order? When I did mine for the second book in the series, it was mostly crickets until I drop the price to $0.99. I have a pre-order up now, but I might drop the price at some point too just because it wouldn't be fair to pre-order fans to pay full price when I'll run a $0.99 promo after the release.


I just put a pre-order at the price of .99 cents at the recommendation of this and almost immediately got one preorder. I hadn't even told anyone yet.


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## Adair Hart (Jun 12, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> I don't know enough about the algos to say. I know Amazon have taken steps to mitigate the effect of big sales spikes, and especially Bookbub, and that's bound to affect the tail. But whether there have been any changes this year, I couldn't say.
> 
> The other factor is the sheer number of authors and books coming onto the market. Established authors are continuing to write more books, new authors join the party and if even a tiny percentage of the newbies are savvy enough to hit the genre sweet spot, or learn how to promote effectively, that's going to mean more and more books getting their moment in the sun, which inevitably becomes shorter and shorter. We have to run faster just to stay in the same place.


I got my running shoes on  I really wish I had taken my writing more seriously back in 2013, sigh. Nonetheless, congratulations on your sales uptick on your Amazon mailing!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

artan said:


> What price did you set the pre-order? When I did mine for the second book in the series, it was mostly crickets until I drop the price to $0.99. I have a pre-order up now, but I might drop the price at some point too just because it wouldn't be fair to pre-order fans to pay full price when I'll run a $0.99 promo after the release.


My pre-orders have always been $0.99, because I tend to do promo straight after launch. As you say, it would be unfair to pre-order people to charge them full price and then drop the price straight after release.

The next book is a sequel, though, so I'll be promoting the first book in the sequence when it's launched. I've been mulling over the idea of putting the pre-order at $2.99, just to see what happens. On the other hand, I'm fairly sure that the success of this last pre-order was down to the low price. Tricky one. The old dilemma of lower sales/higher royalties, or forgo royalties to increase sales. And I'm still prawny enough to prefer the sales, and build a readership.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Update: the email Amazon sent out to my followers telling them about the release of Magic Mines was surprisingly effective. Sales jumped up to 73 for the week, rank bounced up to 6K and stayed around 8K for days. Things have settled down again now, but it was a very nice boost to a launch promo that had flopped relative to the previous two. 

With the end of the first 30 days in sight for Magic Mines, I've planned a little promo for a couple of the other books, to help it over the cliff. I'm doing a manual discount for The Fire Mages to ensure it's worldwide (and not using a countdown gives me free days later, if I want them). I've also put the sequel, The Fire Mages' Daughter, up for pre-order at $0.99 to take advantage of the promo. And to round things off, Kallanash will be free for the final day. Having two books on promo simultaneously was an effective strategy back in May, so I'm hoping it will work again.

This is a somewhat uneven arrangement of promos, owing to the fact that I applied to The Midlist and they took ages to tell me no (again; you'd think I'd know better by now). By that time, I had to scramble to book the better sites, so I gave them the full range of dates to choose from (usually I book far enough in advance that I can ask for specific dates). So some days are a bit overloaded and others are a bit minimalist. Never mind. 

The Fire Mages: $0.99 for 5 days, Kallanash FREE for 1 day only
Mon 19th: ManyBooks $25, ReadCheaply Free, Riffle $50
Tue 20th:  Bknights $15.75
Wed 21st: Fussy Librarian $10, PeopleReads $9
Thu 22nd: BookBarbarian $8, FKBT $25, ENT $20
Fri 23: BargainBooksy $40, DiscountBookman $15
ALSO for Kallanash: FreeBooksy $100
Sat 24th:  Prices for both back to $2.99

I'll post daily with results, and also keep the first post up to date, for reference.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Hi Pauline,

So, looks like a nice bonus run to see your Mines book out of its 30 day release window.  I'm most interested in seeing how the cross promotion works, as in will a 99 cent discount, along with a one day free giveaway, affect the other two titles so that they get some read through?  Also, now is one of the coolest parts of having your books semi-independent of one another as sell through can be in any direction.  I think that is a powerful reason to write this way and perhaps have one more set as a series.

My only issue is dropping a C Note on the free giveaway for Freebooksy.  I'm still trying to figure out why it's $40/$100 for paid/free with them and $500/$250 for paid/free with Bookbub.  They are completely opposite of one another and make no sense to my little brain 

Good luck, I'll be watching closely and thanks for the LIKE


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> So, looks like a nice bonus run to see your Mines book out of its 30 day release window. I'm most interested in seeing how the cross promotion works, as in will a 99 cent discount, along with a one day free giveaway, affect the other two titles so that they get some read through? Also, now is one of the coolest parts of having your books semi-independent of one another as sell through can be in any direction. I think that is a powerful reason to write this way and perhaps have one more set as a series.


Yes, it wasn't a planned thing, having them independent, I just wrote what I wanted to write. It does seem to work very well, having sell-through in any direction. I'm beginning to get some sell-through now from people who (presumably) picked up Magic Mines on a whim because it was only 99c, and are now moving on to the others.

On the cross-promotion front, when I ran the Bennamore launch promo back in May, I overlapped it with a countdown on Kallanash and a single free day for The Fire Mages, and had the most spectacular month I'd ever had, with a tail that lasted for weeks. So I'm kind of hoping for something similar. 



> My only issue is dropping a C Note on the free giveaway for Freebooksy. I'm still trying to figure out why it's $40/$100 for paid/free with them and $500/$250 for paid/free with Bookbub. They are completely opposite of one another and make no sense to my little brain


I don't understand the prices, either. But for $100, I'd expect 1,000 downloads from FreeBooksy, and I've achieved that on both previous outings with them (although in combination). This is the first time I've used them on their own.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Day 1 of the new promo: not a bad start.

*Mon 19th: ManyBooks $25, ReadCheaply Free, Riffle $50 [Sales: 25; pages: 1K; rank: 9K]*
Tue 20th:	Bknights $15.75 
Wed 21st: Fussy Librarian $10, PeopleReads $9
Thu 22nd: BookBarbarian $8, FKBT $25, ENT $20
Fri 23: BargainBooksy $40, DiscountBookman $15
ALSO for Kallanash: FreeBooksy $100
Sat 24th:	Prices for both back to $2.99

At first sight, 25 sales doesn't seem like much of a return on $75 of promo, but that's about what I've come to expect, and I'm very happy with a sub-10K ranking. If I can maintain that all week, I'll be thrilled. Yesterday I also had sales on all the other books, 2 new pre-orders and a total of 7K pages read, so that's a pretty good day, for me. Plus I already have 3.5K pages on the scoreboard this morning.

Today was almost an empty day, hastily filled in with the ever reliable Bknights. They're not a spectacular performer, though, so I'll be happy with 10+ sales.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Well, not Bknights' best-ever result for me: only 8 sales. They've produced as many as 26 for me in the past. No new pre-orders. Ranking has slipped a bit, but still good (for me).

Mon 19th: ManyBooks $25, ReadCheaply Free, Riffle $50 [Sales: 25; pages: 1K; rank: 9K]
*Tue 20th:	Bknights $15.75 [Sales: 8; pages: 242; rank: 15K]*
Wed 21st: Fussy Librarian $10, PeopleReads $9
Thu 22nd: BookBarbarian $8, FKBT $25, ENT $20
Fri 23: BargainBooksy $40, DiscountBookman $15
ALSO for Kallanash: FreeBooksy $100
Sat 24th:	Prices for both back to $2.99

In other news, yesterday was a good day for pages read: 11K in total, with 9K of that being the newest book, Magic Mines. It's consistently had 4K+ per day since release, and since the KENPC is 900+, that's equivalent to 4-5 complete read-throughs every day.

Today I have Fussy Librarian and PeopleReads, and I don't expect miracles from either of them. They've both been in the 5-10 range in the past, so I'd hope for 10-15 today. Thursday and Friday should be better.


----------



## ufwriter (Jan 12, 2015)

Looks like you've had a really great promo run, Pauline. Looking forward to seeing how this second burst of promo does for you.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Day 3 of the secondary promo: another slightly disappointing day, just 8 sales from Fussy Librarian and PeopleReads. Well, they were cheap, so no complaints, but considering this book was averaging 3 sales a day in the week before the promo, the extra 5 is nothing to write home about, and pages read have dropped from an average of 1,000 per day to a quarter that.

Mon 19th: ManyBooks $25, ReadCheaply Free, Riffle $50 [Sales: 25; pages: 1K; rank: 9K]
Tue 20th:	Bknights $15.75 [Sales: 8; pages: 242; rank: 15K]
*Wed 21st: Fussy Librarian $10, PeopleReads $9 [Sales: 8; pages: 257; rank: 15K]*
Thu 22nd: BookBarbarian $8, FKBT $25, ENT $20
Fri 23: BargainBooksy $40, DiscountBookman $15
ALSO for Kallanash: FreeBooksy $100
Sat 24th:	Prices for both back to $2.99

Today should be much better: BookBarbarian, FKBT and ENT, all of which have done well for me in the past, so I have high hopes. If they all reach their best-ever levels, I'd see over 100 sales, but I don't seriously expect that. 30 would be nice. 50+ would be awesome.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I would expect you to do better today with ENT and Bookbarbarian.  I am wondering if this book has been free quite a bit in the past if there is less of an audience for it through the same promo sites for free?  Very hard to tell, but am interested in how you did today.

Best of luck!


----------



## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Day 4: much, much better! ENT, BookBarbarian and FKBT brought in 51 sales and a nice bump in rank. And before anyone assumes that was all down to ENT - not so, there were a good few sales on the board before the ENT email went out.

Mon 19th: ManyBooks $25, ReadCheaply Free, Riffle $50 [Sales: 25; pages: 1K; rank: 9K]
Tue 20th: Bknights $15.75 [Sales: 8; pages: 242; rank: 15K]
Wed 21st: Fussy Librarian $10, PeopleReads $9 [Sales: 8; pages: 257; rank: 15K]
*Thu 22nd: BookBarbarian $8, FKBT $25, ENT $20 [Sales: 51; pages: 2K; rank: 5K]*
Fri 23: BargainBooksy $40, DiscountBookman $15
ALSO for Kallanash: FreeBooksy $100
Sat 24th: Prices for both back to $2.99

In other news: I had 6 pre-orders yesterday, plus some interesting sell-through. I've long suspected that the high numbers of pre-orders for Magic Mines was down to the very long pre-order time which kept it on the HNR for months, since there were far too many to be just click-throughs from the backmatter. That brought in sales to people who hadn't read the previous books. Three times now I've seen a bulk sale of all 3 of the other books (one of the few advantages of low sales is seeing this kind of thing!). So it looks as if a few folks who pre-ordered Magic Mines and liked it are now buying all the others.  Which is very cool, and makes me very happy.

Today is the last day of this promo, and I have BargainBooksy and DiscountBookman for The Fire Mages. BargainBooksy has always done well for me in the past (20-40 sales), so I'd hope for 20+. I'd be thrilled to break 30. Kallanash is also free today, and I have FreeBooksy for that. I would love to hit 1,000 downloads, but that may be optimistic. We'll see. Then it's just a matter of hoping for a tail.



Salvador Mercer said:


> I am wondering if this book has been free quite a bit in the past if there is less of an audience for it through the same promo sites for free?


I really don't think saturation is as much of a problem as people think. Michael Gallagher of FKBT has some interesting numbers on his website: he has 750K names on his mailing list, and only 100K of them engage on any one day (open the email, use the app, etc). That's one in eight. So if you advertise there, and then advertise again with the same book, you'll get another more or less random selection of 100K people who happened to respond that day. There will be some overlap, of course, and I'm not enough of a statistician to know how many that would be, but you'll still get a big number of new faces.

I'm still quite careful not to overuse sites for the same book, though, especially the reliable big-hitters like ENT, OHFB, BargainBooksy and so on. This was only my 4th ENT this year, for instance, and I last used it for The Fire Mages back in January. Ditto today's BargainBooksy. Even Bknights, which I run twice as often as anything else, last had The Fire Mages in March. So I don't think that's excessive.

If you want to know why I think results from promo sites have dropped off (and this is the wildest of wild speculation), I'd say there are 3 reasons:

1) More promo sites springing up. That's bound to dilute the pot just a little.

2) Readers now have 'full Kindles', so to speak. Those long tbr piles mean people don't have to go bargain hunting quite as often. There are still more people switching to ebooks all the time, but the market is more mature than it was.

3) KU. If you're paying a monthly subscription for your reading, it increases your resistance to paying for a book (I know it does for me). Even 99c is a lot when so many books are effectively free. And again, KU readers just won't be looking for bargains quite as often.

Those are my working theories, anyway. Other ideas welcome.


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## HN Wake (Feb 24, 2015)

Thanks Pauline for this thread!  It is super super helpful.  And congrats on your numbers--they are great!


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

I saw your book in Freebooksy, how did it do today?


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> I saw your book in Freebooksy, how did it do today?


Middling. It's at 600+ downloads just now, with an hour or two of free time left. I'll have final numbers later. I realised though that this is one site I reused quite quickly - it had Kallanash in August as well, when it brought in 1500 downloads in conjunction with BooksButterfly, Bknights and BookScream. So maybe this is par for the course for this book. I've booked FreeBooksy again for next month when I have Bennamore free for the first time. That should do better, I think.


----------



## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Day 5: good sales of 44 from BargainBooksy and DiscountBookman, disappointing 640 downloads from FreeBooksy. Here are the full numbers:

Mon 19th: ManyBooks $25, ReadCheaply Free, Riffle $50 [Sales: 25; pages: 1K; rank: 9K]
Tue 20th: Bknights $15.75 [Sales: 8; pages: 242; rank: 15K]
Wed 21st: Fussy Librarian $10, PeopleReads $9 [Sales: 8; pages: 257; rank: 15K]
Thu 22nd: BookBarbarian $8, FKBT $25, ENT $20 [Sales: 51; pages: 2K; rank: 5K]
*Fri 23: BargainBooksy $40, DiscountBookman $15 [Sales: 44; pages: 4K; rank: 3K]
ALSO for Kallanash: FreeBooksy $100 [Downloads: 640; best rank: #298 free, #1 in Sword&Sorcery]*

*Totals: 136 sales of discounted book, no new reviews or mailing list signups, some sell-through to other books, 27 pre-orders.*

Overall, I'm happy with the promotion for The Fire Mages. I didn't make back the $217 I spent, but I didn't expect to. Since the book was a manual discount not a countdown, to ensure it was world-wide and leave me free days if I want them, I'd have needed to sell 622 to cover the cost, and that just wasn't going to happen. The book is now priced at $2.99, so I have to hope for a solid tail to cover the cost.

An interesting footnote: as the price reduction to $0.99 was manual, I did it a few days before the promo started. Sales immediately ticked upwards. I can only assume that a few people had the book logged on price-watch sites.

On the free day for Kallanash, I'm not quite so happy. FreeBooksy is expensive ($100) and 640 downloads isn't that great, considering that in July I rustled up 467 downloads with nothing but social announcements (mainly Twitter). However, this is the 10th free day for this book, and I used FreeBooksy for it as recently as August, so that's my fault, not theirs. Plus, it left the paid ranks at 53K and came back in at 34K, so I'm very pleased with that.

For numbers fetishists, here's the complete free day history for The Plains of Kallanash:

25 Oct 2014: 532 (Bknights)
26 Oct 2014: 252 No promo
3 Dec 2014: 1041 (Bnights, BooksButterfly)
4 Dec 2014: 731 (GenrePulse, PixelScroll)
5 Dec 2014: 2650 (ENT, FreeBooksy - unsolicited)
19 Jul 2015: 467 No paid promo, social only
9 Aug 2015: 81 No promo of any kind
22 Aug 2015: 1571 (FreeBooksy, BooksButterfly, Bknights, BookScream)
23 Aug 2015: 1638 (BooksButterfly, RobinReads)
23 Oct 2015: 640 (FreeBooksy)

That's a total of 9,604 free downloads.

I'll keep this thread updated with any interesting developments. Like a tail, for instance (we can always hope).


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> For numbers fetishists,


Pretty sure I'll need to ask my therapist about this one... 

Do update, I think I'm one of those number people, and I'm still searching for the holy grail of discoverability, every bit of data helps. Enjoy that weekend across the pond!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> I'm still searching for the holy grail of discoverability,


If you find it, let me know.


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## Cactus Lady (Jun 4, 2014)

Hi Pauline! I'm one of those who picked up Magic Mines the first weekend 

From reading this and from my own experience, it seems like advertised promos just don't do as much as they used to. ENT works well for me (I've used it for two different books) and BKnights used to do okay, but that's fallen off and the AwesomeGang promo I ran for book 1 with the new release last week didn't do anything. Promoting standalones (even if set in the same world) and books in a sequential series are two very different critters, and I'm wondering if I've played out the 99 cents promos for Beneath the Canyons as much as I can. When I release book 6 of Daughter of the Wildings I'm thinking at that time I'll also release a box set of books 1-3 and promote that. With your 5th book slated for release, have you thought about doing a box set of the earlier ones?

Once DoW is complete I'm going to move to what you've been doing, stand-alones in the same world, for a while, and I see that with Fire Mages' Daughter you're moving into sequential books, so it'll be interesting to note the differences in what approaches to promos work best.


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## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

Kyra Halland said:


> Hi Pauline! I'm one of those who picked up Magic Mines the first weekend
> 
> From reading this and from my own experience, it seems like advertised promos just don't do as much as they used to. ENT works well for me (I've used it for two different books) and BKnights used to do okay, but that's fallen off and the AwesomeGang promo I ran for book 1 with the new release last week didn't do anything.


I think the real issue is that most of the promo sites are overpriced for what they actually deliver, making the ROI a losing proposition. Of course, if you have other goals (sell-through, launching a new release, getting reviews/sign-ups) that can change the balance. But generally I've only DIRECTLY made back my money from BookBub and ENT.

As for the declining returns from repeat ad runs that you and Pauline have mentioned, they are quite real, unfortunately. One thing that can help is submitting your book at a different price point. E.g. if you've advertised it like five times for free, do it at $0.99. I wouldn't go the other way, and start giving away a book people will pay for, unless you get a BookBub.

The box set is an excellent idea and can breathe fresh life into the first three books. Do a $0.99 or $2.99 promo supported launch or something in conjunction with book 6 and you could get some really good traction on the charts.

Thanks for all the numbers, Pauline. Much appreciated.

Nick


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Kyra Halland said:


> With your 5th book slated for release, have you thought about doing a box set of the earlier ones?


Can you believe it, but that hadn't even crossed my mind. And yet it's such an obvious step. I feel stupid, now. Yes, that's a good idea.

For the fifth book, I'm repeating the long pre-order time, but when it's released, I'll be doing a long promotion on the book that precedes it. But to be honest, the fourth book launch hasn't gone quite as well as I'd hoped, so I'm not optimistic. The trouble with having had good promotions in the past is that it raises expectations.



> I'm one of those who picked up Magic Mines the first weekend


Thank you! I hope you enjoy the read.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Kyra Halland said:


> with the new release last week


OMG!!! City of Mages is out!! Why did I not know this? How could I have missed it? Argh!


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Nicholas Erik said:


> I think the real issue is that most of the promo sites are overpriced for what they actually deliver, making the ROI a losing proposition. Of course, if you have other goals (sell-through, launching a new release, getting reviews/sign-ups) that can change the balance. But generally I've only DIRECTLY made back my money from BookBub and ENT.


I would agree with this. Apart from ENT (which is underpriced for its performance) and Bookbub (probably ditto, but I have no experience to quote), the principle which applied in the past of $1 in promo money producing 1 sale or 10 downloads no longer applies (if it ever did). And most sites have increased prices in recent months, which doesn't help.



> As for the declining returns from repeat ad runs that you and Pauline have mentioned, they are quite real, unfortunately.


I don't think it's a simple matter of repeat ad runs. I'm very careful about not overusing sites, but even when I've used a site for different books, I've noticed declining results. BargainBooksy, for instance, produced sales of 38, 29, 22 and 22 on four different books, spread over 9 months. ENT gave me 80 sales in January, and 41 in Jun (different books). I think these sites are just less effective than they used to be. Still worth using, of course, but it does affect the economics of it.



> Thanks for all the numbers, Pauline. Much appreciated.


You're welcome. I love analysing numbers, although I realise I'm just one data point in a sea of other data points. All these numbers should be interpreted with caution.


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## Cactus Lady (Jun 4, 2014)

PaulineMRoss said:


> OMG!!! City of Mages is out!! Why did I not know this? How could I have missed it? Argh!


I worked hard to get it out fast because I knew people were waiting for it after the ending of book 4


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Kyra Halland said:


> I worked hard to get it out fast because I knew people were waiting for it after the ending of book 4


People were indeed waiting for it! Can't wait to read it.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

yes, advertisers - most of them are not worth the money they charge. Awesome gang and Fussy Librarian - for a few sales they shouldn't charge more than 5$ IMHO. But there's where FB ads come in handy. FB ads are the only source to advertiser full-priced books and use your affiliate links. The problem with them is that you need: good ad copy, compelling image and good targeting. But with advertisers you need that too. Fb ads seems to tank in the course of time, though. I made a custom audience from all my mailing lists subscribers who haven't opened my launch email and boosted the same email lost in FB to them only. 20 people reached (my subscribers) and 2 sales with affiliate link! I paid 1.20$ which is more than good!
In the future, I'll boost again such a post with 2.99$ book for the next book launch to those who haven't' opened my email.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Antara Man said:


> yes, advertisers - most of them are not worth the money they charge.


It depends how you look at it. If you only measure immediate ROI, sales on the day, I've found very few cover the cost. But if you take into account the bump in sales afterwards AND the bump in pages read AND the sell-through to other books - that puts a different perspective on it. I don't think I've had a promotion yet that hasn't paid for itself, over time. And this is without taking into account the non-measurable effects, like greater name recognition and exposure. All advertising serves to get more eyes on the books.


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## Antara Mann (Nov 24, 2014)

"Pages read" don't you plan to escape from Select?


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Antara Man said:


> "Pages read" don't you plan to escape from Select?


No, why would I? I've been averaging 5K pages per day since July. My books are l-o-n-g, so I do well under KU2.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Now that I've been reminded of the existence of this thread, I can add an update. I mentioned mid-thread that there was no post-promo tail this time round. Promotion sales were good, pages read were consistently good, not affected by the promotions, and Amazon's little email was a nice booster, but none of it stuck. As soon as the promotion was over, sales dropped right down.

But now that the dust has settled a bit, I can see that the new book has had an effect. The week before the launch, there were 8 sales and 22K pages read. Last week there were 27 sales and 30K pages. For just the three older books, there were 15 sales and 19K pages. So even the older books have doubled their sales. Plus the next book, out in January, has been racking up pre-orders at the rate of 4+ a day, on average. Altogether, in the six weeks since launch, I've sold over 800 books. It's just a pity that was mostly at a manually-set 99c. 

Still,  even though I can't yet order the yacht, and my attempts to get more reviews and mailing list signups have failed dismally, I reckon it's been a successful launch.

And now back to work on the next book...


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## jackconnerbooks (Nov 18, 2014)

Great stuff, thank you for posting!


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> ...Still, even though I can't yet order the yacht, and my attempts to get more reviews and mailing list signups have failed dismally, I reckon it's been a successful launch.


In my book, you're doing fantastic in those departments


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## CherieMarks (Oct 10, 2011)

PaulineMRoss said:


> Still, even though I can't yet order the yacht, and my attempts to get more reviews and mailing list signups have failed dismally, I reckon it's been a successful launch.
> 
> And now back to work on the next book...


First of all, I love your systematic approach and IMHO, the results are showing major progress. I've stacked promo as best as I could for a November 15th release, trying to go for the 7-day stretch. As far as newsletter sign-ups, have you considered offering bonus material for signing up? It doesn't have to be a free book. Many readers who wouldn't normally commit to a newsletter subscription might if they'll get exclusive stuff. I know some who do short stories, novellas, or even documents written "by" or about the characters. Just something I'm toying with myself.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

CherieMarks said:


> As far as newsletter sign-ups, have you considered offering bonus material for signing up? It doesn't have to be a free book. Many readers who wouldn't normally commit to a newsletter subscription might if they'll get exclusive stuff. I know some who do short stories, novellas, or even documents written "by" or about the characters. Just something I'm toying with myself.


I know a lot of people have had great success with that approach. I also know that readers who sign up just to get free stuff are not the most responsive. They're not necessarily fans, just people who like freebies. My mailing list is small, but it's completely organic and I get a 62% open rate when I send an email. I'm OK with that.

The other thing I've realised is that readers who want to hear about the next book can do it either by signing up for the mailing list OR by pre-ordering the next book, but not both. So if there's a pre-order available, that's where the traffic tends to go. I've had good pre-order numbers in recent months. If there were no pre-order available, probably some of that traffic would have signed up for the mailing list instead. For book 6, I plan not to use a long pre-order period, and I expect the mailing list to grow a bit more quickly as a result.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Reviving this thread to add a tail update. Well, there wasn't much of a tail after the original promos back in September, but then something interesting happened.

In mid-November, I planned a couple of free weekends to goose things up a bit. Bennamore has never been free before, so I paid for two big-hitters. Kallanash has been around the block a few times, so I went cheap. The difference is illuminating.

*Mages of Bennamore FREE: Sat 14-Sun 15 Nov 2015; Total cost: $203*
Paid rank before: 102K
Sat 14 Nov:	OHFB $75; BookScream $3; FlurriesOfWords $5 *Downloads: 1,404*
Sun 15 Nov: FreeBooksy $100; Fussy Librarian $10; PeopleReads $9.99 *Downloads: 2,941*
*Total downloads: 4,345*
Best free rank: #61
Paid rank after: 26K, dropping to 5K
Post-free sales: Mon 16: 45; Tue 17: 9

*Kallanash FREE: Fri 20-Sun 22 Nov 2015; Total cost: $83*
Paid rank before: 32K
Fri 20 Nov:	FKBT $25; BookBasset $8 *Downloads: 276*
Best free rank: #733, #1 in S&S
Sat 21 Nov: AwesomeGang $10; EbookSoda $15; EBookHounds $10 *Downloads: 166*
Best free rank: #659, #2 in S&S
Sun 22 Nov:	SweetFreeBooks $5; Booktastik $10 *Downloads: 219*
*Total downloads: 663*
Best free rank: didn't bother to check
Paid rank after: 51K dropping to 30K
Post-free sales: Mon 23: 5; Tue 24: 0

The first promo, with 4,000+ downloads, produced all sorts of interesting side-effects: better rank, a flurry of reviews, sell-through to the other books and a huge jump in pages read - from around 4-5K per day to 12-15K per day, spread pretty evenly over all four books, which is still going on, two weeks later.

The second promo, with 600+ downloads - not so much.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Great update Pauline.

I'm wondering now if the lesson is go big or go home?  A couple of times when I did a one time free on my first book and got like 100+ and 600+ downloads, the bump was mild as compared to the promo where I did 6k+ (which you remember well, taking that #1 free spot from me in one of our subcats    )

So, I'm leaning towards going big and for all 5 days every quarter if I can wing it.  Love your page reads, higher than what I'm seeing, than again your books are pretty large


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> So, I'm leaning towards going big and for all 5 days every quarter if I can wing it. Love your page reads, higher than what I'm seeing, than again your books are pretty large


Big is definitely better. For free, a big download number usually results in improved paid rank, and a big post-free bump in paid sales PLUS you get credit for 1 download in 10 in the poplists (except for Bookbub, which the algos ignore). I've had a much better tail from a couple of free days than from a whole bunch of 99c promos back in September.

Yeah, the page reads are awesome. I hit 18K one day.  Numbers are just beginning to drop down a bit now.

I'm taking a different tack for the next couple of months - no paid promos at all.  Actually, no promo at all, apart from Patty's shindig next weekend. For the book 5 launch in January, I'm not going to do anything at all. It's a sequel, so that makes it difficult anyway. So, a day or so at 99c, then up to $2.99, and I'll have the previous book at 99c, but no promo. I'm curious to see what will happen (probably no sales! But we'll see).


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Did you bump your head girl?  

Wow, no promos, plus no promo in January either?  Do you have a plan, or is it because it is your first 'sequel'?  I think, due to the success of the 'free' promo, that promoting the first book for free should give a bump to the second book and indeed, the entire series, no?

Then again, it could be the holidays and taking some time off may be wise 

Do we know for sure that the Amazon Algos ignore the Bookbub days?  If so, that is a very interesting development.  Makes me wonder if the 'free' option for Bookbub gives an author any other benefit other than visibility if there is no algo boost to it.

Thanks for sharing as always, love your posts.


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## CherieMarks (Oct 10, 2011)

Thank you for the update. I feel so lost in promo sometimes. It's nice to see what's working and what isn't for others.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Did you bump your head girl?


LOL!



> Wow, no promos, plus no promo in January either? Do you have a plan, or is it because it is your first 'sequel'? I think, due to the success of the 'free' promo, that promoting the first book for free should give a bump to the second book and indeed, the entire series, no?


Not so much a plan as an experiment I want to try. This all arises because my book 4 launch didn't go as well as expected. I followed pretty much the same plan as with books 2 and 3, and while they worked wonderfully well, for book 4 - not so well. Good enough sales during the promo itself, but virtually no tail afterwards.

So when a plan stops working, it's time for a new plan. Plus, the whole sequel thing. I don't feel comfortable promoting a sequel.

My thinking is this: I've generally had my new releases at 99c for much of the first month, in order to promote. So I wondered what would happen if I follow the pattern of other successful authors (like Wayne Stinnett) and have the new book at full price right from the start. I'll (hopefully) get the benefit of the HNR and the Amazon Follow emails, and maybe also get a leg up on the poplists, which take price into account. So - big experiment. If it all craters horribly, I reserve the right to start promoting again. 



> Do we know for sure that the Amazon Algos ignore the Bookbub days? If so, that is a very interesting development. Makes me wonder if the 'free' option for Bookbub gives an author any other benefit other than visibility if there is no algo boost to it.


According to Phoenix Sullivan, it's been happening since the summer of 2013. On the bestseller lists, Bookbub and other spikes are mitigated by spreading the weightings of recent sales over 5-7 days. On the poplists, Bookbub sales and downloads are explicitly excluded. You still get the visibility benefit - the spike improves rank which makes the book more visible, so there are sales or downloads not directly attributable to Bookbub, and those DO count - but not anything directly from Bokbub.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

PaulineMRoss said:


> .. So I wondered what would happen if I follow the pattern of other successful authors (like Wayne Stinnett) and have the new book at full price right from the start...


Very bold of you. I take it you mean after the initial pre-orders of 99 cents? Then take it to regular price?



PaulineMRoss said:


> According to Phoenix Sullivan, it's been happening since the summer of 2013. On the bestseller lists, Bookbub and other spikes are mitigated by spreading the weightings of recent sales over 5-7 days. On the poplists, Bookbub sales and downloads are explicitly excluded. You still get the visibility benefit - the spike improves rank which makes the book more visible, so there are sales or downloads not directly attributable to Bookbub, and those DO count - but not anything directly from Bokbub.


So if they are spread out over 5-7 days, they still count, not just in one large lump if I'm understanding this correctly. My question remains though, HOW does Amazon exclude Bookbub sales and downloads on the poplists? Do they read the affiliate code or something similar? I thought Sever had a pretty good tail after his Bookbub (though not all of his 30k downloads were from them).

I was planning to have my next book on sale for 99 cents only for a weekend for my subscribers, then up to regular price for 30 days to do a KCD. Now, after reading your post, I'm very tempted to actually release it at regular price and then do the Free/KCD 30 days later on book 1 and 2 of that series. It would maximize revenues, if I'm following this idea correctly.

You got me second guessing now... 

I'll get my email from Amazon when you release as I'm following you there. Should be very interesting to watch this unfold. Good luck with this launch in January!


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## Lisa Blackwood (Feb 1, 2015)

I love following the updates on this thread.

And no promos. How interesting. (I haven't done a big promo push in a couple months. Between Nano and formatting for print, there just hasn't been time. And my rank reflexes this. Ouch.)

But at the same time, I think it's better to space big promo pushes farther apart, or you're ROI from the sites plummet.

Thanks for sharing and keep on sharing.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Salvador Mercer said:


> Very bold of you. I take it you mean after the initial pre-orders of 99 cents? Then take it to regular price?


Yes. Pre-order at 99c. First day or so at 99c, so the mailing list peeps get a chance to get it cheap. Then full price. I'm going to set Fire Mages' Daughter to $2.99 initially, and I'll have The Fire Mages at 99c, so people can pick up both books for under $4.



> So if they are spread out over 5-7 days, they still count, not just in one large lump if I'm understanding this correctly.


Yes. It works to dampen down the effect of a big spike. But (if I've understood it correctly) it also acts as a brake to slow down the post-spike crash.



> My question remains though, HOW does Amazon exclude Bookbub sales and downloads on the poplists? Do they read the affiliate code or something similar? I thought Sever had a pretty good tail after his Bookbub (though not all of his 30k downloads were from them).


I think (not sure) that it's done through the affiliate code. Yeah, Sever had a great Bookbub. After the free promo ended, he had a huge spike in pages read (similar to the one I got after the recent free promo), and he also had two other books in the series for sell-through.



> I was planning to have my next book on sale for 99 cents only for a weekend for my subscribers, then up to regular price for 30 days to do a KCD. Now, after reading your post, I'm very tempted to actually release it at regular price and then do the Free/KCD 30 days later on book 1 and 2 of that series. It would maximize revenues, if I'm following this idea correctly.


Well, I'm not really trying to maximise revenues particularly. My holy grail has always been to have *steady* sales, where a new release bumps everything up and then it drifts gently down again, but with minimal promotion. I try to avoid massive spikes, as a rule. Which is why it doesn't bother me too much that I haven't managed to snag a Bookbub yet. 



> You got me second guessing now...
> I'll get my email from Amazon when you release as I'm following you there. Should be very interesting to watch this unfold. Good luck with this launch in January!


Second guessing is good. We should always be rethinking our strategy and trying new approaches, don't you think? I'm not the sort of writer who can spin on a dime and start writing billionnaire werewolf romances and such like. I write what I enjoy reading. So I have to tinker with the bits I can change. For me, that's promotion (or non-promotion, in this case). And it's fun to try new stuff and just see what happens.


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## PearlEarringLady (Feb 28, 2014)

Lisa_Blackwood said:


> And no promos. How interesting. (I haven't done a big promo push in a couple months. Between Nano and formatting for print, there just hasn't been time. And my rank reflexes this. Ouch.) But at the same time, I think it's better to space big promo pushes farther apart, or you're ROI from the sites plummet.


I have the same issue - the months I haven't had a promotion, rank (and revenues!) drop. But I'm curious to know what will happen to a new release without any paid promo around it. I'm hoping that the HNR and Amazon's Follow emails will be enough to keep things afloat. Plus, with 4 other books, I'm not a totally unknown quantity any more. But as I say - it's experimental, and if it all goes pear-shaped, I may turn back to promo.



> Thanks for sharing and keep on sharing.


You're welcome. I love these promo threads myself, so I'm just paying it forward.


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## Salvador Mercer (Jan 1, 2015)

Do keep us posted, even if it's nearly two months away.


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## Nicholas Erik (Sep 22, 2015)

BookBub uses affiliate links, so it would be fairly easy for 'zon to separate the spikes. For the free books it would be a matter of looking at the link referrer. 

Congrats on the numbers. I've also found that the main benefit of large free download spikes are page reads. A book can hang decently high in the rankings with just page reads. One that I've helped publish hangs around 8 - 12k steadily and some days it gets 0 sales, just page reads. Those reads are largely a result of free runs (2k + 4k downloads).

Nick


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