Kindle Countdown Deal Results, and Prepping for NaNoWrIMo: October in Review

October Posts

1. Red and Black is a 99 Cent Kindle Countdown Deal
2. Four Ways to Prepare Your Life for NaNoWriMo
3. Best Books of Summer 2018
4. Discovery Writer No More? The Birth of a Planster
5. Superheroes and Supernatural Romances: What I Read Over My Vacation
6. Terrifying Tales from the TBR

Speculative Chic Posts

1. The Future Will Be Live Streamed: A Review of An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

With gorgeous fall foliage populating my morning walks and temperatures dipping below freezing after dark, it’s clear that we in the midst of fall. The season-much like spring-feels far too brief here in Maine, with most people turning an eye towards the behemoth that is winter. But I’m doing my best to appreciate the weather while it lasts.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the publishing side, I ended up running a Kindle Countdown Deal at the beginning of the month. This was, for the most part, a reaction to pretty abysmal sales in September. I knew I needed to do something to draw more attention to the book, and bringing the price down to 99 cents seemed like a good way to tempt readers that were a little more price sensitive.

For those who don’t know, a Countdown Deal allows you to discount your kindle ebook down to ninety-nine cents for up to seven days without receiving any of the royalty penalties that normally come with pricing your book so low. Amazon encourages you to have your book increase in dollar increments over said time period, but I just kept mine down at ninety-nine cents. For promotion, I did multiple social media blasts on my twitter, Instagram, and goodreads. I also created a post on this blog, and my mailing list. On the paid ads side, I spent $40 for an ad with Bargain Booksy (a service, similar to Bookbub, which alerts people about ebook sales through email), and set up dozens of amazon ads.

So how did that go? Well I ended up selling twenty-five of my discounted ebooks. I also sold one Canadian ebook (the Countdown deal was US only), and one print ebook, which may or may not have been a result of the sale/paid ads. I also got about 1,000 page reads on kindle unlimited.

Based on when I timed my ads and social media blasts, one thing is certain: pretty much all of these sales were due to that Bargain Booksy ad. They began rolling in minutes after the email went out, and a vast majority of the sales came in on that very day. I’d even go as far to say that some of the sales afterwards could have been due to people opening up their emails a day or two late. My social media blasts seemed to have little to no effect on sales (although people seemed to enjoy the picture of my cat Coraline chilling out with the book). As for the amazon ads, I ended up selling one as a direct result of that-and probably some of the page reads were due to said ads-but they weren’t as effective as I’d like.

This sale can be viewed as a success or a failure. If you look at it from a money based perspective, it was a failure, because I ended up coming up short of the $40 I invested in the Bargain Booksy ad. At the same time, based on my poor sales for September, I’m 100% sure that I wouldn’t have been able to reach this new audience if it wasn’t for the countdown sale, and the Bargain Booksy ad. Not to mention that I have sold addition copies since the sale. So while I didn’t make my money back during the sale, I more than made it back in the month of October.

I think a lot can be learned from this sale. For one, I updated my book description to closer resemble the copy I used for the Bargain Booksy ad. It’s also made me think a lot about how I use my platform. To be honest, I don’t feel like social media is the best tool for drawing in new readers, unless you’re really fucking good at it. It’s more a way to keep your existing readers emotionally invested in your work, as opposed to falling off their radar. Content marketing, on the other hand, can be an effective way to draw people in, and the lack of effect my blog had on this sale is making me reconsider how I use this space.

Ultimately, I was happy with how the sale went and am considering doing another one around the holidays (you can basically do a Kindle Countdown sale once a season). I hope to use a another service like Bargain Booksy, but I’m coming up against obstacles. There are plenty of email promotion services, but most of the good ones require you to have ten amazon reviews to apply. Unfortunately, I only have five, which severely limits my options.

This is a perfect time to drop in the fact that if you’ve read and enjoyed Red and Black, please leave a review! Not only does it make me eligible for these types of ad services, but it makes it more likely that people that do come across my book will actually buy it.

Beyond the kindle countdown deal, it was a pretty good month for author-Nancy. Red and Black has entered the wide world of libraries, meaning that Dawn is currently chilling with a certain Atticus O’Sulivan. I’ve heard back from one of my beta readers about Red and Black 2, and revised the book accordingly. While I’ve been waiting to hear back from my other readers, I’ve spent my time on future books on the series. In early October, I completed the second draft of Red and Black 3 (read more about my editing process here), and have done a bunch of prep work for National Novel Writing month. This year’s project: the first draft of Red and Black 4.

While my actually written NaNo preparation has gone well (I should, at the very least have a good start this November), I must admit I haven’t gotten my ducks in a row as much as I’d like as far as real-life stuff goes. As of the writing of this entry, I still have time to plan things out and get shit accomplished ahead of time, but there’s only so much you can do to prepare. NaNoWriMo is a balancing act after all. Let’s see if I manage to remain more of less straight for the duration of the month.

November Goals

1. Writing- Complete NaNoWriMo! Write a minimum of 50k of Red and Black 4 in the month of November
2. Blogging- Write at least four entires for this blog, and three posts for Speculative Chic
3. Publishing– Prepare for a possible kindle countdown deal around the holidays