Which Book Promotions Work Best?

Last week I said I would report on the results of the free-book campaign I did for my mystery, Boxes For Beds, offering it free for 5 days via the Amazon KDP program. As Nick Stephenson  mentioned on his blog and I quoted last Monday, the jury is still out on what kind of positive long-term effect this approach has, but during the 5 days my book was free it had 39,312 downloads. Here are some stats for those who like numbers: 

The free days started on a Saturday, and Monday morning, before a BookBub feature went live, I had just under 1,000 downloads of the book. By noon on Monday the downloads had jumped to 4,975, with an uptick in downloads in the UK, DE, IN, and CA.

I purposely did not obsess all day with checking numbers, although it was a thrill now and then to pop in and see huge jumps. At 5:30 on Monday there had been  19,497 downloads with small jumps in the UK and CA. Still no downloads in France or India or Mexico or Spain.

Again I ignored numbers after that and didn't check in until 10 Monday night. Downloads had jumped to 26,904, and I picked up a new 5-star review. That was sweet. The book also reached #4 in over all free books on Kindle, #1 in suspense and #1 in historical mystery.

Tuesday morning the downloads for the US reached 30,256, with big jumps for the UK and CA and IN. There were also downloads in all the other foreign markets except Mexico.

By the end of the free days on Wednesday last week, I had reached that 39,312 mark in the US, but downloads in other markets were not even in two-digits except for the UK and CA.

The main reasons authors do these free promos is to gain new readers and review, and hopefully spur sales of that book, and others, after the sale. I have read on author loops that some writers have seen sales of hundreds of books a week after a free event, and I think that works the best with a series. I have sold copies of this book, and two others steadily since last week, but only a handful of sales a day. There has been a huge jump in reviews, and most of them are 4 and 5 star reviews, so that has been beneficial.

Will I do it again? I don't know. Some writers are having better luck with straight ad campaigns for their books. Stacy Juba had a special running for her books the same week I did my special. Here is what she reported:

I advertised the 99 cent sale for my Young Ladies of Mystery Boxed Set on E-Reader News Today, Kindle Books and Tips, Kindle Fire Department and Book Bub all within about 7 days of each other. I also supplemented the paid ads with a blogging campaign, Twitter campaign, posting on various Facebook pages, and highlighting it in my newsletter. I was very pleased with the results. The boxed set reached #11 in the Nook Store and #60 on the Paid Kindle List. Breaking the Kindle Top 100 Paid List and the Nook Top 100 were two of my goals. I also sold several books in the iBookstore. This was my second most successful ad campaign to date. My most successful campaign was for my book Twenty-Five Years Ago Today in March - that led to the book being ranked #5 on Nook and #30 on Kindle and resulted in over 100 new Amazon reviews since then. But the Young Ladies of Mystery campaign was very close.

I didn't see much effect on sales of my other books, but my other books not included in the bundle are for children and teens. I made a nice profit on the ad and reached a lot of new readers, so it was a successful campaign and all of the advertisers were wonderful to work with.

The Young Ladies of Mystery Boxed Set is still only 99 cents and includes her adult mystery/romantic suspense novels Twenty-Five Years Ago Today and Sink or Swim, and her young adult psychic thriller Dark Before Dawn.  

Last spring, Terry Odell, romantic suspense author, tried even a different approach. She went with Nook First, and you can read her full report on her blog, Terry's Place. Briefly, she was accepted into the Nook First program at Barnes and Nobel with a new book, Saving Scott, and it was exclusive for Nook for 30 days. (In the KDP program, the books have to be exclusive to Kindle for 90 days.) The book was not free and Barnes and Nobel did quite a bit of promoting. Following that, Terry reported that her book sold steadily at Barnes and Nobel and sales of all of her books increased at Amazon and Barnes and Nobel.

Terry writes several mystery series, and I think one key to her success - in addition to writing good books - is that she has series and offering a special on one book does spur sales in other books in that series. Her advice to other authors:

Things go up and down, and we can't know why, and probably can't do anything about it. It's a marathon.  

Terry writes the Pine Hills Police Series, the Blackthorne, Inc. Series. and the Mapleton Mystery Series. She has a brand new book out in the Blackthorne series - my favorite of her series. Dangerous Connections was released October 21, and it is on my wish list.

Now, after all of this has been said, I found out my publisher put my short story collection, The Wisdom of Ages, free for Kindle today for three days. Since that book is with a publisher, I won't have access to download numbers, but I do see it is already #85 on the list for anthologies.

As a reader, do you take advantage of free books? If so, do you buy others from that author if you like the freebie?

Authors, what promotions are working best for you? Do you do the KDP program or the Nook First?

Wednesday's Guest - The Toad

Today one of my frequent Wednesday's Guests is over at The Blood Red Pencil, sharing some tips on improving the vocabulary of young people today. It is a fun post, so I hope you can hop over and see how Alphonse proposes to help kids, like, talk better.

I am a guest on Terry Odell's blog where I have posted the recipe for some scrumptious hamburgers my husband makes frequently. 

Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

This absolutely wasn't planned, folks, but today's guest is the toad I found in my bathroom. I was getting cleaned up and dressed after my morning walk and happened to notice something gray at the top of one of my cabinets that reaches to the ceiling. I didn't have my glasses on so I couldn't tell what it was, and at first I thought it was a glob of plaster. However, I remembered I just refinished that cabinet and there was no glob of plaster on it.

What could it be?

I got my glasses and looked up. "Is that a toad? How did a toad get up there?"

It didn't move and was so pale I thought at first it was petrified up there. Petrified, as in it had become a stony replica by petrifaction.

I couldn't reach it without getting a step stool, and I didn't want to bother going to the shed, so I got a hanger and poked at it. I figured if it was dead, it would just fall down. To my surprise, it turned and looked at me. Obviously, it was just petrified, as in paralyzed with fear.

I am going to have to get the stool at some point so I can put the toad outside. Otherwise God knows where it will go. If it isn't caught by one of the cats, it could turn into a toad mummy at some point.

If you notice the little droplets of water in this picture, that's from me spraying him to give him a drink.
I'm such a softie.

On another note, I have taken my suspense novel, One Small Victory, out of the Select program at Amazon, and it is now available for  NOOK. As soon as I can, I am going to get it up on Kobo and Smashwords.

UPDATE: The toad is now happily living outside.

A to Z Challenge - L is for Llama and Luck

In keeping with my theme, I'm going to write a little about the llama. The spelling of the name has always fascinated me. How many other words start with a double letter? That might be an interesting Internet search sometime.

The llama is a South American relative of the camel, though the llama does not have a hump. These sturdy creatures are domestic animals used by the peoples of the Andes Mountains. (Their wild relatives are guanacos and vicuñas). Native peoples have used llamas as pack animals for centuries.

Here in Texas some people have started raising llama's for shearing. Their wool can be used for fabric, rugs and rope, and some are raised as livestock.We have a few llamas down the road from us, but they seem to be more "pasture ornaments" than anything else. I have never seen anyone shear them, and since they are still there, it is obvious they have not been raised for meat.

Now for the "Luck" part of the blog. I have joined with 13 other mystery authors for a special Kindle Select promotion offering 13 books for free this weekend. These are back-list, or new, books from authors who have been published by the big 6 publishers in New York, as well as some respected smaller publishers of quality mysteries. Don't miss this Kindle exclusive opportunity to discover these 13 new authors and brighten your Friday the 13th.

1. Darker By Degree by Susan Branham and Keri Knutson - A missing girl. A mysterious break-in. A brutal murder. 

2.  Diary of Murder by Jean Henry Mead -  Dana Logan's wealthy sister, Georgi, dies and Georgi's husband claims it was suicide. Dana knows her sister would never take her own life and sets out to prove it was murder, with her friend, Sarah Cafferty. 

3. Ghost Island by Bonnie Hearn Hill - Is Aaron a dream, or is he something much more deadly? Livia Hinson has just begun a Seminar at Sea when a storm hits their boat. Now, she is stranded with the other students on an island off the coast of California. NOTE: For some reason this book is still listed at $2.99

4. Kiki Lowenstein and the Purple Passion: A Kiki Lowenstein Short Story by Joanna Campbell Slan - When a customer’s daughter is falsely accused, Kiki Lowenstein foils a nasty plan to ruin the girl’s reputation. 

5. One Small Victory by Maryann Miller - the story of one woman's courage. Suspense novel by Maryann Miller, based on a true story of a woman who infiltrated a drug ring and helped bring down a major distributor in her small Texas town. Don't discount what a mother can do to protect her children. 

6. Rock & Roll Homicide by RJ McDonnell - The 1st novel in the Rock & Roll Mystery Series finds PI Jason Duffy helping the widow of a slain rock star after she climbs to #1 in the police suspect charts. 

7. Sink or Swim by Stacy Juba - After starring on a hit game show set aboard a Tall Ship, personal trainer Cassidy Novak discovers that she has attracted a stalker. Can she trust Zach Gallagher, the gorgeous newspaper photographer assigned to follow her for a local series? 

8. Southeast Asian Quartet by William S. Shepard - Mystery, suspense and murder in Southeast Asia in the style of Somerset Maugham, these four tales evoke Singapore, Borneo, Malaya and Indochina. Draw up a chair at the Raffles Bar and join us.

9. Taken by Debra Lee -  Welcome to the fictitious little town of Watery, Pennsylvania where the district attorney’s personal secretary, Mary Murray never planned to become a single mom or a suspect in her infant’s disappearance. 

10. The Four Last Things by Timothy Hallinan - Hired to follow a young woman, private eye Simeon Grist becomes mired in murder and a million-dollar religious scam in The Four Last Things, the first in a series of highly-praised LA private-eye novels written in the 1990s by 2011 Edgar nominee Timothy Hallinan. 

11. When a Man Loves a Woman - Enhanced Multimedia Edition by Alina Adams - Can a man and woman ever truly be just friends? What about if one of them is married? What if one of them suddenly isn't anymore?  

12.  Willowtree by Mike Bove - Bruce DelRano, retired postman, golf and food nut, finds a body near the golf course. He believes the murder is connected to others and involves his Apache friend. Together, they stay a step ahead of the police in trying to solve the cases. 

13. Whispering by Gerrie Ferris Finger - Will Cleo Snow admit to making love with charming World War I fly-boy Graham Henry to clear him in the disappearance of an island woman who claims he plans to marry her? Will Graham compromise Cleo to clear himself? 

The other good luck promo has a lot of free books being offered for today only. These are in a variety of genres from mystery to romance to fantasy and many others. No matter what your reading tastes are, you can find a book or two or three to load into your e-book reading device. Not all of the books are limited to Kindle, so this is a great opportunity for Nook owners as well. Here is a link to the page where you can find all these books listed. There are over a hundred, so have fun.

Introducing Backlist Books authors

Today was spent doing some much needed work around my little farm. Our oldest son came out for the weekend and whenever he is here he likes to help me. So we cleared brush and dead trees in the back pasture and burned two big piles of logs. Sure was nice to get it all cleared. 

Since I was busy with that, I did not do my usual post today of  a book review. But I thought I would just introduce you to some of my writer friends. We all belong to a group called Backlist Books and we have e-books for Kindle, Nook and other e-readers for much less than major publishers are charging for books. As the group name suggests, all the books are from our backlist, which means they were once published by a major house and we managed to get the rights back.

So here is a list of some of those authors in the group with links to their blogs.   There's a wide variety of genres, so take a look at them and see if there's anything to your taste. 


Doranna Durgin, http://doranna.net/wordplay

Marsha Canham, http://marshacanham.wordpress.com

Jacqueline Lichtenberg, http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com

Jeffrey A. Carver, http://starrigger.blogspot.com/

Jill Metcalf, http://jillmetcalf.wordpress.com

Terry Odell, http://terryodell.blogspot.com

Patricia Rice, http://patriciarice.blogspot.com

Pati Nagle, http://patinagle.livejournal.com/

Lorraine Bartlett or Lorna Barrett, http://www.LornaBarrett.blogspot.com

Karen Ranney, http://karenranney.wordpress.com

Friday's Odds and Ends

First I want to mention that today is the last day of the big sale from the BackList Books authors. 25% off already low-priced e-books from over 40 authors in a wide variety of genres. My book, One Small Victory, is one of the books offered. These books were all originally published by traditional publishers and the rights reverted back to the authors. Here is a LINK to the sale page.

Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art? The eternal question. I started wondering about that the other day when reading the news, and I just don't know. Consider this:

From Fiction: A line from Father Flip in the play "The Altos, Like the Sopranos only Lower" : "I was lost, but found my way behind bars."

From Real Life: A pastor of a small church in Dallas after being arrested for breaking into a woman's house, defending her checkered past: "I've turned by life around. Since 1988, I have walked the straight and narrow path."

Hmmmmmm? I doubt the pastor ever read The Altos script or saw the show, but it is a scary coincidence that the words are so close.

I read this recently in The Dallas Morning News. "Because Dallas city processes for removing graffiti is so lengthy, the city is contracting with a lawyer who has been painting over the graffiti for several years, even though what he is doing is against the law.

So, instead of streamlining the process so city workers could do the work, the city would rather pay more money to a contractor? But, hey, why not change the law so people in the community could paint over the graffiti for free and not be breaking the law?

Oh, but that would be too simple of a solution for a bureaucracy.

And finally, Happy New Year.   Click on the link for a holiday wish from me to you.

Sale on E-Books

There is a terrific sale on the Backlist E-Books site on a wide variety of books from romance to mystery. The sale starts today, Dec 26th and runs  through Dec 31st.

The  books offered were once out in either hardback or paperback by traditional publishers, including my One Small Victory, and the authors retained the electronic rights to the stories. 

If you received a Kindle, Nook, or i-Pad for Christmas, this is a perfect time to load up on a few books. All 84 titles are offered at 25% off, so there are some good deals to be had over the next few days.

Here is a link to the Backlist E-Books site with all the information and coupon codes to get the 25% discount as you check out.

Happy shopping.