Sooner or later there comes a time when a fellow has to add things up and see where they stand.
Over the last five days I have been running a promotional campaign on my redneck noir novella HAMMURABI ROAD.
Bearing in mind that this novella was dead in the water, sales-wise, I am pretty pleased with how the five days have played out.
I sold a few copies on Nook – where I hadn’t sold any before. I sold quite a few on Kindle – raising the Amazon ranking up from a very dismal 734,432 to the 43,000 area for three days in a row.
It is hard to say exactly WHICH promotional website did the best work – because some of the promotions were running together and I was doing an awful lot of blogging and blog promotion which focused attention on the little novella.
Still – judging from the timing of the sales I would have to give the lion’s share of the credit to Jeff Bennington’s TWEET THIS BOOK service.
It is a fair bit of work to keep these sort of promotions going – and you DO need to keep those promotions going if you want to keep the rating up – but looking back over the last five days there is only so much shouting I can do over any one book. Folks get tired of seeing BUY MY BOOK on your Twitter feed and your Facebook updates.
Some authors seem to be able to get away with that – but that wouldn’t be me in the long run. I am afraid that Twitter and Facebook will only sell so many books and then an author has to find a better way.
One way that seems to work for me is my Kobo promotions.
This weekend – from Friday to Sunday – my e-book UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – FROM EDEN TO THE ARK is part of a Kobo Easter Sunday Promotion which offers up to 70% savings on certain selected e-books.
I’ve made more off of that Kobo sales promotion in one night than I made off of my own promoting efforts on Kindle in the last five days.
I’d love to sit here and smugly tell you that I know what I am doing but I don’t. I’m still figuring things out. I am very happy that my Kobo sales out-perform my Kindle sales on a regular monthly basis – but I also know that an AWFUL lot of authors do a whole lot better on Kindle.
I know some indie authors who make several hundred dollars a month. I know some indie authors who make several thousand dollars a month.
So there is an awful lot of room for growth in the indie press yet.
I was told once as a child that the best way to grow is to pack your sneakers with cow manure and then do your best to stand away from the stink.
Well, that is one theory – but B.S. has never worked too well for me. I intend to keep on writing and keep on exploring this whole promotion angle until I get things right.
The fact of the matter is I need a few more novel length projects – which I am working on.
At the same time I need to get those novel length projects promoted by some of the MAJOR promotional websites such as BookBub – which is still the big boy on the block.
I figure that will be my next step.
For now I am working on promoting an upcoming Kindle Countdown special on my latest Kindle release UNCLE BOB’S RED FLANNEL BIBLE CAMP – THE BOOK OF GENESIS. The Countdown is scheduled for May 5th to May 12th and I intend to try and organize a few guest blog appearances to try and help raise my profile a little bit more.
Wish me luck.
yours in storytelling,
Steve Vernon
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