Sarah Biglow's Blog - Posts Tagged "unplanned"
The Cold Hard Facts: Unplanned sale
So, I've decided one of the things I would like to do more of in 2016 is blog more. So I'm kicking it off a little early, with some thoughts about the sale I ran on Unplanned this week (Amazon Countdown Deal for 99 cents).
Before I did the sale, I'd done a little reading on the best length of time to run a paid discount versus free. The number I had seen was 5 days. So, I set the sale for December 7-11. I took a couple of small paid promotional ads (I didn't make it into the BookBub club this time) so I had a small amount to earn back. I suppose in theory I could have said "forget it" about trying to make sure I covered promo costs and just been happy with whatever I earned.
So, the results:
Total copies sold: 64
Total made: $40.96
Net profit after promo: $15.46
It isn't huge numbers by any means but considering up until that point my royalty rate had been $10, I was happy.
The bigger thing I saw during the sale that I wasn't expecting was the number page reads in Kindle Unlimited. I'd placed Unplanned in KDP Select in late October and had seen some spike in reads around Thanksgiving time but during the span of the sale I had almost 2200 pages read (roughly the equivalent of another 5 people reading my entire book.
I will admit I am very happy with how the sale turned out, especially given I didn't have a big promo platform like BookBub behind me. We managed to get into the Top 10 (peaked at #6) in the LGBT Literary Fiction Best Seller list and I also landed around #86 on the Women's Fiction Top 100 Best Seller list.
I do have some takeaways from seeing the sale run it's course though and I think I would change a few things if I did another sale.
1. Spread the paid promo out over the life of the sale.
I had everything go out on the 7th which sawthe biggest amount of sales (obviously) but then things petered out very quickly. I think if I had done each thing on a different day I might have see steadier sales or at the very least not quite as steep a decline.
2. Run the sale for less time.
Having run the sale for 5 days and seeing how few sales there were by days 4 and 5, I think I would have been better served to run the sale for only 3 days. I think this strategy coupled with spreading out the paid promotions could still yield a stronger sale in the future.
Overall, I am pleased with the sale and I look forward to running another one in the future.
Before I did the sale, I'd done a little reading on the best length of time to run a paid discount versus free. The number I had seen was 5 days. So, I set the sale for December 7-11. I took a couple of small paid promotional ads (I didn't make it into the BookBub club this time) so I had a small amount to earn back. I suppose in theory I could have said "forget it" about trying to make sure I covered promo costs and just been happy with whatever I earned.
So, the results:
Total copies sold: 64
Total made: $40.96
Net profit after promo: $15.46
It isn't huge numbers by any means but considering up until that point my royalty rate had been $10, I was happy.
The bigger thing I saw during the sale that I wasn't expecting was the number page reads in Kindle Unlimited. I'd placed Unplanned in KDP Select in late October and had seen some spike in reads around Thanksgiving time but during the span of the sale I had almost 2200 pages read (roughly the equivalent of another 5 people reading my entire book.
I will admit I am very happy with how the sale turned out, especially given I didn't have a big promo platform like BookBub behind me. We managed to get into the Top 10 (peaked at #6) in the LGBT Literary Fiction Best Seller list and I also landed around #86 on the Women's Fiction Top 100 Best Seller list.
I do have some takeaways from seeing the sale run it's course though and I think I would change a few things if I did another sale.
1. Spread the paid promo out over the life of the sale.
I had everything go out on the 7th which sawthe biggest amount of sales (obviously) but then things petered out very quickly. I think if I had done each thing on a different day I might have see steadier sales or at the very least not quite as steep a decline.
2. Run the sale for less time.
Having run the sale for 5 days and seeing how few sales there were by days 4 and 5, I think I would have been better served to run the sale for only 3 days. I think this strategy coupled with spreading out the paid promotions could still yield a stronger sale in the future.
Overall, I am pleased with the sale and I look forward to running another one in the future.
