M.R. Forbes's Blog, page 10

Balance (The Divine, Book One) – My Bookbub Promo Results

I used my Amazon KDP Select free days for my novel Balance about a week ago. This free promotion was backed by a paid placement with Bookbub, the e-book mailing list that for $90 reached about 180,000 fans of fantasy novels. Bookbub has been getting a lot of attention in the self-pub world, because the fact is that it delivers results that are far and away the absolute best marketing money can buy right now.

You can read about Bookbub here. This post is about results.

Here they are:

4 days, 19319 Amazon US downloads.

Yes, nearly 20,000 downloads (just about 20k if you add in a few hundred each from the UK and Germany, etc.). The day the Bookbub promo went out, Balance was downloaded 12,000 times – enough to make it to #7 FREE on the entire Amazon store. That’s a pretty awesome place to be. What’s more, it managed to stay in the top ten for another entire day. I know Amazon has the freebies behind a tab now, but that’s still some pretty nice visibility.

I was originally only going to run the promo for two days, but the positioning led me to decide to extend it. I’m glad I did. I added 4,000 on day two, and nearly 2,000 each on day three and four. Balance spent the entire run as the #1 FREE book in Science Fiction & Fantasy. My previous promotions, which I had advertised through eBookBooster, never rose above 1,000 downloads per day.

You may be thinking, ‘Wow, that’s great, you GAVE AWAY your hard work to 20,000 people… Shouldn’t you be SELLING your book?’

I know my wife was thinking that.

The thing is, Amazon counts each download as 1/10th of a sale in running its popularity algorithms, and to put it simply: more popularity = more visibility = more sales. 19000 / 10 is equivalent to selling nearly 400 books a day to Amazon’s software.

What’s more, if we assume that Amazon is close on its estimation of how many of those downloaders might actually READ the book, that’s another 1900+ potential fans who might go on to buy Book Two (and more).

The proof is in the pudding, right? That’s why I waited a week to post this. I wanted to see how sales trended once the promo was done.

The answer is: UP.

Before the promo, I was averaging about 20-30 sales per day. Not bad at all, I’m plenty satisfied with that kind of performance.

After the promo, I’m consistently hitting 50-70 sales per day, and they’ve been increasing. That’s a nice bump.

There have been side benefits too.. My mailing list has been growing daily, I’m getting more Facebook likes, and my cat is friendlier (no, really).

I’ve seen some people question the value of free. If your book is sci-Fi/fantasy, and you can get it listed on Bookbub, ESPECIALLY if it’s part of a series – do it. No, stop reading, and go do it. If your book isn’t sci-fi/fantasy – I would still do it if I were you, but I can’t make any promises on the overall ROI; after all thrillers can cost over $1000 to list for free (but of course they get a much wider audience).

To Bookbub… you should raise your prices. I hope you don’t, because us authors are taking awesome advantage right now… but I think you should.

Betrayal – The Divine Series Book Two – Now Available!

It’s time! Get it here.

Book Two was released early yesterday morning, and has already garnered a 5-star review:

—————————————————-

A Great Addition To The Series June 2, 2013

By Andrew

Format:Kindle Edition

This book was pretty awesome, while it was a little short, it resolved several of the cliffhangers from the previous books. It lets us learn more about the characters from book 1 and their past while also providing a great plot. Hope the next book comes out soon!

—————————————————-

 

Thanks to my wife for working tirelessly to help me edit, revise, and get this thing ready well ahead of my initial schedule. Like most things, I couldn’t have done it without her!

 

Betrayal (The Divine Book Two) – This One’s for the Bears

As you may or may not be aware, I currently donate 10% of all of the royalties I receive from Balance (The Divine Book One) to the Humane Society of the United States (over $700 through this July). I don’t do it as an incentive for people to buy my book, but because it’s something I believe in, and I want to give back what I can. I’ll be choosing charities for every book I publish, until I can’t manage the list anymore, at which point I’ll just send more to the ones I’ve already chosen.

In any case, for Betrayal I’ve selected two charities, both of them involved with animal welfare, and more specifically for the cause of helping wild bears.  Why two? Because I promised my wife I would donate to the WSPA (warning, bear baiting is graphic), and because we also want to support Animals Asia, who are working to end the practice of bear bile farming. I will likely use the same charities for Book Three, to get them both up to 10%, but I didn’t want to wait to start giving to both.

If you have a minute and a love of bears (or just hate to see any living thing suffer), please visit the sites and consider donating as well.

Betrayal will be available on Amazon in July.

 

Balance – 2000 Copies Sold!

I recently passed the 2000 sale mark on Balance, my urban fantasy novel about the war between good and evil, and the one person on Earth who can save mankind from tragedy.  I want to thank everyone who has supported me and my work for your likes, e-mails, comments, etc… I set out just to write a book and provide some entertainment, and I’ve received so much more.

Balance has now been downloaded over 5500 times, including a couple of KDP Select free periods. That’s a lot of visibility, and I’m glad to have it, especially with the first draft of Book Two nearing completion. In case you hadn’t heard yet – it will be released in July.

Thank you all again!

 

Recent Free Days

I just completed my second (and most likely last) round of free promotion on Amazon this Saturday. The promo ran from 4/25 – 4/27. Some thoughts:

1. eBookBooster

I paid $35 to eBookBooster to help me list my free days on all of the relevant sites. I paid for this promotion on April 3rd, giving about 3 weeks for the service to get my book submitted. I was a little disappointed when I started getting confirmations from the free book sites on 4/24 that my book had been submitted, since most of the sites also require X amount of lead time in order to fit the books into their schedules. It did run in a few places, and I did see a huge jump in downloads from my first unannounced free promo days, but in retrospect I think I should have picked out the most popular sites and submitted to them myself to make sure I got space. Still, its a great time saver for not that much money.

2. Results

I saw about 1200 downloads on day 1, moving me up to #152 overall on free, and to #1 in urban fantasy and #5 in contemporary fantasy, plus #9 on science fiction & fantasy overall.. pretty nice.

I averaged around 400 downloads the next two days, for a total of 2062. It’s this outcome that has led me to think that once a book has traction, a one day freebie is probably the most effective.

3. The aftermath

In the hours after the freebie, my overall sales have… stayed right where they were before the freebie. Which is fine, I’ve already sold more copies than I had imagined I would when I published, so I’m pretty happy anyway. Being a nerd who likes numbers though, I find the outcome interesting.

4. Final thoughts

My goal for listing free was to:

1. gain the exposure of having my title listed on the free book sites and tweeted out

2. gain exposure on amazon, listed in the top 20 free on 3 lists

3. get moved around on Amazon’s recommendation que

4. get some numbers to share (like i said, i like numbers)

It’s said that people tend to need to see something 3-4 times before they actually buy it, so the exposure portion may lead to greater mindshare that can’t be quantified in immediate numbers. At the same time, I don’t know that there is a strong value in listing free once you’ve gained a certain level of penetration – at least not until you can back it up with a second title in the series. I’m thinking that $.99 may be a better approach, and it’s one I’ll try in the future.

 

‘Can A One Star Review Really Do That?’ – The Morning After

Yesterday, I published this post about a one-star review I received due to what at the time I thought was user error with the Kindle. It turns out, I was wrong (and am feeling rather sheepish as a result).

Thanks to a commenter to the review on Amazon who goes by the screen name of Fate, I learned that it actually WAS the formatting that caused the reviewer’s ire. Apparently, when you output for Kindle in MS Word, it also adds html color tags to the elements, most often black.  Night mode makes the background black, and text a light grey in order to keep the screen darker for bedtime reading. It is also useful if the white is just too bright and hurts your eyes, as in the case of the reviewer.

While I still would have preferred the user had contacted me directly (either through Amazon or by finding my contact info at the back of the book), the review did work to alert me to the problem, and allow me to fix it. Now you know too.

So many people jumped in with help and support in light of the review. To everyone on Amazon, Goodreads, and here on my blog who pitched in, you have my sincere thanks and appreciation.

When I was ready to publish, I used the ‘Building Your Book For Kindle’ document that Amazon provides to format my book. This morning I searched through it for night mode, or anything that may have warned me of this issue ahead of time.  I may have missed it, but I didn’t see anything.

I also used the online Kindle Previewer to check my book before I published it. This previewer doesn’t offer mode switching.

Yesterday, when I corrected the book, I downloaded the actual Kindle app for Mac, and used the downloadable Kindle previewer to output the html to .mobi format. At that point I was able to review the content in night mode, although the Kindle app crashed three times in the process.

In any case, let this be a lesson:

Check your book in the different modes before you publish.

As for sales… we’ll have to wait another day or two to determine how much of an effect the poor review may have had (and now I wonder how many returns were due to the night mode issue). What I can say right now is that I sold 26 books yesterday (up from 15 after the review), with 14 of those sales coming between 9:00 pm PST and 7 am PST, after a couple of positive reviews gave me back my half star.

Coincidence? Possible, but I’m not convinced.

 

Can A One-Star Review Really Do That?

The Situation

I got my first one-star review for Balance yesterday. I feel congratulations are in order.

Actually, I’d be fine with the one-star review, if it had anything at all to do with the book.

Instead, it is from a user who is apparently frustrated with the way his kindle is functioning, and he says that he is unable to read my book because it hurts his eyes. The problem is, the review reads as though it’s the formatting of the book that’s causing the issue, not the device itself. From what I understand (and I’m pretty technical, but I don’t know everything), this simply isn’t possible.

(You can read the review here if you’d like)

That’s the windup. Here’s the pitch.

The Numbers

March Sales (U.S.)

Purchased
Returned
P-R
Borrowed (Select)


967
20
947
52

April 01 Sales (U.S.)

Purchased
Returned
P-R
Borrowed (Select)


33
0
33
6

That’s before the one-star review. An average of 32 books per day sold or borrowed. I’m super happy with that, no complaints at all.. it’s beyond what I ever expected.

April 02 Sales (U.S.)

Purchased
Returned
P-R
Borrowed (Select)


46
0
46
8



The Results

That’s the cumulative total. If you do the math, its 15 books sold or borrowed, the day the one-star review hit (it was published at 1 am PST). I’ve been tracking daily totals, and the lowest I’ve had in the six weeks prior was 23. Also, Tuesday is typically one of my BEST sales days. I understand that there is an ebb and flow, and I’m pretty content with 15, but it irks me to think that this review could be crashing my sales at all. Like I said, it would be one thing if it was actually about the book, but since it’s about the device the reader was trying to read the book on…

Conjecture

A few of thoughts on HOW it could be affecting sales.

1.Visual star-rating went from 4 1/2 stars (4 filled, 1 half-filled), to 4 stars.. There’s one big ole’ empty star staring out at viewers who see the book in a list. It’s at 4.2 overall.. point one more and I’d have that little halfie back

2.Star rating affects position in recommendation que (I don’t know if this is true)

3.Viewers read the review and think my book is formatted incorrectly, and they’re going to have trouble reading it

Conclusion

It could just be a coincidence; it’s only one day after all. At the same time, I’m an analytical sort of fellow, so I couldn’t help but analyze.

In the end, I’m left waiting in the hopes that a few more positive reviews will push it out of sight for the majority of users, and blogging about it so I can get other people’s thoughts on the whole situation, and maybe make some lemonade out of the lemon.

Do you think that’s the right thing to do? Have you had a similar experience? Do you have any advice, or other thoughts?  Please share.

Facebook Fan Page

So… I added a fan page on Facebook centered around my writing, because maybe you’re on Facebook, and maybe you’re a fan, and maybe you want to I don’t know say.. ‘like’ me or something…

Well, now you can. I’ll also be using the page to keep those interested up to date on progress with the next novel, release dates, and whatever else results from being on the worlds biggest social network.

I hope you stop by.

http://www.facebook.com/mrforbes.author

 

Balance – My First Novel

I’ve always been an avid reader. When other kids had rooms full of movie posters and sports equipment, I had a room full of bookshelves and books. Part of it is a little sad – I could have used a little more sunshine.. But it wasn’t a total loss.

I started writing when I was still in the single digits in age – short stories at first that over the course of a couple of years grew into fuller length novels of 50,000 words or so.

Fast forward about a quarter of a century. The stars have aligned and the necessary ingredients have all come together so that today I am able to present my first self-published novel, Balance.

I could tell you what its about in the post, but you can get much more information from its spot on Amazon, including a sample of the first 3.5 chapters.

Balance on Amazon.com

My thanks to everyone who made this possible. This is the first, but certainly won’t be the last.