Back to School Sale: A Post-Mortem

Overall, my Armageddon Back to School Sale met my modest sales goals, so I can’t complain. It didn’t do as well as my earlier giveaway, but the reasons are clear:

Despite the concept of perceived value, where people expect to pay more for things that they consider of higher quality, readers will almost always download a free book, given the opportunity. The risk and effort are amazingly low: just a few clicks and you’ve got a book. Most people who download free books rarely read them; they download them just to have them. A person who buys something typically intends to do something with it. So it’s kind of an apples-to-oranges comparison anyway.
In addition to Ereader News Today, I advertised the sale with a few less well-known book marketing services. The smaller services didn’t perform and I won’t use them again. The most success I’ve had was with Book Barbarian (reserve your spot way in advance), Ereader News Today, and Books Butterfly. I was rejected for BookBub again, but that’s okay: I kind of expected it. I’ll get there eventually.

Because money’s changed hands, I won’t give away sales figures here; I’m old fashioned like that. I will say that I sold more of The Nephilim and the False Prophet when I gave away The Blessed Man and the Witch than I did just offering each book for $0.99. So 1st Book Free + 2nd Book Regular Price was greater than 1st Book Cheap + 2nd Book Cheap.

My friends, colleagues, and associates on social media were very kind in Retweeting, Sharing, and Liking my book sale post. Thanks very much to Holly Evans and Jason Berry, who’ve always been very supportive (even if they don’t like all of my stuff!).

Special thanks to Chris Barnes, the owner and publisher of The Slaughtered Bird, who was kind enough to spread the word about the sale.

Thanks also to fellow authors R.M. Huffman, Ross Greenwood, Gerri Bowen, Israel Finn, Olivia Stanton, Isaac Thorne, and Iain Rob Wright for their Retweets.

And, last but not least, thanks to John’s Horror Corner, Chris (Movie Corner), Damnation Ave, Kreepazoid Kelly, Indie Undead!, Dave B, Hardcore Horror, and Horror by Proxy. It may be just a click of the mouse to you, but it means a lot to me.

If I’ve forgotten anyone, you have my deepest apologies. This includes my Facebook friends who were likely most kind and spread the word on Zuckerberg’s Social Experiment.