Free Can Equal Sales
Thanks to support from friends on Blogger, Google+, and Twitter, I was able to sell a few hundred copies off the bat with the June release of ADVENTURES OF CASH LARAMIE AND GIDEON MILES and it's sequel, VOL. II. Then after the excitement died down, sales puttered along at ten or so copies a day. Not bad, but how to reach a wider audience?
Give it away seems to be the answer!
Kindle now provides the opportunity to offer your book for free for a limited time -- no more than five days to be exact. So I did it, and I stared in amazement when I hit the refresh button -- nearly one hundred copies had moved in less than a couple of minutes. Then I hit refresh again and another sizable batch flew off the virtual shelf. It went on like that for two days nonstop. I eventually ended up moving just over 3k. Now if folks had bought that many of my books, I would have pocketed a cool grand *dreams a bit* but I know that wouldn't have happened.
So what good did the free offer do?
Three thousand readers who weren't familiar with Cash & Miles now have it on their Kindle. If only a quarter of them like my heroes, then that's an improvement on future sales when, hopefully, they purchase the next book for $0.99. Additionally, I sold two hundred copies of the first volume that most likely wouldn't have been purchased if I hadn't decided to offer my book for free -- more than one person on Twitter mentioned they bought the first collection after getting the second for $0.00.
I hope you don't mind me posting about this, not bragging here, and many other writers out there are way ahead of me on this, but I thought it may be of use to a few. In a nutshell: free is good and can equal other/future sales.
Agree? Disagree? What are your experiences?
Give it away seems to be the answer!
Kindle now provides the opportunity to offer your book for free for a limited time -- no more than five days to be exact. So I did it, and I stared in amazement when I hit the refresh button -- nearly one hundred copies had moved in less than a couple of minutes. Then I hit refresh again and another sizable batch flew off the virtual shelf. It went on like that for two days nonstop. I eventually ended up moving just over 3k. Now if folks had bought that many of my books, I would have pocketed a cool grand *dreams a bit* but I know that wouldn't have happened.
So what good did the free offer do?
Three thousand readers who weren't familiar with Cash & Miles now have it on their Kindle. If only a quarter of them like my heroes, then that's an improvement on future sales when, hopefully, they purchase the next book for $0.99. Additionally, I sold two hundred copies of the first volume that most likely wouldn't have been purchased if I hadn't decided to offer my book for free -- more than one person on Twitter mentioned they bought the first collection after getting the second for $0.00.
I hope you don't mind me posting about this, not bragging here, and many other writers out there are way ahead of me on this, but I thought it may be of use to a few. In a nutshell: free is good and can equal other/future sales.
Agree? Disagree? What are your experiences?
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