12 Days: My Self Publishing Journey (Part 8 of 12)
I received two sales today for my second book, “The PureLights & The PureLight Order“. I was thrilled!
Now, let’s see how my top promoting day was. When I say, “top promoting day”, I mean that I spent most of my time months before my free promotion marketing for this day. I could have easily marketed my book for every day in this promotion, but that would have been a little spendy. Since Sundays are traditionally the best day for paid books and free books, I thought I should let most people know that today, Sunday, my book, “The PureLights of Ohm Totem,” would be free.
Let’s go over today’s stats
By 9:30 this morning, 617 people had downloaded my book and I was ranked just over 1,000 in overall rankings and 3rd in my category.
By 11:30 this morning, 864 people had downloaded my book and I was 894 in the overall rankings.
By 1:30 this afternoon, 1,147 people had downloaded my book and I was 603 in overall rankings.
You can see where this is going…
By 3:30 this afternoon, 1,456 people had downloaded my book and I was 401 in overall rankings and 1st in my category.
By 5:30, 1681 people had downloaded my book and I was 163 in overall rankings, still 1st in my category.
By 9:30 this evening, 1712 people had downloaded my book and I was 122 in overall rankings, and yes, still 1st in my category.
By 11:30 at night, 1896 people had downloaded my book and I was 116 in overall rankings. Yes, still 1st in my category.
I suspect I’ll break over 1900 downloads by midnight.
That’s a record for me. I, for a moment, thought I’d actually break through to the top 100 amazon rankings in free books, but it doesn’t look like I will.
My Thoughts?
It was a ride. I continued to check my stats throughout the day, saying, “Yes! Our plan is working.” Who’d think that an author would be so excited about giving his/her book away? How times have changed.
At one point in the day–when I found out I was #1 in my category–I scrolled down my category page, stopping at the books ranked #10 and #11. On that point of the page, my book was hidden from view. I called Jenna, my 12 year old daughter, and Hunter, my 14 year old boy, into my office to look at my computer screen.
They walked in the room, stared blankly at my screen, wondering why I wanted them to look at it. I said, “Remember yesterday when I was ranked #5?”
They looked at the screen and said, “Yes.”
I frowned, “But, where am I now?” I slowly scrolled up the screen, showing the books ranked #9 and #8, sighing, “I don’t know where my book went.”
They continued to look, obviously not giving a care in the world where my book was, until I got to the #5 ranked book where my daughter responded with, “Uh oh. You’re not there anymore dad. Sorry.”
I continued to scroll up.
#4.
#3.
I smiled. “Uh, wait. What? Is that me? Huh?” I pointed at the screen. “#1!?”
My son started cracking up and my daughter said, “Good job, daddy!”
Then they left the room, like teenagers do when they want to get back to their important “things”. At least they showed some interest for a moment? A tinsy, winsy moment? I had fun with it, though. I love those guys.
More thoughts…
If I would have made two days of marketed promotions, I’d no doubt be in the top 100 amazon rankings by tomorrow, but like I said, I would have spent a pretty penny to do so.
Let’s see where this takes us.
Until then…
