Results from my #KDP #Countdown #Sale for DESPRITE MEASURES
It’s taken me a while to get around to this, but I promised to share the results of the KDP Countdown Promo I did for DESPRITE MEASURES, a few weeks ago. Aside from a lack of time, I thought I would also wait just a bit to see if it had a follow on effect after the sale ended.
The numbers aren’t stellar, but this is proving a tricky book to market, I think because it isn’t quite ‘normal’, if you will, within its genre.
First off, there is the cover. I love my cover, I have no intention of changing it, as it encapsulates the central character of the sprite, and it gets great reactions when I ask for opinions of it. BUT, it features a woman with a naked torso – okay, so it’s a back view, but some advertising sites have a strict ‘no naked female torsos’ policy. Boo.
It features a bisexual character – not everybody’s cup of tea. It appears (from surveys) that women are more likely to be interested by male/male relationships than female/female, and although Cassie doesn’t give a damn either way, this book clearly has a F/F story alongside a heterosexual one.
Although this story is about relationships to some degree, it isn’t a paranormal romance, and I think it’s perhaps falling a bit in between the genres of urban fantasy (which it is) and PR, and as a result maybe not appealing to diehard fans of one or the other.
Anyway, to the promo…
For simplicity, when I use a countdown promo, I drop the price to 99c/99p for the whole 7 days – so I just set one price increase, after seven days, when it goes back to full price at $2.99.
I use a mix of paid and free ad sites, some of the latter I don’t even know if it was picked up as they don’t tell you, and although I tried to check, I might have missed some:
PAID ADS
I set a small budget of £50 (around $77)
Although being in KDP means I still get the 70% royalty, even when I drop the price to 99c/99p, that still means selling quite a lot of books to earn back my budget.
Fussy Librarian $12 / £7.97 (2 genres – UF & GL)
Ebook Soda $10 / £6.62
People Reads $14.99 / £9.67 for the week
EbUK $9.30 / £6 for 2 days 10 & 11
BettyBookFreak $8 / £5.29
BookGoodies $5.31 / £3.31
ENT (ereader news today) $25 / £16.12 (for 11th)
============
$84.60 / £54.96
So I exceeded my budget by a little, but I applied for all these sites in one sitting, not certain if I would get in to all of them, particularly ENT.
FREE ADS
First, the ones that definitely featured the ad:
The ad was scheduled on ReadCheaply.com but they cancelled it, because the price reduction was no in place the night before the ad – frankly not possible with a Countdown promo, but I will know another time to schedule the ad for a later day in the promo period, not for the first day.
Those I submitted to but was unable to verify:
Bargain Ebook Hunter & PixelScroll (via HotZippy)
BargainBooksy (editorial only)
I submitted to The Midlist but was turned down – apparently my book is not suitable material for their readers; yours might be.
SO, the RESULTS
During the promo period, I sold 129 copies at 99c/99p
During the week after the promo I sold another 10 at full price $2.99/£2.99
In the following week I sold another 4 copies at full price.
As I said, I realise this is small change (and far less than I sell when I promote THE PRINCE’S MAN, which is my best seller), but I was still pleased with the boost to the book’s visibility and subsequent sales that are continuing to trickle in.
What I haven’t yet figured out is what I will also earn from KDP borrows, which are in the multiple thousands of pages read, in both the US and UK.
I can say without doubt that the most effective ad by far was from ENT. I can’t tell you in precise figures, but sales (and ranking) jumped as soon as that ad went live.
In all, during the promo I made:
$96.68 / £62.35
In the following week:
$19.93 / £12.85
As the book had really not sold any copies to speak of in the preceding month, I’m putting all these down to the promo, so my income from the promo (not including borrows) was:
$116.61 / 75.20
Which is a profit of:
$32.01 / $20.24
Certainly not stellar, but that is just the obvious results. I still have to figure out how much the borrows will bring, and the rise in visibility has kick started sales and borrows of a mediocre-seller on an ongoing basis, so I’m happy with the result of an evening’s work.
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Isis wrote: "Thanks for sharing this, Deborah! It was nice to have an idea how the ad investiment vs promo sales worked out. It certainly gives other authors, including me, some interesting perspective on the s..."I think this is one of the best aspects of being an indie - sharing with others :D
I know I've learned from posts like this in the past, and will continue to do so too. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Fortunately for me, my epic fantasy is more traditional, and sells well, so I'm content to have a more 'difficult' series as a second string, and it's certainly loved by those who do read it.
And it's all a learning experience...
Also, nice to know you have a more sellable genre and other that is more dificult, but likewise rewarding rewarding. Interesting to think how it works.
Yes, learning experiencce, nontheless! Cheers!
As for your book being a bit different - seems like "different" books don't sell that much, but as long as you like your work and you believe you did the right thing, that's worthy more than the sales... I think :)