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So, this just happened. Thanks, Amazon!! :)
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Marie Silk
(last edited Aug 29, 2016 06:04PM)
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Aug 29, 2016 05:50AM
Ever since I noticed those #1 Best Seller badges on Amazon, I've been chomping at the bit to get one! But I figured that since I do free promotions instead of countdowns, I was pretty much excluding myself from ever making it that far in the paid ranks. Well, this morning I woke up to this lovely sight after a record-breaking free promotion yesterday, followed by a surge in book sales at full price!! Now I am too excited to go back to sleep! Next stop, All Stars!! (at least, that is what I'm hoping for :D)
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Wooo hooo! Congratulations Marie. You have worked hard and deserve all the success you have and will receive.
Congratulations! I'm not in the least surprised because you have worked so hard and so diligently at your goals. This means that you can now or ever say that you are a number one bestseller! In fact, you can put this sticker graphic on your book covers if you like. This is so exciting :-)
That's huge, Marie! Congrats and never stop!Don't want to pretend being able to predict things like Arthur Clarke, but I kinda forewarned we were cultivating some best-selling authors here-:)
Fantastic Marie, well done! Really not surprising with all the promo work that you do so diligently, that has paid off so well. Now that's a very high bar for us to aim for!
Congrats !!! Can I ask what was the record that was broken for the free promo ? And do you believe it was directly tied to the surprise this morning?
Or do you think the surge in paid sales made this happen ?
Congratulations!But you know now we are all waiting to know the secret of your promo success (or at least I am :-))
This of course, given for granted that your books must be interesting and well written!
Again, congratz!
Tara wrote: "Congratulations! I'm not in the least surprised because you have worked so hard and so diligently at your goals. This means that you can now or ever say that you are a number one bestseller! In fac..."i'm so happy for you! yes, it is thru your own blood, sweat and tears that you were able to make it happen. ganbatte!
Michael wrote: "Congrats !!! Can I ask what was the record that was broken for the free promo ? And do you believe it was directly tied to the surprise this morning?
Or do you think the surge in paid sales made..."
The best sellers badge is only for paid books, but the sales today are certainly a result of visibility provided by the free promotion I ran yesterday.
Previous Record (July 24th promotion):
Free downloads: 2,400+
Rank in Top 100 Free Kindle Store: #43
#3 in Historical Fiction
New Record (August 28th promotion):
Free downloads: 5,700+
Rank in Top 100 Free Kindle Store: #20
#2 in Historical Fiction
Book sales this morning have been strong for the sequels as well as for book 1. I will do everything I can to keep the ranks up for as long as possible.
In order to break even for the promotion costs incurred for yesterday, I needed to sell 80 books at full price, which happened by 10 am this morning. I also had a new 5-star review this morning, so I am ecstatic :).
Thank you everyone for the encouraging words. If Annie was here, I would copy/paste some of her hearts for you because I don't know how else to post them!
OMGoodness, Miss Marie!!!I am sooo freakin' proud of you! Congrats!!
Big gigantic hug of epic proportions,
Ann
P.S. - take these: ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥
Dang! Those are sum very impressive numbers ! Double congrats ! I assume your free downloads were for the Best Seller book alone ? Or was the promo across several of your novels ?
Sorry for all of the questions - just trying to learn...
Congrats!! That's awesome and a testimony to your talent & hard work :)
Michael wrote: "I assume your free downloads were for the Best Seller book alone ? Or was the promo across several of your novels ?
Sorry for all ..."
I only listed the first book for free promotion on yesterday. The sequels have always stayed at full price :).
That's awesome Marie!! Congratulations and all the best for continued success!!! It couldn't happen to a nicer person :)And so glad to hear your latest promotion was record breaking as well (Davenport House now has a home on my kindle as well!)
Congrats, Marie! Question: What platform did you use for your free promotion, and what was the cost for promoting? Thanks! =D
Nadia wrote: "Congrats, Marie! Question: What platform did you use for your free promotion, and what was the cost for promoting? Thanks! =D"It's in stats and marketing results thread, as elaborate as can possibly be:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Thank you, everyone! ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (thanks Annie!) Thank you, Nik for posting the link :)
well done Marie, I'm so happy for you
Nik wrote: "Nadia wrote: "Congrats, Marie! Question: What platform did you use for your free promotion, and what was the cost for promoting? Thanks! =D"It's in stats and marketing results thread, as elaborat..."
Sorry I missed that; the reason I ask is because I know there are many different platforms used to promote a free book. I did some research and found this, for example:
https://kindlepreneur.com/list-sites-...
Wasn't sure how to set up a free promo, that's why I asked. Sorry if the question is redundant, I'm new and I'm here to learn. Thanks.
Thank you again, everyone :)Well, I got nudged out of my #1 spot *sniffle* but I fully intend on working my way back into it. As a plus, all 4 of my books are in the top 10 in 2 historical fiction categories, and I found out that I made a new list! There is a wish list on the right, and my book is #3 "most wished for". Also my pre-order book is #2 in Hot New Releases. So my books are hogging up the best seller page, which is actually really cool! I've got some great ratings and reviews from the promo and I am so grateful!
Amazing Marie!! Before long you'll be leaving us for the NY Times bestseller list!
Thank you :) I'm not sure how I would go about that getting on that list. Does NY Times Bestseller include ebooks?So I discovered today that my 4 books in the Top 10 on that bestsellers page are the ONLY ebooks. The ones they are competing with are the paperback versions. I'm trying to figure out what to do with this information :).
The pre-orders are rolling in for book 5. At this rate, by the book's release date (Sept 30), it will get the #1 bestseller spot. So now I am understanding the value in pre-orders (this is the first time I've tried). They say that publishers release books on Tuesdays, so I'm wondering if there is strategy to releasing a book on a different day so as not to compete with the really big ones :).
Marie wrote: "The pre-orders are rolling in for book 5. At this rate, by the book's release date (Sept 30), it will get the #1 bestseller spot. "Congrats and I hope this is true but for those less aware, what exactly does it take as far as the # of presales to grab that #1 spot ?
If anyone knows, Im not trying to pry on Marie's sales... just curious.
Thanks...
Hi Michael, I don't mind sharing some of the numbers. Before this happened, I was curious too!In this particular category, my book got in the #1 spot when it sold 60 units in the morning, then a few dozen more sales throughout the day. Before this, the most that this book sold in one day was 46 units, and I did not get a best seller spot with it.
Some categories will require even less sales than this. The category of my book shows the top 100 books as bestsellers. However, I have seen other bestsellers categories that only have a total of 49 books in the top 100. This might be useful info for some of you when choosing the category for your book (meaning, the smaller the category, the better your chance of getting a badge at the top!).
When a pre-order is done, the sales count on the release day of the book. I'm estimating that I will have 100ish pre-orders by the 30th, which I'm guessing will land it in #1 when it releases that day. I could be wrong, haha. Still pretty new at this and trying to figure out the algorithms and rankings :).
I am ultimately aiming for the All Stars. For those unfamiliar, All Stars is pretty much when Amazon showers you with extra cash (and All Stars badge) for ranking in the top for Kindle Unlimited pages read. The bonuses can be quite substantial (up to $25K per month), and I have been trying to figure out how many pages read you need to get an All Stars ranking. It looks like in excess of 1 million pages in a month. My best so far was 65K pages read in a month, lol. But I still want that All Stars ranking, dangit! And I have more books coming soon, so...I'm going to keep trying :).
Marie - thank you very much for the information. And congrats once again for your continued success!
Fantastic Marie, that's great news.(scribbles notes on using pre-orders...)
@Miss Marie: Whoa!This is currently my best (smallest?) one:
Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary Fiction > Romance
78 copies sold = #315
200+ copies sold = #81
I'm guesstimating it would've taken 500+ copies to crack Top 10 but I dunno for sure. I'm gonna go weasel my way into smaller categories, though! Hahaha!! Annnd *steals Mr Graeme's notes* yoink!
Thanks sooo much for sharing, Miss Marie!! For you: ♥♥♥
Big hugs,
Ann
Wow Anne, that is a huge sub-category! Your book is doing amazing and would surely get a #1 spot in a more narrow category with those kind of sales :).
Very inspirational post, thanks so much for sharing. And massive congrats!
Thank you again, everyone :)It is now 2 weeks post-promo and even though sales have slowed, the ranks have kept steady in the top 10 or so of this category. I've had some fantastic reviews and some cringe-worthy reviews *sniffle*. I am still marketing daily in facebook groups and sending out 2 tweets/day on AskDavid.
well done Marie, you're an inspiration
Segilola wrote: "well done Marie, you're an inspiration"Seconded :)
Here is where my books are sitting today after a free promotion day of my first book running at the same time as a countdown deal with books 2-4. It is really cool to see all 5 of my books at the top of this best seller page, but I can't help but want that #1 spot. I am pretty sure I will have a #1 spot with book 5 on its upcoming release date :). 
Nice picture to have and see. Will Mr. Wilson move back a bit? -:)You've pretty much conquered the category!
Congratulations Marie!! Awesome results!!!
That's the hope, Nik :D Book 5 will release on Friday, which should bring some more visibility to my series!
Thank you Eldon and Jen!! I'm truly hoping to report back today that I've snagged that #1 spot. Book 1 has sold 17 copies at full price so far this morning. I hope that keeping my other books on countdown throughout the week (leading up to Friday's new release) will put the books on more lists and in front of more eyes. It's the Davenport House perfect storm :D.
Mamma mia, that's some promotional blitzkrieg!
