Countdown promotions?

[Tim]

Recently I did a countdown promotion for Raw Nerve. Apparently I was very naive and didn't realise the promotion was only visible on Amazon's UK site. The result is I must have confused a lot of readers who use Amazon's .com site because the book was still full price there. To compensate I am going to organise another countdown promo on Amazon's .com site. So my question is: is a weekend or week day better for the countdown promotion?

I'd appreciate your experience, guys... Thanks

[Morris]

I think my worst sale time is Sunday. Interesting to note is that the highest internet traffic for the week is Monday 7-11 pm. (or so I've been told.) You can do one countdown sale per quarter per book on the US site, and one on the UK site. I tried to match them both by altering the GMT times so they both line up. I try to make the beginning sale time in the US in Eastern time about 6 am, when people are checking their email before going to work.

I combine countdown sales with ads.

[Tim]

Thanks, Morris. That's helpful.

[Christina]

I've noticed that there isn't so much a time that's better than any other, but if you're planning to pay for advertising, grabbing a Thursday or Friday is helpful in that you will get some folks who don't check their emails until the weekend and they would be less likely to simply delete an unread promo email if it was current.

[Tim]

Thanks, Christina. I'd forgotten about Indies Unlimited's Thrifty Thursday!! :D

[Alex]

I discovered the thrifty Thursday promotion last week, not sure how good it is but it's free so no reason not to use it.

[Pauline]

Tim wrote: "Thanks, Christina. I'd forgotten about Indies Unlimited's Thrifty Thursday!! :D"

A few authors are doing a Halloween sale, running it over the weekend. We join in tweets, google + and goodreads events.

[Tim]

Hi Pauline,

Yeah, I think I did see a thread on some Big Weekend thingamajig. I think I'll just do a two day countdown for Amazon.com alone on Thursday and Friday next week. I haven't firmly decided yet as I'd like a review or two to come in for the UK countdown first, but I don't suppose that's terribly necessary...

[Michelle]

How do you run a sale on the different countries? I don't even know how. (I'm also not very tech savvy)

[Tim]

Hi Michelle, I've learned by my mistake that I should have set up a countdown for Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com separately and set the campaigns to start at the same time by time zone... I ran a countdown campaign and paid for advertising in the States and UK and it only ran on Amazon.co.uk. Silly me :)

[Anna]

I've been running countdown deals for some years now and the set up usually goes fine, but this last time I got the dates wrong for the US - so don't get too cross with yourself, Tim. It probably happens to us all at some time or another.

I keep hoping they'll open up other countries for Countdowns. I worry that they'll fade them out.

[Tim]

Thanks, Anna and Charles. I feel a little less foolish!! :D

[Rosalinda]

I have been running a countdown deals every so often. I like Friday to Sunday the best. I also prefer amazon.com. I tried amazon.co.uk but that did not produce any sales so I'm staying with amazon.com. I also do a lot of promotions prior to the countdown deal.