A new month means new opportunity. June was a grind and the obligatory ‘slow month after a book release’ type of month for me. This year is disappearing quickly but this blog is growing in followers. To those who have recently followed this humble blogging effort – thank you. I’m not great at previewing or short-term planning because much of my creativity is put together on the fly but I’ve got some good things coming this month.
You can expect to be reading a brand new book promotion results post quite soon as the last weekend of June was my semi-sucessful super fun happy book discount. A few more reviews have already come in for my that discounted book Consistent Creative Content – thank you!
I also have 2 Reedsy Discovery Reviews and most probably a look back at some recent ‘Reedsy Discovery Reads’ – I’ve been reviewing books with them for a year now and have discovered some awesome tales in that time.
I have also taken part in a few blogging interviews which I’ll be sharing across social media when they are out and later on in July I am taking part in a video interview via Instagram – a first for me.
Well, that’s my boring life. What have you got planned this month?
Alright authors. here it is and due to popular demand the results of my most recent book promotion efforts which took place on the first weekend of April 2021. For the sake of helping a fellow wordsmith we’ll be looking into the basics, what I aimed to do, the results, how I got them and of course factors for success. This will be quite detailed but for reasons laid out ahead.
There might be some new faces visiting this here blog for the first time so allow me to introduce myself if you don’t already know me. My name is Lee Hall, I’m an independently published author from the UK. I have several books available and I am determined to persuade the world to read them – that is and always will be my dream. I’ve never given up and slowly over many years I’ve found some success. My readers and following on social media have been kind enough to keep that dream alive by showing amazing support. It is also my belief that authors should help each other because we are on this journey together so this post is for authors to hopefully gain something from. Let’s dive in…
The Basics
If you are published you’ll probably know that an author’s greatest struggle is informing the world their work exists. The next challenge is convincing someone to spend money and actually buy it. I know this pain very well and everyone with a book for sale feels it. Unfortunately just saying your book exists is not enough to sell it mainly because our voices aren’t loud enough on their own, so how do we amplify that voice? Through book promotion.
Book promotion is a rather large umbrella that covers many different methods of marketing and advertising. There are numerous ways to tell the world your book exists while also persuading a potential reader to buy it. Some require long term effort while others are instant, we’ll go into some methods below. Before setting out to promote your work it’s important to decide what you want and how you are going to do it along with setting a realistic expectation.
My aim
My aim on this occasion was get as many sales as possible for my four books which are all part of the Occult ‘Order of the Following Series’. The first book in that series ‘Open Evening’ would be free to download on Saturday the 3rd of April while the other three would be discounted to 99 cents or equivalent on that day also.
If your book is published via Amazon and enrolled in Kindle Unlimited they will allow you to set your price to free for so many days every period. Free is an effective, please-all method of getting downloads. It doesn’t guarantee reviews or even reads but that’s the gamble with every book sale.
The main method I would be advertising this sale was through various book promotion sites and across my own social media channels. For beginners, book promotion sites are an effective way to advertise books online. Some advertise for free while the better ones you have to pay for. More info on book promo sites here.
In terms of expectations, I envisioned some paid sales for the discounted books while the majority would be for the free book.
Top promo tip: If you have a series available, setting the price to one book for free and lowering the price for the others will drive sales to all books in that series if promoted well for a short time.
Background information: In February I managed to convince high end Book Promo site BookBub to feature my stand alone super hero comedy ‘The Teleporter’. It was downloaded 10,000 times, became a best seller and has got over 100 ratings since then. This is probably important to note because after that promo a lot more eyes have been on me and my work. The aftermath has been rather incredible. You can read about that here.
The Results
So this is how things went on Saturday the 3rd of April. After what started as a rather slow day soon took a turn for the better…
The free to download Open Evening made its way around the world with an impressive 874 downloads while every other book I have available sold, this included books that were not advertised anywhere! Now lets take a look at the paid sales that day in a little more detail.
176 paid sales in one day is a record breaking statistic for me. Not only did this smash the previous record of 60 paid sales in one day (2019) but also the monthly record that was 120 (September 2020).
‘Darke Awakening’ took the lead and sold nearly triple the amount it sold on release last year. Overall these numbers are something I’ve never seen before!
Let’s take a look at Amazon chart movement.
The highlight was seeing Open Evening beside Dean Koontz’s ‘Odd Interlude’ via the Free US Occult Suspense Chart.
‘Darke Awakening’ did the best in paid charts by peaking at 21 in the US Vampire Thriller charts. ‘An English vampire book in America’ being in the top 25 of the biggest Amazon market is huge! It was in the 1000’s previously!
‘Darke Blood’ just about crept into the top 50 of the US Occult Suspense Chart, again that was in the 1000’s beforehand.
‘Cemetery House’ managed a solid 52 in the US Occult Horror charts. A respectable number for what was my most problematic release back in 2018. Redemption!
For what was a truly fantastic day continued into the Sunday with more paid sales. This time ‘Open Evening’ started selling at 99 cents. Chart movement is an important thing because it throws books in front of new eyes and puts them alongside perhaps more known titles. This drives visibility for passing trade.
On this day my all time paid book sales record for the month was pushed to 200+ which then got further improved the next day…
As of this screen shot taken on the 5th the total for paid sales in April reached 216.
How I did it
This story is only half told because now we need to look into how I got these results and there are so many different factors as to why this sale was so successful. Hopefully this is the part where some of you guys can get something out of this information.
Normally during a promotional run I focus the advertising on one book but this time I spread that advertising across the series using multiple book promo sites. So here are the book promotion sites and the packages I used for each book:
Free Booksy – Horror Series Advertising Package for ‘Open Evening’ with the series linked – Cost $65
E Book Booster – Advertisement for ‘Open Evening’ – Cost $25
Bookrunes – Advertisement for ‘Cemetery House’ – Cost £25
Robin Reads – 99 cents Discounted Thriller Promotion for ‘Cemetery House’ – Cost $40
My Book Place – Advertisement for ‘Darke Blood’ – Cost $10
Total Cost: $165
This might seem like a lot of money to some but if you are serious about advertising then you need to invest money seriously. My recent BookBub featured deal cost around $250. This sale has turned out to be my most cost effective and potentially profitable!
Top promo tip: If you want to know how effective a certain book promo site is, just advertise with them only.
Factors for success
As you can see the paid advertising focused on the first three books in the series but the 4th book ‘Darke Awakening’ sold the most amount of copies. It is usually priced at $2.99 but the 99 cents discounted price is seen as quite a bargain. This was also the same for ‘Cemetery House’ which is usually $1.99 and was also discounted. Price differential, even by a small amount is a major factor in sales. Supermarkets do this all the time. Folks like to think they are getting a bargain and they were in this instance.
But why else did this promotional run go so well? (this is quite a list but here goes…)
The Basics (again)
Different basics this time but I firmly believe people will buy a book if it has the following things:
A professional cover, an enticing blurb, a unique title and a fair price. If your book has just these things, it will sell eventually, trust me.
Further visuals: Book banners seem to enhance the visual aspect of a book’s cover. I made most of mine through online photoshop sites and shared them through my social media platforms.
Some reviews/ratings: All four books in the series have some reviews and ratings. These take time to get but are very valuable when it comes to selling a book. That star rating is sat just beside the cover, people take it into account. Some promo sites will only accept books with a certain amount of reviews.
Open Evening was free: People love free things. Some folks won’t even think about liking the free thing before they grab it and if one of those books in a series is free, that leads into…
Amazon Series Link: If you are published via Amazon and have a series you can now create a separate product page for all the books in that series. This is kind of a no brainer and if used properly, potential readers will land on that page and they will then see all the books available. On this occasion they saw all the books were discounted.
Having more books, sells more books: If you have multiple books published then readers are more likely to buy from you. This is also my number one book selling advice – write more books. Easier said than done I know but authors with just one or two books, keep going because sales will get easier the more books you have published. Then you can do more things to promote them.
Having stand alone books helps also: I also have two stand alone books, one of which did very well a few months back in another promo. No doubt some folks who read it then saw these books were on sale and took the opportunity to buy one or two.
The sale only lasted a day: While over the years I have ran many different promos they all tend to be for a short time. This creates urgency, a one day only deal will push sales because a sense of demand is created.
Timing
The Easter weekend or any holiday weekend is a great time to advertise a bargain book. These days and post pandemic a lot more people are online and more people are reading. Saturday is a prime day for social media traffic and so I used that to my advantage.
The month of April is also a rather special time for Indie Authors because over on twitter there is a thing called #IndieApril where a whole lot of folks come out to support indie books. Which leads into…
A strong and long social media game…
For some years I have been slowly ramping up my Twitter game and the chances are you came from Twitter to read this. In very recent times Twitter has brought me extraordinary results simply because I’ve kept going and tried my best to help fellow authors. Every day I show up and do my best to inspire, inform, entertain and hopefully provide something of value to an exceptional group known as the writing community. I know for a fact they came out in droves to support this recent sale and I’m truly thankful for it.
55 Likes for a writing tip – that’s awesome…
There is no quick way to get an engaged following on social media, it just takes time and effort. People have to trust you and that takes time to earn. I basically treat it like a job. As long as you keep going, eventually social media gets rewarding. Twitter in particular has a specific psychology to get right. For anyone who want’s to know more about getting better at twitter, here’s a recent guide.
For this sale I took full advantage of the shameless self promo Saturday hashtag and basically spent most of the day present on the platform sharing book banners and links. I manned the bridge and put all my efforts into navigating the S.S Lee Hall Writer through book promo waters…
While the promotion was unfolding I kept my Twitter following informed how it was going and this stirred even more engagement and reaction leading to sales. This also led to further sales on the days after.
Convince folks to buy into you first
Over the years Lee Hall has become a brand of loyalty that supports fellow authors by reviewing and embracing their works. Yes I just referred to myself in third person…
Last year I reviewed 40 plus indie books. Be a player in the game and the game will support you. I tend to speak less about my work and more about others, people see that I’m not just here to sell books, I am here to do so much more and you are so much more than a book link on social media. Be a person first and book link later.
The back story of my story…
Because I have such an awesome audience on this blog and now on Twitter I shared a post about my high school days which were a struggle. That personal struggle is something that inspired ‘Open Evening’ and so a week or so before the promo I shared it on here and via Twitter. It was even my pinned tweet for the week running up to the promo. You can read that post here.
Momentum
The writing winds of destiny seem to be blowing my way as of recent. I’m not sure if I accidentally sold my soul or something but lady luck is shining on me right now and I’m riding that momentum. First a BookBub featured deal in February and now this awesome weekend of sales that is still aftermathing.
It’s never too late
Even years after its release Open Evening is now being read by my newer following. Books will probably outlast the best of us!
Things eventually align
This journey hasn’t been easy but I’ve never given up no matter the results. Perseverance pays dividends eventually, you just have to keep going. I’ve learned a lot over the years and next month the fruits of such will be published via my self help guide book which is available to pre-order now for a discounted price.
Concluding thoughts
The true result of a good book promo run will happen long after the actual sales so right now I’m unsure how effective it was apart from the obvious visuals and stats I have shared. Overall I’m pretty happy with how things went.
I’m still getting over the emotional rollercoaster of February’s book promo and then this happened. It’s incredibly humbling to see my books getting sold in the numbers they did. I haven’t done anything special or even clever. Over the years, I’ve just kept going and that’s probably all I am qualified to tell you to do. Keep going. Chase those words and eventually good things come to those who work for it.
I shall leave you with this final graphic which shows royalties that I have never seen before, royalties that have started to turn things towards a profit and for me above all, hope.
Thank you to everyone who supported this recent book promo run and for taking the time to read this. The recent support you have all shown is incredible. You can find plenty of other book promo stuff in the resources section right here.
It’s going to be a long and brutal year. From what has already happened all the way to the perhaps far off light on the ever further horizon it’s going to be a grind. I’ve faced many adversities in my life and survived; this year will be no different – perhaps surviving and rolling up my sleeves is all I know what to do.
You watch the news and you’ll know just what we are in for. But not all of it is bad, it’s just difficult and defining that difference much like any perspective is what will pull me through. I’ve had every type of day at the office in my life so the sequel to 2020 doesn’t scare me although every time I look at the news there’s something else to sigh deeply about. Where I am is currently locked down, the virus numbers are higher than ever, the causation most probably people not acknowledging how serious this whole deal is – the people that aren’t me.
January is traditionally a gruelling month with book sales, already somehow I can boast just a handful – something I will revel in, damn it’s hard to sell books sometimes and getting reviews, well that’s another question. That struggle is universal and never ending, the trick is not to let it get to you. A poor man doesn’t dwell on their bank balance or what he hasn’t got, he concentrates on trying to improve from zero, take that how you will but with everything going on around me, I’ll look to improve what I can by taking every victory I can no matter the size. Every single victory is going to count this year and hopefully turn the tables, eventually. Let’s hope so…
To those who have grabbed a copy of my work recently or left a review, thank you.
A new blog series emerges, out of the unknown void of creativity where I sometimes have ideas…
Let’s talk about writing. You’re probably not going far and neither am I.
So while I’m here and you are (hopefully) let’s use this time to reflect on writing, after all it’s what most of us blogger types do.
Personally there is no full proof blue print to teach someone to write. You have to find that within yourself but I can sure as hell talk about it and hopefully pass on some ‘wisdom’ about the craft. If you tuned in to Twitter recently you may have seen my recent thread that 4 people probably read all about that first draft.
It’s easier and relatable to think of writing in a way that everyone can. So for this post, we are going to use the analogy of cooking to represent writing that first…
Humanity had a bad weekend. It seems like bad events such as the one in Paris are becoming more and more frequent. Most of us won’t be able to do anything that could help a situation that unfolded but instead we find ways of processing and paying tribute.
There are no words that could possibly describe what those innocent people went through and there is no justification for those who inflicted such diabolical acts. Life will find a way of being the judge.
As humans we do the best to process. Many who use facebook took the opportunity to pay tributes by covering their profile picture with a French flag. Many others vented via tweets and statuses.
The downside of humanity is sometimes the action we take. However the upside is our reaction we have as people. In extreme situations of danger people commit heroic acts to keep sometimes complete strangers safe from harm. That itself should be celebrated, but that doesn’t bring back those who undeservedly lost their lives. Sometimes in order to process and think about what is going on in the world we look a little closer to home.
Turn it back on yourself for just a moment and you can realise compared to those people who faced shear terror on Friday your life isn’t that bad. That’s how I process stuff like this because there isn’t really any other way for me. Sure we can live in paranoia that we are going be next but that isn’t living. None of us should in fact live in fear, we should all have hope that things are going to be ok and that is what humanity is to me.
You may be in a shitty situation at work or home. Money may be your biggest worry or the car you drive may not make the next view miles down the road. This road is in fact long and winding. All of those things mentioned find ways of resolve but are in fact minor problems compared to others.
‘One day you are on top of the world and one day you are the clown’ says one of my favourite vocalists Chris Daughtry in a particular song called start of something good.
To me that means one day you will be ahead and one day you will be behind. Just be glad you are in the race because those people on Friday were taken before their time. What better way to pay a tribute than to go out and make something of your life.
Without sounding too preachy my life is exactly as Chris Daughtry sings that song. ‘Things might work out how they should’.
I take a closer look at myself and things are good. Very recently I started a new job across departments at work. This decision is turning out to be the best I have ever made in my life, but work for me wasn’t always great, neither was my car and money situation. What’s money I still ask?
There once was a time where I said I’m a writer and had no content to show for it. Right now I sit here typing with a brand new book ready to be edited and then hopefully self published next year. After finding an editor and someone who can help publicise it (he says).
Good news can always be found somewhere but if it can’t make some of your own. We as people are powerful beings, just the power of words can change society. Although there isn’t anything we can do to bring back those many good people who left us in Paris, we can sure dedicate ourselves to appreciating and making the most of what we have. That is our life and our humanity.
Not many of us will ever win anything big. I personally haven’t won anything particularly big but the little victories, there’s something I specialise in and savour. I’m surrounded by good friends and people who make this life better to be in.
Its been a difficult but very rewarding year for me. The seeds have already been planted to make 2016 blossom into something good. It’s never too late to grow your own good news.
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