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Book Promotion Results: April 2023 Part 2

Lee Hall Leave a comment

And so my quest to promote books continues and this one promises to include a new book promotion site, hitting the $100 royalty milestone and an impressive near two week book sales streak. Welcome to Part 2 of my book promotion results for April 2023 which will dive in to the details of another book promo run which happened the weekend after my last.

This post first premiered via Patreon where you can find all of my exclusive and best marketing guides, audio coaching and even some fiction. Check it out here.

Let us dive in!

Aiming for Paid Sales

For this promotion, my aim was simple, paid sales and some of which were discounted for my guide book Consistent Creative Content. My aim after that first objective was to push CCC up the Amazon charts and even consider trying to get it to best seller within its chart – something I have come close to before with this book and this kind of thing requires a specific strategy.

Running this promo as a price reduction with some advertising should drive paid sales and considering the genre (non-fiction) I was expecting good things. From experience, a good non-fiction book will sell nearly 5 times more than any fictional book, this ratio is pretty much bang on for me so there was a little expectation here.

CCC has been priced at $3.99 in digital for the best part of this year and has rarely been changed hopefully making this discount lucrative.

A Specific Strategy

So for this promo, things were a little different from last time. Using a free book to make sales for a wider series was out and instead I’d be aiming for all paid sales. This meant my chances of breaking even or perhaps making a profit were increased as well as seeing my guide book climb up the Amazon paid charts. Generally the higher price a book is, the more it will move after someone purchases a copy so my specific strategy for this promo was to discount my book and advertise it at that price and then gradually put up the price over a few days. With sales slowing down after th

e initial discount promo, the price increase should offset and hopefully help the book remain high in the chart or even go higher.

This specific strategy of gradually increasing the price after a discounted promo is how I managed to get my super hero comedy The Teleporter to best seller back in 2021.

The Results

On the 14th and 15th of April 2023 my guide book Consistent Creative Content was discounted in digital at 99 cents. Here the results.

As you can see sales peaked on day 2 of the promo with then a further 7 sales on the 16th and then 2 of the 17th as the price was gradually raised. I even made a single paperback sale in Australia.

In terms of chart position and seeing as most of the sales came from the US, CCC jumped from 1000’s in the Amazon US Writing Skill Reference chart to number 3. Even a week after the promo it managed to stay in the 200’s which should help with some visibility.

Overall, with these numbers and the chart position, I’m happy although best seller would have been nice. Now let us overlay this sales with the promo from part 1.

With the free promo numbers included, 700+ books were shifted which for me is great month. Now let us look at paid sales.

A few years ago this would have been a personal best number for paid sales in a month and even now its a top 3 of all time for me. A huge factor for success here is having multiple titles available meaning you can do more in terms of promotion. Back List is King!

Advertisers

Let us look at who I advertised with for this 99 cents promo:

Robin Reads – Day 1

E Reader News Today – Day 2

Goodkindles.net – a newer book promo site that I advertised with for both days of the promo.

Financials

Probably the big question here is how much money did I make from both promos. Considering I paid for advertising with both, this is an important point.

My total advertising spend for both book promos: $263

This may sound like a lot of money and to me it is but in order to make serious progress you sometimes have to spend seriously. Now let us take a look at the financials.

First of all, money I have made before the promo in the months of January, February and March of 2023:

KENP page reads has been a big factor here. Having all of my fiction enrolled in Kindle Unlimited has helped big-time.

And let us look at how much money has been made in the month of April so far:

So the profit total for this year is: $273

This means my costs for this promo have been covered with a $10 profit, so the drinks are on me… Or shall I say the drink is on me but this is still good progress. To run book promos that can basically pay for themselves is fantastic progress and it is not the money which matters the most. Finding new readers, future readers and reviews long after the promo is what that money goes towards.

Concluding Thoughts

It has taken me some years to progress towards this point, but now I shall take a rest from paying for any kind of advertising and hopefully allow the royalty pot to fill up again. With the downloads from promo 1 there will be hopefully a flurry of KENP page reads.

There are several factors for success here with both promos, from having a certain number of ratings for my books to pricing and even timing. All of these factors weigh heavily on the success of a book and that also includes social media presence. I’ve run many promos over the years at a loss but I will happily admit, they get better over time and it is never too late for a book or a promo to be a success.

Thank you for reading.

You’ll find a stack of similar promo scenarios like this one in my author, blogger and social media guide book Consistent Creative Content.

Free Marketing Resources

Lee Hall Leave a comment

They say that everyone has a price and mine is free this month over on Patreon because everything I have released in March is available for all!

From my newly updated list of Book Promotion Websites to a free Twitter Audio Coaching Session all about my ten years spent on the platform – there are some cool and hopefully useful marketing resources for anyone looking to grow online as a creative. For the authors in the room I have also just released a new basic guide about selling books online.

These free marketing resources are just a taste of what is available to Rock Star and Royal Rock Star Patrons if you sign up and I have a stack of content coming. From more Twitter Coaching Sessions to my experience with getting book reviews and much more. Sign up now to get all my best stuff first.

You shall find those free resources below…

A List of Book Promotion Sites – my newest list of places I have successfully advertised with in the past year. Click on the graphic above or alternatively click here.

This beginner’s guide to selling books online goes back to basics and lays out how I sell books regularly so you can too! Click here or on the graphic above.

For the 23rd Twitter Coaching Session I talk about my 10 years spent on the platform. This series consists of literally hours of me laying out how to find success on the platform. If you sign up, you can access the whole series and find something that will help you grow also! Here’s the link.

For my 24th Coaching Session I have opened the floor for any questions anyone might have about Twitter or the wider subject of social media marketing. Drop me a line and I’ll happily answer your question in-depth for the next coaching session!

Of course for anyone who does sign up to my Patreon will receive rewards such as regular Twitter shout-outs and even a free digital copy of my guide book Consistent Creative Content. Thanks for dropping by!

Crossing $1000 in Book Royalties 2022

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Money.

A subject that can be kind of divisive for anyone who has published or released something creative in this world and for pretty much everyone else. With that discussion firmly to one side, this is my account of how I crossed $1000 in book royalties for the year 2022. Making any type of income from my books and creativity online crept up on me over the years and while I did spend my time churning out content and publishing with my head down doing the work, eventually my income began to grow.

Before I do dive in, I’ve always believed that creatives deserve to be paid for their work. And its perfectly valid for an artist or any creator to value their work. It is also normal and okay for a creator to aspire towards making a career out of their endeavours – something I one day aspire to do. But that word value is where we shall begin…

Value

Over the years of being published I’ve discovered that having a perceived value for your works is the first step to making money from them. From taking pride in a job done well to the hours you’ve put in to create something from scratch to even your public perception of that work. All of this stuff and the general success of it along with you, revolves around that value. There is a lot more I could say about value, but as long as you are aware of how you conduct yourself online and have pride towards your work, you’ll be fine.

Now, linked rather closely to value is pricing…

Pricing

That perception and belief of value should drive what you think is a fair price for your work. Pricing for books can be a sometimes tricky thing to master. I’ve tried numerous pricing strategies over the years but my major selling price was in fact my perceived regular price.

Having tried the lowest possible price for my e books via kindle ($0.99) for an extended time didn’t result in many consistent sales but after raising that price (around $2.99) things started moving more frequently. This is part value and psychological towards the potential reader. Low prices can be good for a temporary book promotional boost, but a decent competitive price over an extended time will do good for your sales eventually. Paperbacks are another factor here also and seeing as I used to sell predominantly digital, paperback sales began to rise for me in recent times. This is probably due to fair pricing and value while also because of my rising profile on social media. Having 40,000 Twitter followers does help sometimes but it took a while for me to get there.

With regular sales at regular price, royalties will trickle in consistently and we’re not talking several sales a day here. Just a consistent one or two sales every three or four days will work wonders for that royalty balance trust me. And trust, is a huge factor in this…

Trust

Just how does a creative earn trust online? Well it isn’t easy and it takes time, a lot of time. But if you take responsibility in everything you do in the public facing domain of social media, eventually you’ll earn that trust of others. I sell most of my work through social media because I am present and generally pleasant. Decent behaviour sticks out big-time in this day and age. Running parallel to that time I have spent earning trust is consistent creative content…

The Three C’s

Those who know me will also know my guide book is titled Consistent Creative Content and I wholeheartedly believe they are three things any creator needs to succeed. It took me six or so years to release eight books and using my time rather well it has propelled me towards higher royalties. This writer journey is a marathon not a sprint and you may be one or two books in or more, but over time it gets better if you keep going. Readers like choice and if they make a good enough connection with one of your books, they will return for another, so having that option will increase your chances of sales. Backlist really is King and alongside that is another huge factor, promotion…

Promotion

Book Promotion is a huge umbrella of variety and to the first-time author a rather daunting concept. You can only do what you know how to do at the time of a book release and that’s okay. I’ll admit my book promo methods were limited during the release of my first book and over some years I learned a lot. All of the things I did learn I then applied back to that first release and it is now one of my most successful.

With book promotion and discovering the many methods it involves, this will take time. Generally, I pay for advertising via book promotion websites while also plugging my work online occasionally. My method for regular sales is to focus more on convincing potential readers to be interested in me and then hope they move on to my books – this concept works for me mostly…

I am regularly present on social media. For those who aren’t, advertising takes many forms and if you want serious results then sometimes you have to pay serious money.

BookBub is a promo site that brings fantastic returns and during 2022 a perfect BookBub storm unexpectedly erupted for me. It was during the run-up to the final release in my Order of the Following Series that I managed to grab a coveted featured deal -BookBub’s ‘Holy Grail’ of advertising packages, for the first book in the series. Of course I pounced and put into action everything I’ve learned to ensure maximum sales and KU page reads.

That featured deal happened back in September of 2022 and now in February of 2023 I am still getting page reads, reviews and sales from it.

An effective book promotion, will serve a book for plenty of time after.

Most of my fictional works are enrolled in Kindle Unlimited and that gives maximum opportunity for extended royalties from digital downloads. Quantity is key here and if you can sell books in quantity, the money will eventually roll in.

Quick Fire Factors

And so I’ve hopefully laid out the details to reaching a huge royalty milestone. Here are some quick fire factors that helped shape that journey.

Writing in Series – long term but this helps, when my series was complete it became way more lucrative, keep going series writers!

Writing Stand Alone – peppered between those releases in series are stand alone books in a variety of genre and length. This helped me big-time. Remember backlist is King.

Supporting the industry – I regularly review books by fellow authors from my social media connections. This has helped me regularly release reviews that serve as blogging content and is an opportunity to gain trust and friendships from fellow authors.

Social Media Presence – there are a lot of potential readers out there online, spending time with them will drive sales, eventually.

Time is your friend – it takes time to get to anywhere good on a creative journey.

Paid Advertising – to make money you sometimes have to spend money.

Kindle Unlimited – most of my fictional works including my series is enrolled in KU. Those page reads add up if you can reach readers.

Taking this journey seriously – serious results comes from a serious attitude. I am always doing something to help market myself or my stuff online. From blog posts, to reviews, to social media presence to the odd book price promo or advertising.

Concluding Thoughts

I’ve tried to be as neutral as possible when highlighting my experiences of making over $1000 is book royalties because like I said at the start, money can be divisive subject. For this account I have homed in on certain subjects that all work in unison to create the perfect recipe for book royalties. You shall find more specific guidance below.

Thank you for reading!

This account was inspired by a recent Patreon Audio Presentation where I talk in detail about my journey. You can find that here.

Further Reading:

Building Trust on Twitter

My Most Recent Guide on Securing a BookBub Featured Deal

A guide to Selling Books on Social Media

Twitter Coaching Sessions

A concise list of Book Promotion Websites

10 Years on Twitter: A Reflection

Lee Hall 3 Comments

10 years ago I started my Twitter journey. Back then, I’d only really dreamed of having the numbers I have now as well as so many other cool things.

‘Join Twitter, build a following and share your writing with them…’

That statement is the narrow version of advice I found at the time and well, nothing worthwhile in this life is really simple or easy.

The truth is, I spent many years on Twitter not really knowing what I was doing or what I needed to do in order to reach people and grow. Everyone’s Twitter experience is unique to them and perhaps that’s what makes it special. You get back what you put in and social media is still quite a new concept viewed by many in a negative light but as someone who has spent an extended time on Twitter, good things can be found. That void you find yourself shouting into does eventually answer back because I am proof of that concept. In 2020 my following had crept to a moderate 3,000 or so followers. A year later it was 20,000 and during that time something happened, not just in the world but in my world because all I did was spend more time on the platform and with every tweet or interaction I learned. In my mind I marked what worked and what didn’t time and time again. Eventually and after that time, the needle began to turn and then eventually bend in my favor. People, good people began to notice me simply because I worked on my presence and what those people responded to.

Conversational tact and manners are all anyone needs to succeed on Twitter. You don’t need a gimmick or an act, you just need to be genuine and I say that from experience because for all the things social media is viewed as, most people look to it for an escape or to find others who are like them and if you do conduct yourself in a pleasant way, good things will eventually happen.

I couldn’t possibly sum up all of my experience on Twitter in just a blog post and those who do know me will also be aware of my many resources that delve deep into the intricacies of how to find success on the platform. While that success may be in the eye of the beholder, through my time on Twitter I have learned to reach people, keep people interested and even persuade them to buy my books and invest in me.

Of course I have returned that with my own support and as long as you can appear genuine in a sometimes volatile world online, you cannot be beaten. Supporting others is important to me and always will be.

You can find my best Twitter resources here.

Top Guides of 2022

Lee Hall Leave a comment

2022 has been a year of learning for me. From selling books way more regularly to hitting big-time milestones on Twitter. I’m a big believer in passing on the stuff I have learned and so here are my Top guides of 2022…

From the book basics, the everyday stuff to even selling related solutions, this guide lays out how to sell books on social media.

Twitter is the engine room of my online presence and book selling. The concept of treating it like a bar has helped me find thousands of followers. This bar analogy guide lays it all out…

Continuing with the Twitter theme and introducing my best guide based content about the platform is my Twitter Coaching Sessions. These Patreon exclusive audio sessions which are now nearly 20 episodes strong lay out in detail my Twitter experiences.

BookBub has been a hot button topic for me in recent years. Especially after my second featured deal resulted in 10,000+ book downloads in a single day. Somehow this year I managed to secure a deal for my debut novel Open Evening which paved the way for my wider Order of the Following Series to find more success than it has ever had!

As an indie author, I am always conscious of trying my best to get more reviews for my works. Most of us who are published will know the struggle we face with finding them so here are 5 ways to get more…

Thanks for reading! You can find a lot more guides via the resources section.

Check out my Patreon for the exclusive stuff!

Weekly Ramble #155

Lee Hall

The past week has been a ride. To see my debut book get downloaded several thousand times in 24 hours has been a rollercoaster of emotion. As a proprietor of one’s and two’s in terms of sales, these numbers aren’t exactly a daily occurrence.

Its going to take a while to come down and this result has kind of been everything I have ever wanted on this path and it is even more special because it is my debut book. It might not be my best work, and yes it is of a certain age but to see my book get an opportunity to be thrown in front of just a slice of mainstream readers is awesome.

Of course the reviews will contrast from glowing to obsessively obtuse and weird – I’ve been there before and to see my book after all these years get such numbers is fantastic. In the middle of all that was a hugely successful launch of my 8th book which has outsold every one of my previous releases. Sometimes this whole deal can be awesome.

And now I can retreat back into content creating and even editing of a book that I am going to hopefully query next year. You can expect the results of that recent promotion soon.

Weekly Ramble #151

Lee Hall

All the usual festivities of a book release are coming. Book 8 ‘Darke Apocalypse’ is about a month and half away from release and it will be a relief to get this one over the line.

Way back in 2020 I committed to releasing this book next and so that time and work is about to culminate. Social media promotion is a grind but I am ready and now we are in August I’ve got no choice but to ramp up my presence because all of the sales, follows, reviews, interactions and success is built upon presence. When someone does ask me how I get daily book sales I simply tell them it is based on presence but of course a lot of other factors have to align also.

August also marks the anniversary of starting Patreon which has now become quite a success. 10 kind Patrons have signed up and the content is growing – to those who support me there, thank you. I plan on releasing much more soon so for that and my 8th book, I’ll say what I always say, watch this space!

Book Promotion Results – July 2022

Lee Hall

The results are here for my latest book promotion efforts and now I am ready to share how it went and who I advertised with. Let us dive in!

Plan/Motive

With all of my book promotional efforts there’s always a wider plan and motive. So first of all, for the complete beginners, what is a book promo run? Well to me, its a short period of time where I lower the price of a book and advertise it for maximum sales.

Now I don’t advertise my work constantly apart from regular social media posting and my book selling philosophy is to be present on social media to the point where it interests potential readers to first of all engage or follow me and then buy from me. I have 30,000+ following on Twitter that regularly buys my work as long as I stay active.

The plan for this promo run was to set the price for my super hero comedy The Teleporter to free for one day and then raise the price only slightly the next day to 99 cents whilst using advertisers for both of those days. My vision was to get maximum free downloads and then hopefully some paid discounted sales after.

The Results

On the day The Teleporter was free it was downloaded over 1000 times across 9 countries! This is a fantastic number!

And here are the results for the next day with paid sales.

21 paid sales with a few trickling in after is a moderate number. It’s not world beating but good enough for me considering I already potentially have 1000+ new readers. It was also good to see page reads boosted.

Chart Movement

On the day of it being free, The Teleporter hit #1 in the Free Satire Fiction chart over in the US which is great for that little extra visibility.

Advertisers

So for most of my book promo runs I advertise with book promotion websites. They are generally good places to tell hopefully masses of readers about my books. Most book promo sites boast large mailing lists and that’s essentially what I am paying for. You can find a list of book promo sites at the bottom of this post.

Here’s who I used for this promo run.

Day 1 – The Teleporter is Free

Freebooksy Sci Fi Promotion

Book Runes Featured Free Book

Day 2 – The Teleporter is discounted to 99 cents

Fussy Librarian

Just Kindle Books

These 4 advertisers were all paid, check them out for individual pricing.

Concluding Thoughts

Not a bad promo run, in fact I consider anything over a 1000 free downloads to be a massive success. In order to move numbers with book sales its important to consider paying for advertising, although most of my promos run at a loss, the returns I get are reviews, future sales and readers.

Thank you for reading and below you shall find some resources to help with your own promo efforts.

Want to know how I have mastered Twitter and turned it into a book selling machine? Check out my Patreon coaching sessions which lay out book promotion and much more!

A Concise List of Book Promotion Sites

My guide book lays everything out in detail plus there is a whole section dedicated to my many successful book promo runs I have done over the years!

Twitter Coaching Sessions 1 to 10 – Out Now

Lee Hall

Twitter can be a strange and weird platform to figure out. But it is also a fantastic opportunity to connect with millions of others who could potentially be your next follower, reader and even customer.

Leveraging that following can be difficult but I’ve spent nearly 10 years on the platform and now with over 32,000 followers, I am living proof that the knowledge I’ve gained works to increase my growth, marketing reach, engagement and sales. Now I have the means to pass on this experience so anyone can achieve what I have.

If you are not sure where to start and are looking for better results to achieve awesome things like me then look no further than my Twitter Coaching Sessions. You’ll learn everything I have in just a few hours as opposed to the many years I spent carving a following that regularly buys my books.

These 10 audio classes are a crash course in everything I have learned to get good results on Twitter – from constructing the ideal profile and presence to even the finer details of increasing engagement to get those all important sales. There is even a session dedicated to staying safe.

Start your journey to better Tweet Machine Results today. Coaching Sessions 1 and 2 are free to listen and then it costs less than $2 to access the rest.

More sessions are coming that will lay out everything I have learned to give you the best chance of social media success!

Book Sales I’ve leveraged from Twitter this year!

Own your Twitter success by signing up to my Patreon today!

Book Promotion Results – May 2022

Lee Hall

The results are in for my latest book promotion efforts and loyal Rock Star Patrons got to see it before anyone else but now its available for all. Let us dive in!

The Plan

Its good to lay down a plan and my plan was simple this time around; to celebrate the one year anniversary of Consistent Creative Content being released by running a weekend price reduction promotion with a little paid advertising. Using a few different advertisers over a few days I even had the grand vision of the book reaching #1 and Best Seller status on Amazon. There were a few other promotional things planned for the weekend and run up to it also.

I’ve been eyeing up this anniversary for a little while now and so I booked my advertising at the end of April – some advertisers tend to get booked up so planning in advance always helps with that.

The Price Promotion would be $0.99 and run from Friday the 20th to Sunday the 22nd with the usual price being $3.99 – a considerable drop so I was hopeful for this one. A few days or a weekend is more than enough to run a price promotion, I tend to only run them in short bursts to create some urgency, plus after day 2 or 3 I run out of the energy required to keep tweeting about the same thing.

Advertisers

For the Friday I used Robin Reads and their $0.99 Non-Fiction Feature that cost $65

For the Saturday I used E Reader News Today ($55) and Bargain Booksy ($35)

(Give these sites a Google if you want to find out more)

These advertisers I have used previously and generally bring good results. As you can see they have a cost which is something that you need to be prepared to do if you want serious results.

The wonderful thing is I paid for this advertising with the royalties I’ve earned so far this year from book sales.

For many years, I’ve run these promotions at a loss but there have been other returns in the form of Amazon chart movement, reviews, further sales, social media follows and new readers. Plus this isn’t my day job, so there is no pressure to earn actual money.

Other Promotional Things

To tie in with the anniversary I put together a reflective blog post about the first year of Consistent Creative Content and I also released a special presentation of yours truly narrating some of the book which was made free to listen.

These other promotional things tend to help just a little and the more platforms you are active on, the better chance you have of reaching just a few extra potential readers. So in theory, the more you do, the better chance of reach.

My initial plan was to keep things discreet on Twitter until the Saturday because the platform tends to figure out that I would be trying to sell things and therefore the algorithms would kick in or start kicking me and reduce my visibility – I can’t say Twitter does this 100% but I have a feeling something happens beneath the curtain when anyone gets a little too advertisey. On this weekend in particular, it was looking like I’d be reaching the 30,000 follower milestone on Twitter.

The Results

As you can see, day 1 brought in the most sales. There were even a few full priced sales the day before over in the US which gave Consistent Creative Content a great start.

Day 2 saw 23 sales and then things slowed down on the Sunday to just 3 sales.

For the time CCC was discounted it sold over 60 copies!

Chart Movement:

By the time Friday evening rolled around CCC shot all the way up to #2 in the US Amazon Charts under the Writing Skill Reference Chart. Usually its in the 1000’s which is an incredible result and will help with visibility.

Pro Tip: If you are looking for more visibility and perhaps even thinking of applying for a BookBub Featured deal, getting your book higher up the charts just before applying will help.

Cheeky ad of my Tweet Coaching Sessions

Social Media:

Because of the surprising chart position over in the US by Friday evening, I decided to take the plunge into tweeting. I got a little excited and hoped that maybe CCC would reach best seller…

Now the book never got to #1 which would have been awesome but perhaps another achievement for another day. I did spend the weekend tweeting quite a lot about CCC which effectively killed my engagement and visibility for the time. Even with a following as large as mine being sales focused constantly will reduce my reach or that’s how it seems anyway. Here’s an insight into that:

Friday Organic Twitter Impressions: 42,000+ (less book plug stuff)

Sunday Organic Twitter Impressions: 16,00+ (more book plug stuff)

This is also another reason why just a few days for a promo is enough.

Final Thought

I’m happy with this one year anniversary promo. CCC is becoming my most successful book but that success takes some time and time is a book’s best friend. Perhaps in a few years time the results will be even better!

Thanks for reading.

Quite soon I’ll be recording a new Twitter Coaching Sessions which is a celebratory glance at how I reached 30,000 Twitter followers and it will be free for all to listen!