Here I am with Diana Gabaldon, my all time favorite author. I have read her Outlander series, all fifty million pages of it, THREE times. We're hanging out in cyberspace for a few moments of eternity, the 65th and 66th most popular authors in Action & Adventure Fiction. WAA-HOO!
Every once in awhile, life presents the opportunity to be outrageously out there, to the point of being obnoxious. This is one of those times.
I recently did a promotion of my eBook, The Angel & the Brown-Eyed Boy. It was free for a couple of days and then went back to being one you had to pay for. The results astonished me. Lots of people downloaded it, and then more bought it.
The book’s rankings dropped spectacularly (in book rankings, lower is better) and my AUTHOR RANKING, which I didn’t know existed (because it didn’t before then) put me in the company of some of the world’s most famous authors, and my favorite authors. [However briefly. These rankings change hourly. I am probably in the potato cellar of the Amazon world again. Or will be soon. This book-selling world is not for sissies, compadres.]
So, it’s my time and I’m gonna crow about it.
I’ve done promos by myself before, but this time I was assisted by folks who knew what SEO meant. Turns out, that’s very important in today’s marketing world. My partners in success in this venture were Genius Media, Inc. They are primarily publishers, but also do book promotion. It was a lucky day when I ran into Genius Media.
If you are planning on giving your book away on an Amazon KDP promotion, don’t think it will necessarily turn out the way my recent extravaganza did. Don’t think it won’t, either. You never know. I’ve done KDP free days in the past, running the campaign pretty much by my lonesome self. What was it like? Think days of non-stop, back breaking work, not knowing what I was doing, going down lists of what to do posted online by people I’d never heard of. Fingers aching, eyes watering. I did get results, but it was awful.
If you’re fortunate and have professionals who know what they’re doing to assist you, something like this may happen–and getting there won’t be a nightmare.
THE FREE PART ENDED UP LIKE THIS:
This is how my rankings showed up at their highest, which is measured by closest to #1, the top ranking. Amazon reports results in terms of all the free books on the site, as well as the book's categories. Yes, that's #20 out of all the books free that day.
The Free results also ended up like this:
Midway through this promo, without telling anyone they were doing it, Amazon changed its categories from these, to what's above. This makes people who know SEO really upset, because they're settings are now wrong.
If you end up in the Top 100 Free or Paid, Amazon does a nice little thing like this with your ranking and book cover:
Here's The Angel, flying to #1 Tree in Metaphysical & Visionary Fiction. This was a lovely sight.
ENOUGH OF THE FREE RESULTS. EVERYONE’S INTERESTED IN SALES:
When The Angel went off of free, what happened? This. Took a long night of screen-gazing to get this screenshot. Waa-hoo!
OK. THIS IS BLATANT GRANDSTANDING, BUT THIS DOESN’T HAPPEN TOO OFTEN, NOR DO I KNOW IF IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN. I’M GOING TO PUT UP SOME PICS OF ME AND MY NEW FRIENDS, COURTESY OF AMAZON. (AND THANK YOU, AMAZON, FOR CREATING THE VENUE FOR THIS TO HAPPEN.)
Years ago, I gave a talk on “Celebrate Your Victories.” I think I’ll post the text of that talk on this blog. Mitigating/explaining what I’m doing with this post, my talk said that we need to celebrate our wins! We need to toot our horns and let the good times flow when something wonderful happens.
Why? Given the transitory nature of success and life’s high points, you’ll be slogging through the muck soon enough. You’ll forget the wonderful high and that life is a joyful process that includes UPS as well as downs. We tend to focus on the later.
SO, HERE I AM, WITH A BUNCH OF MY NEW FRIENDS:
For years, I was too snobby to read Stephen King. When I finally started, I didn't read everything he'd written–that's HUGE. But I sure gave it a try. So, hey, Stephen, hope to hang out a lot more, buddy!
OMG. The guy who brought Jungian writing and depth psychology to everyone, my old buddy, J. R. R. Tolkien! Here I am, rubbing rankings with the master.
Orson Scott Card, maybe the brainiest sci-fi writer ever. Here we are, lovingly stacked together. Thank you, Amazon! And my READERS! Yay!
Classic sci-fi from the master George Orwell, author of 1984, Animal Farm and so much more. Nice to hang out, George! My The Angel & the Brown-Eyed Boy has been compared to 1984. And our own contemporary pundit, Chuck Wendig. Glad to meet you, Chuck!
WHAT CAN HAPPEN IN LIFE IS TRULY UNLIMITED. YOU NEVER KNOW WHO YOUR NEW FRIENDS MIGHT BE:
MAY YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE AND YOUR COMPANY REFLECT YOUR TRUE NOBILITY AND GRACE!
FREE BOOKS!!!! $$FREE BOOKS$$ UNTIL OCT. 31, 2015, I’M GIVING FREE BOOKS IN RETURN FOR HONEST REVIEWS. WHICH BOOKS? THE WHOLE EARTH’S END TRILOGY BOXED SET EBOOK We have promotions planned for Lady Grace & the War for a New World, Earth’s End II, and The Headman & the Assassin, Earth’s End III. These three books represent a treasure of adventure and … well, pretty near everything else. Romance, time travel, aliens, guys from the past, monsters, you name it, Earth’s End has it. Unfortunately, unless we get more reviews for the last two books of the series. We can’t even BUY advertising for it. [Did I tell you the three books have won SEVEN NATIONAL AWARDS BETWEEN THEM?] BECAUSE OF THIS, I AM GIVING AWAY THE EARTH’S END TRILOGY BOXED SET EBOOK in return for an honest review.
If you’d like to get the three book set for $FREE$, contact me at [email protected]. I’ll get them to you pronto! OFFER GOOD THROUGH OCT. 31–THAT’S MY TREAT!
All the best from Sandy Nathan, who, in addition to being a new mule owner, is also a bestselling and award-winning author. Check out my Amazon Author Page.