So far In my double free promo I have shipped:
1500 free The Last
1600 free The Lost
It is not what I hoped, but there’s still plenty of time left in today, and 3 more free days to come.
I might hit my modest targets of 5000 free each.
But, I suppose the appeal of free has faded. 1 year ago, with a far smaller platform, I promoted Mr. Ruins and King Ruin back to back like I’ve done now, and they got 5000 each with less reviews, less money spent on ads, and less marketing effort generally.
A year before that my short story collections shipped 8000 each, with hardly any promotion cost, no reviews, and no platform.
Maybe three reasons explain this:
1- People’s kindles are full. They gorged on freebies that they would never be able to read more of, in the first blush of free. They don’t need more.
2. Kindle Unlimited- the subscription service that allows a large number of book downloads, basically free. The big readers who went for free before now no longer need to scour free lists to read cheaply.
3. There’s way more writers doing free promotions. Both books are now at around 150 overall free in the store- at the height of a promo featuring all the best B-grade promo sites.
Who’s above me? The A-graders, obviously, any B-graders with more appealing books, plus any A-graders with permafree still sticky after a Bookbub promo a while back.
It’s hard to crack the top 100.
A year and a bit ago I hit the Hot New Releases list with Ignifer’s Rise after giving some 6000 free away. I haven’t hit it since.
All this is to say- nothing is set in stone. Now I’m blogging. I’ll try to fb and tweet more too. Marketing is be constant.
Other news
Marking marking marking!
Today was discussions, and grading, then data-entry of grades. Pizza was laid on course conveyors Martin and Jim, which was cool.
Tomorrow we try open air theater again, en masse. Friday is boat party on Thames and awards ceremony.
Here is one of SY’s arts. Care to make a bid?
It was inspired by 3000 year old art on an Egyptian sarcophagus lid in the British museum.
This is how you go to heaven in style. Maybe now it would be strapped to a Ferrari roof. Or a Cessna private plane. For Donald Trump it would be a jumbo jet with his name all over it.