My Black Friday-Cyber Monday Book Promotion & Beyond

I know a lot of authors want to know about effective book promotion, and around what time to do it – me being one of them. Since I couldn’t find much info out there on the net, I figured I would do my own experiment and you all can learn at my expense.

I feel it’s important to mention that I’m not an established author, as a matter of fact, I’m a first time author. This promo is on my 1^st book. I’ve written a 2^nd book under a pen name which in no way relates to this book, so I’ve learned that the sales of 1 book will not effect the other, since they are written as 2 different authors. Also, when I lauched this book with a free promotion, I ranked #67 with over 5,000 free downloads in the Kindle store.... which was a great outcome... but then the sales plummeted, which is why I am trying other things.

My main thought was to run a promo around Black Friday and Cyber Monday, but also to run a promo right after Christmas. So far, here are the results from the promotions I ran around that time:

Nov 28 – Ereader News ($30 – 29 downloads)

Nov 29- Good Kindles ($8 – 0 downloads) (7 downloads before promo began)

Dec 30- No Promo ($0 – 5 downloads)

Dec 1- Kindle Books & Tips ($25 – 51 downloads)

Dec 2- Fussy Librarian ($5 - 17 downloads)

Dec 3- No Promo ( 9 downloads at .99 cents)

Dec 4- Regular Price, No Promo (1 download)

Averaging 1-2 downloads per day now as of Dec 10^th

At first glance, the downloads from Ereader News look not as great as Kindle Books & Tips… but I’m not quite sure that one is not as good as the other, because there are a couple of additional factors that I feel are important to mention.

1st: I ran a promo back in August with Ereader News with a somewhat different book cover which amounted to about 125 units downloaded— which is about the same amount as all of these promos put together. So the lower download rate could be due to the book already being promoted to some of the same subscribers several months ago, and with a different cover.


2nd: The low download rate may also be due to it being Black Friday, and most shoppers are out and about doing their day after Thanksgiving ritual… . I suppose I should have scheduled the promos differently, but, because I knew Ereader News worked from using them in the past, I wanted to make sure to start off the Black Friday/Cyber Monday promo with a bang.


3rd: I ran a Kindle Countdown deal on my book instead of just adjusting the price. Apparently, (I’m just finding out) Kindle Countdown can only be done in the U.S. or U.K. Therefore the promo to the international market was in vein, because they could not purchase the book for the advertised price at .99 cents. So my book promotion was limited to only the U.S. – Not cool Amazon… what gives?

Therefore, my conclusion thus far is that Ereader News is still one of the big dogs in town (other than Book Bub or Kindle Books & Tips) when it comes to book promotion. I think I just had several factors working against me.

I followed up the Ereader News promotion with a Good Kindles promo, which seems to have amounted to… (drum roll please)—nothing. The sales made on that day were made before Good Kindles sent out their email to the subscribers. I did pay for that promotion. I figured, what do I have to lose for 8 bucks….. Oh well, but at least you all can learn from this eight dollar loss— no big deal.

Fussy Librarian surprised me with 17 downloads. Not the strongest promo, but hey, not bad for 5 bucks. I would definitely use again.

Unfortunately, as you can see… my book has gone off into obscurity again. So I’m not sure what else I can do to help it other than write other parenting books (which is not what I want to do), or pay for more promotion. (Note: The reason I don't want to write another parenting book is because I have an innovative system in this book, which was the reason for writing this one. I won't be as passionate if I write another... unless I come up with another innovative system like this one. Plus, I have so many other great things to write about.)

So, as you can see, the book promo went good, but not great during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday time period for me. 

 

A couple things I’m considering for promotion is to reach out to the media and news stations, and/or to team up with other authors who have written parenting, or children’s books to do a bundle. I learned this technique from awesome people who do the Sell More Books show.

I did reach some good ranks for these downloads, so I figured I would share what happened to the ranks with the amount of downloads I received.

I was also number 11 in the larger "Parenting " category which for some reason doesn't show here, so here is a screenshot for this category.

FYI- My book cover is different now, than from when I ran the promos.

So I’ve scheduled another .99 cent promotion right after Christmas with KB Boards , Ereader Girl, and Buck Books.  I will update you on how it goes. You’re also welcome to watch the ranks as it happens live in action.

Here is the link to the book:

 http://goo.gl/2Atq5N

The after Christmas promo schedule is as follows:

Dec 26: KB Boards ($35)

Dec 27: No Promo

Dec 28: No Promo

Dec 29: E Reader Girl ($10)

Dec 30: No Promo
Dec 31: No Promo

Jan 1: No Promo

Jan 2: Buck books (Free)

Update: I ran these promos, you can see the results here: My After Christmas/New Years Book Promotion Experiment

Please feel free to comment and share with me your insight on this. What has your book promotion experience been? Do you know of any other good book promo sites? Do you have any other strategies to try?