A Bargain Booksy ad
I tried something new this month. I had a free promotion for 3 days, then I followed it up with an ad in Bargain Booksy, a newsletter that went out to tens of thousands of people.
My goal this month was to sell 10 books. As of July 29th, I sold 26. I don't have page reads as a goal, since I don't plan on staying in Kindle Unlimited, but I had 8x what I had last month (which just means 8 people read it in KU instead of 1).
I had at least one sale or some page reads for 11 out of 14 days. My highest rank was 20,485 (before this mont my highest was 60,163). Below is a screenshot of the book's rank since I first published it. You can see how after 5 free days and nothing else, the rank dropped (left side of the image). But after 3 free days and an additional ad, the drop has been much slower (right side of the image).
Things that probably helped (=I have no way of knowing if they actually helped or not):
- I made the book at $0.99 instead of the regular $2.99 since I noticed all of the books in Bargain Booksy were priced that way (and it will only be at that price for another few weeks, so grab it soon!)
- I am running Amazon ads (which don't seem to be leading to sales, but may be the reason for some of the page reads)
- I launched my Writer Mom Life podcast, so my name is out there a bit more (which is not the goal of the podcast, and I really doubt it has had any impact. But in case any indie author moms are reading, I wanted to be sure to mention the podcast! ;-p )
One important thing to note is that by keeping it at $0.99, I didn't make $50 for the 26 sales, which is what I would have gotten if it had been at $2.99...But if I had kept it at $2.99 I probably wouldn't have made nearly as many sales.
In terms of defining "success," I am focusing on sales right now, not money. This is why when people say "I sold x number of books" in a certain period, you shouldn't automatically assume it means they made a lot of money! Especially when you take into consideration the fact that the ad cost $40 (and all the other ongoing costs like this website, the new cover, and all the rest). I am still many many sales away from breaking even, no matter what price the book is at! But reaching and surpassing my goal for the month feels great, and I hope to do the same next month, with a little less money spent. I'll let you know how that goes!
Did you reach your sales/income goals this month?