How a New Fiction Author Made $109,000 in 10 Months
I’ve been publishing books since 2013. Since then, I’ve learned from some of the best indie authors and have implemented what they’ve shown me. I’ve jumped from an author averaging $89 a month selling books, to making five figures a month selling books. Fifty percent of it is because of storytelling and picking a kick-ass editor, an amazing cover artist, and working my blurbs like they’ve gone out of style, street teams, beta readers, and the worlds finest proof reader — in my humble opinion.
And the other fifty percent is because of marketing, interviewing the masters in my industry, and implementing what they’ve laid out and taught me — especially with marketing (and I can’t emphasize that enough…marketing, marketing, marketing).
Now, let’s get to the main topic of this article: Izzy Shows. She’s the wonderful new fiction author that has just come on the scene like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon. Okay, I know, that’s a terrible analogy, but it’s late and I want to get to the point.
Izzy Shows has so far made $109,000 in ten months. How did she do it? Well, she allowed me to show you with her own Kindle Board posts, to which I’m going to simply copy and paste below. Why don’t I just link the Kindle Board posts and send you to another website? Because a lot of times several “links” in an article or a blog post can be a roadblock for people.
Let’s not block your road.
Below are three of Izzy’s launches. They are all step by step and well detailed. My launch strategy is very similar to hers, but I didn’t document them as well as she documented hers. As you will see, her strategy slightly changed from launch to launch. She experimented and found what worked best. And each launch was better and better.
Remember, success always leaves clues and it’s your job to find what clues work best for you.
So, let’s welcome Izzy Shows.
Izzy Shows writes urban fantasy and space fantasy novels for adults. She has read just about everything — fantasy, science fiction, dystopian, historical fiction, and much more. Izzy is also an avid LARPer. Don’t know what that is? Shoot her a message and she’ll gab your ear off about it. She loves to talk with fans, so don’t be shy — be forewarned, though, she can rant a good bit.
Join her Facebook group, Izzy’s Wizard Nation, to get to know her better! https://www.facebook.com/groups/izzyswizardnation/
She grew up in Wilson, North Carolina. It’s a small town about an hour east of Raleigh, and she spent most of her time finding adventure, filling up notebooks with every story that came to her head, and being reprimanded by teachers for reading in class. Her first fiction novel came out in January of 2017, and she releases about every month; so sign up for the newsletter to stay on top of things!
And, back to the article.
The rest of the article are her words, and like I said above, it is copied and pasted from her Kindle Board’s posts. The remainder of this article is very long, so come back and forth to it to learn as much as you possibly can. I’ll also be interviewing her in a couple of weeks in order for you to get a more in-depth look at who she is and an even deeper look on how she did it.
Brandon Ellis
www.brandon-ellis.com
LAUNCH ONE
So I love reading the launch threads, they’re some of my favorite threads here on the kboards. Maybe mine is redundant, maybe no one cares, but I do so I thought I’d share.
Some background:
I wrote Grave Mistake large in part without doing a lot of market research. Woops! I didn’t know what a ‘no no’ that was at the time, but I also was an avid urban fantasy reader and swear on The Dresden Files like they’re holy books. So I did know a thing or two about tropes in the urban fantasy genre, and I’d like to say that served me well. I banged out my book with the original intention to traditional publish, or at the very least to shop it around until someone said ‘yes’ and then turn and run the other way because a gatekeeper approved me so now I could pursue the option that made money.
I never said I was bright.
Enter a series of vlogs by a self-professed self-publishing guru. I didn’t know much at all at that point, but they said they had published one book and now they’re a full time author, and isn’t that the dream? So I gobbled up their videos, all the while thinking I could publish a book a year and be fine and dandy — hey, this person is still editing book two a full year and a half after their first book came out, why shouldn’t I be able to do that? Hm. Because I’m not that person.
Enter kboards! Oh my goodness did I devour launch threads like they were going out of style when I first got here, Domino Finn and JA Cipriano’s were two of my favorites that I kept returning to. At the time I was still struggling with the idea that fast publishing had to equal bad writing, but I could see that fast publishing meant a living…and then I read the books and promptly told myself to go sit in a corner and think about how mean I’d been, even if I’d kept the comments to myself. So I’m sorry for all the bad thoughts I put out into the world! I swear I know better now.
I can’t really pinpoint the moment I switched from “I’m just reading these self-publishing posts for fun” to “I’m going to do this and I’m going to give it my all.” It happened somewhere in those launch threads, though, I’m certain of it.
So after much editing on my part, I sent Grave Mistake to the editor, and hired Bookfly Designs to do my cover — which I’m still absolutely in love with!
And then I lined up my launch plan. For the sake of not repeating myself overly much, I’ll go ahead and say that FB and AMS ads were a large part of the launch plan.
I participated in an IF cross promo and used FB ads to drive traffic to my IF giveaway to build up my mailing list. I knew these weren’t going to be the best subscribers, but I wanted to start somewhere.
I also put the book up for preorder one week before release, and scrounged on Goodreads for ARC reviewers. I had the paperback up for two weeks prior where my ARC reviewers could leave their reviews, and had the paperback and ebook preorder linked before launch. And just to test out the FB ad with the audience I had crafted for the IF giveaway, I ran a fb ad pointed at my preorder as well as an AMS ad to learn how to use it.
I managed to garner 42 preorders, which I thought was pretty darn snazzy considering no one knows who the heck I am or why they should care about me.
Day 1
Enticing Journey Book Promotions
GenrePulse
Day 2
Enticing Journey Book Promotions
Books Butterfly
Day 3
Enticing Journey Book Promotions
Books Butterfly
Price Dropped Books
Day 4
GenreCrave Newsletter
Day 5
Bargain Booksy
Day 6
GenreCrave Book Blast
Day 7
Choosy Bookworm
Day 8
I Love Vampires
Day 9
Romancing the Dragon
Geez, that’s a spaced out promotion schedule! I know, but I read a lot of Chris Fox and watched his videos, and I learned that Amazon likes to see steady sales, not spikes. So, since I didn’t have an amazing mailing list to space out the announcement to, I did it with promotions. I used the resources I had available.
Did it work? You tell me.
No, I’m serious, I have no idea what constitutes a good launch for a new author and I’m kind of hoping I’m not making a joke of myself by sharing this with you all. I was going to make this thread at the beginning of my launch, but nerves got the better of me. The official excuse was that I wanted my also-boughts to populate first. Which they have!
As of right this second, I am sitting at 1,467 in the store. #2 in Werewolves & Shifters, #4 in Psychics, and #4 in Vampires.
My best ranks so far(today is Day 4):
Day 1
Sales: 44
KENP: 2,406
Highest Rank: 3,305
Niche 1: 6, Book Psychics
Niche 2: 7, Kindle Psychics
Niche 3: 7, Vampires
Day 2
Sales: 40
KENP: 6,789
Highest Rank: 3,272
Niche 1: 6, Kindle Psychics
Niche 2: 7, Vampires
Niche 3: 7, Book Psychics
Day 3
Sales: 42
KENP: 5,728
Highest Rank: 2,534
Niche 1: 4, Vampires
Niche 2: 5, Werewolves & Shifters
Niche 3: 5, Book Psychics
Day 4
Sales: 105
KENP: 7,393
Highest Rank: 1,245
Niche 1: 1, Werewolves & Shifters
Niche 2: 3, Vampires
Niche 3: 3, Psychics
Day 5
Sales: 127
KENP: 11,678
Highest Rank: 928
Niche 1: 1, Werewolves & Shifters
Niche 2: 2, Witches & Wizards
Niche 3: 2, Vampires
Day 6
Sales: 168
KENP: 12,502
Highest Rank: 656
Niche 1: 1, Werewolves & Shifters
Niche 2: 1, Vampires
Niche 3: 1, Witches & Wizards
Day 7
Sales: 127
KENP: 15,192
Highest Rank: 671
Niche 1: 1, Vampires
Niche 2: 1, Werewolves & Shifters, Books
Niche 3: 1, Werewolves & Shifters, Kindle
Day 8
Sales: 128
KENP: 20,269
Highest Rank: 558
Niche 1: 1, Witches & Wizards
Niche 2: 1, Psychics
Niche 3: 1, Werewolves & Shifters
Day 9
Sales: 121
KENP: 22,978
Highest Rank: 559
Niche 1: 1, Book Werewolves & Shifters
Niche 2: 1, Psychics
Niche 3: 1, Kindle Werewolves & Shifters
Day 10
Sales: 180
KENP: 26,247
Highest Rank: 390
Niche 1: 1, Ghosts
Niche 2: 1, Psychics
Niche 3: 1, Werewolves & Shifters
Day 11
Sales: 177
KENP: 37,944
Highest Rank: 353
Niche 1: 1, Vampires
Niche 2: 1, Werewolves & Shifters
Niche 3: 1, Ghosts
Day 12
Sales: 191
KENP: 39,112
Highest Rank: 283
Niche 1: 1, Ghosts
Niche 2: 1, Witches & Wizards
Niche 3: 1, Psychics
Day 13
Sales: 253
KENP: 60,872
Highest Rank: 241
Niche 1: 1, Werewolves & Shifters
Niche 2: 1, Vampires
Niche 3: 1, Psychics
So, am I crazy, or have I done pretty well for myself?
EDIT 1/28:
I AM NOT CRAZY. I BROKE THE TOP ONE THOUSAND. WOOOOOOOO.
EDIT 2/6
So I think it’s safe to say the LAUNCH was a success. We are now entering the sticky period, where the book has been raised to $2.99, and we will see where it lands in the rankings.
EDIT 2/13
All right, Grave Mistake has been at full price for one week now, and it looks like I have achieved this mythical stickiness. I have stayed in the top 500, currently in the low 400s so that might be on its way out. I also just threw book 2 up for pre-order, so we’re going to see how that does and if it affects book 1 at all. Fingers crossed I didn’t ruin everything with a semi-long pre-order. (Book 2 won’t be out until 3/28.)
LAUNCH 2
Hello, folks, it’s launch day!
I want to preface all of this with saying that I have absolutely no idea how to launch a book two, and I can only hope I’m doing things right. I’m still not sure I’m going to have worthwhile information again, but I figured documenting a book two launch could be interesting for newbie’s like me looking at starting their first series. I’m going for a much shorter time period this time. Grave Mistake had two weeks at discount, Blood Hunt is getting four days, and Grave Mistake itself is on discount for a week. Instead of doing one a day, I’m stacking promos throughout the four day period. As you can see, this is another experiment for me.
Blood Hunt went on pre-order February 13th and garnered 1,189. I know a lot of people don’t believe in pre-orders and think it hurts the ranking(I guess we’re going to find out how that goes over the next week), but I genuinely believe that a lot of those pre-orders wouldn’t have signed up for my list/would have forgotten about the book.
All my promos are for book 1, with the intention of people reading through to book two. The exception is the GenreCrave Book Blast, that’s for book two.
My highest rank during pre-order was 5,352.
And here’s the plan:
March 25th — Read Cheaply
Grave Mistake dropped to 99c
Sales for Grave Mistake: 101
Page reads: 29,947
Pre-orders for Blood Hunt: 37
Rank: Grave Mistake: 948, Blood Hunt: 5,352
March 26th — FKBT, Many Books
Sales for Grave Mistake: 165
Page reads: 32,150
Pre-orders for Blood Hunt: 41
Rank: Grave Mistake: 641, Blood Hunt: 4,689
March 27th — The Fussy Librarian, Romancing the Dragon
Blood Hunt goes live.
Sales for Grave Mistake: 109, Reads for Grave Mistake: 37,544
Sales for Blood Hunt: 74, Reads for Blood Hunt: 12,239
Rank: Grave Mistake: 633, Blood Hunt: 695
March 28th — eReader Cafe, Price Dropped Books
Sales for Grave Mistake: 139, Reads for Grave Mistake: 34,690
Sales for Blood Hunt: 123, Reads for Blood Hunt: 33,158
Rank: Grave Mistake: 621, Blood Hunt: 556
March 29th — Booksends, Reign of Reads, ENT
Sales for Grave Mistake: 179, Reads for Grave Mistake: 36,918
Sales for Blood Hunt: 117, Reads for Blood Hunt: 34,007
Rank: Grave Mistake: 545, Blood Hunt: 572
March 30th — GenreCrave Book Blast
Sales for Grave Mistake: 89, Reads for Grave Mistake: 31,914
Sales for Blood Hunt: 159, Reads for Blood Hunt: 31,526
Rank: Grave Mistake: 530, Blood Hunt: 469
March 31st — Blood Hunt goes to full price.
Sales for Grave Mistake: 25, Reads for Grave Mistake: 36,576
Sales for Blood Hunt: 33, Reads for Blood Hunt: 33,747
Rank: Grave Mistake: 692, Blood Hunt: 564
LAUNCH 3
All right! This is exciting. I love launch threads, they’re so much fun for me, I hope they’re fun for you, too. Quick question: are you sick of my threads documenting the different things I’m doing(launch threads, my free promo)? Go ahead and tell me to shut up, lol, and I can do that.
But, plowing ahead with the assumption that you all love me(HA, YEAH RIGHT)! I have done something that is incredibly stressful for me. I started a new series. Even crazier, I’ve got two more series I’m starting in the next two months, and Codex Blair isn’t even close to being finished…and won’t be until like 2019. That’s all beside the point, though, because this is about documenting Blood Huntress’ release! We’re now 7 days into the launch, and I thought now would be a good time to share how it’s doing (not at all related to my excitement over having beaten Grave Mistake’s highest rank and stealing a bestseller tag from Stephen King).
I’m going to break this down about the same way I did Grave Mistake’s release back in January. Note that because of the way I break down(Sales, KENP, Rank, Subcat bestseller status) my launch threads are notoriously longer than some others.
Some Background
Feel free to skip this, it’s basically me rambling about my decision to write multiple series at the same time.
I honestly don’t remember exactly when or why I decided to launch a few new series while I was still writing Codex Blair, but it’s not a decision I made lightly. It kind of reminds me of when I decided to publish Grave Mistake at all(traditional or self), I don’t remember going from “I’m writing this book because I want to write it” to “I want to publish this” — I just remember one day I was intensely researching publishing and creating immense pros and cons lists to deliberate between self and trad. Similarly, I don’t remember when I had the thought “You know, I’d like to write more series” — the earliest thought about it I can remember was posting in 20booksto50k asking if other people wrote multiple series at the same time. There was much deliberating involved, but ultimately I decided that I just wasn’t willing to wait until Codex Blair finished(it’s a 15 book series O.O) before I got to play with something new. Now, how did ‘something new’ turn into ‘three somethings new’? I have no idea. I can’t even begin to remember that. I just know that one day it was on my spreadsheet, and once it’s on my spreadsheet, can I really argue with it? One thing I’ve learned since starting Ruled by Blood, is that writing in another series refreshes me when it comes to the prior series. I was struggling to get through High Stakes, book 6 of Codex Blair, and then I took a break to write Blood Captive, Ruled by Blood’s prequel story, and suddenly I was able to come back and finish High Stakes in no time at all. It was amazing. So yeah, I think multiple series was the best idea for me.
Also, I really just wanted to figure out if I was a one hit wonder or not, you know? It was beginning to wear on me, and with every book I put out in Codex Blair, I grew more and more worried that if I waited until I finished that 15 book series, I would have trained my readers to never expect anything more from me, and that I’d be stuck writing in Codex Blair for the rest of my life. Don’t get me wrong, I love Blair, but I’ve got so many ideas, you know?
As far as Ruled by Blood goes, I took a look at things and decided I wanted to write a vampire story. They’re not exactly popular right now — fae and wizards are really hot — but I wanted to, and I threw my own spin on it, and ran away with the story. Clearly I did something right somewhere in there, because book 2 is getting great preorders.
The Plan
All right, so I mapped out a plan for promo, fb, bb, and ams ads — and of course fb and ams don’t spend exactly what you want, so things have fluctuated. Here was the original plan:
And here are the actual numbers of what was spent on ads:
Aug 22:
FB — 55.23
AMS — 31.61
BB — 7.51
Aug 23:
FB — 68.06
AMS — 34.37
BB — 15.11
Aug 24:
FB — 138.02
AMS — 34.98
BB — 26.33
Aug 25:
FB — 216.12
AMS — 25.37
BB — 39.47
Aug 26:
FB — 185.29
AMS — 23.05
BB — 41.76
Aug 27:
FB — 175.5
AMS — 25.37
BB — 97.93
Aug 28:
FB — 138.93
AMS — 101.33 (not actual daily spend. Seems to be a catch up day with reporting. Previous days were under-reported since my daily budget was about $40 and I was maxing the budget everyday.)
BB — 21.57
Aug 29:
FB — 97.34
AMS — 37.49
Aug 30:
FB — 95.78
AMS — 58.36
Aug 31:
FB — 95.83
AMS — 30.28
Sep 1:
FB — 69.49
AMS — 26.63 (Another catch-up day. I lowered the daily spend to $10 and reduced the bid on keywords.)
Sep 2:
FB — 46.80
AMS — 5.07
Sep 3:
FB — 51.99
AMS — 9.67
BB — 107.89
Sep 4:
FB — 46.31
AMS — 4.55
BB — 152.99
Goals
Sell 100 copies on day 1 — ACHIEVED
Break into top 5k on day 1 — ACHIEVED
Break into top 3k on day 1 — ACHIEVED
Break into top 1k — ACHIEVED 8/23
Break into top 500 — ACHIEVED 8/24
Break into top 10 in a subcat — ACHIEVED 8/23
Bestseller tag in a subcat — ACHIEVED 8/27
Beat Grave Mistake’s highest rank(241) — ACHIEVED 8/27
Results
Preorder Period
8/10–8/22
Preorders: 121
Highest Rank: 8,694
Preorders of book 2: 29
Day 1
Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017
Sales: 116
KENP: 4,393
Highest Rank: 1,115
Niche 1: 11, Psychics
Niche 2: 15, Contemporary Fantasy
Niche 3: 16, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 33
Day 2
Wednesday, August 23rd, 2017
Sales: 98
KENP: 16,302
Highest Rank: 798
Niche 1: 5, Psychics
Niche 2: 7, New Adult & College Fantasy
Niche 3: 10, Metaphysical & Visionary
Preorders of book 2: 41
Day 3
Thursday, August 24th, 2017
Sales: 177
KENP: 13,152
Highest Rank: 477
Niche 1: 4, Psychics
Niche 2: 5, New Adult & College Fantasy
Niche 3: 8, Metaphysical & Visionary
Preorders of book 2: 39
Day 4
Friday, August 25th, 2017
Sales: 117
KENP: 19,004
Highest Rank: 460
Niche 1: 3, Psychics
Niche 2: 3, New Adult & College Fantasy
Niche 3: 5, Dark Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 36
Day 5
Saturday, August 26th, 2017
Sales: 137
KENP: 31,992
Highest Rank: 314
Niche 1: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Niche 2: 2, Dark Fantasy
Niche 3: 2, Psychics
Preorders of book 2: 41
Day 6
Sunday, August 27th, 2017
Sales: 190
KENP: 50,917
Highest Rank: 225
Niche 1: 1, Psychics
Niche 2: 2, Dark Fantasy
Niche 3: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 61
Day 7
Monday, August 28th, 2017
Sales: 142
KENP: 61,610
Highest Rank: 230
Niche 1: 1, Psychics
Niche 2: 1, Dark Fantasy
Niche 3: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 48
Day 8
Tuesday, August 29th, 2017
Sales: 94
KENP: 59,240
Highest Rank: 239
Niche 1: 1, Psychics
Niche 2: 2, Dark Fantasy
Niche 3: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 56
Day 9
Wednesday, August 30th, 2017
Sales: 101
KENP: 57,049
Highest Rank: 289
Niche 1: 1, Psychics
Niche 2: 2, Dark Fantasy
Niche 3: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 50
Day 10
Thursday, August 31st, 2017
Sales: 120
KENP: 50,429
Highest Rank: 298
Niche 1: 1, Psychics
Niche 2: 2, Dark Fantasy
Niche 3: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 47
Day 11
Friday, September 1st, 2017
Sales: 128
KENP: 50,422
Highest Rank: 244
Niche 1: 1, Psychics
Niche 2: 2, Dark Fantasy
Niche 3: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 51
Day 12
Saturday, September 2nd, 2017
Sales: 134
KENP: 69,063
Highest Rank: 233
Niche 1: 2, Psychics
Niche 2: 2, Dark Fantasy
Niche 3: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 71
Day 13
Sunday, September 3rd, 2017
Sales: 150
KENP: 77,747
Highest Rank: 218
Niche 1: 2, Psychics
Niche 2: 2, Dark Fantasy
Niche 3: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 81
Day 14
Monday, September 4th, 2017
Sales: 220
KENP: 73,450
Highest Rank: 182
Niche 1: 1, Dark Fantasy
Niche 2: 2, Psychics
Niche 3: 2, New Adult & College Fantasy
Preorders of book 2: 106
BONUS — IZZY SHOWS FREE PROMO LAUNCH
All right! This is going to be fun, I think. I’ve been planning this for about two months now, to coincide with book 6 of the Codex Blair series release. Lots of time, effort, and of course money going into this, with the hope for an astonishing amount of sell through, fame, and glory, right? Eh, maybe not.
I also thought y’all might enjoy this because it gives a little data on how my series is doing, since a lot of people enjoyed my initial launch thread in January.
This was heavily inspired by Pauline Ross’s “roll-your-own-bookbub” thread. Credit where credit is due, and you should totally read that thread if you haven’t, it’s here.
Some background
The Codex Blair series has done amazingly well, in my eyes at least. When I’m running rather low spend(because I’m still very cautious with this) cpc ads I get a really great ROI and maintain a top 2k ranking, top 10 in my cats, no issue. When I’m not running anything, I generally stay in the 4–5k range, hovering around the top 20 of my cats. I have great sell through, imo, and I get a decent amount of NL sign ups from the back of my book, a good portion of which go on to join my facebook fan group where I get to chat with them which is so much fun. Considering how well the series has done so far, and also considering that it’s nowhere near done, some people might be inclined to say that I’m doing this too early. That I should wait until things cool off and I need a kick back up the charts. But I love doing things, and this seems like an interesting little research project that could pay off nicely considering I’ll have six books ready to read.
Onto the fun stuff!
Unlike Pauline, I opted to go for the full five days, mostly because I know that a lot of people don’t check their email every day and I didn’t want someone to miss out because they checked the day after an email was sent. Also, experimentation is fun!
The promos
Day 1: Wednesday, July 26th
PriceDroppedBooks
eBookDiscovery
ILVN
ChoosyBookworm
Day 2: Thursday, July 27th
GenrePulse
OHFB
Book Gorilla
Day 3: Friday, July 28th
Romancing the Dragon
Booksends
eReaderIQ
Reign of Reads
Book Rebel
Day 4: Saturday, July 29th
BookBarbarian
Fussy Librarian
Many Books
Day 5: Sunday, July 30th
genreCRAVE
Robin Reads
Freebooksy
The cost
God, do I really need to confess this out loud? You’re all going to hate me. I’m going to be publicly shamed for spending this amount of money. I’m sorry.
-whispers in a teeny tiny voice- $1k.
Objectives
Fun, sell through, my best sales month ever…I’ve never done any kind of free promo before, so I’m also just really interested in seeing what happens. I really don’t know what to expect with this. I have no idea what kind of numbers to expect download wise, or what sell through is going to look like from a free book to a paid book. But! Book 2 will be 99c during the free run, so that should help a little bit.
I’m thinking of doing the reporting similar to how Pauline did it(can you tell the way I structured this post borrowed from her? I’m so unoriginal). I’ll do day by day, then I’ll come back in a week to report on if there was a tail or not, and if there is I’ll probably do up to a 4 week report just like she did.
Stats for the week before the promo
To get as clean a baseline as possible, I turned off all cpc ads this week
Book: Grave Mistake
Average ranking: 4–5k
Average daily sales: 9
Average daily page reads: 17.5k
Week stats for the rest of the series(note this is a total for 4 books)
Books: Blood Hunt, Dark Descent, Wild Game, Grim Fate
Average daily sales: 29
Average daily page reads: 57k
Did I miss anything? I’m so excited, it starts tomorrow!
—
Final Results:
If you want to see the grand total, scroll down.
Day 1:
Downloads: 3,420
Page reads of book 1(free book): 15,468
Audiobook rank(included for curiosity purposes): 4,225
Best free rank: 47
Sales of book 2(99c sale): 39
Page reads of book 2: 10,347
Best paid rank: 3,738
Sales of other books in series(3–5): 30
Page reads of other books in series(3–5): 31,057
Book 6 is separated because its sales will be abnormal to the rest of the promo due to being a new release.
Sales of book 6: 26
Page reads of book 6: 4,004
Best paid rank: 3,782
Day 2:
Downloads: 2,620
Page reads of book 1(free book): 11,499
Audiobook rank(included for curiosity purposes): 3,037
Best free rank: 37
Sales of book 2(99c sale): 39
Page reads of book 2: 13,711
Best paid rank: 2,729
Sales of other books in series(3–5): 20
Page reads of other books in series(3–5): 34,070
Book 6 is separated because its sales will be abnormal to the rest of the promo due to being a new release.
Sales of book 6: 48
Page reads of book 6: 14,239
Best paid rank: 998
Day 3:
Downloads: 3,234
Page reads of book 1(free book): 13,469
Audiobook rank(included for curiosity purposes): 3,486
Best free rank: 31
Sales of book 2(99c sale): 43
Page reads of book 2: 14,328
Best paid rank: 2,729
Sales of other books in series(3–5): 23
Page reads of other books in series(3–5): 41,763
Book 6 is separated because its sales will be abnormal to the rest of the promo due to being a new release.
Sales of book 6: 26
Page reads of book 6: 23,756
Best paid rank: 1,187
Day 4:
Downloads: 2,265
Page reads of book 1(free book): 11,557
Audiobook rank(included for curiosity purposes): 1,922
Best free rank: 30
Sales of book 2(99c sale): 31
Page reads of book 2: 11,383
Best paid rank: 2,999
Sales of other books in series(3–5): 18
Page reads of other books in series(3–5): 34,226
Book 6 is separated because its sales will be abnormal to the rest of the promo due to being a new release.
Sales of book 6: 16
Page reads of book 6: 21,273
Best paid rank: 1,740
Day 5:
Downloads: 5,983
Page reads of book 1(free book): 11,432
Audiobook rank(included for curiosity purposes): 2,040
Best free rank: 14
Sales of book 2(99c sale): 63
Page reads of book 2: 12,161
Best paid rank: 2,175
Sales of other books in series(3–5): 39
Page reads of other books in series(3–5): 38,214
Book 6 is separated because its sales will be abnormal to the rest of the promo due to being a new release.
Sales of book 6: 20
Page reads of book 6: 21,750
Best paid rank: 2,127
Grand Total
Downloads: 17,693
Page reads(book 1): 63,425
Book 2 sales: 219
Book 2 page reads: 61,930
Books 3–5 sales: 133
Books 3–5 page reads:179,330
Book 6 sales: 139
Book 6 page reads: 85,022
Pure revenue: $2,543.86
ROI*: $793.86 (70% of promo cost)
*ROI is calculated as total revenue minus $350*5(number of days book was free, assuming my established average of $350 earned a day without any promo or ads). This ROI is up to date with the July page read value.
Day after promo end:
Sales of book 1: 165
Sales of books 2–5: 47
Sales of book 6: 19
Pages read book 1: 11,191
Pages read books 2–5: 56,683
Pages read book 6: 32,075
Best paid rank(book 1): 777
Best paid rank(book 2): 2,363
Revenue: $823.13
ROI* to date: $1,266.99 (112% of promo cost)
*ROI is calculated as total revenue minus $350*6(number of days book was free plus day after, assuming my established average of $350 earned a day without any promo or ads)). This ROI is up to date with the July page read value.
1 week report(31st-6th):
Sales of book 1: 283
Sales of books 2–5: 280
Sales of book 6:111
Pages read book 1: 138,772
Pages read books 2–5: 396,345
Pages read book 6: 150,580
Rank at beginning of week(book 1): 777
Rank at end of week(book 1): 949
Revenue: $4,339.18 (compare to week before promo,19th-25th, $2,314.16)
ROI to date: $2,683.04 (236% of promo cost)
*ROI is calculated as total revenue minus $350*12(the 5 days of the promo, plus the 7 days of the following week, assuming my established average of $350 earned a day without any promo or ads), with a page read value of $0.004
2nd week report(7th-13th):
Sales of book 1: 98
Sales of books 2–5: 229
Sales of book 6: 66
Pages read book 1: 153,245
Pages read books 2–5: 439,069
Pages read book 6: 139,548
Rank at beginning of week(book 1): 923
Rank at end of week(book 1): 2,386
Revenue: $3,952.67 (previous week $4,339.18)
ROI to date: $4,185.71 (368% of promo cost)
*ROI is calculated as total revenue minus $350*19(the 5 days of the promo, plus the following 2 weeks, assuming my established average of $350 earned a day without any promo or ads), with a page read value of $0.004