Free Weekend Results

This past weekend I used the last two days of my KDP Select free days.  In my previous post I shared some helpful tips others had used to make the best of their free days.  If you are planning on signing up with KDP Select and you haven't read that post, go now.  Right now!

I came across many of those tips too late, and wasn't able to implement them, but you better believe I will with the next book.

I used the first of my five days at the end of January.  I did a moderate amount of tweeting, I did a blog post, and did an all out Facebook assault, hitting every book related page I could find.  The results:  221 free US downloads for Contemplations of Dinner and 740 free US downloads for Guarding the Healer.  I was pretty happy with that, though I didn't see very many paid sales follow behind.

I used two more days at the end of February.  I fell ill to a bad case of self-promotion remorse so I did a little tweeting, a blog post and very little on Facebook.  Self promotion can be a lot like drinking a gallon of castor oil, but it doesn't have to be that way.  If done right it can be an enjoyable experience.  I, however, didn't do it right.  The results:  23 free US downloads for Contemplations of Dinner and 346 free US downloads for Guarding the Healer.  Ouch.  And that was over two days.  That just goes to show you, if you don't care to spread the word about your books no one else will, either.

For the final two days I went all out.  I tweeted up a a storm.  I carpet-bombed Facebook.  I contacted all the places that mention free books.  I highly recommend you read my previous post and follow the links.  The results: 2,038 free US downloads for Contemplations of Dinner and 4,565 free US downloads of Guarding the Healer.  Wow! What a difference.  Contemplations topped out at #126 in the overall free rankings and hit #2 in Horror>Short Story.  Guarding the Healer topped out at #84 in overall free and stayed in the top 100 for a good while.  I've had a steady stream (albeit a small one) of paid sales and I've already received a 5 star review.

Although I'm not going to re-enroll these two books in KDP Select, I'm pretty sure that I'll be giving it another try with the next book.