It's been a while since I last wrote an update on my experiences of trying to sell my book.
The Testing of Archie Rathbone hasn't exactly flown off the e-shelves, but then from what my friendly fellow authors have said, that is very much par for the course for first books, and particularly self-published ones. As I've posted previously, downloads have come in dribs and drabs, although during September there was a definite spike in sales, following my last promotion. That spike petered out during the month, with the last residual effects finally vanishing in early October. Now, it just so happened that this coincided with a serious change of focus in my life - I've been out of work for several months, and at that point I realised that looking for work had to become a full-time exercise. Consequently, my author-related networking activity vanished as my job hunting activity increased, and although it was quite incidental, this has provided the circumstances for an interesting (for me at least) experiment:
Assuming that the sales in early October were as a residual effect of September's promotional activity, then it seems that a near-total lack of networking activity during the month resulted in a corresponding total lack of book sales. Looking at this from the current point (more than a week into November), and still without a single additional download, I'm now planning a three day free promotion this month (from November 16th to 18th inclusive), accompanied by all the associated visibility I can manage.
What will this prove? Well, free books tend to attract downloads - that doesn't prove anything. But, if the downloads continue after the price reverts at the end of the promotion then that can only be as a direct result of the promotion (otherwise I'd have seen some paid downloads over the last month). I shall let you know what happens!
Oh, and in case you're wondering - no, I still haven't found a job...
No comments:
Post a Comment