When Winter Calls - Diary of a Futurist Thriller

Many thanks JT, I appreciate your continued thoughts and advice.

I'm diving back into SL Huang's thread from the beginning as there's so much in there of value. Definitely helped me to make the decision to go for a CC license...now to also consider the exclusivity with Amazon more closely.

One of the next big steps for me is to figure out how to do promo deals successfully, starting with a Kindle Countdown (I'm exclusive for the first 90 days at least, so best to try out all the perks!) and then moving onto the various mailing list/promo sites and see which ones will accept me and that I can afford. Sales have flatlined this past week, but KU is still getting reads each day which is a good consolation prize to keep the head held a bit higher - although it does make the exclusivity question even more difficult.

At the moment, the greatest difficult (and opportunity) revolves entirely around my ability to motivate myself to produce new content and manage promotions - I'm glad to say that coming back to AW occasionally helps on both counts. Onwards and upwards!

Back for a three month update...

If you're anything like me, I know that you like reading these update emails for fellow authors occasionally. It's also a good motivator for me to come back to AW and get involved again a bit more. I've now crossed the three month mark for my debut novel, and the sales progression has been as follows:

Month One - 61 sales, 3063 KENP
Month Two - 6 sales, 1108 KENP
Month Three - 4 sales, 1140 KENP
Total: 71 sales, 5311 KENP

So we're off the mark, but about a third of where I would have really wanted to be at this stage. This is almost entirely down to my lack of post-release promo skills! I'm glad to say that I've had some recent successes to keep the release moving:

• I was asked to be a guest speaker on a great futurist podcast - Robot Overlordz - the result of which went live this week. It's the first time I've done a podcast, so I was pretty anxious to hear the results (it's one of those situations where you end not remembering what you've just been saying for the past 30min!). I'm pleased with how it all turned out and think that I came across well, whilst learning a lesson that I really need to hone my introductory spiel...but after the first 5min of the show I think the rest turned out great! So far, the result of this has been an additional 4 sales...two of which relate to the next item...
• The paperback version is now available! It's quite an experience to receive that first proof copy in the mail and actually hold this thing that you created in your own hands. That was something special, and for anybody wondering whether it's worth moving beyond digital-only...for that moment alone I say yes! The cover art and layout have really come out amazingly well, and there's an added bonus in that because of the range of blues on the cover there's a slight purple glow that bleeds through the depths of the spine when you open it up. Adds a great feel to the book, particularly given its genre!
• I have decided to run with Amazon exclusive for another 90 days, but will cease after that and open up the distribution more widely. This decision is because of the continued numbers of KENP (although these seem to have stopped this 4th month), but also because I just haven't used the promotional tools yet and really do need to see what results might be gained from that. The text of the book is now under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike), there is no DRM on the file, and if you pick up the paperback you get the Kindle version for free. So do pick it up and share it with your friends!

Now that the paperback version is available (and I've noticed one thing I want to change, so will update that and wait for it to run through the system again soon - which usually takes less than 48hrs so that's great), I'm keen to build off the promo experience with the podcast and start finding new ways to promote! Next step: Countdown Deals + Sales Website Listings...

Thank you for listening! Hope all your NaNoWriMo dreams are coming true

I'll be back next week with the sales update, which is going to be a good one as I've had a relatively successful Kindle Countdown running this week with 80+ copies sold. More details on that once the promo ends on the 11th Jan...

Just wanted to pop in now to say that if anybody wanted to pick up a Kindle copy of When Winter Calls for just 99c/99p you can do so for the next four days. It's currently sitting at #15 on the US Cyberpunk charts...every little sale that helps bump it higher is very much appreciated!

Will be back soon for a detailed update and lessons learned from the whole process.

Many thanks for the encouragement ASeiple - I'm very pleased with the overall results.

Some numbers updates, because we all love them:

Month Four - 4 sales, 709 KENP
Month Five - 119 ebook sales, 22 paperback sales, 1568 KENP
Total: 216 sales, 7588 KENP

As you can see, the Kindle Countdown did the trick as far as boosting sales!

Some notes:

• Reached a peak of #14 on the US Cyberpunk book charts - yay!
• I had arranged for three different promotional mailings during the week (Fussy Librarian, ENT and Bargain Booksy) at a total cost of $76 and so in the end came out with something like $10 profit. Very pleased with this result, particularly as over the last month I tripled my overall sales, but equally wish that I had arranged even more promo mailings to keep the momentum up on the charts...
• Other promo came through my networks on Twitter and also by listing on Reddit (r/ebookdeals) which combined added something like 20 of the sales as far as I can tell.
• I was also running a Goodreads giveaway at the same time, which had 1,025 people requesting and 425+ adding the book to their to-read lists. I'm sending out three signed copies of the paperback.
• I'm enthused by this and want to take it further next time, will be looking to run as many promo mailings as I can get accepted to and see how far I can take it. This experience has shown me that the US Cyberpunk charts can definitely be conquered!
• I wasn't accepted for a BookBub listing, but that's likely because the date I requested was in the lead-up to Christmas. I changed my promo plans when this didn't go through to make sure that I would get accepted to other listings. Next time...
• My reasoning for a 4 - 11th January sale period was that it's the week many people go back to work with newly acquired Christmas Kindles...I'm happy with the results!
• The paperback sales mostly came from face-to-face sales to friends and family, with a few additional ones that I attribute to the podcast I was a guest speaker on mentioned previously.

Overall, I've got a big smile on my face and am enthused that with the right promo strategy some moderate success with this book is definitely achievable. I'm keen to see if any reviews result from these sales over the coming weeks...

A few questions which I'd appreciate all your wisdom on:

What other promo mailing lists should I be looking to add next time?

Those who have run multiple Countdowns for the same book - do you see similar results each time, or are there diminishing returns?

If you hit #1 for a sub-genre chart, does Amazon mark this in some way?

Thank you for reading

Thanks JT - that makes good sense and is likely a large part of the reason. Hopefully with this recent bunch of sales I'll pick up a few more reviews!

As you say, with BookBub I'll just have to keep plugging away at it until they let the book in

An interim update between the monthly sales posts...

I've started a new project connected to the book, which is to create an Original Novel Soundtrack that helps explore the emotional tones and mood of When Winter Calls. The setting of Caldera means a lot to me, and I'm enthused to explore that in different ways.

Interested to hear what you think about this first (draft) track entitled 'Neuro Noir':

https://soundcloud.com/futureconscience/when-winter-calls-ons-neuro-noir

Keep in mind, this is coming from someone with almost zero musicmaking background! I'm pretty pleased with the results so far