Tips for doing a successful $.99 book promotion (or countdown deal)

I ran a one week $.99 Kindle promotion in June and feel I did OK. I sold 142 books, and made it to #2 in a self help category on Amazon which helped my sales a bit afterward. Only problem is I made less money in that week than any other week of sales since I put the book out. Reason for that is that the best way I could think of to advertise was with Facebook. I boosted a post, and took out an Ad. I'm considering doing that again - but I'm certain there must be better ways of promoting.

I titled the thread as such so people in the future can make use of it too.

Please contribute with any tips you may have. I'll do the same once I have some . Plan to research like crazy this time, and do my best. I want to run the deal the first or second week of September.

Thanks in advance!

Thanks WBN. Do you know what BookBub looks for in their book selection process? Is it their opinion on the book itself, sales, verified purchase reviews? I ask because I'd REALLY like to do a BookBub promo somewhere down the line, but I'm wondering if it might be better for me to do one more KDP promo first, in order to raise my sales and possibly pick up a few more reviews.

My book IS non-fiction. I currently have 29 positive reviews (all but one are 5 star, the other is a 4 with a positive review).

I will definitely check out the other sites you mentioned.

Al X. said:

It sounds as though you have done things right and have a promising outcome with promotions. Certainly I would personally consider that performance as well above average. Regarding Bookbub, I'm just getting in to it but I've been playing around with Bookbub ads. This is paid cost per thousands of impressions (vs. cost per click like AMS.) I have not tried a Bookbub 'deal' yet but from my observations of the ad metrics, they favor, very highly, other retailers such as Kobo and Barnes & Noble, and not Amazon. Whether this translates to the 'deal' promotion as an Amazon author I don't know.

Facebook has been useless to me for marketing but I'm also a fiction action-adventure writer. I suspect as a well received self-help author (which by the way is a tough category to begin with) it may well be of value.

Click to expand...

Facebook is tough. It seems people click out of curiosity as opposed to interest to buy. The title of my book works as an advertisement in itself, and with ads on Amazon people are already looking to purchase books. If they're interested in my title, my guess is I'm somehow retaining their interest in my "Look Inside" pages. I don't' know why that is, and would be lying if I didn't admit I'm concerned about jinxing myself by talking too much - but everyone is telling me my book is doing uncommonly well. It was put out in January, and as of today I've sold 837 copies. I know it's not millions, but I'm a completely unknown author. And I'm very happy with that number.

I had one final edit for the book that's just been completed, and then I'm ready to start dropping some serious money into advertising. I'm taking the next month or so to plan my course of action as wisely as possible. I also want to get moving with my second book as I miss the writing process.

Oh yeah.... I knew there was another reason I was responding to this, almost forgot. One Facebook method of promotion that I believe IS working for me is posting (cost free) in book clubs. There are hundreds of them, some with 1000s of members. While most of those members are authors, I'm pretty sure my efforts are paying off and some people are buying. I post in 50 groups, 2 or 3 times a week. It takes a half an hour to hit all 50 groups, but it's a better spent half hour than just brainlessly surfing the web which is what I'd be doing otherwise .