Sales froze after a great month...what happened?

Christyp · Sep 25, 2012

I ran a promtion over the Labor Day weekend, having over 2000 copies downloaded worldwide. I even hit #10 in the Free Kindle at one point. There have been no new reviews from this promotion.

The last few weeks following the promotion I had an influx of sales, my best month ever. Now...well, my sales have just stopped. There hasn't been a single sale in two days, where there were up to ten a day all month long. Is this common after running promotions?

And how in the world can I get people to write reviews after they read the book? I mean, over TWO THOUSAND downloads and no new reviews all month.

Do any of you have any idea if this is normal or did something go wrong?

Calle Jay · Sep 25, 2012

Sounds pretty normal, actually. A lot of those 2000 downloaded with the plan to read later...that's the way it seems to happen for me. I'll have a bunch of downloads, then a few weeks to a few months later I'll get a few reviews and sales on the paid stories will significantly jump. I just like to believe it's because downloaders are finally reading the freebie, then buying the rest of the series!

MartinD · Sep 25, 2012

Selling ten copies a day? You've had a terrific response.

Over the last year, I've sold about a thousand copies of my Kindle 99-center. I've had three reviews. Unless people are strongly enthusiastic about what they've read (or strongly negative toward what they've read), they frequently won't post a review.

merrihiatt · Sep 25, 2012

I'd say it's normal nowadays. The freebie offers will give a title a spike for a bit, but it will level back out again. Having more titles available helps and writing series or trilogies help because the freebie is attached to a title that has a price tag on it.

WeaselFire · Sep 25, 2012

Christyp said:
There hasn't been a single sale in two days...

Really? Two WHOLE days!?

Seriously, stop paying attention to sales and get back to writing the next book. And get back to marketing this one. You don't sell if you don't market. One of the drawbacks to self publishing, there's nobody else in the marketing department but you and the cat. And she's too busy playing Angry Birds on Facebook to get much of your marketing done...

Jeff

veinglory · Sep 25, 2012

I think a promotion/freebie/discount spike can cause a drop even below normal levels the following month, because people who knew about the book but on the tipping point of buying get tipped over that month. Including those that would otherwise have done so in the next month or the one after. Just a theory though.

Deb Kinnard · Sep 25, 2012

There is also talk on the Indie Romance loop about Amazon's changing (?) the algorithms. That's got a lot of people wondering why their numbers seem off.

Christyp · Sep 26, 2012

WeaselFire said:
Really? Two WHOLE days!?

Seriously, stop paying attention to sales and get back to writing the next book. And get back to marketing this one. You don't sell if you don't market. One of the drawbacks to self publishing, there's nobody else in the marketing department but you and the cat. And she's too busy playing Angry Birds on Facebook to get much of your marketing done...

Jeff

Excuse me, my cat does not play Angry Birds. She prefers the older games like Mario Bros.

Guess I need to relax and wait to see what happens, huh?!

WeaselFire · Sep 26, 2012

I don't believe you should worry about day-to-day fluctuations in sales. You do need to continue promoting your books and also get more inventory out there. The few who make a decent living, or better, with self-published books do it by relentless promotion and a large inventory to sell.

Kind of like WalMart.

Jeff

MMcDonald64 · Sep 26, 2012

Christyp said:
I ran a promtion over the Labor Day weekend, having over 2000 copies downloaded worldwide. I even hit #10 in the Free Kindle at one point. There have been no new reviews from this promotion.

The last few weeks following the promotion I had an influx of sales, my best month ever. Now...well, my sales have just stopped. There hasn't been a single sale in two days, where there were up to ten a day all month long. Is this common after running promotions?

And how in the world can I get people to write reviews after they read the book? I mean, over TWO THOUSAND downloads and no new reviews all month.

Do any of you have any idea if this is normal or did something go wrong?

I had a promo just before Labor Day weekend--8/29 and 8/30. I had over 9000 downloads (although I don't think I got higher than about 21 in the Free Kindle Store. This was my 6th time going free with the book and I'm surprised I had that many downloads.)

I also had no new reviews except for the second day of the promo, which I am not crediting towards the promo unless they read it overnight. (It could happen, but probably not.). However, suddenly this past Friday into Saturday, I had a flurry of reviews. (by that, I mean 5, so not exactly a blizzard. lol). I *think* Amazon might have sent some follow up emails encouraging reviews of the book. I have been receiving those on books I have purchased, so I guess it was finally my turn for my book to get one. They stopped as suddenly as they started.

Christyp · Sep 26, 2012

MMcDonald64 said:
I had a promo just before Labor Day weekend--8/29 and 8/30. I had over 9000 downloads (although I don't think I got higher than about 21 in the Free Kindle Store. This was my 6th time going free with the book and I'm surprised I had that many downloads.)

I also had no new reviews except for the second day of the promo, which I am not crediting towards the promo unless they read it overnight. (It could happen, but probably not.). However, suddenly this past Friday into Saturday, I had a flurry of reviews. (by that, I mean 5, so not exactly a blizzard. lol). I *think* Amazon might have sent some follow up emails encouraging reviews of the book. I have been receiving those on books I have purchased, so I guess it was finally my turn for my book to get one. They stopped as suddenly as they started.

I've actually had three people tell me they've left reviews on books, including mine, that didn't post. I'll guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Arpeggio · Sep 28, 2012

If you are willing to "sacrifice" one eBook and you have others to sell then you can make it free forever and put it out there on lots of places.

Sales froze after a great month...what happened?

Christyp

Lizard Lady

Calle Jay

Romance Novelist & Freelance Editor

MartinD

Thought I'd stop by

merrihiatt

Writing! Writing! Writing!

WeaselFire

Benefactor Member

veinglory

volitare nequeo

Deb Kinnard

Christyp

Lizard Lady

WeaselFire

Benefactor Member

MMcDonald64

Christyp

Lizard Lady

Arpeggio