12/9/13

What To Expect

Over Thanksgiving break, Those Who Trespass was available for free on Amazon Kindle. It was my first time to do such a thing, and I didn't know what to expect. I was ready to be happy with, you know, 5 or 10 downloads.

5 Days Later: 2298 free downloads

That in itself blew my mind. Then my {small} number of Amazon reviews doubled, including one five-star from lov2readinNC that almost made me cry from happiness:
"Lean, clean, well written and well edited. I read around 7 - 10 books a week and I slog through a lot of free kindle books that need extensive work. This isn't one of them. I prefer books that have well developed characters, a good and hopefully unpredictable plot, a little romance and that also avoid profanity and explicit sex. That can be a tough combination. This book acheives all that and more. While not explicitly Christian, themes of forgiveness in the face of seemingly unforgivable sins dominate. No pat or easy answers are given and the pain and grief of loss is poignantly portrayed. The author is a master of showing not telling. The dialogue flows smoothly. This book is a bargain for free. Snap it up and go along for the ride with Jenn and Clayton as they search for her missing brother and the truth. If you like Dee Henderson, DiAnn Mills or Kristen Heitzman, you will love this book. I sincerely look forward to more by this author."
Is. That. Not. The. Best. Thing. Ever? Way to make my day, luv2readinNC. Seriously.

After the promotion, I lowered the Kindle price to $2.99, just to see what would happen. It has good reviews from people who don't know me, I thought. Maybe good things will happen. Again, I had low expectations.

And once again, my low expectations were blown out of the water. Not in the thousands range, not close, but December's income is already significant to a poor, unemployed college student like myself. {It doesn't take much at all to be significant to a poor, unemployed college student, for the record.}

The goal of this blog has always been to be open and honest, a record of what to expect for those who follow in my footsteps. Since I'm self-published, I can do what I want, reveal what I want, say what I want. It's glorious, actually. {There's a huge part of me that has no desire to return to the whole traditional publishing race.}

So here is what to expect:

  • A good book + free Kindle downloads =  good reviews
  • Good reviews = paid downloads
  • Lower prices + good reviews = more downloads
  • More downloads = more money
    • For what it's worth, in December Those Who Trespass has made more money with $2.99 downloads than it did in November with $4.99 downloads.
      • Also, I have heard from various sources that the number of downloads fluctuates sometimes with no apparent reason. You are responsible for playing around with the price of your own book and analyzing your numbers yourself.
My life right now consists of switching between school websites, where my grades depress me, to the Kindle Direct Publishing site where I can see how many people have downloaded Those Who Trespass today. Also, the actual Amazon site, where reviews pop up at random. Reviews make me so happy, star count matters not! {If you've read TWT, you should leave an honest review, just so that I'll have something to bring a smile to my face during all this studying for finals, yeah?}

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