Well, I said I'd give you a breakdown of the month, so here it is.
This past month, I held 5 sales, starting on the 4th and ending on the 29th.
Sale #1 - Project Hermes. No advertising other than FB Group posts. Sold 3 books. No page reads.
Sale #2 - Blink of an I. No advertising other than FB Group posts. No sales. No page reads.
Sale #3 - Sleeping Ugly. No advertising other than FB Group posts. Sold 2 books. No page reads.
Sale #4 & #5 - Accidental Death and Natural Causes. Paid $55 for an ad for AD, and did all the FB Group posts. To date, AD sold 39 books, had 2.45 books worth of page reads, and had one return. NC sold 17 books and very few page reads so far. The ad has not paid for itself yet, but we'll see if the page reads keep coming in.
It was a long and tiring marketing month, but I don't regret doing it. If I hadn't done it, I'm sure I wouldn't have sold nearly as much. Like way not as much. The ad is only $11 short of paying for itself, and that's not as bad as it could've been.
Now, these ads usually pay for themselves with my sitting around praying for page reads. I think what happened here is that there were only two books in the series. When I did the same ad for the SCIU books - a three book series - the ad paid for itself. When I did the same ad for the OUAD books - a four book series - the ad more than paid for itself. (Noting, of course, that I only advertised the first book in each series.)
Of course, all these sales and discounts have dropped my per-book average to 96c. But that was to be expected. I wish I could sell more books at regular prices, but you know what they say... If wishes were fishes, we'd all eat like kings.
Next month, I hope to do something with Wish in One Hand. Not sure what or when. And the longer I take to decide, the fewer my options are for advertising. One place is already booking ads for September because August is sold out. Umm, yeah, missed that opportunity again. I might do a whole 4th anniversary of WIOH thing. I'm playing with the idea of making it free again. I just hate paying for advertising on free books. Bleh.
Anyway, that's the wrap-up for my July sales spectacular. Any questions?
Books sold are books sold and crossing fingers the ad pays for itself. The only time I've paid for an ad (and my sales probably reflect that 🙄 ), it cost me $14 and I did make the money back, though the book was 99c, and KU. I got page reads and a few sell thrus on the rest of the books at regular price. I suppose I should do another one but I'm more concerned about getting new words out and new product out right now. That's going to be my focus for awhile. I'll do my best to get the word out when you do the next sale. Maybe I'll even get a newsletter out and feature it.
ReplyDeleteOkay. Those dang words aren't going to write themselves. Off to work!
I keep saying that I'm going to run ads in 2019 and it still hasn't happened and we're getting near the end of the year!
ReplyDeleteSummer is always such a slow time for sales and I really don't understand why...I know that I usually buy *more* books this time of year.