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January 24, 2012

How One Indie Author Increased Kindle Sales 3600% in ONE WEEK

Today’s post is a bit unscheduled, but still wonderful news for all our indie author friends. You see, one of our own, the very awesome John Betcher, had an idea. He decided to give away one of his books for free over a two-day period in hopes he could (perhaps) crack the Kindle Free Top 100 and (maybe) boost sales of all of his books after the promo was complete.

So, how did his promo work out? From John’s results post:

Books given away: Over 25,000, including >1000 in UK and at least 1 in on every Amazon site.
Highest Free Kindle Ranking: #10.
Highest Free Kindle Suspense Ranking: #1.

Well, that’s all well and amazing, but did giving away all those books hurt his chances of selling any more after the promotion was over?

The result, in fact, was just the opposite. His rankings for the first seven days after the promotion ended:

Highest Paid Kindle Ranking – #162 (achieved 3 days after promo)
Highest Paid Kindle Suspense Ranking – #13

And, perhaps the most awesome result, his actual sales numbers for just the first WEEK after the promo ended:

These are actual numbers of Kindle books sold at $6.99 each:

THE COVERT ELEMENT (Promo Book): >1,150
THE 19TH ELEMENT: >200
THE MISSING ELEMENT: >200
A HIGHER COURT: 12
COMBINED UK SALES: >50

TOTAL SALES: >1,612

Compare this to my December monthly sales for the same titles:

TOTAL SALES OF ALL BOOKS IN MONTH OF DECEMBER: 44

Pretty amazing, huh? That’s over a 3600% increase in sales! Be sure to check out the post on John’s blog for all of the additional details, numbers, why’s and how’s, but suffice it to say that this should provide inspiration (and perhaps spark some goal fodder) for all of our author friends looking for marketing and promotion ideas!

Filed Under: Marketing & Promotion, Publishing Your Book Tagged With: ,

  • I noticed something similar after a giveaway as well. Hey – I’ll do what works :)

  • Think it would work for non-fiction?

  • It looks like he went through Kindle Select to get the book listed for free. Getting a book posted for free without going through Kindle Select is not easy. I’ve been trying for months, so far no dice. And since the books are already out in other venues, it’s too late to go with Kindle Select. Still good to know someone had something work great for them. :)

  • That’s good to hear. Can’t say it had the same effect on my short sotry, maybe because it’s a short story.

    Note to S.A Archer, you can make it free on Amazon by making it free everywhere else. Easy to do via Smashwords. Once free elsewhere get people to click the ‘Tell us about a lower price’ and Amazon will match it. However they will not make it not free until all the other outlets are also not free, that means that it will be free for at least a month if you orgainse it to coincide with when smashwords sends the updates to the other retailers.

  • The problem with KDP is that you have to belong to KDP.  It is full of problems and has ridiculously bad support.  I used it for my first two installments of my book but will not be using for the third.

    Congrats to John.  

    • Thanks for sharing your experience, Rolli! It’s definitely true that each author’s experience with KDP is different. Maybe using the option Tahlia mentioned to make your book free for a certain period of time is a valid alternative?

  • sharkbytes

    This is pretty amazing. I just put a short story from my Anastasia Raven series up for free, and it’s getting downloaded. So far no sales of the other book, but I think a lot of people haven’t finished reading the free one. Hoping it works!

    • It can be disappointing to see a promo not affect sales, but anything that exposes your book to more readers (even if you don’t necessarily make money off of it) certainly can’t hurt. Best of luck with your promotion! *crosses fingers*

  • septembergray

    My problem with free promos is that every one is expecting free books now and no one is wanting to pay anymore. I know so many people that download only freebies now. This is the same attitude that nearly destroyed the music business.

  • TH

    Agreed. I find that the week right after a promo my sales are really strong. Thanks for the article!