Sunday, it rained cats and dogs so no antique car show. Now, maybe they had the car show anyway but standing out in the pouring rain to look at and photograph old cars isn’t something I’d do without a compelling motive. So, I spent the day staring at my Amazon dashboard deciding whether day five of the promo would over- or under- perform. As it turned out it was a very good day. Here it is 8:40 pm and the order count for the day has already exceeded 600 and that drives the grand total for the five days well above 3,500 books. Interestingly, these free books haven’t slowed down the Kindle Unlimited page sales. In fact, the count so far today is 688 pages which is the best I’ve ever had.
I can assume that the final book count will be between 3,500 and 3,700 books. And I think that is a very nice result. I would say 3,500+ books will be a fair test of the theory that a large promo giveaway will provide a noticeable increase in the visibility of the book. And the fact that my Kindle Unlimited sales have increased seems to be the first evidence of that. The other hint I’ve seen is an uptick in the rate of Amazon reviews showing up on my book page. And by the way, the latest three have been five star, which doesn’t hurt.
I’m assuming the sale ends at midnight and by Monday morning when I awake “The Sniper” will have sunk well below the top 100 in the Kindle Store. But the fact that it reached 60 on that list and was seen by all kinds of readers will (hopefully) convince people that even $0.99 isn’t too much to pay for a masterfully crafted book. And $0.99 is where the price will remain for the remainder of the Based Book Sale ending Wednesday, September 16, 2026, 12:00 AM PDT. After that I’ll restore the normal $4.99 e-book price.
I’ll update this sometime tomorrow morning with the final numbers before heading into work. But I will say that the promo by Written Word Media (the company that controls FreeBooksy and the other lists) went very smoothly and without a hiccup. And that is a welcome change compared with the many complicated and uncoordinated activities associated with writing, publishing and marketing a book.
Well, it’s time for me to stop tweaking my first book’s sales and start writing the sequel. You know, after all this marketing “stuff” I feel energized to start putting together the new story. As I told Camera Girl I want to outline this story thoroughly instead of “discovering” the plot like I did with the first. In fact, I might even outline more than the next book. I have an idea that I’ll be pushing separate books in very different directions within my “universe.” I’m going to need a book just for Cutter and Mel. And I think Connors will need a book that allows him to start a social engineering program. And I want to figure out where Grace and her kids end up. I’ll have to discuss with Camera Girl whether forcing Connors and Grace onto a “date” makes any sense. Also, I need to create a few new characters. One of them will be an extremely high IQ type with the obligatory anti-social quirks. And I need wise guy to make fun of things. He’ll be like me but less diplomatic and better at fighting. And last but not least I can’t forget Bogey. Last we saw he was headed to a country music venue with a cute waitress. I want to find out how that went.
Congratulations on the great numbers. I will eagerly await the sequel. I’d like to see how Bogey and the waitress work out. I think they’d do well together.