Sunday, it rained cats and dogs so no antique car show.\u00a0 Now, maybe they had the car show anyway but standing out in the pouring rain to look at and photograph old cars isn\u2019t something I\u2019d do without a compelling motive.\u00a0 So, I spent the day staring at my Amazon dashboard deciding whether day five of the promo would over- or under- perform.\u00a0 As it turned out it was a very good day.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Interestingly, these free books haven\u2019t slowed down the Kindle Unlimited page sales.\u00a0 In fact, the count so far today is 688 pages which is the best I\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n
I can assume that the final book count will be between 3,500 and 3,700 books.\u00a0 And I think that is a very nice result.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And the fact that my Kindle Unlimited sales have increased seems to be the first evidence of that.\u00a0 The other hint I\u2019ve seen is an uptick in the rate of Amazon reviews showing up on my book page.\u00a0 And by the way, the latest three have been five star, which doesn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m assuming the sale ends at midnight and by Monday morning when I awake \u201cThe Sniper\u201d will have sunk well below the top 100 in the Kindle Store.\u00a0 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\u2019t too much to pay for a masterfully crafted book.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 After that I\u2019ll restore the normal $4.99 e-book price.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll update this sometime tomorrow morning with the final numbers before heading into work.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 And that is a welcome change compared with the many complicated and uncoordinated activities associated with writing, publishing and marketing a book.<\/p>\n
Well, it\u2019s time for me to stop tweaking my first book\u2019s sales and start writing the sequel.\u00a0 You know, after all this marketing \u201cstuff\u201d I feel energized to start putting together the new story.\u00a0 As I told Camera Girl I want to outline this story thoroughly instead of \u201cdiscovering\u201d the plot like I did with the first.\u00a0 In fact, I might even outline more than the next book.\u00a0 I have an idea that I\u2019ll be pushing separate books in very different directions within my \u201cuniverse.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m going to need a book just for Cutter and Mel.\u00a0 And I think Connors will need a book that allows him to start a social engineering program.\u00a0 And I want to figure out where Grace and her kids end up.\u00a0 I\u2019ll have to discuss with Camera Girl whether forcing Connors and Grace onto a \u201cdate\u201d makes any sense.\u00a0 Also, I need to create a few new characters.\u00a0 One of them will be an extremely high IQ type with the obligatory anti-social quirks.\u00a0 And I need wise guy to make fun of things.\u00a0 He\u2019ll be like me but less diplomatic and better at fighting.\u00a0 And last but not least I can\u2019t forget Bogey.\u00a0 Last we saw he was headed to a country music venue with a cute waitress.\u00a0 I want to find out how that went.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sunday, it rained cats and dogs so no antique car show.\u00a0 Now, maybe they had the car show anyway but standing out in the pouring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1289,1263,4],"tags":[5147,1290,5205],"class_list":["post-38083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction-by-me","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","category-sff","tag-book-marketing","tag-my-fiction","tag-the-sniper"],"yoast_head":"\n