{"id":38185,"date":"2026-09-25T05:00:01","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T09:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/?p=38185"},"modified":"2026-09-24T20:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T00:11:07","slug":"jake-barter-the-great-promoter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/25\/jake-barter-the-great-promoter\/","title":{"rendered":"Jake Barter, the Great Promoter"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, I ran the promotion from September 9th<\/sup> to September 13th<\/sup>. And I gave away over 3,600 e-books over those five days.\u00a0 So, there are 3,600+ readers who won\u2019t be buying my book.\u00a0 Sounds like a pretty terrible business model where you give away your product to the people who are most likely to enjoy it.\u00a0 Are you mad, photog!<\/p>\n

So, time has passed and I decided to see if there has been a meaningful up-tick in sales.\u00a0 Here are the results:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\n

Period<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

# of Days<\/span><\/td>\nBooks Sold<\/span><\/td>\n\n

KENP (pages)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

AUG 27 to Sep 6<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

10<\/span><\/td>\n4<\/span><\/td>\n\n

873<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Sep 15 to Sep 24<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

10<\/span><\/td>\n27<\/span><\/td>\n\n

2,905<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

\n

Ratio of Sales (after\/before)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

<\/td>\n\n

6.75<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

3.33<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

These are impressive changes and they seem to be accelerating.\u00a0 And one of the things I didn\u2019t expect is that most of these sales are not happening through the Amazon Ads that I have been running.\u00a0 In addition, the number of ratings I\u2019ve gotten on Amazon has increased dramatically.\u00a0 So, I have to say that the experiment was a success.\u00a0 Of course, I\u2019ll have to rerun it again when I have the second book ready so that those who buy \u201cThe Sniper\u201d have a chance to buy the sequel while they\u2019re primed and ready.<\/p>\n

But it hasn\u2019t been all gravy.\u00a0 I did get one really bad review by a reader.\u00a0 He gave it two stars and entitled his review, \u201cPretty Terrible<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here is his review in its entirety:<\/p>\n

\u201cI could barely get through this one. I\u2019m not sure how to describe the plot other than ridiculously bad. All the underground society nonsense was just dumb and the ending was laughable. There were also multiple typos and specific parts of the story that don\u2019t add up at all. I\u2019m totally confused by the good reviews.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a1Ay, Chihuahua!<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be honest.\u00a0 That stung a bit.\u00a0 But the customer is always right so I have to defer to his judgement that this book is not for him.\u00a0 But<\/span> luckily for me, four- and five-star ratings represent 83% of the total while one- and two-star ratings are only 6%.\u00a0 That will have to be my consolation.<\/p>\n

So here I am.\u00a0 The book seems to be gaining traction and sales are increasing.\u00a0 I\u2019m especially happy about the Kindle Unlimited growth.\u00a0 It\u2019s been very steadily increasing (see chart) and this month will soon represent an average of at least a book a day.\u00a0 So that\u2019s becoming a significant source of sales.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But now more than ever I have to outline the story correctly and it\u2019s a combination of too many ideas going in too many directions on the one hand and real doubts about the mix of action scenes versus everything else.\u00a0 Information dumps, character interactions, political, social, economic and let\u2019s call them \u201cphilosophical\u201d plot items all have to compete for space with the more dynamic scenes that grab the most attention.<\/p>\n

But things are progressing so I\u2019m satisfied with the effort right now.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll run into some road blocks once I try to flesh in some of the more complicated scenes.\u00a0 But there should be some effort in figuring out the balance between components.\u00a0 So, there it is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, I ran the promotion from September 9th to September 13th. And I gave away over 3,600 e-books over those five days.\u00a0 So, there are<\/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],"tags":[5147,5205],"class_list":["post-38185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction-by-me","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-book-marketing","tag-the-sniper"],"yoast_head":"\nJake Barter, the Great Promoter - Orion's Cold Fire<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/orionscoldfire.com\/index.php\/2026\/09\/25\/jake-barter-the-great-promoter\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jake Barter, the Great Promoter - Orion's Cold Fire\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So, I ran the promotion from September 9th to September 13th. 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