Free Promotion – Update

I thought I’d give an update on my No More Mulberries promotion when, for five days, I offered it FREE to download.

I know it seems counter-intuitive to give books away and some authors are opposed to the idea and for a long time so was I. I knew it was something many indie authors did but I really didn’t like the idea of all my hard work being simply given away.

The redoubtable Jackie Weger, founder of eNovel Authors at Work, of which I am a proud member, persuaded me. She took me gently by the hand, pointed her snake gun at me and said, “Do it!”  I did it.

I’m delighted with the result. Over the five days almost 5,000 people downloaded the book, mainly in USA and UK but also in Canada, Australia, India and Italy. Okay, so they didn’t pay me for it but money isn’t everything, is it? I love the idea so many new readers now have a copy of No More Mulberries on their Kindles.

Also, people borrowed the book. This is something I don’t pretend to understand but for some reason people choose to borrow it from Kindle Unlimited rather than simply downloading it. I love it that they do because Amazon actually gives me money every time someone reads a page of a borrowed book. So far these lovely people have read 15,000 pages and climbing.

Reviews from these new readers have started to come in already. So far, they have been lovely, like the one Sally Cronin posted on her Smorgasbord blog as well as Amazon and GoodReads. Since the promotion ended and No More Mulberries returned to full price, paid sales have gone up. I expect they will plateau soon but it’s lovely while it lasts.

Of course, it isn’t just a matter of offering a book for free on Amazon – a fair bit of work is required if anyone is to know about it. Amazon doesn’t do much on that front so it’s up to the author. I booked a few paid ads on sites such as Ereader News Today, Digital Book Today, Great Books Great Deals and Authors Cross Promotion.

Major thanks go to Sally Cronin who promoted the free deal on her blog and to Sue Vincent and Marcia Meara who both let me write guest posts on their blogs, providing me with the opportunity of letting potentially several thousands of people know about No More Mulberries.

And for five days I worked social media – Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn – like a demon. The share buttons were red hot! It was exhilarating and exhausting and now I’m getting my head down to write.