laurenwaters

The birds are chirping, the trees are budding, and I’m trying out a new promotional strategy!

Spring has arrived early and made me want to get outside more to write in my hammock. So where am I going to find that time?

Less time promoting.

*Cheers!*

I got this idea after I noticed there were a bunch of first books of a series hanging around at the top of the free kindle charts— month after month. I watched to see if they fell in rankings over time, but the downloading stayed strong and they ruled the free top ten. I also noticed that many of these authors’ other books held high positions in the paid rankings.

Then I read this wonderful guest post on David Gaughran’s blog by Sarah Woodbury. She revealed how she needed something to boost her lagging sales and stay afloat as many authors experimented with the new KDP select option. So she made her prequel free for the last four months and, wow, was she successful.

Well, that blog sold me, and it took a few weeks to make my first novel free.

Reasons:

• This type of promotion works well with a series.

• I made my first book shorter specifically so that I could have the option of doing this sort of promotion at lower cost (i.e. editors & formatters charge less for shorter books).

• I’ve sold it for five months and made back enough that I can make it free for a bit.

• I want (need) to write more and promote less, and being on the free list can do my promoting for me. I’ll never get this third book out if I have to keep flagging people toward my book.

• Truth is, I want readers. I know that it’s hard to trust a book with an unknown author and, with the happy price of free, more people will pick up my first book. If they like it, then I’ve got a reader for my whole series.

• I would like more reviews. When you have massive downloads of a book, odds are some of them will leave reviews. Like it or hate it, I just love to see what readers experience after reading my book.

• I made my second book, Infinite Devotion, $3.99. That way, if a reader enjoys my series and writing style they will invest more. Then I can make up for the sale of the first book with a happy costumer. If someone didn’t like the series, then they lose nothing.

I’m going to see how well this works for a month and then decide if I want it to stay free for longer. I will report back here to let everyone know how it worked out.

If you haven’t picked up a free copy yet, grab one up either on Amazon or at Smashwords.

Of course, if you want to thank me for the freebie, please, please, please *kneels* let me know what you think of it on Amazon, Smashwords, or Goodreads (or anywhere else!).

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