Let me start at the beginning. When you sign up with Amazon's publishing "house" - KDP, you have to agree to be exclusively on Amazon for ninety days. In exchange for this they put your book in the Kindle lending library, meaning if people have Prime, they can borrow and read for free. Also, they give you five free promotional days where you can put your book up for free to gain publicity.
After my book had been officially released for a week I sold about thirty-seven copies, not too shabby! My free promotion went live at midnight on Thursday night. On Friday morning I woke up at seven-thirty and checked my sales, already I was at 34 downloads, I couldn't believe it. I was bascially glued to my computer the rest of the morning, watching the number rise everytime I hit refresh. I knew I couldn't do that all day, or could I? So I took the kids to the beach for about two hours. When I came back my number had doubled from 90 to 180! Then I started to notice something very interesting. I was ranked. (You know I've talked about my sales rankings a lot. Well, this was free rankings, but still.) I started out around #1,100 and something. Then I hit the charts. By early afternoon I was ranked on both the children's action/adventure (Free) lists, and the regualar action/adventure list. I did make an appearance on the YA lists as well, but never the top twenty.
Around early evening was when I really peaked. I think my sales ranking hit #473, on the childrens action/adventure I made it as high as #5
Oh hi, that's my novel, right across from THE HUNGER GAMES! Of course, the list on the right is free, the one on the left is paid. Big difference, but still, there I am! I also peaked on the adult action/adventure around #11. As far as I know at least. Around eleven that night I did go to bed, so I could have reached higher, since he promo day went on until midnight on the West Coast. By morning I had my final tally, 614 downloads, which is insane, right? I keep telling myself, yes, it was free, of course you gave away so many. But I can't help but hope and think that the reason that number is so high is because my book is awesome!
The best part so far? Besides a gazillion people reading my book and besides seeing all my friends totally spam facebook for me? Well, the feedback. I've heard nothing but good things so far. Even from people I don't know! You can't beat that. I'm sure the negative reviews will come, but hopefully they'll only be complaining about my lack of vampires or something...
