601 Sales - How Will A Kindle Nation Daily Ad Affect My Sales?

I saw 500 sales as a big milestone and should have written this post then. But now I'm at 601, so I thought I'd report how the sales have been going.

I have an advert with Kindle Nation Daily due out at the end of this week (27th September). I've opted for the Kindle Daily Deal at $99. My sales are pretty poor in the US so I'm hoping this advert will give a boost to them. To break even at my current sale price, I need about 250 sales.

Visibility

It seems to me that visibility is the most important thing with Amazon. I talk about Amazon because I've had three sales on Kobo and none anywhere else.

From release, Crash has been in the top 50 for post apocalyptic Kindle books. This seemed to help the book tick along nicely and was generating sales of one or two copies a day. Halfway through August I dropped my price to $0.99 and £0.99. You can see the impact below on my sales figures and visibility. I've been in the top 10 post apocalyptic kindle charts and the top 50 for horror overall for about a month now. This extra visibility has coincided with a huge leap in figures. Although I have to sell lots more copies to make the same money, that's currently happening. So my book is being seen by more people and I'm making more money. I don't plan on keeping my price this low forever, but while the sales are good, I'll leave it as it is.

This screenshot was taken this morning (this is relatively low for my average):

My highest rank for each category has been 6 for post apocalyptic, 23 for kindle horror and 30 for horror overall. This is on the UK site. 

I also wanted to report a detailed breakdown of my sales figures because I've not done that yet - August was when I dropped my price. I decided to drop my price while I already had some chart visibility. I could see Crash slipping out of the charts and I hoped it would give sales a boost.

June

I released my book towards the end of June.

UK site - 16 copies sold.

US site - 13 copies sold.

July

UK site - 35 copies sold.

US site - 28 copies sold. 

August 

UK site - 154 copies sold.

US site - 24 copies sold. 

September (so far)

UK site - 314 copies sold

US site - 14 copies sold

Reviews

I've never had the chart visibility in the US and my average reviews aren't enough to get me much attention. I assume this is why my sales on Amazon.com aren't great. 

Next Blog Post

In my next blog post I want to show the figures after a Kindle Nation Daily ad to see if it was worth the $99. 

If You Write a Controversial Book - You're Going to Get Hate

I told myself this before I pressed ‘publish’ on Amazon and it’s taken all of five days for someone to offer their opinion on my mental health. Here’s my one star review: One star review of Crash

So how do I react to this? I’m human so it’s never nice to receive a personal attack, however, I was expecting it because my book is hard hitting. I have a really great group of friends that I play poker with. A lot of our humour revolves around how horrible we are to each other. We’re guys, what can I say. With that in mind, I thought I’d open myself up to the abuse of my peers and send a group message with the review. It took a while, but the abuse eventually came flooding in. What else can I do but laugh at it? 

In all seriousness I feel thankful that my work has made an impact. This person interpreted it as negative, but I’m glad to leave an impression either way. After all, a review is only a reflection of the reviewers view on the world and I can’t be responsible for that. I'd love millions of five star reviews but that isn't going to happen. 

I thought I would write this blog about it because this is my debut work and it’s a milestone. I’m sure it won’t be the last.

Does anyone have any opinions on how to deal with haters?

Michael Robertson (Author of Crash)

www.michaelrobertson.co.uk