Results for Kindle Nation Daily Ad

So having recently spent $99 on a Kindle Daily Deal ad on Kindle Nation Daily, I thought I'd report back my results from it.

I must say that my book only had five reviews on Amazon.com when I placed the ad, and three of them were two stars, so I'm sure if it was reviewed better then it would have sold more.

The picture below is from Amazon.com - The spike in sales is due to the ad. I was averaging 3 sales a week on the .com site, and because of the ad, that went up to 34. The profit on $0.99 is about $0.35 per book.

The next picture is for Amazon.co.uk (where my reviews are much stronger) - I sold less on the UK site the week the ad was out than I had the previous week - 88 sales as opposed to 113. Having been in the top 10 for post-apocalyptic on the UK site, I was getting good sales anyway. Is it fair to assume it had no impact? I'm not sure, but it certainly didn't seem to.

I appreciate that many factors impact the sales of a book and I'm sure my reviews on the .com site didn't help. However, all I can do is present the information as I've experienced it.

My Second Month as a Self-published Author - Sales Figures Included

It’s been two months since I released my first novella, Crash, as an ebook. Here is my experience so far. 

Obsessed!

So I’m still checking my sales figures more frequently than is healthy. I wonder if that will ever change. 

Reviews

I’ve only had one one-star review still but I have had three two-star reviews on Amazon.com My most recent two-star review came a week or so back and that’s really affected my sales on Amazon.com. Fortunately my novella is doing much better on the other side of the pond. I currently have thirteen reviews and ten of them are five-star. As a result, my book is selling much better in the UK. 

Amazon Top One Hundred Charts

Since its release, Crash has consistently been in the top one hundred post-apocalyptic novels. It has fallen out on a couple of occasions but it hit an all time high at number twenty today. 

Sales

I was happy with my sales for about the first six weeks and then they started to slip. It’s hard to know why, but the most recent negative review seems to have had an impact in the US. So what I decided to do was drop the price to $.99 to see if it affected sales. Yesterday I sold twelve copies in one day. Most of those were in the UK. The sale price is until the beginning of September, although if it goes really well I may extend that. I’m not aiming to make money on my first book, I just want to get it in the hands of readers and remain visible on Amazon. When my second and third books in the series come out, I intend to make this book permanently free. 

Figures

While I like Kobo’s ethos and a great review came from a Kobo reader, I have only had three sales on Kobo in six weeks. I’ve had one hundred and fifty-three sales on Amazon. I’ve had nothing on Smashwords and they were a pain to get the formatting correct for. 

Overall

So since the first month I’ve hit the milestones of one hundred and one hundred and fifty copies sold. I’ve experimented with price and seen a marked difference when I drop it. I’ve had Amazon’s dominance confirmed to me, and I’ve developed a thicker skin while learning how I can become a better writer. I’m pleased with my sales so far, although I’ve been warned that books fall off a cliff at some point. 

How I Tackle Procrastination as a Writer

Pain and Pleasure

Anthony Robbins says that people are motivated by pain and pleasure. We seek one and avoid the other. Our drive to avoid pain is generally stronger than our drive to gain pleasure.

I have been terrible in the past with procrastination. Facebook is one of the biggest culprits and I have found myself refreshing it so I get one newsfeed at a time. I know, it's sad, but anything to avoid the pain of writing. Now to call writing painful is more to use the pleasure/pain terminology. What I mean by pain is an expending of mental and emotional energy. Sometimes I find writing, or even just the process of it intimidating. 

To get out of the procrastination slump, what I do is find a greater pain that will result from me not doing the writing. For example, I'll be sat here in five years from now still refreshing Facebook or whichever social media site is prevalent at the time. I'll still be working twelve hour days still and trying to turn my passion into my career. It's quite a simple technique, but it works for me.

 

Timing Procrastination 

I have now decided that I will have my timer ready on my phone and start it when I start to procrastinate. I'll stop it when I've finished and add it up for a week. I reckon that seeing an amount of time that I've wasted and thinking about what I could have done in that time will help me become more disciplined. 

Surrounding Yourself With People That are Prolific

While I appreciate it may be hard to find prolific writers in your neighbourhood, we live in an age where there are so many ways of connecting with people that it's easy enough to find prolific authors. My favourite podcast at present is The Self Publishing Podcast Dave, Sean, and Johnny are releasing a book per week of serialised fiction and generating a huge catalog of work. Sean and Dave are making a full time profession from it and I believe Johnny is pretty much there too. I feel left behind when I listen to these guys and that's a great motivator. They also offer amazing self-publishing advice.

Writing retreats can also help inspire. To surround yourself with other writers and take yourself away from daily chores can be massively beneficial.

I am also a member of a writers' circle that I meet with on a monthly basis. I always walk away from our meeting energised. Maybe one day I'll feel brave enough to read my work out too.

I hope these tips help.

Thanks for reading.

Michael Robertson.

My debut novel Crash is available now