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Ad Results From KDP Select Free Days by Kitty Bucholtz

July 10, 2015 by in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz tagged as , , , , , ,
We all like to know what kinds of promotions have worked for other people so that we can decide which promotions we’re going to try for our own books. With that in mind, here is my experience using the KDP Select free days in May 2015.
 
My chick-lit book, LittleMiss Lovesick, first came out in 2011. Recently, as I’ve focused on my superhero series, sales have dropped to almost nothing for Lovesick. I decided they couldn’t go lower than zero, so I removed the book from other distributors and signed it up for KDP Select.
 
In the interest of experimentation, and because I was busy getting my online class on self-publishing ready, I did nothing to promote the book after I put it into Select. (That’s the same amount of promotion I was doing before it was in Select. 😉 ) For the first 2 1/2 months of the 90-day program, the book did about the same as it had been doing. I had a total of one Kindle Unlimited borrow and one sale in eleven weeks.
 
I decided that to get more downloads, and therefore more reviews, I would use the free days rather than the Countdown Deal. I set five days free in a row from Tuesday, May 19 through Saturday, May 23, the middle of Memorial Day weekend. And to see how that affected borrows, I renewed the book in KDP Select for another 90 days.
 
A week or two before the free dates, I used the BookMarketing Tools auto-submission form ($14.99) to apply to 32 websites that accept submissions for free books to be placed in their daily newsletter. Using this tool, I was able to fill out the required information for 32 websites in 20 minutes! (Definitely worth fifteen bucks to me!)
 
As luck would have it, my main computer’s hard drive died in the middle of my sale and I no longer have all the information about what I did and what happened. But this is at least 90% of the information I was tracking. 🙂
 
Monday May 18:
– day before sale started, no borrows, no sales
– guest blog at Kathleen Rowland’s blog
 
Tuesday May 19: 1002 free downloads today
– first day of “free” sale!
– guest blog at Alina K. Field’s blog
– Indie Author News Free Ebook of the Day ad ($25)  an ad with the book’s cover stayed on top left corner of EVERY page of their website, and they tweeted about it at least 5-10 times (I’d definitely do this again!)
 
Wednesday May 20: 1389 free downloads today
– guest blog at Linda McLaughlin/Lyndi Lamont’s blog
– there were SO MANY TWEETS from Linda (perhaps automated? I forgot to ask, but on that blog it shows 54 people tweeted about it!), and many people in her circle retweeted her tweets (I definitely want to get Linda’s help again! She should sell a service or something! Haha!)
 
Thursday May 21: 2517 free downloads today
– InD’tale Bargain Books ad ($25) to 10,000+ subscribers; my book was listed first this time (at the top) in the email that went out. I didn’t receive the email until about 4pm Pacific, so I don’t know how many people who saw that ad clicked on it Thursday or didn’t see it until Friday.
– Fiverr promo w/BKnights ($15)  I heard about them on the Rocking Self-Publishing podcast. I bought three $5 promotions: promoted to 4800+ active on Facebook page (over 7 days), promoted on website w/2000 visitors (1 day), and included in daily newsletter to 2500+ subscribers (1 day)
 
I know the InD’tale ad did well last time I bought it, which is why I used it again this time. But my numbers this time are significantly higher, so I’m assuming the BKnights promotion did well, too. I’m going to try them both again next month.
 
Friday May 22: 1407 free downloads today
– first day of Memorial Day weekend; had no idea if that would be good or bad
– Tracy Reed posted a guest blog at The Romance Studio about my book and sale
– Choosy Bookworm Premium ad ($38) to 40,000+ subscribers, all week, but I don’t know the start and end date
 
Saturday 5/23: 972 free downloads today
– no known promo, except possibly Choosy Bookworm as part of their all week promo with the premium ad; possible that one of the 32 sites I submitted to earlier ran the book on this day
– I was enjoying the holiday weekend and didn’t do anything except look for tweets and reply and retweet
 
Over the next week, through the end of May:
There were 25 more freebies downloaded early Sunday morning before the price went back to $2.99, for a grand total of 7312 free copies downloaded in five days. I thought it was quite funny that two copies were returned, they were free, why take the time?! Haha! But even so, that’s a negligible percentage.
 
On Sunday, the first day the book was back at full price, I sold 15 copies. I sold 11 more copies over the rest of that week. It’s more than I’d sold for any other non-sale week, but it’s not much. Then for the whole month of June, the book sold 5 copies. No copies were sold during the first eight days of July.
 
Now since it’s KDP Select, and that means Kindle Unlimited, everyone wants to know how many borrows I had. As I mentioned earlier, I had one borrow in the 2 1/2 months before the book went free. In the eight days of May following the freebie period, I had 71 borrows! 🙂
 
Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that borrows don’t show up on the Prior Six Weeks Royalties, so I didn’t think to make a screen shot of June’s Month-to-Date Unit Sales on June 30. And when the borrows went from books to pages on July 1, the history no longer has borrowed books. Bummer!
 
Oh, wait! I am using the beta version of BookTrackr! I just went through all my emails and, though I’m missing a few days, it looks to be around 63 or so borrows in June. Excellent! Remember I had ONE borrow before I did my five-day free promo.

 

[UPDATE: Debra Holland kindly mentioned in the comments below how you can find your prior month’s sales. Thanks, Debra! So the borrows in June were 88 rather than 63. Nice! 🙂 ]

 
So in the 7 weeks since the free book promotion, Little Miss Lovesick has had 7312 free downloads, 31 sales, and about 138 163 borrows.Total spent on promotion – $118. Total earned – about $339 $389, approximately $63 from sales and $276 $326 from borrows. This is FAR MORE MONEY than I have earned in one month so far from all book sales combined. And if you’re interested in rankings, I think I hit #49 or 47 in all of the Kindle Free Store as my best rank, plus several #1 and #2 category rankings.
 
 
If you’re interested in how this compares with my last book promotion, see this post about making Unexpected Superhero free over two periods in October. I spent $80 that month, had 3710 free downloads, 59 sales, and 15 borrows over about four weeks, earning about $88.
 
I can think of at least three things that contributed to the difference. One, I did five free days in a row, which is what Debra Holland and many of our other friends strongly suggest. I wanted to try two weekends in October, and perhaps that accounted for less momentum. Two, my mailing list has almost doubled since October, and I have more fans. That may have contributed to increased sales and borrows. Three, these are different books in different genres. It’s impossible to replicate something exactly due to that alone.
 
I hope this gave you some ideas for places that might be good for you to try for your own promotions. And I hope you’ve gained some insight into how the whole process works. Remember, your results will not only vary from mine, but they will vary from one of your books to another!
 
I’m going to do another free promotion for Little Miss Lovesick next month. I’m going to try to replicate exactly the ads and promotions that I did in May, but also try to come up with additional ideas to increase visibility as well. I’ll let you know what happens!

 

 
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Never Stop Learning and Trying New Things by Kitty Bucholtz

May 9, 2015 by in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz tagged as , , , ,

It has been a crazy few weeks for me! I decided it was high time I put my class, “Your How-to Guide to Self-Publishing,” on its own web site instead of teaching through Yahoo Groups. I wanted to add more content like videos explaining each step, worksheets and checklists, interviews with other professionals related to self-publishing like cover designers, time management experts, accountants, attorneys, and so much more!

This week I finally got all 479 pieces together that were required to do this “simple” task of creating a new web site. (Wanna see? I really want my friends to go ooh and ahh over it because even though it’s not perfect, that’s what friends do. Haha! It’s at WriterEntrepreneurGuides.com.) I’ve attended about three dozen free webinars in the last six months, bought into several programs to help build the site and create the videos, and listening to innumerable podcasts collecting information I want to share with my next group of students.

It has been exhausting but exhilarating! Lots of things didn’t work as easily or as quickly as I expected and my April 27 class start date has been pushed back to June 1. But the experience has reminded me of how frustrating it can be to learn new things without anyone to help you, and that compassion is going to be a focus of my class. So I’m excited about that!

I’m in the process of making lists of things I’ve done so I can share them with all of you. Remember the last time I did a promotion and I told you what ads I bought, how much they cost, how many subscribers they went out to, and how many downloads I got? I just spent most of yesterday buying ads for a free promotion the week before Memorial Day for Little Miss Lovesick. I’ve done some things the same and some things differently, so I’ll share the results as soon as it’s all tabulated.

All that to say – writing is the most important thing a writer can do, but there must always be room for learning how to change with the times, learning how to do new things that will add to your bottom line (i.e., money). The added benefit of that – and I’m not sure that it isn’t of greater benefit than the increased revenue – is that your mind is constantly pushed when you learn new things. This is good for your physical and mental health!

So when you’re done writing today, go learn something new about how you can improve your business. It just might improve your health! 🙂

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick, A Very Merry Superhero Wedding and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story, “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites.

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What About Love? by Kitty Bucholtz

April 9, 2015 by in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz tagged as , ,

After six weeks of Lent and the booming joy of Easter, I’ve got love on my mind. Not just the cute, mushy stuff that most of our acquaintances seem to think we write about. 😉 But love with power and strength and purpose, the kind of love that changes people and changes lives.

I’ve been thinking about a sermon I heard recently where the pastor told a story about an elderly woman who was kidnapped and forgave her kidnapper, asking the judge to get the man into a drug rehab program. The pastor said what I often think – I’d like to think I would be that forgiving. But he also said the other thing I think when I hear these stories – I’ll probably never be in a position to know.

So he challenged us to something else. Don’t worry about loving your enemies today. Start with something easier. “How about if this week you just try to love the annoying people in your life?”

And it occurred to me that that just might be harder.

Then he said, “When you get so you can love the annoying people, take a step up and try to love the irritating people.”

Ouch. I think I’d rather try to love the kidnapper. At least I can blame it on the drugs and believe in his potential rehabilitation.

And then I started thinking about my writing. If I can’t personally love the annoying and irritating people I come across on a daily basis, how can I write about people with a dozen layers – no, a hundred layers – of relational emotion? Because that’s who we all are – people with uncountable layers of emotion covering hundreds of different relationships in each of our lives.

Love is the emotion that packs a punch. It’s active. It changes things. It changes people.

Love changes us.

We’re romance writers. But do we love the annoying and irritating people in our lives, let alone our enemies? If not, how can we write about love?

How does the love we write about change the people who read our stories? Does it change them at all? Are we afraid of saying too much? Too little? It takes a double dose of vulnerability to put that kind of love on the page.

We must be fearless.

We are among the bards of our generation. Bards tell tales of heroes, warn of danger, and give people courage. All in a fearlessly entertaining way.

That’s the power of love.

Kitty Bucholtz

 

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick, A Very Merry Superhero Wedding, and Unexpected Superhero are currently available on Amazon. The free short story “Superhero in Disguise” and the new short story “Welcome to Loon Lake” are available wherever ebooks are sold. You can find out about her courses on self-publishing, marketing, and time management for writers at her website Writer Entrepreneur Guides.

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Two-Question Survey on Self-Publishing by Kitty Bucholtz

March 9, 2015 by in category It's Worth It by Kitty Bucholtz tagged as , ,

Hi friends!

I’ve been learning a lot of new things about growing my reading audience for my fiction, and about improving my online classes on self-publishing and time management for writers. One of those new things is landing pages. Some of you have great web sites where the first page draws you in and gives you a reason to stay. Mine isn’t like that! LOL!

I’m learning how to use LeadPages and the AWeber email system to create pages to give away cool stuff (called a first impression incentive) and get people to sign up for my email list. Here is the link to my first ever landing page on my brand new site, Writer Entrepreneur Guides.

I’ll be using that site to teach my classes instead of using Yahoo Groups. (Can I hear an Amen?!) And I’ll be interviewing all kinds of people in our industry to give information and advice to writers who are thinking about or just beginning to self-publish. I’m really excited about this!

The other new thing I’m learning is how to find out what people really want to know about the subject you’re teaching. One of the best ways is to ask them an open-ended question about it, and then use the second question to see how serious they are about learning more. Apparently, the psychology is that if someone is willing to give you a phone number to contact them to ask more – and we all know how much we don’t want to be called by sales people! – that shows how serious they are, and they might be someone who would want to take your class. (You don’t actually call them; it’s only to find out how serious they are about getting the answer to the first question.)

Pretty neat stuff, huh? I hope some of you find it interesting if I share more of what I learn as I blog here on the 9th of every month. One hand reaching forward, one hand reaching back, right? 🙂

If you are interested in self-publishing or just beginning your journey, will you do me a favor and fill out my survey? (The other cool thing I learned is how to embed it directly into a blog post! If it doesn’t work, you can get to the survey here.) It will help me make my classes better for future students. (I’ll be teaching my self-publishing class again next month!)

And be sure to either click on the Writer Entrepreneur Guides link now or the one you’ll see after you click the Submit button on the survey, to get my free gift, The 10-Step Checklist to Starting Your Self-Publishing Business. I hope you find it helpful.

Thanks again for taking my survey! I’m excited to make my next class the best one yet!

Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story, “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites.

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Self-Publishing Online Class – Info From Sample Lectures

January 9, 2015 by in category Archives tagged as , , , , , ,
I thought you might want to know more about the self-publishing class that I’ll be teaching starting Monday. So here are some samples from some of my class lectures.

From Lecture 1

Welcome to my class on self-publishing your book! I’m glad you’re here. There are a lot of ways to get your book out into the world, and I’m going to present only a few. Then you’ll be able to take what you learn here, continue to research and learn more about your other options, and make changes (if you choose) in the future with more confidence.
The first things you’ll need to decide are:
  • do you want to publish in ebook only, print only, or both?
  • what software will you use?
  • what distributors will you use?
Starting today, if you haven’t already started a notebook or computer file to save all the information you collect on self-publishing, do it now.
I use an ARC notebook from Staples to save everything that is already printed, or that I print out.
I prefer these because I like how easy it is to pull a piece of paper from one section and press it into another without having to open and close a 3-ring binder all the time. But whatever you like and will find easy to organize is what you should use.
I save different information – my house style guide, some how-to blogs that I’ve saved, a list of passwords and links to the distributors I use, and much more – in a Scrivener file.
Screen shot - Style guide
From that Scrivener file, I can cut and paste links I need easier than if they were in a printed file, and I can continually update my style guide, add new books or formats (like audiobooks), and organize other information that I don’t feel the need to print.

From Lecture 2

In addition to the big choices – will I publish in ebook, print, or both formats? what software will I use? – you have a lot of detailed choices as well. This lesson will help familiarize you with some of those choices, and provide web sites where you can look up more information and/or sign up for the service.
Business Type
When you sign up for an account to publish your book with a distributor (KDP, Smashwords, etc.), you will need to provide your legal name (if you write with a pen name) and/or your business name. I chose to register a DBA (Doing Business As, also known as a Fictitious Business Name) so I could have a company name without the expense of setting up a corporation or LLC. You will have to do your own research on this, ask your accountant and/or attorney what is best for you because I am not qualified to give legal or financial advice.
If you live in California, here is a link to the state web site explaining the minimum tax if you set up a corporation or LLC. Google “[my state] minimum tax” to find out more about the tax consequences of setting up a corporation/LLC in your state.
CHOICE: How will I set up my distributor accounts, and what do I need to do before I can sign up for those accounts?
Tax Identification Numbers
When you sign up with a distributor, you need to provide banking information and a tax ID number so you can get paid and so your earnings can be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.
If you run your business as a sole proprietor, with or without a DBA, you can use your social security number or you can apply for an Employer Identification Number (EIN). While I can’t give you legal or financial advice, here are some articles that may help you decide.
Depending on your bank and your business type, you may be able to set up a business checking account. (Your bank can tell you if they require an EIN for a sole proprietorship with or without a DBA, or if they will allow you to use your social security number.) Your royalties/earnings can be deposited there instead of your personal account to make accounting and taxes easier. Or your bank may only let you set up a separate personal checking account. Either way, you need to decide where you want your money deposited.
If you use PayPal, you may want to research how you can set up a separate PayPal account connected to your business checking so you can keep your business and personal finances separate.
CHOICE: How will I set up my banking for receiving payments and paying expenses?
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATION: How will changing from one business type now (sole prop/DBA) to another later (corporation/LLC) affect my business? How will it affect my sales, sales rank, tax reporting, sales reporting, etc. from the vendors and distributors I’ve signed up with?

From Lecture 5

This lecture is not going to be an exhaustive how-to on using InDesign. You’ve either decided to learn it and you plan to use additional resources to do so, or you are already familiar with it to some degree. This will also help you get your book set up in InDesign if you have used Quark Xpress or Pagemaker or another desktop publishing program. There are enough similarities among the programs that knowing how to do this or that in one program gives you an idea of how to do it in another.
I’ll tell you what I do, and you can follow my directions, or just use them as a jumping off point to decide how you want to design your book’s interior. (You can also read along and ask yourself if this seems easy enough to learn. I think you’ll find it is.)
What I Do
Following are directions for creating a new file, making it into a template so you have all your settings saved for future books, and then adding your current manuscript to the template to create a new document.
Open InDesign
Go to File, New, Document
Under Intent on the popup screen, leave it as Print (the default)
Under Pages, make it a few more pages than you think it needs to be
Example: My superhero story is 100,000 words and came in at about 325 pages with the manuscript, the front and back matter, and the short excerpt of the next book at the end; my 8,000-word short story is about 36 pages with front and back matter and short excerpt
Under Page Size, choose Custom, then you’ll create a custom preset for all of your books
Adjust the width and height to the sizes you want for your print book (this won’t affect your EPUB if you create one from InDesign), and type in a name for the Custom Page Size.
Example: You could create one that is 4 1/8” x 6 7/8” and call it “Mass Market,” and create one that is 5” x 8” and call it “Trade Size.” Then you only need to choose which Custom Page Size you want to use this time.
Screen shot InD New Doc 1
Click on the Add button to save the name of the Custom Page Size. If you created more than one, click on the one you want and hit OK.
Screen shot InD New Doc 2
Leave the columns section as is if you are creating a novel template. Adjust your margins according to the CreateSpace guidelines. (You may have to click on the “chain” icon next to the top and bottom margins in order for your changes to save.)
Example: I use 0.75” for the top, bottom, and inside margins, and 0.5” on the outside margin

Sign Up Today!

These are just a few examples of what you’ll learn in my 4-week online class, Your How-to Guide to Self-Publishing. You will receive 8 lectures with 92 pages of information, including screen shots, to help you get your book up for sale as an ebook and/or in print by the end of the class. Everyone will be encouraged to ask questions and offer suggestions to each other so that everyone can avoid or solve problems, and gain the newest information in an ever-changing industry.
Manuscript not ready? No problem. You can go through the lectures and practice with a dummy manuscript. This will give you an opportunity to ask questions about anything you don’t understand so you can be ready when your manuscript is complete.
Check out my Classes page and sign up for the class. It starts Monday, January 12, 2015.
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her novels, Little Miss Lovesick and Unexpected Superhero, and the free short story, “Superhero in Disguise,” are now available at most online retail sites. Her newest book is A Very Merry Superhero Wedding, a Christmas wedding precursor to Unexpected Superhero.
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