Anyone else having a problem setting up a countdown deal?

I tried several times last night, and again just now and I keep getting an error message. Something along the lines of "the feature you are trying to use is unavailable. We are working on the problem. Try again later."

So I know it's not because I'm a moron quite often-- doesn't seem to be anything I've done this time. It figures that I'd finally decide to try one and now I can't. Tell me I'm not the only one, please.
 

So, I've been holding off on putting one of my books on sale/ free for a very long time. In theory, I was aiming for a BookBub ad once I got the second book in the series out. Fast-forward a long while and book #2 was finally nearing completion, so I set it up for pre-order to release in mid-March. Then, I realized I had five free days for the first book, and I'd lose then by the end of the month when the book renewed again, so I figured, "what the h*ll" and set it free. Now book #1 is currently in it's second day free and I can't believe how well it's going. I've never had a free promo go this well. Ever.

So I wanted to share my plan of attack and show that you don't have to spend a bunch of money to get results, apparently you just have to dance nakkid in your backyard or something. (seriously, I've done several promo's in the past and none have gone this well.)

I notified around 25 sites of the promo, and only gave them a week's notice. I've only paid for four placements, spending less than $45 altogether.

Day 1: (Posted to FB page (under 1000 followers) & Tweets (under 1500 followers, some got retweeted though).
Read Cheaply - free
It's Write Now - free
Kindle Book Review - $5 (more than one day)
Addicted to eBooks - free

Day ended with roughly 1000 downloads and 6 pre-orders on Book #2 (forgot to clock the ranking. uug)

Day 2: (FB a little, a couple of tweets)
Fussy Librarian $9
ebookstage
eReader News Today $15
Genre Pulse (app only campaign - showing 121 click through's currently)

An hour before close of day, it's had another 1,400 dl's (total of 2450), the pre-order total on book #2 has gone to "11", I've chalked up another KU borrow (on a FREE book no less) and the current ranking is:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #113 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban
#8 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Mystery & Suspense > Suspense

(It's sooo close to the top 100 I can't take it. Arrgh.)

Day 3 (1/27):
Naughty List - free
Digital Book today
Bk Knights promo $15
WTRAFSOG FB page - free

**Edited to add results - downloads have fluctuated a bit, but more than once today Kill Me cracked the Top 100 free. Currently ranked #113 free. The book has been downloaded a total of 3,500 times now (so 1,000 in the last 24-hours) and has 3 more KU borrows. Higher ranking also-bought's have been added to the book's page as well.

***Also, the pre-order has increased to 15. It's my first pre-order, so I don't have anything to judge this by. The book won't release until mid-March and has only been live a couple of days though. Ranked @ 39 k and showing in the top 100 of one sublist. On top of that, the also-bought's are way better than I'm used to getting in the beginning.

Day 4 (1/28)
Awesome Gang

Day 5 (1/29) - Last Day
SciFi Fantasy Freak
Pretty-Hot

Couple of observations, clarifications:

• For a lot of the places I applied for promo, I gave the date range so I'm not sure who else will pick up the book from here on out, other than the ones that confirmed.
• I've been surprised that the freebie has spilled over onto the pre-order. Happy accident, I'd say. At least the pre-sales have covered the cost of the promo.
• A few days before the promo, I tweaked & tightened the book's blurb. Condensed, spiced it up, etc. Also added a note right at the top of the blurb explaining that book two was available for pre-order at a 50% discount at $2.99
• The pre-order ranking on book two has been wonky. Stayed in the 200's for all of the first day, despite 6 purchases, and adding 4 more to it finally dropped it down to 90,000 later today. My experience says that should be a lot lower for that many sales in such a short time period. Sigh.
  

Anyway, if anyone is interested, I'll come back to update tomorrow 

Grab while it's hot!



Olivia's life is in the toilet. She caught her fiance with his (very male) secretary in an eye-bleach worthy embrace. Then her brother died tragically in a car accident. When she learns that she's inherited his lucrative company, Olivia decides to make a fresh start... only she's slightly out of her element at Random, the elite hook-up service her brother founded.

Taking a hands-on approach to the business, Olivia sets up her first Random date and quickly learns that finding the man of her wicked dreams is as easy as ordering takeout.

Random is an erotic romance novella of approximately 16,000 words and is meant for mature readers over 18 years old, as it contains adult situations. (M/F)






sorry -- direct links to erotic content is not allowed. Please review Forum Decorum

Hot New Release!




Blurb:

The minute Lila wandered into the Freak Show, she left her sheltered, naïve life behind. In the Strong Man she saw power--raw, immense and carnal. In her, he saw a woman that needed to break out of her rigid shell. Her life had to be unraveled from the seams, and the Strong Man was just the guy to become her undoing.

Freak Show: Strong Man is an erotic short of approx. 9,000 words, which is perfect for an afternoon quickie. It contains adult situations and language-- you've been warned. (Alpha Male, M/f, multiples.)

$2.99 to buy, Free to borrow if you have Kindle Unlimited!

In light of a recent cover change (really, what was I thinking?) I decided to try and revive one of my books with a few Select free days. I'm ashamed to say this book hasn't sold a single copy in about 2 months... which is sad, because it has good reviews and I consider it one of my better works.

At any rate, I wanted to save the other 4 days for use when book two releases, but it's drawing near the end of the free day and I'm so stinking close to the Top 100!

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #175 Free in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Free in Kindle Store)
#4 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Fantasy > Paranormal & Urban
#13 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy

Since the cover change and following free day were not planned in advance, this has happened without any real promotion outside of a couple of shares on FB and random tweets throughout the day.

So, keep it free for one more day... or let it go and save the rest of the free days for later?

Now Available on Amazon!



Blurb:

Cassiopeia "Pia" Alexander is just your typical college student. She can't pick a major, her love life is virtually non-existent and the only thing good in her life seems to be her job as an Animal ER Nurse. Even that doesn't feel like enough, though.

Beylin Callaghan is a member of the Brotherhood, tasked to give souls a winged-ride from one life to the next and to remove the memories from each soul so that they can start with a fresh slate in their new incarnations.

But he's keeping a secret-- a secret that when exposed, will bind Pia's fate to his own. For better or worse.

Crow: Episode One is novella length (approx. 9,000 words) and is the first installment in this new adult fantasy series. Subsequent episodes will be released on a monthly basis and fans are encouraged to visit Alex's website to influence the outcome of the overall story.

Just wondering, of those of you who went Select and pulled books from other retailers, then republished once the select period expired, how quickly did things pick back up for the other venues? I never did a huge amount of sales at B&N, but I made about the same money with fewer sales (my books sold better there with higher price points.)

Now I've got all but the new release and one straggler back up, and haven't sold a thing there all month. I'm wondering if this is normal? Does it take some time to reintegrate?

I'm really fighting myself here. Part of me wants to re-pull the books and sign up for another Select tour. Not just because of the anemic B&N sales... but my Az rank is slowly tanking since coming out of Select.

A paranoid person might say that without the select contract, my books have lost visibility (and I don't mean the kind gained my free promo days). Select may not have done wonders for the books last time, but they did end up with better, more consistent sales at the end of it.

Any input welcome! Or communal Prozac, because I think I'm addicted to Select and having withdrawals as well.

I googled myself (gah, that sounds so dirty) and came up with this link for my new book:

http://www.superiorz.org/sec63-e-books/alex-owens-kill-me-blood-cord-1-2012-epub-box-21639/

Anyone know anything about this site? I can't see much since I'm not a registered user, but from what I can tell it LOOKS like they have the epub version of my novel up. Which means it more than likely came from the recent librarything giveaway I did... that would be the easiest path anyway.  That is, if it's a legit pirate and not just some click-here-get-a-virus scam.

Ignore it?

So I'm mere weeks away from release my first full novel. It's been through several editing passes (including pro's) and deemed worthy to head off to the formatter. While I wait for the finished files, I've been querying book bloggers and am seeing less-than-stellar responses. I blame my blurb... it's not sparkly enough (vampire pun intended) and I'm at a loss trying to decide how much to disclose in terms of plot and themes. So I humbly scrape before you, those that are more seasoned at this.

**********************See bottom post for new-ish, hopefully non-sucky attempt #3,425!**********

Here's what I've been hobbling along with:

Thirty-something Claire is normal to the point of boring. She has a child, a husband who’s leaving her and a decent job as a PR rep for a boutique firm. Heck, she’s practically living the American Dream.

While at a music industry convention for work, Claire’s life goes from status-quo to “Oh, no!” with one chance encounter.  Claire meets Bette, a captivating Italian woman with a haunted violin; an instrument that can only be played by the supernaturally gifted. Bette, a vampire with an eye on Claire’s untapped talents, tries to turn her into one of the undead. Only it doesn’t appear to have worked, at least not one-hundred percent.

While figuring out what fate has planned for her, Claire must also create a marketing campaign off-the-cuff for a Girl-centric guitar company, survive her first strip club visit, and fake being a violin virtuoso in front of thousands.  She turns to Bette and her Vampy-friends for help, but trusting them with her life may not be the smartest decision she’s ever made.

What this blurb does not cover:

• the book has romantic elements (there is no HEA, at least not in this installment but by book three that should evolve.)
• one scene in particular is rather steamy (on camera) the rest happens off camera
• it has elements of a non-traditional love triangle. The female MC is drawn to a hunky guy, but is also attracted to another woman ;-)
• the novel has an equal amount of magic/ supernatural abilities, so it's not all vampire, all the time
• Moderate musical theme: violins, guitar playing, chick rock, etc.

 

What to include, what to leave out? And what about the romance? I discovered several series that have the same level of romantic moments in the romance category. One such series even signed to Amazon's Montlake (sp?) imprint recently. Before seeing that, I hadn't considered highlighting the romance parts. Now, I'm not sure.

Thoughts, suggestions? ayúdeme por favor!

So I'm doing the pre-publishing build up for KILL ME, listing the book on a couple of sites as advanced copy giveaways, in hopes that I can have some reviews fairly quickly after the launch. (integral to my wicked plan! mwuuuah) I've already listed it on Librarything, no problem.

Then I head to over to Goodreads. Since I've never tried to do a physical book giveaway before I wasn't familiar with their process. Now I see that without an ibsn, there's no way to do an ARC giveaway. Kind of defeats the purpose of an ARC, now doesn't it?

Since this book will go select within a few days of launch, I can't wait around for the print IBSN. And I can't rush the beta's/ editor/ formatter.

Any suggestions? Wanna gripe with me? I'll pass the wine 

The release of my novel draws nigh and I really need to get the cover art done. I plan on going Select with the novel, but I want to do giveaways via LibraryThing/ Goodreads, etc first to help get some reviews. So I really need to get this cover finalized. I've mocked up a few options. Keep in mind they are rough, since I haven't purchased the stock imagery yet and the placeholder images are all low quality.

Mainly, I'm hoping to get general impressions and/or which cover fits the tentative blurb:

Thirty-something Claire is normal to the point of boring. She has a young child, a husband who's leaving her and a decent job as a PR rep for a boutique firm. Heck, she's practically living the American Dream. While at a music industry convention for work, her life goes from status quo to “Oh, no!” with one fated meeting.  

Claire meets Bette, a captivating Italian woman with a haunted violin; an instrument that can only be played by the supernaturally gifted. Bette, a vampire with an eye on Claire's untapped talents, tries to turn her into one of the undead. Only it doesn't appear to have worked, at least not one-hundred percent. Can Claire trust Bette and her Vampy-friends long enough to find some answers, while becoming a single-parent with bills to pay and a child to protect?

Cover A:                                  Cover B:                                              Cover C:                                       Cover D:


The book is part of a series, so picking an image that is easier to alter or mimick is important, which is why Cover B is at the bottom of my list now. The novel is Adult Paranormal (there is some heat/sex) and I don't want it being confused with YA. Thanks in advance for any opinions/ suggestions!

Anyone else here have an About.me page? I stumbled over it today and decided there wasn't anything to lose by creating a quick page. I figure it was one more car for the web-promo train. It was fairly easy to do-- and free. And it doesn't seem like something that will need maintaining like FB, GR, etc. You just need to update the page once every 90 days to keep it active.

I like that it's a single page acting as a clearing house for all your internet sites: facebook, web site, twitter, flikr, etc. With one click, people can see a list of all your "sites" and click through. I haven't created an author/ publisher page yet... I did one for my photography site first to test it out. You can see it here if you're curious: http://about.me/karenfowlerphotography

Thoughts on creating a page? Good ideas? Share your page link?