[Wayne Stinnett]

I have a BookBub ad on Friday for Fallen Out, my newest novel. If you remember last time, I set up a number of smaller ads scheduled three days apart for two weeks before the BookBub ad to slowly push it up the ranking. It did do better than the previous ad, reaching #58 in Paid Kindle. The first time, Fallen Palm started at #17K or so and last time, Fallen Hunter started at about #7K.

Fallen Out hasn't been ranked any worse than #3656 since it launched on 5/30 and has been bouncing between #1500 and #2500 all this month. With the better ranking this time over the other two times, I'm waiting until the day before the BookBub ad to run the other ads to see what a big push all at once will do.

I have a Kindle Countdown Deal scheduled to start tonight and extend through the 4th at $.99. On Thursday, I'm running the following ads: ENT, FussyLibrarian, KBoards, Kindle Books and Tips, and Fiverr. The Countdown Deal, starting 36 hours before all those, should push Fallen Out into the top 1000 in Paid Kindle, then with all those ads on Thursday, it should rise close to #500.

Starting from that higher platform, I'm looking for at least a top 50, but am really hoping for a top 20 in Paid Kindle. The Countdown Deal starts at 9:00 pm EDT tonight, but I'll have to manually adjust the price in the UK store. When I set up the KCD, the price in the UK was too low and I changed it. Then the date of the BB ad was within the 30 day window for a price change. I went ahead and set it up for 8/2, the earliest it would let me. But, I still have to manually lower it just before the BB ad comes out.

I'll post here in the morning, exactly where the book is in ranking, when the KCD starts and keep everyone apprised of each days results. This should be pretty interesting.

 

[cinisajoy]

Wayne,
I regret to inform you that you will not be getting a sale from me with this bookbub ad.  Amazon is mean and will not let me buy the book again.

Seriously good luck.

 

[abishop]

Thanks for posting all of this info on your sales and tactics, Wayne. It's great info.

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

Wayne,
I regret to inform you that you will not be getting a sale from me with this bookbub ad. Amazon is mean and will not let me buy the book again.

Seriously good luck.

LMBO!! Yes, I've been lazy. I wrote four books in eleven months, or 2.75 months per book, but I'm only half way through my current WIP after two months.

 

[cinisajoy]

Wayne,
You have been working hard and are probably finding less time to write now than previously.
If I remember right, you did very little marketing while you still had your other job.  Your priorities have now shifted.

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

Wayne,
You have been working hard and are probably finding less time to write now than previously.
If I remember right, you did very little marketing while you still had your other job. Your priorities have now shifted.

Yeah, that's the ticket. I'm not lazy, I'm just spending more time 'marketing'. Wanna buy my book?

Seriously, yeah, In the last two months, I've created a number of spread sheets to more closely monitor daily sales and more importantly, the tax implication from those sales. I'm also spending a lot more time on more than a half dozen social sites (which I hate) promoting my books and my visibility. I've also been updating my four previous books with corrections to a number of minot things. I'll be uploading new editions just before I publish this WIP. Lastly, this book will be longer than the others. It's already the same length as Fallen Out and the characters are still working up to heading to the Bahamas.

 

[cinisajoy]

Take your time.  I want the new one to be good not rushed.

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

Up and running. The Kindle Countdown Deal has started and the price is confirmed at $.99. Since I record sales on a spreadsheet every night at 9 pm, I set the Kindle Countdown Deal to start at that time.

Fallen Out is currently ranked at #1798 in Paid Kindle. By morning, I hope that will be close to #1500.

By tomorrow evening, I hope it will be close to the #1000 spot and continue to climb Thursday due to the KCD, which runs through the 4th and the ads for ENT, FussyLibrarian, Fiverr, KBoards, and KB&T.

By the time the BookBub ad appears Friday morning, I hope to be inside the top 900 in Paid Kindle. Since my normal sales is about 60, selling over 100 a day for two days shouldn't be out of the question.

By Friday night, I hope to be inside the top 100 and with luck inside the top 20 by Saturday morning.

A great way to end a month and start a new one.

 

[Justawriter]

Good luck Wayne! Don't be discouraged tomorrow…..I've found that Kindle Books and Tips and ENT, your two big ones, don't start showing results until late afternoon (for Kindle books and Tips, the email goes out around 3 ET, and early evening for ENT, the real impact for ENT comes when you are posted to the FB page.) Those two together should be powerful. Wouldn't be surprised to see you break top 500. 

 

[Wired]

Good luck with your promotion! What fiverr ads do you run?

 

[John Ellsworth]

Wayne, please post frequently. I am very interested in how this all goes. My BB ad is Monday (freebie) and I'll keep you posted on those results as well.

John

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

Although Fallen Out didn't reach 1500 over night, it made substantial gains. After ten hours on the Countdown Deal, it's up to #1612.

 

[Mark E. Cooper]

Wayne,
I regret to inform you that you will not be getting a sale from me with this bookbub ad. Amazon is mean and will not let me buy the book again.

Seriously good luck.

It's easy, Cin, just go to your account on Amazon and delete the book. Amazon will let you buy it again anytime you want

 

[I'm a Little Teapot]

Pixel of Ink picked you up today, so you should do very, very nicely.

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

Pixel of Ink picked you up today, so you should do very, very nicely.

Very cool!! I wasn't aware they did pro bono advertising.

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

Approaching the top 1000 now. #1,112 in Paid Kindle. As afternoon moves into evening, I'll get even more sales. I'm certain to crack the top 1000, before the first ad appears. Well, paid ad. Thanks Pixels of Ink for picking up on the Countdown Deal.

Still about 20-24 hours until the first paid ad and about 44 hours until the BookBub ad. The Kindle Countdown Deal has already sold over 115 copies, which is about 45 more than a full day's average. Average daily sales for Fallen Out are about $140. The KCD needs to generate 200 sales to equal that.

 

[Rayven T. Hill]

A strange coincidence Wayne. I ran a bookbub ad yesterday and POI advertised my freebie 2 Days before. A surprise to me but may help prove your theory. Perhaps the combination helped propel it into the #1 free spot.

 

[Wayne Stinnett]

A strange coincidence Wayne. I ran a bookbub ad yesterday and POI advertised my freebie 2 Days before. A surprise to me but may help prove your theory. Perhaps the combination helped propel it into the #1 free spot.

Good job, Rayven.

For those not familiar with what I'm doing, allow me to explain. I don't believe there's any such thing as a BookBub tail, though it's spoken of on here a lot. When you have a BB ad, you sell a ton of books really fast on the day of the ad. Sure there will be a few sales the day after and the day after that, which can be attributed to people not checking their email the day of the ad. But the vast majority of the higher sales for days and weeks after the ad, I feel are mostly attributed to the ranking.

Amazon's algorithm to determine ranking is based on a lot of things, primary of which is sales per hour and per day. To a much smaller degree, it includes sales over weeks and months and a steady climb. A few months ago, I tried an experiment. Instead of placing smaller ads after BB, I placed a series of ads spaced three days apart for three weeks before the BB ad. That book slowly, but steadily climbed up the rankings and I had a far better experience both on the day of the ad and for many weeks after.

My theory is simply this: The higher the launching platform, the higher the orbit. Kinda like why the shuttle used boosters to get off the ground, allowing the main engines to push further into orbit, after they burned out.

This launch is guaranteed to start from a much higher platform. If I'm right, it will not only go higher, but maintain orbit for much longer. Who knows. Maybe it'll never come down.

 

[Justawriter]

Wayne,
I don't think I've seen anyone do this before, front-load all the ads and then not do any after BB. It will be interesting to watch. Thanks for sharing your data real-time, I always enjoy these posts.

Oh, and I see you just broke through the 1000 level, at #969. Awesome!

 

[Rayven T. Hill]

Agreed Wayne. My freebie was hanging around the 100 rank for quite awhile. POI knocked it down to the 60's and then bookbub finished the job. The book's history of having a faIrly good ranking seemed to have aided bookbub.

And since my other books have decent rankings as well, I expect any buyers that got the freebies should bring them down more because of the long term effect rather than just a short burst.

One more point. When you get into the top 10 or so, a lot of other sites will pick up the book, helping to keep the rankings high.