Do Free Promotions Work?

Let me start out with a little bit of honesty.

As much as we might not like to admit it, the indie author has low odds of being successful. It is an unavoidable fact that most indie authors only ever sell a handful of books, and most often only to family and friends. Breaking past that point and reaching a wider audience is the dream we all share, but we all know how hard it can be.

We have a limited number of tools in our toolboxes for achieving that aim. And there comes a time when shouting into the void of Twitter or Facebook becomes a little pointless. There is a hashtag floating around on Twitter that I'm growing to love #IndieBooksBeSeen, because after all, the best written book is irrelevant if no one knows it exists. Spreading the word and sharing the love amongst the indie crowd is essential. A big part of why this blog was created in the first place. But even all that shared love isn't enough. We have to find ways to get our books into people's hands.

Free promotions, putting the book for free for a limited time, is one of the tools we have, and it's one that sparks a bit of debate amongst the indie crowd.

A lot of people will tell you that giving your book away for free will only devalue it. A bit like when your Mum told you no one would buy the cow if you gave the milk away for free. Most people who are against free promotions will tell you that the people who download free books will never buy your book, in fact they probably won't even read it.

I'm not going to argue with them. They may well be completely right. But I think that there is more to free promotions than the people who actually download your book for free. It's what those downloads can do for your rankings. It's what it can mean in the long run once your book goes back on sale.

I decided last month that I was going to give the free promotion thing another try. I'd done it before and received some extra reviews from it, so it hadn't been a complete waste, but this time I was going to do it properly. Which included a little paid advertising. Not much, just a $15 outlay for being included in an e-reader newsletter. Not enough to break the bank, but enough to test the waters.

I'm now going to give you actual numbers and figures. My sales prior to this were low. Not embarrassingly low (after all, see above about the success rates of indie authors) but low enough that the results are pretty obvious. 

Prior to the free promotion days my sales ranking was somewhere around the #500,000 mark. Yup. That low. I would say I made at most 2 sales a week. (note that as I get paid almost as much for borrows as sales on the KU scheme I do count them as a sale). Not terrible considering The Last Knight has been out for over a year and a half, but not brilliant by any means.

The free promotion days ran from the 30th Jan to the 1st Feb, with the paid advertising falling on the 31st. Right in the middle.

The first day of free downloads was OK - but nothing more than that. 159 copies.

The second day the advertising kicked in, and things changed.

By the time the day ended I had over 2,300 copies downloaded.

The next day the downloads continued, but not at the same rate, another 800+ copies however.

But the big thing for me was not how many were downloaded, but what it did for my ranking.

At it's highest point I reached #72 in the free rankings. I'd started at around #18,000 the previous day.

I know what you're thinking though. All of this is irrelevant in a way, because I'm not getting paid for those copies and the people who downloaded them probably won't read them.

But you see, those free copies do matter. Because if I take away the free copies on the sales graph, I get this:

Now, it may not seem like much - but when you look at the whole of January, you can see what a difference has been made. Even taking the borrows (which I do tend to count as I mentioned above) I had six books sold in January. (Which was up on last years sales of...zero) But on the day the free promo starts the sales jump up. And they've gone up since this graph was taken. But even just with what is visible here, in 4 days I had 13 sales. Double what I'd had for the whole month. To me that is a huge increase.

And it in turn has had a massive impact on my rankings now I'm back in the paid charts.

 Remember up top where I told you my ranking before this was somewhere around #500,000?

Here's my little indie book ranked up there with a traditionally published book. (Yes I am just a little pleased with that!).

The fact is though, rankings matter. Success breeds success. It's a well known fact. Those free downloads, and the subsequent sales have boosted me up the rankings, which will in turn bring more sales.

I hope.

And this is where the waiting game comes in. I plan on doing a second post in about a week - to see if any of this has sustained itself. Then I might be able to actually answer the question this post poses.

But until then I'd love to hear what others make of these numbers. Do free promotions work? Do you think success (even if somewhat artificially created) can only breed further success (or sales?).

To be continued...

My Top 5 Books Every Indie Should Read

Here at Rock The Book we review Indie books and we present tips, tricks, and tools to help Indies out. This post is going to mash up those two concepts with a look at books that have helped me on my Indie journey.  All of these books have been instrumental with my own self-publishing and are guidebooks that I reference again and again.

Let's Get Digital 

by David Gaughran

Goodreads

This is the book that started it all for me.  In this book, Gauhran gives you the reasons why you should self-publish and the tools you need to get your manuscript published. If you are siting on the self-publishing fence, this will give you a much needed kick in the pants.

Write. Publish Repeat 

by Sean Platt, Johnny B. Truant & David Wright

Goodreads

This informative book tells you all about the wonders of product funnels and how to keep your readers coming back. Definitely not an introduction to self-publishing, this book helps you set long term goals for your work and gives you the motivation to stick with it and keep on writing. Check out my full review of this book.

Let's Get Visible 

by David Gaughran

Goodreads

Gaughram makes my list again with this book on selling your self-publish work.  He decodes the mysteries of selling rank, best-selling lists and the wonder of tags. If you have a title published and want to boost its sales, this is worth a look. Check out my full review of this book.

Book Marketing Is Dead 

by Derek Murphy

Goodreads

Book marketing often scares authors who would much rather write than market their work. In this book, Murphy breaks down the process into three stages that can be beneficial to a newbie or a more experienced author. When you finish this, you will have a plan in place of what to do to market your book. Check out my full review of this book.

The Indie Author's Guide to The Universe 

by Jeff Bennington

Goodreads

This book has a little bit of everything. If you are only going to pick up one title, this would be my pick. Because it covers just about everything from why to self-publish, how to self-publish and even some marketing tips, this books lacks a little depth. Then again, it covers everything! Check out my full review of this book.

So there you have my top five books on self-publishing. If you are an Indie, or are contemplating becoming an Indie, you can't go wrong with checking out these titles.

Do you think I missed a title?

Leave a comment and let me know!

Kitted Out - Author Tools That Rock: yWriter5

Here's another tool that all you Indie authors will fall in love with:  yWriter5!  It's awesome, it's free, and it's completely intuitive.

Awesome:

You can use yWriter5 to write your novel, which is pretty cool.  But it is not traditional word-processing software.  Instead of one loooooooooong document that spans the length of the page, yWriter5 gives you a dashboard where your novel is broken into chapters.  Within each chapter you can have as many (or as few) scenes as you like.  That's just the very beginning.

There are plenty of places to keep scene notes and overall project notes, which will definitely help when you're revising.  Each scene can be rated for relevance, tension, humor, and quality.  You can track your time line so you know exactly how much time has passed within your story.  Add goals, reference pictures, and so on.  There are tabs and windows for everything.  Simon Haynes, the creator of yWriter, is an author.  He designed this software to be an author's best friend.

I pretty much love everything about yWriter5.  I have used it personally for about seven years, and I don't imagine I'm going to switch to anything else.  The "items", "characters", and "locations" tabs are absolutely indispensable, especially if you are writing something epic.  My first project in yWriter was a fantasy novel with an endless slew of character races, objects that were unique to the world, and made-up indigenous flora and fauna, among other things.  I could have filled a notebook with all this stuff, but I would never have been able to find what I was looking for.  Instead, yWriter5 handles all this neatly.  Not only that, but when it comes time to write the sequel, yWriter5 will import all those notations into your next project so you are ready to go.

I also love that yWriter5 keeps track of your daily word count, and provides chapter and scene word counts in addition to the overall numbers.  Probably the best thing, though, is that yWriter5 automatically backs up your project on a regular basis.  No more *poof*, *scream*, *mental breakdown*.  It also generates log files, so if you need to revert to an earlier version of your work, you can.  Incredibly author-friendly.

Free:

Just head on over to Spacejock Software, where Simon Haynes offers yWriter5 (and some other cool goodies) for free!  It is a simple download.  Open it up, create a project, and start writing.  And there's no need to worry about added junk.  Simon Haynes, on his site, promises, "All my software is virus-free. No unwanted toolbars, trojans or other nasties."  Why does Simon build this awesome software and just give it away???  I don't know.  He must be awesome!!!  (You can make a donation, or buy his books, or spread the word about his cool stuff if you just can't contain yourself and you want to say thanks.)

Intuitive:

If you can use word processing software, you can use yWriter5.  Once you've downloaded it, simply go to Project>New Project Wizard, and follow the prompts to set up your project.  Once you have the empty project, everything is based off of creating chapters and scenes.  So, go to Chapter> Create New Chapter.  Then go to Scene> Create New Scene.  Everything you write will be within a scene, so you have to have a scene to write.  However, if you only want to have one scene within a chapter, that is just fine.

As for the rest of it, you can explore the tabs and see what you find.  Most of it is self-explanatory.  If you're having trouble, try Rowena Tayler-Henry's Quickstart Guide to yWriter5, or go to the yWriter5 wiki, or check out this yWriter5 video tutorial.

Alright, so what are you waiting for?  Get writing!

Kitted Out - Author Tools That Rock: Inkscape

Often times, Indie authors find themselves doing absolutely everything when it comes to building their book(s).  Especially at first.  It's a learn-as-you-go process, and it takes a lot of time and effort.  Sometimes, the results are less than desirable.  Let's face it, some of this stuff is foreign territory, and just because you're an excellent writer, it doesn't mean you can build a book cover to save your life.  That's why having the right mix of tools is soooooo important.  Today, I'm taking a quick look at Inkscape, a free, open source vector graphics program that ROCKS.

So why do you want Inkscape?

You want a great cover, right?  Sure, we've all heard that "Don't judge a book by it's cover" thing, but seriously, that doesn't happen.  When we look at the cover of a book, we expect it to tell us something about the flavor of the book.  It needs to be professional, and stunning.  An awesome cover tells your reader "This book rocks". 

My book cover: made using Inkscape

Aside from book covers, there is the author blog or website.  These things require all kinds of visual elements.  Banners, and buttons, and cute little ratings icons.  If you run a website, Inkscape can help you make cool stuff for it.  No geekdom required.  (Well, maybe a little.)

The kind of cool stuff you can whip up in a flash

But why Inkscape?  Aren't there a ton of free graphics programs out there?  Don't you need professional software to get good results?

I don't claim to be a graphic design expert.  I'm an author, like you.  However, I do have a background in art, and I have used my fair share of graphic design software.  I have not been very impressed with most of the free stuff.  You may have heard about the awesome powers of the Adobe suite of products, but what starving author has the bucks to shell out for that?  Are you really going to invest several hundred dollars in a program that you may or may not be able to build a decent book cover with?  Logical answer: hell no.  The alternative is Inkscape, which is absolutely free, and gives Adobe a pretty good run for their money.  (Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Inkscape.  I'm just someone who uses and loves it.  Also, not bashing Adobe.  It's pretty awesome, if you have the money to invest in it.)

So let's rock this tool!

OK, so step one is obviously to click on the link to Inkscape, download their free program, and install it.

Now what?

I'm going to be honest with you.  It's going to take some time and effort to learn to use this program.  Will it pay off in the end?  Oh yeah.

It helps if you have some general experience using graphic design programs.  If not, you're going to take a little longer.  When I first downloaded Inkscape, I ran through this Coffee Cup Tutorial.  It took me probably two and a half hours to get it, partly because this isn't the most beginner-friendly of tutorials.  I had to hunt around a bit to figure out where things were.  But at the end I had a beautiful, convincing little cup of steaming java, and a pretty good idea of some of the capabilities of the program.  If you try this tutorial, and it seems too difficult, try going to Youtube.  There are 87,400 Inkscape tutorial videos on Youtube.  Whenever I want to do something and I don't know how, this is where I go.  A lot of times I don't immediately find what I'm looking for, but I learn something new that I can use.  You might even just watch some of these vids and decide to try out their techniques.

So, at this point, you might be screaming at me, something like "I'm not an artist!" or "Graphics design program??? Really???"  Yeah.  Really.  So you're not an artist.  That's OK.  Can you take a picture?  Can you trace something?  Can you fiddle with effects?  I bet you can.  And some of the best covers are simple combinations of text, beautifully rendered.  Inkscape does a LOT of the artwork for you.  That's the whole point.

Some of you who are  artists, but who have tried the low-budget programs before might be thinking that it is like... impossible to draw something decent with a computer mouse.  We've all used Paint, right?  Well, it doesn't really work that way, so don't worry.  If you want to get an idea of the tool you can use to draw a shape or select something specific, check out this tutorial on cutting out an image from a photo.  Getting the lines where you want them is easier than you think, because you can basically move parts of them around once they're on the page.

Need to know list:

• Selecting objects.  Play around with the Selection Tool.
• Using the Nodes Tool.  It's the second one down on the sidebar.  After you draw something, select it and click on this tool.  All kinds of dots will pop up on your drawing.  That's how you move the lines around and fix mistakes.  So if you mess up what you're drawing halfway through, it's not a big deal.
• How to crop- Is there really no "crop" feature?  This is one of the weirdest things about the program.  Instead, you make a shape, put it on top of the image, select both of them by using SHIFT + click, and then go to Object> Clip>Set.  The shape on top will disappear, leaving the object underneath trimmed to the dimensions of the shape that was on top.  This takes a little getting used to, but once you've got the process down, easy-peasy.
• The Object>Fill and Stroke box.  This is where you change colors, outlines(stroke), and select fill or gradient.  There are a couple of different gradient functions, so you can do a lot of cool stuff with that, especially when you start combining it with filters.
• Text - Yeah, you can use different fonts.  You always want to be careful that you use a free or common domain font for book covers because you can run into font copyright issues, believe it or not!  If you're stuck, check out FontSquirrel to download some free fonts.  Just make sure you check the "license" tab under each font and be sure that it is indeed, free for commercial use.  Not all of them are.  Some have stipulations about crediting the artist, etc.  Anyway, find a font, make your text, select it.  Then go to Path>Object to Path.  This makes your letters into pictures.  That means you can do cool stuff to them to change them.  The possibilities are now endless, but some suggestions are:
• moving letters closer together to join them
• putting text on a path via Text>Put on Path (think text in a circle, or a wave, or whatever)
• adding colors and gradients
• filters!!!  Oh, the filters in this program!

  

  An example of text in which I moved the letters together, joined them as one object, then superimposed that over a photo of some gadgets and cropped the image.  I added a background underneath, some shadow, and voila.  I didn't end up using this because it didn't look good with my website theme.  Darnit!

  
  

  
  

  
  

   



OMG, I'm an alien!



Feeling a little film noir?

•  The Filters menu.  Make something.  Anything.  A box, whatever.  Then select it, go to Filter> and take your pick.  I can spend hours playing with this.  It does cool stuff.  Trust me.  Note: Sometimes a filter doesn't seem to do anything.  I have realized over time that it depends on your object.  Some things, like text objects, react very differently than say, photos.  And even within photos, one photo might react very differently than another photo.  I'm not sure why this is, but like I said, I'm not a professional designer.  Filters change when you use them in combination with each other, and also have different effects depending on what order you apply them in.  So you want to make something look like stained glass, or change a photo into a line drawing.  Have at it.  The fun never ends.  Think of it as a changing room for graphics.

• CTRL +Z = your friend.  This is the keyboard shortcut for "undo".  How many times do I use this each time I use Inkscape?  Hundreds?  It comes in really handy when you are trying on different filters.
• CTRL +G:  Use this combo to group things.  So... when you put together some different things to make one thing, and then you want it all to be one thing... select everything using SHIFT+click, and then hit CTRL+G.  It all turns into one thing.  If you want to ungroup things, use SHIFT+CTRL +U.   (Or you can go through the menus.)
• Last one (promise).  File>Export Bitmap.  Because, unfortunately, svg (scalable vector graphics) files are usually not accepted where authors want to go.  So after you save the svg (which is your working file with all its many bits and pieces), you export the bitmap.  A little box will pop up.  Hit "Browse" to select where you want the file to be saved, and note that the end of the list of files is the auto-generated name Inkscape will give your bitmap, unless you change it right there.  (You can just delete this last bit and name your file there.)  So then Inkscape will give you a little thinking bar and seem to have done nothing, but when you go into your folder, there is your bitmap.  This is much more usable for the web, and is accepted in a lot more places, kind of like a Discover card.  

Accessorize.

Just to finish it all off, there is one more thing that comes in super-handy, and that is the free-to-download photo software program Gimp.  This program has it's own filters and cool stuff, but honestly I mostly use it for file conversion.  So, if you need that Inkscape image to be a jpeg, open the image in Gimp, go to File> Export.  A big box will pop up.  Down in the lower left, it says "Select file type (by extension)".  Click on the little '+'.  Select jpeg (or whatever file type you want), give the file a name at the top.  Check right below the name to make sure Gimp is saving it in the location you want....  And hit "Export".  There you go.  It's a jpeg.  Or whatever.  I find that between Inkscape and Gimp, I have been able to get every file type I need.

Four score and seven years ago our forefathers started this blog post... 

Yeah, I know.  It's a lot.  And as you can see, you're going to have to play with it for a while.  But you won't be sorry.  Aside from all the author/blogger stuff, you'll probably be making collages where you cut and paste your granny onto the Starship Enterprise.  So go do those downloads, and start having fun!  Rock on!