Saturday 3 September 2016

When Book Promotion Goes Wrong

Back in late July I set up a free promo for The Book of Prophecy. I chose three websites that were renowned for high downloads (see list below). I contacted the publishers and the KDP feature on Amazon was set up and promo scheduled for the 1st-5th of Sept.

The weeks went by in controlled excitement for finally being able to access a wider audience. Two days before the promo I checked Amazon and my book had been removed from KDP and therefore unable to be put as free. After various emails that crossed over into the day before the promo, we were told it was removed because we broke the terms and conditions last time we used it. Now I don’t think we’ve used KDP for BoP as in the past we’ve used the price-match feature i.e putting it free elsewhere and Amazon price-match. Even then, that was like a year ago.

Anyway, I proceeded to email the websites to tell them the bad news. They were brilliant and switched the promo to their 99c/p promo or gave a full refund. I cannot praise them enough for their understanding and support.

So the promo has not been a total waste, as we’ve made some sales, which I'm very thankful for, but at this stage in the game, volume of downloads is the key. This is pretty high if the work is free on such promo sites as I was using. It’s brutal that even after all the effort to create a book it has to be free to get exposure, but that’s the reality. I’m trying hard to not get upset and frustrated, but it’s not easy.

I will do my best to try and branch out the marketing of this promo but the biggest problem is I’m marketing to the same people via facebook and these are friends and family. They’ve had to put up with promotion etc for years and been beyond supportive. These promo sites were going to hit new audiences, but also get a good volume of downloads, and that was exciting.

As always, I’ll bounce back, but needed to vent a little about this situation and wanted to add this experience to the annals. There’s still exciting news in the pipeline for other works, and I have two events in October and because of the people I will be with it will be a lot of fun. I'll always take the bad with the good, because there is so much good too :)

Promo Sites:

Freebooksy
Manybooks.net
Booksbutterfly