Megan Thomason's Blog - Posts Tagged "kdp"
Anatomy of Amazon Freebie/Book Blast/Blog Tour
I just finished up a big promotional push for daynight and thought I’d share my results with other authors looking to promote their books. I had a lot going on at once, so it will be difficult to pin down exactly where downloads, sales, twitter follows, goodreads adds, facebook likes, etc. came from, but the overall campaign was very effective.
For reference:
- My free days were January 21, 22 & 23 (I had used two days earlier in the 90 day period)
- My book blast (organized by ) was January 21, purposely positioned to coincide with the first day of the freebie. I provided a banner for use by the book blast hosts to let people know of the free book dates.
- My blog tour (also organized by ) started January 22 and ran through February 1
Anatomy of an Amazon KDP Free Giveaway and Book Blast
Amazon does not promote a book’s free days, so it is *crucial* to get the word out as broadly as possible. This is going to get detailed, so bear with. In addition to promoting my free days through the book blast, I had the following promotions running each day�
Day 1: Monday, January 21
Bargain Book Hunter 18.5K Facebook reach + on web page: ($5)
Free Kindle Fiction 7,600 Facebook + featured on web page: (featured post $12)
Digital Book Today 2,700 Facebook + front page slot: Digital Book Today: variety of free and paid options $5 guaranteed post.
Awesome Gang 616 Facebook + front page slot: Also can post on their Facebook page, day of.
Book Goodies front page slot (had been running since 1/13, though didn’t seem to do much?): BookGoodies: $5 per day; $35 for two-week home page sponsorship
The eReader Cafe featured on home page + 22.7K Facebook (listed in a bundle):
Free Books Daily book of the day + 1,210 Facebook: (can pay for guaranteed feature & book of the day $5)
Free Kindle Books & Tips home page + 30K Facebook (bundle): (must have average rating of 4+)
Kindle Finds home page and sidebar (supposedly 122K followers):
EBook Lister home page: Can submit in advance
Tuesday, January 22
Digital Book Today� promotional boost: variety of free and paid options $5 guaranteed post.
Wednesday, January 23
EBooks Habit book of the day:
(free book form)
The Frugal Find of the Day: $50
**Should have also used (pricey, but apparently very effective): Book Bub
On each free day I *also* posted on the following Facebook pages:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... (must join group)
And, I used twitter from my own account, plus you can tweet to these accounts and they RT (instructions on their page):
@EReaderblast
@Free_book_promo
I believe you can compose a tweet at too.
Results, end of day 1
>3K downloads*
20079 entries in the book blast
On Amazon: #1 Teen SciFi; #2 Teen SciFi/Fantasy; #2 Teen Romance; #5 Teen; #104 Kindle Store
Results, end of day 2
~3K downloads*
26372 book blast; 1644 book tour
Twitter ~250 adds (didn’t keep track on day 1); Facebook (>300 adds; also didn’t track day 1); goodreads (~500 adds)
On Amazon: #1 teen scifi; #1 teen romance; #77 overall (got up to #69 overall)
Results, end of day 2
**Note� I definitely think by day 3 I was hitting some saturation
~2K downloads*
30714 book blast; 2288 book tour
+~100 twitter, facebook, goodreads adds
#1 teen scifi; #2 teen romance, #120 overall
*Note that some books get much higher download results; some lower. There are a *lot* of variables here, so I don't want to compare/contrast, but some of the variables will be a) amount of promotion & whether the promotion evenly spaced across the days (I front-loaded mine; should probably have spread); b) number of total days (gain momentum, particularly as you go up the rankings... some folks think wiser to do the full 5 days at a time); c) attractiveness of the book cover (it's like eye candy; book hoarders want to collect pretty things... just guessing lol); d) number of reviews (I had 50+ reviews with a 4.6 average at the time of my first day of the freebie).
Anatomy of a Blog Tour
I won’t go through the day by day results (much too long and boring), but will discuss the shift from FREE back to PAY, as well as the overall results of the book blast & blog tour.
Overall impressions of the “Freebie�
To be honest, I’m mixed. Note I have no issue with giving my book away for free� I write because I love to write, not for an expected lottery-sized payday, fame or notoriety. Yes, there is no question that you can unload thousands of copies of your book through KDP Select. But, do you hit the right target market for your book? Yes and no (and perhaps mostly no). I’m a little skeptical that those thousands will download my book (and if they do� how will they review it? Will it be fair if they aren’t a YA reader? Don’t know the answer to that one yet). Here are some of the other books that showed up (and some are frustratingly still on) my “Customers also bought� list after the freebie (note daynight is a young adult dystopian novel:
“Cayenne Pepper Cures�, “How to Dress a Pear Shaped Body and Look Fabulous�, “Snack Time: Lite and Tasty Snack Recipes�, “Don't Let An Old Person Move Into Your Body�, “Ultimate Money Saving Hacks for College�, “We All Married Idiots: Three Things You Will Never Change About Your Marriage and Ten Things You Can�, “Set Your Boundaries Your Way: 7 Easy Ways to Say No to Difficult People�. “Romantic Dessert Recipes,� “Flat Tummy Yoga,� “Home Organization for Stress Free Living: How to Organize Your Home One Day at a Time and Keep It That Way�, “Armed Gunmen, True Facts, and Other Ridiculous Nonsense: A Compiled Compendium of Repetitive Redundancies�, “Desserts Under 250 Calories! 51 Delicious Desserts That Won't Hurt Your Diet�, �31 Delicious and Nutritious Vegetarian Appetizer Recipes (The Ultimate Guide to Vegetarian Cooking)�, and “Beauty Gone Wild! Herbal Recipes for Gorgeous Skin & Hair (Herbs Gone Wild!)�.
I think you get the picture, right? There are folks who will download any free books, whether or not they’ll ever read them. So, how does doing the giveaway help? From what I understand, Amazon treats every 10 freebies as a “sale� for determining ranking in the “Popular� lists. So, if you unload a bunch of freebies, it helps you move up in the rankings. Of course, this is a rolling 30-day average, so to stay high in the lists, you need to have a steady stream of “pay� business after your freebie. Also, hopefully, of the thousands, at least some sizable percentage of those who downloaded will read books in your target market. This will help you pop up on other “Customers also bought� lists, which is the ultimate goal.
Book Blog Tour Results
OK, so day after the freebie daynight was at #53 on the “popular� list for teen scifi (different than sales ranking—this is the list Amazon points people towards). I started out at about #44K in paid ranking (overall Kindle), which isn’t surprising. I’d just given away a whole lot of copies :). By the following day I was back in the top #100 teen scifi paid book lists, had moved up the “popular� ranking and was at about #15K for overall paid books.
Throughout the tour the sales numbers and rankings for daynight varied. At the peak, daynight hit #63 on the teen scifi list and about #10K overall, but has mostly hovered around #75 & #10-15K. Steady daily sales.
An important note, I decided to drop the price of daynight from $3.99 to $2.99 a couple days after the freebie ended through the month of February. I’m testing it out and may keep it at that price. As per the above, I don’t care about the money� I want to build a fan base, and want to make the entry price as reasonable as possible for readers. To be enrolled in the KDP Select program, $2.99 is as low as you can go. I *did* see an uptick in sales at the lower price, but with everything else going on, I can’t say for sure it is due to the price change.
Final numbers:
- Book blast had 55K entries (that’s a lot of exposure!). Note my giveaway was a $75 Amazon.com gift card and a pair of Amazon EarPods.
- Blog tour giveaway at 5800 & counting (3 more days). Note giveaway is a $50 Amazon.com gift card, a signed first edition of Insurgent by Veronica Roth & a signed copy of daynight.
- Twitter (+~650 total); Facebook (+~700 total); goodreads (+~1100 adds total)
- +~500 likes on Amazon sales page
- +25 reviews on Amazon (many from the awesome tour bloggers)
- ~Double the number of goodreads reviews on ratings (I didn’t get jot down starting numbers, unfortunately)
- Book mentioned in too many tweets to even begin to track
- Almost all 5* and 4* reviews (well-written, fair & honest, with valid criticisms). I tell you� these bloggers are *exceptional*. Two bloggers found errors my two proofreaders had missed, so I was able to get them fixed! Several expressed some minor concerns that I was also able to address & update. I am so grateful to all the bloggers who hosted daynight, whether they read and reviewed, posted guest posts/character interviews/bonus scenes/top tens, or tweeted and posted on other social networking media!
Blog Tour Schedule & Entries
Blog Tour Day One:
Author interview:
First review 5 stars!
Top Ten (don't laugh for those who know me) Homemaking/Organization advice here:
A final (for the day) author interview:
Blog Tour Day Two:
Review (4*/5):
Author Interview:
Top 10 Favorite Book Moments:
Author Interview:
Blog Tour Day 3:
Review 4*/5:
Interview:
Top 10 world cities seen at night:
Book Tour Day 4:
- Guest Post 'The Fallacy of Having it All' + Review (4*/5 on goodreads):
- Interview (about my teenage years... hope my mom doesn't read or retroactive grounding may be involved):
- Interview:
- 5*/5 Review & Interview:
- Interview:
Blog Tour Day 5:
NOTE These are all excellent, well-written reviews, but there are some SPOILERS.
- 5*/5 Review:
- 5*/5
- 4*/5
- 4*/5
- Author interview:
- One more: 3.5*/5 Review:
Blog Tour Day 6:
Review (4* goodreads):
Bonus review (unscheduled... she picked up a free copy, read & reviewed between surgery cases!!) 4*/5:
Guest post (about dystopian novels):
Guest post (on reading):
Blog Tour Day 7:
Review 4*/5:
Author interview:
Review 4*/5 + Ten Favorite Book Characters:
Character Interview (with Kira):
Guest post on why I wrote a dystopian novel:
This made my day... an unsolicited review from Sydney at Rattle the Stars blog :) 5*/5:
Blog Tour day 8:
- BONUS SCENE that can be enjoyed whether or not you have read 'daynight' yet :).
- Very positive review (some spoilers) "This book simply blew me away.":
- Top Ten gadgets (real or fictional):
- op Ten songs to write to:
Blog Tour day 9:
- Positive review "If you like Dystopian(s) then you will LOVE this book" + Top Ten Sci-Fi movies:
- Top ten things that make my heart flutter and a smile to creep across my face (lol, awkward one):
- Review:
- Author interview:
Blog Tour Day 10:
Two superbly written reviews!! Love all these awesome bloggers who so generously give of their time to read & write reviews (even the critical ones), as well as those who post interviews, guest posts, top tens & other information to get the word out!!
- 5*/5 Review "Whether viewed as a modern parable or a thrill ride, Daynight was the most compelling and intense book I’ve read since Free Souls by Susan Kaye Quinn."
- 4*/5 Review "Let me start out by saying the writing is superb. The Author's narrative was spellbinding and I was sucked in from the very first page... Overall I am highly recommending you pick a copy of Daynight up and give it a go. Perfectly paced writing combined with superb narrative, likeable characters, and fantastic world building will no doubt leave Daynight on many Top Ten book lists this year. Yeah, it was that good. "
Interview:
- Top Ten favorite movies:
- Professional review from Foreword Clarion came in on this day (4*/5). "Thomason’s description of Thera’s totalitarianism will make fans of Brave New World shiver." "SCI, her fantasy corporation, has disturbing parallels to actual companies and regimes that claim to do good while harming people." "daynight, skillfully blends the genres of dystopian science fiction and teenage romance with intriguing results. The author deftly appeals to both romance-loving teens as well as those intrigued by young adults fighting the establishment." "the novel’s stellar attributes will have the audience hankering day and night for the sequel."
Blog Tour Day 11:
- Positive review "This was a very unique book. I found the concept behind it enthralling. The story keeps you on your toes. Dystopian books are kind of overdone these days, but it's always nice to find a book with a unique concept. This book definitely fits that bill. There is also a huge love triangle, and even that manages to avoid being too predictable. This book is worth checking out. It will take you for a ride and leave you ready to find out more.":
- Guest post "How to survive a dystopian society":
- Top 10 Indulgences & Review 3/5 whales (yes, not everyone is going to love it and that's OK... I very much appreciate different viewpoints & she may like book 2 better, since it won't focus on cleaving) "I really liked all the other components of this book. The relationships, though very twisty and turny, were great and the characters had a real depth. All the different people working for their own goals added something to the story and if you take out the cleaving/sex/babies stuff, which unfortunately wasn't my thing, then I would've really, really liked this story. As it was I still enjoyed this book but it wasn't quite the book for me. I know many people have enjoyed it so if you're a fan of sci-fi/dystopian then you should give this book a shot!"
- Last Professional review posted @ Self-Publishing Review 4.5*/5 "The writing is impressive and the story is a real page-turner. Thomason’s young adult dystopian novel weaves a complicated tale together seamlessly that sucked me instantly. So many twists and turns... I'm hooked... I can't wait for the next installment to come out...4.5 out of 5 stars ":
Recommendation for Kathy from Book Blasts/Blog Tours
The book blast and blog tour that Kathy arranged for daynight has had a direct impact on the book’s exposure, Amazon ranking, and sales. For the duration of the blast and tour, I kept detailed logs to track the impact. From start to finish I saw: a 7x increase in twitter followers; an 8x increase in facebook likes; > 1,000 goodreads adds; and >500 likes on the Amazon sales page. The book blast, timed in conjunction with a 3-day free promotion on Amazon, shot daynight to the #1 teen science fiction book, #1 teen romance book, #2 overall teen book, and #63 overall Kindle book. As the freebie ended and the tour continued, sales skyrocketed from what they had been pre-tour, with daynight hitting #35 on most popular teen sci-fi list.
Kathy is organized, professional, and easy to work with. She provides assignments (author interviews, character interviews, guest posts, and top ten lists) ahead of time, tracks progress, and gives reminders. I was very impressed with the blog sites Kathy arranged for the tour. Those who reviewed daynight were honest, fair, and thorough. Many of the bloggers also posted to goodreads and Amazon.com, increasing the number of reviews and lending credibility to the daynight franchise. These exceptional bloggers not only promoted daynight on their blogs, but tweeted, and posted to facebook and google+.
I have already recommended Kathy to several people, and give my unqualified recommendation to all authors for her services. In today’s tough market where titles compete for mindshare with over a million other alternatives, no author can afford to skip this concentrated, valuable, promotional campaign.
Final Thoughts
- Book blast/blog tour. Best promotional money spent to date!
- Kindle freebie. Mixed, but probably think the boost in the “Popular� list was worth it. To get the huge numbers of downloads though, it requires a whole lot of promotion, some paid (so you are basically paying to give your book away, which doesn’t seem very intuitive).
- It is important to have a post-tour promo plan. I threw a quick banner ad up on , and am looking into other options.
* Update as of 2/17/13
- Overall sales up significantly in February, compared to January pre-tour/promo period (though varies immensely day to day.) Some days I see shockingly high sales; others equally shocking low sales. I can't even seem to see a consistent "day of the week" pattern. One week I'll have highest sales on Friday; next Saturday; the next on a Monday. Go figure. Weekends are reported to be best for sales.
- Sales have been high enough to bump daynight onto quite a few of the current top sellers' (in teen dystopian/sci-fi) "Customers also bought" lists (though typically down on page 9 to 15 & no guarantee that it will take up permanent residence)
- I tried a couple cheap promo opportunities on Author Marketing Club & Digital Book Today that didn't really seem to have any impact on sales. Looked at advertising on blogads, but a wise person told me that it would not be worth the $$. Anything like this does increase overall exposure, so may help long-term, but doesn't guarantee a short-term bump in sales.
- I did a Valentine's day giveaway on the daynight facebook page which was reasonably successful (I had no particular goal other than to give back to fans, but I had some very kind bloggers offer to read & review my book; got more facebook page likes; and generally happy fans).
Questions & comments welcome!
Thanks,
Megan Thomason, author of
For reference:
- My free days were January 21, 22 & 23 (I had used two days earlier in the 90 day period)
- My book blast (organized by ) was January 21, purposely positioned to coincide with the first day of the freebie. I provided a banner for use by the book blast hosts to let people know of the free book dates.
- My blog tour (also organized by ) started January 22 and ran through February 1
Anatomy of an Amazon KDP Free Giveaway and Book Blast
Amazon does not promote a book’s free days, so it is *crucial* to get the word out as broadly as possible. This is going to get detailed, so bear with. In addition to promoting my free days through the book blast, I had the following promotions running each day�
Day 1: Monday, January 21
Bargain Book Hunter 18.5K Facebook reach + on web page: ($5)
Free Kindle Fiction 7,600 Facebook + featured on web page: (featured post $12)
Digital Book Today 2,700 Facebook + front page slot: Digital Book Today: variety of free and paid options $5 guaranteed post.
Awesome Gang 616 Facebook + front page slot: Also can post on their Facebook page, day of.
Book Goodies front page slot (had been running since 1/13, though didn’t seem to do much?): BookGoodies: $5 per day; $35 for two-week home page sponsorship
The eReader Cafe featured on home page + 22.7K Facebook (listed in a bundle):
Free Books Daily book of the day + 1,210 Facebook: (can pay for guaranteed feature & book of the day $5)
Free Kindle Books & Tips home page + 30K Facebook (bundle): (must have average rating of 4+)
Kindle Finds home page and sidebar (supposedly 122K followers):
EBook Lister home page: Can submit in advance
Tuesday, January 22
Digital Book Today� promotional boost: variety of free and paid options $5 guaranteed post.
Wednesday, January 23
EBooks Habit book of the day:
(free book form)
The Frugal Find of the Day: $50
**Should have also used (pricey, but apparently very effective): Book Bub
On each free day I *also* posted on the following Facebook pages:
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1... (must join group)
And, I used twitter from my own account, plus you can tweet to these accounts and they RT (instructions on their page):
@EReaderblast
@Free_book_promo
I believe you can compose a tweet at too.
Results, end of day 1
>3K downloads*
20079 entries in the book blast
On Amazon: #1 Teen SciFi; #2 Teen SciFi/Fantasy; #2 Teen Romance; #5 Teen; #104 Kindle Store
Results, end of day 2
~3K downloads*
26372 book blast; 1644 book tour
Twitter ~250 adds (didn’t keep track on day 1); Facebook (>300 adds; also didn’t track day 1); goodreads (~500 adds)
On Amazon: #1 teen scifi; #1 teen romance; #77 overall (got up to #69 overall)
Results, end of day 2
**Note� I definitely think by day 3 I was hitting some saturation
~2K downloads*
30714 book blast; 2288 book tour
+~100 twitter, facebook, goodreads adds
#1 teen scifi; #2 teen romance, #120 overall
*Note that some books get much higher download results; some lower. There are a *lot* of variables here, so I don't want to compare/contrast, but some of the variables will be a) amount of promotion & whether the promotion evenly spaced across the days (I front-loaded mine; should probably have spread); b) number of total days (gain momentum, particularly as you go up the rankings... some folks think wiser to do the full 5 days at a time); c) attractiveness of the book cover (it's like eye candy; book hoarders want to collect pretty things... just guessing lol); d) number of reviews (I had 50+ reviews with a 4.6 average at the time of my first day of the freebie).
Anatomy of a Blog Tour
I won’t go through the day by day results (much too long and boring), but will discuss the shift from FREE back to PAY, as well as the overall results of the book blast & blog tour.
Overall impressions of the “Freebie�
To be honest, I’m mixed. Note I have no issue with giving my book away for free� I write because I love to write, not for an expected lottery-sized payday, fame or notoriety. Yes, there is no question that you can unload thousands of copies of your book through KDP Select. But, do you hit the right target market for your book? Yes and no (and perhaps mostly no). I’m a little skeptical that those thousands will download my book (and if they do� how will they review it? Will it be fair if they aren’t a YA reader? Don’t know the answer to that one yet). Here are some of the other books that showed up (and some are frustratingly still on) my “Customers also bought� list after the freebie (note daynight is a young adult dystopian novel:
“Cayenne Pepper Cures�, “How to Dress a Pear Shaped Body and Look Fabulous�, “Snack Time: Lite and Tasty Snack Recipes�, “Don't Let An Old Person Move Into Your Body�, “Ultimate Money Saving Hacks for College�, “We All Married Idiots: Three Things You Will Never Change About Your Marriage and Ten Things You Can�, “Set Your Boundaries Your Way: 7 Easy Ways to Say No to Difficult People�. “Romantic Dessert Recipes,� “Flat Tummy Yoga,� “Home Organization for Stress Free Living: How to Organize Your Home One Day at a Time and Keep It That Way�, “Armed Gunmen, True Facts, and Other Ridiculous Nonsense: A Compiled Compendium of Repetitive Redundancies�, “Desserts Under 250 Calories! 51 Delicious Desserts That Won't Hurt Your Diet�, �31 Delicious and Nutritious Vegetarian Appetizer Recipes (The Ultimate Guide to Vegetarian Cooking)�, and “Beauty Gone Wild! Herbal Recipes for Gorgeous Skin & Hair (Herbs Gone Wild!)�.
I think you get the picture, right? There are folks who will download any free books, whether or not they’ll ever read them. So, how does doing the giveaway help? From what I understand, Amazon treats every 10 freebies as a “sale� for determining ranking in the “Popular� lists. So, if you unload a bunch of freebies, it helps you move up in the rankings. Of course, this is a rolling 30-day average, so to stay high in the lists, you need to have a steady stream of “pay� business after your freebie. Also, hopefully, of the thousands, at least some sizable percentage of those who downloaded will read books in your target market. This will help you pop up on other “Customers also bought� lists, which is the ultimate goal.
Book Blog Tour Results
OK, so day after the freebie daynight was at #53 on the “popular� list for teen scifi (different than sales ranking—this is the list Amazon points people towards). I started out at about #44K in paid ranking (overall Kindle), which isn’t surprising. I’d just given away a whole lot of copies :). By the following day I was back in the top #100 teen scifi paid book lists, had moved up the “popular� ranking and was at about #15K for overall paid books.
Throughout the tour the sales numbers and rankings for daynight varied. At the peak, daynight hit #63 on the teen scifi list and about #10K overall, but has mostly hovered around #75 & #10-15K. Steady daily sales.
An important note, I decided to drop the price of daynight from $3.99 to $2.99 a couple days after the freebie ended through the month of February. I’m testing it out and may keep it at that price. As per the above, I don’t care about the money� I want to build a fan base, and want to make the entry price as reasonable as possible for readers. To be enrolled in the KDP Select program, $2.99 is as low as you can go. I *did* see an uptick in sales at the lower price, but with everything else going on, I can’t say for sure it is due to the price change.
Final numbers:
- Book blast had 55K entries (that’s a lot of exposure!). Note my giveaway was a $75 Amazon.com gift card and a pair of Amazon EarPods.
- Blog tour giveaway at 5800 & counting (3 more days). Note giveaway is a $50 Amazon.com gift card, a signed first edition of Insurgent by Veronica Roth & a signed copy of daynight.
- Twitter (+~650 total); Facebook (+~700 total); goodreads (+~1100 adds total)
- +~500 likes on Amazon sales page
- +25 reviews on Amazon (many from the awesome tour bloggers)
- ~Double the number of goodreads reviews on ratings (I didn’t get jot down starting numbers, unfortunately)
- Book mentioned in too many tweets to even begin to track
- Almost all 5* and 4* reviews (well-written, fair & honest, with valid criticisms). I tell you� these bloggers are *exceptional*. Two bloggers found errors my two proofreaders had missed, so I was able to get them fixed! Several expressed some minor concerns that I was also able to address & update. I am so grateful to all the bloggers who hosted daynight, whether they read and reviewed, posted guest posts/character interviews/bonus scenes/top tens, or tweeted and posted on other social networking media!
Blog Tour Schedule & Entries
Blog Tour Day One:
Author interview:
First review 5 stars!
Top Ten (don't laugh for those who know me) Homemaking/Organization advice here:
A final (for the day) author interview:
Blog Tour Day Two:
Review (4*/5):
Author Interview:
Top 10 Favorite Book Moments:
Author Interview:
Blog Tour Day 3:
Review 4*/5:
Interview:
Top 10 world cities seen at night:
Book Tour Day 4:
- Guest Post 'The Fallacy of Having it All' + Review (4*/5 on goodreads):
- Interview (about my teenage years... hope my mom doesn't read or retroactive grounding may be involved):
- Interview:
- 5*/5 Review & Interview:
- Interview:
Blog Tour Day 5:
NOTE These are all excellent, well-written reviews, but there are some SPOILERS.
- 5*/5 Review:
- 5*/5
- 4*/5
- 4*/5
- Author interview:
- One more: 3.5*/5 Review:
Blog Tour Day 6:
Review (4* goodreads):
Bonus review (unscheduled... she picked up a free copy, read & reviewed between surgery cases!!) 4*/5:
Guest post (about dystopian novels):
Guest post (on reading):
Blog Tour Day 7:
Review 4*/5:
Author interview:
Review 4*/5 + Ten Favorite Book Characters:
Character Interview (with Kira):
Guest post on why I wrote a dystopian novel:
This made my day... an unsolicited review from Sydney at Rattle the Stars blog :) 5*/5:
Blog Tour day 8:
- BONUS SCENE that can be enjoyed whether or not you have read 'daynight' yet :).
- Very positive review (some spoilers) "This book simply blew me away.":
- Top Ten gadgets (real or fictional):
- op Ten songs to write to:
Blog Tour day 9:
- Positive review "If you like Dystopian(s) then you will LOVE this book" + Top Ten Sci-Fi movies:
- Top ten things that make my heart flutter and a smile to creep across my face (lol, awkward one):
- Review:
- Author interview:
Blog Tour Day 10:
Two superbly written reviews!! Love all these awesome bloggers who so generously give of their time to read & write reviews (even the critical ones), as well as those who post interviews, guest posts, top tens & other information to get the word out!!
- 5*/5 Review "Whether viewed as a modern parable or a thrill ride, Daynight was the most compelling and intense book I’ve read since Free Souls by Susan Kaye Quinn."
- 4*/5 Review "Let me start out by saying the writing is superb. The Author's narrative was spellbinding and I was sucked in from the very first page... Overall I am highly recommending you pick a copy of Daynight up and give it a go. Perfectly paced writing combined with superb narrative, likeable characters, and fantastic world building will no doubt leave Daynight on many Top Ten book lists this year. Yeah, it was that good. "
Interview:
- Top Ten favorite movies:
- Professional review from Foreword Clarion came in on this day (4*/5). "Thomason’s description of Thera’s totalitarianism will make fans of Brave New World shiver." "SCI, her fantasy corporation, has disturbing parallels to actual companies and regimes that claim to do good while harming people." "daynight, skillfully blends the genres of dystopian science fiction and teenage romance with intriguing results. The author deftly appeals to both romance-loving teens as well as those intrigued by young adults fighting the establishment." "the novel’s stellar attributes will have the audience hankering day and night for the sequel."
Blog Tour Day 11:
- Positive review "This was a very unique book. I found the concept behind it enthralling. The story keeps you on your toes. Dystopian books are kind of overdone these days, but it's always nice to find a book with a unique concept. This book definitely fits that bill. There is also a huge love triangle, and even that manages to avoid being too predictable. This book is worth checking out. It will take you for a ride and leave you ready to find out more.":
- Guest post "How to survive a dystopian society":
- Top 10 Indulgences & Review 3/5 whales (yes, not everyone is going to love it and that's OK... I very much appreciate different viewpoints & she may like book 2 better, since it won't focus on cleaving) "I really liked all the other components of this book. The relationships, though very twisty and turny, were great and the characters had a real depth. All the different people working for their own goals added something to the story and if you take out the cleaving/sex/babies stuff, which unfortunately wasn't my thing, then I would've really, really liked this story. As it was I still enjoyed this book but it wasn't quite the book for me. I know many people have enjoyed it so if you're a fan of sci-fi/dystopian then you should give this book a shot!"
- Last Professional review posted @ Self-Publishing Review 4.5*/5 "The writing is impressive and the story is a real page-turner. Thomason’s young adult dystopian novel weaves a complicated tale together seamlessly that sucked me instantly. So many twists and turns... I'm hooked... I can't wait for the next installment to come out...4.5 out of 5 stars ":
Recommendation for Kathy from Book Blasts/Blog Tours
The book blast and blog tour that Kathy arranged for daynight has had a direct impact on the book’s exposure, Amazon ranking, and sales. For the duration of the blast and tour, I kept detailed logs to track the impact. From start to finish I saw: a 7x increase in twitter followers; an 8x increase in facebook likes; > 1,000 goodreads adds; and >500 likes on the Amazon sales page. The book blast, timed in conjunction with a 3-day free promotion on Amazon, shot daynight to the #1 teen science fiction book, #1 teen romance book, #2 overall teen book, and #63 overall Kindle book. As the freebie ended and the tour continued, sales skyrocketed from what they had been pre-tour, with daynight hitting #35 on most popular teen sci-fi list.
Kathy is organized, professional, and easy to work with. She provides assignments (author interviews, character interviews, guest posts, and top ten lists) ahead of time, tracks progress, and gives reminders. I was very impressed with the blog sites Kathy arranged for the tour. Those who reviewed daynight were honest, fair, and thorough. Many of the bloggers also posted to goodreads and Amazon.com, increasing the number of reviews and lending credibility to the daynight franchise. These exceptional bloggers not only promoted daynight on their blogs, but tweeted, and posted to facebook and google+.
I have already recommended Kathy to several people, and give my unqualified recommendation to all authors for her services. In today’s tough market where titles compete for mindshare with over a million other alternatives, no author can afford to skip this concentrated, valuable, promotional campaign.
Final Thoughts
- Book blast/blog tour. Best promotional money spent to date!
- Kindle freebie. Mixed, but probably think the boost in the “Popular� list was worth it. To get the huge numbers of downloads though, it requires a whole lot of promotion, some paid (so you are basically paying to give your book away, which doesn’t seem very intuitive).
- It is important to have a post-tour promo plan. I threw a quick banner ad up on , and am looking into other options.
* Update as of 2/17/13
- Overall sales up significantly in February, compared to January pre-tour/promo period (though varies immensely day to day.) Some days I see shockingly high sales; others equally shocking low sales. I can't even seem to see a consistent "day of the week" pattern. One week I'll have highest sales on Friday; next Saturday; the next on a Monday. Go figure. Weekends are reported to be best for sales.
- Sales have been high enough to bump daynight onto quite a few of the current top sellers' (in teen dystopian/sci-fi) "Customers also bought" lists (though typically down on page 9 to 15 & no guarantee that it will take up permanent residence)
- I tried a couple cheap promo opportunities on Author Marketing Club & Digital Book Today that didn't really seem to have any impact on sales. Looked at advertising on blogads, but a wise person told me that it would not be worth the $$. Anything like this does increase overall exposure, so may help long-term, but doesn't guarantee a short-term bump in sales.
- I did a Valentine's day giveaway on the daynight facebook page which was reasonably successful (I had no particular goal other than to give back to fans, but I had some very kind bloggers offer to read & review my book; got more facebook page likes; and generally happy fans).
Questions & comments welcome!
Thanks,
Megan Thomason, author of
