Reality is a test. Are you going to face it? Or are you going to reject it?
I’ve tried the latter. I don’t recommend it.
Example: for decades I believed I was a dog person. Then I lived with a dog. I’m not a dog person. I’m a “let me play with your dog” person. Don’t get me wrong; I love dogs. I just don’t want to live with them. At least, not at this point in my life. It wouldn’t be fair to the dog.
So, I’ve learned the lesson that facing reality is always the better choice.
Therefore, I took a long look at the hard numbers from my Amazing Free Book Giveaway Weekend (AFBGW). [For those of you just joining, the AFBGW was a three-day event wherein I was giving away Unraveling Time, my time-travel romance/adventure novel, for free in the Kindle Store.]
The results are pretty grim.
What happened before
I’m not a bestselling author. This, as you can imagine, is not a surprise to me. If you looked at a chart of last year’s sales, it would look something like the EKG readout of a heart attack victim being defibrillated–a bunch of spikes surrounded by a lot of flat-lines.
Yeah. I’m not a bestselling author. Still, having a baseline (or flatline, as the case may be) is important in judging the outcome of an experiment.
What I thought would happen
Of course I had some assumptions going into the AFGBW. I wouldn’t have done it if I thought it would be a waste of time.
Here’s how I thought it might work:
- People would download the free copy of Unraveling Time
- A percentage of those people would read it
- A percentage of those people would like it
- A percentage of those people would come back for more of my work
- A percentage of those people would like it
- A percentage of those people would read it
This “Downloaded it, read it, liked it, came back for more” method is sort of like the Drake equation, about the possibility of life on other planets: each step reduces the total by a fractional amount. Fortunately for Drake, even though his fractions are minuscule, he’s starting with a really big number. For me, I needed larger fractions if this was going to work.
Spitballing, I thought maybe half the downloaders would read it within the first month or so, most of them would like it, and about half would come back for more. Running the (admittedly vague and completely unsubstantiated) numbers on that, I come up with about a 20% sell rate, i.e., for every 100 downloaders, I’d get about 20 sales.
What actually happened
Let’s just say that somewhere, my estimations were off.
Way off.
I’m pretty confident in my 80% “Liked It” rate, and that’s substantiated by the feedback and reviews. Trust me, if someone had hated it, they’d post it on Amazon. Gleefully. People are like that.
So I’m off somewhere else. Either people don’t read the books they download, or the “Liked It” factor didn’t translate into a “Came Back for More” factor. Or a bit of both.
Either way, here’s what actually happened.
Over the AFBGW, Unraveling Time was downloaded 1,119 times. Most of those were in the US, but a couple hundred went out from the UK/EU storefronts.
In the six-plus weeks since the AFGBW, I’ve sold 30 copies of other works.
That’s a 3% return.
Break it down by venue, and it’s interesting. Most of the copies went out in the US, but the US had the worst ComeBack rate (2.2%). Canada had the best (11%), and the UK and EU were in the middle (5.6% and 3.2%, respectively).
Nothing was even close to the predicted 20%.
Here are the hard numbers:
Amazon Store | Free Units | Sold Units |
US Total | 901 | 20 |
UK Total | 72 | 4 |
Japan Total | 3 | 0 |
Europe Total | 125 | 4 |
Canada Total | 18 | 2 |
Grand Total | 1119 | 30 |
So, was it worth it?
I’m very glad to have gotten my book into the hands of new readers, but I spent a lot of time on this promotion, both in preparation and after the fact. But for only a 3% bump in sales?
A “grizzled digital marketer of long-standing” has informed me that a 3% ComeBack rate is actually very good. The usual “translation to sale” rate for this sort of promotion is closer to 1.5%, so I’ve actually doubled that.
And knowing what’s reasonable is as important as knowing what’s real.
Hard numbers. Hard realities. Better to face it than to deny it.
k
What is this monetizing the interwebs that you speak of?
Is that a Cargo Cult Thing, kinda?
“Lets see… if I wave these two colored sticks around an airplane will arrive and land on that runway demarcated with bamboo poles over there…”
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If I _ever_ use the word “monetizing” in a sentence (without quotes or snark-brackets), you have my permission to dump a bowl of cold spaghetti over my head.
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You’re very welcome… although I have no idea why WordPress posted that comment as being from an Anonymous Grizzled Digital Marketer 🙂
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Oh, that was _you_. Even better. Thanks again!
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Take heart in that 3%. As a grizzled digital marketer of long-standing I can tell you for a fact that a 3% conversion rate from promotion to sale is pretty good. On average you’d expect somewhere around 1.5%. So you’ve doubled the hit-rate, which is a bucket full of win. In addition, a segment of your downloaders (probably a sizable one at that) will be serial downloaders who already have a backlog of free excerpts to work through before they even get to your book. So six weeks isn’t actually that long a span so far – you should see further conversions in the weeks to come. The big problem is that you presumably have no way of following up on those downloads; that is, you can’t ping a reminder of any kind to nudge the laggards into action. Don’t be disheartened, you’re only looking at 1000 people out of the total reading populace of around 3/4 of the world (based on the regions you targeted). It is, indeed, a marathon rather than a sprint.
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Well, that does change the perspective. A lot. And, since the promotion only cost me time, I can afford it (the rate I pay myself is waaay under minimum wage).
I know six weeks isn’t that long, but I also know the shelf-life of a new title is about the same as a carton of milk. I waited long enough for the sales rates to return to baseline (i.e., just this side of dead) before starting to crunch the numbers. I truly hope you’re right, Grizzled Digital Marketer (of long-standing) and this will translate into a continued (albeit low-level) increase.
The biggest takeaway from all this (and for others reading it) is to have a realistic set of expectations. Mine were obviously very UNrealistic.
Thanks for your insight. Much appreciated.
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