SLOW WEEKEND GIVEAWAY

I mentioned last week my middle-grade chapter book (EXPLODING WIZARD) would be free last Friday and Saturday. Just one week before, the book was also free for three days, but I submitted that information to none of the promotion sites I use. Still got a substantial number of hits, though.

I was convinced this time—WITH promotion—I would get even more.

Wrong.

Maybe it was the timing: Valentine's Day and the Saturday after. It was also during part of the Presidents' Day three-day weekend. On the other hand, maybe just about everybody interested in the book already had their free copy.

In any case, the two days of promotion yielded only 16% the downloads as the first two days of the un-promoted giveaway. Not, as you might expect, only 16% MORE than before. I mean 16% OF the previous giveaway. In other words, going WITHOUT promotion captured more than 6 times the downloads.

I was shocked, I tell you.

Now, I'm pretty sure promoting the book didn't turn folks OFF. The traffic to those sites must be made up almost entirely of people looking for free and bargain books.

And to be fully accurate, I didn't look at the sites to see if the book made it onto the page, so I don't even know for sure the book WAS being promoted last week.

I probably ought to pay more attention, but frankly this whole promotion and selling aspect of indie pubbing makes me sleepy. I'd rather put my time into writing more books.

(Writing more books also makes me sleepy.)

At some point in the next few months I'll repeat this experiment, perhaps with two different kinds of books and with a little more separation in time. I'd be astonished to find promoting free books was the WRONG way to go.