I accidentally ran a book promotion
How does one do that by accident? Well. That's a story.
It started with one of my bi-weekly checks of my Amazon author page & KDP account. I check them not because I expect news sales or reviews, although those are nice bonuses. I do it because I don't trust Amazon.
Every so often I find something has gone wonky (WTF that's an old cover?! WTF happened to my titles unlinking?) And then I have to work to fix it.
On my late March Zon check, I discovered the Kindle edition of Sharp Edge was mysteriously priced $0.99 on amazon.com (US & int'l both.) That was a big WTF, but it wasn't a correctable WTF, (Amazon reserves the right to reprice product) I shrugged & ignored it.
In April Sharp Edge was still 99 cents, but I learned someone bought a copy online during C2E2, and I was compensated from my $6.99 list price.
Now, the only thing better than knowing a new reader has discovered my books is knowing their purchase is STICKING AMAZON WITH A LOSS. (tiny loss, true, but still.)
So back in April, I wrote the post below about the weird pricing thing on my Fediverse account, @kmherkes@Wandering.Shop.
If you like stories about people getting superpowers at midlife, moms fighting bureaucracy, & teens saving the world, I wrote just the thing for you: The Sharp Edge of Yesterday.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08XS8GJCN
I included a splash graphic & the explanation that it isn't a sale, it's just Amazon WTFery & who knows how long the deal would be around.
Somewhat to my surprise, as "social media promotion" only VERY rarely results in sales, I connected with a couple of new readers. BIG YAY!
This brings us to Monday when I was having a bad day & doing every dull task I could think of to distract myself. I did my Zon checks & learned Sharp Edge was still sale priced.
And I thought, why not mention it to the Fediverse again? So I did.
And now I'm mentioning it here because MOST things I'm blogging here are cross-posted (to? from? With. Definitely with.) my Fediverse account. That environment is more interactive, but in general I consider both outlets to be like telephone poles in two different neighborhoods> I staple my little flyers on both, but don't expect much response from either.
Anyway. Someone there sent me the happy message "Bought!" early Tuesday, so I checked sales again late in the day.
And. Um. Wow.
I haven't sold that many copies of Sharp Edge outside of conventions since release back in 2021, and a double handful of folks bought Rough Passages, which is a dollar off (also mysterious) but still costs real money.
Visibility matters, I guess, is my point. That, and something like "Behold the magic of word-of-mouth over the internet!"
All I did was talk about my happy thing in a forum where the only algorithm is "people personally sharing things they like with other people." I tagged it so it would reach an interested audience, people saw it & shared it, and eventually it reached some people who wanted it. Happy dancing!
Advice on social media promotion implies--when it doesn't state outright--that if your promotion isn't working, you're doing it wrong. And that's a big fat lie. This was a nice refreshing reminder to me that if I am not reaching people, it's MILLIONS of times more likely they aren't seeing what I wrote in the first place.
Anyway. So that's what I've been thinking out lately.