Delta Legend went FREE Wednesday, August 22nd and Thursday, August 23rd, and for most of the time it held the #2 spot for Free Children's Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror AND Children's Science Fiction, Fantasy & Magic AND Spine-Chilling Horror!
Though I do wish Amazon would separate Young Adult from Children's. What kind of freak writes "Spine-Chilling Horror" for children? According to Amazon, that would be me.
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But to see your title listed beside a bestseller like Catching Fire, is quite lovely really - even if yours is free.
I won't lie, it was a considerable amount of work ramping up to the day and on the first day. Thankfully, there are other indies out there who've blogged about their experience - what they did to promote and who they queried.
Here are three posts on the subject that I found really helpful.
http://redroom.com/member/ruth-francisco/blog/kindle-select-how-to-make-it-work-for-you
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/free-ebook-promotion_b52130
http://ladywholunches.net/blog/2012/05/08/free-ebook-promotion-how-to-get-5-figure-downloads-in-4-days/
And I took author Ruth Francisco's advice and got up really early on the first day (2:30 a.m.) to start the chatter on Twitter, Facebook, and promote on those Free eBook sites that want you to post on the day.
The sites for Free eBook Promotion who picked me up on the first day:
Addicted to eBooks
AppNewser Free eBooks of the Week
Bargain eBook Hunter
eReaderIQ
Free Kindle Books & Tips
Flurries of Words
Kindle Daily Nation
Two other sites:
Mrs. Wizard
Freebies4Mom
Book Bloggers
Laura Thomas of http://fuonlyknew.wordpress.com/
Sherry Fundin of http://fundinmental.wordpress.com/
Heather of http://wwwburiedinbooks.blogspot.com/
- all did wonderful posts about Delta Legend and the Free Promo on their blogs. Laura and Sherry kept up the Twitter campaign all day both days and countless others re-tweeted my tweets, "liked" or "shared" my Facebook posts, and/or linked to my blog post about it (537 visits). All of this helped considerably.
By the end of day two, Delta Legend had slipped to #3 and I thought for sure it would continue to free fall. But by the next morning, it was back up at #2, holding strong just under the #1 Free eBook in the same categories, Cold Kiss, which happens to be traditionally published by HarperCollins.
I'm pretty sure the reason I was able to hold on to the #2 spot was because one of the top two Free Ebook sites, eReader News Today, promoted Delta Legend in their first marketing blast of the day. And I know without a doubt that Dave Williams' brilliant cover inspired more than a few to hit the download button.
I kept up the Twitter and Facebook posts during day two, but not as heavily. I felt really good about all the legwork I'd done ramping up to the promo and by day two, it was pretty much rolling along under its own steam.
The promo ended at midnight last night, and as I crawled into bed (couldn't make it to midnight to see how it all played out) I felt like I'd run a marathon, and a pretty damn good marketing campaign. I also felt like I'd just handed the keys to Calvin and it was now up to him (and the rest of the DL posse) to drive this thing for a while. Oh, I still have plenty to do to keep the momentum going, but the power now shifts to the reader - 3,627 of them to be exact.
With hundreds of ebooks going Free everyday, I quickly dropped off the charts once the Free Promo ended, but I don't mind at all. Time for others to have their moment in the sun.
3,627 new readers have Delta Legend in their hands and they will undoubtedly have an impact on where we go from here.
