The Free Experiment: Day Two

I awoke this morning at 6AM and logged right in.  That's an early start for me, but I was anxious to see if my numbers had started slipping during the night or had they improved.  I had set up a number of Tweets to go out between midnight and 4AM.  I don't usually Tweet at that hour, but hey, people are up and I wanted to tell them about my free book offer.

I was pleased to discover that during the night Boyfriend From Hell had improved its ranking to #198 overall, down from #242 when I went to bed.  And remember the lower your ranking the better.  Day one was a success as far a giving books away goes, and day two was starting out on the right foot.

My publisher wrote me at 11:35 to say we had given away 1760 books.  Up from 1102 at bed time.  He has constantly told me 2000 free downloads was the magic number where things start happening for you sales-wise.  My ranking had also dropped again to #152.  I was heading toward the Kindle Top 100.

He wrote me again an hour later to say I had made it--2380 downloads.  Now I want you to stop for a minute and consider that while these are not sales, I have just been introduced to 2380 people I might never have met.  2380 new opportunities to find life-long fans.  If you've read my post on impressions, The Way I See It: Impressions you will remember I said before you can have sales you must have impressions.  I just made an impression on 2380 people.  Some of these will definitely result in sales.

Once I reached that magic threshold something good happened.  The Boyfriend From Hell sequel, Earth Angel, began selling as well.  It was around 67,000 when I woke up this morning.  By 3pm it was at 14,163.  At 5pm it was 10,846, and now Earth Angel was starting to appear on some of the important lists I mentioned yesterday.  I don't have exact sales figures.  I will have to get those from my publisher.  But I am definitely selling far more books today because of the BFH freebie.

It's 10:20 PM on Friday and EA is currently ranked 9272 and in the top 100 on 5 lists.  By the way, my UK numbers have improved as well.  So I am selling books on two continents at their regular price all because I gave Boyfriend From Hell away.  Here is my end of day tally for BFH  day two:

Not sure on downloads (over 2500)
#48 Overall Kindle Store
#1 Children's Spine-Chilling Horror
#1 Girls & Women
#1 People & Places
#2 Children's Sci-Fi Fantasy & Horror
#3 Children's Fiction
#4 Children's ebooks
#43 Fiction (this is all fiction books in any genre offered for free)

I consider day two a rousing success.  Not only have I cracked the vaunted Kindle 100--and yes, I understand it's the free store and not the overall store, but that's still an accomplishment--but I have two books on a number of lists--lists readers use in making their reading selections.  I'm not sure what Day Three has in store, but Day Two has already proven that if you give books away you will sell more books.  Stay tuned.

Peace.

The Free Experiment: Day One

Today is the first day of my grand experiment to prove once and for all that giving your ebooks away will increase your sales.  If you read the previous The Way I See It post you know that I enrolled Boyfriend From Hell in Kindle's KDP program.  My goal is to give away enough books to propel Boyfriend From Hell back into the top 100 category Best Sellers after the Free promotion is over.  My ambitious goal is to see Boyfriend From Hell in the top 100 overall in the paid Kindle store.  Last March it reached #168 overall--close but no cigar.

I woke up this morning to find Boyfriend From Hell #4403 in the free Kindle store.  I was very encouraged.  I imagine there are probably 1-200,000 free books available on Kindle in any one day.  Starting my day around 4000 was extremely good.

When I checked my ranking at 10:30AM BFH had reached #675 in the free Kindle store.  I had just finished playing tennis and was checking on my phone.  I smiled to my opponent (who beat me, by the way) and said "It's working."

By lunch time BFH was #418, but more importantly my ranking was very low on several of their category Best Seller (or in today's case best Freebie) lists.  If your goal is to sell a lot of books on Amazon it is important to be on a number of category lists.  You make these lists by being a top 100 seller or free downloader in a category.  Readers peruse these lists regularly.  If you're in the top 20 of a list you're on the first page.  Being on the first page is where you will get the most action because you'll be most easily seen.  These lists are the best way to find new readers--people you may not attract with your blog or Twitter.  By 12:30 I was #4 in Girls &  Women and #6 in Children's Spine-Chilling Horror.

At 2:30 I was #307 in the overall store and #2 in Girls & Women and #4 In Children's Spine-Chilling Horror.  At 5PM I was # 249 overall and #3 in both categories I mentioned. 

So in general I was feeling good about the day. It's my first day and my ranking had been continually dropping.  I checked at 6:30 and my overall ranking was #242, only a slight improvement, however, I was now in the top 10 on another list.  I was #2 in Girls & Women, #3 in Children's Spine Chilling Horror and #3 in People & Places.  This represents more readers seeing my book, more readers downloading my book, and hopefully in the future, more readers BUYING my book.  Okay, it's just after 7pm.  I'll be back in a few hours with a wrap-up, and at that time I hope to tell you how many books I have given away for free today. I am awaiting that info from my publisher..........

It's 11pm.  Here's my final tally for day one:
1102 Free Downloads
#250 Overall Kindle Store
#2 Children's Spine-Chilling Horror
#3 Girls & Women
#5 People & Places
#6 Children's Sci-Fi & Mystery
#28 Children's Ebooks

BFH made five lists and is on the first page on four of them.  Hopefully that will propel more readers to discover the book and propel me to more free downloads tomorrow.  We'll see.  All-in-all I consider day one a success.  But will it lead to sales?  Stay tuned and find out.

Peace.

The Way I See It: Put Up or Shut Up!

Today I plan to put my money where my mouth is--literally.

In my March 14th The Way I See It post I explained to readers how giving your books away for free could be your ticket to big sales.  Free has worked for me.  I give away several paper books and ebook downloads just about every week.  I participate in contests and freely (pun intended) give books to bloggers who request them.  Free is part of my marketing strategy.  This strategy seems to be paying off as Boyfriend From Hell reached as high as #168 overall in the paid Kindle store, #1 in the category Children's Spine-Chilling Horror and #8 in Children's and YA sales on Amazon.  Earth Angel logged one notch behind it in all three categories.

Today I'm going push free to new limits for myself, and I'm going to invite you along with me on my grand experiment to not only prove that free books help propel your book sales, but to prove something I said in the earlier post--the more books you give away, the more you will sell.

To prove this, I have asked my publisher to enter my Best Selling novel, Boyfriend From Hell into the KDP Select program.  If you don't know about the program please read my post FREE: Your Ticket To Big Sales.  In a nutshell, the program does two things: it allows you to participate in the Kindle Lending Library, and it allows 5 days in a 90 day period that you can give your enrolled book away for free.  The lowest you can sell a book for on Kindle is 99c unless you are enrolled in the program.  The program, however, has one negative caveat--while your book is enrolled, you can ONLY sell it on Amazon.

This caveat has kept me from pursuing the KDP program.  And in fact, when I requested that my book be enrolled, my publisher was reluctant.  Why?  I am among the few authors who sells a lot of books for the Nook.  Promotions aside (like a Kindle Nation Daily feature) I sell more books on the Nook than on the Kindle.  We don't know why.  I attribute it to my activity on Goodreads, but that's just a guess. 

This past month while on vacation, and with no promotion, my Nook sales beat Kindle sales 3 to 1.  For a struggling author this could represent nearly $1000 in revenue during a down month, and even more during a good month.  However, I believe after I've given away thousands of books during the experiment, I will sell many thousands more, and hopefully even enter the vaunted Kindle 100--the top 100 ebook sellers on Amazon.  So, hasta la vista Nook owners.  For the next 90 days Boyfriend From Hell ebook will be available on Amazon alone.

Starting on Thursday I will put my money where my mouth is and begin giving Boyfriend From Hell away for FREE for three days (June 7,8,9).  If you are a blogger friend or a Twitter friend I would appreciate it if you blogged or tweeted that Boyfriend From Hell will be free.  I will give daily updates as to how I am doing in this experiment, and update you again after the book has gone back on sale.  After all, sales is what we're after.

I have convinced my publisher to be excited about this experiment.  This is an exciting time to be an author.  Oh, one more thing.  If you are into borrowing books, Boyfriend From Hell is now part of the Kindle Lending Library.  Starting today you can borrow it for free, and I will get paid by Amazon for the loan.  This is a win-win for both authors and readers.  So please check back on Thursday when my FREE experiment begins.  And wish me luck.

Peace.

E. Van Lowe Meets Marilyn Monroe

On Thursday, Palm Springs unveiled the 26 ft statue of Marilyn Monroe, welcoming her to her new home on the corner of Palm Canyon Drive and Tahquitz Canyon Road.  I was on hand for a photo-op of this incredible Hollyweird piece of pop art.  The statue of Marilyn is really beautiful, and I was happy to be around to welcome her to California.

The statue was originally unveiled in Chicago about a year ago where it received a cool welcome, mixed reviews and was vandalized several times.  Marilyn received a much warmer welcome to her new home a stone's throw from Hollywood.

Speaking of Hollywood and Hollyweird, there's a sneak peek of my new novel (the first in my Hollyweird series) over at the Bookish Brunette's blog as part of her month-long celebration of zombies--Zombie Craze.  The new book is entitled The Zombie Always Knocks Twice.  It's a YA paranormal book about fifteen year-old necromancer Kristine Golden who lives in Hollywood, California.  The book takes place in and around Hollywood and contains little tid bits of real Hollywood history.  Also, every location mentioned in the book and series are real.  Maybe one day there will be a Hollywood Hollyweird tour.  If you come out to Hollywood, you can definitely visit every location in the book.

Along with the sneak peek is a giveaway of my popular debut novel, Never Slow Dance With A Zombie.

Enjoy the photos, if you get a chance to visit the LA area, drive out to Palm Springs and view Marilyn's statue, and please pop over to the Bookish Brunette's blog and have a read of my Hollyweird sneak peek and participate in the giveaway.

Peace.

I'm Back!

On May 11th at 8:03pm I sent a tweet that simply stated "I'm off!"  With that tweet I started a 10 day vacation that ended Monday the 21st.  If you read my earlier post entitled How To Take Time Off you will know that I was quite nervous about taking time away from writing and marketing.  But I did it!  While I was off I did check my Amazon ranking a few times each day only to see it soaring, but strangely enough, it didn't bother me.  I knew it was going to suffer, and I told myself if I got the Boyfriend From Hell ranking down to #168 overall, and Earth Angel down to #169 before, I could not only do it again, I could better those rankings and finally enter the vaunted Kindle 100--the top 100 overall selling ebooks on all of Amazon.

So the vacation did its job and cooled me out--no panic attacks, no paranoia, just walks on the beach and Mai Tais.  Now you could say that's because I not only took a vacation, I went all the way to Hawaii.  The photo at the top is sunrise over Maui's Haleakala, a 10,000 foot mountain that is a dormant volcano. 

Every morning at 4 am or earlier pilgrims make the trek up Haleakala to witness one of the most breath-taking sunrises you will ever see.  It was 20 degrees atop Haleakala the morning we trekked up there.  You see I'm not smiling in the photo below, right? That's because I was literally freezing my you-know-what's-off.  Can't you see the frost forming on my mustache? For most of the day afterward I couldn't feel my fingers and swore I had frost bite.  Don't worry.  I didn't.  By mid-afternoon and several margaritas later, I was fine.

The trek up Haleakala was important because I spent my first morning in Hawaii purging myself of all the anxiety I'd built up over the past year of chasing publishing success.  The purge worked.  I am back with new perspective and rearing to go.  I spent today still trying to get through an edit of the first novel in my Hollyweird series: The Zombie Always Knocks Twice.  The publisher told me I needed to have it in by June 1st to make the summer deadline.  I will make it.

The answer to how do you take time off? is simple --you just do.  You just stop what you're doing and relax. You don't have to go away like I did.  I know you feel time away will cost you money... sales... income. But time away from the rat race is valuable.  It doesn't weaken you, it makes you stronger. So please, please take a break from the race--one day, two days, it doesn't matter.  We all need time off.  Hey, look at me, a week ago I was fretting, now I'm Yoda.

This last photo is of me walking in the surf.  I chose it to show the contrast Maui offers, and what the heck--for an old guy who sits at a computer all day I'm not too shabby without my shirt on ;-) Anyway, now I'm back to annoy you with tweets, and contests, provocative blog posts, and hopefully some really good books.  You will be hearing something new and exciting from me very soon.  In the mean time,  Peace.

Victor Valley College

Thursday evening I had the pleasure of speaking and reading at Victor Valley College in Victorville, California.  What a fun event.  Five authors read and answered questions for an SRO audience.  The event was conceived by former student and VVC faculty member, Pat Wagner.  It was her first event of this kind, but I am sure from the response from the audience and authors that it will not be the last.  Congratulations, Pat.  I have pictures, but I can't find the cord that connects my camera to my computer. Oh, well.

I had my first experience with autographing in the digital age.  Many students who had already purchased Boyfriend From Hell online brought autograph books.  And two people had me autograph their Nook covers.  How cool! That was a first for me. 

And now for serious business. If you read my last post you know the time has come for me to take some time off.   I plan to take some R&R from right now until Monday the 21st.  No Twitter, Facebook or blogging for a week.  No book marketing--or writing. I will try to keep up with my emails.  If you see me tweeting or on FB you will know I was not able to take a week off without some Internet stimulation.  Wish me luck. 

For those of you who would like to win a copy of Boyfriend From Hell and Earth Angel, I will be holding Goodreads giveaways next week, while I am off.  The Earth Angel giveaway is from May 14th thru the 17th.  Boyfriend From Hell is from May 17th thru the 20th.  Head on over to Goodreads on the dates given and win.  Good luck.

Peace.

How To Take Time Off

While the title to this week's post poses an answer, the truth is, "how do I take time off?" is a difficult question for me to answer.  To begin with, I don't know how.  It's not that I am some super driven workaholic who can't stop (although I have to admit I am driven), it's how do I stop and keep things afloat?

Like many of you, I am a writer.  I am a full time writer, which means writing is how I earn my living.  I do not have a side job.  I do not teach or consult.  My days are spent writing and marketing my work.  And for me, that is a full time job.  This year two of my novels (Boyfriend From Hell and Earth Angel) reached the top 10 on the Amazon ebook Best Seller list for Children's & YA books.  They did not arrive there by happenstance.  It took a lot of marketing to get my books there.  But I have noticed that I spend far less time reading than I once did.  The time I once spent reading, I now spend writing and marketing.

But the time has come for me to take a much needed break.  I've been feeling the burnout coming for some time.  And so I plan to take a week off.  A week of R&R.  A week where I will try not to tweet, or Facebook or blog.  A week where I will recharge my batteries, hopefully for another year.  But here's the thing--I feel that as soon as I stop, my sales will stop.  This week I have cut down on my marketing, and already my sales have begun to slip. So instead of me spending the week resting, I will spend the week worrying.  So, I have a question for you: how do you find the time to take a break without worrying that when the break is over your career will be over, too?  I'd love to hear any and everybody's thoughts on this.  In this new digital age, it is getting harder and harder to get away from it all.  Please tell me how, or if, you do it.

For those of you in the Victorville CA area tomorrow, Thursday May 10th, I will be speaking and reading at Victor Valley College at 5pm.  The students in the writing program have read Boyfriend From Hell as an assignment, and I hear they will have lots of questions for me.  Five other authors will also participate. The event is open to the public.

Peace.