September has been a pretty bad month so far - compared to the previous months. But I'm still hoping it will pick up once I get to release new books. Health-wise, I've had more sick days than days when I was fine and able to work. September is also always a busy month for the family - birthdays left and right and if you're Filipino, you understand that not attending a family member's birthday is equal to a personal slight - YOU JUST HAVE TO ATTEND. It's proof that you love them. So there goes more of my writing time.
Since I haven't yet managed to release a new book, I've done several things to increase backlist sales. My backlist sales had taken a nosedive since Kindle Unlimited launched - I'm hoping it's just a phase but if not, I obviously have to put at least one book in KU - just to get some of its reader. Some of the authors say, however, that low sales in September are typical - with students in the US going back to school, there'd automatically be an increase in school-related spending, leaving readers with little money left for their reading budget. I'm really hoping that's the case and things would be back to normal next month.
One thing I did to increase backlist sales is to book ads - one of them costs $25 while the other cost 4x that amount. The first one got Greek 1 to Top 800 on Amazon's overall list for free titles. The other, however, got Heart Racer as far as Top 50. Sales went up for Heart Racer #2 but not much movement for the rest of the Greek books.
Another thing I did was set Heart Racer #3 free - this is Book 1 of Helios and MJ. I did NO PROMOTION at all but I saw it go as high as #72 overall on Amazon. Not bad at all! Backlist sales for Books 2 and 3 of Helios and MJ's story have picked up, too. So this was a good gamble as far as I'm concerned.
There have been a couple of nice surprises, though. Unwillingly Yours is now free on Apple and it's spent several days on the free romance chart. No promo for that one, too.
I also finally got to publish Catch You If I Can as a standalone - it previously debuted as part of the Love and Laughter bundle - and it's been selling without any promo, too.
Anyway that's it for now - just shared what I've been doing so far in case anyone's interested to know.
Since I haven't yet managed to release a new book, I've done several things to increase backlist sales. My backlist sales had taken a nosedive since Kindle Unlimited launched - I'm hoping it's just a phase but if not, I obviously have to put at least one book in KU - just to get some of its reader. Some of the authors say, however, that low sales in September are typical - with students in the US going back to school, there'd automatically be an increase in school-related spending, leaving readers with little money left for their reading budget. I'm really hoping that's the case and things would be back to normal next month.
One thing I did to increase backlist sales is to book ads - one of them costs $25 while the other cost 4x that amount. The first one got Greek 1 to Top 800 on Amazon's overall list for free titles. The other, however, got Heart Racer as far as Top 50. Sales went up for Heart Racer #2 but not much movement for the rest of the Greek books.
Another thing I did was set Heart Racer #3 free - this is Book 1 of Helios and MJ. I did NO PROMOTION at all but I saw it go as high as #72 overall on Amazon. Not bad at all! Backlist sales for Books 2 and 3 of Helios and MJ's story have picked up, too. So this was a good gamble as far as I'm concerned.
There have been a couple of nice surprises, though. Unwillingly Yours is now free on Apple and it's spent several days on the free romance chart. No promo for that one, too.
I also finally got to publish Catch You If I Can as a standalone - it previously debuted as part of the Love and Laughter bundle - and it's been selling without any promo, too.
Anyway that's it for now - just shared what I've been doing so far in case anyone's interested to know.