At the time of my last post, both Dead Loss and Bean Counter had sunk so low in the Amazon rankings that I was getting essentially NO sales or pages read.  It was really very depressing.  It even got to the point where I stopped checking for sales, something that I had previously been accused of doing almost obsessively.

I had to try something, and my arsenal of tricks is pretty small.  I have had very little success with ads on Amazon, and don’t know how to do Facebook ads, so I went to my old standby – the free book giveaway.

I made Dead Loss available for free for four days in mid-February, and paid both Freebooksy and ENT to advertise it.  The book may be free, but the listings are not, so it’s a tough decision to make.  It’s like paying people to take your book, and that isn’t a good feeling.  But, an even worse feeling is that no one is reading your book at all – so I went for the free promotion.

It went well, similar to my free book giveaways of Bean Counter.  About 7,300 books were downloaded, and it was encouraging to see some activity, even if it was not monetarily rewarding.  The book peaked at 38 in free books, and got to number 2 in free mysteries.

After the giveaway ended, Dead Loss went back on the paid list, and re-debuted at around 18,000.  That means that 18,000 books were more popular than mine, but about 4,000,000 were less.  That was about the highest ranking the book had ever had, and way better than the 450,000 or so it was dropping to prior to the giveaway.

The sales rank usually drops like a stone once the book is for sale again for actual money, but this time, the drop has been more like a feather.  As of today, about two weeks after the promotion ended, the book is at around 25,000, meaning I’m having several sales or Kindle Unlimited downloads every day, which is a lot better than the crickets I was listening to before.  I also picked up seven new Amazon reviews, and about twenty on Goodreads, and that always helps, too.

Also, I have more than made back the cost of the two ads I placed on Freebooksy and ENT.  I have to say, while the book is still not a best-seller, at least it is selling, and that makes the free giveaway worthwhile.

So, now I have to get back to obsessively checking my sales.