Author

Tag: What Grows From the Dead

Anatomy of a free BookBub featured deal

I landed a BookBub featured deal about a month ago for my mystery novel, What Grows From the Dead. I’ll abbreviate the book as WGFTD for ease in typing from here on out. BookBub featured deals are competitive – I’ve been applying for them for five years since my first novel came out, and I only started landing them last year, despite applying with most of my books every month. This was my sixth, my second world-wide (as opposed to just non-US markets), and my first free deal (a giveaway). Because it was a deal for free books, I wasn’t sure it would be worth the hefty price tag, $712, because I wouldn’t earn any direct income from the books being claimed and downloaded.

Still, every other BookBub has either made me a positive return on book sales or come close, and they’ve all had a big response, so I decided to try it out.

Costs

I had five days I could set the book for free. I decided to use the BookBub promotion as my first-day promo and then add other book newsletter announcements afterwards. This is called “stacking” – doing announcements on successive days to keep your book being downloaded by new people, to make the most of your promo. I’ve seen a number of people recommend this, although I have no way to test if it’s better or worse than just one big announcement, or putting all your announcements the same day, but I figure I’ll listen to people smarter than I am. I set up the following announcements with the following costs:

DaySiteCost
1BookBub$712
2FreeBooksy$100
3Book Adrenaline$30
3Book Cave$49
Total$891

These are all promo sites I’ve had some luck with for giveaways in the past. I also ran a set of smaller free newsletter announcements through KDROI, a Firefox plugin I bought a while ago that submits to about 30 smaller newsletters for free.

So, let’s go with an $891 total cost.

Results: Downloads

The results of my five-day free giveaway period were way beyond what I expected. I’ve done free giveaways before, promoted with FreeBooksy and other stacked promos, and I’ve had never more than about 5000 downloads, often more like 2000 or 3000. For this one, with BookBub, I had 20,000 downloads on the first day, and a little over 30,000 overall over the five days. Here’s how it looks for that one book with the others stripped out (they weren’t free, so they don’t show up here even though it says All 10 books).

To put that in context, for all my books, over five years, I had about 47,000 downloads. In five days, I got another 30,000, all of one book. Here’s how that looks on my Amazon history graph, with the blue bar at right being this five-day giveaway.

Note: The vast majority of these “units processed,” 93% of them, are free giveaways run at various times over five years. I only have about 5500 actual sales, and a good chunk of those (maybe 3000) are from $0.99 promos.

So, I definitely moved a ton of books. A crap ton, if I might be so bold. And that earned me precisely zero dollars. However, there were some other benefits to doing this. These are benefits I expected, but I had no idea what the magnitude of them would be.

Results: Page Reads

The primary way I was going to make a return on this promotion was through page reads in Kindle Unlimited. I’ve chosen to put all my books but two (my children’s book from 1998, which is traditionally published, and my promo novella, which I use as a reader magnet) in Kindle Unlimited, and it generally makes up about 2/3 of my total income from the books any given year.

The page reads for What Grows From the Dead soared as the promo got going. This has happened for me in the past with other free promos. I’m not entirely sure of the mechanism for this, but I think it’s an algorithmic response within Amazon’s system and/or with readers. My book certainly jumped to the top of the main Amazon rankings for free books (see below) and to the top of its categories (mystery/thriller, cozy mystery). So, anybody searching for a book like this (or, actually, for any book at all) probably had a much easier time finding it while it was famous from all the downloads.

Here’s what’s happened with the page reads. I included a good chunk of June to show a before and after. The teal blue is the promoted book. The growth in page reads starts up on June 28th (the first day of the giveaway) and then peaks from July 2-8, and then starts to drift down.

There’s a little bit of read-through to my other books as well, although not a ton, which you can see if I take out WGFTD:

The book that gets the clearest boost is Got Trouble, in red on the bottom graph, which makes sense – it’s the closest match in genre to WGFTD, so the next logical one of my books to read. I think it’s fair to say that nearly all of my other books (epic fantasy and sci fi) do a little better following the Jun 28 promo.

Results: Rankings

When you do a promoted free giveaway, you’re looking for a jump in rankings. WGFTD got that, reaching as high as the #2 overall free book on Amazon, and the top mystery and cozy mystery, a status that lasted for a couple of days. Once your book is no longer free, it blinks back to the paid book rankings, which don’t include all the free downloads, so your sales rank plummets back to about where it was before the promotion, maybe boosted a bit from follow-on sales after the promotion from recommendations or other readers who notice it.

However, the Sales Ranks listed on the book’s public-facing Amazon page aren’t the whole story. On your Author Central dashboard, you can go to the Reports + Marketing tab and see your book’s sales rank history. This is clearly some kind of amalgamation between free and paid sales, plus maybe KU page reads, because it doesn’t have a sharp drop-off after the book switches back to paid. So, it’s a kind of overall ranking, although I have no idea what the math behind it is. Here’s what WGFTD’s sales rank looks like over the past four months since publication:

You can see the clear and sustained spike at the right side as the promo begins, staying high for a while afterward.

One problem with these graphs is that they don’t have a consistent Y axis scale, so it can be hard to compare one book to another. WGFTD has a broad scale, going to 1.25 million at the bottom. You can see a bit of a response following the June 28th promo in the rankings of my thriller, Got Trouble, but note this graph only goes down to 1 million at the base, so it’s a bit more stretched out than the previous one.

None of my other books show a clear June 28th inflection, so the carryover ranking effect for them is likely small, maybe within the noise of individual sales for those books. That’s what I think those sharp peaks are on the graphs – individual sales, or maybe page-read clusters, that peak and then get smoothed back to baseline.

One thing to note here is that I haven’t promoted these two mystery/thriller books in many other ways this year. I’ve done essentially no promo for Got Trouble, and I’ve done a GoodReads giveaway (which seems to have had no effect on sales rank or on much else) and a small LibraryThing giveaway for WGFTD earlier this year, plus some promo for the release on March 9th, but no ads or anything else. So, whatever’s happening on the right end of these ranking graphs is almost certainly from the BookBub free promo.

Results: Sales

There was a little bit of sales activity for the book during and following the giveaway, probably in response to the high ranking, or maybe some word-of-mouth from people who read it right away. As you can see below, where WGFTD is yellow, I only had one sale in June prior to the promo, and afterward, I have 16, two of them paperbacks that were bought during the promo itself. This isn’t a huge return cash-wise, as I only make about $2.75 per book sold, but it’s definitely a bump. Call it $40-45.

Results: Ratings and Reviews

The other big boost from having so many books out there is that people actually read them and offer reviews. This isn’t a cash return on my promo investment, but I think it’s still important. I should have made better notes, but I think WGFTD was at about 35 ratings on Amazon before the promo with maybe 15 written reviews. On Goodreads, you can go back and track those stats on your author dashboard, but they don’t match the page exactly, and it’s hard to know why. I think I had about 30 ratings on GoodReads and 25 reviews.

As of right now, I’m at 334 ratings, 29 written reviews on Amazon, and 226 ratings, 38 reviews on Goodreads.

So, if we’re willing to assign all of these new ratings to the promo, which is probably not exactly true but is mostly true, it looks like this:

Site & TypeBefore promoAfter promoChange
Amazon ratings35(?)334+299
Amazon reviews15(?)29+14
Goodreads ratings35(?)226+181
Goodreads reviews25(?)38+13

So, there’s been a tremendous increase in ratings on both platforms and a smaller but still significant increase in written reviews, both of which offer reader testimony as to the book’s quality. The readers you reach in a free giveaway like this aren’t likely to be as attuned to your work as the fans who find your books as they come out, so you’d expect the ratings to drop with this wider, less die-hard audience. That happened a bit, although not by a lot – WGFTD was about a 4.6 on each platform before the promo, and it’s now down around 4.5 on each. Interestingly, most of the new responses were ratings-only, not written, which is different from the readers I generally attract, who are more likely to write a review when they rate.

As a bottom line, in under three weeks, WGFTD has now exceeded the number of ratings for my most popular book, the epic fantasy detective story Flames Over Frosthelm that’s been out since 2019.

Cost-Benefit Analysis

As I’ve shown above, I have some degree of economic return on my investment in this promo from page reads and increased sales. I also have intangible returns in the form of higher sales rank and more visibility on Amazon, more ratings and reviews, and more readers who’ve now experienced one of my books and might get a nudge when I release another (or, if I’m lucky, might follow me and eagerly await a next release). It’s very hard to put a dollar value on those intangible returns, so let’s skip that and see how the world of cold, hard cash looks.

To do that, I’m going to attempt to figure out what my baseline book income was before the promo. Using KDP’s Royalties Estimator, that looked like this for about three weeks prior to the promo:

That averages out to about $6.94 per day, composed of sales and KU page reads.

After the promo, it looks like this:

That averages out to about $37.17 per day, with the majority of it being KU page reads of WGFTD.

If I subtract out the $6.94 per day baseline and multiply by 22 days since the promo started, I get $30.23 x 22 = $665.08.

By that math, I’ve lost $891 – $665 or $226 on the promo. A net loss. However, the revenue hasn’t stopped – I’ll bet my page reads stay elevated for a bit longer, although it’s hard to know how long. That will help close the gap, as will sales from word-of-mouth recommendations or the higher sales rank I now enjoy.

Also, the intangibles – the sales rank, the visibility, the (I hope) new fans, the glut of new ratings and reviews – all of those are things I’d gladly have paid a couple hundred bucks pursuing. So, I’m going to call this a clear win, and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Vampire Steve

Vampire Steve is a character in What Grows From the Dead. This was a character guest post as part of that book’s blog tour, originally posted here.


Transcript of Taped Interview: Stephen Janewicz, session #2

Date: November 3, 10:45am

Background on the Drummond case

Interviewer: Det. Gerald Palmer, NCSBI

Palmer:  Mr. Janewicz–

Janewicz: You may call me Steve, mortal.

Palmer: Sorry, Steve. We’ve covered the facts of the case in our conversation earlier this morning, so now I want to turn to what you know about Morris Drummond. I’m trying to get a sense of who the guy is.

Janewicz: To what end?

Palmer: [breath noises] He’s not in trouble. At least, not yet. I’m just trying to corroborate the things he’s said while we unwind what’s going on in Baxter County.

Janewicz: Very well. You may continue.

Palmer: So, you’ve known him a while?

Janewicz: The fleeting lives of your kind do not always impinge upon my memory.

Palmer: Right. But you know Morris better than that?

Janewicz: He has served as my chariot-master these past six moons.

Palmer: The chariot in question being his mom’s Chevy?

Janewicz: [no reply]

Palmer: How often did he drive you?

Janewicz: When the sun was at its height, and at its most dangerous to me, and again when the gloom of night reigned.

Palmer: Can you put that in, er, mortal terms? With hours?

Janewicz: My shop opens at noon and closes at midnight.

Palmer: So he drove you there and back?

Janewicz: And sometimes other places, when I was in need of sustenance.

Palmer: What’s a guy like you eat?

Janewicz: I favor pork rinds. And other foods darker and more mysterious.

Palmer: Right. So, you and Morris are friends?

Janewicz: I sensed there were none closer to him than I during his time of darkness, though others became entangled. I hope his curtain of shadow may yet lift.

Palmer: That was kind of a yes or no question, you know.

Janewicz: [no reply]

Palmer: This curtain of shadow thing. You mean the business with the Baxter County sheriff’s department?

Janewicz: In part. But the pall cast over Morris began well before that. He dwelt in shadow, sucked dry by his employer and then by the loss of one he loved.

Palmer: Who’s that? That he loved?

Janewicz: The one who cast him forth into this sorry world.

Palmer: His mom, you mean?

Janewicz: [no reply]

Palmer: So, he was, what, depressed?

Janewicz: His soul shed tears of blood from a wound that would not close.

Palmer: Right. [Breath noises. Papers shuffling.] Do I have this right that you were in the military?

Janewicz: I served in the ranks of blood and strife, once. It was a time long ago, before I became as I am now. I almost feel that was a different man.

Palmer: [chuckling] I bet. Can’t see you pulling off this, uh, whatever this is, in basic training.

Janewicz: [no reply]

Palmer: Did you ever know Morris to be violent? Use guns?

Janewicz: Morris is a man of peace. Weapons of war and violence were alien to him.

Palmer: How do you know this? Did you talk about it?

Janewicz: He told me he had to watch YouTube videos to even figure out if a gun was loaded.

Palmer: Right.

Janewicz: I must needs depart? My place of business opens anon.

Palmer: Sure, just one more question. When did Morris get agitated about all this… this situation he found himself in?

Janewicz: I think it grew with each new insult to his honor, each new threat to his life and safety.

Palmer: Right. Can you maybe put a date on that?

Janewicz: It was when he found that which his mother preferred buried.

Mindy

Mindy is a character in What Grows From the Dead. This was a character guest post as part of that book’s blog tour, originally posted here.


An essay about a family member? Are you kidding? That’s soooo sixth grade. No, I don’t think I’m special. No, I don’t want detention. Duh. 

Ugh.

OK, here you go.

Mindy Drummond
AP English 
3rd Period Mr. Jones

My Beloved Father  

(Of course I’m going to give it a stupid title if you make me write a stupid essay)

My dad, Morris, is a college professor. Well, sort of. He’s on a leave of absence now because of the business-ification of higher education administration. That all happened last year. Well, last academic year, in like February. Well, I think some of it was going on before that, but that’s when he told me, during one of our weekly phone calls. He doesn’t usually say much during those calls because I talk so much, but I could tell he was unhappy, so I asked. I think talking about it made him more unhappy, maybe, but it also seemed like he felt better telling somebody. I wish he’d find a girlfriend, but I think he needs to get through this stuff first.

Anyway, it sounds like the college where he works, Riggson, was a bunch of XXXXs (fill in strongest insult that won’t get me detention). Well, the administration, anyway. They closed his department and fired him, even though he has tenure, and even though he’s worked there for years. It sounds really sketch. He said he’s protesting, going through an appeal, and that he can sue them for breach of contract and improper termination. Maybe that will work, I don’t know. Do I look like a lawyer? No, I do not, is the right answer to that question.

That all was hard on him. Like, really hard. I don’t remember too much from when he and Mom divorced, because I was little, but I think it might be like that. Like, he pledged himself to this stupid institution, gave it the best years of his life (well, so far), and then they cheated on him and fired him, and now he’s left feeling hurt and betrayed and angry and sad. I don’t know. It’s not like I’ve been divorced. I’m sixteen. But it seems like that might be what it’s like.

I go out to see him summers, and I convinced Mom to let me stay a little longer last summer. It wasn’t fun, because Grandma (his mom) was sick. Serious sick, stage 4. With dad just terminated from the college and dealing with all that, and Grandma dying, he was pretty much a wreck. I mean, we all were. Grandma physically, him emotionally, and me too, trying to help, even though there wasn’t much to be done. I mean, Dad was cool even with all that going on. He’s funny, and nice, and he really cares about me, unlike certain other supposed father figures who live in Alpharetta I might mention. He’s really dorky too, but in that kind of cool way dads can sometimes be. He also buys me milkshakes all the time, which is nice – the divorce dividend, you know? They destroy your home life and fracture your family and your identity, and you get delicious ice cream.

Anyway, Dad took Grandma’s death even harder than I thought he might. I think it’s because of the job thing, like everything being stripped from him at once. He’s pretty strong, usually, and stays happy, but this was as dark as I’ve seen him go. He put on a brave show at the end of the summer, when I had to go back, and he acts like things are OK when we talk, but I can tell he’s not really holding it all together. I really don’t know what he’s going to do next, and I worry about him.

In conclusion, this is my essay about my dad. More than 500 words, which is what was required. If you find it boring, remember that if you let us do cooler stuff, like multimedia or TikToks, you would have more interesting things to grade than this dead-tree old-school drivel, so it’s kind of your own fault. Get with the 21st century, Mr. Jones. We are the youth of tomorrow, not the youth of 1960 or whenever you went to school.

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