Question about days of the week

[Marti Talbott]

Do you find running a promo on a certain day of the week is more profitable? I've always thought the weekends when people had time to shop was the best, but after so many are working from home all week, I'm not sure that's true any more.

[Paul Gr]

Personally, I take a quick look at the promo sites at anytime.
I wonder whether the big promo sites have decided what is the best day of the week to promote.
They know what they're doing, or should do.

[LilyBLily]

I used to have data culled from my AMS ads that indicated my readers were clicking in late afternoon and evening weekdays and similar times on weekends. I don't recall there being one weekday better than another, but I have been left with the impression that weekends are better.

I understand trad pubs release on Tuesdays, but as to the best day of the week to sell, I have no clue.

You're right that the disruption of traditional commuting to work (yay!) may have changed browsing habits. I assume most people have a certain time of day, or several times per day, when they check newsletters and info sites, and Facebook, and so on. People who tweet are on all day, though, and yet Twitter famously does not move books. So...nothing clear to give you.

[TimothyEllis]

I understand trad pubs release on Tuesdays, but as to the best day of the week to sell, I have no clue.

I try to release on saturday.

Makes a big difference to KU reads if people have the time to download and read on release day.

I get the sales regardless due to pre-orders, but the downloads on release day make #1s, not the sales. And the reads for the next few days put the icing on the money. Miss your KU readers because it's a weekday, and your book doesn't hit the top of any category, and release day income takes a hit, with the following day down as well. In the long run it doesn't matter, KU readers catch up, but you only get the chance to get #1's on day 1. And with them comes visibility. So a book which fails to get there, can do worse than it should do overall.

I don't think the Trads have the first idea about how to use Amazon properly.

[alhawke]

With my books, I like to run promos on Mondays. Tues-Sat okay. I've done poorly on Sundays.

[Rod Little]

I can't find it now, but Bookbub ran a survey that showed only a 2% difference between the best day and worst day for clicks. B&N also had an article that showed sales of non-discounted books per day rarely differed by more than 3%.  So, I think there is no best day of the week. Luck likely plays a role in a campaign's success.

[Marti Talbott]

Thanks for the answer!

[R. C.]

Several months ago, which is eternity in marketing terms, I performed an extensive search for "the best day of the week to sell online." 

I followed a dozen threads and read a ton of marketing analysis white papers. Narrowing the study to ebooks/paperbacks/publishing did not change the results.

Caveat: The analysis I drafted, and the white papers I read, had a US market bias.

The results are: The percentage of change from one day to the next is negligible.  There is no "best day of the week" to sell books.

HOWEVER: There are moments when the day of the week can skew to a specific genre.  Example: Sunday nights and Mondays are likely good at the moment for Westerns and Murder Mysteries.  The new episodes of Yellowstone and Dexter air on Sunday night.

If you are selling murder mysteries and Dexter is not one of your keywords... Well, enough said.

R.C.

[Marti Talbott]

Very cool information. Thanks. I have an ad coming out on Tuesday. (tomorrow). Before, I favored running ads on Friday because people might be looking for something to read on the weekend. I have no data that proves that to be a good decision one way or the other.