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Will 99 cent ads followed by a free ad work for a sequel?

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Gregg Bell:
What I did with my first legal thriller was make it 99 cents for my newsletter and then run a bunch of 99 cent promos followed by a FreeBooksy promo. Sales really improved after the FreeBooksy promo. Now I have the sequel to that legal thriller, and I'm wondering if the same strategy will work or if there's a better way of approaching it? (I heard a while back that when publishing sequels it's best to make the first book, not the sequel, free and run a promo for the first book.) Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

Bill Hiatt:
I usually promote the first book when introducing subsequent books in the series. Advertising geared to the second book or later may be lost on people who haven't read the first yet.

BTW, AMS ads can be used to promote multiple books if you are content not to write a tagline as part of the ad. That means you could have an ad showing your first three books, which I've had some luck with. I haven't had luck with sponsored brand ads, which allow to show three books and then point to your author page.

alhawke:
You can always run multiple promos within a month apart, or so, as long as they go reduced in price. I've had success pricing $2.99 and then $0.99. Can't see why $0.99 to, later, free wouldn't work. You just don't want to go backwards and try sales at increased prices only a month apart.

Gregg Bell:

--- Quote from: Bill Hiatt on February 08, 2025, 08:17:27 AM ---I usually promote the first book when introducing subsequent books in the series. Advertising geared to the second book or later may be lost on people who haven't read the first yet.

BTW, AMS ads can be used to promote multiple books if you are content not to write a tagline as part of the ad. That means you could have an ad showing your first three books, which I've had some luck with. I haven't had luck with sponsored brand ads, which allow to show three books and then point to your author page.

--- End quote ---

Thanks Bill. I'll check out that promoting multiple books (with no tagline, which is fine with me). Still, I think I would have to advertise book two (I only have two). Otherwise I'd be waiting (or at least I'd think I'd be waiting) for them to read book one in order to buy book two.

Gregg Bell:

--- Quote from: alhawke on February 08, 2025, 10:11:12 AM ---You can always run multiple promos within a month apart, or so, as long as they go reduced in price. I've had success pricing $2.99 and then $0.99. Can't see why $0.99 to, later, free wouldn't work. You just don't want to go backwards and try sales at increased prices only a month apart.

--- End quote ---

Thanks A.L. Someone said, regarding ads, 'you just have to do what you have to do to get to the point where Amazon does the heavy lifting.' A friend had a lot of success just running only free promos. I'm leery of that because I like the idea of the 99 cent promos (before running free promos) to get some rank. I don't know. Kind of on the fence as to which way to go.

I wonder: does anybody run free promos exclusively and if so, what kind of results do they get?

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