No-advertising countdown deals

[twicebitten]

This was an interesting experiment. I put a few books on countdown in the past 2 months, to 99 cents, and just let the things run. I didn't mention it anywhere. Sales were 7, 23, and 28. Some people out there must be scanning countdown deals to buy books.

This has made me reconsider my history with smaller advertisers. I'd always assumed that if I ran an ad with Little Newsletter and had 56 sales, those were all down to Little Newsletter's reach.  Apparently that's not so. I was overestimating the ROI of those, possibly by a good percentage.

I'm interested in other people who've done this. Perhaps its constant. A percentage of newsletter numbers?

[VanessaC]

I can't speak to countdown deals, but as an experiment last year I ran a five day free promo on my book 1 (it's in KU, and I thought - why not?) without any ads or newsletter promos.

This was in August. I got about 140 downloads, and a spike in KU page reads - I'm not a big seller, so this was a nice rank boost, and didn't cost me a penny.

Previous experience of running free days is that I've always booked newsletter promos for days 2 / 3 / 4 of my 5 free days - I'm paranoid about getting the times / dates wrong across timezones.  I've always seen a bunch of downloads on the first free day, with no promotion.

So, I think that there are readers out there looking for a good deal.

[Pyram King]

I am running a 4 free days right now on Amazon.
I ran a facebook ad promoting the free book.

Today is Day 1 face book ad (not over yet) = 1859 impressions / 108 clicks / 31 downloads

This is an experiment and a first for me.