A free promotion for free

[Pemry Janes]

So it was my birthday this week and I decided to use that to run a trial. I would put up the first book of my Living Sword series up for free. I didn't book any promotions on newsletters, all I did was put up a post on the subreddt r/Fantasy on my birthday and on a couple of forums I've frequented for many years.

In other words, I wanted to see how far you can get without paying for promotion. As this is the last day it's for free I thought I'd take stock of the results so far.

Free Downloads as of 14-11-2021
Amazon: 766
Apple: 41
Smashwords: 28
Google Play: 15

Sales of the rest of the series as of 14-11-2021
Amazon: 9 ebooks, 1 paperback
Google Play: 1 ebook

Reviews:
1 text review on Amazon.com and 1 rating
1 rating on Goodreads
1 rating on Google Play

Other thoughts:
Over 600 of the the Amazon downloads was just on Wednesday when I posted on Reddit, but I got 50 downloads in the days before that. So apparently there are people who will leap on any book made free, no matter how obscure. That's then a baseline for how succefull a promotion is for a free book in the Fantasy genre.

I got quite a bit of positive attention on Reddit thanks to this, and one person actually bought the paperback version of the first book as a way to say happy birthday. What ratings and reviews I got were positive as well.

On Amazon I reached the following rankings after 660 downloads
#218 Free in Kindle Store
  #4 in Coming of Age Fantasy Ebooks
  #6 in Sword & Sorcery Fantasy Ebooks
  #7 in Epic Fantasy (Kindle Store)

So you don't need that many downloads to gain visibility in these subcategories either.

The promotion wasn't entirely free, I also tried a BB ad but that only got a thousand impressions after a week and 2 clicks. Apparently even offering something for free can't entice BB viewers to click an ad. So given how negligible the results of this was, they can be discounted from the results. I am also reconsidering if I should keep trying with BB ads.

I will update the results in a week to see if there's more follow-through and reviews as a result of this promotion.

Update 20/11/2021
Free Downloads
Amazon: 785
Apple: 44
Smashwords: 29
Google Play: 16
Barnes & Noble: 2

Sales of the rest of the series as of 20-11-2021
Amazon: 19 ebooks, 1 paperback
Google Play: 1 ebook

Reviews:
2 text review on Amazon.com and 2 rating
1 rating on Goodreads
1 rating on Google Play

[idontknowyet]

thanks for sharing.
i always love hearing what works and what doesn't.

[alhawke]

You've got me intrigued with Reddit. Have you frequented there before? Do you have any other subreddits you'd recommend people check out for marketing? That's a lot of free downloads from just social media posting. Great job!
And Happy Birthday!

[Gerri Attrick]

Interesting, thank you, and a belated happy birthday.

[Pemry Janes]

Thank you.

I'm an irregular poster on the subreddit, but I'm not only a writer of fantasy, but also a fan. So when I post, it is usually as a fellow reader.

My advice is not to join a subreddit with the aim to market yourself, but to participate. And then sometimes opportunities like this one come along.

I did use a post with the cover in it. I have long believed that it is my best marketing material I have and I believe it intrigued quite a few people. Got several comments on how much they liked the cover.

[Pemry Janes]

*Update*

Look at the first post for the final download numbers. It is possible that I'll still get some more reports through Draft2Digital about Barnes & Noble, their reporting takes time to come through apparently.

I won't repeat the numbers here, but I will do a bit of analysis in this post.

Amazon was by far the most used channel and it had the most follow through. It also netted me the most reviews, but I got a couple of new ones on Goodreads as well.

In total I had 876 free downloads and up to now have had 20 sales of the following books. This is book 2 and 3 combined. Breaking it down I had 12 sales of book 2 and 8 of book 3. I calculated that is a conversion rate of free to paying reader of 1,37%. However, I had comments in the reddit thread indicating that people were planning on reading the first book in several weeks, so it is entirely possible that the tail will actually stretch into next month.

I will keep everybody posted.

[Rod Little]

As Pemry said (and I agree), you definitely need to join a subreddit FIRST and post about that genre for a few weeks. Get into the community first. If you try to market yourself right off the bat, they'll ban you fast - before the ink even dries on your post! The moderators (and readers) are visceral in their hatred of marketing, and even if you become a good member first, you need to be VERY gentle in your marketing approach.

That said, it can work for freebies, but do note that almost none of those readers will pay money for even 1 of your other books.  ALSO NOTE: Reddit users are well-known for being snarky and judgmental. Expect a dozen bad reviews in exchange for your free gift to them.

So ... BEWARE and be careful.  If your goal if to rise in the ranks, go for it! But don't expect good reviews or any sales at all (for money).
Best o' luck.

[Pemry Janes]

While I haven't gotten any five star reviews out of this, I have gotten some 4 and 3 stars. So I got honest opinions and nothing I would consider negative.

There's been a few more sales as well, but from some of the comments I got on the reddit thread I knew it could take several weeks before they had time to read the first book so I believe I could still see some follow through even in December.