How do you improve...

[R. C.]

... follow-on sales.

I have been successful in giving away thousands of Loss-Leader (aka permafree) short stories. However, the follow-on sales are steadily approaching zero.

Without divulging the secret sauce, are there recommended tips and tricks for improving follow-on sales?

R.C.

[VanessaC]

First question that came to my mind - how are you giving the stories away?

Everyone is different, but personally I only give "perma-free" stuff to my newsletter - so short stories, snippets, etc are newsletter exclusive. All my main stuff is on Amazon and in KU, so perma free is not an option for me. However, I am a big fan of using free days for promo of series starters - there's often a small trickle into the next in series.

If you have multiple short stories available for free, are they connected in any way to other works that you have? Maybe put a sample of the next-in-series and a link at the end of the short story, so it's easy for readers to follow on.

If the short stories are not connected to anything else you've written, or your paid works, it's going to be harder to get readers to move across. I do have readers jumping across my series, but that's after reading several books.

Another thing to consider is to bundle your short works together. By all means keep them free - but you're then giving readers a larger sample of your work, and they may be more likely to go on a try more of your work.

Also, remember that the read-through from free to paid is very, very small - I haven't done the data mining on my own books, but I'm sure I've seen other comments that read through from free to paid can be in 1 - 5%, so if you're getting that read-through, that's normal as far as I know.

Hope some of that is useful, and good luck.

[Cephus]

Generally speaking, everything you have available has to have a purpose. Just throwing it up on Amazon as a freebie will do nothing for you at all. There are tons of people who just run around collecting free stories and rarely ever read them. Using freebies as loss leaders rarely works because people wonder why it's free. Having the first book in a long series cheap, that's one thing, but free, that sends a bad message. You can use free giveaways as a reward for joining your mailing list though, although again, a significant number of people will sign up just for the free stuff and then immediately unsubscribe. They don't care to buy your work. They just want something for free.

[writeway]

Usually, if you are giving away a lot of permafrees (I assume book ones of a series) and not seeing much follow-up then something is wrong with the permafree. For some reason, readers are not compelled to follow up after reading the first book. If the permafree doesn't deliver you follow-up sales then you're giving books away for nothing. If you haven't already, maybe have a beta reader or someone read the first book. It could be that it doesn't follow genre expectations or something just isn't working. Also, remember that not everyone will read the free book. You can give away 10,000 but doesn't mean nearly as much even read it. When you do freebies, it also attracts freeloaders who just stack free books. That's just a part of it.

No secret sauce, at this point I would go back and revisit your freebies, have someone else look them over, and see why they might not be hooking readers enough to go to your next book in the series.

[notthatamanda]

It's really just a matter of hooking people with your work. A certain percentage of people won't pay for books, and we all get the 1 star reviews that "This is a cliffhanger, I'll never read this author again" even though it says everywhere that's it's book one of three.

My secret sauce for my first trilogy (contemporary romance) was this: They meet, overcome the obstacle of living 3000 miles apart, are together, are making plans, then an opportunity comes the hero's way and he has to leave again. He decides to break up with her rather than putting them through the long distance thing again. The book ends with him driving off and her sobbing on the floor next to the door, too stunned and crushed to even get up.

There are so many stakes and scenarios to play out. Does he regret it (cause he agonized over the decision)? Will he change his mind? Will she chase him? Will his opportunity pan out for him? I think it's a mix of things, people like my writing, they like the characters, but what really made them have to read the other books and pay for them was they had to know what happened next. My second trilogy did not have as high stakes and the sales reflect that. One review even said they liked the characters but didn't care about the cliffhanger (I'm paraphrasing.)

As far as using short stories in that way, that may be a whole different animal in that maybe some people will read endless amounts of free short stories but aren't really looking for full length books. You may just be giving away stuff to the wrong audience. You can maybe put the first chapter of a full price book at the end of the short story, but be careful not to violate Amazon's extra content policy, which I am not well versed in, but double check that.

[alhawke]

A lot of my follow through sales is done by advertising with BookBub. But it's taken me a lot of money and pain to find the right "secret sauce" to make money or at least break even with the right creative ad. I never succeeded with AMS.

All of last year, I had consistent sales wide with my first book in series at the slightly reduced $3.99 price with a daily BB ad. Now, after a Bookbub promo, I've extended that success to an ad for my boxed set at $9.99. I'm selling about one of those daily too now. That and my 1st book, still selling, inches me forward. These small sales is where I've had the most consistent success. Daily sales--because thousands of freebie sales or 99centers really doesn't count for making money in this biz alone (readers have no idea about this, but we all do).

So that's my current plan, I suppose. Promote and then advertise the tails. In your case, promote your freebie, then advertise the follow up. I toss ads that don't work and hold on tightly to the ones that move. I'd love to spend more if I could make more, but for some reason, spending light and keeping my eyes not too big has succeeded in giving me a consistent daily flow of $.

I agree that many freebie "buyers" are just filling their kindles and some aren't reading past the cover. I've been guilty of that myself.

Anyway, best of luck R.C. I'm looking at a couple days of minimal sales on Zon this week myself. We must keep up the fight 

{edit: R.C. I assume you have a sample and direct link to the following book directly at the end of your freebie story??

[Lorri Moulton]

I have a trilogy, first book permafree, that does fairly well with Fussy Librarian promos. It's one long serialized story, so people have to buy books 2 and 3 to see what happens.  I put 'cliffhangers' at the top of the blurb, which put an end to the one and two star reviews (for now). 

Readers don't like cliffhangers...except the ones who do.  Let them know right away would be my advice.

If your book has no cliffhanger, there's really no reason to buy the next book.  If a reader falls in love with your world, they may buy more stories.  Or they may just go to the next free book.

ETA:  I don't use a newsletter for freebies.  I just put them on my store and other retailers.  If readers want a free story, they can read it.  If they like the stories, they can find more if they want to buy books. 

[R. C.]

Collective response...

I am using a variety of marketing options and have pushed one of the stories to the top of a "90-Minute read" list.

The stories are connected to other works and have next-in-series links with descriptions at the end of each short story.

I probably need better connective wording.  Cliffhanger, what's next, how will xxxxx happen, is it really yyyyy?

I have varied the audience through extensive experimentation. Tried US only, English only, everywhere, young, old, red hair on Tuesdays...

Bookbub and WrittenWord have been my friend.  I have a big campaign (Spring Sale) next week using both and other marketing platforms.

I've not had a lot of success with Fussy Librarian but began looking at them again this morning.

I will keep you all posted with the sales results and how I go into the summer 


R.C.

[Jeff Tanyard]

If your book has no cliffhanger, there's really no reason to buy the next book.

In my opinion, this is where the epilogue comes in useful.  You wrap up the plot of book one with a satisfying conclusion--no cliffhangers--but then you have an epilogue hinting at the conflict in book two.

For example, consider the first Iron Man movie.  Everything is wrapped up to the viewer's satisfaction, but then after the credits, we get a scene with Nick Fury hinting about the Avengers initiative.

[alhawke]

Bookbub and WrittenWord have been my friend.  I have a big campaign (Spring Sale) next week using both and other marketing platforms.

Good luck with your sale!