Monday 24 March 2014

How many books do you have to sell on Amazon to make a Bestseller list?

This book is officially
an Amazon Bestseller.
Woot!
Not that many as it turns out.

The numbers are in from my recent promotion. Through the Ereader News Today link, I sold 45 copies of The Summer of Shambles for US$0.99c through Amazon in one day.

I probably sold another 15 or so (I don't have the exact numbers for this yet) through my fabulous friends promoting the book on the same day, who linked directly to the book.

So let's estimate I sold 60 books in one day on Amazon.

Those 60 sales were enough for Amazon to create those subset lists where the book went from #600,000 in Paid Kindle to #37 on Paid Kindle > Young Adult > Romance > Contemporary.

What did I earn from this? About $20.40 in royalties, or $0.34 c per book.

How much did this promotion cost me?

An absolute pittance. Get your jaw supports in place because this one is a doozy.

$3.90 US.

So my 'profit' for the day is $16.10

In the grand scheme of things, these are miniscule numbers, but it shows how affordable some promotions can be, and how with less than 100 sales in one day a writer can get into a Bestseller list.

Have you had promotions that yield great results? What's worked for you?

Information is like chocolate. Sharing the goodness brings people together.

4 comments:

Imelda Evans said...

Thanks for sharing, Ebony. It's all grist to the information mill!

Ebony McKenna. said...

Exactly Imelda. I want to share information that is useful and practical. (And I bet this is the cheapest promo I ever do).

Stuck Between The Pages said...

How exciting to see numbers jump like that! I can imagine how hard it has to be to get your book(s) out there for the millions of readers to see, and well, read. What other ways have you tried getting your book out there other than the ways you have mentioned in your posts? Have you tried to do any sort of giveaway that if an x amount of people share your book, and/or even buy the book(s) after sharing (like links on a Facebook page, or Twitter) then you will give one (or two) winners a free signed copy of one of your books? Just an idea =-)

Discover-ability is hard for us book review bloggers too. My biggest issue is that I can continue to read and review books until I am blew in the face, but fans/followers/traffic is not anywhere near where I would like it to be. I research often on how to get my blog out there. I have found a few ways that seem to have worked a little bit.

Keep up the good work! You can only continue to grow from here!

Ebony McKenna. said...

Oh yes, I hear you on that one - the market for books and bloggers is so crowded.

The Ereader News Today link has been the best promotion so far. I think it works precisely because they have people signed up who want to read new books and are fine with the books being pitched at them. It's a third party saying 'check this out' to a receptive audience. I think that's the clincher - that it's a third party. Even when the author has paid for it. Compare this to an author directly asking people to 'buy my book' and it makes all the difference.