Today’s post is a bit unscheduled, but still wonderful news for all our indie author friends. You see, one of our own, the very awesome John Betcher, had an idea. He decided to give away one of his books for free over a two-day period in hopes he could (perhaps) crack the Kindle Free Top 100 and (maybe) boost sales of all of his books after the promo was complete.

So, how did his promo work out? From John’s results post:

Books given away: Over 25,000, including >1000 in UK and at least 1 in on every Amazon site.
Highest Free Kindle Ranking: #10.
Highest Free Kindle Suspense Ranking: #1.

Well, that’s all well and amazing, but did giving away all those books hurt his chances of selling any more after the promotion was over?

The result, in fact, was just the opposite. His rankings for the first seven days after the promotion ended:

Highest Paid Kindle Ranking – #162 (achieved 3 days after promo)
Highest Paid Kindle Suspense Ranking – #13

And, perhaps the most awesome result, his actual sales numbers for just the first WEEK after the promo ended:

These are actual numbers of Kindle books sold at $6.99 each:

THE COVERT ELEMENT (Promo Book): >1,150
THE 19TH ELEMENT: >200
THE MISSING ELEMENT: >200
A HIGHER COURT: 12
COMBINED UK SALES: >50

TOTAL SALES: >1,612

Compare this to my December monthly sales for the same titles:

TOTAL SALES OF ALL BOOKS IN MONTH OF DECEMBER: 44

Pretty amazing, huh? That’s over a 3600% increase in sales! Be sure to check out the post on John’s blog for all of the additional details, numbers, why’s and how’s, but suffice it to say that this should provide inspiration (and perhaps spark some goal fodder) for all of our author friends looking for marketing and promotion ideas!

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