{"id":220,"date":"2019-09-27T02:28:48","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T02:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/an-authors-journey\/?p=220"},"modified":"2019-09-27T05:57:57","modified_gmt":"2019-09-27T05:57:57","slug":"results-of-my-free-book-promotion-was-it-worth-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theophanesavery.com\/an-authors-journey\/2019\/09\/27\/results-of-my-free-book-promotion-was-it-worth-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Results of my Free Book Promotion – Was it Worth It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Well yesterday was the first year anniversary of my book being published and I thought that was the best excuse ever to toss all advice out the window and do a free book promotion. Historically my book Honoring Echo<\/a> has not exactly been a best seller. The first two months it was out I sold a few copies to family and friends and in the year since it’s sold about four copies to strangers and garnered glowing compliments from people in real life but not a single Amazon review. Soooo…. I figured it was time to give it a good nudge now that I have much <\/em>bigger platform than I did then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent that entire morning blasting the news everywhere I could. I put it up on my personal FaceBook page as well all the other pertinent FaceBook pages I was running (in total of six pages) as well as most of my blogs, an additional seven pages, and my Twitter and Instagram. I did it well! I made it positive and happy. I did everything I am told works… and I was rewarded with the deafening sound of complete and utter silence.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As the day plodded along I noticed no one <\/em>was visiting the blogs. It was like I put up a big blinking sign saying, “If you click this your computer will die of viruses!” Now I don’t normally get a ton of visitors to my blogs but I do get a few on a day to day basis so the sound of crickets was a bit deflating. Even my biggest blogs which both get about 25 visitors a day gave me a combined THREE hits to the promotional entry. FaceBook was no better. For the past few months everything <\/em>I posted has been getting about 150 engagements. Today it got 25 views, no engagements. Instagram which I routinely get 30-50 likes per photo came back with four and two of those people I knew. And Twitter, where I am the most active was ablaze all day with people liking my tweets about bear fat, delicious raccoons, mushroom dying techniques, and the most resoundingly popular was a review I wrote for someone else’s book which got not just over 50 likes but over 20 retweets which was wonderful. But my self-promotional tweet with a link to my free e-book? Three<\/em> likes, no comments. The saddest amount I have received in over a month of shit tweets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The day was almost over and only three people bit and took a download. Three. <\/em>I hated to do it but I resorted to pity and posted again on Twitter. “Hey guys! Three brave souls have uploaded my free e-book today, will you be the fourth?” This actually worked better. By the end of the night I had nine <\/em>downloads. Granted I am not counting one of those because it was to a friend who was having a hard time reviewing it because I sold her a physical copy directly and Amazon didn’t accept her review because it wasn’t a verified purchase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I am told that you get a review for about every fifty people that buy your book and one for about every hundred people who get a free download. Welp… I am still nowhere close to that so I can’t say I am particularly optimistic about receiving that first review. And my failure to get anyone <\/em>interested in it hasn’t exactly stoked my desire to keep going with this. I felt like I was running a table at the local bake sale reading, “Not Poisoned Cookies.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things I have learned: <\/p>\n\n\n\n