Edit: I had originally put 767 in the title, but as I was writing it, two more moved. And just before I posted this, it went to 774.
Edit 2: It moved again while I was out watching Garth Merenghi at the Lowry theatre in Manchester. 804 books is massive.
How to move 804 books in three days.
It sounds like a catchy email title because it is, but I can assure you it really happened. It’s still happening right now.
Here’s the proof.
These pictures were taken a few hours apart, but during the height of it, on the advertised free day, I was moving one book a minute.
So I suppose another title could be
How to move one book a minute
because that’s the rate it was moving at on the 10th of March 2023.
Wanting to get more readers and (hopefully) some more reviews, I decided to do a big giveaway. I was expecting somewhere in the region of 100 to 500 people, nearly 800 is astonishing.
Despite not moving nearly as many today, I am still pretty high in the Amazon rankings. Right now, two days after the promotion, I am still in the number #1 slot for Humorous Science Fiction, Contemporary Poetry, and Poetry About Death.
And yes, those categories are accurate. WHO BUILT THE HUMANS? contains 15 longform comedy poems about death. These are mixed in with the serious and satirical stories, forming what I call a ‘satellite universe’ which shows up once per three pieces. The poetry is the only regularly scheduled universe in the book, giving it a backbone that makes it feel as if you are watching a sketch show, rather than reading a book.
I wanted my book to be unique, and it works.
But it made it hard to market. Amazon categories tend to cater to the stuff which is securely in one genre, and putting a book in multiple genre categories is apparently a bad idea. The thinking goes that, to get a reader to see your book in the first place, it needs to be on the right shelf.
And mine is in comedy, science fiction, and poetry.
But it contains all those things, so it’s fine. The book introduces people to new genre mixes, and people seem to like that. Sure, it isn’t algorithm friendly, but is anything?
So, how did I do it?
If you guessed from those screenshots that these downloads were not sales, you would be correct. They were free downloads, set up through HelloBooks. I’m not sponsored by them in any way, I paid for the promotion and it seems to have worked.
But before then some other things had to happen.
In the interests of making it as simple as possible, here’s a list. If you want a more detailed breakdown of my journey as a writer from 5 year old poet to bestselling Science Fiction author, I’ll be making another post soon.
I wrote a weird book that mixed science fiction with comedy and comedy poetry
I posted readings online, gathering support long before the book went live
I had no idea how crowdfunding worked, so I launched pre-orders on Etsy, actually making a loss on some of them because of how expensive postage was
I asked my early readers to write reviews. These became the backbone of my advertising
I went to ComicCon. I ran my own stall and sold 56 paperback copies in one weekend. All signed to new readers
I set up a Bookfunnel account. Bookfunnel is a way to share newsletters, promote a free book, and gather (consenting) email subscribers. People opt in to my mailing list because they want to read more stories in the future
I realised selfies got more engagement than behind-the-scenes posts on social media, so I began balancing the two. I wasn’t going to quite my goal of showing people the machinery underneath the selfpub experience, but I didn’t want to be forgotten by the algorithm either. A few well-timed selfies and silly comments goes a long way
I got more brilliant reviews from brilliant people. I cannot understate how important this is. Right now I am aiming for a BookBub promo, but to stand out, a book has to have a certain number of real, honest reviews
I kept writing. Even when life got weird and difficult, I kept writing relentlessly. I have since had to take a few breaks from writing for myself to write for other people, but I’m getting back into it now. I realise writing for myself is what makes me happiest
I found book promotional sites. Hellobooks is the one I used for this promotion. Basically you are paying them to email people on the day your book goes free
I set my book to FREE on amazon for the day of the promotion, and a few days after, in case people read the email late. These extra days resulted in 184 more downloads
I told people about the book on social media. Now I don’t have many followers, but I do have a handful of dedicated fans who were there to support me. Their encouragement became the engine which pushed me to keep going
I was honest about my book’s categories. I have seen Sci-Fi on Amazon listed as ‘cookery books’ and there’s a reason for that. Some people pick low-competition categories because getting to the number 1 slot is easier. WBTH is in a few categories, some of which are a lot more competitive than the rest. But the benefit is that when a customer looks for funny sci-fi, they will eventually find me. Making sure you are visible to your audience is the most important thing
I was honest with myself. What that means to me is that I didn’t pursue tradpub for WBTH because I thought it was too original, and I didn’t fancy waiting 20 years for someone to pick it up. I set out my goals and I set about achieving them, not on my own, but with a network of smart people around me
I made friends. It’s easy to see other writers who are doing better and to beat yourself up for it, but at the end of the day we’re all on a similar journey so it might be worth your time to reach out and ask them how they did it. I wrote this post in case anyone wanted to ask me. Now you don’t have to
I am going to make a more detailed post soon about my future plans for marketing and publishing, as I now have a better idea how to get my books to even more people. If you’re interested in that, please consider subscribing.
How I keep the lights on
These posts are free. They each take a few hours to write, which I could spend being employed by someone else, but I like to think I’m employed by my readers.
Later this year I am going to the Edinburgh fringe to network, to perform, and to recharge my creative energy. I’ll be somewhere between the comedy and literary circuits, working on developing Halfplanet. I plan to keep building Halfplanet this year, and your help with that keeps the lights on. You can donate as little as you please through the Ko-Fi, or nothing at all. It’s up to you
I also offer commissions there, so if you need any writing or a 1 to 1 workshop, let me know.