We recently ran an advert through Amazon kindle for my eBook, Draco the Vampire King.

This being our first time, there were some highs and lows, but overall, it was an awesome learning experience.

As always, we love to share! And we jumped for joy when we hit #2 Best seller in the US for the genre; Vampire suspense (in the top 100 free category.)

Before we ran the add, hubby did a course online and tested out his skills on one of my other novels. It wasn’t as successful as we learned later; it is better to be in KDP with the eBook. So that is where he published Draco. For those following this to the letter, remember the eBook cannot be published on any other site while in KDP.

Note: A Free Book Promotion allows you to attract new readers and widen your audience. You can offer your Kindle eBook for free for up to 5 days out of each 90-day KDP Select enrolment period. Free Book Promotions are for Kindle eBooks only and are available in all KDP marketplaces.

Hubby set a budget of $15.00 a day and advertised on the Australian and US KDP sizes. The duration, 5 days.

While he put his advertising guru hat on, I got to work on publisher creating material to put up daily on all my media sites. Tiktok Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, etc.

Calling up groups and finding a Pacific group for my genre, I also put up material created to let those readers know I had a free offer for them.

The “I Love Vampire” fb group had a website so contacted them in a private message. Reaching out was all that was needed for them to not only get it on their home page, but in their weekly mail out to 200,000 readers. As I always say, if you don’t ask you don’t get. The worst that can happen is they can say no! Thankfully it was a yes!🥰

Click image below to the website of “I love vampires” for the best books of the week.

KDP allows us to see full reports so authors can track buyers globally.

Below the screenshot is the breakup of sales per country during the promotion. It clearly revealed where to concentrate our advertising money towards and quickly cancelled money put aside for Australia and shifted it towards the market interested, which was the United States. After three days with only a couple of sales, we pulled the advertising money from Australia and shifted it to the US program.

pic of sales breakup per country.

The next learning curb was the time-zones.

I made up the advertising material with the day to start, which was suppose to be Saturday morning.

Only it began on Friday night at 6pm. Unfortunately for us in Oz, it meant it would finish 6pm Wednesday. Bit of a muck up but with few Aussies interested, I knew they wouldn’t even notice. <smile> So, the time-zones we will look at more carefully next time. As many reading this would know, our Wednesday in the US is their Tuesday. Yep, I mucked that advertising up totally.

So, this was what ended up selling daily. Friday 5 – Saturday 13 – Sunday 29 – Monday 387 – Tuesday 92 – Wednesday 5.

Note: Here in Australia, Sunday for US is our Monday. It clearly shows US sundays are a must day to advertise. From now on we will always continue to advertise on a Monday to get the US traffic as they are for sure our targeted audience for the Vampire genre. #USReadersAreSundaySearchers.

Kindle unlimited was a pleasant surprise.

Our advertising dollars were a token to see if we could build up our reviews. Shaun gave Amazon-Australia, and Amazon-US a budget of $15.00 a day.

Note: The more money you spend, the further the reach to other readers.

If our plan works and readers were generous with giving out the stars, we hope to make money on royalties next time knowing what we know now.

Yes, we know it was a free promotion! But there is a way to make a few dollars.

We went in thinking the same, that there were no royalties on a free book, but wait! Although there are no loyalties for a free promotion, the author can end up with a tidy sum if the eBook advertised is downloaded through Kindle unlimited. These group of readers are serious lovers of books who pay a fee which allows them to download any eBook and get it free no matter the price, and as many as they want.

Authors, this is where you win if the downloads for unlimited are plentiful. The eBooks they purchase are in the system and so, for every page they read, the author gets royalties on.

If the kindle unlimited customers download enough of the eBook you are advertising for free, your advertising could be paid for by the royalties received by unlimited readers. In fact, it could give you a nice tidy sum above what is needed to run your promotions.

We didn’t understand it until we did this promo, but when a few royalties come through, we knuckle crunched. An awesome extra we did not think about.

Unfortunately, because Draco, the vampire king, is unknown to the United States, it did not attract enough readers through unlimited. We didn’t make a huge amount for this round of advertising, but hopefully that changes as it becomes popular with the love of this vampire novels.

The chart below is from the 26th February.

The goal with advertising for us was reaching the top 10 in the vampire genre.

This would put the eBook in front of more readers of the living dead. In return, attract those who might enjoy paranormal thrillers to download and try.

When we checked the charts, we thought we had no hope of getting anywhere significant with the huge number of books for free over that weekend. Also, there were box sets in the top few positions and thought, no way would we be able to compete with them.

But try we did! Every day, I made up new material and flooded my media market while Shaun concentrated on the paid Amazon side of it.

Finally, on the third day of the Promotion we were blown away when we hit #2 in the US, number #3 in the UK and #9 in Australia (in the vampire thriller genre, in the free category).

I have to say; it was a lot of fun knocking off some of the more known authors and the book sets up on offer for free.

Then a change occurred that made us contemplate where we went wrong. Sales didn’t just slow. They stopped suddenly and there was not another sale for an entire day. We had to question why the downloads ceased and can only surmise what could have put a stop to it.

Moment before, we noticed one major change to the Draco page on Amazon. The sales had been going gang busters until the 4-star novel, with one only other reviewer, dropped to 3-stars. Sadly, someone from the UK threw up a two-star. No review and totally unknown. Coincidence or not, but it was exactly minutes after it went up that the sales came to a dead holt.

I guess readers thought like I would if looking for a book to read… not worth the time pressing the download for that one! Awful for me to reveal, but truthful. I’d be put off straight away. Four stars with one review. Yes, I’d give that a go. But four then a two… possible would scroll straight past it. And guess what, with two days left in the promotion, almost everyone did.

It was only after a five star was put up the next day to bring up the stars a bit did the ebook start to attract attention again and we pulled in a few sales at the end of that day. But the adjustment came to late. It was a fizzle day that dribbled into the next. However, some downloads were better than the none considering we were still paying for the advertising.

So putting on my thriller writers cap, I would contemplate it to be sabotaged by some clever foe who’s book I sent backwards in the top 10… mmmm? I guess we will never know for sure, but maybe something to watch when giving your blood sweat and tears up for free. Some readers will download a free book not understanding the genre, possibly get disappointed and after they have read a few pages, rip your heart out.

Luckily, I am not reliant on my books to make a living. But if it was my only way of extra cash to get through the hard times, it might have stung.

So, there we have it, folks! The ups and down of advertising for our first time. We hope to have more ideas to help our fellow authors out when we get better skilled. I thought if you were going to give it a go yourselves, this might be helpful.

We had a blast and will sure give it another good crack. In the meantime we will wait to see if this one gives us the desired outcome we hope for.

Until next time, happy reading!

From the desk of Deb’s galaxy