1 in a series. 1 in a series as a permafree, so it must work to some extent. I though it was about time to test this out for myself. I’ve always resisted giving my books away for free books. I spend a lot of time and effort writing them, not to mention the money I have invested in improving my writing skills, and in book production costs. I produce a quality product and feel I should receive remuneration in return. However, for the first time, I have a complete series to offer, with good readthrough from one book to the next, and thought I would take the plunge with a free promo to see if it was worth it. A big Christmas promo is the backbone of my marketing strategy. I have tried advertising at all times of year, and this one consistently performs best for me. Sometimes I add a second promo around May time, to bump things back up a bit, but on the whole the increase in visibility and sales lasts several months, and I’ve not found either summer or autumn promos to be very effective, so Christmas it is.
1, THE PRINCE’S MAN, to FREE on all retailers on December 16th 2022. My paid promos were not scheduled to begin until the 23rd, but with the challenge of companies closing down for Christmas, and needing to be certain that Amazon would price match to free in time for the holidays, I erred on the side of caution. I have been incredibly fortunate over the past 4 years to score a BookBub Featured Deal each Christmas, but no dice this year, and as I was experimenting, I was okay with that - in the fantasy category, an ad for a free book costs $487, which would have doubled my spend. True, the average number of downloads is 23,000, so maybe another time. To my great surprise, I had 308 downloads of The Prince’s Man in the week before any ads appeared! I have no idea how the book came to people’s attention, but it does help me to appreciate the concept of having a free starter book to a series.
The downside of free books is how many people download them but never get around to reading. I know, my Kindle is stuffed with them. This is where I learned that Kobo does not report free books downloads, so I can only guess at those. They are regularly roughly in line with Apple, but that’s the best I can offer. Kobo, so I feel fairly confident in estimating 6,000 downloads. How does this translate into income? 1, even though the numbers were not huge. Now to look at the effects over a longer time period. 1) continued at FREE until the end of Jan 3rd. Over the first 3 days of January I had another 315 downloads. One thing I did not expect, however, was that The Prince’s Man has continued to sell, in bigger numbers than usual, even once it returned to full price. There was also a small uptick in sales of my other books. Still out for debate. Clearly there is a substantial increase in sales across the board, although not as much as I’d hoped for. So although well up on the average for the previous 6 months, clearly I am still out of pocket from the expense of the promo ads. I reckon it will be several months before I can safely say one way or the other that this was a failure, or a success.
While readers and writers have skeptically watched the fluctuating publishing industry in recent years, one literary market has caught us all a bit by surprise: audiobooks. An audiobook (sometimes stylized as "audio book"), like the name suggests, is a recording of a book that readers can listen to. Somewhere along the path of lengthy commutes and ubiquitous smartphones, a market for audiobooks erupted - people who don’t otherwise read much. Whether you’re on a treadmill or have a couple hours to kill before boarding your flight, audiobooks are a great way to fit in learning and entertainment. Not to mention, it’s a nice reprieve from staring at a screen all day. While this market explodes - audiobook sales totaled a stunning $1.6 BILLION in 2021 and hit 10 straight years of double-digit revenue growth - you may be wondering how you can get a piece of the pie. Whether you’re a budding voice actor or seasoned recording professional looking into how to become an audiobook narrator, we’ve got you covered. Post has been cre ated with G SA Content G enerator Demoversi on!
In this article, we’ll touch on the industry as a whole, what you need to get started and, of course, how much you can get paid. First, let’s tackle a couple of Audiobook-101 topics. What Are the Most Popular Audiobook Platforms? Like we mentioned, audiobook popularity has been on the rise for about a decade. This booming market makes it imperative for authors and publishers to get traditional books into audio form ASAP and on the most popular platforms: Audible (owned by Amazon) and iTunes (owned by Apple). Enter Amazon’s Audiobook Creative Exchange (ACX), which connects audiobook narrators with books to narrate. With that said, there are quite a few indie audiobook publishers out there, too. SUMMARY: You can publish audiobooks through giants such as Audible and iTunes, as well as smaller houses. How Long Does it Take to Record an Audiobook? Speaking of "from start to finish," how long does it take to actually record the thing?