By the Numbers

I've been waiting 'patiently' for the sales numbers from my freebie days at Amazon for The Vampire and the Vixen to be posted at TWRP. Earlier this week, the reports arrived.

The numbers on the free days totaled 7607...so not too shabby. The title made it to the top sixteen freebie 'sellers' in contemporary romance, and it made it to 54 in the entire Kindle store. Again, not too shabby.

However, after that the numbers tank and don't look quite so good. Make that they don't look good at all. The theory behind the freebie days is to garner interest in you as an author and your work. This definitely didn't work for me. I only sold nine copies of The Vampire and the Vixen and one copy of A Christmas to Remember after the freebie days. That's it. None of my other titles had any sales in August. So that's quite disappointing, and I'd say it showed that even though my numbers were good for the free copies, it really did nothing to boost sales on anything else.

I did get quite a few reviews, I think the title is up to 11 or 12, which is far more than I've gotten for any of my other titles, so that goes on the 'good news' side of things, which is at least something.

Later this month, This Feels Like Home will make its Amazon debut. Amazon requires a three month exclusive on all titles to be offered for free. As of now, all TWRP titles participate in this program. It will be free for a period of five days in November.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. Home is different from Vampire in that it is a full-length and is also the third in a series. I've heard that having a free book in a series entices readers to purchase the other titles. I can only hope so.

I put a lot of time and effort into promoting Vampire's free days, and while it did get some great numbers during the promotion, in the end, I saw very little return for all of that time and effort.

To say I'm frustrated and disappointed is an understatement.

What a crazy business we've gotten ourselves into...

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

A Very Vampire Week

I know my fellow bloggers aren't too fond of vampires, but for me it's been a very vampire week.

First of all my latest offering from The Wild Rose Press, a novella called The Vampire and the Vixen is being offered FREE this week on Kindle. In the ratings, so far it's made it to number 65 on the overall Amazon Bestseller List for free titles, and to number 18 under the category Contemporary Romance. I am simply thrilled by these numbers. (I'll find out how they translate to actual 'sale' numbers when I get my sales report from Amazon through TWRP later in the month.) It's also garnered a couple more really nice reviews.

It's FREE through Saturday, so there's still time to pick up a copy if you haven't gotten yours yet. And thanks to those who have shared, posted, or Tweeted about it for me. It is greatly appreciated!

On Sunday the sixth season of True Blood (my guilty pleasure) had its season finale. I'm bummed that it's over for the summer, and even more bummed that my favorite vampire on the show, Eric, was last seen burning to a crisp in the sun. I will be royally upset if they kill him off, let me tell you. The show has gotten so far off book (It's based on the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris) that I'm in the process of re-reading the sixth book to see if there's ANYthing from the novel in the show. So far I'm about halfway through and there's nothing. Now, I don't want the series to be exactly like the books, since that would leave few surprises, but I'd like there to be SOMEthing familiar.

I also found another vampire series to feed my cravings. It's a series called "Love at Stake" by Kerrelyn Sparks. So far I've read the first two and will take a bite out of the third as soon as I finish the Sookie book. There are about fourteen books in the series so far, so I should be well supplied with reading material (not that there's ever a shortage, right?) for the foreseeable future.

And finally in my vampire world, my in-laws made a fantastic purchase for me at a garage sale last week.

I now have two life-sized Edwards residing in my library. What more could a girl ask for?

So all in all, I am a very happy vampire girl these days!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com