Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Art, Feedback, Hospice, Kindle, Marketing, movies, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, care-giving, direct publishing, Edgar Allen Poe, free, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, literature, Mother's Day, Science Fiction, video
Lovely:
So, I haven’t discussed it a lot lately, but those who have followed this blog for a bit of time may remember that before I got Communion of Dreams self-published I was also involved in this other fairly massive writing project called Her Final Year, which was the result of being a care-provider for my mother-in-law (who had Alzheimer’s).
We’ve had some modest success with promotions for the memoir, and decided to try something to see whether we could expand on that a bit: another promotion this coming Mother’s Day. But this time it’s going to be something more: the chance to get three different books, all for free in the Kindle edition.
Three books? Well, yeah. Her Final Year. And my novel. The third? Sync, a brand-new novel co-authored by John Bourke, my co-author on Her Final Year!
That’s right, we’ve decided to do a little cross promotion – give everyone who is already familiar with one of the authors involved in these different books a chance to see some new stuff which is kinda-sorta connected. And the best thing is, that it is all FREE!
More details to be coming soon!
Jim Downey
*From Poe’s “The Premature Burial“, of course. Not that the story itself really has much to do with this post, but because the boundaries from one book mentioned to the next to the next are somewhat . . . fluid. They’re certainly interconnected. And I thought the animation was quite good.
Filed under: Amazon, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, tech | Tags: advertising, Amazon, blogging, direct publishing, free, jim downey, Kindle, literature, Louis Slotin, science, Science Fiction, self-sustaining, technology
Earlier this month I had mentioned that Communion of Dreams had more or less stabilized at an Amazon ranking of about 30,000.
Well, since then things have changed. The big Kindle promotion last weekend was one. But as I noted the other day, evidently some other things have changed as well. The spike in sales of Communion on Thursday (total of about 50) dropped off a bit on Friday when there were just 25 or so. But then it picked up again yesterday, with about 40 total. With the result that the Amazon ranking has moved up to about 5,000 – sometimes a little higher, sometimes a little lower – and Communion of Dreams has pretty consistently stayed somewhere in the top 50 “Science Fiction – High Tech” category. And other than blogging a bit here, I haven’t done much to promote the book this week. So it’s entered a kind of self-sustaining reaction, like reaching critical mass.
What I find interesting is that in trying to track down and understand what happened to help promote the book, I discovered that a number of sites are starting to list the book as a “recommended read” of one sort or another. Usually this is being done as part of an Amazon affiliates program, where if you buy the book via their site they get a small commission. No complaint from me – this is all advertising, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m happy that others are able to generate a bit of income to support their sites.
Now, what’s curious is trying to figure out what it will take to kick the whole thing up another notch. What is the equivalent of “tickling the dragon’s tail” – of pushing the self-sustaining reaction just a little further, so that it speeds up but doesn’t just figuratively blow up in my face? The story of Louis Slotin remains a cautionary one, after all.
I suppose we’ll see.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing | Tags: Amazon, blogging, direct publishing, free, jim downey, Kindle, literature, Science Fiction, writing
Thanks in part to the almost 6,000 people who downloaded Communion of Dreams last Sunday, there are more followers of this blog and the associated Facebook and Twitter accounts.
So I just wanted to take a moment and say “welcome” to everyone. I don’t do much song & dance here (or anywhere for that matter, and if you heard me sing or saw me dance, you’d be thankful for this), but I do ramble about a bit, and you can never be entirely sure what I might write about next. Because I’m never quite sure.
I would invite any and all who have had a chance to read Communion of Dreams to please write a review or “Like” the book over on Amazon. It may not seem like it, but this helps me a great deal, and I would really appreciate it if you took the time to do so.
I would also appreciate any word-of-mouth promotion of the book. That could be in a formal setting like Goodreads or on your favorite forum, or informal discussion with friends in whatever venue.
Lastly, feel free to contact me directly by email, Twitter, or through comments here or on Facebook. I’m usually pretty quick at responding, depending on how many other things I am juggling at the moment.
Thanks. And Welcome!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: blogging, direct publishing, jim downey, literature, suspenseful novel, technology, writing
So, as noted previously, forty years from today is the actual day which Darnell Sidwell finds the ‘artifact’ on Titan. I won’t say more in case of, well, spoilers.
Anyway, as I said, I had intended on having the Kindle promotion extend into today, but managed to screw that up. Since Amazon hasn’t gotten around to activating the additional promotion day, I’ll just have to pick a date here later this month to do so.
But that’s OK – yesterday’s promotion was actually quite good. It was slow going until one of the big “free ebook” sites posted about Communion of Dreams being free, and then things took off quite nicely. In the end, there were a total of 1,777 downloads of the book putting Communion at #1 in the “High Tech SF” category of the free Kindle store for much of the late evening. Yay!
And altogether, that means that there were 7,067 people who got the book in one form or another in all of March. Add in the 111 already in April (the difference between the accounting and scheduling branches of Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing – though there have been 4 actual sales of the book this morning already), plus the sales in the first six weeks of the book being available, and that puts us well over 8,000 total copies of the book distributed. As I’ve said previously:
And again I would like to thank everyone who has helped to make this a reality. And in particular I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to let me know they’ve enjoyed the book, or have gone and written a review on Amazon. That is both rewarding and very helpful.
And speaking of which, if you *have* read the book, please do take a few minutes to review it on Amazon. It seems to make a huge difference – I’ve seen several people comment elsewhere that they decided to take a chance on the book because of the reviews. Likewise, rate the other reviews, or ‘Like’ the book – that also seems to make a substantial difference.
Lastly, just a note – you can ‘Like’ the Facebook page and follow me on Twitter. Now that the book is somewhat unsteadily standing on its own feet I plan on cutting back on the promotional efforts on my regular Facebook account. I will keep posting info here, but mostly I intend to focus communication about upcoming events on those other outlets specific to the book.
Thanks again, one and all – and Happy Artifact Day!
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 