Thursday last week was the first free promotion for the Talent Seekers and I thought it went reasonably well.  Since Traveler was out, Amazon, or Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), or both, have changed a number of features of free days – the main impact of which seems to be fewer websites promoting them for authors and mixing them up with ‘bargain’ books as well.  In addition, there are now a huge number of authors self-publishing –  from the ranking levels where my books usually linger during ‘quiet times’ I would say there are probably twice as many as there were this time last year.

So I did have fairly low expectations of overall numbers, and they weren’t quite achieved, but what I was thrilled with was a huge upsurge of German ‘sales’ and my first in Japan.  I also gained three in Canada and one in India, the new Amazon site for which went live during the day of my freebie! (Maybe it was midnight Indian time).

Humphrey having a small cuddleI did tweet from the German Amazon page, so maybe that helped push the book there – but I also did from Amazon France as well, with no result.  I do have a couple of fans in France, but I think they are still at early stages with the Trilogy.  I also pushed the Snickslist page, which had a good number of views, so it got onto the first page by early afternoon here, and of course the Free Ebooks Daily page, which featured an interview with Humphrey (he’s so cute!).  They have an interview of sorts with me next time, so watch out for that!

I was also extremely lucky and honoured that Mother Daughter Book reviews did a summary of free and bargain books they recommended on Thursday, and featured Talent Seekers at the top (which put the cover on the Facebook feed).

Talent Seekers was also listed by Kindle Book Promo and Bookgoodieskids.com,  as well as my promotions and messages on Goodreads, KBoards and World Literary Cafe.  It was disappointing that the Independent Author Network seemed not to have updated the free books for a week, especially as I sent the notice in at the end of May, and it was also slightly confusing that eBook Blitz started my paid feature for the 27th/28th on the same day that Talent Seekers had its first free day, which I had notified them about separately.  But that’s my fault for doing two things at the same time.

So I think my promotions paid off, but numbers are down all round, and that’s the way life is now.  It is suggested that multi-day promos work better, and I’ve found that with the other books (and it’s also less work for me!), but I wanted to get a first day out in the hope that reviews might appear in time for later promos!

I think the rankings are indicative of the low figures these days, since my rankings were well up:

  • US peaked at #2180 in the all kindle-free; 15th in Childrens books, SciFi Fantasy & Magic
  • UK peaked at #2172 all free; 62nd in Children’s S F & M (not at the same time, funnily)
  • Canada peaked at #748 all free; 14th in Children’s S F & M
  • Germany (my new star market) peaked at #303 at the end of the free period but had me at #1 in English language children’s books, Fantasy & Magic (there are more sections in this breakdown than the others) at 22:00 German time, finishing in 2nd slot.  Of course, this is a case of “find a niche small enough to be big in”!

I’d love to have feedback from my German followers for any additional information that you’d like, whether about the books, or the characters.  You’ll find some helpful information in the Xtra Stuff section on the official website.

I know I’ve done a little analysis of previous books, and I must look them up to see how the numbers compare.  But those rankings ‘feel’ better to me.  Well done, Humphrey!

Oh – you know what?  I forgot to download a copy for myself!!

Results from Talent Seekers’ first free day
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