This is my personal opinion, and it will evolve as I learn.
This article is my personal opinion based on what I have learned from my work on Shepherd and my chats with hundreds of authors. My professional background is within tech/marketing. My views will change and evolve, and I will update this article as I learn.
Key Notes:
- The below speaks to books in general, and it should be noted that some books are much easier to market than others. There is a lot of nuance within this vast market. There are also some books that are impossible to market for many different reasons.
- If you are the type of person to say, "F%*&k marketing," please give this a read. Marketing terms might disgust you, but "marketing" is another story to entice readers to pick up your book. You can skip to "What do I recommend," where I speak about what authors can do if they hate the idea of marketing.
Sections:
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Why is marketing a book so hard?
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What do I recommend for book marketing?
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How can book marketing be improved?
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How am I working to improve book marketing with Shepherd?
Why is marketing a book so hard?
- No money for marketing.
- Low demand + high competition = high purchase barrier.
- Online book discovery is a wasteland for authors.
No money for marketing.
- Books are "inexpensive" and don't have the margin for ongoing marketing.
- Authors & publishers don't have the upfront money to accelerate book sales.
Books are an inexpensive product with low-profit margins. They don't have the padding within the price to dedicate a portion of each book sale to marketing.
If I sell a product for $1,000, 20% of that product might go into marketing. That gives me a budget of $200 to acquire each customer; you can do a lot with that type of budget.
Even if you sell a product for $50 and put 20% of that toward marketing, you can do a lot for $10 per customer acquisition.
But books are priced well below this range.
- If your book sells for $0.99 to $2.99, there is zero margin for marketing.
- If your book sells for $4.99 to $15, there is very little for marketing unless you sell a TON of books.
This is a big reason why a book series or large back catalog is vital. Instead of selling a book for a low amount, you are selling a series and/or author-brand.
The book is just the gateway into that larger product, and you are aiming for an average sale of $20 to $50 per reader as they consume more books. Plus, you hope to build a long-term fan and bring them into your newsletter, social media, and author-brand orbit so that you can easily sell them your next book (because they know they like your writing).
This is also why, within fiction, publishers are pushing for 1 book a year. Instead of selling a book, they are selling a subscription to the fans of that author. They can then count on that reader to spend $10 to $20 a year on that author.
- For example, I have read every Michael Connelly book and bought every single one he writes. From a glance at my Amazon orders, I have spent ~ $600 on his books. And every year I buy the next one.
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I am also a massive fan of Peter F. Hamilton and Christian Cameron. Even when they publish a book that doesn't click with me, that won't impact my future purchases. Their books mean so much to me that I will buy the next one as I love their writing style and voice.
- @Christian and @Peter - If you want to fulfill my dreams, please share your favorite books on Shepherd... I want to know what you are reading!
Summary:
- Marketing is easier if you have money, and books usually don't have enough money for sustained marketing spend.
Caveats:
- For indie-published authors retaining 70% of earnings, you have more room to play with marketing. If your book is the right fit, you can slowly build up ad campaigns costing you $100 a day but making you $150 a day and adding fans to your orbit (who will then buy organically as you grow). Some indies are spending $50k to $150k a month on ads (rare)
- I have not seen any publishes who do good work with ads so far (indies are crushing it there).
- If a publisher has acquired your book for a hefty sum, they will market it. They have access to publicists who can do a lot to get your book noticed by big media.
- Marketing gets much cheaper if your book speaks to a tight niche that you can reach cheaply. For example, if I have a book about "Japanese carpentry," that is a lot easier to market because you know where those readers live and what they are searching for.
- Technical books around learning to play the piano, programming Python, and improving your SEO skills are much easier to market and can be much higher in profit margins.
- Academic books are a totally different game. They can market to professors who make those buying decisions for an entire class.
Low demand + high competition = high purchase barrier.
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Low Demand
- In the USA, the median reader reads 4 books a year.
- In the USA, 21% of adults read more than 10 books a year.
- In the USA, 1% of adults read more than 50 books a year.
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High competition
- Anywhere from 500,000 to 4 million books are published each year.
- 30+ million books already published and being sold at Amazon.
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High purchase barrier
- If you read only 4 to 10 books a year, you will be very selective about what you read. Each book is a big investment, and you don't want to be disappointed.
- This makes it difficult for readers to take risks with books and creates a market where big-brand authors dominate (which is why word-of-mouth marketing between readers is so valuable).
- Amazon reviews are a massive barrier in selling books because it has changed our brains to always look for social indications that the book is worth your time (versus a bookstore where you are meeting a book without reviews).
We assume this survey data is roughly accurate.
Low Demand
For most people, a book is a considerable time investment.
If you are only going to read 4 to 10 books over a year, each one is an investment you don't want to get wrong.
That means:
- You are going to be very picky about what books you read.
- You need to be convinced that you should try that book/author.
- You are going to be pulled toward authors you already know.
High Competition
Imagine creating a product that will compete against millions of other books that year and 30+ million books already published. This is an insanely brutal marketplace.
(This is also why I get frustrated that book pricing is so low. It is hard for me to imagine that someone who loves to read and buys 4 to 10 books a year isn't willing to put down $15 to $20 for a book. Especially since most readers have well-paying jobs (which is its own travesty).)
High Purchase Barrier
No sane business person would enter a marketplace like this.
This is also why books are so magical: they are filled with people's dreams, with stories they have to get out, with knowledge and wisdom that burns within them. I love books, but this is a nightmare to market within.
Let me tell you the story of two readers...
My wife reads 8 to 15 books a year. She is what most readers look like.
She is picky about what she reads because each book is a significant time investment. She does a lot of research before buying a book and doesn't want to be disappointed.
- She gets many book recommendations from the New York Times and Shepherd, but even then, she is picky about which one resonates with her. If she keeps seeing the same book pop up on different lists, that goes a long way in sparking her interest.
- She is risk averse in her selection.
- She is less likely to buy a book if it doesn't have a lot of positive reviews on Amazon.
- She reads a split between nonfiction and fiction.
- She doesn't read deeply within any specific genres.
- She recently found Jodi Picoult and is reading a lot of her books.
Then you have me... I read very fast, and I read 100 to 150 books every year.
- I read very deeply within sci-fi, fantasy, certain types of crime/mystery books, and specific time periods of historical fiction. I read 10 to 12 heavy nonfiction books a year.
- For example, I have probably read 50% of all historical fiction within the Roman period listed on Amazon with at least 50 reviews and rated 3.5 or higher.
- I get a lot of my book recommendations from Shepherd and book friends with similar tastes.
- I am less risk-averse and willing to try unknown authors with low numbers of book reviews as they have decent ratings, a strong personal recommendation on Shepherd, a similar website, or a book personality I trust.
- About 70% of the books I read are new authors I don't know, and 30% are authors I love that I am going back to year after year.
I am in a small minority, but people like me buy a lot of books.
What does this impact on marketing?
Most authors face a high barrier because most readers look like my wife.
These readers gravitate toward the most popular books that have already been vetted by the NYT, Shepherd, and other websites. They are not willing to take a lot of risks. And they are looking for the "very best" books given the high time investment they put into each book.
On the other hand, if you publish a good historical fiction based within Roman times or a fast-paced military sci-fi, you have a lot of readers who look like me. They buy a lot of books and devour them. Those communities are well-represented online and willing to take a risk on an author who only has 50 to 100 reviews on Amazon.
Summary:
- Most readers only read 4 to 10 books a year; you have to grab their attention somehow plus convince them to buy you when compared to millions of other books.
- Super readers usually read within a few deep genres; if you don't write within one of these high-demand genres, you are out of luck.
- Both types of readers look heavily at reviews on Amazon, which makes it incredibly hard to sell books if you don't have reviews (and it makes building a strong fan base to seed reviews utterly crucial - which I will talk more about later).
Caveats:
- Books with that "magic spark" will pop for many reasons, but that is a lot of luck and hard work.
- Some books are almost impossible to market. Either because they straddle genres, don't speak to a specific audience, or don't fit in a box. Those can break out but might require wildly different strategies than the vast majority of books.
Online book discovery is a wasteland for authors.
- The internet has lots of places where readers can discover books.
- But it has almost no places where authors can join that conversation.
The internet has lots of places where readers can discover books.
Every genre and niche has places online to discover books, things like:
- Reddit groups on everything you can imagine.
- Forums on every type of book or topic you can imagine.
- YouTube and BookTok book personalities.
- Blogs, newsletters, podcasts, and substacks that mention books.
- NYT and other prominent media websites are constantly putting out book lists.
- Goodreads and other book websites.
This is an INCREDIBLY fractured environment.
That isn't a bad thing, but it makes it hard for authors to know where to go to get their first readers and see if their book has that magic spark to go further and further through word-of-mouth.
But there are almost no places where authors can join that conversation.
As an author, you need a way to get your book in front of readers so that they can meet it, get interested, and hopefully take a chance and buy it. There are very few places that do this for free.
And because of the highly fractured online book ecosystem, plus a hugely competitive book market, you have to spend a lot of time convincing these places to let you show your book to their audience. And if you are good at pitching them, you also have to spend a lot of time writing or doing interviews for each place.
There are almost no places an author can do this online.
And most places are super hostile to authors instead of inviting them in and giving their books a chance.
(It is hard as they get bombarded by emails/posts and don't want to spend the extra work to moderate. But it makes me sad, as long term, they are not helping to create the book ecosystem that helps all authors and readers.)
Can you think of any places beyond Shepherd?
Shepherd is one of the few places doing this, and we are currently only slow and steady exposure for authors, not a big burst (although our best books of the year is changing some of that).
As of February 2024, our main format provides slow and steady traffic, and if an author is in the top 50% of popular book lists, they might be getting in front of 50 to 200 readers a month. Our goal is to get you in front of your target readership so that it converts higher, but the total traffic is still low (i.e., you might see a conversion rate of 3% at Shepherd to clicks to a bookstore versus 0.5% on a broader source).
There are some places authors can do interviews, but many of these smaller websites might only get seen by 200 to 1,000 readers, and unless it is highly targeted, that is a hard sell.
This is a big reason why I tell authors that we are 1 of 100 things they should do online to market their book, and I don't know the other 99 things.
For example, imagine I write a military science fiction book (assume it is good, and I worked with beta readers to test and evolve the story until beta readers loved it).
- I then have to find all the blogs, newsletters, forums, and other places that talk about military science fiction in some way. This requires a lot of research and tech skills.
- Then I need to find the owner's contact info and pitch them on doing an interview or a reading or something to get a little buzz rolling about your book. This has to be a good pitch, as they get these pitches daily.
- If they accept, you must make the time to put that together.
- And I probably need to land 100 of these just to drive ongoing persistent interest in my book.
A lot of authors have no interest in doing this. It takes time away from writing and can feel like a slog.
This is a further challenge because our modern world is based on reviews.
You must have a fan base that gets you 50 to 100 positive reviews so that risk-averse readers will even try your book. Without those, any marketing you do is so much less effective.
Summary:
- Tons of places to discuss books, but almost zero places authors can join that conversation.
- We need more places where authors get a chance to show readers their book.
Caveats:
- Books with that "magic spark" will pop for many reasons, but that is a lot of luck and hard work.
- Indie bookstores are going strong and one of the best places to discover authors. When someone is in a bookstore, they are not thinking about reviews; they are just thinking about what book catches their attention and clicks. The problem is that indie bookstores represent a tiny percentage of total book sales, they are hard to break into, and generally, they are reserved for big-name publishers. This is further impacted by a lack of ebook and audiobook sales (which I am hoping might change in the coming years).
What do I recommend for book marketing?
There is a ton of nuance with book marketing, but here is my general advice for every author.
Do you want to do marketing?
If you don't want to do marketing, don't do it.
There are authors who don't do any marketing, get lucky, and sell plenty of books without doing anything. But far more likely is that your books are rarely read, and make sure you are ok with that option if you ignore this path.
All my advice assumes that you have:
- A professional book cover.
- Tweaked your Amazon book page to be perfect.
- Make sure that readers can preview your book at Amazon.
If you only do 1 thing, what do I recommend?
Start a newsletter for your fans and build a pipeline from your books to that newsletter.
If you only do one thing, this is it because each fan you build is someone who will buy your future books and will likely leave a positive review. You need to achieve 50 to 100 four-star reviews on your book to sell to more risk-averse readers.
The newsletter needs to be good, and you can incentivize signups with things like a free short story about one of the characters in your book, a free ebook of their choice from your back catalog, interviews with your favorite authors, etc. For nonfiction authors, there are a lot of options here; for fiction, it gets a bit trickier (I am working on some ideas here as well).
From a marketing POV, your minimal goal is to build a fan base that can at least get you 50 to 100 positive 4-star ratings for every book you release.
If you only do 2 things, what do I recommend?
You need to reach 50 to 100 reviews on Amazon with a combined rating of 4+ stars.
Without this, most readers won't even give your book a chance. And that means that every other piece of marketing you do has less impact because they won't convert to a buyer when they land on that bookstore page (and most sales will be on Amazon for most authors).
I can't stress this enough... in my interviews with readers, even if they are buying from a bookstore that doesn't have reviews (like Bookshop.org), they will also check Goodreads and Amazon reviews (sometimes even at a bookstore, they will whip out their phones).
How can you achieve this without a fan base? A lot of time and hard work.
- Ensure your book has a good pitch for your newsletter and leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever they review books. Explain how much this helps you as an author.
- Pitch readers online who might be interested in your book. This can be done on Twitter, FB, forums, etc. Craft a pitch to sell your story as an author, pitch them the book, and explain that you would value their feedback after they read it. This can then be redirected to a review in an ethical manner.
- Pitch readers in the real world, go to conferences, stand outside coffee houses, do readings, anything to meet readers. And in each book you give them have a personally written note stuck in the back asking them to please review it on Amazon along with a picture of the book.
- Do a newsletter exchange or swap features with other authors in that genre. This requires that you build up a newsletter with your fans and can trade exposure with other authors.
- Whatever else you can think of while being ethical and honest...
This is not easy, and why it is so essential to build your fan base within your newsletter so you can get past this step once your newsletter fan base is large enough.
Social media can also play a role, but nothing is better than a newsletter. You don't own anything on a social media platform, and they can take it away or diminish your reach at any time (something every single one has done as they get large enough to force people to pay for advertising).
If you only do 3 things, what do I recommend?
Create a book recommendation list on Shepherd that targets the most-likely-readers for your book. This isn't going to be a huge number of readers, but it should be slow and steady traffic month after month for the most likely readers of your book. And hopefully, it is fun to share books you love with readers.
This is a big reason why I tell authors that we are 1 of 100 things they should do online to market their book, and I don't know the other 99 things (when it comes to free options ... apart from your time). I hope to grow Shepherd in the coming years so that we can be 3 or 4 of those 100 things. I'll talk more about what I am working on below.
What else can I do?
I don't know.
The only other free things I know are particular to your book, genre, reputation, expertise, and other factors.
Regarding a paid service, BookBub (or a similar service) is the only thing that consistently "sells" a lot of books in a big burst. But the readers on those email lists are looking for free or 99-cent books, which attracts a particular type of reader who might not be the best advocate for your book. Most authors do earn the money they pay BookBub back in residual sales. There are several BookBub-like companies out there with big discount book mailing lists (and these can help you build a fan base quicker).
How can book marketing be improved?
Authors need more places to discuss their books. Can you create one?
What can we do as readers and authors?
- If a book is good, leave that book a well-written review on Amazon.
- Take a chance on books that might not have the number of reviews we usually want to see or buy a book blind without looking at the reviews.
- Email our favorite authors who are less well-known and offer to be a beta reader to help them improve their book even further with feedback before it is finished.
- If you like the "social media" or send out an end-of-year family newsletter, include what you are reading. Advocate for books in general, but also authors who people haven't heard of.
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Please join the Shepherd membership program and help fund our work to improve this situation for authors. I have a lot of ideas on how to improve things, but a lot less money. Everything you see was built with 1 part-time developer. Imagine what we can do with a full-time developer or two full-time developers. 100% of your membership goes toward new features (and improving existing ones).
If you have a blog, podcast, newsletter, or website, here is what you can do:
- Whenever you post or send something, highlight a book you love that others might not know about.
- Make it easy for authors to pitch you about their new book, and give more authors a chance to talk about what drove them to write the story and get readers interested in the author and thus their book (listen to NPR if you want to see this done by the masters). Throw in author interviews that will be interesting to your audience. Build a better book world.
- Talk more about books that intersect with whatever your podcast, book, or newsletter is about.
And we need more book websites to do more for authors.
- Goodreads has disappointed me under Amazon's leadership, and I consider them a lost cause for authors and readers. Their review system is terrible, and despite a huge headcount, they never seem to build anything useful (in fact, they are closing more and more systems).
- I would like to see new Goodreads competitors like Hardcover.app and Story Graph do more for authors. They are doing great work and spreading book love, but it would be nice to see some dedicated spots for authors who have not broken through the noise barrier. Or, some special features for authors on those platforms to engage with readers in a different way.
What can Amazon do?
- Start paying a 10% affiliate commission on ebooks, books, and audiobooks. You will never have a healthy book ecosystem if the people running it can't afford to pay the bills that create that ecosystem. Books are not like a toothbrush or powdered gravy mix; they are a crucial part of building better people and societies. It is Amazon's long-term interest to foster this ecosystem instead of viewing it like a product that must have all inefficiencies wrung out of until it is threadbare and destroyed.
- Amazon needs to allow higher book pricing and tweak its pricing structure to allow authors/publishers to raise book prices and not be punished financially. Even better would be to allow bundles at a slightly higher price point so audio books and ebooks can be bought together.
- Books haven't been inflation-adjusted in a long time, and Amazon/Publishers need to reset expectations so as not to demean the work authors do (they should be paid more) as well as cover the increased cost of paper and technology that can improve book marketing (POD and other tech).
How am I working to improve book marketing with Shepherd?
For authors, I am trying to do two things:
- Give them free ways to get themselves and their book in front of the most likely readers for that book. These will still take some of their valuable time, but I try to make the formats fun and not take more than 45 minutes (and all done through a shared love of books). As we grow in size, I want to help books with that "magic spark" get more and more exposure freely.
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I am building a platform that will grow "indie book recommenders." Much like indie bookstores, I want to help thousands of indie book recommenders get matched with readers based on their shared Book DNA (upcoming feature). In 5 years, I want to have 3,000+ indie book recommenders who each have 10,000+ hardcore followers who want to know what they are reading. This gives authors more opportunities to market their book because there are more "channels" through which it can be discovered (and those channels are personalized and trusted).
Quick video here if you want to hear the breakdown.
I've got a longer post here on our strategy and tactics for helping authors.
I will update this article as I learn more.
Thanks, Ben
Comments
13 comments
So interesting. A little deflating, especially on the low price of books! And I agree, but with all the competition I think we are a long way from getting a decent price for a book.
But the marketing advice is really interesting because everyone else I know says newsletters aren’t worth your time!
@Fiona Forsyth
Ya, the pricing is a hard one. Especially as Amazon is holding that down for the entire industry. With the price of paper, we are starting to see some movement with paper books, which might help redefine what consumers see as a fair price for a book. And I am hopeful that Amazon will fix their pricing holds at some point (and maybe the trials will put some pressure on them to do that).
Newsletters are super valuable if you are going to make them fun for the people who subscribe and connect them to you as an author. There is no better place to collect your super-fans and keep them excited about your writing. You fully own the relationship, and no platform can take it away from you.
Why did people not recommend them?
They definitely take time to do well. However, I think authors can also get away with quarterly updates.
It was something I was told by a non author, and the reason given was “They don’t work.” I took no notice because I quite like doing them and have formed a couple of nice email friendships now with readers because of them. I think they are a long term thing, and yes some subscribers will drop away as their inboxes fill up, but the core is important!
@Fiona Forsyth
Gotcha, ya I am surprised they said that. I can tell you from a marketing angle and from all my friends who run online businesses we LOVE newsletters.
Why?
We control the channel and relationship. And it is a great way for us to reach our fans, generate traffic and buzz, and build a long-term relationship with them.
Social media has this nefarious strategy where they use people to grow their channels and then slowly reduce who can see our posts and try to force us to buy ads or “boosts.” For example, you might grow a Facebook page to have 2,500 hardcore fans, and in the early days, your posts would be seen by 30% or more of them. But over time, Facebook reduced your reach so only 1% of your fans see your posts. This is a common strategy all social media companies have used, as it puts pressure on people to buy ads, which generates them income. IE, they got you to bring your fans to your platform and now are trying to make you pay to reach them (which makes me very angry). Some platforms are better than most, but even TikTok is doing this as they have grown.
Data:
https://www.trafficsoda.com/declining-organic-reach/
https://twitter.com/neilpatel/status/1738069143193317447
It is hard to see real open rates on emails now, as a lot of email clients are blocking that. So you can't really trust that number anymore.
Another strategy you can use is an email followup to those who haven't opened or clicked an email in 6 months and ask them to click if they want to keep getting the email. That way you can prune your list every so often to remove those that dropped off.
I am working toward email on Shepherd.com, we ran out our first tests with the fav 3 reads o the year and I am hoping to do more to provide readers with a way to get updates about new books from authors they love. One thing I really want is to know when an author has a new book in a series coming out, as Amazon does a poor job of this.
Best, and most balanced, article I've read on book marketing for quite a while - well done. I think newsletters are essential. I now have 1600 guaranteed fans, a significant number of whom will buy and review the next book which means I race to 100 reviews within a few weeks of publication. I also agree about Bookbub. I got over 1000 new sign-ups from that source, but most seem only interested in the freebies and they have gradually drifted away, unsubscribing at the rate of c. 10 per blog/mailshot from me over the following couple of years. Nonetheless, a minority do stick, and I gain 3 -5 new signups every week. These are genuine fans with whom an email friendship develops.
@Simon Michael
Thanks for the kind words, that is good to hear that your experiences match :)
Nice work on the newsletter, btw; that is awesome on having to springboard every launch! Thanks for sharing that on Bookbub, that is good to hear that it did land some long term fans.
Have you tried the Bookbub advertising network? Their UX is quite nice, and curious how that is performing if you have. I don't think they have much web traffic, so I am always curious if anyone is seeing significant volume from that.
Hi Ben. No, sorry, never used BookBub ads. I'm trad published, and sort of hope (albeit frequently in vain!) that the publishers will do the bulk of the marketing.
I don’t have the gen on ads, but I’ve just had a Bookbub promo - only in the UK alas.
If you just look at the Amazon rankings, it’s impressive - in 24 hours the book went from 25,585 to 214.
We shall see how that converts into things like ratings and reviews and other book sales later!
@Simon Michael - So far… I have found that traditional publishers don't do any marketing. That is a bold statement, and I could be wrong, but I've only talked with two authors whose publishers did anything. One is a big-name author so they got a LOT of support (although I didn't hear about any type of digital strategy, only publicist). The other was a children's author and the publisher does book-fairs as that is what they know (once again no digital strategy).
I haven't heard of any publishers running ads. I don't think it is in their interest as that is just cost to them and they would rather bank on the 1 in 50 books that spikes, as well as the back catalog from my POV so far (which clearly is novice when it comes to this industry and I could be very wrong).
I think Tor might be doing something decent with their content website, but I am not sure they have a strategy or goal in place, as it just seems like the normal blog mill.
@Fiona Forsyth
Nice! How did Bookbub go for you? Recoup costs plus more? Glad you got in :)
I don’t get the details - the publisher arranges it, and I work out success by looking at the rankings, ratings and reviews.
Financially, I get very little from a 99p sale. But BookBub will only feature a book in their email if it is heavily discounted. The idea is that it pays off in other ways - if people like the book they buy others, leave reviews…(not yet!)
Interestingly I’ve had two signups to my newsletter as a result, which is great.
@Fiona Forsyth - Gotcha :), nice, ya hopefully it helps get some new fans and keeps the word-of-mouth marketing rolling.
Hi Fiona. I think the key to BookBub is having a series or at least a sequel. My promotion was for a free book, the first in my series. It pushed that one to No 1 on Amazon for free ebook titles, gave me a large number of newsletter signups (many of whom have since unsubscribed), but obviously made no impact on royalties. However, within a week all the other books in the series surged up the paid rankings and I had my best royalty quarter ever.
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