Hey, look, Ma - I’m a #1 Amazon Best Seller!
Well … kinda.

And not just in the 45-Minute Science Fiction & Fantasy category, either. Look at these Amazon Best Seller Ranks (BSR’s) for my title, Eyes of Memory.

I’m enjoying a lot of visibility in three critical categories. The book is being splashed in front of thousands of people looking at best-seller lists on Amazon at this very moment. Hurrah! I’ve overcome the long tail!

But how did I do this? And how much did it cost?

In previous posts, I’ve written about the Amazon Sales Cycle and how the Amazon referral engine responds to positive feedback loops. When Amazon sees your title moving in traffic and sales, it does its best to promote it to others. More sales, more feedback.

Every month, I give away a story I’ve published on Amazon for five days. I market that giveaway using my email mailing list, social media (Facebook and Instagram), and Bookdoggy.com. I used a promo code Bookdoggy is running until May 10, to lower their $24/listing to a $12/listing.

That generated a bunch of freebie sales for the title, launching the referral engine. A freebie sale is a sale in Amazon’s algo, which pushed my title to the top of these lists.

But my strategy isn’t just to be read for free and forgotten. Here’s a breakdown of last two days:

Here, you can see that the freebie inspired additional impulse buys from my catalog, but take a look at last month’s results:

What’s important is seeing how the freebie offering inspired more commercial sales from other titles and more KENP reads. I’m finding that the wider my catalog and offerings, the more sales and KENP reads follow the monthly freebie promotion.

When running a similar campaign, look for secondary effects like your website metrics to shift. Here, I got a jump from my regular traffic to my website, increasing brand + product visibility.

Beyond just visits, I want to make sure that the landing page for the title I’m featuring is receiving the new traffic. Checking my engagement numbers, that’s exactly what I’m seeing. Eyes of Memory is the second-most frequented page on the site, behind the main page (Portfolio).

Here’s the takeaway:

1. A freebie sales strategy combined with a social and newsletter strategy can help temporarily boost your BSR.

2. It gives you premium visibility in the category, putting you in front of potential readers for a short time.

3. If your title converts an Amazon shopper, they may return to your catalog to purchase more titles at their regular price.

4. If your title is enrolled in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (KU) program, the campaign may create a buzz that attracts new KU readers.

5. More readers that come to your website is an upsell opportunity, but also, a funnel/capture opportunity. Maybe they’ll subscribe to you, or follow you on social media. Those secondary effects are just as important as sales.

Alas, the results are fleeting. I’ll only be at the top of these lists for a few days while my promotion runs, and, gradually, by the hour, my number one will slip away and send the title back into BSR obscurity.

Still, after this, I hope to see more commercial unit sales and KEMP reads, social media likes or follows, website visits, and newsletter subscriptions. That will help improve my numbers for the next campaign.

You can do this, too!

R