Survey Post—Open Book Blog Hop

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This week we’re doing a statistics post, so I decided to revisit an old post pf mine. 


I’ve not had much luck with paid advertising, and as a result. I’m always shy about doing it. My last book launch, I hired a company to arrange a blog tour for me. They warned me up front they wouldn’t guarantee sales, I should look at it as a way to get my name out there. It was good they made the statement, because I didn’t see a jump in sales on any day I was featured on a blog stop.

But I’ve been hearing good things about RobinReads in various groups I’m a part of, and decided to give it a try. The cost was withing my budget, and I wanted to see if it would increase sales.

First off, it was incredibly easy to sign up. Their criteria for accepting a book is posted and easy to understand. Here’s what the sign-up page says is their criteria for a listing:



All the information they need is included in their short and simple sign up form. I got an email accepting my submission within a couple of days. Once I’d paid for my ad via PayPal, there was nothing else for me to do except to wait for the day it ran. (Saturday, May 3rd)

When I checked the web page early in the morning, I was disappointed to see my book was listed at the bottom of the page.I worried that the readers wouldn’t see it. I was wrong.

I’d thought about tracking sales hour by hour, but that didn’t work out. So here’s the statistics I have. All times listed are Mountain Time.

           9:00 AM      3 books sold (All in the UK. The rest of the days sales were from the US)
        12:00  PM     19 total books sold
           2:00 PM     31 books
           5:00 PM     36 books
           6:00 PM     39 books
           7:00 PM     46 books
           8:00 PM     47 books
            9:00 PM    51 books

And that was the last sale I saw while I was up. One more copy was sold overnight, bringing the total to 52 books. The one thing I didn’t do was track my Amazon sales rank from the beginning. The highest my book ranked 5755 in the overall paid books. 

So I made the cost of the ad back with some to spare. As the book I listed is the first in a series, I’m hoping that selling it cheaply will result in sales of the second book. So far, I haven’t seen that happen, but I still have my fingers crossed.

So now to the important question—would I use RobinReads again? And the answer is yes, absolutely. It may not have propelled me into any top 100 lists, but it certainly introduced me to some new readers.

So that was the old post. Now for some updated information. RobinReads has upped their prices, and I’d have to sell a lot more books to break even. The sales of the collection Stories of Sun, Sand and Sea jumped when we advertised with RobinReads, putting us into the top 100 in Amazon sales in several categories, although not in the overall Amazon standings. I believe this is the right image of that day:

So would I still advertise with RobinReads? The answer is a big yes, even though I didn’t see the hoped-for bleed over into sales of my other books. Maybe next time!

To find out what other authors are sharing this week, check out the links below.

August 8 – Survey Post/Statistics Post – Collect some data or do a bit of research and share the results. Highlight key takeaways, important findings, or ways to implement the new information.
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use ‪#‎OpenBook‬ when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
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