Was it worth it?

Last week I decided I was going to give Amazon‘s KDP (Kindle Direct Program) a try. I have been following the journey of other indie authors who participated and had good responses from it all. I figured, for 90 days I could give it a go. It’s not like my sales have been sky rocketing so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

I picked my first two free promo days and did some researching for sites that would help me promote those free days for free (I like free, don’t you?). There was a slight stumble in the days I chose. I’m still not sure if I accidentally picked the wrong days or if Amazon changed a day on me, but it doesn’t really matter now. Anyhow so everything’s set and this past Saturday the promo started.

I became a bit obsessive with refreshing my pages, watching the totals rise and the ranking head closer and closer to breaking into that top 100 list.  I admit, it was pretty exciting. I woke up on Sunday morning to find I broke the top 100 and was in the top 5 on both the Children’s Love &  Romance and Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Magic lists. Woo exciting!

It was surprising to see how many copies I had given away. I continued to watch on Sunday, waiting to see when things would slow down, but they really didn’t.  That’s when the panic set in. Holy crap, would there be anyone left interested in buying it after giving away so many copies? Would I ever sell even half as many as I given away? The worst? I stupidly decided to calculate how much money I would have made from royalties had I sold as many books as I gave away.  It was enough money to buy a car. A freakin’ car people! Which I really kind of need.  That’s when the depression started kicking in.

After the promo ended, I had to watch my ranking slip back up as well. I expected it, but still, not so fun see. Also, after the promo ended, there were about 30 people who purchased the book. 15 returned it. I’m guessing they still thought it was free and I kind of expected that as well, but it was made me frown.

So now what happens? I wait to see if it did any good. If nothing more, I’ve got almost 4,500 people who know my name, or at least the name of my book. I’ve got 4,500 people who thought my back cover blurb or cover illustration was interesting enough for them to want to download the book.  Scariest part? I know I’ve probably got a lot of reviews coming and I’m holding my breath waiting for the unpleasant ones. I’m sure there will be some because I know it won’t be to everyone’s taste and  some will robably have me crying in a corner.  It’ll build character, right?

Overall, even without knowing how sales will be, I think I can be happy about the amount of people it reached. Maybe when the next book comes out those people will remember my name and be more likely to purchase it. Maybe all these people will want the sequel when it’s published.  It’s a gamble, I suppose, as well as a bit of an emotional roller coaster, but I think it was worth a try.