The Smashwords e-book sale week is now ended. Hexenfire, discounted 50% (ie to about 75p) got a handful of sales and a couple of dozen sample downloads. Tinderspark continues to trickle away as a free e-book. So I decided to discount 100% on Hexenfire in the last 24 hours of the promotion. Boom - downloads shot up to over 20 by this morning and Tinderspark took a generous spike too.
So: people will take a punt on Hexenfire if it's free. To test this, I've decided to market Hexenfire at 99c/70p for a while, see if any of the Tinderspark interest trickles over. If not, Hex will have to go 'free' as well.
I don't mind giving the books away for free. On Smashwords, people are clearly FINDING them and Tinderspark gets 0-5 (typically 2-3) downloads as day. Of course, when people download a free book, you don't know whether they're READING it or not. Maybe they just hoover up free books, store them on their tablets or e-readers for a holiday or long journey. Maybe they read the opening page and think "Nope!"
Meanwhile, on Amazon, neither book turns up on a search of the most popular 400 Historical Fantasies. Just not enough sales and no way of increasing them if the book can't be found. "It's a trap!" as Admiral Akbar said, so insightfully. I've some hope that boosting the number of reviews into double figures might get the books visible on searches by 'ratings'. Failing that, they are in Amazon Oblivion.
So what next? Well, if Tinder & Hex are going to end up as freebies on Smashwords, they may at least slowly build a fanbase. Perhaps when Gallowsflame emerges blinking in the summer there will be readers waiting for it. Anyone reading this can do me the huge-est favour by helping lay the groundwork - go to Amazon or Smashwords or Goodreads and slap in a star-rating (5 is best: my own father rated me 4-stars and he expects me to look after him in his wobbly years!) or even better, a simple 1-sentence review.
The most depressing thing is not the failure to make money. No, I'm still writing for the love of it. It's the lack of response - the feeling you've dropped two books down a well but not even heard them splash. At least Pippin heard drums in the deep! Maybe I should throw myself in next time...
So, before Gallowsflame is underway, I'm cheering myself up with a different project: a historical horror novel with lashings of uber-violence and weird sex. May have to publish under a pseudonym if I want to keep my job. No, seriously.