Foundation Monitoring

As I prepare for the release of book three of The Rozzers series, I like to keep an eye on what's happening with the previous two books.

Passive Marketing

As you may know, End of the Road is permanently free, and links through to the second book in the series, Cops Don't Run (0.99c). That is all the marketing I do, nothing more. This I call passive marketing (it is visible on my FB page, blog etc). I don't do active marketing (or very little, and only occasionally). If only I had the time!

So, how are the books doing?

Downloads

End of the Road has been downloaded nearly 7,000 times in the last 16 months, and has never been off the #1 spot in various categories (that's over 100 copies per week). Success? I think so, although obviously I don't earn anything from it, but then that is not my intention with this book.

End of the Road on Amazon UK (today)

Sales

Since Cops Don't Run was published in Nov 2013, it has sold 250 copies (approx 10 per week). Again, it is not actively promoted. For the first few months I was selling one copy per day. The last few months that has doubled to two copies per day. The majority of these sales are conversions from book one readers (they liked what they read in the free book and decided to go on and buy book 2) - this was my marketing plan all along.

Conversion rate

The interesting thing is that as downloads for book one show a slight decline over the last few months, purchases of book two seem to be increasing. In January, the conversion rate was 13.2 copies of EotR for every one copy of CdR bought. That rate has steadily improved, and is currently at 6.1 free copies downloaded for every one copy purchased.

 

 

Publishing

My mum, and #1 fan

As actual sales have steadily increased since January (now selling 2.2 copies per day, up from 1.2 in Jan), it would seem to be a good time to publish the third part, as I believe that the 250 buyers of book 2 will want to buy book 3 as well. If I can get them all to buy it on the release date, the book should get pushed high up the charts.

To achieve this, I plan to use the preorder option with Amazon and Smashwords, and of course announce its availability on my ever-increasing newsletter, Twitter, FB and blog.

I will also tell my mum, as she tells everybody and anybody back in my home town!