Buzz Page Case Study

I love the thrill that comes from writing a book, of getting it edited. Then I love the formatting, making it look gorgeous and the cover art that wraps it all up in sexiness. I even enjoy the feedback that comes from the readers that love my books with every review that is left.

I've never been much of a marketer. I find it hard to actually promote myself.

So, I'm left with the issue of how do I find those readers to enjoy the work I have spent so much time on?

I've previously ran preorders with Amazon KDP, the greatest success I ever had was 15 preorders, and that was my first use of the option. I put An Unexpected Revelation: Book Two of The Unexpected Trilogy up for preorder last year, I was bummed to only gain 4 preorders. Sales have done better for the title since, but only just.

I was given the opportunity to join a mini course on Buzz Pages with Zero Alchemy. I pulled up my shirt sleeves and gave it my all. What harm could it do to try something a little different to promote my final in my Unexpected Trilogy?

Using the Buzz Page information from Rebecca Hamilton of Zero Alchemy I decided I would give preorders another chance and run with it for An Unexpected Hellhound: Book Three of The Unexpected Trilogy. I also made the decision that I would set my preorder up for 99c - a sale price against it's actual selling price of $4.99.

I then had to promote my buzz page - yet somehow it was easier to share on blogger posts and in reader groups that I had awesome giveaways for everyone to enter.

I had a very limited budget. So, I kept myself to sharing on social media, and setting up a few newsletter swaps to promote my buzz page.

I found I had a HUGE increase of preorders, as you can see just here.

Yet I was running giveaways - and the numbers of entries for the giveaways on the Buzz Page, they didn't actually tally up to the preorders.

So, what else made the difference?

I also used a couple of paid newsletter promotions for An Unexpected Mating: Prequel to The Unexpected Trilogy - a perma free title, which generated some big downloads - or promotions of An Unexpected Bonding: Book One of The Unexpected Trilogy. It's hard to judge whether the money invested in those promotions has been returned, because downloads of a FREE book don't generate sales straight away - although I did find there were a boost in sales of the rest of my series on the days of the free promos.

I used five different newsletter promotion services, and found varying results in all five of these services. Since they all ran pretty close together, it was a little harder to define which service had the best success - although I have narrowed it down to two newsletter services that I will use again, Book Rebel and Fussy Librarian.