Here are Special Agent Francesca’s results for June and July!!
I have been consistently promoting my first book of the Undercover FBI series, which is a Romantic Suspense called Special Agent Francesca. I wanted to see whether continuous marketing would keep the book active and what the cost/profit ratio would be.
Obviously, if it costs more to advertise a book than what the book is earning back, a person has to look at the pluses from another angle:
– Will those readers buy my other books?
– Will the expected reviews be favorable and eventually cause more sales?
– Can you justify the expense by considering it as a promotion for the coming books of the series?
Listed below are the expenses and income for the months of June & July. Check out the dates for when the Ranking was the highest and then see the promotion I used during that time. I was going to add in the month of Aug to date but I didn’t have the earnings. Just so you know, I continued with 9 promotions to date and at this time, the book is ranking on Amazon at #1,699. It peaked at #275 on Aug 19th during a Book Bub promotion.
These are the June and July promotions:
June 5th – Bassett Books – $21.99
June 14th – eReader News – 25% of sales = $22.18
June 21st – E-Book Habit – $19
June 28th – Digital Book Today – $30
June 29th – Bargain Booksey – $50
July 4th – eBook Booster – $25
July 5th – Read Cheaply – free
July 12th – Facebook Boost – $15
Total Cost – $183.17
The highest rank I achieved in June was: June 15th – #175
And in July it was: July 6th – #4,838
During this period I sold:
June for 35% – 1,104 books = earnings – $342.05
June for 70% – 315 books = earnings – $131.25
July for 35% – 130 books = earnings – $424.10
July for 70% – 178 books = earnings – $475.72
Total Earnings – $1373.1
By these results, it’s more than obvious that my advertising expenses were covered. In fact, the total expenses of the book (editing, cover, paperback and formatting) had been dealt with in the first few months after the book was released in April. June was my first month of profit.
I’m sorry not to be able to compile the same information from the other venues this book is now available on but they wouldn’t compare to Amazon anyway. Many of the promoter’s sign-up forms are just now making the adverts available for other markets like B&N, Apple and Kobo, etc. Soon, they all will and so we’ll see an increase in sales there also. Since this book has only been made available on those sites recently, I don’t expect huge profits – YET!!
The one breakdown I wouldn’t want to make just yet is the author’s wages. LOLOLOL…sniff!!!
Hi Mimi,
You are so generous with your information, thank you. I recognize that sniff! Were there tears behind it? I know the feeling, not hours or days but months and years of writing, writing, editing, polishing. But we love it, right?
Good for you. Sylvie Grayson