In case you missed the memo, I made Abandonment Party free to download from July 31st to August 4th. And if you are one of the people that downloaded the book let me start out by saying THANK YOU. I didn’t write this story so that I could keep it to myself. I want to reach out to individuals. I want to give you something fun to read as a temporary escape from society. (I’m a recluse, but I’ve heard society is quite annoying lately.) And yes, more books in the series are coming. Kim is reading over the sequel as I type this.

If you liked the book, don’t forget to leave reviews on Amazon. People can’t make an informed choice with only two reviews! I mean, YOU did, but the book was free, ha,ha.

Or even better, come here and use the comments to tell me what I can do to make the next book EVEN MORE AMAZING. What do you want to see more of? What did I do wrong? I can improve on my own, but if you criticize me, I can improve faster! Or heck, if you spot a typo I can just go and fix the ebook right now! Isn’t technology grand?

But I digress! Let’s get back to how I set up this free promotion. As I said in the previous post, I cranked up the ad money so that more people on Amazon would see the book. And yet I wondered if there was more I could do to spread the word. That’s when I found this blog post:

https://carminemastropierro.com/how-to-promote-a-kindle-book-for-free/

Turns out this guy had the same idea I did! Zounds, we must be geniuses. I’ll sum up the article: there are places called “Facebook” and “Reddit.” (Yes I’ve heard of them, I’m just saying that for the people coming here 100 years in the future. Gotta think of them.) There are groups on those sites where people go to look for free books. Fascinating, right? I’m normally an internet recluse as well, but I made an account and dropped some posts. And here are the results:

• 222 people downloaded Abandonment Party.
• 57 of those people clicked on an ad from Amazon.
• Many of these ad clicks came from people searching the keywords ‘science fiction,’ ‘post-apocalyptic,’ and ‘free.’
• Most of the downloads happened on the weekend. Then they steadily dropped until Wednesday, where they were lowest.
• One click came from someone searching ‘Christian science fiction.’ He got the book anyway. (I do mention God in my author bio. Do you think he meant ‘Christian authors?’ I’d hate to exploit my beliefs for ad clicks, but if people are searching… Oh, what a moral quandary! What would Solomon do!?)
• That last person on my marketing page list was searching for ‘ninja fantasy.’ This person clicked an ad AFTER the free period—and they bought the book at full price! I guess he saw Dark on the cover and thought he was a ninja?

Ninjas just stand around in wheat fields, right?

Ninjas aside, there’s some good data here! I can narrow down my keywords some more. And save all my ‘free days’ for weekends next time. It also seems that blog dude was right; Reddit and Facebook groups can bring in the goods!

But for now I’m turning the ads way down until I get more reviews. How long will it take this ‘free batch’ to read the book, I wonder? I see that one of the Kindle Unlimited readers is almost done: they were at page 375 when I checked this morning.

Hey, whoever you are, come here and talk to me! Even if you want to rant about something! I promise I won’t take it personally…. 😅