Is this useful to anyone? I dunno! I just like transparency. So here’s my wrap-up for yesterday’s sale. Thanks to the organizer, Casey Blair, for putting the sale together, and all the other authors in the sale for cross-promoting.
Notes and context:
- I don’t know how it went behind the scenes, but from my end, it was super easy and smooth!
- Long list of books included, with a good number of them available wide and the rest (half? 2/3? I didn’t count) as Amazon/KU exclusives.
- Different sales use different methods of listing; this one went with all text, with the title, author, availability (Amazon only or all retailers), spice levels, a sentence-or-two description, and a list of keywords that the authors chose.
- All of the books were 99c, which I think simplified things a bit. It is good to have paperbacks and audiobooks in sales so that readers have options, but I also respect the simplicity of one price, one format.
- Seemed like lots of heteromantasy on the list, which is a huge genre, so it makes sense that that genre + cozy are like chocolate and peanut butter to a lot of folks. But! There was plenty of other stuff in the mix as well.
- Context for the stats below, if you’re new: I am a smallllllllll timer, usually selling a few hundred books a year (as of 2024; 2025 has been…complicated). My only other sale breakdown so far, for Cozy the Day Away May 2025, is here. If this seems like a small result, bear in mind that it’s fantastic for me, and everything is relative.
- I am not actually a cozy author, but there is some crossover between people who like my books and cozy readers, so I end up participating in some cozy events with copious warnings. So far, it seems like most people heed the warnings and pass on my books if it’s not what they want. Which is perfect.
What I ran in this sale:
- The stipulation for this sale was 99c for ebooks, which is just fine; that’s what I tend to run in sales anyway. My everyday price is now $4.99.
- The organizer asked about Therapist omnibus #1, so I ran that. (Note, I confirmed it was “cozy enough” for this sale first, and then added extra warnings on the book’s landing page.) If you’re new, this is the series starter for my newer series; it’s a compilation of 4 connected novellas that were originally released in Nov. 2022 – July 2023. It ends up around 160,000 words total, so it more or less functions as a fantasy novel.
- The sale was one day only, July 15, but I set my sale price for the 14th-16th because I’m always worried it won’t drop in time / go back up too early.
- As of March 2025, my ebooks are available wide, which in this case means Amazon, everywhere Draft2Digital serves, and itch.io.
How it went:
Counting the sale day and the days before and after, while the price was dropped:
- Amazon: 50 (3 day before, 41 day of, 6 day after)
- Draft2Digital: 23 (15 Kobo, 6 Smashwords, 2 Apple) * Half of the Kobo results didn’t come in till the day after, which I noticed in my last sale too. Something to remember.
- Itch.io: 5
- Total: 78
So at least two months’ worth of regular sales! I’m quite satisfied.
D2D/Smashwords note: As luck would have it, Smashwords is also running its Summer/Winter Sale right now, so I think that might have helped. Regardless, glad to see it!
Overall, a good experience, and one I’d recommend if you’re in the genre as a reader or author.