Kindle Queen for a Day

On April 30th, Above World was advertised on Amazon as the Kindle Teens Daily Deal, and the price was reduced to $1.99. Here’s what happened.

A few weeks ago, my publicist at Candlewick let me know that Above World had been selected. I have no idea how that process worked, only that we were all excited. I wasn’t allowed to say anything until the actual day of the sale. So I made a graphic, grinned quietly in the privacy of my own home, and waited.

My graphic, based off a graphic I’d seen for Sarah Prineas’ Winterling:

I made the ad because I thought it would be more arresting if it were shared on Facebook than a simple picture of my cover, which people see all the time. Also, I thought it was important to put the date in big letters so it wouldn’t continue to be retweeted or shared after the sale was over. And really, I just like making graphics and this seemed like a good excuse.

At the beginning of the day, Above World‘s Kindle sales rank was sixty bazillion. I wish I’d taken a screenshot, because I’m not even exaggerating. (Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. But my rank was a Very Large Number.) The Amazon ranks seemed to update every few hours, so this is the first bump I noticed when I woke up in the morning:

I was already thrilled. A 4-digit rank overall was better than my little book had ever seen. If the day had ended there, I would have been happy.

But my amazing friends kept tweeting and posting on Facebook, and Amazon’s legion of Kindle deal-obsessed were not sated. By the end of the day, here’s where Above World stood:

Above World was #1 in all paid Children’s ebooks, and #196 overall. Here’s the pretty picture with book covers:

What a ride! I don’t think I made that much money in royalties — it’s a few hundred extra copies at a greatly reduced rate — but what I’m really hoping for is a bit less obscurity. I still believe that discoverability is the greatest challenge facing any new author, and that perhaps a few more people will recognize my book now, having seen it splashed across a few more Amazon pages.

Thanks so much to everyone who helped me publicize the sale. When all is said and done, it was the outpouring of friendship and support that I’ll remember most from this day.

ADDENDUM: I had nothing to do with this. The Kindle Daily Deal machine is a powerful force, and I’m not even sure it matters which book is selected for the rankings bump. I also doubt there is any long-term affect on sales. It was just fun to experience.