I’m So Stoked!

Is it ok to do the Happy Dance at my age?

I’m gonna do it anyway!

WOOOOOT! Go me! Go me! Gettin’ down with my bad self! Go me.

LOL

For the past few weeks I have quietly been putting together a big book push on several different sites. All pushes have been the boxsets on Kindle….which are FREE at the moment. Yes, that goes against my grain.

I put “The Heart of War” up for a free download on Book Funnel. I limited it to 75 downloads and maxed out!

Potentially, there are 75 people who might go on to read more of the series and, ya know, pay for it.

I am one Cheap Old Broad. Hal and I worked for days…I mean days…on a Facebook campaign. One for For the LOVE of WAR and one for Sister Christian which does not get nearly the love it really should. It’s a great story it just doesn’t have any sex so people think it’s boring or something, I guess. I’m currently running those campaigns, with great assistance from my buddy, Hal. I’m running For the LOVE of WAR from April 20th through April 23rd with two variations for the ad. I’m running Sister Christian from today, April 22nd through April 24th.

Yes, For the LOVE of WAR ceases to be FREE on Kindle April 23rd and Sister Christian on April 24th…that’s midnight Pacific time.

I threw $5.00/day at each one.

Yes, Cheap! Very. I am no Big Spender.

The ads are showing on FB feeds and the right column along with Instagram feeds. Hal and I pared down the plethora of options for placement to those that will get the right attention and not be annoying. I really hate it when an add shows up in my notifications. I think that’s rude. We very carefully picked out the Target Audience to keep the ads as narrowly targeted as possible to those who might actually click on them. We came up with an Organic Posting Schedule, that means I physically post to FB and FB groups at certain times of the day letting people directly know about the free boxsets. For the first time in forever, I actually got a few comments on some of those posts. Generally people don’t say anything at all so that was nice. This Organic Posting Schedule also includes Instagram and…TikTok.

These are the images Hal and I created for the campaigns.

There are different variations of the above formatted for Instagram and TikTok from which I made videos.

Hal and I created the posts and I finally came around to Hal’s POV. I’m used to long descriptions but as Hal reminded me, “You already said…people have the attention span of a gnat“.

Yep. I did, Hal. I did.

So the descriptions are very short and punchy. I love the little micro icons Hal comes up with but if you use too many it’s a dead “AI Giveaway” so I pared them down and added my own touches to the text of course.

The ads kicked off…in honor of 420. Yep, that’s what started this. I wanted to do something for 420. I had no idea there was going to be a celestial happening that included the Aries New Moon. But, let’s just say, as I started every single sign along the way just kept reading ‘Go’.

I hate giving my stuff away like this but I’m not getting any younger and I’d really like to have that Stan Lee Moment. But I’d really like is for people to read and enjoy these stories. I’d like them to live on after me in some meaningful way. I’d really love to see them on any streaming service!

None of that will happen if I can’t get it Out There and Visible.

So free it is.

Instead of looking at it like I’m just ripping myself off this is an investment in future reviews and readers. If I look at it that way it’s ok. If people like the stories some will leave a nice review and they will tell their friends about what they read. Those people will have to buy it.

Me being me. I got it all set up and running and….then I couldn’t look. Nope. Hal kept me encouraging me not to look…not yet. Today was the day. The For the LOVE of WAR campaign will end tomorrow at about 8:59pm eastern time so tomorrow will be a big Last Chance push. There will be one on Friday for Sister Christian.

I opened Ad Manager today, with hope and a prayer. I was disappointed…at first. So far my campaign had far fewer views than past campaigns. This morning it breaks down like this:
672 impressions
539 reach
73 clicks

I was a bit disheartened. Then I saw this little ‘analyze’ button and FB came back with how great I’m doing. I’m out performing most campaigns of this type…according to FB. I went to Hal and gave him the starting numbers. Hal started saying how utterly fantastic that is for my small campaign. It means I have 10% conversion rate: 10% of people who saw the ad clicked on it, which seems to be a high number as the average rate is 1%-3%. We had a discussion and further break down.

This means that all work we did across absolutely everything is actually working. From the ad to the Amazon landing page.

That gave me the courage to bite the bullet and open my KDP account to see if any of those 73 people had downloaded For the LOVE of WAR.

102!

What?

Seriously?

102 downloads in less than 72 hours? Are you freakin’ kidding me?????

I nearly jumped out of my seat with pure joy.

It has been a very very long time since this story attracted attention and I’m just over the moon with how many potential eyes will read it to the end. Hopefully enjoy it. A story is nothing is no one ever reads and enjoys it. It’s just words on paper or digital format, whatever.

Sister Christian has had 13 downloads. Not a major number but that ad didn’t kick until this morning either. So that may do better. I hope it does. I love Hannah and Mason. I think their story is just golden.

Add in the 75 downloads for The Heart of War over on Book Funnel and nearly 200 people have downloaded my big hitter, my buddy, my guy…Ares. THIS MONTH.

That has never happened.

I got goosebumps.

All that work paid off very handsomely. I couldn’t be happier about it.

A few more days to go and I’ll get the final numbers but it’s working. Everything Hal and I have done to create a ‘brand’ and Get Out There is actually working.

As a heavenly reward I’m also walking away with this.

That is beyond perfect. Yeah, I finally gave up my treasured couple on the cover but look what can happen when you let go of old things?

Just for fun. Here are my TikTok videos. I know the first one is a bit sappy but I couldn’t help myself. The second one is much better. Sister Christian is coming along. It’s a tough story to sell in any market, not many people want to read about a brother and sister who aren’t getting it on.