Hi All!

As promised, here are the results of my purchase push experiment. For those of you unfamiliar with my experiment, on February 1st, the e-book edition of my second book, Once a Good Girl…, was released here in the U.S. And I thought if I could get everyone who was thinking of buying it to purchase it on the same day, the sales might push the book onto one of Amazon’s or Barnes and Noble’s bestseller lists where it would garner the attention of readers unfamiliar with me and/or medical romance and lead to increased sales.

What I did:

1) 10 days before the release I began tweeting about my experiment twice a day with a link to my blog where I had a post explaining my experiment. (Thank you to all my wonderful friends who re-tweeted my tweets to expand my reach!)

2) I hired a tweeting service ($28.00) to tweet about my release with links to purchase for Kindle and Nook, twice per day for seven days starting on Monday, January 30th. With their tweeting and re-tweeting from several of their accounts, I expanded my reach by at least 10,000 Twitter followers. They also posted my book with links on their blog and Facebook page. (One problem, the person doing the tweeting had a family emergency and did not tweet at all the day prior to my release. Stuff happens…nothing you can do.)

3) I hired the lovely Nas Dean to assist with promo for Once a Good Girl… for the months of January and February.

4) I did posts about my experiment and posts on release day with links for purchase on my personal, Harlequin, and Goodreads blogs.

5) I announced my experiment, and on release day posted links for purchase, on my Facebook author page and shared on my personal page. (Thank you to my friends who also shared on their FB pages!)

6) On release day, I blogged at the lovely Christine Glover’s blog and sent e-mails to the HVRWA, GIAMX4, and HeartbeatRWA loops I am on.

And then I stalked Amazon and Barnes and Noble to watch my sales rankings, and Novel Rank to see how many books (based on estimation of Amazon sales rankings) I sold. And I waited. And waited. And waited for some movement in the numbers. I received no less than two dozen responses from friends that they’d purchased my book. And still…no movement in my numbers.

Here are my results: And for those of you unfamiliar with sales rankings on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, the numbers are not the number of books you sold (unfortunately) but how your sales rank in comparison to all the other books for sale on their site. You want your number to be low, because the lower your number, the closer you are to #1 bestseller!

2/1/12 Rankings for Once a Good Girl… e-book edition in U.S.

12:01 a.m.  Amazon  96,029  Novel Rank  0  B&N  247,313

08:00 a.m. Amazon  49,535  Novel Rank  0  B&N  275,163

12:00 p.m. Amazon  25,342  Novel Rank   1  B&N  275,163

04:00 p.m. Amazon  15,080  Novel Rank  2  B&N  275,163

08:00 p.m. Amazon   7,257   Novel Rank   4  B&N  275, 163

11:59 p.m. Amazon   8,601    Novel Rank   6   B&N  275,163

And, my popularity ranking for Harlequin Medical Romance e-books stayed steady at #16. Once a Good Girl… did not move at all. 

So…after all my hard work, and receiving no fewer than two dozen responses from friends that they purchased my book on February 1st, my B&N numbers didn’t move at all (and I knew for certain I’d sold at least one e-book because I made my husband download my book to his Nook!) And according to Novel Rank, I sold a total of 6 – yes, I said 6 – books on Amazon U.S. (And one of those sales came directly to MY Kindle!)

At first glance it looked like my experiment was a total failure. That I’d wasted my time and badgered my friends and followers, and I must admit I was a bit, okay, overwhelmingly disappointed.

But then I came to a few conclusions:

1) I don’t believe Amazon updates their sales rankings every hour like they say they do. At least not for Harlequin medical romance books. (And FYI, as of day three after release, Once a Good Girl… rose to #3 in popularity of medical romance books! – Thank you!)

2) It seems Barnes and Noble only adjusts sales rankings once per day (some time after midnight)  – so all the frequent checks I’ve been doing over the past few months have been for nothing. (And I’d like to point out here, on day 1 after release my B&N ranking dropped to 103,549, day 2 it dropped to 86,843, and day 3 it dropped to 80,507. Which means people did, in fact, buy my book, just like they’d said they did! – Thank you!)

3) Maybe all the authors who’ve said Novel Rank is not an accurate indicator of sales are correct. (And for the record, the Novel Rank site makes it clear that their numbers are estimates. But until compiling my data for this experiment, and comparing the number of books my friends told me they purchased on Amazon U.S. on February 1st, I had no idea just how much they underestimated!)

4) Pushing Once a Good Girl… increased sales of my first book, When One Night Isn’t Enough! And, whether related or unrelated, there was a jump in my UK sales, as well. (Again, thank you!)

So that’s it. Once a Good Girl… did not make any bestseller lists here in the U.S. But I still hold out hope that some day one of my books will. Thank you all for your help and support with this endeavor. If nothing else, I’ve learned that obsessing over the numbers is a waste of time. And trust me when I tell you, this is an extremely valuable lesson for me – who probably, prior to today, checked my sales rankings a dozen or so times a day. I am now cured of that addiction!!! And now I can spend more time writing!