CASE
STUDY:
HOW ONE AUTHOR
BOOSTED HIS SALES FROM
$20 TO $3,000 PER MONTH
YOURFI RST 10K R EA D ER S.COM
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
I HAD THE PLEASURE OF WORKING
WITH MYSTERY AUTHOR MICHEAL MAXWELL
AS PART OF AN ANTHOLOGY WE AND SIX
OTHER AUTHORS PUT TOGETHER IN 2013.
Micheal has been writing novels for years, and
spent a long time querying agents and sending off
manuscripts before deciding to self-publish.
As so many new authors experience when starting
out, Micheal struggled to find a readership early on.
Despite glowing reviews, professional editing, stellar
formatting, some great covers, and some enticing
product descriptions, the books just weren’t finding
their market.
Micheal and I decided to take a closer look at what might be causing
the problem. All the usual boxes were ticked, but, for some reason, his
series was getting lost in the sea of other titles.
After a quick glance over his back catalogue, I recommended we make
a few tweaks to ensure his books were showing up where readers were
actually looking.
THE RESULTS
WERE PRETTY PHENOMENAL.
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
HERE’S MICHEAL’S EXPERIENCE,
IN HIS OWN WORDS:
I
currently have five books
available. The Cole Sage
Series is my main focus.
There are four volumes
available in the series at present.
For quite a while I found it difficult being
comfortable in a genre. Although Cole
Sage solves mysteries and gets caught up
in exciting situations, I saw mysteries in the
traditional Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, classic sense whodunnits.
Thrillers tend to be more violent, bloody and fun to read but that didn’t
fit Cole either. Cole is a newspaper man that always gets dragged into
somebody else’s mess. He isn’t a character of huge vices or addictions.
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
No shady past, just a regular guy with a ferocious sense of fair play, right
and wrong, and making the bad guys answer for their crimes.
From the reviews and feedback, it seems the ladies love him, and the
guys wish they were more like him.
The target market is pretty broad. I have purposely kept the profanity,
and sex at a PG-13 rating. I believe there is a market for books of this
nature.
Look at John Grisham. Women have really responded to the character
and stories. But, so have the mystery/thriller/suspense crowd. So, it
seems I’m still finding my way.
“Three Nails” my book outside the Cole Sage Series
is a book of loss, redemption, grief, healing and
high school. It has a very spiritual core but is not an
overtly Christian novella.
I didn’t want it stuck in the Contemporary Christian
fiction because that is not the target audience. I
really aimed this book at people who have lost a
child, teachers, and people questioning their faith. I
don’t make this easy on myself!
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
HOW MANY BOOKS WAS HE SELLING,
ON AVERAGE, BEFORE HE IMPLEMENTED
THE 10K READERS SYSTEM?
B
eing a fairly new author, I was still building a fan
base.
The first few times my Cole Sage book “Diamonds and Cole” was
offered free there was a real uptick in sales.
• February and March saw a combined total of 231 free copies
downloaded over 5 days.
• Sales totaled 60 units across all the other books that month.
• In April and May there were no promotions that worked! I paid
money, but got ZERO results.
• Instead of Free, I tried 99 cents. April sales were 24 copies across all
5 books and in May that dropped to a measly 12 copies in total!
PRETTY DISHEARTENING.
THAT WAS MY LOWEST MONTH EVER.
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
DID HE NOTICE MUCH EFFECT AFTER HE
ADOPTED THE 10K READERS SYSTEM?
O
n June 30th two things happened. We changed
the keywords to represent seven different search
terms, tied in to some specific genres that were
selling well. And we also took a look at what
categories my books were listed under.
The second thing that happened, and this still is
a mystery to me, was we put Diamonds and Cole
(the first book in the series) on sale for free.
Both changes happened in the wee hours of
June 30.
AT THE END OF THE FIRST
24 HOURS THERE WERE
2,596 DOWNLOADS
OF DIAMONDS AND COLE!
THAT’S MORE THAN 10 TIMES THE NUMBERS
I SAW PREVIOUSLY, ALL IN THE FIRST DAY.
I was dumbfounded to say the least. Nothing had changed except the
keywords. NOTHING other than that.
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
No promotional blogs, webpage features, CNN interviews, million
Twitter marches, NOTHING! Compared to the 231 free downloads
I managed to give away over a five-day promotion last time, the
difference was astounding.
AS A RESULT,
TOTAL DOWNLOADS OF DIAMONDS AND COLE
EXCEEDED 17,000 IN A LITTLE UNDER 4 WEEKS
WITHOUT INVESTING IN ANY PROMOTION
WHATSOEVER.
All we did was change the keywords and spend a bit of time thinking
about categories – meaning more readers were able to find my books.
Thanks to the boost in free downloads, thousands of readers were
checking out my work – and buying my full-priced titles.
I ALSO HAD
OVER 1,000 PEOPLE SIGN UP TO MY MAILING
LIST (MEANING I COULD LET THEM KNOW
ABOUT
NEW RELEASES LATER ON).
And things got even better! A month later I made $3,000 in combined
sales from Amazon, Nook, iTunes, and Kobo – now I can’t wait to get
more books out!
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
THIS IS A GREAT STORY.
I think it’s awesome when writers (or any
artists, for that matter) start to find their
audience.
SOMETIMES,
ALL IT TAKES IS A LITTLE
TWEAK HERE AND THERE
FOR MAXIMUM EFFECT.
Micheal’s experience was similar to mine - I had been running one of my
novels on permafree for several weeks, to very little effect, before I took
some time to understand how readers find books on Amazon and the
other sites.
I IMMEDIATELY SAW A MASSIVE INCREASE
IN FREE DOWNLOADS,
REACHING THE TOP 100 IN THE U.S.
AND THE TOP 15 IN THE U.K.
WITHOUT PAYING A PENNY
IN ADVERTISING OR PROMOTION.
I also saw a ton of extra sales on my paid books, both from people who
had read the free title, and from those finding the paid books as they
shot up the bestseller lists. The difference was astounding.
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
To put some figures on Micheal’s experience, he made an extra $800
almost immediately, and quickly grew that to $3,000 a month – just
from taking some time to understand how Amazon’s recommendation
engine works, and optimizing his books to take advantage. This is what
Micheal’s sales looked like before and after the change:
I THINK THE GRAPH SPEAKS FOR ITSELF!
THANKS AGAIN TO MICHEAL FOR
BEING KIND ENOUGH TO SHARE HIS FIGURES
AND HIS EXPERIENCE.
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
ARE YOU READY TO BOOST
YOUR BOOK’S SALES?
I
f you’d like to find out what we did to
boost sales of Micheal’s books – go
check out the first video in my free
video training (there’s a link in the first
email I sent you after you signed up and
confirmed your email address).
Then, over the next week or so, I’ll be
sending you two more videos that will
cover everything we did to improve
Micheal’s sales and build his author
platform – so keep an eye on your inbox!
IN THE MEANTIME,
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, GET IN TOUCH AT
[email protected]
UNTIL THEN – HERE’S TO YOUR SUCCESS!
YOUR FIRST10KREADERS.COM | © NICK STEPHENSON
