Tasha's (aka Beren) Journal

Well I promised to keep everyone updated on how having a free book on Amazon continues to affect my Amazon sales. So here goes.

My free book on Amazon (Forgotten Soul) was downloaded 7272 times in February compared to 3758 times in January.

I've just analysed the number of sales rather than free downloads comparing January 2012 to February 2012 and it's official; it works. My sales are up by 107% overall against last months sales which were already up over 100% on December's sales.

Here's a breakdown by country for the increases this month:

• UK - up 378%
  
• US - up 88%
  
• DE - up 100%
  
• FR - down 100% but that was only one book in Jan.

Once again, however, it seems to be the series that makes this work. In Jan my other book sales went up, but they have stayed at a similar level for Feb rather than increasing again. It is the second book (Forbidden Soul) in the series for which the first book is free (Forgotten Soul) that is selling so well.

The free book (Forgotten Soul) has almost consistently been in the top #20 Free books for it's category on Amazon UK (#9 being the highest) and the top #100 for the US (ranging from #36 to #100 depending on time of day etc). Which has upped the profile of the sequel which is 99c.

So, on current evidence I would say having a free book permanently on Amazon does two things:

1. It lifts sales of unconnected books, but does not encourage them to continue increasing beyond a certain level.
   
2. If the books is part of a series, it continually helps increase sales of others in the series.

For those in the US with Kindles, Forgotten Soul is finally listed for free on Amazon US. They appear to have price matched with B&N.

Sorry UK and other Kindle sites, it doesn't appear to be price matched outside the US yet.