Book Release | Free eBook Friday: After Action Report

By the time yesterday’s Free eBook Friday promotion was finished in the West Coast time zone, people had downloaded an astonishing 1,905 copies of Stupefying Stories #19 and Stupefying Stories #12. For a while, issue #19 was the #1 bestseller in both the Science Fiction Anthologies and Fantasy Anthologies categories, while issue #12 was right behind it in the #2 spot in both categories.

Wow. I was hoping we’d get some attention with this book release. I guess we got it. Now to figure out how best to use this incredible and completely unexpected opportunity.

One thing we learned from this experience: Amazon promotional deals key off U.S. West Coast time, which means they take effect and end at 2 a.m. my time, or 8 a.m. London time. So it really helps to get information about promo deals out to my European and U.K. authors well in advance, so that the promotion can be up and rolling already by the time Americans crawl out of bed. At the same time (sorry, couldn’t resist), by the time the promotion ends, it’s already well into the next morning in Australia and Japan, so there’s an advantage to be had in promoting deals right until the very last minute.

The second thing I learned is that watching Amazon’s sales counters spin is as addictive as watching election returns. I really had a lot of trouble tearing myself away from the computer long enough to do the other things I needed to do last night, because—

The third thing I learned last night is that, while I was stocking up and hunkering down in preparation for the blizzard that’s supposed to hit here tomorrow, our cover-story author, Fi Michell was at the beach, dipping her toes in the Tasman Sea, working on her tan, and following the sales reports with great amusement.

Sigh. Australians...