That’s how many I sold when I finally got my long-coveted Kindle Daily Deal.
On its Kindle store for ebooks, Amazon does both monthly and daily deals. They approach authors, and if they agree, their book will be discounted for a day or a month, and then Amazon will promote it.
Years ago, I read on a blog that Daily Deals worked much better than Monthly Deals. The idea was that if a book is only discounted for 24 hours, Amazon will push it much harder, and thus you should sell more copies. The article even showed some statistics to back this up!
My books have been out for three and two years, respectively. So far, all I’d ever gotten was the occasional Monthly Deal, and sure enough, they didn’t really move the needle. Ergo, when I recently got an invite to do a Daily Deal for Indian readers, I was thrilled! Finally I might see Amazon’s promotional powers on full display.
But the day came, and the day went, and I got zero sales. It’s not like I had high expectations. How and when you get picked for these events is arbitrary to begin with. Yet I was still underwhelmed.
In the end, the whole event turned out to be nothing more than a useful reminder: Getting picked is not all it’s cracked up to be—so never wait to get picked.
