How I Sold More Books by Giving More Away (& Spring Sales Update)


Aloha from Hawaii!

I thought I’d give you a brief update on how the Kindle promos are going and the exciting developments since the last update!

First, Let’s Talk Numbers

Free Mai-Tai beside KindleYou may not be aware, but the Kindle Select program lets me give away my book for 5 different days within a certain range of time. These days can be consecutive, all split up, or somewhere in between. And in February, I ran the first single-day promotion, giving away The Truth Beyond the Sky, completely freely, for 24 hours.

The result? Counting all countries, 322 copies of the book were given away on February 21. Not horrible, but not great. I knew we could do better.

Then in March, the Kindle community blew my socks off!

In March, I did my first 2-day promo wherein I gave away The Truth Beyond the Sky for an uninterrupted 48 hour period, and in that time, I was stunned to reach over 3,400 downloads (and that’s just the US Kindle store).

I need to stress how unprecedented this is. To have the chance to touch over 3,000 people’s lives in just 2 days is incredibly humbling to me. And even though I didn’t make a dime on those two days, I noticed (just as many other authors have remarked), that my real sales increased afterward, and March was by far my best sales month.

I no sooner saw this in action than the very next month. During April, I didn’t do any free days (partially because I was on the road for nearly the entire month), and I saw my overall sales drop to less than one-fourth of my March sales. Now, I don’t claim to understand the wisdom of the masses (and other factors may have been at play), but what’s happened this month really drove the point home. Once again, I saw a clear spike in sales after this month’s promos.

The correlation between promos and real sales is undeniable.

Which brings us to Now

This month, I’m pleased to announce that I had my best ever single-day promo yet, reaching 814 people in a single 24 hour period. And the 2-day promo which happened a couple weeks later reached over 2,300 downloads. While it’s not the 3,000+ I had the first time, I’m still incredibly humbled and grateful to reach so many people.

And remember, another great aspect of doing ebook giveaways is that by reaching more readers, it really helped fuel my book to get more reviews as time went on. In fact, I’m very pleased to report that the book averages over 4+ stars with 19 reviews 26 reviews!

TLDR: free downloads increase real sales. The Truth Beyond the Sky is living proof of this.

Coming Soon…

I’m also excited to announce that reviews of The Truth Beyond the Sky will be showing up at SF blogs around the web in the coming months. (i.e., I almost went batty last week preparing dozens of review submissions to various blogs, each of which insist on their own special submission formatting.)

The practical upshot of all of this, is that the amount of eyeballs on the galactic myth that we all love continues to rise exponentially, and I continue to make progress on the sequel.

In fact, I just may have created a little teaser page about it.

You can draw your own conclusions, I’m sure.



From California Coast to Hawaii’s Beaches (A Photo Essay of an Incredible Day)


At long last, I am excited to share a photo essay of my journey from the coasts of California, over 3,800 km (2,300 mi) all the way to the Big Island of Hawai’i, what is said to be the heart chakra of the planet itself.

As I described a few entries ago, I went from waking up in California to eventually finding myself at an exquisitely pristine white sand beach by the end of the day.

It was one of those days that you intuitively know you will look back on as a milestone for years to come. Share & Enjoy!

Seeing California fade in distance

Seeing California fade in the distance

Free Mai-Tai beside Kindle

Free drink beside Kindle (courtesy of Alaskan Airlines)

The Big Island rising in the distance

The Big Island rising in the distance

Looking back at the Boeing 747-800

Looking back at the Boeing 747-800

Makalawena Beaches

Makalawena Beaches

Pristine Makalawena Beach

Pristine Makalawena Beach

A childs footsteps on Makalawena Beach

A child’s footsteps on Makalawena Beach

I hope you enjoyed this photo essay! As always, all of the photos are included in the accompanying photo gallery. This time, the gallery is called Flight to Hawaii & Makalawena Beach. Share & Enjoy 🙂