Some updates

Wow. I put Learning Curve for free for Valentine's Day, mostly as an experiment to see what would happen. My hypothesis was that it would climb the Bestselling charts at Amazon, lots of people would find it and it would become a hit. Okay, maybe that was more a hope than a hypothesis. Did it work?

Because it went off sale at midnight on Thursday and I was sleeping at that time and because Amazon gives itself a window of a few hours plus or minus on the end time of a sale, I don't have a specific, hard cut-off number, but I can tell you that yesterday afternoon the number of copies that went out over the three-day period was 960. That's the long way of saying I "sold" 960 free copies of Learning Curve during the promotional period.

Since yesterday afternoon, that number has climbed to 962, which means people paid for at least two copies in the past week. While it might be too early to tell, I'm thinking the freebie period has not lead to increased sales. During the three days Learning Curve was on sale, NONE of my other titles at Amazon sold a single copy. Correction: None of my self-published titles sold. If there was a spike in my EC sales, I won't know for another few months when I get my royalty statement from EC.

As to moving up the Bestseller list? THAT it did. I broke 500 at one point on the Kindle Free bestselling list (getting to #499) and got to #18 on the Kindle Erotica list (as I write, it's slipped to #19 and has been there for several hours). Will THAT lead to more sales? I'm hoping it does!

The book also got an unsolicited review. I love it when people take the time to write a quick review and state whether they liked or disliked the book and why. This reviewer didn't like it - and that's okay. I just hope she doesn't write ME off and will try one of my other books soon. I know I've done that - read a book by someone and not enjoyed it, then read something else by that same author and loved it.

In my writing, I explore various BDSM themes. You know that, I'm not hiding it. But my explorations go from the deep Master/slave relationship in Secret Submission and Submission Revealed to the truly hardcore slave sharing in Stress Relief all the way to gentle guidance and learning how to slow down in Hooked. If you think of BDSM activities as a continuum, I have books all over that line. Exploring the human psyche is what I do. :)

So if a reader doesn't like one of my books, I'm okay with that. Just don't write me off entirely. Another might be more to your taste. Longtime readers are aware that I've begun separating out my general romance stories from the very hardcore under different names to help people know exactly what you're putting your money into when you buy one of my books. Check the tabs at the of the blog for Diana Allandale, Mystic Shade and CF Duprey for those other genres (or use the links. I've embedded them for those of you who read this in a reader).

I'll keep you posted as to how Learning Curve does in this experiment. The sales may pick up since it's in the top 20 on the Erotica Bestselling list. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. And, if'n you wanted to stop by the Amazon page and write a review of your own (positive or negative), I'd not say no!

Play safe everyone and enjoy the holiday here in the US (President's Day on Monday!),
Diana

UPDATE: as of this morning (Sunday), LC hasn't sold a single extra copy despite it's moving to the #16 slot for several hours yesterday. It currently resides back at #18. Of course, I'm assuming Amazon is updating it's Month-to-date sales page on a regular basis...