5 F's and 2 A's

A few posts ago I said I would be advertising my book Darkwater and that I would post the results later.  I thought now would be a good time.  I have stopped advertising my books for now because with the publication of my second book sales have skyrocketed.  (Yeah me!)

So on with the results. Keep in mind this is not a scientific study of any sort. And that there are so many variables you results could differ wildly.
 
DNP stands for does not provide potential reach. Meaning they don’t tell you how many people see your ad. Dollar amount are in US dollars.
 
dailyfreebooks.com  - DNP  - Cost $7.50  - Sold 1 book        My Grade  F
pagehungrybookworm.com – DNP - $9.99 – Sold 3 – Grade C
ilikeebooks.com – 45,000 - $10.00 – Sold 1 – Grade F         
bookraid.com – DNP - $Free – Sold 1 – Grade A (It’s free!)
readfree.ly – 20,000 - $10.00 – Sold 4 – Grade A (because I actually made a profit on this ad)
genrepulse.com – DNP - $17.00 – Sold 2 – Grade F
itswritenow.com – DNP - $20.00 – Sold 2 – Grade F
bookbongo.com – DNP - $29.99 – Sold 4 – Grade F
 
As you can see the advertising did not go well. I spent $104.48 and sold 18 books. The 18 books netted me $6.30. That’s a loss of $-98.18.
 
What can we learn from this? I learned two things. First, if you’re advertising your book you will not recoup your ad costs let alone make a profit. Second, Advertising is not about making money (at least for indie authors)  it’s about getting the word out. The more people that see your book advertised here, there, everywhere. The better your chance of having the book take off (assuming you wrote a great book)
 
I did learn one more very important piece of information when I published my second book. The more books you published the more books you sell. Publishing my second book increased the sales of my first book by 28%.
 
REVIEW
 
Free the Darkness (King's Dark Tidings #1)
by Kel Kade

It has over 400 reviews and most of them positive. That surprises me as I could not read past the prologue. It is so full of unnecessary words. Reading this book is like reading the dictionary. There is no heart, no flow. All you have to do is read the blurb to know what I'm talking about. Roughly every other word could be removed to make a much better story. I understand you have a Thesaurus, but please!

This is from the blurb and is typical how the book is written.
 
Rezkin must travel across Ashai to find the one man who may hold the clues to his very existence. His last orders, spoken on the lips of his dying Master, were to "Kill with conscience" and "Protect and honor your friends." Living in isolation from the outworld under a strict regimen of training and education, the young warrior has no understanding of a conscience or friends. Determined to adhere to his last orders, Rezkin extends his protection to an unlikely assortment of individuals he meets along the way, often leading to humorous and poignant incidents. 
 
It hurts to read it doesn’t it? There are so many extra words, many of them words people don’t use often. Words to make the writing sound more important than it really is. Kill with conscience?? That doesn’t even make sense

I'm sorry. I wanted to like this book. The title sounds great. But after you read the title it quickly (read immediately) goes downhill. I gave it one star. And that is because you can’t give it zero stars.