Ebooks have a big place on the shelf

This photo, taken by my friend Linda Cahill, shows the display of Safe Harbor paperbacks at Indigo in Toronto’s Manulife Centre. I’m tickled to see that my baby is positioned right above Val McDermid, on of my favourite crime writers!

But bookstore sales are only part of the sales picture these days. A big focus is now on ebooks. Today, the third day after my KDP Select free promo, I’m #521 in the paid Kindle store and #34 in the paid suspense category on Amazon.com, which means a lot of books have been purchased.

And sales are even better in the United Kingdom. Tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET, Safe Harbor has cracked the Top 100 paid books on Amazon.co.uk at #99 and it’s #9 in paid suspense. British readers have taken to Pat Tierney!

Now I’m waiting for publisher Cheryl Tardif to report how many books have sold to date.

Safe Harbor: sales are starting

Safe Harbor sailed out of the free zone last night. This morning I found that it had more than 30,000 downloads over the three days: 27,260 in the United States, 2,874 in Britain, 52 in Germany, 10 in France, four each in Italy and Spain.

That means 30,204 people are reading about Pat Tierney!

Then I checked sales ranks. With the KDP Select promo over, Safe Harbor was no longer in the Kindle free store where it had ranked #1 in Suspense for the better part of the three days and, at one point, #7 in the Top 100 free Kindle books in the store. At 8:30 a.m., it had moved back to obscurity in the “paid” book store with a sales rank of #283,274 on Amazon.com and #4,055 on Amazon.co.uk.

But when I checked a little past noon, there was a sharp decrease in the sales rankings. (As in golf and the best-seller charts, you want to be moving up from a larger number to a smaller one; the smaller the number, the better the ranking.) Safe Harbor had risen to 74,094 on Amazon.com and to 537 on Amazon.co.uk. People were buying it and it was no longer free!

At 6 p.m., I checked again. The sales rankings had rocketed to 9,738 on Amazon.com and to 500 on Amazon.co.uk. The sales machine seems to be moving into gear.

I’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Safe Harbor’s last free day: over 25,000 downloads

A four-star review of Safe Harbor and an interview with me on Paula Schuck’s blogsite, Thriftymommasbrainfood. “Pat Tierney is a strong female character, not a pushover, and not a twenty-year-old blonde bimbo. She has much potential for follow-up novels,” Paula says. Thank you, Paula!

Today is Safe Harbor‘s last free day on Amazon.com. As of right now, 11:30 a.m., it’s held the #1 spot in Free Suspense for approaching 48 hours. Cheryl Tardif, my publisher, has just reported a total of 23,899 downloads on Amazon.com, another 1,968 on Amazon.co.uk and a few more in Europe. More than 25,000 people now have Safe Harbor in their hands!

Keeping my fingers crossed. Toes and eyes, too!

Safe Harbor sails around the world

Today, the second day of Safe Harbor‘s free promo, still has hours left to go. But Imajin Books publisher Cheryl Tardif just reported total downloads of 19,270 just from Amazon.com alone. Mindboggling! There have also been hundreds of downloads in Britain, and some more in Germany, France, Italy and Spain.

Safe Harbor is now in the hands of about 20,000 readers. It’s spent almost 30 hours in the #1 place for free suspense and is currently #8 in the Top 100 free Kindle books. It has one more day to go free…

What has been the experience of other writers who’ve enrolled in Amazon’s KDP Select program is that after the free days end, the payoff begins. The sales start building for a few days. Presumably those who have downloaded the free books start telling their friends. I’m crossing my fingers, toes and eyes that this will happen to Safe Harbor.

But free books are also an important way for a newbie author to build a following. We are unknowns. We need to let fans discover us.

I’ll see what my download total is tomorrow. And then I’ll wait…and pray.

To get your free download before the promo ends, click here.

Safe Harbor sails to the top

Today was a glorious wild ride. Safe Harbor‘s free day began somewhere in the middle of the night, probably around 3 a.m. ET. When I checked my Amazon.com page a little after 6 a.m., Safe Harbor ranked #21,204 free in the Kindle store. But the day was still young.

By 8:30 a.m., it had moved up to #5,919 free in the store and ranked #83 in the free suspense category. At 10:30, Safe Harbor was #4,349 in the store and #76 in free suspense.

By mid-day, things started heating up. At 12:15, Safe Harbor had jumped to #992 free in the store and to #30 in free suspense.  And surprise, surprise — on the British sister site, Amazon.co.uk, Safe Harbor was further ahead at #142 free in the  store and #8 in free suspense.

At 2 p.m., Imajin Books publisher Cheryl Tardif reported 4,050 downloads of Safe Harbor. More that 4,000 people out there were reading about Pat Tierney!

At 3 p.m., Safe Harbor was #6 in free suspense and #133 in the free store, but only #8 in suspense on Amazon.co.uk., although ranking #116 free in the British store.

I’m not sure when it happened — I got tied up with other matters — but when I checked Amazon.com at 5:30 p.m., Safe Harbor was #1 in both free suspense and free thrillers, and #23 free in the store.

I’d made it to the top of my categories!

And shortly before 7 p.m., Cheryl reported 7,102 downloads on Amazon.com, and 306 on its British counterpart. More than 7,000 people were meeting Pat Tierney.

It’s now approaching 9 p.m. Safe Harbor is #19 in the Top 100 Free Kindles in the store, and still in the top spots in the suspense and thriller categories. Total downloads at this time: 8,850, plus 342 in Britain.

Still three hours left till midnight, but I’m calling it a day. This wild ride has wiped me out!

Family matters…in Safe Harbor

Today, Canadian author Alison Bruce hosts me on her terrific blog, alison bruce, have laptop — will travel. When I was chatting with Alison last week, she noted that when Pat Tierney, Safe Harbor‘s protagonist, first learned that little Tommy Seaton was her late husband’s son, she wanted nothing to do with him. “So how did she come to accept him into her family?” Alison asked.

Pat has a strong sense of family, I told Alison. This is how it happened:

Talk about getting off on the wrong foot! It started when Tommy’s mother barged into Pat Tierney’s office…

Click here for more.

SAFE HARBOR, the ebook, is FREE today, tomorrow and Thursday!

Safe Harbor FREE days!

There’s nothing I like better than knowing that Safe Harbor is in readers’ hands. After all, I wrote it to read. And those of you haven’t done so yet can download the ebook FREE of charge today, tomorrow and Thursday. Just click here.

Hope you enjoy the ride!

If you do – and even if you don’t – please leave a comment on my blog. I’d love to hear from you.