We have lift-off...

So after months of trying to promote The Follow on facebook and twitter and to anybody who would listen, i decided last weekend to stop promoting it and look at what i would put on Kindle next.

Then it occurred to me.  I get 5 days where i can make it free thanks to KDP select.  So without any marketing, advertising or advice from anyone (i'm usually a great believer in asking advice, whether i take it or not), i made The Follow free for a day on Monday.

Bugger me.  By the end of the day it had been downloaded over 3000 times.  Now thousands of people were reading my book, and it hit number 2 in the free Kindle chart.  Not in crime, or procedurals, or thrillers, but the entire damn Kindle UK chart.

I was over the moon.  I'd done what i initially set out to do and people all over the world were reading my work.  Shame i hadn't been paid for those downloads, but hey, you can't have everything.

Then on Tuesday, i checked my rankings and was shocked to see that i was number 400 and something paid on Kindle.  By the end of that day i'd sold over thirty copies.

By the next morning, i was ranked 250 or so.  scarcely able to believe it after months of hoping for lightning to strike, it was happening.

Since then (at time of writing Sunday morning, just under a week after i made it free for 24 hours), i've sold almost 400 copies.  I've been hovering just outside the Kindle top 100 for 4 days, and ranging between number 7 and number 3 in the top 100 procedurals.

I don't know if the trend will continue, or whether it's just a blip (a bloody good blip!), but i finally feel like all my hours slaving away at the keyboard have paid off.  Even if sales dry up today (and i pray they won't), i've earned enough for a new laptop, which means writing can become a joy again instead of a screaming frustration as my laptop (never buy Dell), shuts itself down mid-sentence.

So to all of you who have supported me, listened to me, helped to promote me and generally just been there, thank you, i couldn't have done it without you.  And to those of you who went out on a limb and bought the book, you have my undending thanks and a tiny share in my new laptop :)