by Tosh McIntosh

Darrell Bryant’s debut novel Geronimo’s Bones has been published in paperback since January 6, 2018. The Kindle edition became available for preorder on April 13th, with a scheduled publication date of April 30th. During the preorder period, the novel received about 10 verified purchase 5-star reviews, all from the paperback because no Kindle editions had yet been delivered to the 10 people who preordered the novel. Kirkus published their review on May 4th, and the Amazon Free promotion began modestly on May 10, 2018, resulting in 259 downloads of the Kindle version by the end of the day.

By 6:00 a.m. this morning, May 13th, the novel has been downloaded 9,853 times. It broke #10 in the entire Kindle Free Store, very hard to do without the effect of a still-pending “big gun” ad that will follow the current Amazon Free promotion, and the novel remains #1 in historical fiction, with 5 new 5-star reviews for a total of 15.

Comparing results before and after the initial promotion, the effect of VISIBILITY is readily apparent as the next two “horses,” TRACTION and MOMENTUM, join the team to haul the novel out of Amazon’s cellar. The ad at the end of this post is designed to help do that.

It’s important to note that the exponential effect of an initial promotion typically can’t be sustained for long. The good news is that Geronimo’s Bones is being well-positioned for the long haul. Darrell has scheduled a signing at a Local Authors’ Night event at BookPeople in Austin on June 15, 2018 at 7:00 p.m., and the members of NIP-Austin will hopefully turn out en mass to support him.

In closing, here’s the text of one of the two latest Amazon reviews, the title of which gives Darrell the best advice anyone can at this point in his writer’s journey: