My posts about designing and making covers have proven to be my most popular posts. I wanted to share an update because after just over a month I have tangible evidence of how important a good cover really is. I'm grateful to the people who have contacted me to say they have used my tutorial and found it helpful, it means a lot to know that my work is helping others.
The Stats
I changed my cover for Centuries of Sin on April 22nd. The book was completed over a year ago, and my editor at the time put it in the pay to read program when it had only reached around 35 followers - the threshold to be put on PTR usually is 500 followers, and this was my first ever book. I think in retrospect this damaged the popularity of the book, but it's worth noting this book has been complete for a long time and been making a similar amount the entire time.
I had 8577 reads and 644 follows on the book on April 22nd.
I noticed a jump in income, readers, and follows on the 28th April, which continued for the remainder of the month.
My income for April was 178% higher than the income in March, and that was because of the amount the book earned in the last three days of the month.
I had 8881 reads and 714 follows on the book on May 1st
I was pretty happy with that, and I was proud that the cover seemed to make a difference. I actually figured that 178% difference was impressive enough to post about, but I decided to wait for an entire month so I could do a proper post like this, and I am very glad I did because my income from Centuries of Sin in May was 2047% HIGHER than the amount the book earned in March.
I had 12073 reads and 1225 follows on the book on May 31st
This is because my book has been on the front page of trending stories within the genre it is listed in for weeks now, and it has been put into lists such as 'Fated Love' and 'Readers Choice' which are generated automatically through algorithms based on the way you tag your book on the app.
The fact the book was making so many lists meant it was picked up for a promotion, and it was one of the 'recommended' books which appear in a user's library next to the books they follow.
What difference does that make?
Well, as of June 11th my book has made 28% more than it did in the whole of May... 2662% more than it made in March, in 11 days.
Today, the book has 20691 reads and 3036 follows
That means the reads have increased by 142% and the follows have increased by 371% since I changed the cover on April 22nd.
8881 total readers in just over a year, 12114 new readers in just over a month.
I thought it was worth sharing this here because I only made the cover as part of my tutorial series and changed it for the sake of this experiment. I planned on changing the cover back after a month, but the outcome has been completely unexpected and I am definitely going to be following my own rules and keeping the new cover now.
In the meantime I have been working on some other covers - I made similar covers for Centuries books II and III, and updated the cover for Morrigan. I have noticed that is now getting more reads and being included in lists, too.
I have also been making covers for fun just because I am so astounded by this and wanted some more covers ready for future books.
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