What’s worth more than 228 downloads?

I’m sick as a dog today. This is both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good, because I get to stay in my jammies all day long, blog and write to my heart’s content, watch a little TV, and take a nap if I want to. Those are always key ingredients to a fantastic Friday. But it’s a bad thing because I can’t breathe, my head hurts, and I have little to no appetite.

Oh, another bonus. 5 pounds lost effortlessly.

My free promotion of A Symphony of Cicadas ended two days ago. During the three days I offered my eBook for free, 228 people downloaded it. At one point, the book even reached #47 on the Women’s Literature section!

That was definitely exciting!

When the promotion ended, I totally thought, well, there goes any sales. I mean, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, right? Except, the morning my book was back up for sale, two more people bought the eBook at the regular price of $2.99, and one person bought the paperback version at full price as well.

Giving away 228 copies of my book? That’s pretty exciting. But three people deciding my book was good enough to pay for? Those three sales excited me way more than the 228 freebies!

I think what is most exciting is when someone will drop me a line to let me know how much they love the book. Here are a few of the comments I’ve received about my book:

“I haven’t read that much in a single seating in my whole life!! I’m 1/4 of the way through. It completely captured my attention and that is very hard to do. Wish I didn’t have to go to bed.”

“I started your book and have already fallen in love with they characters.”

“It was really beautiful! Your descriptions read like poetry and the characters all were so well drawn! Very moving and compelling!”

I can’t even tell you how much it means to me when someone takes the time to tell me how much my book has touched them. Words like these are worth way more than 228 downloads!

And, last, I want to thank everyone who has supported me in the past few weeks A Symphony of Cicadas has been published.  So many of you have not only purchased my book, but you have shared the news of the book with your friends.  There are no words that can properly express my gratitude.  So I’ll do it with a simple Thank You. Or….

Today, my biggest plan is to dive right in to an old manuscript that needs a lot of cleaning up. I promised my husband I would wait till at least May to began working on the next book – i.e. disappear into my writing cave and leave everyone to fend for themselves. But hey, today is a sick day. And what he doesn’t know won’t kill him. Shhh….. Don’t tell! 🙂

P.S. While the free promotion on Amazon has ended, there is still a few more days to try and win a paperback copy over at Goodreads. Giveaway good through April 9th.  ENTER HERE.