Totally amazing. In the second two-day promotion of The Grand Mirage, thousands of free copies of the book have been downloaded, vaulting it to #2 on the free Kindle bestseller list for historical fiction and #19 among ALL free Kindle books.
I'm not sure what the actual sales of the paperback versions of my previous three books were, but this may be the most copies of any book I've written to get into readers' hands. Of course, the likelihood that many of those who downloaded the book for free will never read it is much higher than in the case of people who paid money for the other books.
The downloads this time around are a multiple of those in December. It is certainly due in part to the fact that there's now millions more Kindles out there after the Christmas bonanza in Kindle sales. Also, this time I had the helpful notice in Anthony Wessel's Digital Book Today. I had deliberately timed this promotion ahead of Valentine's Day in case anyone thought this would be an appropriate gift, but I have no idea if that played any role at all.
I'm not sure how this plays out in terms of paid sales, or name recognition, or sales of other books. I don't think anyone knows the answers to these questions. But I'm overwhelmed that so many people found the cover and the description and reviews of Mirage intriguing enough to click for a free download and my hope is that many will actually have a chance to read it and enjoy it.
