Loucinda McGary – Free Kindle Bestseller Hit Number One
When I interviewed Loucinda McGary, she had just had a book reach the number one
spot on the Kindle Bestseller List for Free books. A successful romance writer, she
speaks about the craft of writing, marketing her books and how she stays in contact
with her readers.
Darrell - Can you describe a normal day of writing to me?
Loucinda - I am totally not a morning person, as anyone who knows me will verify. So I
do my email, blogging and any other promotion or business related things in the
morningMyoptimumwritingtimeisbetween1and5pmthat’swhenIdomostofmy
first draft stuff. Sometimes I go until 6 if the words are flowing. After dinner, I do my
critiques and revisions. This is my routine Monday through Friday. If I am under
deadlineorI’mreally“inthewritinggroove”I’lldothesameonSaturdayandSunday
I’veevenbeenknown to work until the wee hours of night on Friday and Saturday if
need be.
Darrell - Most of your ebooks have a price tag of $4.79. How important is price in
relation to sales?
Loucinda - My own personal opinion is that it is very important and my sense is that
readers are less likely to spend much over $5. Unfortunately, I have no control over the
price of my books. My publisher sets all the prices. Thus far, the highest I have seen the
Kindle versions of any of my books listed for is $5.59. I would hope my publisher does
not set the price any higher than that. All three of my books were first issued as mass
market paperbacks with a $6.99 price.
Darrell - You currently have one of your ebooks - Wild Sight - for free on the Amazon
Kindle website. From a marketing perspective, how do you think this will help your
career?
Loucinda - Againthiswasmypublisher’sdecisionandtheydidnotconsultnoreven
inform me when they did it. The only way I knew that Wild Sight was offered as a free
download was because I received a notice from Google Alerts that it was #1 on the
Kindle Free Bestseller list. I was thrilled and immediately spread the word on Facebook
and elsewhere online. Wild Sight remained at #1 for several days and this was for all
free Kindle ebooks! Even after it was no longer offered for free (my publisher only did
the promotion for a week), Wild Sight remained in the Kindle Paid Top 100 (peaking at
#54) for about ten days, so that was a definite boost.
My other two books, The Treasures of Venice and The Wild Irish Sea also saw a big
upswing in Kindle sales. All three books also sold more print copies, and I saw a nice
