Why Did I Not Listen To Myself?

I hadn't promoted Running From Herself in ages, other than a FreeBooksy ad, but with my new great cover and a completely reworked blurb, I felt it was time to test out my changes.

I hardly went hog wild, but I tried three inexpensive promos--one from BookRaid, an AuthorsXP ad, and finally, LitRing. 

How did they go?

BookRaid only charges a max of $60.00, and that only happens if a book gets enough clicks to reach that amount. Otherwise, for a book priced at $2.99, as mine is, the cost per click is 60 cents, which means I would have to get 100 clicks in order to add up to $60.00. The minimum cost to an author is one dollar. Running From Herself got 37 clicks, so my charge will be $22.20.

AuthorsXP's promo is $10.00, and for a "top of the page" listing, another $10.00. Great--I went with the full package. 

LitRing has a few different promos, most priced at $35.00. I scheduled mine for the 3rd, received no confirmation, but got an email two days ago explaining that they'd messed up, or, "ran into a few behind-the-scenes snags", so it won't run until the 7th. No sorries; no "is that okay?" In other words, "Your measly $35.00 really means nothing to us, so we can jerk you around". Let's just say I'm not holding my breath for a cascade of sales on the 7th.

As for the two promos that ran, well, here you go:

 

No, I didn't offer my book for free or for 99 cents or even $1.99. Do these dolts realize that if I'm going to give my book away, I'll go with FreeBooksy and reap hundred of downloads? I kind of wanted to make sales this time.

Do these results say something about my book or about the sites I chose? Or are they solely about my pricing? I don't know, but I also don't care at this point. (By the way, speaking of LitRing's calendar change, Friday is a sucky day to try to sell books.)

I'm going to sit out book promotions now for a long, long time--maybe forever.