The Cruel Summer Kindle promotion has finished. A massive thanks to each and every one of you who ordered a copy, shared or retweeted the promotion!

At the start of this promotion, I thought I’d be doing well if I sold 50 copies and would be over the moon with 100. Last night, I closed out on 324.

Some caveats: I know that, compared with the volume some authors shift daily, that’s small beer. It’s also true that I won’t see a penny in revenue, since I was giving it away for free. And, as I’ve said before, I know as well as anyone that a free download doesn’t automatically equate to a lifelong fan. (I have more free books on my Kindle than I’ll be able to read in a lifetime.) But if, among those 324 downloads, there are a handful of people who DO read the book and enjoy it, that’s more than enough.

I did the free promotion for a couple of reasons. First, to do my bit, in however small a way, to give readers something to distract them from what’s currently going on in the real world. Second, I was curious to see what would happen if I made by book available for free but didn’t do any active promotion (beyond my own daily Facebook posts and tweets, and some extremely kind retweets and shares, including from some established authors). The answer, it seems, is that people will download it.

I’ll almost certainly do further promotions like this in future, possibly coupled with a Facebook or Amazon ad campaign. Until then, thank you once again to everyone who bought a copy or shared the promotion, and I hope it won’t be too much longer before I have something new to share with you on the writing front.