The Kindle Select Experiment: Part 8 - Alice in Wonderland

Ok, so I'm Alice and KDP Select is Wonderland--full of strange possibilities, though danger seems to lurk everywhere. The danger, of course, is this: will Select make up for lack of sales via other distributors, and now that Amazon has asked for exclusivity for 90 days, will they want more?
To study my results with Wonderland more thoroughly, I enlisted the assistance of my husband Marc, whose math skills are far better than mine. The questions I wanted answered were: 1) am I actually selling more of THE RIVER and DIVINE INTERVENTION now that their free promos are over, and 2) has being enrolled in Select influenced the sales of my other ebooks. (2 days ago I stated I hadn't seen any noticeable difference because I suck at math.)

Marc's sales report:

As of 11 AM this morning Cheryl has SOLD 727 copies of these 2 titles on Amazon (including foreign). This is up from the 380 sales she reported yesterday morning, almost doubled. These numbers exclude any sales made BEFORE the free promos (23/24 for THE RIVER and 21-25 for DIVINE INTERVENTION) and free copies downloaded. So that's 727 sold, 2 titles, in 3.25 days.) Keep in mind, these titles were mid-sellers for Cheryl, not her highest selling.

Ok, so maybe the increase is a fluke. Or maybe her books sell this high all the time. Nope. I wish they did. They might if she paid for a $200 ad promo. So to determine the validity of the increase in sales, we have to look at the increase in averages (if there is any.) Based on the numbers Cheryl sold of both titles combined before the free promo and comparing to the numbers she sold after the free promo, we've seen a 350% increase in sales.

So the answer to her question #1 is YES. The 2 ebooks are selling at a higher rate than they had sold before the free promo.

So how do these numbers compare to her other titles that are NOT enrolled in Select, and have those sales been influenced in any way, positively or negatively? 

Cheryl's 4 slowest selling titles basically kept their same average of sales, no real change positively or negatively. These were NOT affected by the free Select promos in any way. But what about her other 3 titles, the ones that sell consistently?

CHILDREN OF THE FOG - not in Select - has seen a sales increase of 160% AFTER she held the 2 free promos for her other titles.

WHALE SONG - not in Select - has seen an increase of 150% AFTER she held the 2 free promos for her other titles.

Small increases really, nothing overly amazing, except that Cheryl doesn't usually see this kind of increase unless her ebooks are on sale (which they weren't during the time we calculated) or she had aggressively marketed them (which she didn't; she has virtually ignored them since January 18th)

These numbers tell me that Cheryl's 2 KDP Select promos with 2 other titles affected the sales of COF and WS in a positive way.

Now get this...there is one title we were very curious about. When Cheryl selected DIVINE INTERVENTION as her first ebook to experiment with, she chose it because she was hoping that the freebies would lead to sales of the second book in the series, DIVINE JUSTICE. Many people told her it wouldn't, but we had to see for ourselves. Since DJ is not one of Cheryl's big sellers, she didn't expect to see much of an increase.

DIVINE JUSTICE - not in Select - has seen an increase of 450% AFTER she held the 2 free promos for her other 2 titles. 450%. 

This tells me without a doubt that Cheryl's 2 free promos of DIVINE INTERVENTION and THE RIVER via KDP Select HAVE influenced her sales, POSITIVELY. 

Thanks to Marc, I now have accurate stats and my head doesn't hurt so much. Plus I've answered my two questions and the answers are exciting.

So who's in Wonderland now? Now we wonder: how long before sales return to pre-Select normal? Or will they?


Cheryl Kaye Tardif is a bestselling Canadian suspense author.
www.cherylktardif.com

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