Amazon KDP Select

Since it seems like every indie author is talking about his/her experience with this new program from Amazon.com, I figured I'd do the same.

Dictionary.com defines the adjective "select" as: chosen in preference to another or others. In case you haven't heard about KDP Select, here's a short description from this excellent blog entry. If you're considering signing your book/s up, I strongly encourage you to read the entire post.
Back in December, I put all of my books on sale for 99 cents in anticipating of raising the prices back to $2.99 and keeping them there once KDP Select began. I chose my first novel, Have You Seen Her? as my initial Select offering and signed it up to run from January 2nd to March 30th. I picked Friday, January 6 as the first free day.


To most traditional authors, it seems like insanity to give your books away, but I, like most indie authors, saw this as a unique way to get my books to be chosen in preference to another or others and into the hands of new readers with the power of Amazon advertising behind me. Amazon advertised the book from 6 AM until midnight, and I also posted announcements on Facebook, Twitter and all the online groups to which I belong.

As I watched the numbers update in real time in my KDP reports, I was astounded by the results. When I woke up on Saturday morning, 10,316 people in the U.S. had downloaded the book. It had 485 downloads in the UK, 6 on Amazon DE (Germany) and 2 on Amazon FR (France). What truly amazed me was now that the free offer had ended, the paid buys (at $2.99) were starting to roll in. As the weeks passed, the sales have slowed, but the paid sales numbers as of this morning were US - 1,223 UK - 55 Other foreign stores - 7. My other books also sold 118 copies.
In addition, the book has had 303 borrows by Prime members. Last month Amazon paid authors $1.70 for each borrow based on $500,000 in the "pot." An additional $200,000 was added for January, so participating authors are splitting $700,000.
God only knows how long this program will continue or maintain popularity among readers, but my intention is to remove the current book and enroll another one every 90 days. Since I have five novels, by the time I finish offering them all, I will have written a new book!
I know there are a lot of Amazon haters out there, but all I can say to them is, "Hate on," because as they say on the commercials for that other giant, "I'm loving it!"