Does KDP Select work?

Recently I opted into Amazon's KDP Select program for a 2-day free promo of Island of Fog. Was it worth it? You betcha! It's too early to tell about long-term effects, but I can give you a brief rundown of the days before, during, and immediately after the promo.

For the last couple of years, sales have trickled in at around 30 a month for all my Kindle and Nook books combined, or 1 sale a day. Sigh. Obviously this is better than nothing, but it's nowhere near enough to retire on. I always thought it would be useful to try a free promo. The thing is, I can easily give away my own book anytime I want, but it's better to give it away through Amazon so that the download statistics are recorded and affect ranking and so on. Unfortunately an author can't just change the price of his Kindle book to $0.00. Amazon won't allow it.

But they do offer the KDP Select program. KDP means Kindle Direct Publishing. I'm already part of KDP, but their KDP Select program is where you opt in for 90 days and, during that time, are able to choose up to five days to run a free book promo. Just what I want, right?

The reason I took so long trying out the KDP Select program on Island of Fog is because it demands that I make the digital edition of the book exclusive to Amazon's Kindle -- which means removing Barnes & Noble's Nook edition for the duration. I hate the idea of a Nook customer prepared to buy my book and finding it to be unavailable. But heck, it's only for three months.

So on August 23, with some trepidation, I opted Island of Fog into the KDP Select program. This means that the digital edition is now exclusive to Amazon for 90 days (until November 20). You'll note that it's gone from Barnes & Noble even though the others in the series are still there.

I ran my first 2-day promo on August 29-30.

Before doing so, I spent a few days plugging my book on various websites, blogs, and Facebook pages. There are lots of places an author can do this for free, sometimes in advance of the promo (where you specify the forthcoming promo dates) and sometimes during the promo (where the book is only accepted if the price is currently $0.00). I submitted my free book to maybe 20-25 different places.

I was hopeful for a few thousand free downloads but, honestly, didn't expect more than a few hundred. The total was 6025 in the USA, India, UK, and Germany (of which 5834 were in the USA). During these two days, my ranking shot up. I'm not absolutely certain but I believe the ranking during this period is specifically a "FREE" ranking, separate from the usual "PAID" ranking. Anyway, before the promo, all my books were languishing around 110K in PAID. The promo boosted the Kindle Store rankings dramatically, sending Island of Fog to #50 FREE and the others to around 25-48K PAID:

After the promo, the ranking for Island of Fog switched from FREE back to PAID and ended up at 180K. Ouch. But it was temporary. Sales quickly boosted it up the ranks again, although not as high as before. But remember, we're now back in the PAID rankings along with the majority of everyone else. The rank has been hovering around 3000-6000 ever since.

Before the promo, from August 1-28, I had managed 28 sales. See? Literally 1 sale a day. Anyway, during and after the promo (August 29-31) another 67 sales came in. The average went from 1 up to 22 sales a day.

September's total sales quickly rose to 166 in four days, which is 41 sales a day. My sales rank was around 2500 for a while, and I was listed as a best seller under three categories. Then the rank dropped to around 4500 and I lost those best seller listings. As I write this, on the morning of September 5, my rank is 6451 and my sales are 172. It seems like it's slowing, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will keep going even if it's at a slightly slower pace. I'm aiming to renew my efforts in promoting the books.

The way ranking works is largely a mystery because Amazon keeps it secret. Still, plenty of smarter people than me have figured out that it's an algorithm based on the number of recent sales -- in other words, if I sold 100 books in one hour, my ranking could shoot up to best-selling status along with the Big Names. Long-term sales figures don't seem to mean as much as you'd think on Amazon. It's the here and now that matters, or the "Movers and Shakers" as they're called.

Anyway, the point is that the number of sales per hour directly affects the ranks. I don't know what the exact figures are, but if I sell x number per hour then I start climbing the ranks, otherwise I start slipping again. If I climb high enough overall (say to around 3000) then I start showing as a best seller in certain categories. When that happens, sales increase because more readers find me. And as sales increase, so the rank climbs, and so on. By this reasoning, if I got to #1, I'd stay there forever -- right?

The thing is, it's relatively easy to climb the ranks until you get near the top where all the big boys play. For example, if I launch a new book, its rank is probably going to start out somewhere around 2.5 million. Once I sell a couple, the rank jumps to a few hundred thousand. As I said earlier, my books were languishing around 100K based on the 1-sale-a-day average I was clinging to. Sell 15-30 a day and wham!, you leap up the ranks. But as you climb, it gets harder and harder to keep going. It's like a tall mountain. The first half is easy with its gentle slopes, plenty of space to move, and fairly easy competition. Near the top, though, it's much steeper and there are loads of really determined die-hard climbers fighting for room, elbow to elbow as they reach for the peak.

So I'm currently paused just below where the snow starts, looking up and wondering how I'm going to make it to the top. Still, looking down, I'm quite happy with the progress I've made in the last 10 days. :-)

A big THANK YOU to all those who gave me a helping hand up the slippery slope, whether you downloaded the free book, bought it, or promoted it for me.

Here's a quick list of places I promote my books at. Some of these are Facebook pages, while some are websites that also display listings on separate Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. The number of LIKES on a Facebook page is worth looking at; they range from a few hundred to several thousand. This list will change over time as I add more...

GENERAL BOOK LISTINGS (FOR FREE AND PAID BOOKS) Digital Book Today (Weekly Featured Read) Free Ebooks Daily Authors on the Cheap Kindle Korner (contact Kim – she's so helpful and friendly) eReaderIQ World Literary CafeFREE PROMO LISTINGS (FOR FREE BOOKS ONLY) – ADD IN ADVANCE OF THE PROMO Digital Book Today (Top 100 Free) Pixel of Ink Ereader News Today Books on the Knob FreeBooksy Bargain eBook Hunter Orangeberry Book Tours The Official Kindle Facebook pageFREE PROMO LISTINGS (FOR FREE BOOKS ONLY) – ADD ON THE DAY OF THE PROMO Snickslist Free Kindle Fiction Kindle Boards (self-promotion thread) Reading Kindle Indie Kindle eBooks Free Free Free The Official Kindle Facebook page Kindle Finds Kindle Korner Freebies4Mom Authors on the Cheap