KDP Select – An Evaluation
The results thus far of the free promotion, using Amazon’s KDP Select programme (https://kdp.amazon.com/select), of my story, Samantha have been disappointing. For anyone unfamiliar with the programme, KDP Select allows authors with books enrolled in it to offer their titles free for 5 days in any 90 day period. As an alternative writers may sell titles at a reduced price (known as a Kindle Countdown Deal) for up to 5 days in any 90 day period. To qualify for KDP Select books must be exclusive to Amazon.
The free promotion of Samantha began on 19 November and ends on 23 November. Despite the book being free in the Kindle store and the kindness of other bloggers in publicising this fact, Samantha has, at the time of writing been downloaded 5 times from amazon.com and 3 times from amazon.co.uk. Both sites show that my book has sold 4 copies of Samantha (2 on both sites) in November.
The results thus far are causing me to evaluate the effectiveness of KDP Select. Samantha has a total of 6 reviews (counting both amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. Just over half of these have been generated by fellow bloggers while the remainder have eminated from people who, to the best of my knowledge have come across my book as a consequence of previous free promotions of Samantha. The position is roughly similar with my other titles (approximately half of reviews coming from bloggers and the remainder from readers who have, I assume come across my titles via KDP Select promotions).
The results of the current free promotion of Samantha are, as I say above disappointing. Where I to take a decision to remove Samantha and my other books from KDP Select the incentive to do so is compelling in terms of the current promotion. However, standing back and surveying the bigger picture, reviews have been forthcoming as a result of previous promotions, consequently I am not inclined to dismiss KDP Select out of hand. I will monitor how the remaining days of the free promotion of Samantha pan out and look at the results of the forthcoming free promotions of An Act Of Mercy and Street Walker to ascertain number of downloads together with any reviews generated. On the basis of these results I will take a decision regarding whether to keep my books enrolled in KDP Select. The evidence thus far seems to indicate (despite the current slow downloads of Samantha) that the use of both KDP Select free promotions and social media help in obtaining downloads and reviews.
(The 4 sales refered to above entail people purchasing Samantha, while free downloads are, as the name suggests just that – readers downloading Samantha at no cost).
