How did I do ?

[Shaun]

So, I was supposed to have a guest post Monday on a popular blog and to celebrate that a little, I decided on using one of my KDP Select promotional days.

Unfortunately, for reasons I'm not sure of at the moment, my guest post never went up despite the owner of the blog telling me it would probably be the 8th. I'm not going to split hairs though.

Anyway, for my first KDP Select promotion, my debut novel The Unknown Neighbor was offered free. The book has only been out since April 1st and only has two reviews and ratings on Amazon to support it.

I managed 580 downloads in the 24 hour period. I'm MORE than happy with that, but I would like to hear from other author's who have tried KDP's promotional periods and compare that to what other people have gotten.

[Michael]

Select can be quite hit and miss these days. Sometimes you'll get hundreds of downloads, other times only a few dozen.

Some authors report lots of sales after the promotion ends, others get none.

580 downloads is decent enough, but as ever it's impossible to tell how many of those downloads will result in actual readings!

[Shaun]

Yeah. I estimate maybe 50% of those downloaded will be read within the next six months or so, and that's probably being more generous than I should be. Still, it's more than I expected and I'll be ecstatic if some of those just result in some more reviews.

[Tony]

580 is a lot more than I've ever had over a longer period, but I've only had short stories on KDP (so far).

Most research seems to point to good timing as well - run them over the weekend rather than mid-week; run them before a major holiday.

I'm curious as to why people would download books they have no intention of reading, as Michael says, but I know they do.

[Michael]

I think people download the free books simply because they can. It becomes an extended version of their TBR pile, which can be hundreds/thousands of titles long in the first place.

Downloading a free Kindle book from Amazon is as easy as adding it to your GR shelves.

[Shaun]

Well, so far today, I've gotten one ebook sale and one physical book sale, +1 review, and in addition my blog managed almost three times as many hits as usual. (For my ebook version, I included links to my blog and my page on Facebook. Hence why I'm including that bit of info. All-in-all, I would have to say that's not bad for a self-published, unknown author a week after his debut novel came out.

[Tony]

Good work Shaun! Be giving up the day job and moving to the Caribbean next (Don't we all wish we could...)