KDP Select - What do you think? Showing 801-850 of 1,056

[Rosen]

Seriously? That would be appalling. I use my chart position for marketing purposes. I need to know that when I link to a page, my readers are going to see the same thing that I see.

[Tom]

This thread is convincing me to give KDP Select a try, as an experiment at least. It's only 90 days, right? And after that, I can publish the thing wherever I like? Seems worth it just to see what happens.

[Rosen]

Borrows seem to be picking up in the US. 17% of my US sales this month.

[Tom]

data point. So I did enlist a new story in KDP Select and did a free promo this past weekend. Everything seemed to be going fine, the thing made it up to #30 on one list (LitFic) and #60 on another (SF), and then Sunday evening I went in and unchecked the 'automatic renewal' box in the settings. Within a few hours, the title had disappeared entirely from both of those "best seller" lists. Maybe they were merely anticipating its dramatic freefall!

[Stuart]

I think I'm just becoming fairly sceptical about the whole enterprise. My intention is just to write books that I like and if anyone buys them it's a bonus. Fits better with my simple ways I think rather than all this free promo, borrow, promote, promote stuff.

[Kath]

Stuart wrote: "I think I'm just becoming fairly sceptical about the whole enterprise. My intention is just to write books that I like and if anyone buys them it's a bonus. Fits better with my simple ways I think ..."

just stay true to what you feel / believe in and you can't go wrong xx

[Patti (baconater)]

Stuart wrote: "I think I'm just becoming fairly sceptical about the whole enterprise. My intention is just to write books that I like and if anyone buys them it's a bonus. Fits better with my simple ways I think ..."

Good Stu. We don't want to see you go into commercial free-fall as we've seen your peers do.

James Patterson, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Jean Auel just to name a few... ;)

[M.T.]

Stuart wrote: "I think I'm just becoming fairly sceptical about the whole enterprise. My intention is just to write books that I like and if anyone buys them it's a bonus. Fits better with my simple ways I think ..."

Mwah ha hah hahargh! I think you and I have agreed on this approach before. Well said Stuart!

Cheers

MTM

[Tom]

I was just curious about this thing. I give all my books away for free via Smashwords and Feedbooks, and will do the same with this one too (once the 90-day Amazon-only period has expired).

[Rosen]

If indies, such as Stuart want to publish to Kindle for the sheer joy of it, great. Of course, there's nothing wrong with trying to earn a living from something you love either. It's all about balance.

[Stuart]

Ah but I intend to earn a living out of it too!

[M.T.]

Ditto!

Cheer

MTM

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

I suspected the algorithms had changed about that time (March 19th). A lot of people have been reporting a very slow April and May. My sales began to go down significantly at the end of March and have not got any better since :(

Amazon is always changing!

[Linda]

I hoped to earn, not exactly a living, but reasonable recompense for the hours spend on writing and the hours and money spoent on research. That has just about happened with Death in Spigg's Wood, having now earned what I would have earned as an advance from a small publisher (which isn't much, 3 figures, often. Even so, if I were to work it out as pence per hour it would be a very poor return on my time. That success was entirely due to a Select free promotion, but, and it's a big but, that sort of result has not happened with my other books.

I have not put Death in Flitbury Marshes into Select, and reading these forums I suspect I need to keep my nerve for a while longer and hope that those who like DISW go on to buy DIFM. But my fear is they're waiting, hoping it will go free.

I'm in this for the long term, so why do I panic when I don't sell a book for a couple of days?

The free promo effect was transitory but it was good while it lasted.

[Elizabeth]

Stuart wrote: "I think I'm just becoming fairly sceptical about the whole enterprise. My intention is just to write books that I like and if anyone buys them it's a bonus. Fits better with my simple ways I think ..."

Yes - this is the way I work, too. Leave brain space for writing, which I like a lot more than working out the odds.

[David]

For me personally, it seems premature to abandon Select just yet. Frankly, without it I wouldn't have sold many books at all. There simply isn't any other way to get that kind of exposure without spending money. And I have none!

This year, free promo days are the 'hook' Amazon is using to entice new authors and readers, and grab as much of the ebook market as possible. But it doesn't make good business sense to rely on that for the long term.

I think next year, Select will undergo a change, perhaps focusing on promo days that feature books in prominent places, rather than offering them for free. It makes sense for Amazon to grab readers first, then educate them into paying for ebooks while keeping them on the Kindle platform. So my guess is the era of the free ebooks will end in six months or so. After that it will become more about marketing and targeting your book to find an audience.

[M.T.]

Ah now if it was about locating my target audience I'd be tempted to go back in. If they paired my books with Sir Terry's for example, I could imagine selling a few more!

It is written and punctuated in British English though, and while I say that right at the start and have had no complaints from US readers, an excerpt is currently being royally panned on page99.com for the dire crime of containing British brand names (kirbygrips) British spelling and British punctuation of dialogue. I wouldn't want to shoot myself in the foot.

Cheers

MTM

[Kath]

Fair dos. We invented English. It does what it says on the ...erm... dictionary!

[Patti (baconater)]

What are kirbygrips? Hairpins?

[Kath]

Yep.

[Patti (baconater)]

See? I sorted out what they are and didn't even require context.

What is with people???

[Kath]

Not exactly rocket salad is it?

[Linda]

One possible problem is that there will be seasonal fluctuations in people's buying of books... I predict a lot of purchases just before the summer hols, for exammple. But it's not predictable because the Kindle market is changing very rapidly, so what worked well one month might not work well the next time. I think a lot of it is down to sheer luck.

My Kindle has dozens of books on it, very few of which I paid for. This glut is what is damaging sales, perhaps. On the other hand, if I'd had to pay for them I would never have downloaded these books. I imagine for most new Kindle owners it's all been a sweetshop frenzy. I hope it sorts itself out, but I can't see it getting any better because new authors are adding their work all the time.

[Steve]

I've noticed a 25% downturn in sales this month over the rest of the year. Not a steady decline either. Maybe we're in one of those in between times before the summer hols as Linda suggests. The glut of free books could be affecting sales, I guess, but I think that might be a short term thing. eBooks have always attracted a market that wants cheap and free reading material, so it should come as no surprise. It will be interesting to see how the year goes. I'm in KDP select, but I'm not in it for the free promos - maybe sometime. I thought I'd see how many borrows I could get and it's been good - better than sales from other eReaders, so it's worthwhile for me as I try to build my readership. People who can borrow books must know that most will be free at some point, but they still use a borrow to get one of those books so there's hope that 'free' won't damage sales in the long term.

[Stuart]

One of my books is out of KDP Select and I'll be taking the other one out once the time is up. My third one, which I hope to have out by the end of June won't be enrolled. So many Indie Authors I know either personally or via forums have had a massive downturn in sales over the last six weeks or so. I can't help but think a change in the algorithms Amazon use may just be a part of it. I think they have been burned by the amount of appalling 'books' that are now being sold or given away by their Select programme and are in some way now trying to build bridges with the Big Six publishers. Perhaps it's my innate cynisism, perhaps not. Ironically though I feel much more at peace not selling many books - reminds me why I started writing in the first place - for sheer joy and because I could. A few quid to drop down my hours at work would be lovely and who knows, one day, that might happen. But for now I'm just going to carry on writing and appreciating the wonderful fact that people I don't know are reading my books and enjoying them. Hey ho!

[M.A.]

I agree Stuart, I'm taking all my books out of select. I had the largest quarter sales I've ever had on Smashwords with only 4 books on there, I'm hoping that will increase when I withdraw all my books.

I definitely think going free has affected our books. There's a lot of talk over in the States that the algos are being tampered with. Whereas everyone coming off free saw a huge jump in rank and sales now it's totally changed. I don't like the fact that Amazon are tampering with figures. I'm involved in a group of heavy hitters in the Indie world and we've been intimating this has been the case for over a year, since the Lady Gaga debacle!

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to Amazon for what I've earned over the 18 months I've been self-publishing but I also find it hard to trust them. :-)

[Rosen]

Am I the only person still getting results from Select? It's by no means a sure thing, and it doesn't work for all titles, but the sales boost after putting The Other Daughter on promo a couple of weeks ago earned me enough to get Pompomberry House professionally edited.

[M.A.]

I haven't had anything free for a while Rosen so I wouldn't know. I'm moving next month and will be without internet for 2 whole weeks so I might consider something then. But I have a promo booked on a big site at the end of this month so that might not be necessary.

It sticks in my throat when I give my books away for free. I'm TOTALLY happy earning a certain amount each month. It's the first money I've earned in ten years so I consider it a bonus, but I'm not a greedy person. :-)

[[deleted user]]

M wrote: "I agree Stuart, I'm taking all my books out of select. I had the largest quarter sales I've ever had on Smashwords with only 4 books on there, I'm hoping that will increase when I withdraw all my b..."

What was the lady Gaga debacle...?

[Rosen]

Mel, I agree that any money is a bonus as I'm in a similar position, having not been able to work in ten years. However, I'm now hoping to make a living from writing and I've been hit by the harsh reality that indies writers actually need to sell tens of thousands of books each year, to earn a living.

I'd be interested to hear about other places to run promotions though. What paid advertising opportunities have other indies found successful?

[Linda]

I have Earth Magic up for free again. It didn't do that well first time round, but it had no reviews then. I don't mind offering it for free but I'm not sure I will offer Book Lovers for free. I hope it boosts sales a little bit because at the moment EM was hardly moving at all.

[[deleted user]]

The reviews should help Linda, because the freebie emails that people get always list the books with reviews first. You're less likely to get lost in the crowd now.

:0)

[Patti (baconater)]

So true, Karen.

I've mentioned before that books with reviews show first on the freebie sites.

I really think it's pointless making a book with no reviews free now.

Just my opinion as a reader who is still looking through freebies most days.
Not really to download for myself anymore, but to look for gems to post for our groupites.

Any freebies I grab these days have either been pointed out by fellow groupites or posted in the freebie thread by our authors.

Even the freebie thread over in the zoo seems shorter each day unless it goes off topic.

I think we readers are suffering from freebie exhaustion and have been for a while.

[Linda]

That's very interesting, thanks.I haven't compared this time with last time butr muy gut feeling is that it has gone up the ncharts with fewer downloads. I should check up on that, but I think it's bed time.

I do wonder if the Amazon algorhythms are biased against non-select books. In theory those who like DISW might download DIFM, but either thery're waiting for it to go free, or they haven't yet read DISW or they have and they don't like it. So much to angst about!

[Rosen]

Linda, I've found that a very small percentage of free books downloads lead to sales of my other titles, even highly praised free book downloads. I haven't calculated the exact conversion rate, but it's stupidly low. Perhaps 1-2%.

Having said that, 1-2% or 1,000s, is a whole lot of sales than I would have made otherwise, so I'm not knocking it.

[Joanna]

We didn't really notice any increase in sales of The Cordello Quest after our Select promo at the start of April.

We've gained a lot of new readers (assuming they read the book, of course!) but until they read it - and leave more reviews - I can't say we've seen any benefit.

Having said that, we only have the one title out at the moment. And every marketing attempt is a learning process - reading others' experiences in here is a real help - thanks to you all!

[Katie]

I haven't had a free promotion for six weeks now and I'm selling an average of two books a day at the moment. That doesn't sound much and is definitely less than last month and the month before (both of which started with free promotions), but before Select, I was lucky to sell two a week! So I'm still happy with Select. I'm not planning another promotion in the near future though. I want to see how I go without.

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

I was selling 0.3 per day before Select. It didn't increase when I joined, but it did increase (and borrows began) after I ran the first promotion, rising to about 3 per day before I ran a second free promotion in early March when it soared for the rest of March. Sales fell dramatically at Easter and have continued to do so. Now I am back down to about 3 per day 9 weeks later (with just under one borrow per day).

[Linda]

Maybe everyone's sales have dropped after Easter. Mine did.

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

That's what I hear.

[Linda]

What's that then? Is there a place for trailers?

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

Book trailers? lol. Never met anyone who thought they did very much ;)

Linda, you can upload trailers to your author page on Amazon.

[Kath]

Speaking as a reader, I never look at trailers.

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

I made my last book trailer as a means to carry an audio of the first chapter - thought that would be of more worth.

I'm sure we're all using trailers incorrectly. I've never bought a book because of a trailer, nor even viewed one before buying...

[Rosen]

My trailer for Straight Out of University has had many views on YouTube, but not sure how many of those have resulted in sales of the book.

[Kath]

Rosen wrote: "My trailer for Straight Out of University has had many views on YouTube, but not sure how many of those have resulted in sales of the book."

i never usually look at trailers but someone said that this was good, and they were right...

but in general, books have blurbs, films have trailers - old fashioned traditionalist, me :)

[Rosen]

Ha ha! I guess if I have to dress up my blurb to appeal to people who don't want to read a blurb, I'm probably not going to get many sales.

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

I think there's a great deal of truth to that, Rosen ;)

But I guess every little thing helps a bit. I'd imagine YouTube's main benefit would be getting subscribers.

[Tom]

for what it's worth, there's a whole lot about those pesky amazon algorithms in this blog: amazons-ever-changing-algorithms-part-2

[Linda]

Hmn, perhaps they have someone going through the forums to see how we are sharing info to get the best out of Selewct, and thinking, "Ahah, I shall soon spoil your little game. Mwahahahaha."

I'm beginning to think I am beriong rationed to a maximum of one book sale a day, with the occasional dry day to keep my books in Select. Amazon are utterly in control of the information they send out to prospective purchasers. I haven't had any emails alerting me to other bopopks or new releases from people whose books I have downloaded, and I would expect that. Unless someone actually looks at my Author Page or actively seeks out books under my name, they wouldn't know I have titles in addition to Spigg's Wood. That seems odd to me.

So far, yesterday and today my free downloads are poor.