UK Amazon Kindle Forum discussion
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KDP Select - What do you think?
I'll be able to share my thoughts soon as I made In the Blood free yesterday. After the first 24 hours it's been downloaded over 15,000 times and is No.8 in the UK and No.3 in the US where most of the downloads came from. I didn't expect it to get so high so soon. It will be interesting to see how things go after the promo.Edit: I've noticed increased sales for To the Grave already, which must just be from ITB's exposure because I shouldn't think anyone's finished reading the free book yet.
I've heard a lot of different reports of how many books you have to sell or give away to get one review. I would think more people who paid for it would read it faster and then maybe review.There must be TBR lists longer than the coastline of Norway with freebies though. :(
Ignite wrote: "I've heard a lot of different reports of how many books you have to sell or give away to get one review. I would think more people who paid for it would read it faster and then maybe review.There..."
That's definitely my TBR, Ignite.
Here is my account of Amazon KDP Select and their Free for 5 Days promotion.http://livingwithbinladens.com/blog/2...
I published a book called "Living with Bin Ladens". The post shows how KDP Select worked (or didn't) with screenshots.
Thanks.
Walter Katz.
I put my 1st title up for sale on Amazon. I chose Global distribution knowing from Feedbooks most of my readers are in the US.I sold 2 copies. Both to friends on Facebook. 1 in the US who bought i for her husband and 1 in the UK who bought it for his sister.
When I did my free promo (which I ran for 2 days) my book reached 42nd most downloaded free title on Kindle.
It didn't get me any reviews (despite me asking VERY nicely on Facebook), it didn't generate any further sales.
When I release my next pay title (most likely in December) I'll be doing it through Smashwords. I don't expect to make any money out of them either.
Walter and Raymond, it seems neither of you have been very pleased with your Select experience! I am hardly an expert on this but as you've both discovered, making your book free with few or no reviews, and without publicising it anywhere, will get you very little reward. The basic process that tends to work quite well is:1) Promote your book directly to relevant people/blogs/sites and ask for reviews.
2) Once you have over 5 positive reviews, schedule a free promo period - at least 2 days.
3) Contact all the sites and blogs that feature free ebooks and let them know the details of your promotion - do this at least 2 weeks in advance. This is where the reviews are vital, as most of them will not feature you otherwise.
4) During the free period, spread the word as much as possible - use twitter, Facebook, carrier pigeon, etc.
You should then find the number of downloads much higher, and hopefully gain lots of new reviews and readers. Actual sales tend to spike a few days after a free period ends.
There's no guarantees whatsoever, of course! But that approach is generally held to be a sensible one. The groundwork and advance planning really does make a difference with Select. Best of luck!
David wrote: "Walter and Raymond, it seems neither of you have been very pleased with your Select experience! I am hardly an expert on this but as you've both discovered, making your book free with few or no rev..."David, your advice seems very sound. At the very least, it's a practical approach or strategy. I've just now gotten into the KDP select thing, but i only have 3 positive reviews (in US) and 1 positive review in the UK. I am intending to use the free promo period to try and rack of some new readership and hopefully gain some more positive reviews (possibly some sales), but really what I'm looking for is some more exposure to my work, which I think is the hardest thing to accomplish. At least for me.
I also would like to thank you, David. That was a splendid advise. I will be sure to follow it exactly.Would you be kind enough to post here these sites you mentioned:
"Contact all the sites and blogs that feature free ebooks "
Much obliged!
Walter Katz,
the author of Living with Bin Ladens
http://livingwithbinladens.com
Anthony wrote: "David wrote: "Walter and Raymond, it seems neither of you have been very pleased with your Select experience! I am hardly an expert on this but as you've both discovered, making your book free with..."Would like say that as a reader, whether the reviews are five star or one star doesn't matter. The fact it has reviews does. Oftentimes a one star review will make me just as interested in reading a book as a five star review.
What really gets me interested though is hearing about the book from people I know who have read it. That is why I feel authors need to interact with readers as much as possible and sites like our group here are perfect for that.
Talk to us. We'll read your book. We'll talk to each other about your book. We'll talk about it on other sites. We'll talk about it at work and with family and friends.
And don't think of it as promo! It's fun. Get to know us. You'll like hanging out and chatting with us.
Walter wrote: "I also would like to thank you, David. That was a splendid advise. I will be sure to follow it exactly.Would you be kind enough to post here these sites you mentioned:
"Contact all the sites and b..."
All the sites you need to know about can be found here: http://www.squidoo.com/going-free-kin...
Shaun, thanks for posting the link, very useful! I strongly recommend that everyone follow that link and read the Pros and Cons - a concise summary of the good and bad points of going free.Further up this thread I posted a link to a discussion on the Kindle Users Forum which covers similar ground, including Facebook pages: http://www.kuforum.co.uk/kindleusersf...
I'd also suggest you listen to Patti. She knows what she's talking about. Plus, I've seen her take down men twice my size with one hand behind her back. Don't make her angry.
Where did I get this reputation? I'm as sweet and gentle as new born kitten!
Merrow.
Patti (Free Bird) wrote: "Anthony wrote: "David wrote: "Walter and Raymond, it seems neither of you have been very pleased with your Select experience! I am hardly an expert on this but as you've both discovered, making you..."Patti, I'm not sure if you've read my books but your post vindicates everything I ever say about marketing my book.
Face to face, one to one takes time and effort but it's definitely the best approach. Not for short term gain but for acquiring readers, long term, I'm sure it works better. Eventually, someone'll like it enough to tell tell their friends. And so on... It's slow but steady. Sure in my case it's slower than a tortoise on beta blockers (sorry if I said that earlier) but it works.
Edited to add: and yeh, it's a LOT more fun than selling! ;-)
Cheers
MTM
Hiya Mary!I've not had a chance to read all your stuff but don't worry, I've got it all on my kindle in my 'our authors' collection.
So far, I've read your prequel. Was one of the first things I read on my kindle, actually. I sought out your stuff way back when I saw your posts in the zoo.
When Gingerlily came to visit me, we talked about your writing quite a lot.
Must say I really like your cover art. Must go to your author thread and ask about it...
M.T. wrote: "Patti (Free Bird) wrote: "Anthony wrote: "David wrote: "Walter and Raymond, it seems neither of you have been very pleased with your Select experience! I am hardly an expert on this but as you've b..."I had to laugh at that one - about the sales being slower than a tortoise on beta blockers......
Patti you really must read Mary's books. She's a scream - just as funny as she sounds here! They have a depth about them though, that some funny books don't have. Her third one is going to be read by me the minute it hits the whispernet!
Yes I will Ignite. I need more reading time!
There is one thing I'm sure of as an ebook author - this is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Yes, there are those who seem to sell thousands upon thousands, but how much money do they plow in to get that crop? A few months ago, I thought I was on my way. Now I'm back to slow and steady because I haven't had a free promotion for a while and I can't afford a big advertising campaign. But I do know that people are reading my books. I know that my books are being read a whole lot more than if they were sitting on my hard drive. And I still have to write. I'm not losing anything, so I must be gaining.Here endeth my sermon.
So I had a promo end of July and was surprised at the number of downloads, I made a few extra sales but seem to have eased off. However I have noticed mid month is usually worse.I can't tell if it was beneficial or not as I haven't noticed a mad scramble to buy my book since however it is still free publicity and besides if those people are like me it might be a while until they read it;)
I am hoping Book 2 is up and ready for the end of September. My Select period runs out at the end of August and I am not sure whether to renew it. I am planning to make a few revisions to book 1 anyway so I might renew it until that is ready which won't be for a while.
I know on the KDP forums some people think the free downloads and the kindle select are akin to Satan and his minions of hell and others love them. I guess it depends what works.
I do download Free offers- if it is something I would consider (or if it is someone here and I might not usually). I have bought second books from authors I have downloaded for free if I like them so from me it does work.
Here you go - The Definitive Guide to KDP Select Free Giveawayshttp://davidmcgowanauthor.com/2012/08...
Good luck! :)
"David wrote: "http://davidmcgowanauthor.com/2012/08..."Still working my way through your web page, David. There are some *great* tips in here, particularly Twitter stuff, so far (Thank you!).
One point I'll bring up though is that when I've tweeted my actual Amazon link, Twitter adds a 'view media' link at the bottom of the tweet which displays my book and also bits of reviews. However, if I use URL shortening, this does not happen. Have you checked this? Do you use a particular URL shortening service than can preserve the 'view media' link?
"David wrote: "http://davidmcgowanauthor.com/2012/08..."David,
I've now read through every word of your article, have submitted my book to sites, have made notes on how to proceed on the lead-up to, and during, my promotion next week, etc. This is a masterpiece. My favourite idea from your article:
"In my debut novel, The Hunter Inside, I put all my website, Twitter, contact details and everything at the end of the novel, and a couple of paragraphs basically saying, ‘If you liked The Hunter Inside, and review it on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk then email me, I will give you a free copy of my next novel before it is released for general sale’."
I've just downloaded your book. And I shall feed back to you how my promotion went. I've done previous promotions, so I'll be very well aware of the difference this will make. Thanks so much once again. You're a superstar.
Best wishes,
Natasha
Thanks so much Natasha! I'm glad you enjoyed the piece, and I really hope you have great results with your next promo! Not sure about the link shortening thing - I'll have to check that out. Thanks for pointing it out to me!
David wrote: "Here you go - The Definitive Guide to KDP Select Free Giveawayshttp://davidmcgowanauthor.com/2012/08...
Good luck! :)"
Now that is what I call "Definitive". Nicely done. Thanks!
I would add to David's guide the idea of using a separate, new, 'admin' Twitter account which you could set up to tweet to the tens of accounts who will hopefully retweet your free promo info to their thousands of followers. If you send fifty tweets from your normal Twitter account you might find yourself being mightily unfollowed?If you do acquire some genuine, enthusiastic followers, you could then let them know your real Twitter name.
... This is what I plan on doing tomorrow anyhow.
I managed 19,131 downloads with my three day promo for The Hunter Inside, and sales have been good since. Here's my blog piece again (which will be updated soon) http://davidmcgowanauthor.com/2012/08... and I'll be writing more about KDP Select giveaways and other important promotional activities in the days and weeks to come, so follow the blog for updates! Good luck everyone!
I have started my first ever three day KDP Select promo - am as nervous as anything - have always been paid for my writing before but I guess this is like those Advanced Reader Copies that publishers give out. I wouldn't have had a clue how to do any of this were it not for David's post. I shall be buying a copy of his book as a thank-you. I too shall be writing a blog post about the experience a few weeks down the track to assess whether or not the free downloads have had any effect on sales. Wish me luck! Revolution Earth
Hi David,Well, that was definitely my most successful book promotion. I didn't reach anywhere near your dizzy heights, but I suspect an eating disorder memoir about coming out as lesbian is probably a tad more niche than your genre ;-)
I didn't manage to get onto Pixel of Ink or onto ENT, either because of not giving them sufficient notice or because my book subject didn't appeal? ...
I did get some of the Twitter accounts with 20,000+ and 50,000+ followers to retweet me, which was a pleasure to observe, but somehow many more of my downloads were in the UK, not the US, so I wonder how many of their followers were interested in my title?
Thanks for the Amazon Germany tip. I doubled my German audience and even broken into France for the first time.
The Facebook experience was confusing. It took me some time to realise that with most of the sites my posts only showed up to myself when logged in. And those sites didn't explain that you needed to have done something such as join their group. The Facebook sites that let anyone post without restriction were:
www.facebook.com/kuforum
www.facebook.com/KindleKorner
www.facebook.com/IndieKindleWLC
www.facebook.com/ereader1.us
Many thanks again,
Natasha
Hi David, I tried feeding back to you at http://davidmcgowanauthor.com/2012/08... too, but got the error message:"You are being asked to login because natasha@lesbian-crushes-and-bulimia.com is used by an account you are not logged into now."
I tried another email address and got the same message. Not sure how to resolve that?
Natasha wrote: "Hi David, I tried feeding back to you at http://davidmcgowanauthor.com/2012/08... too, but got the error message:"You are being asked to login be..."
Hi Natasha
Well done on the promo (I put a few tweets out!). I'm surprised you had more in the UK than US. Maybe next time start a month in advance like I did and give some of the bigger sites the chance to pick you up. Also, tweet to associations that deal with gay rights, eating disorders, NHS etc and ask for RT's. In an arena such as the one your book is part of, the big associations like to promote those who speak out on these issues. Congratulations! In terms of your Wordpress login, just click the 'Forgotten your password? link and get it reset! :o)
David wrote: "Natasha wrote: "Hi David, I tried feeding back to you at http://davidmcgowanauthor.com/2012/08... too, but got the error message:"You are being a..."
It must have been the beers last night, David. I just needed to click on your Twitter icon. I've posted to your site too now.
Excellent idea re. the gay rights orgs. Didn't think of that. I did get @DIVAmagazine (lesbian magazine) and @beatED (main UK eating disorder charity) to retweet me, which I was delighted with. I suspect that's where most of my downloads came and why they were mainly in the UK.
Is The Pink Paper still going? My sister was a big fan years ago! :o) Oops, going a bit off topic here!I'm currently updating the Twitter links in my article so will be reblogging it with around 150 new Twitter contacts soon.
Natasha wrote: "Hi David,Well, that was definitely my most successful book promotion. I didn't reach anywhere near your dizzy heights, but I suspect an eating disorder memoir about coming out as lesbian is proba..."
Natasha,like you I found Facebook a bit confusing but I put that down to a late night last night! So thanks so much for your post. I was very behind with my promotions and it saved me stacks of time. Thank you so much!
Alison
Lambert Nagle
You're welcome, Lambert. Hope you had a good promo experience?
Natasha wrote: "You're welcome, Lambert. Hope you had a good promo experience?"The promo has just finished and although nowhere near the 19,131 downloads of David's promotion (3126 in fact) I'm still glad to have done it.
It's in a popular genre, thriller, for sure, but it has a non-linear structure in the first few chapters, (ereaders suit a more straightforward narrative) is set in New Zealand and Australia and one of the main characters is a chippy young woman with a social conscience.
I am planning a blog post about the experience - now and with a follow up in the next couple of weeks to see if the freebie will have any real effect on on-going sales.
I'm looking in particular to get feedback from other readers in different genres to see if the downloads have made any difference to on-going sales. Email me at lambertnagle@gmail.com if you'd like to contribute.
Just some general advice to others about to embark on the process....Be careful when setting up automated tweets to take into account that your free promo is not going to start exactly at 12.00 Pacific Standard Time. Mine didn't kick in until an hour and fifteen minutes later at 9.15am BST. But I was able to gain extra downloads at the end of the promotion which carried over for another two hours.
By far the greatest number of downloads came from the USA - and that was mainly on the final day in the final few hours of the promotion. I picked up a modest (but still important) number of downloads from Amazon Germany. I had an inkling this novel would appeal to the German market as NZ and OZ are popular tourist destinations for visitors from Germany and The Netherlands.
I got a number of retweets and mentions in some of the smaller sites. Didn't get picked up by Pixel of Ink but got featured and retweeted by the friendly folk at: Free e Books Daily, Book Your Next Read, Squid Inc,
The Digital Ink Spot and Free Book Dude.
If I was going to do this again I would start my promo plans a few days earlier. I only got in touch with the various sites 10 days before the promo started.
It is extremely good advice to set up automatic tweets. I would have been stuck had I not done so as my first free day was a working day and I was just too busy to be able to do much last-minute promoting. I had no access to broadband for much of the day either - but I didn't panic and figured that I still had two more days left in the promo and it worked out in the end. Good luck to you all!
Alison
writing as Lambert Nagle
Personally I haven't seen a huge benefit but I may do when book 2 appears. I also got downloads in france and Germany so that may work in the future for me.I have had a few borrows as well
KDP Select promo just finishing. In March, with little preparation, I garnered 5000 downloads per day over a three-day promo. Sales were very good for about 3 weeks thereafter.What a difference this time! I notified every site I could find - almost 30 sites, including ones where I had to donate or give a small payment. I also followed up on all the post-on-the-day sites/facebook pages, and - of course, tweeted.
But I only gained about 600 downloads per day! What changed?
The book is in the same category as my first promo book, though is shorter and a $1 cheaper, and had about the same number of reviews at the same ratings.
I can't see what I could've done more...but I'm afraid such a low number of downloads will not benefit me much in sales.
What's changed?We all have hundreds of freebies on our kindles now and have become very selective about what we download.
And/or many of the freebies are appearing on the freebies sites for the third, fourth, fifth time and we grabbed them ages ago.
Can't say I'm terribly excited about freebies anymore. I don't bother downloading them without a reccie from someone in the group or if I've read and liked something else from the same author.
What I need to do is go through my archive and delete a load of the dross I downloaded when I was in freebie frenzy mode.
Doesn't matter if its free, if it crap, it's crap.
I can understand that, but the promo is really the only tool that can give visibility on Amazon, so if it doesn't work anymore then it's not good for authors.I'll report back on the effect next week ;)
Yeah, one of the big questions that was asked when it first came out was how long the effect would last.Of course it's a different ball game in the states where borrows come into play though.
I hope it goes well for you, Darren.
Thanks, Patti - yes, there are the borrows! :)
My last two free runs last month were terrible. One had 1200 downloads over three days, and the other 200! Ironically, the one that had only 200 downloads is my best seller and has averaged 10 sales a day for over four months (but as you can see, I'm not a big hitter) and the one that had 1200 downloads has only sold 5 copies since the free run! I've basically reached the decision that I won't be offering any more books for free.
I agree. I left the Kindle Select programme last week after six months. I think there are only so many times you can offer an eating disorder memoir about one's struggle with coming out. Anyone interested in such a niche subject would be aware of that fact and would have grabbed it already!
Were your books in the mainstream, Shaun? I wonder if it is still of some worth for books that have wide appeal. Rosen Trevithick's experience (her promo ended today, and at #1 on the free kindle list!) and Rebecca Donovan who took 43,000 downloads and shot to fame (I hear - not looked into it myself).
My books are genre books. The one that had 200 downloads was The Mutilation Machination and the one that had 1200 was Dark Seduction. KDP and offering free books obviously still works/helps some people, but my last few times trying it have been pretty poor too, which makes it less appealing for me personally. If I was in it for the money, I'd be destitute. Lol
UK Amazon Kindle Forum
Books mentioned in this topic
The Mutilation Machination (other topics)Dark Seduction (other topics)
Revolution Earth (other topics)
The Hunter Inside (other topics)
Dark Seduction (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Harrison Davies (other topics)Michael Wallace (other topics)
It's really interesting how divided the opinion is here - there are so many variables - are particular genres more popular than others, for instance?