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KDP Select - What do you think?
message 951:
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A.L.
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Sep 28, 2012 03:44AM
Heheh indeed.
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I think I will put the next one in select- at least for the initial period then work out smashwords after:)
Catherine wrote: "I signed up to it because my books are only on Amazon anyway but I was wondering if someone could clarify something for me. Are the free promotion days worldwide or just in America?"I don't know about worldwide but when I did a free day my book was free in the US and the UK. More books were download in the UK, which I thought was interesting given that it's a smaller market--but evidently a very well-read one.
Yes it is world wide Alexes. (Good name btw) I had a promo a couple of months back and I had downloads in France, Germany and Italy. People like free things so you will probably have quite a few downloads people may or may not actually read it but hopefully you get extra sales and if you have other books then that helps those too.
I often get the freebies:) Which is why by TBR list is so huge:)
Select was good to me as I mentioned earlier. I'm finally out of it now. Followed through with getting on the major outlets direct. A book in my series will be offered for free permanently on Apple and Kobo. Hopefully Amazon and B&N matches. Trying to make sure all my major promos coincide with new book releases in hopes of creating a buzz similar to what early Select did. I think Select still works but you you get better results if you have a series and are prolific.
Hello,I thought it might be useful to share my experience with KDP Select and it's free promotion. I put my book, This Thirtysomething Life, up for free starting on Wed Oct 10th for 5 days.
It may have been naive of me, but I literally didn't expect much to happen. I thought at best a few hundred downloads would come out of it. I'm on the fifth day now and currently number 1 on the Literary Fiction Chart, number 1 on the Humour chart and number 2 on the Kindle free downloads best seller chart. I've had nearly 10,000 downloads in total. I am gobsmacked.
However, and this is why I'm annoyed. I have a new book coming out in December. I should have waited until that was out before I did the promotion because I would have had 10,000 people see my new book. I just had no idea it would be that popular.
Another plus is the addition of some lovely new reviews and I hope that when my new book does come out, it will sell better because of the promotion. It's advertising and getting our names known.
I just wanted to share this story and tell you to be prepared and to use the free promotion carefully, especially in relation to the sales of other books. It has worked for me in terms of getting my book read and getting my name out there. I'm excited to see what happens to my sales of this book and my next one as a result. Either way, it's been exciting and 10,000 people are reading my book and that by itself is worth it.
Any questions, please feel free to ask.
Cheers,
Jon
Hello,
I thought it might be useful to share my experience with KDP Select and it's free promotion. I put my book, This Thirtysomething Life, up for free starting on Wed Oct 10th for 5 days.
It may have been naive of me, but I literally didn't expect much to happen. I thought at best a few hundred downloads would come out of it. I'm on the fifth day now and currently number 1 on the Literary Fiction Chart, number 1 on the Humour chart and number 2 on the Kindle free downloads best seller chart. I've had nearly 10,000 downloads in total. I am gobsmacked.
However, and this is why I'm annoyed. I have a new book coming out in December. I should have waited until that was out before I did the promotion because I would have had 10,000 people see my new book. I just had no idea it would be that popular.
Another plus is the addition of some lovely new reviews and I hope that when my new book does come out, it will sell better because of the promotion. It's advertising and getting our names known.
I just wanted to share this story and tell you to be prepared and to use the free promotion carefully, especially in relation to the sales of other books. It has worked for me in terms of getting my book read and getting my name out there. I'm excited to see what happens to my sales of this book and my next one as a result. Either way, it's been exciting and 10,000 people are reading my book and that by itself is worth it.
Any questions, please feel free to ask.
Cheers,
Jon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Thirtyso...
Did you contact a lot of sites in the weeks before the promo in order to notify their readers of the promo?
Oh that is really good. I hope they relate to sales for book 2.
D.M. Andrews (GoodReads Author) wrote: "Did you contact a lot of sites in the weeks before the promo in order to notify their readers of the promo?"I am, as my wife will tell you, pretty useless at a lot of things. I didn't promote this at all except on Facebook and this site really. Like I said, it was an experiment to see what happened and I've learned a lot about what to do and what not to do. I could definitely have done better with more promotion.
We live and learn.
Cheers,
Jon
i posted it "most of the days" in the freebie thread on the amazon forum - that place where authors are shunned but we readers are still safe!also it was picked up by "indie books bargains" site and posted to their daily email and facebook (and whatever else it does!) on the 13th.
It seems KDP Select Free promos do better when you don't advertise, then. My unpromoted promo some months ago gained me 15,000 downloads in 3 days.My recent heavily-promoted (including some paid ads) promo created 2700 downloads over 5 days.
Conclusion: don't promote!
That could be correct but from what I see in general there has been a massive downturn in sales for many people over the last couple of months - this has included far fewer books being downloaded when they are free. Things have certainly changed in terms of the Indie portion of the Amazon Kindle World!! My personal view is that Amazon have decided to back the Big 6 Publishers and have reduced the visibility and therefore discoverability of Indie Books - just a hunch at this stage...
Yes I agree Stuart. This certainly seems to be the case. Now my first book appeared in June and my sales are hardly stellar but if the comments on the KDP forums are anything to go by what you say may be true.I have no idea of the course of the downturn, maybe it is just slow. I would suspect Amazon get far more revenue from the established publishers than indies who may sell anything from 0 to a few hundred a month.
I have no idea what the answer is, maybe don't opt for select and have books elsewhere or take the chance and see what happens.
My sales are the lowest they've ever been, and this off the back of a promo too!I was stunned that I got so few downloads after a pre-promo effort started about 1 month before the freebie dates.
I might be wrong on this but my conclusion is that there are only so many times that an author can promote for free - before the market becomes saturated, as those who might have been interested in a book will have downloaded it the first time round. This, of course, depends on the genre, and whether or not the particular work has broad appeal or is niche. What I'm interested to find out is whether or not anyone has gained reviews as a result of their KDP Select Promo. I have had one additional review, so far, since the promo ended in early August.
I'm also concluding that the majority of those who download for free have so many books on their Kindles that they won't ever get round to reading most of them, and will simply delete them..... Or am I being a cynic?
Yes, I got a few reviews and lots of "likes". I think Kindles can get filled up with freebies and this makes people less inclined to buy or even download more free stuff.But in terms of saturation, I think we need to remember there are millions upon millions of people in any target readership, so you're never even going to touch that number even if you have tens of thousands of downloads.
Well I get a lot of free books, and I do buy books too. I have a long TBR list I will get around to them. I don't usually download something simply because it is free if I know I probably won't like it. If it is something I may enjoy or are willing to at least give time to then I will.I think i have only deleted 1 or 2 books- 1 was simply because I thought it was awful, but I can't remember if it was free or not.
If I download a book and I don't like it I would probably just leave it unless it is trully terrible. I don't tend to leave reviews on Amazon but I would here. I have also bought others in the series
as a result of a freebie I read.
D.M. Andrews (GoodReads Author) wrote: "My sales are the lowest they've ever been, and this off the back of a promo too!I was stunned that I got so few downloads after a pre-promo effort started about 1 month before the freebie dates."
I think everyone sales are a bit poo at present. Not sure why but that appears to be the consensus. I suppose it might pick up.
Can you gift an e-book to someone? So I buy it for someone else?
D.M. Andrews (GoodReads Author) wrote: "Yes, I got a few reviews and lots of "likes". I think Kindles can get filled up with freebies and this makes people less inclined to buy or even download more free stuff.But in terms of saturatio..."
I think you're right. I tend to fill my Kindle up with free stuff - from on-line contacts - even if they're not in a genre I read. But, if it's not my genre I'll get as far as the first few chapters in the free Look Inside section, and that's it.....I've got too much other stuff I genuinely want to read.
I think too that theoretically there may be millions upon millions of readers out there who are potential markets for our books... But then when you then have to divide it up into genres... the market gets smaller.
And of course now, readers have many more free books to choose from as there must be so many of us on any one day offering our books for free on Select.
And not all of these potential readers are going to be trawling the free Amazon book sites. Many of them won't even be aware of their existence.
I have quite a few reasonably tech savvy friends who didn't buy my book initially as they didn't know that you don't need a Kindle device to read books on Kindle and can download a free app on Mac or PC etc.
You cannot gift ebooks outside of the US, I believe...
Yup, but I'm from the UK like most on this forum (judging by the name!). Still, we get borrows in the UK now (or soon?) :)
I know DM i was merely correcting your statement cos no, you cant gift books FROM UK but you can gift books FROM US TO UK and last time i noticed, UK is outside of US!!!!
But you can send vouchers to people who can then use them to buy the book.All you need is their email address.
Yes, that can be read both ways ;) I meant you cannot gift ebooks if you live outside of the US, not that you can't gift ebooks to people who live outside of the US ;)
Can you, Patti? I tried sending one to someone in Germany and couldn't work out how to do it. I seem to remember I could only send them in the UK...
D.M. Andrews (GoodReads Author) wrote: "Yes, I got a few reviews and lots of "likes". I think Kindles can get filled up with freebies and this makes people less inclined to buy or even download more free stuff.But in terms of saturatio..."
I think the biggest problem with freebies is that they're so prolific, there's a danger they become the 'norm' for indie authors. Because people 'browse' for indie authors, by which I mean they're usually not searching out a particular name, people will tend more to take a chance on a freebie than spending money. When you can almost fill your kindle with freebies, why do anything else?
Having read a lot of posts on the subject of Select etc, I'm starting to think my next 'drive' will be for paperbacks - no-one expects them for free!
The chances of picking up a sizeable readership from freebie promos seems like such a long shot, with hugely variable results.
But for me the biggest issue is, I may be OK at writing, but I'm rubbish at marketing!
D.M. Andrews (GoodReads Author) wrote: "Can you, Patti? I tried sending one to someone in Germany and couldn't work out how to do it. I seem to remember I could only send them in the UK..."Oh.
You may be right!
Was Simon able to send you a voucher, GL?
Yes, he did it by email. You can send an email voucher to anyone anywhere, but they can only use it on the actual site you buy it. If you buy it on the UK site they will have to use it there. If you buy it on the german site then will have to use it on the german site.
Hmm...so effectively useless then. You cannot buy kindle books outside your own country as it will always direct you back to your own country. lol. I guess other products might be different?
Lambert wrote: "I might be wrong on this but my conclusion is that there are only so many times that an author can promote for free - before the market becomes saturated, as those who might have been interested in..."I got an extra 6 reviews, although some of these were from people from this forum.
Chris wrote: "D.M. Andrews (GoodReads Author) wrote: "Yes, I got a few reviews and lots of "likes". I think Kindles can get filled up with freebies and this makes people less inclined to buy or even download mor..."I've just written a blog post, as it happens on that very same subject...
I spent the first three months madly pimping the book. I realised now that I was taking a very short term view. And was getting frustrated as it was time that could have been better spent on writing the next one. That to me is the best form of marketing there is for the long term.
Yes - books = salesmen!
it's all quite simple, what you need to do is to get friendly with readers on sites like this and we will help you promote and also recommend the heck out of your book(s)!
Well. First step would be for an author to write a good book. :)
Well, yes, good book first! Sadly one can't always give hearty recommendations to people one considers friends. You've got to have integrity.
i was assuming that they had already done that bit !
Kath wrote: "it's all quite simple, what you need to do is to get friendly with readers on sites like this and we will help you promote and also recommend the heck out of your book(s)!"@Patti, @Ignite I do like Goodreads - feel like there's more integrity here than on some of other social networks - the ones that seem quite hostile towards writers :)
@Patti, @Ignite I do like Goodreads - feel like there's more integrity here than on some of other social networks - the ones that seem quite hostile towards writers :)"I am not sure if Patti has read my book yet (Patti, you bought it, so I'm not going to ask) but every time Gingerlilly or Ignite recommend my stuff anywhere, I get a little spike in sales... so I can vouch for them working.
Cheers
MTM
Sorry Mary, it's still languishing in my huge TBR. Perhaps I should give up moderating and read full time? Nope, couldn't do that. Love the group too much.
I did manage a few solid hours of reading today though. :)
Patti, It's OK... you did buy it after all. Which was very kind. ;-)Ignite, indeed!
Cheers
MTM
I'll be reading it.Eventually....
Oh really that is a bit poo. An Amazon voucher is a voucher- but I guess it is currency related.
My view is that I tried reading Charles Dickens when I was 15, 25, 35 and again now (43) and it's only now that I fully realise how great his stuff is - and that's close on 150 years after he wrote it!! So, basically, for me, any sale is a massive source of aspall cider celebration - just think how drunk and happy I'll be in spirit beauty world in 2150!!!
2 books out of KDP Select, 2 to go. Phew!
Stuart wrote: "2 books out of KDP Select, 2 to go. Phew!"Yes, it's a relief, isn't it. I'm so happy I can give people a code to download my book from Smashwords for free, and that I'm allowed to email to anyone I want. I own my book again :-)
I think sales are being affected by Amazon's war with Sony. The 20p books deal made the Kindle more attractive to eReader buyers, as was their goal, but couple that with so many free books (and many from mainstream authors' back catalogues) and Kindle owners don't really need to buy books any more, unless they're from their favourite authors or a book has generated a buzz.
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