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Amazon Select book lending program
That's what I've always wondered. I think the books I've actually sold today are much more likely to be read than the hundreds that were downloaded over the last two days. They actually had to think about whether it was worth the money.
I agree, but I also have to admit I've purchased a lot of books that I'll probably never read. My reading tastes are quite narrow. More and more I find I'm drawn to non-fiction and short stories. Still, I buy fiction, but then scroll past it on my Kindle -- thinking, "maybe someday, but not now."
Just noticed that Amazon has announced the KDP Select pot for the month of January: another $500,000.
I'll call these my final numbers for my kids' book even though Amazon hasn't cut off the freebies at the scheduled time:3,892 downloads plus 28 that were returned
Wowsers, Patricia! That's incredible! How many days were you free?
I ran the whole five days.What I've learned from watching all the titles I've enrolled in the program is that the download rate builds over time and it doesn't seem to matter what day of the week it is, though it does matter what time of day it is. I'm in the Eastern time zone in the US. I noticed that most of my downloads happened from between noon to 11pm. There was a moment Christmas night when I checked the download numbers in the US, then switched over to look at them in the UK. When I switched back to the US, ten more downloads had been reported. This was in a matter of about 15 seconds. I don't know what happened in those seconds. Maybe the world tilted and threw off the counters.
I have no more free promo days until three months from now, so checking the reports will be far less fun. My royalty statements don't have enough plot or action to keep me interested. But it looks like plenty of authors are making money at this. In the community area of KDP select, I saw authors posting that their sales reach several thousands dollars month after month. Right away I started thinking what I could do with extra money like that: new windows, new gutters, redo the hardwood floors, slap on some fresh paint in every room, put a pool in the backyard, and hire a pool boy -- or maybe just get the pool boy, and skip the pool.
At this point, I think the real winner we have in our little group is Kat with not just her huge number of downloads, but also the sales success that has followed her freebie period. It feels great to see good things come to her after all the effort she has put forth, and all the fretting she has gone through, worrying about getting noticed. I always thought it was just a matter of time for her because she was so determined, and because I liked what I read of her work, and I thought her cover was impossible to resist. I especially like how she never stayed down when she got discouraged. She just dusted herself off and tried something new. Gotta admire that. I like her strength. When she tells me some of the things she does in her daily life, I think, oh man, I would need sooo many naps every day if I lived her life, but she makes it sound so easy, so effortless, no matter how big the burden or challenge. I also admire how she goes to bat for her mom, making sure she gets published,too. A year ago I made a promise to my mom that I'd do that for her -- a promise made while she lay on her deathbed. As I've watched from afar what Kat's doing for her mom, I feel myself gaining the strength to do the same for my mom. Up till now I haven't been able to face the chapters tucked away in a suitcase, but enough time has passed that I think I can do it now. I just need to get myself in gear, accept that I'll probably cry when I read the pages Mom was working on right up to her death, and then get past it to fulfill that final promise. I have Kat to thank for that. She even volunteered, out of the blue one day to scan a book of mine that I've been transcribing via dictation from its printed form into a digital file now that I have the rights back. Seriously, who does that? It's such s a tedious job. I'll never forget that act of generosity on her part, though I couldn't bring myself to let her do it. And to show you what kind of person she is, she said she was just paying it forward because Andre had been kind enough to help her with her mom's cover. I figure Andre doesn't know that the help he extended was so contagious, and that Kat is looking for ways to pass it on. These are the reasons I love this little corner of GoodReads. The people are real; the people are supportive; the people are kind (when we aren't biting each other's heads off, I mean).
I know I've rattled on a lot, but there's one other thing I want to mention: I finished a book tonight that may interest those here who want to know the inside scoop about Amazon. It's written by an enginering type guy who worked for Amazon in Seattle. There's much in the book to skip over, but a couple of chapters are revealing about how Amazon operates. Check out Inside the Giant Machine: Confessions of a Former Amazon.com Technologist by Kalpanik S. The chapters of interest are The Cold, Calculating Machine (hint: it's about Bezos, and it bears out what Andre's been saying about Amazon all along), and Things Start to Fall Apart in Fall, and Winter Freeze, and 2011: The Year Amazon Rolled Back Worker Welfare by 100 Years. There are other interesting parts, but these are the chapters that interested me the most. A relative of mine work in the Seattle offices but stayed just a short time. She wouldn't talk about what happened there; only said it was not what she imagined it would be. That disenchantment matches the author's view of his stint with the company.
Mod
It was a lovely post, Patricia. I hope you can bring yourself to work on your mother's writing. It would be a lovely tribute.
How utterly unexpected and touching. Thank you, Patricia.
I need a Kleenx.
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #288 Free in Kindle Store
#10 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Genre Fiction > Mystery & Thrillers > Thrillers > Suspense
Imagine what I could have done with it in the full 48 hours. It's currently downloading about four copies a minute.
You can still get a FREE copy for another four hours.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005MLA4SK
Mod
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbi...
I have to admit to getting rather addicted to the high I'm on at the moment. The Dragon Box downloaded 488 times over the two days it was free (not huge in comparison to some, but it had sold one copy in three months before so...). I fully expected it to maybe sell a few afterwards, but yesterday I sold 28 copies and loaned 15 and today, it has already sold 18 and loaned another 16. Amazon might actually have to send me a cheque (check?) soon at this rate. Most of the sales have been on Amazon US, so I'm hoping quite a few of them are Australian kids. It means less money for me, but they were, after all, who I wrote it for.To add to the high, when I went on Twitter yesterday to express my excitement, a well-known Australian children's author tweeted back to ask how she could read it without a Kindle. This morning she tweeted again to tell everyone that she'd downloaded Kindle for her computer so that she could read my book! Now I'm on tenterhooks to know if she likes it!
I know this high may not last, but I'm living for the moment and enthused about getting my new book out ASAP. And I've still got 3 free days left.
Such good news, Katie. My kids' book has done better post-freebie than any of my other titles -- getting several sales and borrows (though it's not performing as well as The Dragon Box). Given your experience and mine, I'm wondering if there's a hungry market out there for kids' books in general.
Andre Jute wrote: "About eleven hours have elapsed since Amazon made THE MEYERSCO HELIX free a grotesque 30-odd hours late. In that time it has moved up into the magical top ten in the most desirable category:Amazo..."
So I gave my stepfather a Kindle for Christmas. My brother gave him $25 in an Amazon Gift card. I went through yesterday and grabbed a bunch of free stuff, including what Cool Main stuff, I could.
I stuck Le Mans at the top of his reader. He's a voracious reader, so if he gets into it, he'll gladly buy more. I spent a good hour talking about independent publishing, the ways to try to determine good books from books that may need a little more work, et cetera.
Andre Jute wrote: "Overtaking Lee Child's Jack Reacher is dangerous business!http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbi..."
WOW! THAT'S SO COOL!
Katie wrote: "I have to admit to getting rather addicted to the high I'm on at the moment. The Dragon Box downloaded 488 times over the two days it was free (not huge in comparison to some, but it had sold one c..."Katie, I'm SO happy for you! That's beyond fabulous! Recognition on that level! Now, get off the ceiling and come down here with the rest of us. LOL Put rocks in your pockets if you have to.
Hehe! I saw a quote on Twitter today - something about it being okay to have your head in the clouds as long as you keep your feet on the ground. I should have copied it and pinned it to my desktop.To top it off, I just got a five star review for Treespeaker on Smashwords http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/... AND sold a copy of Treespeaker in Germany! The review is unusual and rather short, but I'm not complaining!
I need moon boots.
Someone hand this girl a brick to hold. (My Coffee bread came out like bricks, but we ate it anyways.)I think I have a blog post coming on...
Nothing wrong with being happy about good things happening. :)
File this under WTH - I've had NO, I repeat NO sales on B&N. Which was my best market last year.
Oh, BTW the blush is off the rose in the US - getting 2 to 5 sales a day, am off all the lists. I started tweeting the URL. UK still on 3 lists, though slowly slipping down.
But I'm off the mulch layer - discoverable - and last month I would have killed for sales at this level.
Glad to see I'm not the only one whose been "discovered" - we were all sweating it there for awhile.
J.a. wrote: "Nothing wrong with being happy about good things happening. :)"Oh, of course not! Got to tease her a bit, though.
Mod
What a ghastly choice!How about some Andre Norton? Tamest SciFi you will ever love.
The buyers are handing me the brick - the refunds are coming in. Of the 55 copies I've sold, 8 have been refunded. I'm being philosophical about it. This is a kids' book. My daughter, when she got her Kindle on Christmas morning, was all ready to head straight into Amazon and start filling it up. I turned her wireless off and told her that it only came on when we went to Amazon together. But I can imagine a few parents receiving a 'Thank you for your purchase' email and freaking! Then again, if the kids are into Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Captain Underpants, they're not going to be impressed by my book. And I don't suppose many would have the foresight to read the sample or even the description!Claudine, I hope your son enjoys it. One site that does reviews of samples said that there were Australian words in there that might slow readers down. I've gone through the sample and can't work out what he meant, but there are some Australianisms later on. Let me know if he needs a translation! (I think they're pretty clear in context).
Mod
Don't worry about the returns, Katie. It'll settle down. It's a cost of doing business in the electronic world, where people can't handle the product before they buy it, as in a bookshop. They don't really know what they're getting. My Larsson books at one stage had consistent 8-12% returns, and then, suddenly, one days it just settled at about 3%, even though nothing visible had changed.
My kids' book has had a lot of sales and borrows since the freebie ended, but only two returns. Contrast that with the bunches of returns when it was free, and it makes me think people might actually bother making sure they want something when it costs them money or uses up their one-book-per-month loan.
Do the returns on loans get counted, Patricia?
I don't know for sure, but I don't think so. I've seen no written provision for undoing a loan, except in future months -- when you need to delete a previous loan before you can get a new one.
Mod
The purpose of the experiment was to reestablish Andrew and to give Dakota a ride on his pre-existing recognition. It's not rocket science but straightforward commercial practice. The other CoolMain Press books would inevitably get a pickup too, by association.
Amazon unfortunately wrecked the experiment by making LE MANS free several hours late -- and not making MEYERSCO free until over 30 hours of the scheduled 48 had elapsed. There was thus no question of synergy. We might as well have saved all the free days for both books; using them in this unconnected manner is just wasteful. In effect the experiment was conducted only in the 14h30m during which MEYERSCO was free, and that was mostly through the nighttime hours in the big secondary markets, and after a large part of the largest market was fast asleep.
Total "sales" over the Christmas period is 2905. Of this, the McCoy book as expected accounted for the lion's share, 2194 downloads in fourteen and a half hours. It never got up to speed because there wasn't enough time or space. (Still, it was thrilling to watch the counter click over faster than it could be refreshed; at one point there was a download every couple of seconds.)
As for the plan to piggyback LE MANS on the known writer's book, it was clearly a good plan, as LE MANS picked up when MEYERSCO kicked in, but, again, 14 hours isn't enough time to do anything.
Some curiosities, that may have been smoothed out by a longer period or may be to do with differences between electronic marketing and paper marketing.
LE MANS downloads were one in four in the UK, which is disproportionate to population but to be expected as Le Mans, the race, is a very big deal in Britain but an upperclass fringe activity in the States.
Andrew McCoy, at his peak, was much more widely known in the UK and the Commonwealth than in the States, except in Hollywood, where he had a perennial fan club of makers of violent action movies who would option his novels. So you'd expect nine out of ten of his downloads to come from the UK. Not so. Less than one in twenty came from the UK, the rest from the States.
Other CoolMain Press books showed a pimple of interest when MEYERSCO went free and started shooting up the ratings, but it's difficult to say if it is just Christmas or a synergy effect; once more, the period is too short to get a clear view of anything.
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Amazon screwed me. I take it personally. They've also screwed CoolMain Press, which signed on to the Select program only to get the free promotion days, and didn't get the benefit of any of it.
But did we learn anything, except that Amazon is an unreliable partner? Yes, we did. I expected MEYERSCO to download about 12-15K in the full period, and Dakota to piggyback her way on Andrew's broad shoulders to about half that, 6-7.5K. I think we would have made those numbers. Stephen Leather made 50K with 99c books over Christmas 2010 mainly in the UK, and he isn't that far downmarket from Andrew, though he has a very high recent profile; forty percent of his numbers between two writers should have been possible.
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Water under the bridge. I've written to Amazon to ask if they will reinstate the free days, leaving it open to them to make us an offer.
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There have been 6 sales of Meyersco since, and 1 of Le Mans but the main sales are in the books that were going well before, though admittedly, bafflingly, on a higher level than before the free book experiment. Whether it is an after-Christmas artefact, or whether the ferment of the experiment, such as it was, attracted attention to books that for some reason readers find intrinsically more attractive, remains to be seen.
I'll decide in couple of weeks, when I see what sort of and how many reviews come out of the downloads (enough copies were distributed to make that a fair test, I think), whether our venture into Select was a qualified success or, as now appears, was screwed by Amazon's inability to fix their glitch in a timely manner.
When Amazon had a 2-hour glitch with 6 of my titles (took them out of free and slapped a price on them) during my 5 day run, they volunteered to give me another free day for each of them. I turned it down. I'd written to them only because I was curious about what happened. They never did explain what went wrong. All they said was that their engineers had fixed it. I would expect them to make a similar offer to you, Andre.But...I'm having trouble understanding what you're talking about re your experiment. Why do people scanning the freebie lists care who's publishing the books? I don't understand how one title can piggyback on another. I could "maybe" see it if multiple freebies are written by the same person (though it would take some effort on readers' part to search for additional titles by one author, but I don't think that's how people use the freebie lists ... they're not that discriminating). Dakota and Andrew have no surface relationship that, in my view, would be meaningful to readers. I think every title has to stand on its own.
I've definitely seen a positive outcome from KDP Select. I don't think it'll last, though -- until the next time my books can go free. The freebies end, there are some follow up sales, follow up borrows, and then it goes back to life as usual. The standout has been my kids book, which is a total surprise to me.
Mod
This business is over already, and I've heard from Amazon exactly once, merely to tell me to be patient, which is not their usual speedy style. On KB I saw thread asking if Amazon had locked up, which implies that more people had similar problem.
I did no promotion and got thousands of downloads, so how do you account for that? Trust me on this: people search the lists of free books everyday and download them by the truckload.Here's an example of some sites, but they're far from the only ones:
http://www.ereaderiq.com/free/
http://inkmesh.com/free-ebooks/?site=...
http://us.kinlib.com/
These types of sites are all over the net and that's where the majority of clicks come from. The biggest problem lately has been being seen in the crowd. When the sites list 400 - 600 books per day, people get worn out, but some people download dozens or even hundreds in a day.
Once you make it onto the Top 100 Free list, you have another crowd that's doing the shopping -- those who look for what others are downloading.
I don't know what you mean when you say that Amazon promotes titles before they make it onto that list, unless you mean the titles showing up in the customers-who-bought-this-also-bought-this area.
I don't think 2 days is long enough. And adding the time difference (Amazon operates on Pacific time, right Patricia?)
Yep, Pacific time. And I agree that two days is not long enough. I saw my numbers climb as days passed. It's like downloads beget downloads. It also gives a book time to make it into a top spot in its category and stay there long enough to get noticed.
Mod
Did you advise these free sites or did they find your books?
My pricing information for "Let's Do Lunch" has vanished from the web page.http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003Y8XPR0
I dropped them an email - but this appears to be going around.
Mod
Kat, the price is there when I look at the page.Andre, I don't know what you mean by "promoted there" I guess.
No, you do not need to tell the sites about your books. That's what I've been trying to explain: they automatically list the books that go free every day. I saw Andrew's and Dakota's books listed.
Prior to KDP Select there might have been 20 or 30 free books on a good day, but since it launched, it is is overwhelming. The first day there was somewhere between 600 and 700 titles showing up on these sites. There are feeds that send titles directly to Kindles, but I don't know how that works. Maybe it's through blogs that people subscribe to. Never checked it out.
Books on the Knob is another site that lists freebies and low cost books daily, but the blog owner tends to stay away from self-published titles (or so I hear; I don't visit the site very often).
In the Kindle Forum on Amazon there's a woman named Joyce who posts free books every day. Since the freebies have been showing up by the hundreds, she just posts a link and lets people search the links themselves. People chime in with the titles they've downloaded to help others wade through the offerings.
You need to do zero promotion when putting a book out there if it's free.
Mod
Patricia wrote: "You need to do zero promotion when putting a book out there if it's free."
Before I reach out for something, I want to know what the something is. I don't mind giving books away by the dozen or the hundred to people who are certified readers, and who intend at least considering writing a review, and who will buy the next book in the set, but I have zero intention of being a feeder-mechanism for hoarders simply to inflate Amazon's numbers.
Giving away x number of books is not, repeat not, an end in itself.
So, for giving away nearly three thousand copies, I want to see some good quality reviews, and I want to see a continuing higher level of sales. And that is exactly what we haven't seen in any of the experience so far.
After several days of work, and after the two free days (one pair of days truncated by Amazon to about 14h40m) what we see is that the book that was going to sell anyway continues selling art the same level and the book by the new author has come to a dead stop.
If no acceptable reviews arrive, the experiment was a failure. We won nothing we wouldn't have had without Select..
What was actually gained was additional sales for books published earlier, which were already on bestseller lists. It's difficult to sort this out from the general effect of Christmas but I sense that the work put into the new books had a beneficial effect on the existing books; that always happens: it's one of the happier serendipities of books. What has happened is that the bestsellers sold five times as many books as over Christmas 2010, which was expected, on trend, and then after Christmas put on another spurt and added a fifth or so, quite inexplicably if you don't ascribe it to the work promoting the new titles.
There's also the effect of Matt Posner's review of STIEG LARSSON on Cookies Book Club http://cookiesbookclub.blogspot.com/2...
which I mentioned on the English MOA's suspense thread yesterday evening
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-f...
which put on a very definite bulge in UK sales.
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Also loans. That anyone should want to borrow a book that sells for $2.99 speaks volumes for what rubbish these people must consider the books that cost more. Me, I'd borrow a really expensive book and just buy the one that costs $2.99.
Hi. I'm back. I pulled When I See You after day three because I wasn't going to come anywhere close to what I had secretly hoped for (,3000 downloads). After three days, I had 590 US downloads, 60 in UK, 2 in Germany (that I never would have had). I decided to "save" my remaining two days of free for another time (before March).
What I learned:
My ego enjoyed the best seller list tremendously. I would like to get back there some day on the paid side. My rating in literary fiction hovered around #27 to #31 on the FREE side.
Time of day made a difference in terms of downloads. It will be interesting to see if Amazon will play around more with the "free" aspect to the point of allowing authors/publishers to choose by time of day/number of hours for free.
I think I was held back in terms of garnering more downloads by the fact that this is a new release and does not have any reviews (This is the feedback I received from another Indie author). Now I realize the need to educate myself more about the algorithyms and such for next time. I think those came into play in terms of search and placement for the book.
Compared to other sites for Free it is obvious that Amazon has the eyeballs/traffic whatever you want to call it.
My sales of When I See You came to a dead stop after going off free. I plummeted to a ranking of 100,000+ but have come back to 60,000 without having a single sale.
Now, my book is priced at $4.99 because I figure that book lending will get some looks at a higher price instead of rock bottom. As a prime member, myself, that is how I think of borrowing a book. Why waste it on something I could easily buy?
Andre, I'm with you on where you're coming from with all of this. As the long tail theory goes, I think it will be months before these "free" promotions in this particular timeframe will produce results, if any, as people wade through their to-be-read list months later.
I'm glad I did the Select because I would have stayed on the sidelines and wondered. I have two other titles out with others ( at SW, B & N, Apple, Sony). It's quite nice to just concentrate on the one with Amazon; that part is pretty easy. I'm aware of the risk in terms of putting it all in with one online retailer, but I do wonder.
Anyway, that's what happened with my three days of free and a new novel release.
KO
Mod
Mod
There's also the effect of Matt Posner's review of STIEG LARSSON on Cookies Book Club http://cookiesbookclub.blogspot.com/2...
which I mentioned on the English MOA's suspense thread yesterday evening
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-f...
which put on a very definite bulge in UK sales.
I'll do it again in knowing that I need to be better prepared. More of a three-pronged approach with book reviews, ratings in place, blog postings and/or reviews that coincide with the free promotion. I noticed some authors had Pixel of Ink ads that coincided with the free placement on Amazon. I was not that organized (am never that well organized). I do have a marketing/PR background, but I wanted to see how things would go with a purely free (one-pronged) approach.I'll be interested to see if the "free" aspect wears off after the holidays. Not to sound overly paranoid, but unless all of these downloaders of free are voracious readers, they're set for months. How will that affect paid book sales in the first part of this 2012?
Mod
Gordon replies: "Ah, the BIG question. I have only used two and three so far. In one instance, early on, the first two days did about 600 combined, but the third day alone did 1200. On another attempt, two days only did 12,000, other two day events maybe 500 total. Random gambling is best I can figure. I am still experimenting. The current run is three days, but I will watch closely and perhaps kill it tomorrow, ending with two days. I don't think a five day run will continue to build. However, one book, Destiny, volume one of the five volume historical fiction series (not in Select) has been free for about two months (Amazon price matching) and brings in 25 - 35 every day, resulting in the other volumes continuing to sell. So I would say go for TWO and if it builds well, on the second day you can EDIT your account promotional and change out to three, or alternatively, start with three and cut the third day if it peters out. Clear as mud, right???"
Most interesting to me is the effect of the price-matched free book on other books selling.
My experience is quite different. I can't wait to do it again.The downloads put titles on lists that get attention from buyers and borrowers regardless of whether the downloaders actually read thoee books they get for free. For me, sales and borrows have followed the freebies.
My numbers are way higher than for any month in the past. I've had books on Amazons for three Christmases. The other two Christmases were no different from any other month. This Christmas was grand. And I would argue with Gordon about the five days. My download rate picked up steam throughout the whole five days and that's the way I would go in the future. It also keeps titles on the category-bestseller lists longer, giving them a chance to get noticed. I didn't have a freebie aimed at getting me sales for other books because I put all my titles into the promotion. My books are under so many names, and in such different genres I couldn't see the point of trying to have one sale create another.
What categories do you have Dakota's book listed under?
It probably all depends on your perspective. I went in having sold 16 copies of The Dragon Box over four months (but most of those in the first month). My 488 giveaways were a pimple on a flea compared to a lot of other people's ("two days only did 12,000"!!!), but I've since sold 65 copies (not including refunded ones) and loaned 39. It's all sinking again now, but for me, that was a success. And I still have 3 free days left to play with.
I went back and looked at the FAQs for Select because I was wondering about the re-up after 90 days. Here's what go me interested/excited."In addition, by choosing KDP Select, you will have access to a new set of promotional tools, starting with the option to offer enrolled books free to readers for up to 5 days every 90 days."
I overlooked this before because I was so focused on the first sign-up. With 5 days of FREE promotion for every 90 days for each enrolled book that could make for a very interesting marketing campaign and make it worthwhile keeping the book(s) with Amazon.
So, I'm with Patricia...can't wait to do it again, but want to be effective when I do. : )
Now we need to see how Amazon pays for borrows. One of my books is on the 35% royalty program, which makes me wonder if payment will vary between the 35-percenters and the 70-percenters (I think it should).Also, Amazon has said they want the lending library to be "worth it" for those who participate. I'd love to know what Amazon considers "worth it."
Books mentioned in this topic
Deliverance (other topics)LE MANS a novel (other topics)
Treespeaker (other topics)
Two Shorts (other topics)
The Meyersco Helix (other topics)
More...
I've just been reading in the Kindle forum about people downloading hundreds of the free books. I mean hundreds per person! It makes me wonder how many of them will actually be read.