Any authors in the KDP Select Program? Showing 501-550 of 1,505

[[deleted user]]

Budget about four hours to get all the work done. And have all your links to hand, ready ro paste.

Oh - and a 200 character description...

[Rebecca]

Grant wrote: "I'm gearing up for another free promo for my book, Deacon Leeds. I'm crossing my fingers it'll be as successful as the last one!

Does anyone have any other good sites to submit free promos to? So ..."
I have a long queue so the response time is about 3-4 months, but you can add me to your list, I review debut authors on my blog: rebeccavance.com

[Laura]

Walter wrote: "I stumbled on this sight, Author Marketing Club . . .

Great minds think alike. :)"

So they do! It's like 5:30 am and I haven't had any coffee yet...

[M.L.]

Author Marketing Club is good - they also have a community with some very helpful members.

A bit Off Topic, but I wish Amazon gave us some sort of visitor / buyer stats. It would be helpful. I had an uptick in sales the last couple of days, tried to figure out why - and noticed I had climbed up one of the category best seller lists. That category was actually not my 1st choice, but maybe wasn't as competitive as the others.

My point is - pay attention to your categories and tags too because they can be very important!

[Grant]

Laura wrote: "Grant wrote: "I'm gearing up for another free promo for my book, Deacon Leeds. I'm crossing my fingers it'll be as successful as the last one!

Does anyone have any other good sites to submit free ..."

Thanks!

[[deleted user]]

Re: Covers I chose createspace over Lulu because of their cover options. I love the cover for my anthology of flash fiction, BURST. Absolutely free--used createspace photo.

STAIRS OF SAND I paid copyright for the photo.

Also, if you find an image on the web, sometimes the artist will give you permission to use the art as happened with The Pinata-Maker's Daughter (Donna Dickson) and Some Rivers End on the Day of the Dead (Martha Rodriguez)

Check out all on my blog: http://authoreileengranfors.blogspot.com

[Rebecca]

Eileen wrote: "Re: Covers I chose createspace over Lulu because of their cover options. I love the cover for my anthology of flash fiction, BURST. Absolutely free--used createspace photo.

STAIRS OF SAND I paid..."

If you only publish digitally can you still get a cover from Createspace, or it is only if you buy a book package?

[[deleted user]]

Rebecca wrote: "If you only publish digitally can you still get a cover from Createspace, or it is only if you buy a book package?..."

It costs you absolutely nothing to put a book up on Createspace. You don't have to OK it for distribution; I have two on my shelf that are WIP's.

You can upload the book and design the cover and then stop there. It's free.

[Rebecca]

Diana wrote: "Rebecca wrote: "If you only publish digitally can you still get a cover from Createspace, or it is only if you buy a book package?..."

It costs you absolutely nothing to put a book up on Createspa..."

Thank you! I had no idea, I thought it was a lot of $$. I appreciate the input. I am obviously quite the newbie! :)

[[deleted user]]

Rebecca wrote: "I am obviously quite the newbie! :)..."

So were we all, m'dear! ;)

Good luck with yours!

[Rebecca]

Thanks again! :)

[Katja]

Diana wrote: "Rebecca wrote: "If you only publish digitally can you still get a cover from Createspace, or it is only if you buy a book package?..."

It costs you absolutely nothing to put a book up on Createspa..."

Hi Diana

I'm also keen to try Create space, but I was intimidated by trying to figure out the dimensions - thinks like spine width etc.

Was it really that easy?! I need reassurance!

[[deleted user]]

Katja wrote: "I'm also keen to try Create space, but I was intimidated by trying to figure out the dimensions - thinks like spine width etc.

Was it really that easy?! I need reassurance!..."

Well, the issue is what you want to do. Use your own images for your own cover, complete with text? That's what I do. If that's what you want to do, then skip down to the bottom of this post.

If you just want a nice cover, then go to the part of the upload instructions where you design your own cover. In the course of the instructions for putting up your book you will get to the cover and a part where they have what appears to be 3,428,512 iterations of different designs. Some of them are pre-set and with some of them you can plug in your own images (meaning that what's on the template is completely erasable).

If you want a pretty design where they have all the images, check out their designs. There are endless variations. Go to 'create your cover online' and fiddle with it.

I don't do a 'wraparound' cover for mine (I will be, but that's another story). I formulate my images - they need to be the size of the book - in my case 5.25 x 8 - and 400 dpi. On page 4 of the templates there is called 'the palm' and you plug in your own images, front and back. Then you design spine color and text color (for the spine).

With mine, I designed the front and back images and plugged them in. Here's how The City of Refuge came out:



I'm not thrilled with the spine color and will ultimately fix that.

If you want a wraparound cover, you use their template (also on page 4), note the dimensions they specify, and upload your image. They will tell you if the barcode box is obscuring anything.

As I said, I'm doing a similar cover, designed in one piece, for a hardcover edition that I want to put on Lulu, and it is not difficult.

It's a step by step process, whatever you do, they walk you through it and nothing is irrevocable. Try it!

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

I used Lulu and got the cover right first time. I'm now using feedaread, and their process was slightly better - feel - than Lulu's, though there's not much in it.

I await to see if the cover has aligned properly as I've not yet got the printed version.

I think we're a bit off-topic ;)

[Katja]

Diana wrote: "Katja wrote: "I'm also keen to try Create space...Was it really that easy?!"

Well..."

Diana, you're a star to have taken the time to answer my question in such detail! It's a LOT less intimidating. I will definitely give it a bash. Apologies to everyone for going off-topic. Oops.

[[deleted user]]

Rebecca wrote: "Eileen wrote: "Re: Covers I chose createspace over Lulu because of their cover options. I love the cover for my anthology of flash fiction, BURST. Absolutely free--used createspace photo.

STAIRS..."
LOVE that I can play with their cover tools FREE when I am stuck in my writing or just mad!

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

Feedaread have exceeded the 10-16 day deadline for getting back to me. I've emailed them and they said holidays - so add another 4-5 days...can't understand why I didn't have to wait at all with Lulu...

Anyway, back to KDP...

Running a campaign at present and despite a quite large pre-launch prep by notifying about 25 sites via forms etc. the downloads are looking to only be at about 20% of what they were in March... :(

[Kathy]

Talking about covers - if you ever need cheap designs done go to fiverr.com - things done for $5!!

I love my cover thought I bought the photo through stock library for $10 for a year - still not bad!

[M.L.]

Fiver is good for affordable covers. I also used fiverr for my book video trailer. If anybody is interested, I can give you her seller id.

http://raftpeople.com/video-trailer/ -

Tip: Later I had some comments that the theme music may not be exactly right, or the video may have been too long - but that was my fault - I am learning a lot as I go along.

[Tracey]

Free ebook to download Do It Yourself Press Releasesfrom September 30th to October 4th.

I hope it helps everyone to promote their books!

Cheers,
Tracey
http://www.amazon.com/gp/entity/-/B00...

[Laura]

Has anyone had a problem with their Free Promotion? I registered it like instructed, but they haven't changed the pricing. And I can't get into the pricing part of the Author Central to get at it. I sent them a contact form, but it may take 3 days for them to get back to me.

[Tracey]

Laura, do you mean that you did the free promotion $0 and now it is still $0? It does take up to a day to resent. They usually respond within 24 hours but maybe not on Sunday.

You might also see free promotion units in your report for upwards to a month or so....since some people take the link and download it later.

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

It can take 24 hours just to get the responder email, and then another 1-2 days to hear back from them. Their support is not set up to deal with urgent issues :(

They do say they have a delay though - my last promo went live about 4-5 hours after it was supposed to (which lost me a place on a big site, I might add) and my recent promo took about 6 hours after the deadline to display a price again.

[Tracey]

So far all my issues were responded to by a person within 24 hours.

[Laura]

My free promotion is finally live. I think I was a bit too hasty and thought that they would react 24 hours in advance. Where do you see the download numbers? Is that in the sales report?

[Stephen Livingston]

Via the Select program "The Wheel of Justice" is available to download for FREE today only.
US - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YDR07A
UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004YDR07A
If you enjoy reading this story any reviews will be greatly appreciated.
Best wishes, Stephen Livingston.

[Marian]

Katja wrote: "Diana wrote: "Rebecca wrote: "If you only publish digitally can you still get a cover from Createspace, or it is only if you buy a book package?..."

It costs you absolutely nothing to put a book u..."

Thank you for your input on Create Space. I've been researching it, and I haven't found anything negative, which is unusual considering all of the complaining on the US Kindle board.

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

Tracey - you are very lucky! I've had that on the odd occasion.

[Rebecca]

Stephen wrote: "Via the Select program "The Wheel of Justice" is available to download for FREE today only.
US - http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004YDR07A
UK - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004YDR07A
If you enjoy reading ..."

I downloaded your story and look forward to reading it!

[Tracey]

You read your free promotion downloads under Kindle/Reports/Month to Date

Cheers,
Tracey
http://amzn.com/e/B005E68KWA

[Kieron]

Hope this isn't a tad long, but I figure some may benefit from my experience.

I have been with KDP Select for 6 months with my thrillers Deadly Game and Deadly Encounter. One thing to remember about KDP Select is Kindle want your books exclusively, so you cannot sell it anywhere else on e- format.
To start with, I got sales of about 40 copies per month. This gradually declined to about 10. So, I opted for a free promo for 2 days, which yielded 3,000 downloads. Sales of the non-promoted book went up when I had a free promo, but only by a handful. The public do not want to pay, it seems.
Prior to KDP, I was doing very well on iPhone and other electronic media (20,000 sales). I also stocked my books at Australian indie bookstores, and they all sell over time.

My conclusion? KDP is an utter waste of time, mainly because they want exclusivity and give zero in return. Only one reader borrowed my book, so the share I got in the $600,000 was a bit of a joke.
I know some writers have done very well, and though I have spent hundreds trying to promote my Kindle version using social networks, it has failed miserably. I'm certainly not bitter, but it is a slippery slope so don't hold your breath. There is something unfathomable that makes a book sell, and I suppose you just have to keep trying till that 'trend' takes off. I'll leave them there, but I don't expect much at all.

One more thing. When I took my books OFF KDP Select and just left them available without the Select option, my sales vanished completely. Ping! Bye. Now that insulted me!

Oh, a good book worth reading: Scribbling the Cat. I was bought up in Zambia, so for me it rang true.

[Marian]

Kieron wrote: "Hope this isn't a tad long, but I figure some may benefit from my experience.

I have been with KDP Select for 6 months with my thrillers Deadly Game and Deadly Encounter. One thing to remember abo..."

I've been reading that your experience has been more commonplace recently than unique. Apparently a new mind set is growing among readers that they want to download ebooks for free. Thank you for sharing.

[Kieron]

Grant wrote: "Laura wrote: "Grant wrote: "I'm gearing up for another free promo for my book, Deacon Leeds. I'm crossing my fingers it'll be as successful as the last one!

Does anyone have any other good sites t..."

Why free? Why give books away? It is making readers expect years of hard work for nothing. I'm against it - sell your work! Making it free helps nobody!

[Eve]

Kieron wrote: "Hope this isn't a tad long, but I figure some may benefit from my experience.

I have been with KDP Select for 6 months with my thrillers Deadly Game and Deadly Encounter. One thing to remember abo..."

Thanks for sharing that with us Kieron :)

[Katja]

Kieron wrote: "Hope this isn't a tad long, but I figure some may benefit from my experience...."

Very interesting. It's so true about a book's magic success being unfathomable. Tough for all of us who have spent years writing only to be faced with jump-off-the-cliff poor sales :(

[Katja]

Kieron wrote: "Hope this isn't a tad long, but I figure some may benefit from my experience...."

Just a question Kieron: what was the ratio of your e-book to paper book sales?

[Alan]

Hi,

I'm new to Goodreads and new to Amazon.com/Kindle. I just tried a 24-hour period of the "Free" promotion - and yielded 6,581 freebies. I was elated because it brought a lot of exposure - landed #2 in free category of Suspense/Thriller, and #14 overall free fiction (and 24 sales following the free promotion). However, 7 of those sales were refunded - not sure why someone would buy and refund versus just downloading a sample!!!! Any ideas there? (The book was professionally edited and formatted - so I'm very curious).

Anyway - jury is still out on the free promotion concept - but I had zero sales the last ten days so I figured I had nothing to lose by trying. I was only expecting a 50 or so downloads - so you can imagine my surprise to be averaging several hundred per hour for several hours (mostly in the evening). I know for sure I would not have these new sales had it not been for the promotion.

Alan

[Crystal]

Alan wrote: "Hi,

I'm new to Goodreads and new to Amazon.com/Kindle. I just tried a 24-hour period of the "Free" promotion - and yielded 6,581 freebies. I was elated because it brought a lot of exposure - lande..."

I wish I knew. I had one return on a novella and when I saw it it made me feel absolutely horrible. My first instinct was to pull the title and just cry.... but then I got over that and realized, hey, it's not everyone's cup of tea.

The whole business of selling ebooks yourself is so confusing. The novel I'm so very proud of and have been pushing is getting really slow sales. Realllly slow. And yet another title (to which I just uploaded the sequel last night) I did no promotion on and it's selling. I don't understand it.

On my promoted title, I did one free day and had around 300 downloads worldwide, and that was with a bit of promotion (not a whole lot). But I had no buys after that.

It's the most fickle thing.

[Kathy]

If you got 6500 downloads with no promotion, that's fantastic - wish I could get that! I barely get 50 downloads when it's free, WITH promotion.

Would love any tips on how to improve that!

[D.M. Andrews (author)]

It is strange how some do so well. I'm no KDP Select youngling, and I got 600 downloads per day (which is terrible - I'm used to about 5000 per day) recently after a massive pre-promo (I contacted over 20 sites and submitted the dates for the free promo, and even paid 3 of them).

It is indeed a very fickle thing!

(and no sales increase afterward, either).

[K.A.]

The 'returned for refund" thing may be from people who downloaded & read it and then returned it, getting themselves a free book. You've got a certain amount of time to return for refund; many people can slam through a book in that period, get it returned, and ultimately not pay for it. It's just another way people are gaming the system to get free reads, not a comment on your book.

[Alan]

AN INTERESTING NOTE: I emailed KDP customer support regarding the issue of 1/3 of my sales refunding - and not after days - but within hours! I get some people won't like it - but an hour (or less) and they get a refund? I was basically getting one refund for every three copies. SO - since I emailed them to inquire as to what was happening - I haven't had a single refund! (Selling 12 more copies).

On another note, The Tiger's Tail got 17 likes on its page on Amazon - but does anyone know where/how these likes show up? I can't link these to my Facebook fan page - so I'm not sure of their value????

I'll keep everyone updated on the refund issue and will check in later today if KDP responds.

[Allan]

I joined the KDP program in early September to promote my book. My feelings about the program are kind of mixed. To date, over the 5 promo days awarded, my book has been downloaded more than 4100 times in 4 countries and borrowed 11 times. From all of this, a mere dozen reviews and fewer than a one hundred sales (and 4 returns).

While I appreciate the exposure, now that sales have leveled off, I do wonder if the KDP exclusivity is hurting me. But I cannot deny the post-promo 600% increse in sales that occurred after each of my 3 attempts.

FYI - run your promos mid-week. I ra nmy promo's 2-2-1. The first 2 days were Wednesday & Thursday (approx. 3400+ downloads), the second 2 days were Friday and Saturday(197 downloads), and the final 1 day was on a Wednesday (211 downloads).

[Alan]

I'm not sure I agree with the weekday strategy - I ran mine on a Sunday and got over 6,500 downloads.

KDP responded to my email:

"I understand your concern regarding our refund policy. We strive to provide the best customer experience, and offer refunds when customers report an accidental purchase or a book in unreadable format. However, please be assured that we have procedures in place to identify fraudulent customers, and take appropriate action when necessary. We’re unable to provide you with details regarding these procedures, and appreciate your understanding with our policy.

I checked our records and couldn't find any customer complaint regarding the quality of your Kindle book. Therefore, it appears the refunds were made for accidental purchases only.

To explain a bit more about the policy, customers can return any item purchased from the Kindle Store within seven days of purchase.

We've found this time frame is a good compromise for customers and publishers, and allows us to provide the best experience for both. "

And since my last post - sold one more book and got one more refund. I wonder if this many people can actually be buying the book "accidentally" as the KDP support person says??? One-click purchases by mistake perhaps? I would need to know if these same people went back and downloaded a sample - which Amazon doesn't share!!!

[Crystal]

I initially pulled my book off of Smashwords so I could do KDP Select (it hadn't gone out to any other channels by then, so I felt I was safe). So far I've had zero borrows, very few sales, and like I posted earlier in the thread, just 300 downloads on one promo day so far. I was so excited about the program and now I think it's hurting me a bit. IDK. Maybe I'm taking things too personally?

As soon as Select is over on December 22nd I'm reupping to Smashwords and going to B&N and All Romance as well. I've sold my other book on there without any promotion so I'm going to try to spread it out a bit.

[Don]

I have both of my books in the KDP select program. i don't actually use the free promo days because I don't like the drop in ranking when it comes off of promo. I had my second book on B&N and had very bad sales (only 2 over the course of two months) I have much better luck using just amazon it seems. I usually do triple digit sales even in the slow summer months.
I'm sure the promo days can come in handy, especially if you're trying to get your name out there, but I've found that you take a chance of getting bad reviews since you may get some people downloading your story who don't like your kind of story but picked it up because it was free. I myself haven't had a lot of problems with KDP select so far and will probably stay with them until I can find another seller that can give me similar sales results. Just my two cents.

[Allan]

@Don
"I'm sure the promo days can come in handy, especially if you're trying to get your name out there, but I've found that you take a chance of getting bad reviews since you may get some people downloading your story who don't like your kind of story but picked it up because it was free."

I have to agree. I have two (Two!) 1-star ratings from people who NEVER read my book. One read 14% (only 2% more than the sample) the other got ticked about my acknowledgement dedicating the book to myself (she even admitted to not reading any of my book). Naturally, Amazon does nothing to prune away ridiculous reviews like those that do nothing to help potential readers evaluate the product. I guess thats the price you pay as a relatively unknown author. Even so, its infuriating when you're trying to build your name.

Like you, I'll stick with KDP until something better comes along. I've heard scare stories about B&N and Smashwords...for now Amazon, because of its reach, is the place to be.

[Kathy]

Why would someone go to the trouble of NOT reading a book and then posting a bad review? That's insane! Why would these people go to so much trouble? Weird..

[Allan]

Alan wrote: "I'm not sure I agree with the weekday strategy - I ran mine on a Sunday and got over 6,500 downloads.

KDP responded to my email:

"I understand your concern regarding our refund policy. We strive..."

I'm an IT geek. Here's something to consider: When you plug your kindle into your PC it opens its storage area. Its as simple locating the necessary files, and then cutting and pasting them to your hard drive before seeking a refund from Amazon. Very annoying.

As for the promo days, I just know what worked for me. My next release (hopefully before Christmas), I'll give Sunday a shot. Thanks!

[Allan]

Kathy wrote: "Why would someone go to the trouble of NOT reading a book and then posting a bad review? That's insane! Why would these people go to so much trouble? Weird.."

Tremendously frustrating. There nothing quite like the feeling of working on a book for a few years only to have someone dump on it for something stupid.

I think it underscores a major issue with this country - why should I not be openly proud of a major accomplishment that few people have the patience to achieve? BAH..sorry for going off topic.

See the review yourself. Aside from the two, I have good reviews. Every time I look at it though the 1-stars just tweak me.
http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Live-Un...