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Any authors in the KDP Select Program?
Borrows have really increased lately. Plus the pot is bigger. I was trying to decide if I should let my first Select period expire - and that's pushed me towards re-upping with the ZON one more time.The free promos are probably helping some, but it's a double edged sword.
S.L. wrote: "I have my first free days coming up this weekend, so we'll see.I've decided that I'm going to do what I can to promote, but I'm leaving the rest to fate. I enjoy the process of writing--I find i..."
My sentiments exactly. I would like to earn some money by writing, but I don't have to. Total downloads for all my free days was over 6000 and I was pleased that so many people took interest. I agree the promos are a double edged sword, too. I am also guilty of looking for free downloads.
I had my best success when I took advantage of the web sites at the Author Marketing Club. http://authormarketingclub.com/
Getting a lot of free downloads is one thing. If you are currently making sales though - you give up the sales for your free days. At the end I did get a couple of reviews, but don't believe the increase in publicity made for losing those sales days.
I have links to my amazon book page on my website. No problem.
Laura wrote: "So, I'm coming to the end of my 90 days in KDP Select. I enrolled my first historical novel more or less as an experiment. I feel the free days were great to get some exposure, but after 90 days, s..."I would say providing a sample is okay as long as it is no longer than what Amazon offers on their site, and it's free. The point is, Amazon will not tolerate competition while you are enrolled in KDP Select.
But they also will not come after you for promoting your book while in KDP Select as long as what you are doing isn't construed as competition.
Post away. I would be willing to bet the KDP police will not knock down your door for posting a reasonably sized sample.
S.L. wrote: "I have my first free days coming up this weekend, so we'll see.I've decided that I'm going to do what I can to promote, but I'm leaving the rest to fate. I enjoy the process of writing--I find i..."
I agree with this sentiment. There are so many authors on KDP who think they will make a killing and moan if they don't, when in fact there is more competition that you can shake a kindle at.
I write because I enjoy it, and because otherwise the stories drive me nuts. I have a few people who have asked me when the next book is due and that is great. I like it when ANYONE buys my book and I am past the stage of people I know buying it to be polite. I know that unless I am really lucky I will never make a living from my books, and that is fine I obsess enough over them anyway;)
A few extra pennies is great, the warm fuzzy feeling that someone likes my book is also great.
So My Lawyer finally got back to me and this is what he said, "The wording of the Terms and conditions for the KDP Select program. Binds you to not allowing it to be sold or given away free anywhere but on amazon.com, at anytime while it is in the KDP Select program. This includes posting any part of the work (i.e. a chapter, or a page) anywhere other than on amazon.com. Any posting of such on a blog,personal website, or other means of conveying digital copy. Would be considered a direct violation and would result in Amazon being able to withhold all royalties due you for the current period in which the work is in. The Terms are such that a violation means that you would forfeit back to amazon all royalties for the entire 90 Day KDP Select period. The program only covers Digital works, Printed copy can be sold anywhere at the same time as enrollment in KDP Select." OK so question answered...
Alexandra Wrote: "I agree with this sentiment. There are so many authors on KDP who think they will make a killing and moan if they don't, when in fact there is more competition that you can shake a kindle at.I write because I enjoy it, and because otherwise the stories drive me nuts... I know that unless I am really lucky I will never make a living from my books, and that is fine I obsess enough over them anyway;)"
I agree with you 100% I make no qualms about the fact that I am not a author to get rich or become famous. I won't lie either it would be great to be like Dean Koontz but I know that the odds are about the same as me picking the right Powerball Numbers. As far as competition you can spit and hit an author... LOL!
I am trying to promote mine elsewhere for a change--having the books reformatted for Nook, Smashwords etc...but I was trying to change my prices on Amazon KDP and it has proven difficult--I may have inadvertently signed up for the select program again! all I wanted to do was put my price down to .99 during the Christmas season!
Monica wrote: "I've been following this discussion for a while...interesting comments. I'm deciding if I should begin the KDP Select program, but perhaps without the free downloads. I'm curious if any of you find..."For every 3-4 sales of my book (listed at $4.95), I get one borrow, or another $2 in my pocket. For another book (Christian nonfiction) that wasn't selling so well, especially in the UK, I dropped the price to 99 cents and I'm accepting 35% to try to build up some credibility and presence. I'd never sold more than one or two books per month in the UK, but I sold three the first three days at 99 cents. People can even borrow your 99 cent book and you get paid $2. Go figure. The free giveaways at least get your book in someone's ereader. If your book "moves" someone, either positively or negatively, you stand a chance of getting a review.
Nikki wrote: "I am trying to promote mine elsewhere for a change--having the books reformatted for Nook, Smashwords etc...but I was trying to change my prices on Amazon KDP and it has proven difficult--I may hav..."I'm getting out of KDP on Dec. 8. I've continued to share my experience with it in the hope it will help others.
I've had a difficult time with KDP. They play hardball. When they messed up one of my promotions, I gave them a one star rating on the feedback email they sent me. That did it! They removed a section called "Reviewers who made similar statements" from my novel The Writers' Conference" (I managed to get that back). categorized my novel Realities as nonfiction, replaced 2 correct categories with an incorrect category for The Last Season, The Story of a Marriage" and removed the novel from the list of my books when you click on my name. I have tried to get this corrected for the past 2 weeks without success. In other words, if you cross them, they'll beat you.
I gave away over 2000 books in a promotion for The Writers' Conference, which seems impressive, but it didn't result in big sales. I think the time for that happening is has past. I'm starting to get sales for my novels, but I believe they are coming by word of mouth. I'm going to find other ways to promote the books and trust that they'll be discovered. There is a large potential audience of aspiring writers for my novel The Writers' Conference. They just have to find it, which I'm beginning to believe is easier said than done.
Other writers have told me that the more books you have on Kindle, the better are your chances for success. It seems to me that that's true. If someone reads one of your books and likes it, chances are they'll read another. All of this takes time. I know the writers on this thread won't give up. At least I hope they won't! I wish you all success.
My last promotion, for my novel The Last Season, The Story of a Marriage, will be tomorrow and Friday if KDP doesn't mess it up. Then I'm done with KDP.
Paul wrote: "Monica wrote: "I've been following this discussion for a while...interesting comments. I'm deciding if I should begin the KDP Select program, but perhaps without the free downloads. I'm curious if ..."Thank you, Paul. That's very helpful info!
Nikki wrote: "I am trying to promote mine elsewhere for a change--having the books reformatted for Nook, Smashwords etc...but I was trying to change my prices on Amazon KDP and it has proven difficult--I may hav..."You are not the only person I read with difficulties lowering prices. I wonder what's doing with that?
It was no problem raising my price. Took about 3-4 hours.
Steven wrote: "Nikki wrote: "I am trying to promote mine elsewhere for a change--having the books reformatted for Nook, Smashwords etc...but I was trying to change my prices on Amazon KDP and it has proven diffic..."I had the same problem. I increased my price right before my free days based on the advice that it encourages people to download during the free days since it appears as more of a savings. About 12 hours before my free days ended, I made the change back to the original price (since the info said that it could take up to 12 hours). It didn't change back until 2 days later and I did contact support about it, though I don't know if that sped up the process or not. Needless to say, I have no way of knowing what effect the increased price had on my sales for the 2 days after my free promotion, but if I use the rest of my free days (and I'm not sure that I will), I will not try that strategy again...
I'll be ending my 90 days on KDP soon. I joined after hearing about some authors doing well there, and I hoped my first book will do the same.That wasn't the case. My book did enormously better doing my free days, which was discouraging. My sales have been scant and I wonder if I sell my book for $0.99 on Nook and Smashwords, I'll get any sales.
I should've looked closer into KDP and learned more about it. I regret making this move.
There's a lot to Select that many authors don't know about. I signed up with Select in the first few weeks and found that I had limited success using it. However, it was much more effective at that time for books within my price range (My books were short stories so they were priced under $2.99).Amazon realized that too many bad books were getting the benefits of going free and was recieving lots of complaints from customers. So they changed their algorithm to favor books with higher prices. This means that if your book is enrolled in Select and is priced low then you have to get twice as many downloads to get extra visibility on Amazon which is key to increasing the number of your downloads.
The trick to Select is that you need to get huge numbers of downloads in order to ride the sales wave when your free promotion was over. So if your book is priced at under $2.99 and you don't get upwards of 10,000 or so downloads on your free days, you weren't going to see the results that the authors whose books were priced above $3.99 did.
That's the game you have to play if you enroll in Select. You have to find a way to get a huge number of downloads during your promotion to get adequate results.
Megan wrote: "I'll be ending my 90 days on KDP soon. I joined after hearing about some authors doing well there, and I hoped my first book will do the same.That wasn't the case. My book did enormously better d..."
Hi Megan.
My book also saw a lot of downloads on the 3 free days I allowed it. I saw only the slightess increase in sales on the days I raised it to 99 cents. I think that was a fairly standard experience for (new) writers.
I'm leaving my book at KDP for the 1st 90 days and maybe a second 90. I've spent a lot of money at amazon over the years and I want to try to get some of it back (haha).
I did hear that some writers struggle over at Smashwords too.
Keep us up on your experience with Nook and Smashwords. It might help with future decisions.
Kevis wrote: "There's a lot to Select that many authors don't know about. I signed up with Select in the first few weeks and found that I had limited success using it. However, it was much more effective at that..."Very, very, very interesting. I'm going to remember that.
Thanks
Monica wrote: "Paul wrote: "Monica wrote: "I've been following this discussion for a while...interesting comments. I'm deciding if I should begin the KDP Select program, but perhaps without the free downloads. I'..."Yeah, I'm not sure if I'm going to do free days anymore myself. Mabe a price reduction instead.
So far my experience with KDP (except for not becoming a best seller right away) has been positive. They've answered my emails and responded to any problems promptly. And, the staff has been cooperative and well mannered.
Today I realized that I had inadvertently signed The Moonstone up for the KDP select...be warned--If you do not specify that you do not want to automatically re-enroll, you will be enrolled...I am not happy about this since I'm trying to explore other avenues...
Marian wrote: I've had a difficult time with KDP. They play hardball. When they messed up one of my promotions, I gave them a one star rating on the feedback email they sent me. That did it! They removed a section called "Reviewers who made similar statements" from my novel The Writers' Conference" (I managed to get that back)..."I think you nailed it. KDP is an idea that worked early on, but is not very successful now. A few do well with it, but it is a very few. I think the actual key to an author's success is not KDP Select, but as you said, to keep on writing and build a catalog so you are easier to find. Stop chasing your free download numbers and concentrate on putting words to paper instead.
Nikki wrote: "Today I realized that I had inadvertently signed The Moonstone up for the KDP select...be warned--If you do not specify that you do not want to automatically re-enroll, you will be enrolled...I am ..."I think you can pull out. If there isn't a feature that allows it, write Amazon and let them know of your intent and that you will be releasing your book in other markets and want out of Select. It shouldn't be a problem.
Steven wrote: "Very, very, very interesting. I'm going to remember that.Thanks "
Steven, Select works very well for those who know how to promote their free books. But as we have all observed, it really has become much, much more difficult to piggy back sales off of free promotion days due to Amazon changing the rules behind the scenes. There are a couple of authors in particular who I know that have written really good articles on what's going on with Select. Better still, they've had great success with Select. If you want to check out their findings on the program and how they achieved great sales here are a couple of links you may want to check out:
http://phoenixsullivan.blogspot.com/2...
http://phoenixsullivan.blogspot.com/2...
Kevis wrote: "Steven wrote: "Very, very, very interesting. I'm going to remember that.Thanks "
Steven, Select works very well for those who know how to promote their free books. But as we have all observed, i..."
Thank you, Kevis. Much appreciated. Book promoting is definitly a crash course in the College of Hard Knocks. Personally, I can barely ask a waitress for more water much less brag on myself and then have the brass to ask people to pay for my work.
I look forward to the articles.
Very interesting thread - wish I had time to dig in a little deeper. But would like to take a moment to share my KDP Select experience - I have 4 books enrolled and the program has been very successful for me. I write nonfiction/self-help ... not typically your barn-burner when it comes to sales. That said, my last promo was a couple of weeks ago and there were nearly 5,000 downloads - I sold just under 200 ebooks during the 4 day promo and the uptick in sales is continuing last I looked. This didn't happen by itself - I worked really hard starting a month in advance promoting the book - guest posting, couple of author interviews, articles on my own blog, and of course plenty of social media. KDP Select does work - the more juice you put into your advance promo effort -the better your results will be.
Mark wrote: "Nikki wrote: "Today I realized that I had inadvertently signed The Moonstone up for the KDP select...be warned--If you do not specify that you do not want to automatically re-enroll, you will be en..."according to their e-mail this is not possible...
Marquita wrote: "Very interesting thread - wish I had time to dig in a little deeper. But would like to take a moment to share my KDP Select experience - I have 4 books enrolled and the program has been very succes..."Thanks for this encouraging post...I think fantasy and so on is probably a more difficult sell but I appreciate the info!
Nikki wrote: "Mark wrote: "Nikki wrote: "Today I realized that I had inadvertently signed The Moonstone up for the KDP select...be warned--If you do not specify that you do not want to automatically re-enroll, y..."Sorry to hear that Amazon wants to play hardball with its authors. I'd go into Amazon and uncheck the Auto Enroll button now so you don't have to think about it later. In fact I encourage all writers to do that the minute they sign up for Select. That way staying in is a conscious decision, and you don't run the risk of being trapped for another 3 months because you forgot.
I have had a few issues with Amazon. The first, I wanted to upload six free short stories as a sampler for readers, hoping if they liked them, they would look for more of my work. I figured it would benefit Amazon and me and wrote a letter to Amazon explaining what I was trying to do. Amazon wouldn't let me do it. In the past it was okay, then they changed their policy. Then friends told me the way they got around that was to offer stories free on other sites, and then hit the "report a lower price" button. I did this. Amazon changed their policy again. No more free books (those short stories are free on Smashwords and have had over 20,000 downloads).
And my latest problem with them is, because I'm an author, I can no longer post reviews - another policy change. They pulled all of my reviews down a couple weeks ago. So I have a new policy. I don't buy books from Amazon unless I can't get them anywhere else (that hasn't happened yet). Smashwords lets me post reviews as long as I got the book from them. So that's my source for ebooks lately. It's a lot more friendly there.
After dealing with them for less than a year, I can understand why Goodreads severed their relationship with Amazon.
I did not know about the severed relationship with amazon. Can you tell me any details?
Steven wrote: "I did not know about the severed relationship with amazon. Can you tell me any details?"I would be interested to know this too. This is the first I've heard of it. Since I am a reviewer as well as a newbie author (working on debut novel now), this worries me. I also post my reviews on Amazon or Smashwords, depending on where the author sends the copy from for my review, as well as on my blog. So, authors can't review? That is really stupid in my opinion. Who reads more than authors?
I suspect that Amazon's break with Goodreads may be due to Amazon's purchase of competitor Shelfari.
There are comments about it on web. Before, when a member wanted to add a book to their shelf, the default was going through Amazon. Now, trying to load a new book through Amazon onto your shelf is brutal.And it was more than buying Shelfari because Amazon had Shefari for three years before Goodreads went another direction. Amazon played hardball with Goodreads too, and tried to force the same type of monopolistic practices on Goodreads as it does on authors in KDP Select.
http://paidcontent.org/2012/01/27/419...
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/7...
Why has Amazon stopped people from posting new free material?
I uploaded one of my books to smashwords and saw many free downloads but very little feedback/review then removed it continue with KDP. Can anyone say what sort of success/experience they have had on smashwords and can list the digital book there for sale and compare the success rate?By unchecking KDP I was thinking of adding my e-book on goodreads for sale instead, has anyone good/bad experience having done this?
Thank you all, and very interesting thread!
Rebecca wrote: "Steven wrote: "I did not know about the severed relationship with amazon. Can you tell me any details?"I would be interested to know this too. This is the first I've heard of it. Since I am a rev..."
I would guess its because they are cracking down on sockpuppeting and authors responding to reviewers.
I think there are two classes of readers (over simplification, I'm sure); those who have tired of all the free offers and wading through them to find out if there's anything worth reading in all the chaff, and those who fill their Kindles with free books who have to dump most of them unread to make room for the next batch. The novelty of KDP Select has definitely worn off. And Amazon has had a hand in this as well. See the link below. It's an interesting read on KDP.
http://www.derekhaines.ch/vandal/2012...
I think Mark's observations are astute. As a reader, I find myself in the first category: I only look at the freebies posted in the GR and FB groups I'm active in. I no longer go to the sites where I advertised my own KDP Select book giveaways.I also agree with David Haynes (the link Mark provided). The KDP Select ride is over. My March-April giveaways drove my sales up spectacularly. Oct-Nov. nada. Oh well, back to writing and publishing more. My fan base is small but loyal.
Mark wrote: "See the link below. It's an interesting read on KDP.http://www.derekhaines.ch/vandal/2012...
"
The author of that article is sadly misinformed and has clearly spent too much time waiting for the sky to fall. Amazon is making bucketloads of cash from sales of indie books. Why would Amazon want to cut off their nose to spite their face? What Amazon has wanted, and has always wanted, is to maintain dominant shares of the ebook market, which I have to admit, they basically created (until the Kindle rolled along, ebooks were a niche market and no where close to being mainstream).
At the end of the day, Amazon isn't twisting anyone's arm to make them enroll in Select or KDP for that matter. They are, however, taking an aggressive approach to maintaining control of the ebook market and one of the ways they are doing this is to coerce authors into raising the prices of their books and handicapping authors who think it's still 2010 and want to strike gold by selling thier books for 99 cents. That era has thankfully passed. As will the free era (we're in that transition now).
What will the market look like a few years from now? Who knows? But it certainly won't be geared toward the books that are being sold for cheap or given away. Amazon is certainly engineering a different kind of market. What's interesting is that it is the readers and their customers who have the final say and the trend seems to be going in favor of quality over quantity.
I agree with Mark and Lee. My experience proves it: I gave away over 600 books in the past 2 days and it didn't result in any sales. The David Haynes post goes even further. Simon & Schuster may be the second Big Six publisher to go into self-publishing. The rest will probably follow soon. Kirkus is now selling reviews to stay afloat, and the suckers who buy them for $300 or more aren't guaranteed a good review. It's a mess, and it hurts all of us. Amazon owns the system until some genius figures out how to beat it.
Marian wrote: "I agree with Mark and Lee. My experience proves it: I gave away over 600 books in the past 2 days and it didn't result in any sales."Giving away 600 books proves nothing except that it's too low a number to be effective to gain the visibility to piggy back sales off of a free promotion. When the program first started, giving away 600 books would have certainly drawn more visibility and helped to spur sales. Because Amazon changed their algorithm to favor "paid" books, nowadays, you have to giveaway books in the high thousands to be effective in Select. The program still works for those who know how to market their books well enough to get those high number of downloads (see my previous post with the link to the authors who have figured out how Select actually works). What this also means is that if an author can't figure out how to generate enough interest in his or her free book promotion to get those thousands of downloads, or get a decent number of monthly borrows, that author is certainly wasting their time being in Select.
I know this as a fact, because I've been using Select since day one (600 free downloads were more than enough to get a sales boost in the beginning). I also know several authors who have been and still is having incredible success with Select. Unfortunately, due to the sheer volume of books enrolled in KDP and the algorithm change, not everyone gets to enjoy the spoils of the program. Select is a pyramid-styled program that favors the authors at the top (those with the most downloads). The authors who can't get the high #'s of downloads required to get a sales boost would do well to stay away from Select.
I think you're allowed to link back to the Look Inside the Book feature on your book page. Stephen wrote: "So My Lawyer finally got back to me and this is what he said, "The wording of the Terms and conditions for the KDP Select program. Binds you to not allowing it to be sold or given away free anywher..."
S.L. wrote: "Well, my first ever free promotional day on Amazon resulted in 1,015 downloads. Before I went to bed, I was #5 of 100 on the free Kindle download list.Aislin of Arianrhod was also selected by on..."
That's great. See what happens in the next few weeks. I'm going out of KDP Select on Wed. During my last free promotion, I didn't get any higher than rank 400,000. During the promotion before that one, I got into the top hundred.
It's snowing here like crazy. What a great excuse to stay at home and write!
Marian wrote: "Nikki wrote: "I am trying to promote mine elsewhere for a change--having the books reformatted for Nook, Smashwords etc...but I was trying to change my prices on Amazon KDP and it has proven diffic..."I agree. It seems KDP takes it personally when you give them any negative feedback. For the past 3 months my books have gone up the ranks to #14 in my genre. Sales were okay, consistent but not earth shattering. My friends prefer Kobo and Apple as their e-readers so I decided to unenroll my books from KDP Select which are expiring Dec 15. Once I unchecked the "auto-renew KDP Select", I noticed my rankings dive. By accident, I clicked enroll for one of the books and saw that one book go back up the rankings over a few days. When I realized that my book was set on auto-renew, I went and unchecked the box again. I was shocked that since that day (Nov 28), I have had ZERO sales in KDP for all my books. My rankings have dropped steeply. Coincidence? I just finished a book tour promotion that sold some books and landed me some great reviews so to go from selling some books per day to zero just doesn't add up. It is December and I had thought from what other authors were saying from past experience that sales would pick up. I'm not going to take my chances. I've already set up my books to be published on Kobo, Smashwords and other places the minute my KDP Select 90 days are up which is 6 days and counting.
Ok so I just finished my Free weekend promo. I figured I would share my results. Keep in mind the is the first time my book Men: The Handbook was offered free and the Fourth time Politics 101 was offered for free.Amazon.com
Men: 125 free
Politics: 67 free
Amazon.co.uk
Men: 14 free
Politics: 3 free
Amazon.de
Men: 4 free
Politics: 1 free
Amazon.fr
Men: 2 free
Amazon.it
Men: 2 free
On the plus side that gets my book out to 150 readers. However it is to early to see if it will increase my sale rate yet.
Will keep you posted.
Anne-Rae wrote: "Marian wrote: "Nikki wrote: "I am trying to promote mine elsewhere for a change--having the books reformatted for Nook, Smashwords etc...but I was trying to change my prices on Amazon KDP and it ha..."Although it isn't any comfort, I'm sure we're not the only ones who have been slapped by Amazon for dropping out of KDP and giving them negative feedback. One of my novels is no longer linked with my other 2 books when you click on my name. The book mysteriously disappeared, and I haven't been able to get it back despite repeated emails and calls to Author Central. Also, I haven't been able to add categories to that book. And my rankings have mysteriously gone down,too. An awful thought: can they read this thread? Then I'm in even bigger trouble!
Something slightly unrelated. What do people think about raising the price of their book prior to a free promo? So that it would appear like you were getting a better deal. So instead of $0.99 being crossed out, $4.99 could be crossed out.
I think that might appeal to people. On the other hand, you could waste a lot of time getting the price back to what you want it to be at the end of the promo period.
Ardin wrote: "Something slightly unrelated. What do people think about raising the price of their book prior to a free promo? So that it would appear like you were getting a better deal. So instead of $0.99 bei..."
I read on the Kindle forum that some people had trouble getting the price back. You might want to research it on the forum. Here is the link:
https://kdp.amazon.com/community/foru...
When are you going to have your free promo?
THE Group for Authors!
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One other thing: because I was doing NaNo in November, I did no marketing at all. I think it all comes down to how much marketing you do (not spamming, marketing!!)