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Any authors in the KDP Select Program?
Lee wrote: "Steven, I submit you don't whether it was the giveaway or the advertisement for the same that sold your book. If you have a good cover and a good book description that appeal to readers, then anywa..."Lee, I'll tell you what happened, because I really did test this out pretty carefully (and this is also a response to Marc's email). A friend of mine designed an ad campaign for me, a very carefully chosen web targeted campaign, and he also designed the ads. Before the giveaway began, I ran the ads and was actually able to see how it worked. Sales rose a bit, and you could see the hits on my own website were actually coming from the ads. When I did my free giveaway, I ran the ads the whole time - they were quite good, animated ads, and I had some reviews to show, which I think helped, and I had more than 9000 downloads. After the giveaway was over, my sales doubled for two months. Now, that I believe was a result of increased exposure on Amazon - not enough for me to really gain traction, but possibly it would have been enough for a more easily classified book to gain traction. I got a few reviews from the giveaway, but the biggest thing it gave me was increased exposure and therefore sales. (There are better ways to get reviews - I agree with Marc that a big giveaway is not for reviews.) So I do know with reasonable certainty what happened - the ads I ran helped me in the giveaway, and the success of the giveaway caused a temporary increase in sales. There have been some other ads that I've run that have helped - notably, after I got a good Kirkus review, I ran a Kirkus ad, and my sales went way up in the couple of weeks after that. Again, not enough to make a long-term difference. These are things that really did happen to me, and I'm just passing them along because I think they may help other people.
Right now, I've completely stopped running ads, and my sales have gone pretty definitively down the toilet (you can actually look on Amazon and see the dismal and dropping ranking); I am pretty sure that if I can scrape together some dough to run some more ads, sales will go up, as they always have. Another Indie author who has had success with web ads is Michael McCloskey, the author of the independently published Trilisk series. He is one of the authors who contributed to a very helpful book called "Interviews with Indie Authors", which I recommend. He has had a lot more success than me from web advertising, but we both can vouch that it can work, with a certain kind of book. I am not saying it works for everyone, but it is not something to dismiss out of hand.
If anyone wants more info on my experience, feel free to email me directly. I am not immenselyly successful at this, but I have managed to scrape together some pointers and am always happy to share what I know.
I have several books in the KDP Select Program. I think it's okay, when readers borrow my books the "royalty" is pretty good I think.
Steven wrote: "Lee wrote: "Steven, I submit you don't whether it was the giveaway or the advertisement for the same that sold your book. If you have a good cover and a good book description that appeal to readers..."Hi Steven,
Were you able to see a generational difference in the response you received? I'm wondering if it's more than important than ever to match your book, communication medium, and audience than ever before.
Here recently I was made very aware of this while discussing matters with my father in-law (70's). He is of the generation that still trusts a big name on a review (Oprah) versus numbers (200 no name reviews). When targeting a younger generation there is considerable skepticism about big name endorsements (they are purchased). Did you see any differences?
I'm think the same results would follow web based ads, as myself and most younger people don't open any mail we are not expecting or know is safe (avoiding viruses and spam).
The best luck I had with adverstising was on Facebook. There it took the right colors or shape to get attention and then a catchy line to get them to click. The problem then became every time I got an ad that was working Facebook would flag it.
Thanks for sharing, I'll email and ask more. It's a bit of a hobby of mine.
Although the free promos may lack the power they once did, and not create much bump at all in most cases, the borrows are still nice.I have one of my 3 books on Select, and it has generated 357 borrows thus far this month (and borrows seem to boost rankings, too, from what I can observe). As the 700,000 pot has been boosted to 1.4 million, each borrow could be as much as $4 or so (though likely nearer to $3, but at very least about $2). Nice extra income :)
Marc - the Kirkus ads went out via email to their subscribers, I think 30k or 50k or something like that. But my other ads appeared On websites, not in emails. So I didn't have the situation of anyone receiving emails from people they had never heard of it. The most trafficked websites that generated the most hits were web comics, which was a good match for my cartoonish hybrid science fiction western novel. I didn't run ads till I had some mainstream reviews, but I've come across the skepticism of authors reviewing authors that you mention.
I've heard that Kirkus is better for reviews (and probably ads) than most other venues. I've had paid ads on big ebook sites (not Kirkus though) and they seemed to have done nothing for sales.
Ok, this is just a little bit of feedback from recent advertising experience. By the way, Steven thanks for the information you gave me in a private message. It was really helpful. So about a week ago I received a $50 linked in voucher. This gave me $50 worth of free linked in ads. Since it was free I decided what the hell, set up a few nice ads for my book. Pretty horse related graphics for my western themed story. The ads looked good.
The $50 only got me about 15000 views on Linked in. Maybe a little less. They were targeted at people who liked ebooks and kindles etc. Not very effective at all, about 15 clicks. not sure if any resulted in sales. Probably not. In short, Linked in was disappointing. I pretty much expected this, as people are not on linked in to shop, but to network, but since i had the chance to experiment for free I thought I'd share the experience.
So following that, I decided to spend $10 on facebook ads just to compare to linked in. I set up similar ads linked to my amazon book page, targetted at kindle users in the US, very nice targetting options on facebook. Anyway, $10 got my add in front of about 40,000 people I think, but again just about 10 clicks or less. Not sure how many. Anyway, you can't tell if any of those clicks resulted in a sale, but I don't think so. They were all on one day, and that day I only had 1 or 2 sales, which is my average, so no real blip at all from facebook.
I'm sure most people knew this already, but I think advertising on facebook and linked in is not too effective. Next I'll try the ebook specific ads, or kirkus perhaps.
I'm pretty amazed at the borrows you're getting. I have to assume your giveaway kicked that off and then the borrows feed on themselves. My understanding is that they do help your rankings which create more awareness and then more borrows. Mine petered out, and never got to that level. So congrats. As for Kirkus, the email seemed to have a better impact than the web ad itself. I have also found that book ads don't do so well on book websites. We can theorize about that, but maybe readers on book sites reading reviews are more likely to act on the reviews and less likely to act on an ad. Who knows -
Ardin wrote: "Ok, this is just a little bit of feedback from recent advertising experience. By the way, Steven thanks for the information you gave me in a private message. It was really helpful. So about a wee..."
Very helpful, thanks. I've also found Facebook unhelpful. I paid for clicks, not views - just too expensive for an indie writer.
from Henry--Anyone had good success with paid ads on Goodreads ,like Pay per Click on speciific genres ?
What about Authors Den,i.e., Gold Member for 90 days, with $60 fee to promote ?
Hi all,I'm new to this group and haven't had a chance to read through all the posts. What I've seen so far, as a self-published author on the learning curve, is invaluable.
Forgive me if this has been addressed before, but I wonder if anyone has had experience with communicating with readers who have a book on their to-read list. I ran a giveaway of 15 books and got over 800 entrants. In addition, over 400 people put it on their to-read list.
Now I'm running a KDP promotion for 3 days for a free kindle edition. Is there any practical, polite way to let this group of 400 "to-readers" know that they can get the kindle for free if they want it?
At this point, my goal is reviews, with the theory that sales will follow. Any help, opinions, suggestions, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance!
Karen
Karen wrote: "Hi all,I'm new to this group and haven't had a chance to read through all the posts. What I've seen so far, as a self-published author on the learning curve, is invaluable.
Forgive me if this has..."
Hi Karen,
I think it gets tricky very quickly here. From the Goodreads policy page for authors.
I’d like to contact everyone who has added my book or a related work. Is that OK?
"It is not advisable to engage (via comments/messages/friend requests) all the people who add your book or a related work. You should also avoid tactics like thanking everyone who has added your book. These kinds of behaviors will result in people flagging you as a spammer, and we will have to take action. If you are flagged enough times, your profile will be evaluated for deletion."
So does that mean you shouldn't contact someone who has 400 friends and wants to read your book? Part of the idea behind Goodreads is to sort content, that takes reviews and ratings which becomes very accurate as the numbers of both increase.
Another perhaps more appropriate measure would be to contact book review bloggers. These people are used to being pitched to, writing reviews, and have their own following. I've yet to ever see sales increase because of a review from a common reader but a book review bloggers can move the needle.
Best of luck
Like Marc, I would suggest you not contact people who entered your giveaway directly. It runs counter to the spirit of Goodreads, and probably the letter as well.In addition to book bloggers, there is a group for Kindle readers that has a thread where you can list free books. Just search for it. In general, joining reader groups in your area of interest and participating in their discussions is a great way to form ties with readers that eventually translate into sales and reviews. But it takes time. And you do need to be careful. Many groups receive so many plugs from authors that they impose restrictions on self-promotion, and violating those restrictions can get you banned from the group.
Marc wrote: "Karen wrote: "Hi all,I'm new to this group and haven't had a chance to read through all the posts. What I've seen so far, as a self-published author on the learning curve, is invaluable.
Forgive ..."
Thank you Marc and C.P. I'll stay away from the readers who have put my book on a "to-read" shelf, except to get an idea of who my best audience might be. I definitely wasn't going to try to "friend" them all. In fact, as an author, I don't see a great advantage to having friends on Goodreads (opposite being true on Facebook). A friend's rating is probably not taken as seriously.
Thanks again!
Karen
I agree with Karen about Goodreads friends. What is the point of having friends on goodreads?
How can you interact with each other?
Steven wrote: "Lee wrote: "Steven, I submit you don't whether it was the giveaway or the advertisement for the same that sold your book. If you have a good cover and a good book description that appeal to readers..."Steven, thanks for the helpful information.
Ardin wrote: "I agree with Karen about Goodreads friends. What is the point of having friends on goodreads?
How can you interact with each other?"
You get a running feed of friends' comments on the home page updates. I've found some interesting groups by seeing where my friends post. GR also alerts me to their reviews, although I think you can follow reviews without friending the person, if you prefer.
When you click the check mark that says "Add to my Update Feed," as when you post to this thread, that's when your friends see your posts. (It's checked by default.)
Does GR also make it easier to send a friend a message? I'm not sure about that.
Ardin wrote: "What is the point of having friends on goodreads?"Well, for starters friends don't spam each other. Goodreads has gotten a lot of complaints over the years from readers who would friend other members just to recommend their books to them. So GR took away the ability of authors to recommend their own books using the recommend feature. So authors started spamming their new friends via the messaging system, which is why GR now deactivates the accounts of authors who do just that.
Having GR friends is a great thing, especially when you actually try talking to them about subjects other than your own book. Who knows? Maybe if readers decide you (figuratively) are genuinely interested in talking to them, they might actually pick up a copy of your book without you having to spam them. Funny how that works, isn't it?
Ardin wrote: "I agree with Karen about Goodreads friends. What is the point of having friends on goodreads?
How can you interact with each other?"
You chat, discuss books you mutually like, etc. :) If you're an author, there are lots of other authors to discuss current trends, writing tips, and the challenges of being an author.
Karen wrote: "Hi all,I'm new to this group and haven't had a chance to read through all the posts. What I've seen so far, as a self-published author on the learning curve, is invaluable.
Forgive me if this has..."
You can post it in your own goodreads status update/blog feed. Anyone following you, your friends, members randomly or purposefully checking out your author page ... all will see. And doesn't cost.
I am currenlty in the Amazon KDP. The ebook has only been out for approximately 1 month and during the promotions period and non-promotions period I have had 512 downloads. Someone wrote me and said that individuals who do the free downloads during the promotions period cannot put in a review. This is ridiculous. The promotion and getting the word out is harder than writing it.
I used KDP select in order to do the promotion. As soon as the time is up, I'm going to take it off and put it out as a nook and ebook. If free-downloaders can't write a review, then I'd say I probably wasted my time with KDP select. If I find out more, I'll post.Karen L
John wrote: "Someone wrote me and said that individuals who do the free downloads during the promotions period cannot put in a review. This is ridiculous. The promotion and getting the word out is harder than writing it."This is false. As long as someone has ordered an item on Amazon, they can review any product they want. The reason Amazon includes the "verified purchase" tag on reviews is to indicate which customers purchased/downloaded a book from their site. So all I can say is that the person you got your information from has no idea what they are speaking about. On the other hand, if they are referring to Amazon's new policy that authors are not allowed to post reviews for books, then that's an entirely different matter. But yes, promotion is more challenging than writing a book.
Kevis wrote: "John wrote: "Someone wrote me and said that individuals who do the free downloads during the promotions period cannot put in a review. This is ridiculous. The promotion and getting the word out is ..."Kevis is correct. If someone gets a free copy during your promotion period, not only can they review your book, but they also show up as verified purchasers of the book.
Karen wrote: "Hi all,I'm new to this group and haven't had a chance to read through all the posts. What I've seen so far, as a self-published author on the learning curve, is invaluable.
Forgive me if this has..."
The best way to let Goodreads members know when your book is free is to join groups like The James Mason Group or Book Wormies and the like. They have threads where you as an author can post info on your books. Good luck
Thank you everyone for all the great feedback and advice.
There is a free ebook download today (Jan 4, 2013) from an author who has had great success in the KDP program. It appears to be a collection of blogs she had written, but provides real experience data and resources. Here is the Amazon link, but make sure the price is still showing zero (0.00) to get the freebie. http://www.amazon.com/Month-Selling-K...
I got my response from Amazon today and everybody is right they do have to make one purchase any purchase.
I really don't try to get too upset over the 'freeloaders'. I am, after all, getting some attention to my writing. However, I'd kind of like to know if the reviews came from an actual purchase of my book or was a result of a give away. It gives me a way to assess my marketing strategy.Hearing that 'word of mouth' is the best advertisement, I can sense that maybe the reader of a free book will let someone know about it if they liked it. They sort of are passing the word when they review the thing.
Thank you guys for researching the amazon policies.
I review debut authors on my blog. Sometimes the author sends me a complimentary digital copy to review their book, sometimes I take advantage of the free downloads, and sometimes I purchase the book for full price. I have been able to post my reviews on Amazon.com in every case. I haven't run into any problems. Quite the opposite actually. They send me notices all the time asking me to review certain books. Sadly, that is going to probably change with them as soon as I publish my debut novel..but that won't be for quite a while yet, I still have a lot of work to do! :)
I'm currently in the KDP Select program (until the 7th). I've been writing down some statistics and notes on what I think is going on (currently #1 in Free Teen Fantasy :D) and I'll make a blog post of my findings and hopefully that will help some other authors if they decide to enter the program :)
I have to say that my last promotion for Raft People went very well, though a previous one returned mediocre results. I attribute that to time, luck, and a little bit of fairly dust (unknown factors).I had beaten my previous free promo. In fact I gave away 2x as many books in 1 day than I had done in 2 days the time before. And the results have bled over to an increase in paid sales.
I did try to notify the usual suspects about the free promo, but I am mystified as to exactly why it helped. Somebody must have given me a shot in the arm - but darned if I know exactly who/what.
Raft People
Although the KDP Select free promos seem to be less-effective, the borrows are still profitable for me. I only have one book in Select, but it gained me 380 borrows in December (371 from .com and 9 from .co.uk)
Lena wrote: "I'm currently in the KDP Select program (until the 7th). I've been writing down some statistics and notes on what I think is going on (currently #1 in Free Teen Fantasy :D) and I'll make a blog pos..."'Can't wait to see your report. Personally, I haven't had a bad experience from KDP. They've been responsive and have treated me well.
I keep the hope that, like me, when folks go book shopping the search B&N right before or after they search amazon - so my book will get seen by them.
Also, like many here I've seen little results from my free days except being slightly flattered that I'm being read if not being paid. Who ever thinks they will get rich as a writer better keep their day job.
Do any of you folks with a paperback (Createspace, etc) find that free days help promote that? I just put up a paperback version - after the free day - and wonder if I should try again.
M.I., I saw no increase in Createspace paperback sales from KDP Select promotions. Paperbacks run about 2% of my overall sales, but the price differential is $11.25 versus $2.99 for the Kindle version. Both editions net me about the same royalty per book.
For what it's worth, I didn't join KDP Select, in part because I think more competition is better for both readers and writers, and in part because I'm an Apple geek, so I wanted my book available on the Apple iBookstore.But despite that, 85% of my sales come through Amazon.com, print and e-book (split about evenly, which seems to be different from other people's results). And in recent months, that number is closer to 95%. Apple is a steady but teensy trickle (say, 1 book a month). Barnes and Noble hasn't sold a single copy of either novel since the first month they were out, for a grand total of 8. And the iBookstore is a colossal pain to deal with (I signed up directly, because I don't care for the output from Smashwords Meat Grinder), although I love the books themselves.
So I'm not at all convinced that I would not have done just as well, or even better, if I had signed up for KDP Select. The free promos don't much appeal to me as a marketing technique, but the borrowing does.
CP I don't blame you for not joining the KDP program. Even though your stats show Amazon as you #1 sales source, excluding other sites like Apple means you would have lost sales.Plus from everything I read from authors in KDP, it seems to be that authors with a lot of books to push are those that are showing some success. Lots of books as in more than 2 or 3.
Good luck on your sales...
I've just put two books on KDP - I wonder how they will go.I did have them on Smashwords but with only a few results.
KDP won't allow less than 99c - but I see on Amazon, others at 30c who are not on KDP.
Any sales success with book ads on:Goodreads?
Authors Den?
Google?
Facebook ?
Henry wrote: "Any sales success with book ads on:Goodreads?
Authors Den?
Google?
Facebook ?"
Yes...for Goodreads, Authors Den, Google and Facebook's account ledgers...
I did something crazy. I had a trailer made to show before the actual movie trailers in Houston. I don't think I've gotten much out if it and it blew my whole budget. I have to say, it is cool to see the trailer in movie theaters. Here's a link to the trailer:http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5McR-m1ILbQ
It is still early in this process though.
My book, The Church of Tango: a Memoir, was published one year ago, and I was in the KDP program with several hundred downloads over 2 days. As far as I knew, no reviews resulted from that promotion.Eight months later I tried it again for one 24-hr period, and there were over 8000 downloads.
Now here's my point: the one or two reviews which did result from the freebies didn't help me because, as far as I can tell, the folks who downloaded it weren't into what the book is about other than being free.
I was excited to see there was a new review on Amazon last week (there had been a stable set of 20 for quite a while), but this new person wrote something very rude--that it was silly, why would anyone put "their sex life" out there, and it wasn't about the tango.
Obviously this person hadn't read the other reviews and wasn't interested in a memoir about "Death, Dance, Destiny" and I don't believe he even read it, which is about un-silly themes like cancer, loss, change, living in other countries, Alzheimer's, and, yes certainly, the power of dance.
So my point is, freebies aren't always a good thing if the reader isn't interested in what you're writing about, that he's not going to like a book that's out of his normal category (other than being free.)
It would be great if we could target the freebies to people interested in that genre, and who have some experience reading about it.
Cherie
Cherie wrote: "It would be great if we could target the freebies to people interested in that genre, and who have some experience reading about it. "I happen to have a very extensive number of lists of all sorts of book review bloggers. It takes a while to find the ones you are looking for but I've had very good results. Nearly all my reviews have come from them.
If you promise not to form letter them without regard to their interests I'd be happy to share my list with you. Just send me your email address. It's a lot of work but it does get results (both reviews and sales).
I agree with the rest of your comments above. Free is not the audience you should be wanting. Passionate, engaged, and interested is far better. Find one of them and they will find others for you.
Marc wrote: "Cherie wrote: "It would be great if we could target the freebies to people interested in that genre, and who have some experience reading about it. "I happen to have a very extensive number of li..."
Thanks, Marc. Please do send me your list. Much appreciated.
tangocherie@gmail.com
@Cherie, if that's not an email already made public on your blog or website, usually a good idea to edit it out of your public comment and just message it to the one person you want to have.
I'm beginning to see what Cherie is talking about. Readers are not always particular when it comes to free books, and may often choose books that will surely not interest them, and the whole thing backfires. I agree that it's much better to find your target audience first.On the other hand, because my book was somewhat unique, I was never quite sure who my audience would be. If nothing else, I think the goodreads give-away will give me an idea of who my audience ISN'T. I got my first review from the 15 books I gave away. It was three stars, which wasn't bad, but I saw that the reader was into YA paranormal romance (quite a popular genre). I'm afraid in my coming-of-age historical fantasy, while it does include shape-shifters, there are no vampires, werewolves or teenage "beefcake." I might have to re-examine the way I present it.
A Goodreads speaker at a writing conference said that about 60% of giveaway books are reviewed. At this early stage for me, I see it at a marketing experiment. I also did a KDP promotion, with hundreds of downloads, but no reviews so far.
If you already have a specific audience, and this 60% number is true, it might be worth the price of a few books (print books only) because, as opposed to KDP, I think goodreads members are, just because they're bothering with this site, more savvy and more picky about the free books they want.
That's my theory, anyway. We shall see!
Karen
Karen, I have a hard time believing that GR speaker's 60% figure. I've given away 14 print copies of four books on GR and gotten one review from the recipients. I fear the same freebie mentality infects the GR print giveaway as the KDP Select kindle format giveaway. As for KDP Select, I've had more than 7,000 downloads of one book and no reviews. All my reviews occurred before the downloads.
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However, after the promotional days ended, they slid quickly in rankings as expected. But then 'The Floor' bounced back as a few people began to buy and finally, to my surprise I've started to get people borrowing - which is nice. I've also just decreased the price of the second book 'Freland' because it is shorter than the first book and I think giving readers value for money is important. Already this has made a difference.
I really thought lending would only occur for more expensive books (over $7), so I am heartened to see that both my books are now being borrowed (1 is priced at 4.99 and 1 at 2.99), and of course the $4.99 The Floor is being borrowed a lot more.
So far, after a couple of weeks on KDP Select, I am happy with the progression, but only time will really tell the story. I will try and remember to report back here after the full 3 month period on KDP Select.
PS. Sheila, you are quite right, a lot of people don't realise that anyone can get a Kindle book even if they don't have a Kindle - just download the Kindle for PC App for free.