THE Group for Authors! discussion
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Any authors in the KDP Select Program?
Well I just sold one of my short stories today on Kobo, so I'm thinking having your work available on as many sites as possible is best.
I am in the program, and I'm also thinking about pulling my book out of it when 90 are over. But recently I found out that Amazon indeed promoted the enrolled books - I got a letter from them advertising the book which I knew for sure is in the program, because I had previously seen the author in this thread :)So, who knows? Maybe the program is worth trying further?
Marina wrote: "I am in the program, and I'm also thinking about pulling my book out of it when 90 are over. But recently I found out that Amazon indeed promoted the enrolled books - I got a letter from them adver..."I haven't noticed this advertising but maybe I'll try it again with my newest book since it is 3rd of a trilogy...
Nikki wroteWho knows how their mind works? :) And how would you notice the advertising if you, the author, don't receive it? :) It was directed at the readers who previously purchased something from this genre, and definitely not the author themself.
As for your book, I would give it a try; 3 months will fly very fast, and then you'll see for yourself if it's worth it -
Good luck with your book! :)
Marina wrote: "Nikki wroteWho knows how their mind works? :) And how would you notice the advertising if you, the author, don't receive it? :) It was directed at the readers who previously purchased something f..."
thanks Marina, same to you!
I felt it was best to leave Select. The sales through ibooks, kobo, and nook are well worth it.
Nikki wrote: "Marina wrote: "Nikki wroteNikki, thank you very much - we all need it :) my MC is called Nikki too, by the way :)
I didn't even know there was a 5 day promo on KDP. I just ran to my PC to check it out and have set it up. Thank you guys!
Jennifer wrote: "I didn't even know there was a 5 day promo on KDP. I just ran to my PC to check it out and have set it up. Thank you guys!"Elle wrote: "Congrats Don! It may have nothing to do with being pushed by Amazon, maybe just a boon caused by word of mouth/mouse by pleased readers!"
My novella Black Rice is ready to go, so thanks for all this useful info.
Well, to follow up on my last post, I've had a couple sales in the last week, so the promotion may have helped a little bit, enough to at least make my book visible again. That, and I tweaked my cover to make the title bigger and easier to read in small sizes.
Meanwhile I have to concentrate on finishing my next book!
Hi Everyone,What a great thread! I have been thinking of using KDP Select for my next book. From what so many people have been saying about a real bump in numbers, I'm more convinced that it's at least worth trying. Marketing is definitely my least developed skill, so it will be nice to have some built in tools.
And I'm really excited to see how many people are doing well! Congratulations!
Just to pick up on my campaign toward the end of March. My promoted book has now settled back down to pre-promo rankings after 5 weeks of bumped sales. I did spend some money on the campaign, but easily made it back. My sales throughout April were 7 times higher than normal, and borrows were up by about the same as well. The increase was even greater in the last week in March.I've gone from 48 reviews to 82.
But you do need to get a lot of downloads during the campaign to get this surge. 5000 might do you some small good, 10,000+ will help a lot more.
I had over 10,000 downloads on the first day of my 3-day campaign. If you want to know what I did, then go to http://www.writers-and-publishers.com...
I have my book "Nimmu and Missing Friend" in Amazon KDP select now and the promotion day will on 30 may 13, let me see how it goes and will share my experience here...Nimmu and Missing Friend
I have my short story collection Encore: Dark Short Stories on KDP. It is an experiment to test whether an unedited short story collection is really as bad as some people seem to think unedited things are. Only $2.99 today!
I'm with Select for my book The Laughing Policeman but its too early to tell how that's going - week three. I'm not going to do any free giveaways as its a published best seller that I've re-edited and placed on Kindle now the rights have come back to me. Also I think free giveaways devalue books and encourage readers to expect not to pay for something we've put a lot of work into - a few copies for free to reviewers or competitions sure, but not mass downloads - just a personal opinion.
Glenn wrote: "free giveaways devalue books and encourage readers to expect not to pay for something we've put a lot of work into"It may be true, but it's not really about that--it's about trying to make your product visible in a very crowded market. Unless you have a publicist or a lot of money to spend on advertising, you're probably going to need to do something to let people know you've written a book they may want to read. I've given away over 215,000 copies of my first two books in the past 9 months, and to my surprise, nobody's quibbled at all about having to pay for them, or the other books, during the vast-majority not-free periods. All the giveaways have done, as far as I can tell, is brought me to the attention of readers who would otherwise never have stumbled upon me.
Do some readers only get free books? Probably. By the same token, do some people go to the pirate sites and get my books there? I'm sure they do. But as long as other readers are enjoying and buying the books, the free downloads are free, effective advertising. Maybe it would be better for the future of publishing if there weren't so many free books--but there are, and if offering your book free helps you, I say go for it.
Rosalind wrote: "It may be true, but it's not really about that..."I agree with Rosalind, If you are a new author and are trying to get readers sometimes you have to give away free books. My first to books had fantastic Free promos. and now I have a small but growing following. If you sit there and just hope someone will chance across your book and buy it based on the blurb you may only get one or two sales. In Glenn's case he has a published bestseller that he just created into an ebook format so he probably has a following already and that may draw him sales. Those of us that don't have that following have to give away some to get some. Fortunately my free promos have generated sales so I can't say it is all for not.
As a side note I think my next attempt will be to put excerpts of my books or an upcoming book in the back of my current books and see if that draws more sales and future sales.
"I think my next attempt will be to put excerpts of my books or an upcoming book in the back of my current books and see if that draws more sales and future sales."I always do that, Stephen, and it seems to work really well. Don't be shy--go ahead and put several chapters in there. You want to hook them and make them HAVE to find out what happens next!
I'm also on Kindle select and like many first time self publishers I do anything to sell my book and get reviews. I used 2 free promotion days up till now. My book hasn't been published very long, just a few weeks.
Hi yall, I'm new to this group and I'd like to thank you for taking the time to share with the rest of us.Regarding giving your book away for free; I can see some logic in it. It gets you some notice, and new authors need this. I plan to try it with the second book that I'm currently writing. For the life of me, I can't give my first one away for free. I'm too emotionally tied to it. Weird, huh?
Cheers and thanks! John
For reviews, I think you'll have better luck posting on Librarything.com's Member Giveaway program. Give away 100 copies, and in the description field where you give a log line for your book, mention that you're looking for reviews on Amazon in return. It's done all the time. The readers there are more dedicated and your odds of being read and reviewed will be better.Good Luck
Mark wrote: "For reviews, I think you'll have better luck posting on Librarything.com's Member Giveaway program. Give away 100 copies, and in the description field where you give a log line for your book, menti..."Is that an eBook giveaway? It would be rather expensive otherwise.
Judy, it's up to you to specify. On my previous give aways it has been ebook only, and though I include what formats I'll provide, I have always been hit with requests for alternate formats like PDF.At the end of the run where people can request a copy, the managers of the site send you a list of emails of those interested and it's up to you to email out the copies.
You always wind up doing more work than expected for these things, but in the long run, it's worth it.
I'm with Mark. I tried JDP and didn't see any significant increase in sales or reviews. In fact, my sales went down because I was no longer getting sales from Barnes & Noble and other outlets. All I did was give away tens of thousands of copies and saw no worthwhile return. I only got a couple of reviews and they were the worst two I've ever had because people had chosen a book outside their normal genre. I think a more targeted approach works better. You can still do giveaways on Smashwords. And by using the many specific programs out there for Read For Review, you get a better return on investment.
Everyone talks about the free giveaways, but has anyone had any luck with Amazon's "Prime Member" lending? I had one person on Prime borrow one of my book over a number of months. I think I made a couple of dollars off that deal. Has anyone done well on that part of the KDP scheme?
Mike wrote: "Everyone talks about the free giveaways, but has anyone had any luck with Amazon's "Prime Member" lending? I had one person on Prime borrow one of my book over a number of months. I think I made ..."I have, but you have to get pretty high up in the rankings before people really start borrowing. It's a bonus if you're already doing well with KDP Select. In my experience, borrows are typically about 10% of sales. People will especially borrow the other books--as well as the book that was free--after a free giveaway.
Can i ask, in this crowded market place of books, what is the average download on a 'Free' kindle promotion?Kitty x
Kitty wrote: "Can i ask, in this crowded market place of books, what is the average download on a 'Free' kindle promotion?Kitty x"
Depends on the book. In my experience Fiction does better than Nonfiction about 4 to 1. but it all really depends. Unadvertised free promos I have averaged 100 to 400, and advertised free promos I have averaged 250 to 1000. Hope that helps
Mike wrote: "Everyone talks about the free giveaways, but has anyone had any luck with Amazon's "Prime Member" lending? ..."I average about 1 to 2 Prime borrows a month. and the benefit is it is pure profit you make $2.30 per borrow. If your book is say priced at 2.99 and you make 2.09 under the 70% option. the down side is that my book that is 4.99 I make 3.47 on under the 70% model and each Prime borrow only nets me 2.30. The think is I don't think amazon's Prime group is necessarily that large yet the price for me as a customer is to high for the benefits it offers.
I have about 40-50 borrows per month, with it rising into the hundreds on a good month (a heavy promotion or December).
Mark wrote: "For reviews, I think you'll have better luck posting on Librarything.com's Member Giveaway program. Give away 100 copies, and in the description field where you give a log line for your book, menti..."What a very helpful suggestion. Thank you.
John wrote: "Hi yall, I'm new to this group and I'd like to thank you for taking the time to share with the rest of us.
Regarding giving your book away for free; I can see some logic in it. It gets you some no..."
Stephen wrote: "Kitty wrote: "Can i ask, in this crowded market place of books, what is the average download on a 'Free' kindle promotion?Kitty x"
Depends on the book. In my experience Fiction does better than N..."
Thank you. That seems about what I have been experiencing. I think I find the marketing of things very hard! K x
It depends on genre, number of reviews, rating, etc. but organic traffic (no promotion on your part) tends to pull in around 500 per day. With effort, and perhaps a small amount of paid advertising, you can get over 10,000 downloads per day (more for very popular genres).
If you are in KDP Select, the following link will show you a number of websites you can use to improve your promotions, which should help improve your sales. http://www.rachelleayala.com/p/promo-...
Although the list seems fairly complete, you can use Google to get other sites that might have been omitted.
Anyone interested to do some cross-promotion by exchanging author interviews? My book in in KDP select, and I am doing a free promotion on 8th and 9th june, 2013. If anyone is running a free promotion in june, I would be happy to promote them in exchange. Please contact me through goodreads messages if interested. Thank you.
Oh, by the way, this question hasn't been asked, but I had it when I started, so just in case: It doesn't matter, for your giveaway or borrows, how cheap/expensive the book is. I had assumed that people wouldn't "waste" their borrow on a 99-cent book (which one of mine is); not true. Ditto with the giveaway. Doesn't matter if, at regular price, it's only 99 cents; many, many more people will still download it free than would buy it.Also true for returns, by the way: you get the same percentage of people returning a 99-cent book as those returning a $3.99 book. "Give me my dollar back!" LOL.
Mike wrote: "Everyone talks about the free giveaways, but has anyone had any luck with Amazon's "Prime Member" lending? I had one person on Prime borrow one of my book over a number of months. I think I made ..."I get about 15 borrows a month, but not really sure what that does for me. I've never done a giveaway and I sell about 5-10 copies a day. I'm waiting for the giveaway until I release my second book of the series.
I was on KDP for the 90 days and I specifically checked the box that I did not want an automatic renewal, but they renewed me anyway. Just my experience. Has anyone information on how to get out of KDP once renewed, intentionally or not.
Kelly wrote: "Mike wrote: "Everyone talks about the free giveaways, but has anyone had any luck with Amazon's "Prime Member" lending? I had one person on Prime borrow one of my book over a number of months. I ..."Kelly, you seem to doing well on Amazon. I think the borrows add to your Amazon ranks the same way units sold do.
What's your genre?? Try to reduce the price or change the cover or description.
Sabine wrote: "Kelly wrote: "Mike wrote: "Everyone talks about the free giveaways, but has anyone had any luck with Amazon's "Prime Member" lending? I had one person on Prime borrow one of my book over a number ..."Borrows tend to be about 10% of sales. They increase in percentage, though, as your books sell more. (Unfair, I know, but, alas, true.) I've stayed in Select because free days & borrows are working for me so far, but if they hadn't, I'd be branching out.
I've been in the Select program for about 6 months now. I make about $160-300/month from the sales, though when I was just starting out I only made about $20/month. It can be very frustrating when you're just starting out, but it helps that Amazon is so generous with their royalties. ^.^
Nenia wrote: "I've been in the Select program for about 6 months now. I make about $160-300/month from the sales, though when I was just starting out I only made about $20/month. It can be very frustrating when ..."Thats good numbers I wish mine was that good but I still get 2 to 5 a month. interestingly enough though the one book I pulled from Select is now selling more than the books in select so i'm not sure whats going on there.
Stephen wrote: "Nenia wrote: "I've been in the Select program for about 6 months now. I make about $160-300/month from the sales, though when I was just starting out I only made about $20/month. It can be very fru..."It's possible that readers who use other eReaders are now buying your books. I know mine find it a pain to use Kindle only. :P
You can't. You have to wait until it has expired again, although i think if it is in the first day or so you might. You could email Amazon and tell them you unchecked the box and it still renewed. I suspect they will just tell you you must wait until your term is up but it might be worth a try.
Yes! I have my first book in KDP; and November/December are big months as people get e-readers of all types for the holiday gifts. Then what do they do but purchase or enroll in free or almost free lending!!!Kiss Ride by Caroline Clemens
~I keep enrolling it over and over, to hopefully get my name out there.
French Bleu and Bleu Moon by Caroline Clemens
~My other books are published by XLibris as I don't want them tied down to anything or anyone.
My advice is to definitely do free days ... Saturdays after Christmas/Holidays over a few weeks time. Good Luck!
I never understand why someone would want to give Amazon exclusivity. I get better sales from the Smashwords retail network and Amazon's lending scheme hasn't done anything for me. If free is really important to you, Amazon's price match policy works some of the time.
Scott wrote: "I never understand why someone would want to give Amazon exclusivity."Like anything else with ebook marketing, I think it's just another strategy to try. If the 5-day-free book/borrow thing works for you, great. If not, put it up everywhere.
I like giving Amazon exclusivity because if you enroll in their KDP select program you get 75% royalties for ebooks $2.99 and above. I think that's really generous.
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I started in KDP select but pulled it because I wanted a wider market. It's now on sale at all sort of outlets, but would I have done better to stay with KDP Select? Unless I pull it from everywhere else, which I don't think would be a good idea, I'll now never know.
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