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Any authors in the KDP Select Program?
After several free offers of one of my suspense novels, I rested it a week at full price, then offered it this past week for half price. But only 3 or 4 have sold. Very disappointing. Of course, I find it almost impossible to understand the Amazon report structure.
Nikki wrote: "Merri wrote: "Hi, I'm a newbie and thought I'd share my Amazon KDP Select experience. I put all my books in Select after pulling them from Smashwords (so they were removed from B&N, Kobo, Apple, Di..."Yes, you have to go in and disable the automatic renewal or you'll be locked in for another ninety days. I have chosen to put new releases in Amazon KDP Select for ninety days, then not renew and expand my distribution to other sales channels. I do not like the exclusivity clause.
Virginia wrote: "The Smashwords summer sale has given me a huge bump in page views and sample downloads but no Smashword sales. The writing is on the wall. I guess. Hard to get excited about the WIP right now. J..."I haven't had very many sales from the reduced price of my e-books; however, when I put a new book on Smashwords that had just finished a ninety day stint with Amazon KDP Select (and was not included in the discounted sale), I ended up selling four copies in two days. I thought that was very odd, but I'm thankful for the downloads.
I signed up for the KDP Select and also did a two day promotion for The Sustainable Table Take Back Your Plate and received 5,275 downloads on July 21-22. My understanding is that they will not be counted in the KDP select for borrows or worth any money to me. They did however move my Kindle (not the print version) book up in the rankings and that resulted in a few sales and borrows after they came off the free promotion. My other book Do It Yourself Press Releases - Helping to promote your organization is also listed on the KDP select and I did a 5 day free promotion with only about 400 downloads....didn't get any money from their promotion. So not sure what to think except it seems to help in ranking.
That's my experience so far....I have a new upcoming business book and expect that it might be more popular than the press release one....so another experiment I think!
Interesting information about the rankings--that is a plus--I have to check and see on mine...
While the ranking improves while the book is free, once a price is attached to it again, you may find your ranking lower than before the free promo. just be aware so you aren't in for a harsh shock. It will rise again.
so far I think my ranking is about as low as it can go! so I won't be shocked...
*** Heads Up!***Wow. I just went into my KDP Bookshelf and clicked 'Info' (in the 'KDP Select' column on the far right). I was surprised to find the one title I have signed up for KDP Select was set to renew by default at the end of the original 90-day period. If you aren't aware of this, you may want to go in there and un-check that box for automatic renewal if you don't want that to happen.
I think the genre of the book plays the biggest part in success. YA does really well. My publisher used the KDP free program with several books. My werewolf book did extremely well (21,000 downloads and over 300 sales in the week following the free promotion). So did another book of theirs (a thriller). Fantasy, however, has a hard time. My publisher is putting my first fantasy novel in the free program starting on Aug. 1st, but they tell me not to expect the success of my werewolf story. I am actually giving my fantasy away more as promotion for book 2 in the series which officially releases on the 1st than in hopes of it breaking out. And, yes, you are automatically renewed if you don't unclick the button.
What are anyone's statistics for setting ebook free days on Saturdays and Sundays?
I may be wrong but I dont really think the days make a lot of difference. My publisher put my book and another book out for the same 5 days (wed-sun.) and both of our books did extremely well. The thing is, my book went crazy on the first 3 days and slowed down quite a bit by the weekend. (I gave away 16000 or so on the first 3 days and only 5000 on the last 2). But the other book they put out plodded along with ok numbers for the first few days and then got hot on the last two. That book ended with similar numbers as mine. That's also why I thing putting the book out for 5 straight days is just as good as doing a couple days at a time.
I have heard that giving away free books can generate negative reviews from people who only read it because it was free and didn't like it because it's not the sort of thing they would normally buy. I must admit I haven't really found that much of a problem but it does worry me slightly.
M.T. wrote: "I have heard that giving away free books can generate negative reviews from people who only read it because it was free and didn't like it because it's not the sort of thing they would normally buy..."That's one of the reasons I haven't done a giveaway. As a writer of M/M romance, I know offering one of my books free would open the door to a lot of people getting their feathers ruffled.
Heck, I had a someone who'd actually bought Redemption complain, saying she didn't know it was man-on-man porn and comparing it to 50 Shades of Gray. The book has three love scenes in 100,000 words (and I didn't exactly hide the fact it's gay fiction). If people start buying it, thinking it's porn, they're going to be very disappointed.
Sometimes you can't win. :-)
Is there any way to get out of Select early? I signed up for it again last month, and now I'm wishing I hadn't. If I go ahead and publish it through other sites and violate the exclusivity clause with Amazon, will I get in any serious trouble, or will they just kick me out of Select?
Nevermind. I went back and read the fine print and answered my own question."If you don’t comply with these KDP Select terms and conditions, we will not owe you Royalties for that Digital Book earned through the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library Program, and we may offset any of those Royalties that were previously paid against future Royalties, or require you to remit them to us. We may also withhold your Royalty payments on all your Digital Books for a period of up to 90 days while we investigate. This doesn’t limit other remedies we have, such as prohibiting your future participation in KDP Select or KDP generally."
Looks like I'm stuck until late September. :(
I'm in the same situation. it just sucks!
KDP can be very similar to dating a possessive girlfriend/boyfriend. When you first meet them, everything is just so peachy but as time passes, you begin feeling a little trapped and realize it's not as great as once envisioned. Said boyfriend/girlfriend starts exhibiting more frustrating behavior, eventually prompting you to try and break it off. What you don't realize however, is that it's easier said than done because the history between you two has made the entire situation quite inextricable. You both live together, you both hang out with the same friends, share the same car, etc.
So now you're left with a tough decision: do you sacrifice it all for that much sought after freedom, or do you suck it up, stick it out for the sake of convenience?
For me right now, I'm at the 'I just met you and think you're pretty awesome' phase.
Martin Reed
I'm at the, "debating about where to hide the body" phase.
Martin wrote: "KDP can be very similar to dating a possessive girlfriend/boyfriend. When you first meet them, everything is just so peachy but as time passes, you begin feeling a little trapped and realize it's n...""...and the only thing that prevented me from dropping a toaster in her bathtub and ridding myself of her for good, was the episode of CSI I watched"
Come on, Martin, you can say it.
It's the internet though. You never know who's watching.
Just think of it this way - now you have time to write another book by the time your 90 days are up. Go for it! And in your break time, start working on the layouts for adding to other platforms - I waited until my 90 days were up before even starting to think about Smashwords, Lightning Source, or directly with B & N and Nook. So I'm already 30 days past independence day and not out there yet. My bad.
Paul wrote: "Just think of it this way - now you have time to write another book by the time your 90 days are up. Go for it! And in your break time, start working on the layouts for adding to other platforms - ..."It took Smashwords 21 days before my book was reviewed and accepted for Premium status. I gave up and went directly to B&N/Nook and Kobo. It's hard to plan for wider release (so there's no lag) if you go via Smashwords, as you don't know what their turnaround is going to be.
I'm free at last! I'm out of Select now and thrilled to be able to do whatever I want with my book. One of the most annoying things about Select was having to second-guess every opportunity to get the word out about my book. Giveaway on Goodreads? Nope. Sell it on my own site? Nope. Send out review copies? Yes, but the TOS doesn't make that very clear.
In a nutshell, exclusivity sucks.
I'm enrolled with KDP Select, but so far have had no downloads with it. I'm in two minds about going free or not. It seems to work for some people and not for others. Maybe when I release the second book in the trilogy it might be worth doing a free day on the first.
Daniel, you could have given away a paperback book through Goodreads. Amazon KDP Select is only for e-books.
Michael - have you scheduled your free days? Enrolling is the first step. Telling them which days you want your book to be free is the second step.
Merri wrote: "Daniel, you could have given away a paperback book through Goodreads. Amazon KDP Select is only for e-books."Thanks, Merri. That's true. But even knowing that, KDP Select made me second-guess every promotion decision wondering if Amazon would take exception somehow. Let's just say it's just good to be free of the yoke.
Paul wrote: "Michael - have you scheduled your free days? Enrolling is the first step. Telling them which days you want your book to be free is the second step."I haven't yet. I was seeing if the Select programme generated anything useful from borrowing - so far it has not. I might try a free promotion early next month, but I have to say I'm in two minds about it.
Daniel wrote: "Merri wrote: "Daniel, you could have given away a paperback book through Goodreads. Amazon KDP Select is only for e-books."Thanks, Merri. That's true. But even knowing that, KDP Select made me se..."
Paul wrote: "What are anyone's statistics for setting ebook free days on Saturdays and Sundays?"
Douglas wrote: "I think the genre of the book plays the biggest part in success. YA does really well. My publisher used the KDP free program with several books. My werewolf book did extremely well (21,000 download..."
For Paul,I think you idea of free days on the week-ends on ebooks makes sense. JoAnn Hill
If you offer free e-books through KDP note that there is a lag time so after 5700+ downloads of The Sustainable Table - Take Back Your Plate finished a Saturday/Sunday free promo....it was 10 days before the freebies stopped!
I did 2 free days of KDP in March, and I don't believe it helped me in any way. I did get one Amazon review from it by a friend. I didn't realize it was self-renewing, so I'm still in it until Aug. 25. I decided yesterday to make one more stab at giving my book (The Church of Tango: a Memoir) away while I was still in the program, and began a 24-hour free download last night at midnight. It's going crazy--it's up to 2000 and there are 12 hours more to go.
It's a Wednesday, so go figure. I just put the info yesterday on my blog (tangocherie) and on Facebook. I hope someone at least will post a review here and on Amazon. And that all of this will help sales.
So if someone here is interested in a free download of my book, you have until 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time tonight, August 22.
I'll let you know the results of the promo, if any.
Hello All, Like many of you, I'm a new author. I published my first book The Lotus Files in late June 2012. I enrolled in KDP Select because I figured 90 days wasn't an eternity so what did I have to lose? I struggled with the thought of giving my book away for "free" because proceeds from my book are funding an endowment that my family has started in honor of my mother who passed away from breast cancer in 2010 at her college alma mater. The Lotus Files is actually a personal memoir chronicling the first year after I lost her. However, after the initial rush of friends and family purchasing the book online, along with my first book signing, sales dwindled quickly. Truthfully, for the month of August, I've only sold 4 copies on Kindle.
Feeling deflated, and after reading the "fine print" (although I'm still not sure about the "math"), I decided to give the Free Promo Days a try. I woke up the first morning with no thoughts of grandeur and saw that my book had been downloaded 91 times! I became obsessed, looking at the numbers grow all day and went to bed to see that the book had been downloaded over 300 times and I was ranked #2 in both the "Death/Grief" genre and "Motivational/Self-Help" genre. Downloads slowed the second day (today), but I'm well past 500 downloads and am currently ranked #1 for my genre. With that being said, I'm more than pleased as my genre isn't the most "popular". I've decided to try three days in a row and will use my remaining two days next month before the 90 days is up. I'm not sure how this will equate for sales afterwards but I will keep you posted!
If nothing else, I'm grateful that over 500 people that I don't know have downloaded the book and hopefully it helps them through the journey of adjusting to life without a close loved one. My job is done there. My mom's endowment goal will be reached and once it's fulfilled a permanent scholarship will be in place for breast cancer survivors as well as the kin of "Sheroes" who have passed away from it.
Trying KDP Select has given me new energy to keep finding new ways to get my book out there. I'm currently reaching a demographic that I couldn't on my own. So far, so good!
Well, I gotta say (as a first time poster, and first time KDP writer), this has been a fairly awesome day.I was unsure about the whole KDP thing - did a lot of reading, got the usual polarized opinions, and decided, what the hell - no one knows me from Adam, so I'll take a shot.
Today is my free day, and it has been exhilarating. I did a lot of work and promotion leading up to this day - and now it pays off. Time will tell what will happen when it comes off of free, but for now it has climbed to #25 in the Amazon literary books chart. And that makes me pretty damn happy.
If you want to look it up, the title is Correction Line.
Happy to share my experiences here.
Following up on my post of the other day, in 24 hours of free downloads, there were 6,000 from around the world! I couldn't believe it; so many more than the 2 free days last March. Surprisingly enough, since then I've sold a couple of paperbacks and more than the usual amount of kindle downloads. I just hope, as we all do here, that a small percentage of the "free-loaders" will write a review somewhere! Now that the KDP contract is finished, I'm going to investigate other outlets for selling the ebook.
I launched my book in June 2012 and immediately enlisted with KDP, even tho I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. Two months later, here's what I think:1. For a newbie author, it's great. There is so much info "out there" that enlisting on KDP forced me to focus on just one distributor.
2. I did the first 2-day promo after 6 weeks and was thrilled with the result: almost 3000 downloads in 2 days. No extra reviews yet, but that was only two weeks ago.
3. High downloads pushes you high up on Amazon lists which helps with the after-promo sales (even if they're just a trickle!).
4. Make sure your book's genre is correct (via KDP Bookshelf). Make sure you have used all the tags you're allowed to use (15)(accessed via your book's profile.
5. Another valuable advantage of the free promo is that it's the start of "cross-linking" your book to others eg people who read x book, also read y book.
I have another month on KDP and will decide at the end of next month whether to renew or not. (NOTE: remember to OPT OUT of their auto-renew).
I'm new on Goodreads - discovered they had an author's section quite by chance so I'm thrilled to meet all of you!
Welcome and nice to meet you as well Katja!
Concerning Amazon. Has anyone received payment for books sold? If so, how often do they send checks. I haven't received a dime so far.
Virginia wrote: "They pay every three months but I think it is like you get through May at the beginning of July. I don't know for sure. They spell it out on their site. But once I got a payment and then about s..."Actually, Amazon pays monthly. But you don't receive your first payment until 60 days after the end of the calendar month in question. So in other words, I received my April royalties at the end of June. I think you have to have made a minimum of $10 to receive payment.
Eric wrote: "Has anyone received payment for books sold?"I received notification last week that payment would be made soon for June sales ie exactly two months later. Olivia is right, you need a minimum of $10 for EFT payment, and minimum of $100 for cheque payment.
If you meet these conditions but haven't been paid, check that payment details on your Amazon account have been correctly filled in.
Thanks Katja and Olivia. I'll check my details. Probably, I just need patience. Perhaps after the end of August. My amount is over $100.
I tried first pasting some stupid collections of mine clubbed into one that I wrote ages ago called by 'Defying Common Sense' and I received no response at all in the starting initial few days but then I got pretty good downloads after promoting it personally.
I just published my first novel 'That Yellow Winged Stranger' and I haven't received a single download still so I reduced the price, but still mostly I want everyone to read it rather than sell it off.
But I guess that era of books is totally gone. I don't think you can be a good writer unless you got influences or marketing skills and mostly being famous does the job.
I just published my first novel 'That Yellow Winged Stranger' and I haven't received a single download still so I reduced the price, but still mostly I want everyone to read it rather than sell it off.
But I guess that era of books is totally gone. I don't think you can be a good writer unless you got influences or marketing skills and mostly being famous does the job.
issue a press release to key publications for your book...i.e romance women's journals etc that do book reviews....see http://www.amazon.com/Do-Yourself-Pre... I just had Natural Life, Saltscapes and few others to do a book review. Then use those reviews to again promote your book via your Amazon author page.
Videos on youtube are a great tool too here is a video house tour of our passive solar house to promote my book on the same http://youtu.be/33IWs4H3kL4
If you do the press release yourself - the cost is your time but the benefits can be great.
Hope this helps.
Tracey
I am working on my debut novel now, so I am pretty new at all of this. I have a blog where I review books of debut authors. I have gotten lots of response from Twitter and Facebook as well as from here. I only give honest and unbiased opinions from a reader's POV. I don't know if I am allowed to give the info. here, but if interested, check it out at: rebeccavance.com.
FYI if you are in the KDP select program and cancel after your required 90 days and then re-enroll....you can never cancel again. Do It Yourself Press Releases
Tracey wrote: "FYI if you are in the KDP select program and cancel after your required 90 days and then re-enroll....you can never cancel again. Do It Yourself Press Releases"
I looked at the KDP Select terms and conditions and could find nothing addressing the above comment.
Here is a link to the terms:
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishin...
Is that 'never cancel again' clause anywhere else?
I looked at the KDP Select terms and conditions and could find nothing addressing the above comment.
Here is a link to the terms:
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishin...
Is that 'never cancel again' clause anywhere else?
I cancelled it for the Do it Yourself Press Releases and then since it is part of Prime I decided to re-enroll there was a pop-up window that gave me the notice that I couldn't cancel it again after I re-enrolled....thought I would pass it along.
Since the term of the enrollment is 90 days, which can be either automatically renewed (click the box) or manually renewed for another 90 days (and so on), the message just means that you are stuck for the rest of the 90 days of the enrollment.
Tracey wrote: "I cancelled it for the Do it Yourself Press Releases and then since it is part of Prime I decided to re-enroll there was a pop-up window that gave me the notice that I couldn't cancel it again afte..."
I'm confused. That book is not out in ebook in any form that I can see. Is the link faulty and not showing? Prime only applies to Kindle books, not print books...
At any rate, what you can't cancel is your participation for the 90 days of the term you would currently be in. Each term is just 90 days, and you can choose not to auto-renew.
I'm confused. That book is not out in ebook in any form that I can see. Is the link faulty and not showing? Prime only applies to Kindle books, not print books...
At any rate, what you can't cancel is your participation for the 90 days of the term you would currently be in. Each term is just 90 days, and you can choose not to auto-renew.
THE Group for Authors!
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Hi Merri--I've done one giveaway on Kindle and in trying to sign up for another found out that if you don't let them know, they will list your book for another 90 days--I've decided to go ahead with this because I wanted to really PROMOTE the book this time beforehand on ereader news and pixel of ink...maybe some other places if I can find them...