Tag: KDP Select

When is FREE not free? Answer – when you do a Free book promotion.

Pete Barber
Pete Barber

Guest post
by Pete Barber

On May 17th, 2014 I offered my self-published technothriller, NanoStrike, free for five days on Amazon. My novel was downloaded 39,000 times. Perhaps my experience can help others.

Step one–I freshened up my novel, which I self-published in 2012 but never promoted. I retitled, recovered, rewrote, and reedited. If you’d like to know why, I recently wrote a blog post about this for Big Al’s Book & Pals.

I withdrew the old novel from all distribution channels except Amazon, waited two weeks, updated the title and cover on Amazon, then enrolled in KDP.

I was ready for my promotion. Continue reading “When is FREE not free? Answer – when you do a Free book promotion.”

The “Donut Hole” within Amazon’s KDP Select “Free” Periods

donuts
Mmmm… donuts.

Many authors might not have run into this donut hole while placing their book or books free in this program. I want to explain what it is along with how you can find where it occurs now or in the future, while providing a refresher on how to display the Select information.

First, a little background for those not familiar with Amazon’s KDP Select program. This program allows an author to have one or more of their books in this program provided they give KDP Select an exclusive distribution for 90 days. That means it can’t be available anywhere else in eBook form during that period. The benefit I’m going to be specifically talking about here is the ability to have that book, or books, free for five days within that 90 day window. Free means people can order them on Amazon free without any charge and without any royalty to the author.

I like donuts, probably a little too much. I could tell some stories, but I would only get myself into trouble. I know…I know…stay on track here.

As a relatively new author with six books, Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) and the “Select” program has been a true benefit to me. It has allowed my books to be published and discovered within the reader world. There are many debates over this program, but I love it. However, on a recurring basis, I run into the donut hole in the Amazon KDP Select 90-day free period. Continue reading “The “Donut Hole” within Amazon’s KDP Select “Free” Periods”

To Select or Not to Select?

KDP Select logoBack in the good old days, before Amazon started tweaking their sales algorithms, an indie author would have been crazy not to enroll a book in KDP Select. You could put your book free for a few days, give away thousands of copies, and get a lovely bounce in paid sales when the promotion was over. Some indies made their careers from that bounce.

Of course, even in the heyday of Select, curmudgeons muttered darkly about Amazon being an evil corporation that would turn on indies when we least expected it, and so we shouldn’t be putting all our eggs in one basket, and so on. And some authors had books that sold pretty well at B&N and Kobo (although perhaps not as well as on Amazon). For these folks, Select might have been a temptation, but not enough of one to entice them into publishing with Amazon exclusively. Continue reading “To Select or Not to Select?”

One Author Has Success with Free Books

Branded for Murder #4 - Amazon FreeAfter trying different approaches to market my books using “free” periods on Amazon’s KDP Select program, I finally found some success. When I combined holidays with multiple free books, the result was a large volume of downloads with actual sales following the free period.

In the last three years I have self-published six books. Four are part of my Scott Tucker series which is set back in the 60’s in Boston. However, like most new authors, I have the problem of being discovered. As many know, the KDP Select program allows five free days during any ninety-day period which can be used to bring attention to new authors.

When I began using this ‘free’ approach, I made the first book in the series free, hoping to attract attention to that book and the series. Later, I made another book in the series free hoping it would also bring attention to that novel and the series. It sounded good, but this serialized approach did not provide actual book sales (a sales bump) following these free periods. Continue reading “One Author Has Success with Free Books”