Amazon KDP Select free promotion program - The Day After
By Alvin Alexander on May 5, 2013
As I wrote in my two previous articles (Amazon KDP Select free promotion - Day 1, and Amazon KDP Select free promotion - Day 2), I've been participating in the Amazon KDP Select free ebook promotion program for the last two days to see how that would affect sales of my new ebook, How I Sold My Business: A Personal Diary.
I'm writing this entry on the day after my two day "free" promotion, and things have basically gone back to where they were before. While my ebook bounced between #1 and #3 in the Small Business category of the Free Kindle ebook store for more than 24 hours, today there is no indication of that on my product page, and it just shows the book is about #250,000 in overall sales.
As an author/publisher, that's disappointing. I was hoping my product page might say something like, "#1 in the Small Business free ebook category for 24 hours", or "Top 20 for two days", but nope, there's no mention of it at all.
Next steps
As I wrote yesterday, other than hiring a PR person, I'm not sure where to go from here. I know a lot of people downloaded my free ebook, and hopefully they'll like it, and give it positive reviews. That seems to be the hope and promise of the KDP Select free book promotion program.
I will keep some Google AdWords campaigns running, but with the book priced at only $4.99, that's a tough proposition. If I let AdWords run wild, ads can easily cost $2 per click, so unless everyone who clicks an ad also buys the book, there's not much profit in that. I'm currently trying to take a much more targeted approach, and put a maximum of $1.25/click on the current campaign.
I may also start an ad campaign on the Microsoft/Yahoo ad network. I have free credits over there from buying some domains, maybe $50-100, so it's certainly worth exploring that.
Next follow up
I'll probably follow up on this process again next weekend. I hope there will be a few reviews of my book by the end of the weekend, but of course that's out of my control. (One person I know told me he thinks 80% of the reviews on Amazon have been "bought", but I won't go that route.)
tags:
related
- Amazon KDP Select free promotion program - Day 1
- Amazon KDP Select free promotion program - Day 2
- Don't buy my book! (It's FREE this weekend)
- New eBook - How I Sold My Business: A Personal Diary
- Amazon Kindle eBook cover specifications (height and width size requirements)
- How I Sold My Business: A Personal Diary
- Amazon Kindle eBook self publishing for Mac (and Windows) users
- Free Mac eReader applications
- Hyde, free, coming soon
- My consulting book: 'You want me to do what? A Survival Guide for New Consultants'
KDP
Hi Alvin,
I have done a few KDP days: the 1st time I did one and was very successful in terms of downloads and my sales increased in the days afterwards quite dramatically. I had NO reviews off the free downloads (which I hear is the norm), but did get two off the people that purchased afterwards.
I tried KDP for the first time on March 23, 2013. I did a fair bit of free advertising before hand and as I say my downloads in the US and UK very impressive; as was my ‘free’ ranking #12 and #15. It was worth it.
However I did two free KDP days on May 2 and 3 as they recommend a Thurs and Fri. I did a comprehensive free and paid advertising burst using twitter and facebook extensively as well. And guess what…LIMITED SUCCESS.
In fact very disappointing: I was at #28 and #34 for women’s lit and contemporary respectively in the US and ONLY #77 in thrillers in the UK. I did better in Canada, France and Germany. I wish I could understand it? I had double the reviews this time and had done double the work. All my sums showed that I should have done really well and so who knows what happened?
I am wondering if a KDP free day only works once. I am also wondering if many of the free day ads I submitted were never even run? Since I did really well the first time; where is the logic that I did so much worse this time and yet did double the advertising. I cannot square this circle.
As for reviews: many are written by family and friends which is OK if you have loads of family and friends who are prepared to do that for you. Amazon are rather clever about cracking down on paid reviews and they seem to weed them out. It's hard to get reviews and I have sent off dozens of books to people who never bother (despite some nagging). Reviewers are inundated with Indies and many are just after free books.
It's best to ask for reviews on Goodreads forums and twitter is also a great resources.
As for KDP; I think it's effectiveness is wearing off and I think many who download for free just do so for the sake of it and never even read the books.
Hope that helps, Lis.
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