Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

Ken wrote: "Amanda wrote: "I am trying KDP Select for the first time with my book Mommies' Priceless Moments. I am going to do a free promo for three days (Friday-Sunday). I have had a hard time getting the wo..."

Okay thank you for the tip :-)

Hi everyone!
I wanted to give you the link to my book Mommies' Priceless Moments. My promo is over in a few days:
This book is available for free 7/14 - 7/15

http://www.amazon.com/Mommies-Pricele...

Hi Everyone,
I'm back :-) So I did my first KDP free promo. It was for 3 days and I ended up giving out 581 copies. It has been 3 days since the promo and I've sold a few books and had 1 book rental. So it might not be as great as the people who gave away 3,000 - 12,000 on their book promos, but it was still worth it :-) and I am excited to do another promo in a couple of weeks.

581 downloads doesn't sound bad. Going on my past experience I'd recommend doing several one day promotions instead of a longer single one (I see other people have said the same higher up this thread). Just make sure you hype it up in advance in as many relevant places as you can each time. Do a count down to the free offer on your social networking pages etc. to keep it in people's minds.

So far my promo days haven't done too much to increase the sales of the book that was available for free (lots of downloads though) but caused a large surge in sales of my second book. My third book will be out very soon so I'm hoping that having two books available beside the freebie one will increase that even further.

What I haven't worked out is how close together you can do freebie offers?

I have one running at the moment and I've had about 60 in two days which is pretty lame. Last week I did one that had 2000+, but it got picked up by a major site, Ereader News Today. I think if you want to shift a ton of copies you need either ENT or Pixel of Ink to pick it up, and they won't touch it unless you have 4 or 5 reviews first. Otherwise if you can get to 500 that's pretty good.

Had my best promo in 6 months of KDP Select on Sunday and Monday. Voyage of the Dead reached #1 in Free Science Fiction (and Sci-Fi-Adventure), #4 in Horror, and #84 in overall Top 100 Free in Kindle Store. Over 4,750 copies downloaded.

Already seeing a boost in sales for the sequel, Flotilla of the Dead, which has been in and out of the the Top 100 Paid Sci-Fi Adventure several times today after falling to 30,000 before the free promo. I expect it to rise higher over the next week and month as more people finish reading the 1st book.

Not sure what boards or tweeting services picked up the freebie, except for DigitialBookToday.com which has always included my freeies in their list of the Best Free Kindle Books. But I did start using Twitter more since my last promo and this time I got retweets from other authors and filmmakers who have tens of thousands of followers and in one case over 120,000. I think that helped because I saw immediate bumps in downloads at the rate of several as fast as I could click refresh. Quite exciting!

David wrote: "Had my best promo in 6 months of KDP Select on Sunday and Monday. Voyage of the Dead reached #1 in Free Science Fiction (and Sci-Fi-Adventure), #4 in Horror, and #84 in overall Top 100 Free in Kin..."

Congrats! Thats awsome! I hope you get lots of sales :-)

I have had mixed results. I think it all depends on how amazon is working that day. Some days I receive over 10,000 downloads, and others much less.

I do have my latest novel

MODELS AND LOVERS


running through today and I will analyze it tomorrow and report back.

I think a lot of it is down to timing, and then preparation and also luck. In the UK I doubt today would be a good day. For most of the country the weather has been lovely and the school holidays have only been going a couple of days. I suspect a lot of people will be out enjoying the weather with their family in their free time.

Hyping the free day for a few days before it happens made the biggest difference for me. Every time I do a free day I learn/find more places and ways to announce it to more people.

If you've achieved 10,000 downloads previously then you must have been doing something right!

Thanks Paul, I work very hard at promoting.

The only value I have found for Kindle Select is that it appears to be programing my books associations faster than just letting it go on its own. And, it is getting the name out there. I have had about 1100 downloads, most in the U.S, and the rest in the U.K. In terms of increasing sales, I see no difference at all. So, I have more books out there, and the name is getting out there, and maybe the database is learning my book faster. That is about it.

Two Kindle Select promos for my novel, America Rising, a political thriller about the 99 percent fighting back, yielded almost 20,000 downloads, as well as cracking the top 100 free thrillers for a couple of days. Sales increases were modest at best, but they did result in several more four- and five-star reviews. Getting noticed is always a good thing; perhaps any financial benefits are further down the road.

Check out Make a Killing on Kindle (Without Blogging, Facebook or Twitter)by Michael Alvear

I chose not to participate in the Select program for my Hawaiian mystery, Photo Finish. True, the downloads can spread the word, but in reality, I see authors who have thousands of downloads while they're on the Select list drop off into oblivion right after and stay there. The Select list seems (at least to me) to be a good way for Amazon to promote Amazon as a place to get free books, but not such a great long-term solution for authors unless they always want to give away books.

Terry, it works if it's being used in an effective manner.

If people simply give a book away for free, it ignores the fact that people tend to buy by genre, not necessarily by author (unless they think you're the next Cormack McCarthy), so unless you have another book in the series or genre that they can immediately go to, the first giveaway isn't much value.

Secondly, there are small things like linking at the beginning and end of the book to other titles that people neglect to consider. But most people are impulse buyers; if they love your work and there are immediate links at the end of the story to well-priced books people will click them.

I've found this to be true, because I have a free title, and the second in the series has begun to sell two or three copies a day for over a month now even though it has NO ratings on Amazon yet.

So that's pretty much only attributable to giving one away with links to the next.

I use the KDP Select to give away a teaser of about 50 pages. As the sales price for the teaser part is only a buck, I get some downloads but I think its just people collecting freebies. Overall, I think I get sales on down the road but not a ton.

I see Michael Connolly is using the same approach with his new Harry Bosch book.

L.H., I think that you're right in that everything comes down to how well you're prepared to take advantage of those freebies. Unfortunately, I do believe that readers are becoming spoiled by the freebies and starting to expect to read nothing but. When you hear the stories of people who have more books than they could ever read on their Kindle, you have to start wondering about your visibility not only on Amazon, but also on their Kindle. Who knows, in time, I may come to regret my Select program decision. I won't know for a while.

Terry wrote: "Unfortunately, I do believe that readers are becoming spoiled by the freebies and starting to expect to read nothing but. "

Whereas I take the reverse position, which is that most free books are so bad, people delete them after a page. That's the real issue; whether all those "freebies" actually amount to content that prevents them from buying a book. I don't believe it is.

L.H. wrote: "Whereas I take the reverse position, which is that most free books are so bad, people delete them after a page. ..."

I'd never thought of it that way, but it makes sense that a lot of readers may blindly download anything free that looks interesting and then 'sample' them at their leisure later on. People buying books will instead sample before purchase.

I didn't go for the Select programme for my two books to date and my sales through Amazon have been far below what I've achieved through other channels. Judging by earlier comments on this thread, the giveaways must help sales of even first-time books, as that's a marketing tool non-Select participants do not have. I might try Select for my next book as an experiment.

Don't even think about the folks who are obsessed with free books. If they aren't buying, they're not part of any meaningful demographic. Sure, they might tell somebody who tells somebody who coughs up the $2.99! to buy your book. I think this is one in a million and nothing you can bank on. If you get lucky, whaa-whoo! Otherwise, following a sensible marketing plan that's directed toward actual, potential buyers is the ticket.

Point being: kvetching over non-buyers is a distraction that (1) keeps you from developing a sensible marketing plan and (2) keeps you away from your writing desk. Obsessing over social media might be another major distraction.

Jim wrote: ".... Obsessing over social media might be another major distraction..."

I couldn't agree more!

L.H. wrote: "Terry, it works if it's being used in an effective manner.

If people simply give a book away for free, it ignores the fact that people tend to buy by genre, not necessarily by author (unless they ..."

Hi, L.H,
Smart move putting live links in your e-books to your other titles. I agree that readers are more inclined to click a link than go searching for other books by the same author. I feel the same approach applies to print reviews vs blog reviews, with the latter having a live link to your e-book. The easier it is for readers to access the product NOW the better the odds for a writer to sell a book.

Steve

Resurrected: An Adam Wolf Thriller

Steph wrote: "Jim wrote: ".... Obsessing over social media might be another major distraction..."

I couldn't agree more!"

Steph,
I second that. The only way I get any real writing done in a day is when I restrict my online access to sites such as GR. Otherwise I'd end up talking more about writing than doing it.

Cheers,


Steve

Resurrected: An Adam Wolf Thriller

I'm gearing up to do a three-day giveaway 25-28th August of my debut novel, The Hunter Inside. The Hunter Inside.

Up until now I've sold 78 copies worldwide, and it came out on 12th May 2012. I'm hoping the promo days will get a whole lot of downloads, and will result in at least some more good reviews to add to the ones I already have on Amazon.

I think where a lot of people go wrong is they don't plan the promotion. They think giving it away for free should result in 20,000 downloads but don't put any effort into marketing it. There are lots of great articles to find out how others have been successful - one of the best is Ruth Nestvold's blog piece - http://ruthnestvold.wordpress.com/201....

I will be:
A) designing a new website separate to my regular site. I started this process today at thehunterinside.wordpress.com as opposed to my usual davidmcgowanauthor.com to create some extra material which I will be adding to - little teasers that build the novel and get people interested.
B) filling in forms on lots of sites (some are on Ruth's list), to ensure that my novel is promoted on its free days.
C) lining up lots of Twitter groups that I will tweet to and ask for retweets to promote on the free days to ensure the reach is as far and wide as possible.
D) promoting on Goodreads by creating an event and suggesting my novel to all of my friends!
E) preparing lists of Facebook groups that promote books on their free days and hitting their walls as often as they'll allow when the free days take place.
F) increase my blogging in the week leading up to the giveaway to make sure people are aware but also to blog about things other than the novel and then stick a 'by the way' in!
G) running a couple of after promotion paid marketing, but only hoping to have a couple and it to cost no more than 100 dollars, just to keep The Hunter Inside getting its views and promotion after the giveaway to keep momentum going.
H) hitting the Amazon forum threads that will allow me to promote my book (yes, I know there ain't many!).

I'm sure other stuff will come up that I'll add to that list. I also plan on having a very in-depth blog piece in the run-up to the event which will detail my approach step-by-step, with links to Facebook groups, Twitter promoters, advice pieces online, and others, and will provide others with a blueprint. I've started to prepare this document and it already has about 100 links. So get over to my blog and follow and you'll get the update when it's ready!

Good luck to everyone with their work and promotions!

Okay David, sounds like a solid plan to me. When you hit the bigtime, we'll all join you on your new boat for a cruise to Greece. I'm hittin' your site, dude. Everybody hit Steve's site too. His book is one serious ride :)

Steve wrote: "Steph wrote: The only way I get any real writing done in a day is when I restrict my online access to sites such as GR. Otherwise I'd end up talking more about writing than doing it."

No kidding. I really need to just unplug the router and work.

Thanks Jim! If I ever do well enough to own a boat you'll be more than welcome, believe me!

As a publicist, editor and most importantly...an avid reader, I will give my opinions.

I do all my reading on my ipad which has the kindle reader, the nook reader and ibooks. So, I couldn't care less which format a book comes from.

I almost exclusively read indie books because there are a ton that are really, really good. I like that they can be longer than a traditional book...they can be more graphic/risque/whatever than a traditional book...and the sequels are published much faster than a traditional book. Not to mention that they are 1/3 the price of the books I used to purchase.

Occasionally I cruise the 'free books' lists and will download 5 or 10 that look interesting. My criteria for downloading a free book is 1) it should have an average rating of 4+ otherwise I know its probably not worth my time and 2) it should have an interesting cover. If the cover is ugly/boring, then it'll sit in my library forever and I'll never be compelled to actually start reading it.

But, once I do find a book that I like, I will go out of my way to seek all the other books by that author. Whether those cost $.99 or $5.99, I'll happily buy them all.

So, in my opinion as a reader, free days ROCK!!

As a publicist, they have been HUGE for my authors. The best days have resulted in 10k+ downloads and several hundred SALES during the week following the the free days. On the worst days, they have resulted in only a few hundred downloads and minimal after-sale SALES...but at least those are a few hundred people that could become fans and could leave reviews.

BTW, there is a new site that promotes free books and doesn't charge so its worth checking out if you have a sale coming up. http://on.fb.me/freebookstore

Good luck!

Kris wrote: "As a publicist, editor and most importantly...an avid reader, I will give my opinions.

I do all my reading on my ipad which has the kindle reader, the nook reader and ibooks. So, I couldn't care ..."

Knowing nothing about the ipad (shame on me, eh) I'm happy to see that there are apps for other formats! What a great post, Kris. Now it would seem there is hope for all of us out here in the new electronic wonderland.

And how 'bout that Mars landing last night. Awesome!!

I do a one day promo for my ninety-nine cent intro about every three weeks. I don't get thousands of downloads primarily because its a buck book. The one yesterday was the best so far and I did absolutely no social media beyond putting a couple author posts here on GR. I raised my 'real' sales rankings buy well over 130K. It will drop but I'll be back in three weeks.

I think there is a cumulative effect as I sold about half as many books yesterday as I did last month. Half of those were for the second volume and no one would buy the second without buying the first full volume. That tells me people are starting to get to reading the freebie one. The first full volume is also on select but I'm leaving it as a borrow only. Not getting a lot of borrows but am getting sales.

I originally had the book serialized in five segments with price ranging from a buck to two bucks. I found I had about a 76% follow through from Vol 1 to Vol 5. I compacted the serial into two volumes so I could get the higher royalty. It paid off. I'll continue with the intro promos and will do the same with my next book in a different genre, offering the first 40-50 pages as a teaser.

Jim wrote: "And how 'bout that Mars landing last night. Awesome!! "

They should have done it in the daytime.

I'm sure my wife will like your books,Ken. We had a house once up at Donner Summit in the Sierra. It was amazing reading about the Donner Party and all the various people who came over that pass. The hoisted the wagons up a steep cliff - "Roller Pass." All that history! And it's all over the place here in Montana, too.

And I worked in Bloomington on a contract for State Farm one year. On a tour of the facility, we go underground and the tour guide says, "And this is where we go when there's an alert." WHOA!! Wuh-what kinda 'lert might that be? My mind races . . . Well, I found out, and you know what I'm talkin' about. Never been back.

Jim wrote: "I'm sure my wife will like your books,Ken. We had a house once up at Donner Summit in the Sierra. It was amazing reading about the Donner Party and all the various people who came over that pass. T..."

I decided to write mine after reading

Men to Match My Mountains: The Opening of the Far West 1840-1900

Goes into the gold rush history, the railroads and the gold and silver finds in NV and CO. Very good reading.

Thanks, Ken!

David wrote: "I'm gearing up to do a three-day giveaway 25-28th August of my debut novel, The Hunter Inside. The Hunter Inside.

Up until now I've sold 78 copies worldwide, and it came out on 12th May 2012. I'm ..."

I run short story promos almost every week and I do most of the above. I've found that unless it gets picked up by one of the big sites like Ereader News Today or Pixel of Ink, a couple of hundred downloads is the best I can get. I did one last week and I got a grand total of 42 downloads across ALL Amazons. Most worrying was that despite being British I only got 6 in the UK (I got 5 in Germany!).

It seems that romance books get an absolute ton more downloads, but sci-fi/fantasy is a crowded genre and you have a lot more competition. Plus, I only give away short stories (I refuse to give away novels) which is a big factor.

Very interesting post, thanks!

I ran a free-day using KDP-S about one month after releasing RETURN TO CAER LON. I was quite happy with the results (more than 500 downloads in one day) and sold several units afterward. Sales are quieter now. I wonder if August is impacted it? Most of my fellow writers have reported a slowing too.

I am planning another giveaway by the end of August (two days), and another one when my third book, MOONSHADOWS, will be released in November.

Claude

I use it yesterday and will also today and tomorrow.I've had over 10,000 downloads and I am ranked #1 in romantic suspense and #1 in thrillers. I also have a large following on twitter (over 75,000) and other sites which I think helped a lot.

It just occurred to me that I've given away over $100,000 worth of books, but we will see how it goes after the free periods.
johnny
www.sirjohn.us

KDP Select definitely works for me. You do need to plan it out a month ahead. The three day promo works quite well. Each time I do one of these, I reach as high as #2 or 3 in the "free" category and/or genre, get ranked high on the popularity list for Action/Adventure, and notice a significant spike in sales. I write a thriller series: one book sells all the others. I'm a believer.
The Seventh Pillar

Alex wrote: "KDP Select definitely works for me."

I'm going to concur. Since I put my serialized book into two volumes and raised the sales price to reach the 70% plateau in Feb my royalties have more than doubled and this month I have exceeded last month by a mile already (through 8-10)and equaled my best month ever. It takes a while for people who took the freebie sample to work around to reading it, I guess.
All of the promotions will raise the freebie rank but the key is raising the sales rank and not slipping back to prior levels. Yes, you will drop off after the promo but sticking with it will raise you up slowly but consistently.
I do one day promos about every three weeks and I do almost nothing as far as tweeting and FB. The sample usually goes to the second page in the top free for historical fiction for each promo. I'm not killing them in freebies so perhaps being in a niche group means people actually read the freebie.

If I assume there are a million titles on Amazon, I used to hover around the top 20%. This last time I rose to the top 4% and then I will probably drop down to the top 13%. In my mind the goal is to constantly strive to make up those one or two points at the bottom and pick up one or two points at the top. It seems to be working over the six months or so and at least now I notice the difference in my bank account when the royalty is deposited.


The Platte River Waltz, introductory chapters

I just posted my first experience with KDP Select on my blog. (I'd post it here but it's long)

http://rastephensonauthor.blogspot.co...

Richard wrote: "I just posted my first experience with KDP Select on my blog.

"This man is a blight on the literary world, his grasp of the English language is tenuous at best"

Hey, Hey. I'm right here you know.

LOL. Not you.

If you have that line in one of your reviews that is one heck of a coincidence! LOL :)

Hi Ken, Right. Patience and persistence, coupled with implacable intention is the key.

My results, on THE HERITAGE. It hit #1 in thrillers and #1 in romance for two days and #1 overall briefly. I had almost 30,000 downloads. Now we will see what kind of paid sales I will have.
I have lowered the price to $2.99 for $8.99 for one week

Kris wrote: "As a publicist, editor and most importantly...an avid reader, I will give my opinions.

I do all my reading on my ipad which has the kindle reader, the nook reader and ibooks. So, I couldn't care ..."

This is all fine, except the ratings part; if you actually judge Amazon books by their ratings and don't read the excerpts first, you'll get badly burned.

The reality is that many of the truly great authors don't rate a "4 out of 5" here on Goodreads! And yet almost every indie on Amazon rates over that, as Amazon doesn't prevent people from creating multiple logins and rating their own material. It's called sock-puppeting.

The actual review content and the excerpt will tell you something; the number of stars really won't.

Richard - nice detailed KDP Select article on your post - thanks for sharing.

Alex wrote: "Hi Ken, Right. Patience and persistence, coupled with implacable intention is the key."

I'm going to plus one on that. I posted about having increased sales a few days ago. The one day promos seem to be paying off as I am having the best month ever and the royalties are now about double of my best month ever and the month is only half over. Doing another one day on Sunday to try to sustain momentum. I was going to do it next week but figure to strike while the iron is hot.

Just for the record, I am doing the equivalent of nothing in the social media to herald or tout the promo. I did get a great review here on GR and maybe that helped. On the day before and the day of the promos I put up maybe three announcements in the groups I'm in and maybe half a dozen tweets during the day of.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not setting the world on fire but if I can maintain this, the royalties will make a car payment's worth each month. Hang in there guys.

As for the freebies, I was just updating my monthly spreadsheet/summary and the thought crossed my mind the freebies are probably tax deductible as a promotional/advertising expense. I'm going to submit the royalties lost on the freebies as a business expense. I certainly can document them using the spreadsheets from amazon. No sense making a profit on paper if you don't have to.

Hi Ken, now that's interesting, freebies as advertising costs. I don't know if the IRS will go for that. By the end of the year I will probably have given away more than 30 or 40,000 copies. I'll ask the accountant. I use 3 day promos, one coming up this weekend for The Lance There's no doubt in my mind that KDP Select has helped tremendously.

lost revenue is not an expense, but good try, LOL

I did two runs with KDP Select and saw a massive surge in free downloads, hit the top 3 in epic fantasy for a brief blink of the eye and then very little else happened to match the initial boom.

I found really that all it helped was getting my book to 800 readers in a day. No reviews came back and I'd say my general sales were actually down as I had pulled my book from all of my other retailers.

I would never limit my work to one outlet again, I found the whole process oppressive and too controlling for my general free spiritedness.