Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

If the books had been printed and distributed for free, they would be a promotional expense. This is the same as P&G sending out a toothpaste sample.
If I send an e-book to a reviewer is this not a promotional expense?

I think you are looking at this in the same respect the government says they are 'spending revenue' if they don't raise taxes. Is my presumption that the freebies would be otherwise sold the same?

I am giving away the sample chapters of my book as an enticement to buy the retail items. Just because they cost nothing to actually produce or distribute doesn't diminish the value.

I have some friends that are pretty sharp accountants, I'll start a thread on one of my other forums and let them duke it out until they aren't speaking to each other.

Johnny wrote: "lost revenue is not an expense, but good try, LOL"

You're right. However, you just couldn't resist spoiling the party. Eh?

Ken wrote: "If the books had been printed and distributed for free, they would be a promotional expense. This is the same as P&G sending out a toothpaste sample...."

Yeah. Except that P&G can only expense the cost of the book and the postage - not the retail price, as if the thing was sold at a store. It's not the same as donating your old TV to Goodwill.

Of course, it certainly SHOULD be. Yunno. The book has a value - as in people actually buy it for the stated price. So you SHOULD be able to deduct the price. But, alas, the folks at IRS are humorless shlubs with no life.

I should have known better than to pose a question on my other forums. Got this reply:

"Go ahead and claim it, I already reported this thread and will get a cut if they bust ya azz
http://www.irs.gov/compliance/article... "

Nice! Takes all kinds, eh?

Couldn't giving away copies of books count as a promotional expense?

http://www.ehow.com/about_5607386_pro...
A good question for our accountants I suppose.

Kelly wrote: "Couldn't giving away copies of books count as a promotional expense?

http://www.ehow.com/about_5607386_pro...
A good question for our accountants I suppose."

Here's the key to it as explained to me by my accountant buds. BTW the one with the IRS link was just foolin' with me.

"cost of a promotional gift distributed in this matter is 100 percent deductible." The key being the word 'cost'.

An e-book has no real cost of production. The example provided to me used T-shirts donated to charity. The raw cost of the shirt is $10. The retail value of the a screened T-shirt sells for $20. The charitable deduction is the cost of the shirt and half the cost of difference between retail and raw cost. This is to allow for the ink, labor, silk screen and indirect distribution costs.

Thanks for the link though. would have been nice if it had reference or link to IRS Pub. No. XXX.

Gadzooks. Now we're down to deducting the cost of the ink. The secret is to sell so many copies of the book and make so much money that paying the taxes is a treat. The downside is having these people all up into your business for the rest of your life. Just think about it before signing up to some harebrained scheme.

As Robert Cray says in his great song, "I hate taxes."

Jim wrote: "Gadzooks. Now we're down to deducting the cost of the ink. The secret is to sell so many copies of the book and make so much money that paying the taxes is a treat. The downside is having these peo..."

LOL "Every time I see that 10-40, out of my pocket they go."

Always loved his blues.

L.H. wrote: "Jim wrote: "Gadzooks. Now we're down to deducting the cost of the ink. The secret is to sell so many copies of the book and make so much money that paying the taxes is a treat. The downside is havi..."

Nice!

A little spike, and a few reviews. I only got the one borrow, though.

I did a free day Saturday and had almost 3,000 downloads in the US. The book hit #1 in Epic Fantasy and stayed there quite a while. Sunday, I sold almost as many books as I'd sold the previous month. Today I'm back to my usual numbers.

Last month I did a free weekend and had nearly twice as many downloads in the UK as the US, which was followed by nearly twice as many sales in the UK as in the US. This time I had only 36 downloads in the UK, and no uptick in sales so far.

I didn't pick up any reviews from the first free day. It'll be a few weeks before I see if any reviews come from the second batch.

KDP Free Promo Prep for Newbies:

Step 1: Follow the instructions on these websites:
• http://bit.ly/16Px69Q
• http://bit.ly/16Px8hP

Step 2: Clear your schedule
• If you work, take sick days.
• If you have kids, find someplace to dump them; If you have a spouse, dump her or him, too (temporarily). If money is not an object, send them all to Disney World.

Step 3: Go shopping and stock up on these items:
• Advil
• Coffee
• Microwavable prepared foods, preferably high in sugar

Step 4:
• Unplug everything in your house except your refrigerator, microwave, computer and wifi; cancel the newspaper.

Step 5: Create a schedule
The schedule must work in tandem with your action plan for Tweet Teams, Social Media networking and obsessing over your Amazon rank, and must include:
o One five-minute pit-stop per three hours at the computer
o Three ten-minute meals per day, inclusive of heating time
o Four five-minute coffee-brewing periods per 24 hours
o Unlimited 1-minute trips to kitchen to pour coffee
o One one-minute required stretch session per hour
o Four 30-second pauses to take 3 Advil (required) at 6-hour intervals (keep a water bottle and some almonds at your desk at all times, to take with Advil)
o One 4-hour period of sleep per 24 hours; Use Bitly or other tracking methods to determine lowest-volume click times, and schedule your sleep period during that time.

If you follow these simple instructions and fate is on your side, then you will have given away several thousand electronic packets of your blood, sweat, and tears for free, emerging with only mild sciatica and reflux. If you’re extra lucky your spouse and kids will bring you a pair of overpriced, flimsy mouse ears to wear to the PEN/Faulkner Award Ceremony.

Tried it once. Got 200 downloads, and 3 reviews.

Now, granted, the book I had up for offer was a collection of short stories, not a novel. But I really didn't find KDP to be helpful.

I used to think enrolling in KDP was hard but it really isn't. I haven't done it and while I've contemplated it many times I always refrain because I've realized this...

-You get a ton of downloads but your book was free...
-It spikes up your books ranking possibly into Tops but you got to hope it stays there and people buy it after its off KDP.
-If you generate a lot of downloads you should see quite alot of reviews however who really knows if you will because most times your lucky if you get any reviews..
-Your setting your book for free..your pretty much embracing piracy in some degree, now you just got to hope you get something out of it.

It's a huge gamble really and unless your book is already doing good then why do it? If your yet to generate a lot of sales then KDP doesnt seem realistic for you until you do..

All the tweeting and facebooking in the world won't make up for getting on a major site like Bookbub or Ereader News Today. In general though, Amazon has made the post-free visibility so limited that unless your book is the first in a series or you get 20,000 plus downloads you won't see many knock on sales. Used to be a gold mine. Now, not so much.

I just started using KDP select, and have yet to create a promotion of any kind, free or otherwise. I figure I'll wait a little while in order to build up some PR before going and using up my promotional tools. I mean I have 90 days in which to choose from, so really there is no rush.

I do believe that the free 5 days, however you choose to use them, can be quite a successful tool for the Author to utilize if marketed right. Since I started writing not so much for the cash incentive, but because I had a story to tell that I wanted to get out there, I value the chance to give away my work if it means that people will pick it up. Don't get me wrong, I still would welcome a career in the business of writing with open arms if it were to become financially viable. I believe that in time it will be, considering this is only my first novel I've given digital release, while presently I've finishing up my third in the series, and with a fourth on the way, I can't see this ending any time soon. That's why I believe that KDP select is a good move to try out at some point, because it gives you a chance to catch some notice, so that when you publish your next work there's a good chance people will remember your name. If not, then I am happy to have at least reached some out there through my words, and I'll take that, hopefully along with the review they write after ;)

James - When you're ready to do a KDP Select promotion, here are some sites to use to advertise the promotion. Scroll down to "KDP Select." Good luck to you! http://florenceosmund.com/promoting_a...

@Florence Very interesting post. Thank you.

Crissy wrote: "Tried it once. Got 200 downloads, and 3 reviews.

Now, granted, the book I had up for offer was a collection of short stories, not a novel. But I really didn't find KDP to be helpful."

I'm in the same boat. Most of the time my reviews come after a giveaway...but the generally consist of "Wow, this was short."

Florence,
Thank you for sharing your post. A wealth of excellent advice. My first KDP promotion is coming up in a few days--we'll see what may come of it!

Florence wrote: "James - When you're ready to do a KDP Select promotion, here are some sites to use to advertise the promotion. Scroll down to "KDP Select." Good luck to you! http://florenceosmund.com/promoting_and..."

Thank you, Florence. I will definitely be looking into this.

Thank you Florence for the list of promo sites. I noticed you don't have bookbub.com on the list. Very expensive but I gave it a try because of the good reviews on that site from others.

I received 36,000 downloads of my novel, The Nano Experiment, in Oct. Since then I have sold 113 of my books. I'm pretty sure 36,000 people are not going to read the book immediately, I am hopeing by the end of Dec. to have sold 1% or 360 books.

However, I have already paid for the ad by the books sold. Any future sales are profit.

One thing you must do to your KDP book is put the book jacket and the reviews of all your other books at the end of the book you are giving away free. If you do not have that then take the book off sale, add the names of your other books, the book jacket synopsis and the reviews and repost it.

Richard Brawer
www.silklegacy.com

Richard - You're right. BookBub is expensive. That's why I haven't used it. By using just the free sites I list on my website, I had 27,000 free downloads and sold 1,800 books during the thirty days following my five-day KDP promotion. Of course, that was eight months ago. Things have changed with the KDP Select program, and subsequent promotions haven't been as lucrative, so maybe I'll be trying BookBub in the future.

not every book reviews need to be expensive. send me a note for those interested or are in need of book reviews.

My free days promotion just ended. I didn't get anywhere near the "thousands" in downloads, but "hundreds" works fine for me. I look at it this way--several hundred more people are now aware of my book that probably weren't before. Maybe one or two might even like it! But it's much to soon to analyze any results.

My most recent one day promotion ran on Nov 7th and got picked up by Freebooksy. As a result I had 694 downloads in the US and 90 in the UK. In the three days afterwards I had 5 sales at $3.99. So far no reviews (which is actually good - the one stars tend to come real quickly) and no more sales in the last week. Pretty poor really, but if I get two more reviews I'll have the eight I need to qualify for some bargain book promo sites.

I loved this thread, as I have learned so much and got some enlightenment from your experiences. Thanks all authors for sharing them with me and Diane for starting it!

My experience with Amazon KDP was a bit on the trustrating side... but also, as an author pointed here earlier, I think I rushed my work "The XIIIth Hour at Duskland", as it was not professionally edited.

1 - I got many downloads, when my book was on the free promotion days, which is good, so people could get to know my first fiction story.

2 - I got one review, and it was from a guy who has a "history" of negative reviews, who is apparently not happy with any book!

3 - After the promotion days, my book went back to Oblivion and I sold 4 copies.

However, the best thing ever was when the KDP 3 months were gone and now I have the freedom to publish my work in other platforms! That was very recent, like couple of days ago, and I already sold twice as in the 3 months of KDP enrollment...

So, I think it works for some authors but not for others...

Richard wrote in #182: "One thing you must do to your KDP book is put the book jacket and the reviews of all your other books at the end of the book you are giving away free."

Good advice and I'll get on this right away. I'm doing two of my books in the kindle countdown feature and have paid for some ads.

Before you spend hours filling in blanks on free and paid promo sites, it behooves you to see just how much site traffic the site generates. A quick rating can be obtained at http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/goodrea...
In this one you can see goodreads is ranked as the 124th most visited site in the US. Some of the free/paid sites available are barely a mote in the internet eye.

I always notice an upsurge, but my sales are very modest.

I agree with you, Rose. The only reason for giving out freebies these days is if you need reviews, and then you have to accept reviews from people who downloaded the book because it was free, not because it was a book they thought they would like, and then post a bad review because they didn't care for it. The KDP Select golden days are gone I'm afraid.

I think another reason to give freebies is if it's the first book in a series. I've read free first series books and went on to buy the rest. You don't need to tie yourself to KDP Select to do that though. :-)

Trying my first Kindle Countdown deal now

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EON9LOA



Will see how it goes

I did my 3rd KDP Select promo this past October and really had pretty amazing results. I had 3,315 downloads, hit #2 in Epic Fantasy and #2 in Sword and Sorcery categories and got into #130 in all free ebooks on amazon... so that was really exciting.

What's even more exciting is that it has generated a lot of sales and at least 6 reviews. I'm not making a ton of money (as I still only have the one book out... book 2 is coming... but cover art is holding us up). After almost 6 months of practically zero sales, I'm now selling between 10-50 books a month, and I expect the second book's release will help those numbers stick around.

If you're interested in what all I did to try and help the promo succeed, I wrote a blog post about it here: http://jenelleschmidt.com/how-did-it-go/

I haven't gone the KDP Select route yet, not sure if I will. The comments posted here are extremely helpful for preparing and promoting (THANKS everybody!), but it also shows the dicotomy that's everywhere about it: works great for some, not so much for others.

Also sounds like the old adage is true: nothing is free. Promoting the free promotion in order to make it successful sounds like a lot of work!

J.D. wrote: "I haven't gone the KDP Select route yet, not sure if I will. The comments posted here are extremely helpful for preparing and promoting (THANKS everybody!), but it also shows the dicotomy that's e..."

Yeah, the free promos are definitely hit or miss. Meant to mention that the first two I did I got 500 and 300 downloads respectively, no follow-up sales, and it just sort of felt like it really wasn't worth it.

Timing is everything, and you just can't predict what will work. Picking a Wed/Thurs that is NOT near a holiday seems to be better than picking a weekend. I was assuming more people would be interested in reading books on the weekend the first two times, and realized later that while that is probably true... most people will do the actual PICKING of that book during the week, giving themselves something to look forward to at the end of the work week.

Yes, the promoting is a LOT of work. It's not hard work, just a little tedious. And it can feel a little bit like you're pouring your energy into a black hole, because you won't know whether or not your efforts were worthwhile until after the promo is over. (For me, I didn't check my downloads at all until the free days were over, because I just couldn't handle it... though checking your sales ranking can give you an idea of whether or not things are going well).

I think the whole point of a free promo is to "get your name out there." My business/marketing brother always says, "People don't buy your books but it's not because they're bad, they don't buy your books because they don't know about them." As a self-published author, my job is to make sure people know about my books as much as possible so that hopefully I can generate some fans. No, not everybody is going to like my book, and not everybody who downloaded it in Oct is going to say my book is their new favorite. But, I did just put my book into the hands of 3,000 people who didn't know about it before... and even if they don't like it, perhaps they have friends who will.

So, yes, lots of work. But ultimately, I think the work is worth it. Particularly since it's work I can do as a stay-at-home mom of two rather rambunctious children. :) :)

All that to say... I guess... that I'm not telling you GO FOR IT or DON'T GO FOR IT! Just sharing that you're right, it is a lot of work, and the results may not always be what you're hoping for. Which is basically the mantra of us indie authors. haha

Jenelle wrote: "I did my 3rd KDP Select promo this past October and really had pretty amazing results. I had 3,315 downloads, hit #2 in Epic Fantasy and #2 in Sword and Sorcery categories and got into #130 in all ..."
This has great information and links. Thanks, Jenelle.

I'm all but complete in enrolling my already published sic fi novel Revelations. One small hangup on Kindle's side.

In the meantime, I have more time to do other things, my daughter gave me an IPad Air and I love reading using it. It's especially fascinating as I am reading Isaac Asimov's last three Foundation books. He made some great predictions about the future but he never predicted the 'Air'. (Chuckle, chuckle)

Anyway, getting to the point. I write sci fi and fantasy. For 20 odd years, I would rather write than read.

Now, with the 'Air' reading for me has become fascinating again. Anyone who wants someone to review their sic fi or fantasy novel, I will do so. Of course, I will expect the promotional KDP price just as I will make the the promotional price of $0.99 available to reviewers. $0.99 both ways works for me. Of course, until the glitches with KDP are worked out (Macs in a PC world can be a hassle), I won't have a Promotional book available on my end.
None the less, I'm looking forward to reading and reviewing sic fi and fantasy books.

By the way, try out the 'Air". It's amazing. I read for hours with no eye strain. I think it has to do with the Retina (4000K) clarity. In fact, 4000k on all readers may be the death knell for hard back and paper back books

I'm a bit late in getting to this thread, but I'm currently back in Select after being out of it for about 6 months during which I tried other platforms.

I haven't done any free days (and don't intend to, with my current book) but I did a Countdown promo over the holidays. I tripled my sales, but they actually dropped lower than before after the promo was over.

The real benefit of Select for me has been borrows. In December alone, I had more borrows than sales of my book on all other platforms combined, over the 6 months I used them.

Thanks for posting this topic, I'm planning on trying my next book out with KDP Select and it's good to see others' experiences with it.

Having finished Asimov's Foundation series on my Air, I'm writing the review on my MacBook Pro, which I intend doing when I review others' works.

Thanks to the Air, it's fun reading again after about thirty years. I'm not certain how it will all work out. i think I will prefer ebooks so I don't go broke.

Asimov's novels tend toward brilliant conversations and big ideas. I read his later novels when they came out and they seemed prescient. Unfortunately, he died to soon.

On October 6, 1995, Michel Mayer and Didier Queloz detected 51 Pegasi b, proving planets could be found orbiting other stars. In July of 1999, a previously detected planet transited its star, proving planets were being found. In November of 2008, the Hubble photographed Fomalhaut's Jupiter sized planet. All these discoveries prologued two events that Asimov never guessed would happen.

in January of 2012, the military and intelligence communities gave their conclusions about UFO's: "they exist"
This January, the Gemini Optical Imager was announced, It can be fitted to any 8 to 10 meter scope, making that scope capable of seeing planets orbiting other stars about as easily as 19th Century astronomers could see the planets in our own solar system. Even better, the technology is racing faster and faster. Another Earth is expected to be found by 2024. Or, to put it another way, if the president following Obama lasts for two terms, the greatest discovery of the past five hundred years will happen on his/her watch.

If Asimov had lasted 22 more years, he would have been absolutely thrilled. Not much of a review, I admit but I would recommend Asimov's Robot and Foundation novels for anyone wanting to write hard syfy. Don't be afraid to be wrong in your guesses about the future, because you might hit the nail on the head.

A perfect example from Asimov is the method he offers on how to find the source of Humanity. His protagonists were searching for Earth. Well, it's probable that Asimov's method will be used in the far future as Humanity searches for the source of life in our galaxy. When will that search end. Probably not in this millennium.

Read Asimov. He writes thought provoking works.