Part three, on KDP Select and BookBub, is available here.
Several months ago, I hypothesised that the changes in Amazon’s affiliate terms and conditions would lead to the self-destruction of the KDP Select programme. While my hypothesis may have appeared a little over-the-top, perhaps even laughed off as sensationalism, a trip over to kBoards (great place, btw) is enough to convince any author that KDP Select free is both 1.) dead, and 2.) pointless. I hate to say ‘I told you so’… No, that’s a lie. *smug grin*
I’ve been enrolled in KDP Select with What We Saw, my debut novel, for nine months now. Things have changed, mostly for the worst. However, contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think that free is dead, just yet. I want to share my experiences with you, and hopefully you’ll be able to make an educated decision as to whether KDP Select free promotions are worth the three-month exclusivity. I want to try to help you decide whether a KDP Select free marketing strategy is relevant to your needs. Hopefully then, you’ll be able to seriously consider whether it is for you, and if not, weigh up the potential alternatives.
My experiences with KDP Select free runs
I’ve talked a lot about KDP Select free runs in the fourteen months of this blog’s lifespan, and yet, my experiences with free runs themselves haven’t really changed. When I promote my books to free promotion websites heavily and in advance, sometimes setting aside a marketing budget for increased exposure, I tend to end my free runs with the downloads in the thousands, giving me a nice boost in the popularity lists and bringing in a few sales over the coming four weeks.
One thing I have learned about KDP Select free runs is that they are essentially dead to authors hoping to simply click the ‘go free’ button for a couple of days and expect a strong run of downloads/post-freebie boost. Personally, this doesn’t affect me — KDP Select has relied on an ad-supported approach since I started publishing, so I sadly never had the opportunity to try the programme when it was really at its zenith.
My strongest free-run came in March, when I paid a couple hundred dollars for a BookBub ad and gave away 40,000+ copies of What We Saw over a three-day period. In the month that followed, I broke the $1,000 earnings threshold (bear in mind I only had one novel available at the time), which, to-date, is my best month of sales.
My most recent KDP Select free run was for The Painting, which wasn’t enjoying the sort of sales I felt it deserved. I organised a low-key free run, with a few ads, the main one being with Freebooksy, and gave away 2,000 copies or so. It wasn’t a 40k run, but considering I just wanted to give this novella a visibility boost, I consider it a success. Since the free run, it’s selling one or two copies a day, which isn’t loads, but better than prior to the free-run. I imagine this will dampen when the free downloads filter out of its 30-day rolling sales average, but I’m prepared with a new release to counter that.
What makes for a successful KDP Select free run in August 2013?
What does all of my experience teach us about KDP Select free runs in August 2013 (and I say August because the rules are constantly changing)? Well, firstly, my earlier posts on KDP Select are still as relevant today as they were at the time of writing, in some aspects. KDP Select free runs increase visibility and boost sales, but only when supported by advertising. This has been the case with all of my free experiences in the past, and while the visibility and sales boost isn’t what it once was, it can still help lift a struggling title and bring in a few cash sales/also-boughts/etc.
That said, I’m growing sceptical of the long-term benefits of free. As I predicted earlier in the year (y’know, when everybody dismissed me), 99c has largely replaced free as the de-facto promotional method. We have the influence of BookBub and the change in Amazon Affiliate terms to thank for this shift. I think it’s a healthy change in the long run, as dedicated Kindle readers seek out bargain books after being scared away by a fair number of low-quality freebies.
If I were starting today, would I enrol in KDP Select? I know you’re going to hate this answer, but I’m really not sure. It depends what you want, I suppose. Do you want instant visibility? Do you want to build your mailing list and pick up a few reviews and also-boughts? Then maybe try KDP Select, but make sure it’s an ad-supported free run.
Do you want to bring in some extra cash? Then I’d put your book on sale everywhere and run a series of 99c promotions. Advertising is much more important with 99c promotions than free, mind. It’s easy for a reader to download a hundred free books, but a hundred 99c books is a hell of an investment. If you do run a 99c promotion, make sure you have plenty of nice reviews so you can contact the main bargain book ad sites: BookBub, EreaderNewsToday, Kindle Books and Tips, and BookBlast are all good options with an almost guaranteed return on investment.
When should I make my book free?
Although all of this seems rather doom and gloom for KDP Select free, I’d argue that free itself is far from dead. In fact, free is a potentially priceless (geddit?!) tool in your marketing and promotion strategy, and it comes in the form of perma-free.
What is perma-free? Perma-free is something many authors are having a lot of fun with. Lindsay Buroker argues that it’s the one marketing and promotion strategy that worked years ago for independent authors, and will continue to work for years to come. The premise is this: you give your readers something for free in order to lure them into the rest of your series. In business terms, this is known as a loss-leader.
This loss-leader could be anything from an introductory short story, to the entire first book in your series. The rules are simple: make sure it’s frigging brilliant. You want to use this perma-free release as a hook, then reel the reader into buying the rest of your series. Also, make sure the perma-free release is related to another of your books/series in some way. It’s all fair and well making a short story perma-free, but if it has nothing to do with any of your other releases, then your reader will likely move on in a confused shuffle.
All things considered…
I’m throwing the KDP Select freebie dice one final time.
What We Saw, my debut coming-of-age mystery novel, will be available for absolutely zero-cost tomorrow and Friday, supported by a BookBub advertisement. You can pick up your copy here. If you don’t want to wait, it’s only $3.99/£2.99 right now.
This is the final time the book will ever be free. I’m curious to see just how much free has changed since March, when my free run brought in thousands of downloads and a wealth of reviews. After this, I will be tweaking my promotional strategy and launching my books on all platforms.
For other platform readers, you can expect to see the following existing releases available in B&N, Apple, and Kobo stores in the following months:
What We Saw: August
The Painting (The Watching, #1): August
Killing Freedom: October
So long, KDP Select. I hope to leave you with an absolute bang… that will force me into changing my mind and re-enrolling everything once again…
Ryan.
How have KDP Select free runs fared for you in 2013? Have you noticed any changes, improvements or otherwise?
PS: on borrows — I hardly get any, unless I’ve just had a major free-run. If you get a lot of borrows, then maybe this is a case in KDP Select’s favour. That’s something you have to work out for yourselves based on your own experiences.
I am getting a lot of borrows now, which wasn’t the case only two months ago. I was getting maybe 5 borrows on a good day until I ran a Bookbub ad, and now I get a minimum of twenty a day. Not sure if it was the ad or the timing, but my opinion on staying with Select has changed drastically.
Annie — Thanks for your comments. I’m intrigued to hear when it was you ran your BookBub ad? I had a huge boost in borrows in the month following my BookBub ad, too. This petered out after the freebies disappeared from the rolling 30-days popularity list average, though, so it’s something worth keeping an eye on and preparing for.
I noticed a considerable decline as well. Three months ago, I did my YA novel When We Were Dragons, with no additional promotion and had 600 downloads. This time I went all out and did all the additional free promos, and only had 88 downloads in 2 days. Disappointed to say the least. It left me scratching my head, not sure what to do or where to go. I have plenty of other books I can add, which I’m thinking of doing, but I have yet to invest in Bookbub, which I am seriously considering.
Thanks for writing this analysis. I’m getting ready to publish my first novel, and this is making me reconsider whether I want to do Select. I’m in the process of developing a marketing strategy, and this type of information will figure heavily in my decision making.
My experience has been that it works differently with different genres. My children’s books and more “literary” stuff has had dismal results, but my crime thriller, which I ran free in May, did very well and jumpstarted sales. I submitted to various sites regarding my free days but I have yet to use Bookbub. I will say this about Select: I am making more with borrows than I ever did through Kobo, Smashwords, or B&N combined. So for me, Select has definitely been worth it.
Will — you’re right about genre. That’s always played a rather large part in it, I think.
Congrats on the consistent sales, btw! I’ve just had a look at your book also-boughts and it appears that you have a few best sellers amongst them, which is a fantastic link in achieving continued sales. It’s effectively free advertising. Keep up the good work!
Hi, Just thought I would let you know that in August 2012 I ran a KDP free promo for two days with my book, Crossroads Serenade. I listed it with about 10 sites that did not charge any fee and had 18,000 downloads and about 200 sales afterward, plus some loans but not many. By July 2013 I had had over 30,000 downloads but not many sales or loans. My last free promo was last month when I tried it again for my one and only 3 day free promo and this time I paid nearly $100 in advertising and got 5000 downloads and no sales after. The only time I really had sales after was the first run. I got some reviews on Amazon and also on Goodreads after the free promo days.I think after the sequel is out, probably Oct or Nov 2013, I will experiment with the new one at 3.99 and Crossroads Serenade at a lower price but not free. Cheryl K. Tardif has a good e-book out that I have been referring to on her experiments on KDP and in promoting our self published books in general. Thanks for letting me sound off here!
Laurie Adair Grove
This is fantastic information. Thank you so much, Ryan. My thriller Doing Bizness is in KDP Select and got accepted by Bookbub. I had wanted to do a 99c promotion but all their paid spots are full for the next 30 days. But they offered me a free day spot for now. I’m thinking of trying a Bookbub free promotion for four days, followed by two 99c days for which I’ll pay for advertising on the big discount sites. I want to go back to the full price (for now) of 4.99 on Sunday, which is the big download day.
Any thoughts on that plan are welcome.
That sounds like a good, solid plan you have there, Mary. Congrats on the BookBub acceptance — you’re going to have a very strong month of sales. I just ran another promotion with BookBub that ended up even more successful than this one, which is something I’ll be blogging about shortly.
About raising back to 99c – this is very much a personal thing, but if I were in your shoes, I’d be tempted to allow your book to return to normal price after the BookBub promotion, if you get 20k+ downloads. This should be enough to give you increased visibility in the popularity lists. Then I’d perhaps save those 99c promos for 30 days later, when the book slips out of the rolling 30 day popularity average.
Either way, I wish you all the best, and hope you have a great promotion. Keep in touch about the results!
Thanks, Ryan. I’m still working on the dates.
I’d always envisaged the purpose of the ‘Free’ was to boost reviews – but your article has clarified that the true purpose is to boost visibility by pushing the book ‘into view’ on the sales charts and hopefully keeping it there. Thanks for pulling the shroud aside! 😀
I originally listed my short story collection, Invasion of Privacy, for $0.99 on Amazon and only received 25 sales so I listed it for free and have promoted it on numerous sites. After a few days I’ve had about 2,000 downloads and it has made it into the top 10 list in it’s genre. I will be raising it back to $0.99 soon and I’m curious to see if the sales number increases.
Thanks for the great information. I’m trying to decide whether to use the KDP Select for my next book.
Amazing how quickly the Select experience is evolving. Thank you for sharing these thoughts.
Hi Jason,
You’re right, and that’s why I’d be stunned if there haven’t been a whole load of new changes in the nine months since I published this post. I’m not personally in Select anymore, but I hear it’s mainly effective for kick-starting series now. I’d shy away from exclusivity. For now.
Ryan, I’m curious, what is the change of Amazon affiliate you mentioned here?