Dancing with the Devil: KDP Select FREE Post-Mortem Thoughts
Posted by Jason Sizemore on Apr 24, 2012 in Apex Publications Blog: Matters of SF, Fantasy, and Horror, Words from the Publisher | 6 comments
On March 27th, 28th, and 29th, Apex enrolled The Convent of the Pure by Sara M. Harvey in the Amazon Select KDP FREE promotion. As promised in this post, I would come back and talk about the experience.
THE PROGRAM
I titled the blog post “Dancing with the Devil” because I’m not a big fan of the KDP Select program. To me, it defines everything that makes Amazon into such a divisive entity. By signing up for a ninety day period, you make your eBook available for loan to Amazon Prime members. For each ‘borrow’ your book racks up, Amazon pays a fee. For five days during the ninety day period, you can have your book listed as free to all Amazon customers. Naturally, you aren’t paid for any of the free downloads, with the thought being that your awesome free book will hook the reader into PAYING for more of your eBooks. You get to choose which five days.
If the program existed solely as such, I’d be fine with it. But there is one little twist… Amazon requires exclusivity to the eBook.
Therefore, before enrolling The Convent of the Pure, I had to go around to all the other eBook vendors we use and have the title taken down from those sites.
THE STATS
Sara’s book was downloaded an even 1,400 times over three days. Broken out by country: 1261 US, 103 UK, 34 Germany, 1 France, and 1 Italy.
Oddly, one person returned the book. I know it was one of the downloads because there was no debit against my total payout.
THE SALES JUMP
Wait, there was supposed to be a sales jump? All the talking heads (aka Pied Pipers) “indie” Amazon authors spit out generics about how sales increased after using the KDP Select program. I’m skeptical. I don’t trust what most of these people say about their sales because many have contracts with Amazon for publication (I’m not talking about random self-published Joe and their contract with KDP). That so many people fall at the feet of these individuals befuddles me. Another reason for my mistrust is that so many authors inflate their numbers on the blogs/forums and in conversation as part of “Legend building.”
After giving away 1,400 free copies, the number of copies sold of The Convent of the Pure since the promotion is the same as the month previous. The biggest perceived benefit should be for book two and three of the trilogy. April is the month after the promotion. These are KDP units sold.
The Convent of the Pure
January – 8
February – 4
March – 23
April – 10
The Labyrinth of the Dead
January – 1
February – 1
March – 4
April – 3
The Tower of the Forgotten
January – 0
February – 1
March – 4
April – 2
At least with six days remaining in April, sales have made no noticeable jump. In fact, there is a good chance they’ll be down for all three books.
I have two more free days to use during this 90 day period that I plan on using. Sales are already pretty slow, so using them won’t hurt and maybe the second round will give an added boost. Overall, Sara’s books do better than the KDP sales would indicate. I’ve never fully grasped why they don’t do better on the Kindle. They have eye-popping cover art, nicely designed titles, well-formatted digital versions… I’m going to venture that $2.99 for novellas isn’t a price a lot of Kindle users will pay (the 99 cent first book does way better, in general). Also, being book two and three of a series, these two titles will receive a lot less random buys than if they were book one.
6 Comments
Leave a Reply
The Latest from Apex
From International Thriller Award and Bram Stoker Award-winning author Tom Piccirilli...
The path to professional redemption may be more dangerous than the fall.
International SF & Fantasy from Apex!
From World Fantasy Award-winning editor Lavie Tidhar...
Features award-winning science fiction and fantasy authors from Asia, Eastern Europe and around the world.
Features award-winning science fiction and fantasy authors from Africa and Latin America.
Back in December of 2011, I made one issue of Shock Totem available for free download. It was downloaded 900+ times. I saw no increase in sales after that.
I tried again in February, making our five issues available for free for two days each, starting with issue #1 on Monday, issue #2 on Tuesday, etc. Our average sales per month before and after has been between 350–400. However, in February we gave away nearly 10,000 copies and sold 687.
I don’t think that’s a fluke.
Because of the promotion our issues were bumped up in the rankings and were shown more often to potential buyers. That’s really what the KDP Select program is good for. If you can figure out a way to maintain or increase those sales, then you’d do well to embrace the program.
And if you do figure it out, let me know. Haha. Because, sadly, our numbers have gone back to normal. In March we sold 390 copies, and so far this month we’ve sold 247. I expect we’ll do about 350 sales overall.
That said, I’m not concerned with exclusivity. It’s a slippery slope, for sure, but I sell more copies of one book in a single day through Amazon than I sold in six months at other places like B&N. Combined, by the way. One book in one day sells more through Amazon than five books in six months sold through the other sites. As a publisher who needs sales to survive, it’s hard to ignore that.
Finally, here’s a helpful tip if you try this again in the future: seek out those Free Kindle Books blogs. They are numerous. Look for those blogs that show a lot of replies to posts, which indicates people are watching. If you can get the site to list or feature your free title on the day it’s free, you’ll get thousands of downloads. These are likely digital hoarders and won’t help you much, but the byproduct of those downloads—higher rankings and visibility—is what you’re really after. That translates into sales.
At least, it did for us.
Two things worked against you. First, that is a very low number of free downloads. Many people get thousands, or even tens of thousands, of downloads per day of their free books. Part of it is luck (getting randomly mentioned by sites promoting free books) and part is calculated luck (contacting such sites and asking for a mention). The second part is that Amazon has now seriously weakened the algorithms that helped display a book in its post-free run.
Those “legends” you are hearing are real, but they are legends from December and January, not calculated lies by Amazon cronies (who actually do not exist, because Amazon doesn’t really show a lot of favoritism for its authors, all things considered). Every two weeks is an entirely different era now, and authors and publishers would do well to find the NEXT era and jump on it instead of relying on what worked in the dim past. Yes, Select has its good and bad, like everything. But lots of people have made it work to their benefit, even if only in the short term. Keep trying!
Hi Scott, thanks for dropping by and sharing your wisdom on the subject!
I figured it was a low number just basing on what I see mentioned on the KDP message boards. I have two days of free left so I’ll try to get a mention on the free book sites (Ken Wood also mentioned doing this).
I’m certain there are plenty of people who have made KDP Select work for them. There are always outliers (be it by luck or simple marketing know how). But I’m skeptical on the whole (for reasons mentioned in the post).
I completely agree with your dislike of Amazon’s exclusitivity claim, but I highly doubt that all the ones claiming to have sales boosts by doing free promotions are just Amazon cronies. I myself discovered a jump in sales after trying out such a promotion period, but I also think that the Select program’s success is already over. Readers are getting too used to having access to thousands of free books and it’s hurting the market.
My experience is that it was a great short-term marketing tool, but that it’s quickly becoming a negative thing.
You must be the fifth person in the past week who has told me the time has passed for KDP Select. Wish I hadn’t missed the boat on it!
Yeah, I got in late as well, because I balked at the idea of Amazon requiring exclusivity! I thought it was a dirty trick to punch out the competition, but it seems like many authors are having increased sales on Barnes and Noble now when their sales are suffering from Select
I feel a tiny bit gleeful when something like that happens…