Recapping My Free Promotion Experience on KDP Select

Whew! It was just over a week ago that I decided to try the experiment of putting my first novel The Marriage Pact on a free promotion through amazon's new KDP Select program.  I'd just read this blog post by Will Entrekin, and it got me thinking about whether a free promo might be a good way to get the word out about TMP. I'd been busy working on the sequel and finally starting to gain some momentum, and I realized that it was spring break in my part of the world - maybe a good time to spread the word about the book.

When I decided to try the free promotion for three days, it truly was an experiment. A toe in the water. I didn't want to do any hard-core promoting until I'd finished Regrets Only so it would be there for people to purchase if they liked TMP. Will mentioned having given away 8,000 copies of his book this way, and I thought, I can't imagine how excited I would be if 8,000 people had my book. Up until then I had sold around 300 copies, mostly to people who knew me already. To be completely honest, I would've been excited just to double or triple that number. Most of all, I was curious about the process and how it would work for my little book.

Here we are a week after the promotion started, and not only did my book garner 8,000 free downloads, it got that number six times over. At last count, the number of free promotional downloads over the three days was 48,108. The credit for that, I believe, belongs to my amazing friends and family, who happily forwarded, emailed and re-posted the announcements I put out about the promotion, spreading the word like wildfire over social media. [Thanks again, y'all!] I also got connected with some websites that basically function as clearing-houses for cheap and free Kindle books, so the word got out that way as well.

Even after the promotion ended, people have continued to seek out the book to borrow from the Kindle Owner's Lending Library, or to purchase and download for the bargain price of $0.99. At this writing, I've sold more than 4800 copies, or roughly 10% of the free downloads. I've been honored to be ranked at the top of the Amazon free list for Kindle, and then to make it as high as #21 on the paid list after the promotion was over. I've been in the Top 10 for both Women's Fiction and Contemporary Fiction for several days. Such a huge thrill!

The reviews have been great for the most part, and I'm trying to learn something from the few negative ones, too.  People have been very kind to post messages on my Facebook page telling me how much they enjoyed the book. If I never sell another copy of this or any other title, it's already been a dream come true for me. I'm beyond grateful.

All of this has really spurred me on to work even harder on Regrets Only. It has already taken some interesting turns, and I am finding that I'm doubly excited by both the characters and the storyline, especially now that my "audience" is no longer the far-off hypothetical they were when I wrote the first book.

Beyond my personal story, I think this program from Amazon certainly brings up some interesting marketing issues for authors. As Will Entrekin points out, how do we make meaning out of a term like "Amazon bestseller" when the bestseller lists are updated hourly and some of the top-downloaded books are free? Amazon does a great job separating the lists, of course, but how do authors and readers make meaning from it? With so many ways of categorizing a book and quantifying success, how can we truthfully let readers know that our books are worth reading without requiring a whole paragraph to explain? Somehow "ranked for 10 hours in the Top 5 for Kindle ebooks in Women's Fiction" just doesn't have the same ring to it as "New York Times Bestseller."

It's also interesting to note that authors have no access to information about who is downloading, buying and borrowing their books. Naturally I don't want to invade my readers' privacy in any way, but it would be interesting to know some basic demographic information about the aggregate. Were most copies of TMP sold in the South? How many of my readers are women? How can I get in touch with those folks (or at least those who liked the book) to let them know when the sequel is out?

Amazon doesn't appear to be offering up any of that information at this time, but I wonder if one day they will offer some advanced features like the ability to sign up for an author's newsletter at the same time someone purchases a book, or direct links to author's Facebook and twitter pages. I wonder if authors will have the opportunity one day to send follow-up messages about their books to the people who purchased them. As a reader, I wouldn't necessarily want an inbox full of marketing materials from every author I've ever read, but I might want to have periodic opportunities to opt-in to the authors I like the most. This way of reading is so new, it will be fascinating to watch how things evolve from here.

In the meantime, I am slowly learning the ins and outs of both Amazon and social media, and trying to continue making time for, you know, writing. Again, I'm so grateful to everyone who has voiced support and enjoyed the novel. I'm looking forward to the next big promotion!