Mark Coker of Smashwords on Hufffington Post concerning the Amazon KDP Select program.
Long story short - Indie author sells soul (e-books) to Amazon's KDP select program in order to give their books away free for 5 days and a chance their book will remain visible and viable for the next 90 days and thereafter.
Who would do such a thing? Abandon Smashwords affiliate program (Apple, Kobo, Diesel, B&N and Sony) for a slim chance at jump-starting an other wise dead book - Indies are lining up.
According to the blogging grapevine - 20k books have been taken off Smashwords, presumably to join the Amazon program. I don't blame them a bit.
Yes, that sucking sound is books being removed from other markets and enrolled in KDP Select.
"Let's Do Lunch" is among them.
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4 comments:
I only briefly had my 'real' books on Smashwords but kept a couple of fun freebies there for a while. As I produce poetry - the meat grinder approach made a nasty mess of my carefully arranged words - so I wasn't very happy with the ebooks Smashwords made of my offerings.
My two poetry ebooks Alternative Poetry Books - Yellow and Pink edition have done fairly well over the years as paperbacks and Kindle editions so I was happy to enrol them into the Select program this week.
As an experiment I made my Pink book - the one that has been doing less well up until now - free for five days. I'm into the second day today.
It shot from nowhere to number 74 in the general book bestseller's list in the US and to number 6 in the poetry bestseller's list :)
In the UK it got to number 5 in the poetry bestseller's list.
I'm also seeing knock-on purchases in both the paperback sales of the Pink book and the sales of my other paperbacks and ebooks. I'm about to release my Blue edition today - and that is going into the Select program too.
Looks like once people start reading my poetry they like it and come back for more - so the free promotion is doing me a world of good.
Good luck with Let's Do Lunch.
Hi Michele - I remember you from Authonomy!
I can see that Meatgrinder would do more harm than good for poetry. Not a good thought at all.
I'm glad that Kindle Select worked it's magic for you. Poetry is very hard to market, so it sounds wonderful.
I'm amazed at the results I've gotten. 'Let's Do Lunch' was #2 on the Free Romantic Suspense chart in the UK. In the US I think it got as high as #5 and fell to #8 by this morning.
I had 4 downloads from Amazon DE, 1 each from ES and FR this morning.
Today it ends at midnight PST - I've joked with a friend on Goodreads that I've been Queen for the Day, now I'm handing over the Crown to her.
Thus far, there hasn't been a bump for 'Swallow the Moon' which is very sad. However, I'm pleased with the results.
I hope you fare as well!
Best Wishes!!!
"Let's Do Lunch" has been #2 on the UK Free Romantic Suspense Chart for 3 days. I'm thrilled to see this. I'm neck and neck with Victorine's "Not What She Seems" on the paid chart.
These are the numbers as of this morning. They are still climbing.
Let's Do Lunch 12/17/11 am
Amazon US = 3265
Amazon UK = 2911
Amazon DE = 6
Amazon FR = 1
Amazon ES = 1
Amazon IT = 0
-------------------
Turned Out
Amazon US = 123
Amazon UK = 33
Amazon DE = 2
Amazon FR = 0
Amazon ES = 0
Amazon IT = 0
It's been a few days - the buzz is starting to wear off. I'm still very happy to have put "Let's Do Lunch" back into circulation with KDP Select.
The book may have never been noticed without this jump start.
As of today - 12/21/11 there are STILL daily sales keeping the book out of the 'mulch pile' at the bottom of Amazon's ratings.
The book is still hovering in the #10k range on the US and #688 in the UK while my next highest ranked book is in the #500k range.
Best of all, this free promotion has given me some sales, almost enough (in just a few days) to pay for the paperback!
The thought of breaking even is SO exciting.
Now, if the trickle of sales stays steady, 'Lunch' will remain above the mulch layer for the holidays, where readers can find it.
The Amazon ratings game is one nasty roller-coaster. My next problem is how to get back on it again.
I can use one of Mom's Short Stories. They are ready to go, linked with my name on Amazon. If I can find "See to Billy" I think I can get it up the same day.
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