If you have read my previous posts on Amazon’s KDP Select Program, you will already know that I joined this program primarily for the five free promotional days Amazon gives you in exchange for selling your ebook exclusively with them for three months. (You may take these 5 days at any time during the three months.) You will also know that my participation in this program (both through borrows and free promotions) significantly pushed both my historical mystery books up the bestseller ranks in numerous categories, resulting in a substantial increase in my sales.

What you don’t know is what steps I took to ensure these promotional days were as effective as possible. That is what this post is about.

My goal here is not to persuade you to sign your book up for the KDP Program (I still think that McCray’s post on KDP Select is the clearest discussion of who should join), and if you want to learn about the pros and cons, just search in Publetariat and you will get a wide range of view points.

My goal is not to promise if you follow these steps your promotion will be successful. The KDP Select Program has only been around for three months and the information is only just beginning to filter out about authors’ experiences. For example, I know very little about how non-fiction books or literary fiction has succeeded in the program. It is only because I have had success in two of my own promotions that I am daring to offer suggestions. I want to caution you that these tips are based on very limited empirical evidence and on my reading about the promotions of a few others. Therefore, they should be read with caution.

Having covered my butt, here goes. 

First Step: Make sure your book is ready to promote:

I will repeat what I have said before many times in my pieces on selling on Amazon: don’t start any kind of promotion until your book is “ready for prime time.” Getting your book on the free list isn’t going to get people to download it, read it, review it favorably, or buy your other books if the cover is amateurish, formatting and editing are sloppy, there isn’t a well-written description, your author central page isn’t complete or the book isn’t in the right browsing categories.

Second Step: Decide which book(s) to promote:

If you have a series where it matters which book is read first, offer the first in the series first. If you look at this from the perspective of readers, this makes sense. Many, if not most, readers like to read series in order. Therefore, if one of the goals of the free promotion is to gain new readers to the series, start them off at the beginning. For me this was Maids of Misfortune. My hope was that putting the first book up for free would encourage people to go on and buy the second. After the first promotion, the increase in sales in the sequel, Uneasy Spirits, demonstrated the efficacy of this strategy.

If you have stand-alone books or series books that can be read easily in any order, the question of which books to start with depends on your goals. For example, you might want to start with your loss leader-the book that is selling the least. Here the goal would be to get people to find that book, give it more positive reviews, and start it on the way to becoming a better selling book. This is why I put up my second book, Uneasy Spirits, for free in my second promotion. I wasn’t content with the bump in sales it was experiencing. It had only been out for four months, hadn’t gotten that many reviews, and was struggling to stay in the top ten of the historical mystery category. Putting it up for promotion in mid February got it up solidly in the top three in historical mysteries.

However, you might want to start with your strongest selling book, the one that you think has the best chance of getting the largest number of downloads and the largest subsequent bump in sales. I initially put up Maids of Misfortune for a second time only six weeks after the first promotion so that for one day both it and Uneasy Spirits would be free together. I did this because I thought that Uneasy would sell better in tandem with the first book in the series, which was probably true since the bulk of the downloads for the book came that first day, not the second when it was free by itself. But what I hadn’t expected is how well Maids would do this second time around–hitting the top 100 best-seller list for three days in a row. If your main goal is making money, you may want to put your best selling book up first and more often!

Third Step: Decide when and for how many days you should do the free promotion:

Remembering that you need to sign up in advance (although I signed up the night before once and the book went up on time), do spend some time thinking about these questions. I chose my first promotion for December 30-31 for two reasons. First, I thought a Friday and a Saturday would get me my largest market because I often find my regular sales go up on these days (weekend reading). Second, these two days came near the end of the Christmas vacation. You know, when the presents are put away, the guests are gone, and you are ready to put up your feet and try out your new Kindle before going back to work or school.

I did my second promotion a month and a half later, again on a Friday and Saturday but this time before the long Presidents’ Day weekend because Monday would be a holiday. Same idea. Holidays mean people read recreationally, and I wanted people to still be on holiday when the books shifted over to paid so that I would get some sales. This worked because Maids of Misfortune, which was only free on Friday, steadily improved its paid ranking on Saturday and Sunday, and by Monday evening had finally hit the top 100 list, where it remained for the next few days.

In short, think about timing. When do your sales usually peak, and what are your lowest sale days? Is there a holiday that you can tie your book promotion into (like Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, etc.)? Play around with this, who knows, maybe a Wednesday or a Thursday would work better for you than a Friday.

In general I would advise you to put a book up for free for no more than 2 days at a time. If your book doesn’t have many sales under its belt, however, it might take three days to get enough downloads to make a difference. Having seen how Maids of Misfortune did on its second free promotion, I suggest trying a 2 day promotion and then, after 6 weeks or so, doing a second one-day promotion to see if you can’t kick it up higher in the rankings the second time around. Remember it is all about visibility. The higher a book goes in both popularity and best-seller rankings after a promotion, the better the sales are going to be. See David Gaughran’s post on KDP Select and Popularity for a good discussion of this.

What I wouldn’t do is use all your 5 days at once, since it is my impression that, no matter how high you go in the paid rankings after a promotion, your rankings will almost certainly begin to slip after a month (if only because you are being bumped down by the latest book coming off a free promotion). If you have used up all your free days at once, you have to wait until you renew your enrollment into the Select Program to do another free promotion of that book, and by then your book may have slipped back to where it was before you started promoting.

I also think that you shouldn’t offer a second free promotion too quickly after a first promotion. I put Uneasy Spirits up for one day, two weeks after its first promotion, as an experiment, and had a very dismal number of downloads (less than 400, compared to the nearly 9000 downloads it got on the first free promotion).  There are other possible explanations for why this second free offer didn’t do as well as the first. I didn’t publicize it as widely as I did the first and it was free on a Thursday, not my best selling day. But I think the main reason for its poorer performance was that it was just too soon. I put one of my short stories up for free at the same time and it did much better than the novel –even though people were only getting a 99 cent deal on it — but it hadn’t been free for months.

Fourth Step: Advertise the promotion:

1. Make a list of friends and family you want to notify by email. Make a template of what you want to say along the lines of:

“I have decided to make my first historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune, available on Kindle for free for two days (put in date) to make the book more visible to readers. You could really help me kick off this promotional campaign if you could tell as many people as possible who have Kindles or can download Kindle books to go get their free copy at: (then url.)

Thanks, and I will let you know how well we did when the campaign is over!”

Then I would send this email out just a few days before the promotion starts so that people have a day or so to spread the word, but not too long so that they forget.

2. Find and sign-up for the Facebook pages that promote books and ebooks. These pages change fairly frequently so, in the search bar on your Facebook page, type in words like Cheap ebooks, Kindle, free ebooks, or appropriate genre terms (mystery, science fiction, historical fiction) to find pages that let you post about a book promotion.

3. Check out the blogs and websites that specifically promote ebooks in general, cheap or free ebooks, genre books, and indie authors. Some ask for a fee, others are free. I wouldn’t pay much, if anything, until I had done at least one promotion. You may not need it. Since many of these sites need advance notice, if you are going to do this, start early–one to two weeks in advance.

4.  Do some BSP (Blatant Shameless Promotion) on the appropriate pages for the groups you belong to (Good Reads groups, yahoo groups, Kindle Boards, etc,). This works best if you do it the day or two before, since some of the messages on these sites don’t get read right away. Always give the day of the week and the dates of the promotions so that people won’t think the book is still free when the promotion has ended.

DO NOT promote yourself on pages or message boards where this is against the rules; this angers people and wins you no friends or fans.

5. Post something related to your book but something more than just an announcement of the promotion on your blog. See this post that Abigail Padgett did the day her free promotion started on the first of her Bo Bradley mysteries as a good example. This can be another way of getting out the message and peaking people’s interest in the work.

6. During the promotion, tweet or post on your Facebook pages several times, reminding people of the promotion, mentioning how it is going, and thanking everyone for their help. Don’t be afraid to brag if your book is doing really well. I discovered some of the fans who read my messages enjoyed commenting on how much they had liked the book and recommending it to others. Some will thank you for reminding them because now they were going to tell their mother/sister/friend about how to get a free copy the book. Your friends will be gratified by your success and want to know how you did it.

I want to make it clear here that you do not necessarily have to do all of the above to have a successful promotion. For example, for my first promotion I didn’t contact any of the sites listed in #3, and I contacted only a few of them for the second promotion. If your book is already doing fairly well in terms of sales and ranking, and is in a lot of different categories, you may not need to do a lot of work ahead of time. But if you are promoting a book that hasn’t been selling well, or is on one of those large categories like historical fiction or contemporary fiction, with no sub-categories and lots of free books being listed, then advance promotion may be very necessary to get you the initial downloads you need to become visible on the free lists. 

Fifth Step: Keep track of some basic data on how the free promotion went.

The day before the promotions, I noted down the ranking of not just the book I was promoting, but also my other titles. I recorded the overall ranking and where it ranked on the one subcategory where it was in the top 100 (for both the best seller list and the popularity list.) Then during the promotion I wrote down these same rankings, plus the rankings in the other categories where the book started showing up about 3 times a day (the morning, mid-day, and at the end of the day.)

With the new dashboard Amazon has set up it is now easy to discover immediately after the promotion ends how many free downloads there were. I continued to write down this data for about a week after the promotion, because it took a while for the books to reach their highest spots on the paid list. Since I always note what my sales are each night I have also been able to watch the way in which the books’ overall sales have continued to be higher than before the promotion, despite later slippage in ranking.

Why do I do this? Probably because my training was in the social sciences and I like analyzing data (I did a computer analysis of working women from the 1880 manuscript census back in the days when you used punch cards to enter the data.) But it also helps me make decisions about staying in the KDP Select or doing other promotions.

So, has this helped? If you have had a successful promotion and have something to add, I would like to hear about it. If you did something like I did (putting up a book too soon) that you feel hurt your promotion, do share, so we all can learn what to avoid. KDP Select and the free promotion is in its infancy and the more we learn from each other, the more we will all be effective in reaching a wider audience with our work.

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s blog.

This post, by Carolyn McCray, originally appeared on the Digital Book World site on 3/1/12.

I always find it amazing when researching marketing strategies how incredibly superstitious and eager some authors are to not just believe, but also truly embrace urban myths.

Especially if it might impact their careers.

The Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL) borrowing system is a prime example.

So rather than relying upon your cousin’s friend’s blog to terrify you that KOLL is killing your book sales, let’s return to a trusted friend.

Math. Good, old-fashioned math. Let’s calculate how KOLL is affecting your book sales rather than running around the room waving our hands over our heads.

I am going to use examples from my platform; however, you can calculate your numbers using your own data. Drilling down into your sales numbers is the only way for anyone to determine if any advertising venture is worthwhile or not.

Indie authors, or even small/trade publishers can perform this series of calculations to see if KOLL is a cost-effective option for their book titles.

Let’s look at those titles priced between 99¢ and $2.98. These 35 percent royalty books generate 35¢ to $1.04 royalty-per-sale.

Since the current KOLL Payout is approximately $1.60/borrow, any title in this 99¢-$2.98 price range is actually making money from each borrow.

In the case of 99¢ titles, you are actually quadrupling your royalties versus a sale. #sweet

The next price bandwidth we want to look at is the $2.99 titles. If we simply looked at raw numbers, it would appear that these books were losing money on KOLL.

The $2.99 price point at 70 percent royalty = $2.09 – KOLL royalty of approximately $1.60 = a net loss of 50¢/borrow versus purchase.

But not all sales at $2.99 are paid out at 70 percent royalty. A subset of your sales is always calculated at 35 percent royalty if the sales originate outside the territories covered by the 70 percent royalty contract.

On average, you can expect about 7 to 8 percent of your sales are going to fall under the 35 percent royalty rule. This brings down your $2.09 average royalty at 70 percent down to a combined 70 percent + 35 percent royalty of $2.00/book.

Now, we must subtract the delivery charge of 8¢, which brings our average royalty per book down to $1.92/book.

Average net royalty $1.92 – $1.60 KOLL average royalty = 32¢

That brings your net loss down to 32¢/borrow versus purchase.

However, we must now factor in a more human component. The question becomes: “Would each of the KOLL borrowers have actually bought your book?”

 

Read the rest of the post on Digital Book World.

This post originally appeared on the OnlineCollege.org site and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

Before setting off in pursuit of literary and intellectual greatness (or at least goodness), it behooves the journeyman author to learn a few things from those that came before. Don’t get bogged down in fantasy. Take the time to read up on how successful writers — no matter their chosen genres or mediums — generate ideas and inspiration, process them, then bestow them life on paper or screen. Painting teachers often request their students to copy old masters in order to learn techniques they may uniquely, creatively build upon as their own visions begin emerging. And the exact same strategy works beautifully for the written arts in kind.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou: Oftentimes cited as one of the greatest American memoirs, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings chronicles the beloved poet’s sexual abuse, struggles with race and class divides, teen pregnancy, and how sheer willpower and bibliophilia carried her through. It’s a testament to the importance of strong character and an open-mindedness to new ideas when writing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway: Ernest Hemingway’s sexy memoir of expatriate experiences in Paris is a oenophile’s dream — oh, and it also stands as one of the best peeks into Europe’s pre-WWII creative circles. Read up on his interactions with the likes of Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, and (most famously) F. Scott Fitzgerald, with whom he shared one of the most legendary road trips ever.

 

 

 

 

   

 

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath: For the deepest look into the highly troubled poet’s mindset, be sure to read the uncensored journals husband Ted Hughes never touched before publication. Even readers with no desire to launch writing careers can still learn valuable lessons about the realities of mental illness (specifically, bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety) and its frequent intersections with creativity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers: In this Pulitzer nominee, Salon.com editor, McSweeney’s founder, and all-around literary Renaissance man Dave Eggers unpacks the one thing that left the greatest impact on his life. Specifically, losing both parents to cancer and winding up the exclusive caretaker of his young brother while still a young man attempting to figure out his own life.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass: Frederick Douglass’ memoir eventually grew into one of the undeniable cornerstones of the abolitionist movement and solidified his status as an excellent orator, writer, and activist. In his game-changing publication, he reflects the extremely inhumane conditions in which slave-owners forced others and why that needed to end.

 

 

 

 

 

 

J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter: Because the beloved Lord of the Rings author’s family authorized this biography, readers will learn about him through family and friend interviews as well as personal notes and correspondence. Fans of literary history with or without an interest in the fantasy genre will appreciate the insight into Oxford’s legendary Inklings circle, which included his once-close companion C.S. Lewis.

 

 

 

 

 

The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima by Henry Scott Stokes: Raising a private army to overthrow the Emperor probably isn’t the best course of action for wannabe writers of note, but that doesn’t mean they can’t find inspiration in Yukio Mishima’s fascinating life. Henry Scott Stokes was a good friend of the seminal author, which granted him probably the most well-rounded glimpse of his nuances.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Confessions by St. Augustine of Hippo: Personal failings and epiphanies have fueled creative pursuits for almost as long as creative pursuits existed, but Confessions usually exists as the quintessential example. You don’t have to be religious to understand (maybe even appreciate) the author’s candidness and how his own experiences led him into theological rock-star status.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi: Cartoonist Marjane Satrapi worked her trauma from the Iranian Revolution and the (sometimes subtle) displays of discrimination and racism she faced in Europe into a simultaneously tragic and hilarious graphic memoir. Through her art and writing alike, she inspires others who’ve experienced very real (and not always historical) horrors to seek solace and reveal truth through creation, not destruction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom: When the author watched his elderly sociology professor Morrie Schwartz on Nightline and learned about his ALS, he called him up and rekindled their intellectual relationship. The dying man eventually took on a mentor role during the 14 meetings they shared before his death, influencing his former student far, far beyond the literary.

 

 

 

 

  

 

The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe: New Journalism’s trailblazer Tom Wolfe followed One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest author and MK Ultra participant Ken Kesey and his gang (The Merry Pranksters) on a psychedelic exploration of the United States and drug subculture. Ingesting various hallucinogenic substances may not necessarily stand as the most legal route toward inspiration out there, but it exists as an option utilized by many creatives all the same.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell: Frequently touted as a forerunner to the modern biography — not to mention one of the all-time greatest examples of the genre in the English language — this James Boswell masterpiece covered the entire life of the ubiquitous literary giant with whom he was acquainted. So astute were his observations and inclusions, contemporary doctors wound up diagnosing Samuel Johnson’s seemingly erratic, eccentric behavior as Tourette’s Syndrome.

 

 

 

 

 

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein: The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas is actually about renowned modernist and art patron Gertrude Stein rather than her eponymous lover, though she relays her own biography through that particular perspective. It covers the entirety of their time together, as well as the creative luminaries who phased in and out of the apartment during one of Europe’s most fertile, volatile eras.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin: Although obviously more well-known as an actor and comedian, Steve Martin certainly deserves recognition for his writings, both humorous and not-so-humorous. For him, self-expression allowed him a worthwhile conduit for the pain he felt over isolation from his parents; authors hoping to pursue their craft citing similar reasons might find this narrative useful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Years with Ayn Rand by Nathaniel Branden: Pretty much everything anyone needs to know about this biography pops up right there in the title. Objectivism founder Ayn Rand’s protege and paramour (and the pioneer of self-esteem) dishes about their problematic relationship. To this day, the Atlas Shrugged author remains a polarizing figure, and reading about her here shines a more human light on what she offers literature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excelsior! by Stan Lee and George Mair: The Spider-Man/X-Men/Avengers/countless others co-creator should never be mistaken as the inventor of comics, but his bombastic, campy writing style undeniably left a major impact on popular culture. Learn all about his early life, early career, and eventual success here, though do keep in mind his talent for, um, exaggeration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pimp: The Story of My Life by Iceberg Slim: By age 18, Iceberg Slim already established for himself a pimping career, placing him directly in the urban underbelly which eventually fueled his literature. Critics embraced his fiction and literary nonfiction alike, believing it an accurate depiction of an often overlooked, marginalized atmosphere in serious need of assistance.

 

 

 

 

  

 

The Diary of Anais Nin by Anais Nin: With the same eloquence as her beloved erotic fiction, the extended journals of Anais Nin romantically reflect on everything from DH Lawrence’s writings to her famous entanglements with Henry Miller and his wife June. However, her sensuality stands at odds with a discomfort toward overt sexuality — surprising, considering her oeuvre.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Why this World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector by Benjamin Moser: After perusing the modernist’s own private writings and manuscripts, Benjamin Moser peeled back much of the mystique surrounding Clarice Lispector. No other biography comes remotely close to exploring her nuances like this one, and even those who’ve never once picked up any of her myriad works will still find her tragic and beautiful life riveting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ignatius Rising by Deborah George Harvey and Rene Pol Nevils: Gut-busting tragicomedy and Pulitzer winner A Confederacy of Dunces sports a publication story as compelling as the narrative itself, though way more heartbreaking. Delve deeply into John Kennedy Toole’s complex relationship with his mother, issues with sexuality, and other factors that eventually led him to suicide before ever seeing his masterpiece go to print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King: Not only do On Writing readers receive quite the insight into ubiquitous horror author Stephen King’s own personal mindset and process, they also learn quite a bit about the art. It’s oftentimes cited as one of the best literary autobiographies and practicums to boot, so consider it an essential read!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson: You don’t have to shovel a dump truck full of hallucinogens and alcohol into the gullet every morning to learn a little something from the quintessential gonzo journalist. At once fiction and nonfiction, his most famous work delves into the frustration of finding inspiration and chasing the shattered American Dream.

 

 

 

 

  

 

Autobiography of Mark Twain by Mark Twain: Learn all about the great American wit from his own unique perspective here, which saw publication after he died and didn’t exactly care what people thought. Completely unedited and unabridged, his autobiography should sit on the shelves of every aspirant writer around, no matter their chosen medium or genre.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson: Influential LGBTQ author Jeanette Winterson’s real-life struggles between her Pentecostal upbringing and lesbian sexuality famously inspired the novel Oranges are Not the Only Fruit. This memoir unveils the realities behind her most famous work, which might inspire many up-and-comers to seek emotional solace in their own literature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson: In his charming memoir, popular travel writer Bill Bryson candidly discusses growing up in Des Moines during the Cold War’s first two decades. Some of it sheds light on his later publications, but it also reveals the curiosities and quirks one can find in current amenities, inventions, family, and friends.