By Mike Long
Until recently I’ve
steadfastly resisted giving any of my books away. Sure, I sent copies to folks for reviews
(with mostly good results) and even donated a case to a US Army aviation unit
in Afghanistan
– but that’s not the same as listing a book as ‘Free’ on Kindle for several
days. Why on earth would a sane person
do that?
I’m not sure why sane
folks do anything, but what pushed me to try a ‘free download’ promo was the
fact that I just wasn’t selling many copies as E-books. I had my first novel (No Good Like It Is) and
the sequel (Dog Soldier Moon) available on Kindle, Smashwords, Sony, Nook,
etc., but was only moving maybe twenty or twenty-five on each per month.
I’d already gone
through the Kindle pricing drill, starting at $9.99, then $5.99, then 99 cents
and finally establishing my ‘sweet spot’ as $2.99 per. At that price or higher, the author gets 70%
of each sale; below that, it’s only 35%.
And when Kindle offered
their Kindle Owners Lending Library (KOLL), I was slow to join up (why loan
books for free, rather than sell them?) – until I learned that the KOLL program
actually pays a little to the participating authors. You do have to give Kindle an ‘exclusive’ on
your books, but I’d never received a penny from Sony, Smashwords, Nook, etc.
anyhow. Another no-brainer, once I
studied it.
And all that led me to
the free download promo. A friend
explained that the folks who hold out for freebies on Kindle were probably never
going to pay for one of my books – unless maybe they got the first one free and
just had to have the sequel, especially if it didn’t cost much.
I ran my experiment
Nov. 26-30 2012, after a good deal of mostly free advertising. I used Facebook (all my groups therein) and
LinkedIn, and found more than a dozen sites that would blog or advertise my
effort for little or nothing.
There were over 6500
free downloads during that five day promotion; most (6200) were in the first
three days, so a two or three-day promo is probably enough. But what happened afterward is what has
really surprised me.
In the nine days since
I stopped the promotion, I’ve had over 220 paid downloads (purchases, KOLL
Loans) of my first novel; the figures on the sequel aren’t in yet. Remember, I was only doing about 22 of each
per month before. I don’t expect this
pace to continue, but it’s sweet now.
And there are still
6500+ potential buyers for the sequel.
Write On!
WOO HOO, Mike!
ReplyDeleteCongratulations!
Write On!
Leigh