I just ran a KDP Select promotion this past week–where Amazon allows anyone to download a copy of the Kindle version of your book for free.
It went all right, when all was said and done–certainly, it could have gone much worse!
I was hoping for more expose through free downloads than I received, but I did at least double my order totals from what I received last month, which is something!
So here are my thoughts regarding running one of these:
- Numbers feel steeply each day. This matches what I generally remember from when I ran promos of the first edition ten years back. This time, I used all 5 promo days for my 3 month period back to back. Given the rate and steadiness of decline, If you are looking to try to maximize downloads, it might be better to do two promos, one 3 days, one 2 days, something like that.
- The ONLY exception to falling numbers was the very tail end–the last few hours. I mentioned yesterday that I was hoping for 100 downloads total after adjusting my initial goal of 500. Well, I went to sleep with 95. I woke up with 119, which is by far the most condensed period of downloads throughout the whole promotion–which again, might indicate that if you market a promo well, running multiple promos over one longer one may be more helpful in terms of total numbers.
- It’s probably best to plan more than I did. I did lots of promotion of my promo on social media, but notifying different websites or groups ahead of time–groups that send out emails or newsletters about when books will be free–is the way to go with these promos if you really want to hit the jackpot, as I’ve experienced in the past and was reminded this week by Valinora Troy here on WordPress!
I might try a countdown deal around my birthday in September . . . or possibly do another free promo then, the right way, who knows? 🙂
For now, I’m just exhausted, and going to rest up 🙂
Creative Writing with the Crimson League 
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