As I’m sure every indie author knows, if you sign up for KDP Select (giving Amazon exclusive rights to sell the ebook version of your publication for 3 months at a time), you get the option of choosing:

• 5 days in which to make the Kindle version of your book free to download (free promo)
• A countdown deal, in which you can temporarily reduce the price of your ebook but still get paid royalties based on the permanent/full sales price from Amazon

Which to choose might come down to your personal situation, preferences, or level of exposure already gained.

It might also depend on whether you have other books available, especially in a series, that could benefit from exposure of one of your other books.

You simply might not want to make the result of your blood, sweat, and tears free. That’s completely understandable, in my opinion. Go for the countdown deal in that case.

For me, the choice of which promotion to choose comes down to the question of whether I most need reviews or royalties, exposure or income.

I have a new release that had only two reviews at the start of the month, so I opted for a free promotion this time.

The free promotion is GREAT for getting exposure and reviews from the downloads it brings in, especially if you plan ahead and get your book listed as free on websites and newsletters.

If your book does well enough with the promo, it can REALLY take off once it jumps up the charts. I had this happen with my first edition a decade ago, when FreeBooksy picked up my promo and I had over 2000 downloads!

I’d imagine it’s hard to market the countdown deal, because while there are lots of sites and groups that will let your hawk a free promotion, with the countdown deal, your book isn’t free, so those aren’t available.

HOWEVER, your book is still much cheaper for readers during a countdown deal, and it’s for a limited time, which is an incentive for them to buy. Meanwhile, YOU still get full royalties on the purchase (as opposed to free promos, which bring in no royalties in and of themselves, though I have made some purchase full price after the end of my recent promotion).

I very well might try a countdown deal in my next KDP Select promotional period. (It feels riskier in terms of falling completely flat, and I’m pretty risk averse, so we’ll see).

Anyway, those are my thoughts on how to choose which promotional method to take advantage of. It might make sense, over 6 months, to do each and see which works better for you, or which you are happier with.

What are your thoughts on KDP Select?