KDP FREE BOOK PROMO RESULTS - THE COVERT ELEMENT

Free Book Promotion Results

Greetings and welcome to Self-Publishing Central. Thanks for stopping by.

Today I’m going to give you a summary of the results of my recent Free Book Promo for my suspense/thriller, THE COVERT ELEMENT. I promise you, this will be an interesting read.

THE BASICS

Book Title: THE COVERT ELEMENT (Published in May, 2011)

Pre-promo Book Kindle Ranking: >#100,000.

Requirement to hold promo: Sign THE COVERT ELEMENT up for KDP Select Program

When promo held: Jan 10 & 11 (Tues & Weds), more precisely, 12 am PST Tues to 12am PST Thurs.

Book Pricing: Decided to leave the Kindle book price at $6.99, where all my books have been priced for most of the year.

MY WILDEST HOPES:
I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect with this giveaway. I had done book giveaways on my website, on this blog, and on Twitter before. Never was I able to give away so many as 25 FREE books. However, I was inspired by the detailed Free Promo results David Wisehart posted in his nine consecutive blog posts. So I thought I’d give it a try.

These were my (very optimistic) hopes for the promo:

Maybe give away as many as 8,000 or 9,000 books.
Maybe get into the Kindle Free Top 100.
Maybe sell 500-700 books after the free period ended.

As you will see, these “hopes” fell well short of the realities this promo achieved. I should have dared to hope bigger.

FREE PROMO FACTS AND FIGURES:
Here are some key facts and statistics from the two days during which my book was free to buy from Amazon:

Books given away: Over 25,000, including >1000 in UK and at least 1 in on every Amazon site.
Highest Free Kindle Ranking: #10.
Highest Free Kindle Suspense Ranking: #1.
Highest Free Kindle Ranking in the UK: #84

PAID RESULTS FROM PROMO
Okay. So the giveaway portion of the promo was fantastic! 25,000 books out to potential readers. I was thrilled. But how would all these free books affect my sales? Had I given away any hope of selling even more books?

I’m thankful to say that quite the opposite was the case. Here are some relevant rankings and statistics from the first 7 days that THE COVERT ELEMENT was back in the paid column on Kindle:

Highest Paid Kindle Ranking – #162 (achieved 3 days after promo)
Highest Paid Kindle Suspense Ranking – #13.
Highest Paid Kindle Movers & Shakers Ranking – #45.
Highest on Kindle Most Popular List – #12.
Ranking at end of First Seven Days Post Promo: Approx. #800

KINDLE BOOKS SOLD IN FIRST SEVEN DAYS AFTER FREE PROMO:
Okay, those rankings were a big improvement from the book’s pre-promo status. But how do the rankings translate into sales? (I had two other titles in the same series as THE COVERT ELEMENT, and since the promo substantially affected their sales, I am listing them here as well.)

Here’s what I have found out regarding that first seven-day paid period. These are actual numbers of kindle books sold at $6.99 each:

THE COVERT ELEMENT (Promo Book): >1,150
THE 19TH ELEMENT: >200
THE MISSING ELEMENT: >200
A HIGHER COURT: 12
COMBINED UK SALES: >50

TOTAL SALES: >1,612

Compare this to my December monthly sales for the same titles:

TOTAL SALES OF ALL BOOKS IN MONTH OF DECEMBER: 44

Wow! I’d say the promo was a huge success in the sales column. I sold more than two year’s worth of Kindle books in seven days!

KINDLE BOOKS BORROWED IN AMAZON PRIME LIBRARY IN FIRST SEVEN DAYS AFTER PROMO:
But you know, there is a new source of revenue in the Kindle world these days – royalties from the KDP Select Library. In December, publishers (in my case, that’s me) were paid $1.70 per borrow of their books. It is uncertain whether that per-book figure will increase or decrease. But in any case, it appears to have some value beyond the minuscule. So here are the number of Borrows during the seven days post promo:

THE COVERT ELEMENT: >400
THE 19TH ELEMENT: 17
THE MISSING ELEMENT: 11
A HIGHER COURT: 0

TOTAL BORROWING: >428
                   
INTANGIBLES
–     There have been four reviews from Free Promo book readers on Amazon so far – three Five Star and one Four Star.

–     The “Liked” button for The Covert Element on Amazon went from 4 to 34 since the promo started.

SUPPORTERS OF MY FREE PROMO
No promotion can be successful without the help of many people. Here are a few who helped me a ton with this promotion. Please forgive me if I omit your name. There were so many. And I truly appreciate you all.

Websites that helped promote the Free Book Promo:

pixelofink.com
icravefreebies.com
centsablemomma.com
thedigitalinkspot.blogspot.com                       
Reviewers Roundup on FaceBook
LinkedIn Writers Groups
Google+
My FaceBook Author Page
Twitter – Especially members of The Independent Author Network (#IAN1)

Special thanks to:

David Wisehart and his blog at:

http://kindle-author.blogspot.com/2012/01/kindle-ebook-sales-report-day-9.html

David’s detailed coverage of his 9 day promo and post promo results inspired me to try a free promo in the first place.

L.M. Stull – Who tweeted David’s blog. That’s how I found all of David’s great info.

All members of IAN who tirelessly tweeted and RT’d the availability of my books.

My many other Twitter and FaceBook friends who so faithfully spread the word. (Far too numerous to name, but each was crucially important.)

Finally, I credit the huge success of this promo to God. You heard me correctly. I have been praying for direction in my life. And I have specifically asked God whether I should continue writing novels. I think the results of this promo provide a clear answer. Without Him, nothing is possible.

CONCLUSION
Well...I think you’ll agree that the promo was a success by any measure. If you feel moved to give this marketing strategy a try, I’d say, “Go for it.” Honestly, there are so many potential book buyers out there, even if you gave away 100,000 copies, there’d still be millions of them left. It’s essentially an endless supply of potential readers. Okay...it’s not endless. But after you sell a million or so books, who cares?

That’s it for today. I encourage comments and suggestions that can help every self-published author make the most of this marketing opportunity.

Cheers!

John 

PS: I have another free book promo going on THIS WEEK Tues and Weds, Jan 24 and 25, for A HIGHER COURT. Please take a copy. 


http://www.amazon.com/A-Higher-Court-ebook/dp/B004AM59MI/ref=sr_1_5?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1327378634&sr=1-5