My Experience With KDP Select

Collapse was released on July 6th, 2012.  In the month or so leading up to its release I had made the decision to go exclusively with Amazon in the KDP Select program.  I had done my homework, it seemed like the smart thing to do.  Just before the release, I had several people ask me if they would be able to get Collapse on the Nook.  Not wanting to disappoint them, I figured it wouldn't hurt to make Collapse available on other formats until sales dropped low enough to make the switch to Select.

An acquaintance (more like a friend of a friend, I'm not sure I'd recognize the guy if I saw him on the street) had already self-published a few books the previous summer and I always kept a close eye on his rankings.  I also kept a close eye on his reviews, which were far from kind.  Some of the most horrible one star reviews I'd ever read adorned both of his books.  One of his titles had many accusations of being plagiarized pornography stolen from an erotic fan fiction forum (dressed up as science fiction for some reason).  "This man is a blight on the literary world, his grasp of the English language is tenuous at best" was one of the reviews that I remember most clearly.  He has since taken both of the books down and figured the third time's a charm with his recently released title.  His latest entry is also suffering similar reviews blasting his poor grammar skills and confusing plot. 

Okay, what does this have to do with KDP Select you might ask.  Thanks to the handy ebook tracking tool at Kindle Nation Daily I was able to track the progress of his work.  His work would usually hover around the 60K neighborhood on the rankings.  The days following his free promos, he would skyrocket into the 1-2K rank, even going as high as 692.  The next day, he would very quickly spend the next two days plummeting back to the 60K range.  This impressed me a great deal, clearly there was something to this KDP Select thing.  If the free promotion could propel a very poorly written book (based on reviews mind you, I only read the sample, which was awful) into the top 1000 then it was definitely worth giving a try.

Collapse had been available on non-Amazon outlets for almost a month and it was time to evaluate sales.  Here is where I was at when I made the decision to go Select. (Does not reflect paperback sales)

Amazon: 162 sales
B&N: 31
Kobo: 2
SmashWords: 1

The decision wasn't hard to make.  I had pointed the majority of my promotion back to the main sales page for Collapse here on this blog.   It's quite clear from those statistics that Amazon truly does hold the vast majority of the ebook market.  Going Select just made sense to me so on August 2nd I pulledCollapse from the other outlets and went exclusive with Amazon.

On August 4th and 5th I had my first free promo weekend.  On August 3rd I spent a great deal of time getting the word out to potential readers.  I was very fortunate to have a comprehensive list at my fingertips thanks to Rachelle Ayala's blog.  I made as many notifications as I could and programmed TweetAdder to start informing the Twitterverse of my upcoming promotion.  I also used the very efficient Tweet Teams at the World Literary Cafe to help get the word out.  For more information on how to effectively use Twitter for book promotion, please read my blog entry.

The free weekend was a huge success. Collapse made it to #17 on the Top 100 Free list and stayed at #1 on the Free list in both of my categories (War and Political).  On Monday morning, the instant my eyes opened I logged on the check the final stats - 13,957 downloads. 

The terrific promotional tool of staying on the Top 20 Free list right next to the Top 20 Paid list and staying at the top of my categories' Free lists was great exposure, but did it pay off in terms of sales?

Absolutely.

For the month of July, I sold 191 digital copies of Collapse on Amazon.  In the two days following my free promo weekend, I sold 218 copies and 51 borrows.  That's right, in two days, I sold more copies than I did the entire previous month.  I should note a disclaimer, I priced Collapse at 99 cents for the four days following the free promo.  Some might think that was the wrong move since I was missing out on a lot of money.  Maybe that's true, but I'm thinking long term exposure.  I am writing a series of four books and my goal is to get the first one out there to as many readers as possible so the series will be an overall success.  Also, I'm not financially dependent on my writing in any way at all so I'm free to gamble on my promos to find out what works best.  I was originally only going to keep the 99 cent price for the day following the promo, but darn it if the book didn't keep climbing up the ranks all the way to 1,159 and in the Top 10 on both of my categories.  Once it peaked and starting slipping back the other direction, I raised it to the regular price.

I have no regrets when it comes to Select, best decision I've made in terms of marketing.  As of the date of this post, my rankings have stayed in the 2K range whereas it was in the 15K to 20K range prior to the free promo.

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Thank you so much, Richard for being here today and letting me post your honest and open blog about KDP Select. There is nothing better for Indie authors to be able to see numbers from another Indie author. 


Be sure to pick up Richard's award winning novel, Collapse. 
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Being A Chart Topper Isn't Enough!

Over the past few weeks, I've been looking at what I did over 2011 to help my publishing career take off. Even my “goals” had drastically changed from this time last year until now. What I do to be successful is NOT for everyone.

When I decided to go Indie, I priced my book at 2.99. I DID great at that price point and made it to Amazon’s best seller list on the first day by selling over 300 copies.

After a few days and after my friends and family had bought Carpe Bead ‘em, I slowly saw sales decline. Again….if anyone knows me, they know I’m an instant gratification gal. God knows that I need to remind myself of “the long tail sale" of books. This is the infinite shelf space for my ebooks. They will forever be available.

That just wasn’t good enough for me, so I decided to slash prices to .99 and upload more books. Was this bad? NO! I was just starting out and I wanted people to read my books. When I put my books at .99, it propelled me into a different reader group all together. I don’t mean economical group, but readers who like a great deal in the economic conditions we were and seem to still have.

Fast forward to now…six months later, 19k ebook sales, over $9,000 (I have POD too), and many faithful readers. Not bad for six months.

2011 was a banner year for self published authors. The fantastic royalties with Amazon, all the new ereaders, the option to promote your novels just as a big six author on POI, Kindle Nation Daily, Ereader News Today, facebook pages promoting .99 books, Twitter, Kindle boards, Nook boards, reader blogs. . .the list goes on and on.

2011 became a level playing field for us. And we set the standard for the .99 point price. Of course! It’s a no brainer. At that price point it was an instant one finger click.  A click that sold lots of your book and sent you to the best seller list on Amazon, not on Barnes and Noble, but Amazon. Let’s face it….Amazon is the bread and butter for most Indies. Me included.

2011 I made Amazon’s Movers and Shaker’s list five times, making it to number ONE on two occasions. Every day I’m on a different best seller list which puts me in other author’s streams allowing me to find more readers.

Readers have always been my primary goal to my writing career, because with out them I wouldn’t be an author.

Now I’ve reached a different time in my career and looking to the future. And I think 2012 is going to be that year to help me look for what I need to know for myself and my career.

I think that 2012 is going to be a lot harder for the Indie author. Publishers are getting smarter, promo pushes are getting bought by publishers, tax laws are changing, Amazon is getting more competitive with their new select program, publishers are competing with their authors back lists and selling them at lower prices.

KDP select is causing publishers and Indies to make a choice. Which I did enroll my entire Grandberry Falls series and will blog on this at a later time. But the select program has changed the algorithms once again, and it’s no secret that Amazon will be pushing those books even more, leaving the Indie with one less feather in our cap if not participating.

I sell over 100 Splitsville.com ebooks a day. A month ago I was selling 100 Splitsville.com ebooks a day and ranked 2k in the store. Today I sold 100 Splitsville.com ebooks a day and ranked 32k in the store. What does this mean? It’s getting more and more competitive.

When I look at my “people who bought this bought this” stream, I’m noticing it’s more than just .99 novels.

Right after the announcement of the new select program, I saw a significant decrease in sales. AND I MEAN BIG!!! Only selling 50 of each novel a day. I know some of you are rolling your eyes because 50 per book is good, but when you are used to hundreds it kinda hits you hard. I’m taking it as an opportunity to do something that is practically taboo with Indies.

So I changed my prices! I made all my full length novels 2.99. Now some of them haven’t changed because it takes a while, but I did it. I even had a moment when I freaked. Behind my back, my husband changed them all back to .99. When he told me he did this, I freaked again! I know he was meaning no harm, but I had made peace with my decision and felt good about so I went back in and changed them to 2.99.

I’m going to continue to keep my novellas at .99.

Like I said it’s getting more and more competitive, so why would I change my price to 2.99? Why would I PUNISH MY READERS?

I emailed NINETEEN (Why nineteen? Because I tried to get a good selections) of my most faithful readers. Readers that have sent me emails telling me of different mistakes in my novels, readers that told me that they loved my .99 price range, readers that have supported me through my transition from publisher to self published author, readers who loved one book but not the other. I chose NINETEEN readers that are oranges to apples. And I knew they would be honest with me. Plus I emailed ten different Indie authors in all different price ranges.

Every single one of them told me the same thing: “I definitely do not think readers will be scared off by the $2.99 price. Don’t sell yourself short. You rock and I would bet your other readers feel the same.”

“You put the reader in your story. Definitely wouldn’t be scared off my 2.99!”

“I would’ve bought you for 6.99 or higher.”

“I don’t just buy .99 books. Indie authors really think that is all readers buy. They don’t have a lot of confidence in their writing.”

“I’m going to move mine up to 2.99 after the holidays.”

“I’m going to keep my first one at .99 and the rest are going to be 2.99.”

And on and on….

NOW don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying .99 didn’t do a lot for me. AND I’m not saying I’m never going back to .99. BUT the long and short of it is this….

I want writing to be my only career. I have another job, the one I got my masters degree for, the one that pays the bills, and I’d love to be able to quit that one day and just write. I know you can make money at .99, especially if you have out a lot of books at .99.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s great to be on Amazon’s best sellers list, but I’d love to make money too. It has nothing to do about screwing my readers. $2.99 isn’t going to break their bank. It might make them read the blurb a time or two, but I’m willing to sacrifice my chances to see exactly with $2.99 will do for me. I’m not getting greedy. I’m not trying to catch the big fish. I’m just trying to make a living just like you.

I think you will agree that I’ve spent a lot of my time writing, promoting, marketing and mostly at the expense of sleep, family, or me time. I write at every free second I get, including sporting events, practice, vacations, toilet (yes!), church, grocery, car line, movies, restaurants, everywhere. I’d love to be able to cut out that day job to really see how much writing I can get done. This might not be the answer, but for now it’s my answer.

The best part about this Indie gig. . .I get to make the choices that I think is going to work for me, and if it doesn’t I can change it!

If you haven’t gotten to read Konrath’s guest blog with Elle Lothlorein, you should. She’s inspiring to me!

“Consider what Starbuck’s has done for coffee. I am not a coffee connoisseur, and I could probably count the number of times I’ve been in a Starbuck’s on one hand (let’s face it, I’m never going to say with any measure of confidence: “Yeah, I’d like an antibacterial ricin-berry latte with a squirt of methadone and a splash of yak milk.”).

But you don’t have to know coffee to understand how Starbuck’s took full advantage of the economic concept of “imputed value.” Strictly defined, imputed value is “the worth or value of a given asset that is not recorded or documented in existing historical records, although that value is considered to be inherent in the asset.”

Still awake? Yeah, that was a total snore, but I can easily boil that dreary explanation down to the more familiar, oft-heard expression: “Why in the hell would anyone pay six dollars for a cup of coffee?”

Why indeed.

People may grumble about parting with their six dollars, but they’re unlikely to grumble about the coffee. Why? Because at six dollars, customers assume they’re getting one high-class cup o’ joe. At six dollars, they want it to taste good. And if it doesn’t? Well, they’re more likely to convince themselves that it does. After all, who spends six dollars on something that tastes like crap? Throw in the peer pressure of “everyone else seems to like their six dollar cup of crappy coffee just fine,” and you have an impressive marketing strategy on your hands.

Starbuck’s entire business model is built on the concept of imputed value. Should indie authors be doing the same?”

Or I’d like to think of me as the APPLE brand. . .okay maybe not that big, but I’d love to be! Apple products NEVER go on sale. Apple found their customer base. They have perfected their products and continue to perfect their product keeping their customers happy. I’m going to take the base of readers I got and continue to give the best possible product I can at a slightly higher cost that will keep everyone happy.

Try it for a month, then report back with your results. This obsession with rank and bestseller lists is silly. Sales rank, or being on a bestseller list, doesn’t pay the bills. Making money does. And while it may take time to find the sweet spot between price and sales, unless you try for yourself you are potentially leaving money on the table. The market has shown it can bear prices up to $14.99. We need to show a little guts and start pricing higher. ~Konrath

I feel like I’m starting from the bottom. I feel like I’m going to be able to truly see what $2.99 can do for me, an Indie author who has been at the top of the charts my entire Indie career, and I will take you along with me!

Oh~I still love my readers and they know it!!!!