Ebook: Free promotion

efreysson

Closer than ever
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 23, 2007
Messages
1,618
Reaction score
101
Location
Iceland
One advice I've come across is to give out my ebook for free on Amazon for the first few days, to encourage reviews and word-of-mouth.

I'm wondering how long to do this. A couple of days? A week?
 

Old Hack

Such a nasty woman
Super Moderator
Absolute Sage
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 12, 2005
Messages
22,454
Reaction score
4,956
Location
In chaos
From what other members have said here, it works best if you have several books available. Make one free, and if people like it they'll buy your others.
 

Dennis E. Taylor

Get it off! It burns!
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 1, 2014
Messages
2,602
Reaction score
365
Location
Beautiful downtown Mordor
From what other members have said here, it works best if you have several books available. Make one free, and if people like it they'll buy your others.

That works, as well as making the first of a series free. But for us noobs, the biggest problem is exposure. I have one, count'em one, review. It's a good one-- 5 stars-- but if you only have one or two and they're all good, everyone assumes it's the author and their relatives that posted them.

Also, "sales" during the free period count towards your ranking on Amazon, so if you give away a lot of freebies, you could conceivably end up in the top 100 of your genre. Temporarily, of course... :poke:


One of the other members -- can't remember who -- did this a month or two back, and the numbers were nuts. Even caused a temporary bump in sales, IIRC.
 

efreysson

Closer than ever
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 23, 2007
Messages
1,618
Reaction score
101
Location
Iceland
That works, as well as making the first of a series free. But for us noobs, the biggest problem is exposure. I have one, count'em one, review. It's a good one-- 5 stars-- but if you only have one or two and they're all good, everyone assumes it's the author and their relatives that posted them.

Well I only have the one book in English yet. The next one comes next year.
 

veinglory

volitare nequeo
Self-Ban
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
28,750
Reaction score
2,933
Location
right here
Website
www.veinglory.com
The power of free is not what is once (allegedly) was. Advice that is based on what Amazon was like 3-4 years ago will say free gets buzz, word of mouth, reviews and later paid sales of the same book. Authors currently on kboards and Amboards generally report this is no longer true. For the average self-pub book freeloaders hoover up free book and mostly never get around to reading them. And that's about all. I am sure there are exceptions but this seems to be the self-reported norm.
 

WriterBN

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 5, 2012
Messages
1,323
Reaction score
87
Location
Delaware
Website
www.k-doyle.com
Also, "sales" during the free period count towards your ranking on Amazon, so if you give away a lot of freebies, you could conceivably end up in the top 100 of your genre. Temporarily, of course... :poke:

They count toward your ranking on the "free" lists but not on the "paid" lists.
 

Dennis E. Taylor

Get it off! It burns!
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 1, 2014
Messages
2,602
Reaction score
365
Location
Beautiful downtown Mordor
So I just should not bother, or what?

Well, if you can churn up interest in your book by other means, go for it! But if you find yourself over a couple of weeks selling one per day, you might consider alternatives. I'll know in a week or two if this was worthwhile for me.

I've read other postings where authors said it worked out very well for them, but as always, YMMV.
 

veinglory

volitare nequeo
Self-Ban
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
28,750
Reaction score
2,933
Location
right here
Website
www.veinglory.com
There are some announcement sites of free days that can give it a bump, but most of them require the book already have a certain number of reviews. But this is a strategy with an up and a down side. You lose what sales you might have made in that period and some of the free-grabbers are also file-sharers. I would not go free right around launch time as this is your best time for getting real sales.
 
Last edited:

WriterBN

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 5, 2012
Messages
1,323
Reaction score
87
Location
Delaware
Website
www.k-doyle.com
Agree with what veinglory said. The only authors I know who've managed to convert free promos into sales have: a) had several other books in a series that were regular priced; and b) advertised the free promo on places like BookBub or ENT.
 

Wisdom Tooth

Registered
Joined
Apr 3, 2014
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
Well my first free promotion ended last night and I'll share my results. Keep in mind, I only have one book and did the promotion for only two days. I got listed on as many sites and newsletters as possible. I reached out to family and friends, and had them share the news on social media. Over two days, I got more than 3,000 downloads of my free book. I even hit #1 and #2 in two top free lists and cracked the top 100 free overall.

So I wake up this morning and I'm pumped to check my stats. And what do I see? One freaking sale. 3,000 downloads produced one sale.

So yeah, I'd venture to say the others in this thread are correct when they say it works best when you have more than one book to offer. Because it sure didn't do anything for my single title.
 

rchapman1

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 7, 2014
Messages
98
Reaction score
7
Location
Queensland, Australia
Website
www.ritaleechapman.com
I don't do freebies any more - I think you have to value your work. Look at what people will pay for a magazine! Unfortunately there are so many freebies out there now it's just about ruined the market. Unless you have a series, it's not like perfume which people will keep buying if they like the free sample.
 

JohnnyGottaKeyboard

Who let this guy in...?
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 13, 2010
Messages
2,134
Reaction score
211
Location
On the rooftoop where he climbed when the laughter
Well my first free promotion ended last night and I'll share my results. Keep in mind, I only have one book and did the promotion for only two days. I got listed on as many sites and newsletters as possible. I reached out to family and friends, and had them share the news on social media. Over two days, I got more than 3,000 downloads of my free book. I even hit #1 and #2 in two top free lists and cracked the top 100 free overall.

So I wake up this morning and I'm pumped to check my stats. And what do I see? One freaking sale. 3,000 downloads produced one sale.

So yeah, I'd venture to say the others in this thread are correct when they say it works best when you have more than one book to offer. Because it sure didn't do anything for my single title.
I don't understand your logic. If the free downloads ended and the next morning you had one new sale, why would you think this had anything to say about he efficacy of free downloads? Surely you need to wait for the people who downloaded the book for free to read it and react before they can have any impact on your sales.

You seem to be saying that you expected the fact that you topped the free lists for a few days to have started some sort of "word of mouth" phenomenon that should have spilled over to the non-free lists. I would think the purpose of a freebie would be to get people reading (and reviewing) the book and recommending it to others. That would surely take more than 12 hours.
 

Dennis E. Taylor

Get it off! It burns!
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 1, 2014
Messages
2,602
Reaction score
365
Location
Beautiful downtown Mordor
I agree with Johnny. I did a couple of Kindle giveaways, and my only goal was to get reviews. I would have liked more, but I'm very happy with the ones I got.

Everything I've read says that writing is a long game. Unless you are very lucky or very good, or have signed with the big 5, you're not going to make a splash with the first one. I can't remember the exact phrase that's used, something about backlist selling frontlist.

The most common freebie tactic seems to be making the first book in a series permafree. That makes a lot of sense to me.