Amazon’s free promotion days:
Is the second time the charm or the ugly stepsister?
Amazon Select offers writers an opportunity to place their eBooks up for free on Amazon’s site. Free downloads push the book up on eBook charts, giving it a huge exposure to readers.
I put my suspense novel, She’s not There, on “free” for two days in February. It had 8,200 downloads and after the free days had expired, I sold about 750 books in the following week, and about 150 the following month. Since then I’ve averaged about 1-4 a day.
On April 30 and May 1, I tried it again. This time I promoted it on sites that highlight free eBooks. As a result, I doubled the downloads, about 17,000. My sales however, were not nearly as good. In the three days since it was free, I’ve only sold about 60 eBooks.
Some might say this was due to the waning popularity of the “free” gimmick, but I think I got it wrong. The right way to take advantage of free promos is to push the promo as much as possible. Get your book on as many sites that feature free eBooks as possible the first time around and ditch the ugly stepsister!
Marla Madison
good points. I am doing my second free promo in June with a new title and cover. So let's see what happens! Promoting after is important too I think. Something I didn't do enough of.
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