Kindle Direct Publishing Free Promotion
January 16, 2013 
2 Comments
Back in December, I decided to take advantage of the Kindle Direct Publishing’s program of offering a free promotion for my new ebook, “Noah’s Noodles“. I timed my free promotion to occur on December 25 and 26, 2012. People were bound to have received new Kindle devices for Christmas and they’d be looking for content.
I promoted the link on Twitter, Facebook, Linked In and Reddit. At the end of the promotion, I had given away 706 copies with the hope that it would help spread the word, and in return I’d get some rating and reviews, since they are vital to generating sales.
I didn’t get one rating or review. I guess when you get something for free, you are less invested to write a review or rate a book than if you had paid money for it. My sales did get a bump, but I am still seeing strong sales now, almost a month after the promotion ended. I’m still undecided if the free promotion was worth it. It was hard to offer my hard work for free, but in the end, I saw it as putting good energy out into the world. If it made 706 kids smile, then it was all worth it.
Being part of the Kindle Direct Publishing program pays off in other ways too. All books that are enrolled in KDP can be borrowed by Amazon Prime members for free. For December, my book was borrowed nine times. It costs nothing for a Prime member to borrow a book, but the author is paid with a share of the KDP Global Fund. For me, this amounted to $1.88 per copy borrowed, compared to my $0.35 royalty for actual sales (35% of my initial price of $0.99). In December, my share in the KDP Global Fund accounted for 62% of my revenue, so it can be very worthwhile joining. Of course, the amount earned will depend on the fund’s value and the number of books borrowed. For December 2012, January 2013 and February 2013, the fund is worth $1.4M per month. Not too shabby.
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I am considering doing some free promotions for my ebook, it’s called The Warriors of Dragonsrod and it’s my first published piece. I put it on Kindle Direct Publishing back in October of last year. Despite my promoting efforts, sales have been scant at best. So, I need to try something to get people’s eyes on my work. Letting your hard work go for free is a crap shoot, I agree, but I think it is a risk worth taking. It sounds like it eventually worked for you. I can only hope it works for me too.
I would suggest you check out Goodreads.com. You can set up giveaways where people enter to win your book, then you send it to the winners. I think it might be a bit better than a blanket free promotion. I suspect a lot of people download free books from Amazon because they’re free and never read them. Another thing to consider is whether you’re in the best categories for your book. I have a few more articles planned that focus on the marketing side.