{"id":1951,"date":"2012-02-08T00:01:20","date_gmt":"2012-02-08T08:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=1951"},"modified":"2012-05-20T13:22:57","modified_gmt":"2012-05-20T13:22:57","slug":"the-free-ebook-experiment-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/the-free-ebook-experiment-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Free Ebook Experiment \u2014 Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

The 5\u2011star nov\u00adel, avail\u00adable on Ama\u00adzon.<\/p><\/div>\n

Accord\u00ading to the new, social-net\u00adwork\u00ading phi\u00adlos\u00ado\u00adphy of book pro\u00admo\u00adtion, one of the most effec\u00adtive ways of build\u00ading your audi\u00adence is to give away copies of your book.<\/p>\n

Of course the old-school part of me\u2014the part of me that has been paid for my writ\u00ading ever since I was a cub reporter\u2014bristles at this. I don\u2019t want to give my work away; I want read\u00aders to buy<\/em> it.<\/p>\n

My Kin\u00addle mys\u00adtery nov\u00adel, A Real Piece of Work<\/em>, has been avail\u00adable on Ama\u00adzon since late Novem\u00adber 2011. That\u2019s over two months. But in that peri\u00adod of time I\u2019ve man\u00adaged to sell few\u00ader than 200 copies of the nov\u00adel. For those eager read\u00aders wait\u00ading for me to sell 1,000 copies and release book #2 in the series, this news must come as a dis\u00adap\u00adpoint\u00adment. There\u2019s still a long<\/em> way to go.<\/p>\n

This is where the give\u00adaway comes in.<\/p>\n

On Wednes\u00adday and Thurs\u00adday, Feb\u00adru\u00adary 8 & 9, 2012, A Real Piece of Work<\/em> will be avail\u00adable on Ama\u00adzon as a FREE  Kin\u00addle ebook down\u00adload.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many suc\u00adcess\u00adful indie pub\u00adlish\u00aders on the Kin\u00addle plat\u00adform report that offer\u00ading your book for free for 1\u20132 days boosts its rank\u00ading and vis\u00adi\u00adbil\u00adi\u00adty, so that when the free pro\u00admo\u00adtion is over, the resid\u00adual buzz dri\u00adves sales. That\u2019s what I\u2019m hop\u00ading for.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a bar\u00adgain-hunter and you hap\u00adpen to pick up A Real Piece of Work<\/em> for free, I hope if you enjoy it you\u2019ll do me the favor of a pos\u00adi\u00adtive review on Ama\u00adzon<\/a> and Goodreads<\/a>.<\/strong> And please tell every\u00adone you know about the novel\u2014everyone with a Kin\u00addle, iPad or oth\u00ader Kin\u00addle read\u00ader-com\u00adpat\u00adi\u00adble device (there are many), as well as every\u00adone you know who enjoys mys\u00adter\u00adies and exquis\u00adite\u00adly well-writ\u00adten books. Help get the word out. Please.<\/p>\n

The soon\u00ader the word gets out and I sell 1,000 copies of A Real Piece of Work<\/em>, the soon\u00ader I\u2019ll release book #2 in the series. The Rich Are Dif\u00adfer\u00adent<\/em> is already com\u00adplete, and if you\u2019d like to learn more about it, check out the Dako\u00adta Stevens web\u00adsite<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Please note, if you\u2019re a fel\u00adlow writer who hoped this would be a step-by-step how-to arti\u00adcle about using your \u201cfree days\u201d on KDP Select, let me direct you to an excel\u00adlent blog entry that I\u2019m using as my script for this exper\u00adi\u00adment. It\u2019s titled \u201cMax\u00adi\u00admiz\u00ading Free Days on Kin\u00addle Select,\u201d and the author is a woman named Karen Baney<\/a>. She details the tac\u00adtics she used, and since she had pos\u00adi\u00adtive results, I decid\u00aded to use her method\u00adol\u00ado\u00adgy as the mod\u00adel for my own free pro\u00admo\u00adtion.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve already decid\u00aded that this exper\u00adi\u00adment will be the Lit\u00admus test for whether I con\u00adtin\u00adue with Ama\u00adzon\u2019s KDP Select. Unless my \u201cfree days\u201d trans\u00adlate to rad\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly improved sales, I plan on expand\u00ading pub\u00adli\u00adca\u00adtion of A Real Piece of Work<\/em> onto oth\u00ader plat\u00adforms includ\u00ading Google Ebooks, iTunes and pos\u00adsi\u00adbly Smash\u00adwords. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

In Part 2 of this piece, I will post the results of this free pro\u00admo\u00adtion exper\u00adi\u00adment: how many free down\u00adloads there were and how many sales there were in the week fol\u00adlow\u00ading. Fin\u00adgers crossed for 800+ copies sold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Accord\u00ading to the new, social-net\u00ad\u00adwork\u00ading phi\u00adlos\u00ado\u00adphy of book pro\u00admo\u00adtion, one of the most effec\u00adtive ways of build\u00ading your audi\u00adence is to give away copies of\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,30,21,8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-real-piece-of-work","category-chris-orcutt-books","category-kindlestuff","category-publishingandthemarket","category-dakota-stevens-mysteries-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1951"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2934,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951\/revisions\/2934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}