{"id":2095,"date":"2012-02-13T05:20:33","date_gmt":"2012-02-13T13:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.orcutt.net\/weblog\/?p=2095"},"modified":"2012-05-20T13:22:57","modified_gmt":"2012-05-20T13:22:57","slug":"the-free-ebook-experiment-part-2-conclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/the-free-ebook-experiment-part-2-conclusion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Free Ebook Experiment \u2014 Part 2 \u2014Conclusion"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Last week I said I would report on the results of my 2 \u201cfree days\u201d on Ama\u00adzon\u2019s KDP Select: the total num\u00adber of free down\u00adloads, as well as the num\u00adber of sales of A Real Piece of Work<\/em> in the days after\u00adwards. So, with\u00adout fur\u00adther ado, here are the num\u00adbers:<\/p>\n

Free Down\u00adloads (approx.)<\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Day 1 =<\/strong> 19,000<\/p>\n

Day 2 =<\/strong> 8,430<\/p>\n

TOTAL =<\/strong> 27,430<\/p>\n

Once again, if you hap\u00adpened 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>. Thank you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Top 100 Rank\u00adings<\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Dur\u00ading the free pro\u00admo\u00adtion, A Real Piece of Work<\/em> rock\u00adet\u00aded up the top 100 free ebooks charts and at its height reached the fol\u00adlow\u00ading rank\u00adings in four cat\u00ade\u00adgories: All Ebooks \u2014 #3, Fic\u00adtion \u2014 #3, Mysteries\/Thrillers \u2014 #2, and Lit\u00ader\u00adary Fic\u00adtion \u2014 #1. I must admit that, if only for one brief shin\u00ading moment, it was a thrill to be ranked at the top of these esteemed writers\u2014writers includ\u00ading Dick\u00adens, Tol\u00adstoy and Chekhov.<\/p>\n

Dur\u00ading the sales days (Friday\u2013Sunday), on the Ama\u00adzon Top 100 list, A Real Piece of Work<\/em> reached #100 on the over\u00adall list, #13 in Mys\u00adtery and #9 in Lit\u00ader\u00adary Fic\u00adtion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Post-Pro\u00admo\u00adtion Book *Sales*<\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The rea\u00adson I did this pro\u00admo\u00adtion in the first place was to boost sales. Since I had read of oth\u00ader writ\u00aders in the KDP Select pro\u00adgram who had mag\u00adnif\u00adi\u00adcent sales fol\u00adlow\u00ading their pro\u00admo\u00adtions, I decid\u00aded to see whether, if I fol\u00adlowed their actions exact\u00adly<\/em>, I could dupli\u00adcate their results.<\/p>\n

My touch\u00adstone was the woman men\u00adtioned in Part 1<\/a> of this exper\u00adi\u00adment, Karen Baney, who had a total of 29,500 down\u00adloads over 2 days and 700 sales and 150 bor\u00adrows in the days fol\u00adlow\u00ading the pro\u00admo\u00adtion.<\/p>\n

Here are my own num\u00adbers:<\/p>\n

Fri\u00adday, 2\/10:  300 sales, 75 bor\u00adrows<\/p>\n

Sat\u00adur\u00adday, 2\/11:  491 sales, 85 bor\u00adrows<\/p>\n

Sun\u00adday, 2\/12:  586 sales, 90 bor\u00adrows<\/p>\n

TOTAL SALES =<\/strong>  1,377<\/p>\n

TOTAL BORROWS =<\/strong> 250<\/p>\n

After Sun\u00adday I stopped count\u00ading. Exhaust\u00aded with doing this kind of detailed account\u00ading for 5 days, I was ready to move on.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Con\u00adclu\u00adsions<\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>In my case, KDP Selec\u00adt\u2019s free pro\u00admo\u00adtion obvi\u00adous\u00adly worked, and I think it will work for just about any\u00adbody. Pro\u00advid\u00aded you have a good qual\u00adi\u00adty prod\u00aduct that you\u2019re giv\u00ading away, I believe if you stick to Karen Baney\u2019s script for the free pro\u00admo\u00adtion and the days fol\u00adlow\u00ading, while your results might not be insane, they will be pos\u00adi\u00adtive.<\/p>\n

Ini\u00adtial\u00adly I was\u00adn\u2019t keen on the idea of tens of thou\u00adsands of peo\u00adple get\u00adting to read A Real Piece of Work<\/em> for free, but the more I thought about it, the bet\u00adter the idea seemed. I now have over 25,000 read\u00aders out there who know me and my work, and I\u2019ve already read com\u00adments from some of them that they will glad\u00adly pay for the next book in the series.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ama\u00adzon\u2019s KDP Select pro\u00adgram has worked for me, but it could stand some improve\u00adments, par\u00adtic\u00adu\u00adlar\u00adly in the area of real-time report\u00ading. All you are giv\u00aden on your sales \u201creport\u201d page is a read\u00adout of Sales, Units Refund\u00aded and Units Bor\u00adrowed, so in order to keep track of how you\u2019re doing, you\u2019re con\u00adstant\u00adly mak\u00ading cal\u00adcu\u00adla\u00adtions. You\u2019re also left in the dark about the details: where the sales are com\u00ading from, the roy\u00adal\u00adty rate (70% or 35%) and oth\u00ader cru\u00adcial infor\u00adma\u00adtion.<\/p>\n

There should be a fea\u00adture on the \u201creports\u201d page that enables you to export Excel spread\u00adsheets in real time, or at least dai\u00adly, and books that are giv\u00aden away dur\u00ading a free pro\u00admo\u00adtion should be seg\u00adre\u00adgat\u00aded from those that are actu\u00adal\u00adly sold.<\/p>\n

While I hope my nov\u00adel con\u00adtin\u00adues to sell gang\u00adbusters, I\u2019m glad the pro\u00admo\u00adtion\u00adal exper\u00adi\u00adment is com\u00ading to an end. You would\u00adn\u2019t think so, but con\u00adstant\u00adly check\u00ading sales fig\u00adures and rank\u00adings is stress\u00adful. I\u2019m a qui\u00adet writer who likes writ\u00ading<\/em> and giv\u00ading read\u00aders a great sto\u00adry; being an entre\u00adpre\u00adneur or self-pro\u00admot\u00ader does\u00adn\u2019t come nat\u00adu\u00adral\u00adly to me.<\/p>\n

To oth\u00ader KDP Select mem\u00adbers who are con\u00adsid\u00ader\u00ading doing free pro\u00admo\u00adtions of their own, I have one piece of advice: fol\u00adlow Karen Baney\u2019s script<\/a>\u2014to\u2026the\u2026letter.<\/p>\n

In my next entry I\u2019ll be writ\u00ading direct\u00adly to read\u00aders, my \u201cfans,\u201d about when book #2 in the Dako\u00adta Stevens series, The Rich Are Dif\u00adfer\u00adent<\/em>, will be com\u00ading out.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week I said I would report on the results of my 2 \u201cfree days\u201d on Ama\u00adzon\u2019s KDP Select: the total num\u00adber of free down\u00adloads,\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-2095","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\/2095","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=2095"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2933,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions\/2933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orcutt.net\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}