KDP Select and Bookbub Promotions: An Indie Author Experience
There are a couple of methods to tell a lot of people about your book, rather than just one or two who might catch a tweet or Facebook post. At the end of last year and the beginning of this one, I tried two of them: a KDP Select Free Book Promotion for Chronic Christmas: Surviving the Holidays with a Chronic Illness
A bit of background
Like many Indie authors, I have been quite squeamish when it comes to marketing my books. I know it’s silly — after all, any publishing house out there has a marketing budget — but when you’re doing it all on your own, it feels sort of icky and potentially spammy to regularly tell people to buy your book. So I drop a link to my books now and again on social media, but in retrospect, entirely too rarely.
Since last summer, I have spent some time listening to marketing podcasts, and in general making myself more knowledgeable on the topic. What I have discovered in the past is a gaping chasm between being spammy and hardly ever telling people that you wrote a book they might find interesting. Because — newsflash, Lene — when you sell more books, you might make enough money to pay the bills without working quite so hard for other people. Which would create time to write more books. Which makes me — and my readers — happy.
So I decided to get un-squeamish and try two pretty nifty ways of getting a lot of people to see your book. I’ve had some requests for a peek at the business side of what I do. Settle in, this is a bit longer than normal.
KDP Select Free Promotion: Chronic Christmas
KDP Select is a special program offered by Amazon in which you make your book exclusive to the company. In return, all sorts of things become possible — promoting the Kindle version of your book in various ways, as well as people borrowing your book. Normally, your royalty is based on the cost of your book, but when people borrow it, you get also paid based on the many pages they read.
Both Your Life with RA and 7 Facets: A Meditation on Pain
This did mean that I wouldn’t receive any royalties from downloaded copies, but my free promotion was about more than that. Sure, increasing visibility was part of it, but… Well, I decided I wanted to give it as a gift to anyone who wanted it.
Because: the holidays.
The results were great. Between November 5 and 8 of last year, 395 people downloaded a free Kindle copy of Chronic Christmas!
It took a few days to really kick off, as awareness about the deal depended in part on the help of my community in sharing the information — thanks all of you who did! Even without that, though, it moved pretty briskly. On the four days, there were 64, 52, 210, and 69 downloads, respectively.
Chronic Christmas also made the very top Amazon’s Top 100 Free Kindle books — #1 in one category and #2 in another category. That definitely also contributed to the success of Day 3.
But best of all, I was very happy to hear back from several people, who told me they really enjoyed the book. That made my holidays.
Bookbub Featured Deal: Your Life with RA
I have for a while been aware of Bookbub because they send me an email every day with deals for free and very inexpensive Kindle books in my chosen categories (sign up — it’s heaven for bookworms.). The site also runs a program for publishers called Bookbub Partners. You can follow other writers to hear about their deals, run ads on the site, and submit one of your books for a deal.
If you’re accepted for a deal, you agree to change the price of your book to free or very cheap on all platforms on which it is published for certain number of days. And then your book is listed in one of the daily Bookbub email newsletters that go out to hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom will hopefully go get your book. You can ask for your deal to appear in the US newsletters, or the international ones (or all). In return for this exposure, you pay a certain amount depending on your suggested price, promotion area, and category.
I submitted Your Life with RA and was accepted for deal to run in January! Notice of my $0.99 deal went out in the newsletters for Canada, the UK, Australia, and India.
To be completely transparent, I’d hoped to appear in the US due to the size of the audience there, but what I got was definitely nothing to sneeze at. I’ve read stories of people applying every month for up to a year before being accepted and here I was, given the green light on the first go.
So of course, I was really excited. And, it turns out, with good reason. Thanks to the deal, your shares of the story, and running a few ads on Facebook and Bookbub, the results were pretty fantastic.
The first day, I sold 255 copies of Your Life with RA. I mean, 255!!
By the time it was all said and done, I had sold 478 books. Which is only about 100 copies less that I sold of this book all of last year!
During that deal, Your Life with RA hit the number one position in several of its categories in Canada, the UK, and Australia. That meant that it got a #1 Bestseller badge and I have to say, it looked mighty pretty next to my book.
Unfortunately, it didn’t stick around, as Amazon updates those rankings hourly, but it sure was nice while it lasted.
The bottom line
I was really pleased with the results of both promotions for a number of reasons.
More people now have a copy of these two books that I hope are helpful to them.
My books got more exposure and even hit the #1 spot in the categories on as a result of both promotions.
I build up marketing experience in a way that didn’t feel icky.
I learned a bunch of other things that I’ll use the next time I try this.
Because: yes. I will be doing this again with future books, and maybe again with some of my books that are already out there. Even though the Bookbub Featured Deal came with a price that did not get fully recouped, return on investment is not always just about the money you make. It’s about everything else that happened and in that respect, it was very much a worthwhile investment.
What did you think of this look at the business side of being an indie author — do you want more in the future?
Tag: Bookbub, books, indie author, KDP Select, marketing, promotion, publishing, sales
43 Comments
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How very exciting Lene !!!
I was so jazzed about the results! Still processing what I learned from it.
This is a great idea for indie publishers and Kudos to you Lene for taking the plunge. I wish I were able to write a book but I struggle at times to put out articles. 🙂 We have a family friend who published a children’s book on her own through Amazon. Very exciting.
Oh, trust me. It’s a struggle to write a book, too. 🙂 (says the woman who’s been blocked on one particular book for 3 years)
Comprehensive reveiw of the steps to being a writer and finding your niche
Thanks for your comment!
This is super exciting! You definitely need to be your own cheerleader, and this is one way to let people know about your books. I can’t tell you how many titles I’ve purchased after reading a free book by the same author through Amazon, but it’s a lot. I hope your numbers continue to climb.
That’s it exactly – I am a voracious reader and do the same thing. You find someone you like and you go bak for more of their books. So yeah. It’s definitely a learning curve.
Congrats on even writing a book let alone having people beyond just your parents read it!!
Thanks so much! That part of it is still ridiculously exciting. 🙂
wow, that is amazing that you were able to write a book! my bf is in the works of writing one and i will definitely share your article with him for some inspiration 🙂
Thanks very much!
Great results for your book! I haven’t decided yet whether to go the Indie or traditional publishing route – but these suggestions make me feel a lot more confident about managing the promotion of a book if I do choose Indie publishing.
I highly recommend David Gaughran’s Let’s Get Digital – it was a big help for me, not only in making the decision, but also in the technical details. He also has a book about launching/marketing called Let’s Get Visible. Good luck with your book!
I latched on to every technique you have mentioned. Very useful and when I release my proposed book in the making, am sure it would help.
Good luck with it!
I have a friend who has published two books. I’ll share with her the word on the KDP Select program. Sounds very helpful! 😊
great idea – thanks for sharing this.
Awesome option to get more readers for your book!! This is a great share for authors everywhere! Thanks for posting:)
and thanks so much for commenting!
Thank you for posting. This is inspirational as we are new to publishing anything (in our case just blogs) and a book seems daunting. You have given me hope that it can be done.
Writing a book got easier when I realized it was one chapter at a time. It gets you there (eventually).
This is great. I’m actually in the process of writing a book. This information is really valuable to me. Thank you for taking the time to share it.
Congratulations! I know first hand how difficult and joyful it is to write a book. It’s hard work, but also so rewarding. Good luck with it!
Congrats to you! I love those Book Bub emails. I always find a new gem. You should also look into a promotion with Book Gorilla.
I’ve been thinking about that. Might try that next month. Thanks for the nudge!
First off, congratulations on writing a book! I had never really thought about how Indie authors get the word out there. I would encourage you to keep spreading the word about your book; after all, you wrote it to help others and share your personal story.
True… Most smaller indie authors do the exact same thing we would if traditionally published – more of the publicity ourselves. Although of course the publisher would pay for the ads, if any. I do like being in control of the process, though.
crap. I’m pre-coffee. meant to say most indie authors do the same as we would if a smaller trad author. Sigh. 🙂
I am planning to publish my book soon and I learned so much from you! I am book marking this so I can come back and study more about the technique you used!
Congratulations on your book! I hope it does well.
I can imagine how crazy it must be to publish a book, you are amazing for writing something and publishing it to begin with! Keep kicking butt.
Thanks so much! And I’ll do my best. 🙂
Many people don’t have an idea what writers go through to get their books out there. Thank you for a wonderful insight
Thanks so much for your comment!
Congratulations for your successful book launching on Amazon. Hoping to learn more from you, as I am an aspiring author, too.
That’s great! What are you writing these days?
Congrats on your success! That is awesome. I have a friend who writes books and I’m passing this info to him. I have no clue how he gets his published, but this could help him.
Thanks very much for sharing my post!
Oh, don’t be squeamish to self-promote– BE PROUD! Writing a book is such a big undertaking! Congratulations!
Good point! Thanks for the kick in the rear. 🙂
Thanks for this Lene! Super helpful to a less productive writer than yourself 🙂 This was exactly the kind of info I’ve been needing to hear in order to feel like it wouldn’t be a waste of my time to invest in writing a book. Thank you! –Sarah
Y’know… writing a book is never a waste of time. It’s about so much more than people reading/buying it. But aside from that – yes. It’s absolutely possible to make something of it.