Not as far as friends (where I tend to be loyal to a fault), mind you, but as far as having an opinion, I’m pretty fickle minded. I can be swayed.
The problem is I can see both sides of a proposition, question, point of view, etc., which makes it very hard to be dogmatic.
What does this have to do with writing, you might well ask? Not a thing that I can think of. However it has quite a bit to do with the business of marketing.
What made me realize that I’m easily swayed is my recent foray into the KDP Select program. I don’t have any significant or consistent results to relay to the rest of you at this point, but I can say it’s been an interesting ride so far.
If you haven’t heard of it, this is Amazon’s program to build customer loyalty, sell more Kindles, etc. How it affects writers is that in return for exclusivity for a 90-day period, Amazon offers authors the ability to have their books “lent” out (as in lending library) for which Amazon pays the authors a fee, by splitting up a pool of money. In December it was $500K. I hear it’s $700K for January.
Additionally, they give the author 5 days of promoting each book by giving it away. It’s interesting to find yourself rooting for people to just download your book for nothing. But you do. At least, I did.
So, a few weeks ago, I had determined that I was putting my book Red Mojo Mama back up to $2.99 (which I did) and there she would stay (which it didn’t). I put RMM on promotion for two days – for free.
I have absolutely no idea if this will ultimately benefit me. I’ve read five blogs by other authors about this plan, who have had mixed responses.
One way or the other, I now know this much about myself. I’m willing to try just about anything once, even if I’ve made up my mind not to. Hmmm….
I put my book up as well even though I had decided not to! You're right, it is exciting watching all those people download your book even if you are not making any money out of it. But my sales for December doubled after the freebee and january sales are up there too, so I guess it has worked somewhat. Hasn't been lent out a whole lot, but I guess time will tell:)
ReplyDeleteThanks Gladys - I was hoping others had a similar experience. And it's glad to hear that you're getting positive results.
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteI put Fourth and Forever in the free pool (tomorrow & Sunday)with the same thought you so eloquently expressed - "I'm willing to try about anything once..." The difference between us is I'm a guy, which means I'll probably try it a lot regardless of how it turns out.
Let us know my friend.
Bert
Would that we were prescient, but we're not. We can only try and see what happens. The important thing is to make sure you have some method of tracking results so that you can measure the success or failure of your efforts, to know what you should keep on doing and what you should abandon. Unfortunately, Amazon does not reveal the data we need to make those decisions.
ReplyDeleteBert - you are so funny! And Jack - I've definitely experienced an uptick after putting the old girl (Red Mojo Mama) up for free, not as momentous as I'd hoped, but of course, I tend to wish for the moon at lot. We'll see on The Great Twitter Adventure - which has not been downloaded much at all. But at the very least, it's already gotten me three readers who've loved it and said so - (I wish they'd say so on Amazon!).
ReplyDeleteMore to come...
At least it's just for 90 days if it doesn't work out. Thanks for sharing your experience.
ReplyDeleteI will put a review for you on Amazon as soon as I read it. My reading habits seem to have fallen to the wayside, along with housecleaning and yardwork. Sorry
ReplyDelete