Thursday, December 20, 2012

Another Kindle Freebie gift: Black Cow!

I've been guest blogging about the traps about KDP Select, which I've been trying out.  All last week the Christmas themed poetry book I co-wrote with Carolyn Howard-Johnson was free on Amazon, and this week, my novel Black Cow is free (until the 24th of Dec).  In case you aren't familiar with KDP Select, it's Amazon's program for authors who are willing to make their e-book available exclusively on Amazon for 90 days. KDP Select has a number of benefits, including allowing authors to give away their ebooks for 5 out of the 90 days. Why would I want to give my books away free? There are a few reasons. The first and simplest one is that writers write for readers, so getting more readers is always a worthwhile exercise.  The second is that, if people like the book, the word begins to spread, and that's the best way to get new readers, which may ultimately become buyers, sharers, promoters, reviewers. It's all good.

Does it work?  It certainly worked for Blooming Red, which hit #1 in its category several times during the free period, and also got a number of sales after the free period - maybe people who downloaded it liked it and bought it as gifts for their friends. Maybe it was just the additional buzziness around our names. We also got a ton of publicity, including being a hand picked best free book of the day on OneHundredFreeBooks, lots of retweets (thank you everyone!), and recommendations.  Above all, it was fun, because I love giving books away (ask anyone).  Please go and help yourself now (just click here: Black Cow), before the promotion ends. Happy holidays!

2 comments:

  1. Maggie, love your reasons for trying KDP Select. Thanks you for working with me on the Select promotion for Blooming Red. And Hope your readers will watch for the coming one--Valentin'e is on the way. I know. Grooooan! (-:
    Best,

    Carolyn Howard-Johnson
    Excited about how much the new edition of the Frugal Book Promoter (expanded! updated!) can help writers with the tried and true and the new media, too. Now a USA Book News award-winner in its own right (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) it the original edition was also a Reader Views winner and an Irwin Award winner.

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  2. THank you so much for the notification; it sounds like a wonderful read. Downloaded it and will put it at the top of my TBR pile :) -- and, when I'm finished, I look forward to trading thoughts :) I'll also share the link with other reader/writer friends.

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