How NOT to promote your next Kindle Freebie!

Okay – so as some of you folks know I’ve been working hard on trying to unlock the secrets of creating a successful Kindle freebie release.

I’ve wrote a bit about it HERE and HERE and – if you scroll down through my blog entries you’ll doubtless find a few more examples. I have been doing my darnedest to figure out what mystical techniques you must use to create a successful Kindle freebie release.

I’ve met with some success – but today I thought I would set up a test case to see how NOT to promote a Kindle freebie release.

I’ve set my Northern Ontario set, redneck noir novella – HAMMURABI ROAD – on for FREE today.

Go ahead and click this picture if you want to upload this book as a freebie from Amazon.com

I didn’t do ANYTHING to promote this freebie beyond popping out a couple of tweets and posting a few Facebook entries at a few likely Facebook Kindle freebie pages.

I also mentioned it on my own Facebook page as well as my Facebook Author’s Page – which, as Author Pages go is pretty darned punky-looking. Someday I am going to have to get around to doing a better job on this.

🙂

Which brings up a side-point that I ought to mention. You don’t have to do this promotion hoo-haw wonderfully, beautifully, succesfully from the get-go. It’d be nice if you could – but sometimes it takes a while to build yourself ANYTHING. Sometimes you have to give yourself permission to fart around and poke at something and SLOWLY get it right.

In any case – to get back to my topic – let me tell you how this unplanned and unannounced and basically unpromoted freebie release has gone so far.

It hasn’t.

As of this moment in time (October 3, 2014 9:15 am in Nova Scotia) – I have given away TWENTY-FOUR copies of HAMMURABI ROAD.

(note: as of 3:15pm in Nova Scotia I have given away 126 free copies)

To break it down – that’s 19 copies on Amazon.com; 2 copies on Amazon.co.uk; 2 copies in Amazon.de (Germany); and 1 copy on Amazon.co.jp (Japan).

If I had bothered to launch a Fiverr campaign with somebody that I’ve worked with before – like maybe bknights I am pretty sure I would have given at least 100 copies by now – judging from my last two Kindle Freebie promotions.

If I had added on somebody like TWEET YOUR BOOKS I would have most likely moved about 200 copies by now.

That is experience talking – which isn’t infallible – but I figure I must have learned SOMETHING in my last couple of freebie promotions.

So – here endeth the lesson.

If you are going to go the trouble to release your Kindle e-books as freebies then why not spend five or ten dollars to get them onto a proper promotion website?

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I know – some of you want to know just WHY you ought to spend money to give away free books in the first place!

Well – since my first two freebie promotions I have sold e-books and/or loaned them out through the Kindle Unlimited program 26 out of 30 days this September.

Which means I made money on 26 out of 30 days that September through Kindle.

Prior to September I would move a book or two on Kindle about once a week or so.

The freebies and the Kindle Unlimited have DEFINITELY improved my visibility on Kindle – and hopefully by the end of 2014 I will be moving more than a book or two everyday on Kindle.

That’s the plan, anyway.

Lastly, I ought to mention that I have sold seven e-books on October 1st and three e-books on October 2nd through Kindle. The Kindle Unlimited has given me three borrows on October 1st, two borrows on October 2nd, and three more today.

Those borrows will net me a return when Kindle Unlimited makes its October payout – in December if memory serves me. The amount of the pay-out depends on how many borrowers actually open that e-book and read at least 10% of the e-book and it varies month-by-month but either way it is still money coming to me.

Which I like.

I haven’t sold any Kindle e-books yet today but the day is still young. You can never tell when someone might decide that they just can’t live another moment without snapping up a copy of something like this!

Just click this picture and it will whisk you directly to the Amazon.com listing. Have your wallet and a single dollar ready to burn!

Yes – that was a commercial.

You did not imagine that.

This one is too.

🙂

Click this picture if you’d like a free Kindle copy of HAMMURABI ROAD and you happen to live in the UK!

All commercials aside – I hope I’ve helped some of you folks out there who are trying your darnedest to move your own e-books.

yours in storytelling,

Steve Vernon

That’s today only.