Tag: Kindle Countdown Deal

A Taste of Honey – KCD promotion result

On By TomIn Achievement, General, Insight, Novel, Promotion, Review, Short Stories16 Comments

At the end of March 2015, I used the Kindle Countdown Deal (KCD) to promote A Taste of Honey.

I’d never used the KCD promotional tool before, but I had to know if it was effective. The idea is that the title is set at the lowest possible price, and then the author sets increments to move the price up every day or every other day. By the end of the week the title is back to regular pricing.

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Did the KCD promotion work for me?
Yes, I’d say it did. I gave average figures at the time, but I’ve since calculated the sales of the individual title. Over a six day period there were 50 downloads across the various price settings for the promotional book.

Did the KCD promotion work in any other way?
Yes, the promotion achieved a few things for me.

1. A Taste of Honey has been selling almost every day since the promotion.

2. For the first time since publishing A Taste of Honey in December last year, it has overtaken Beyond The Law in daily sales. To put that point in perspective, since a few days after publishing Beyond The Law in October 2013, there has hardly been a day when that title hasn’t sold at least one copy.

3. I’ve seen an increase in sales in the Amazon.com arena which was one of my aims.

4. I have also enjoyed an increase in sales of my other novels and my short story anthologies since the promotion. All of my titles are listed in the back of each of my books, so if a reader enjoys any one of my books, the other titles are there at the back with a blurb. I’ve found it’s better to capture the reader with the title they bought, and then that book must act as my publicity machine.

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Will I use the KCD with any other titles in the future?
Yes.

Would I recommend the KCD to other indie authors?
Yes.

If you bought into my brand during the promotion or since, I’m grateful to you.

As always, thank you for coming by and reading my thoughts. Please leave a comment if you feel so inclined.

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A Taste of Honey – promotion

On By TomIn Achievement, Competitions, General, Insight, Novel, Promotion, Review8 Comments

This week, commencing Sunday 29th March 2015, I am promoting A Taste of Honey with a Kindle Countdown Deal.

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What does that mean to the buying public?
Although the title of the promotion suggests a countdown, it is the period of the promotion that is counted down – not the item price. The item price starts low and goes back up.

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How does it work?
– The book price is adjusted by the author to be at an accepted minimum price, and that is a minimum set by Amazon; not the author.
– The book will be available at the lowest price for a period of perhaps one, two or three days.
– The price will go up in increments at each stage, until it returns to the original price after the week-long promotion.

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In the case of my books I maintain a low price. I am not a household name, so I depend on honest reviews of my work. It’s better to be judged by others than to make claims for the quality of my creative ability. By the nature of the countdown promotion I have very little space to manoeuvre, but I am able to create two low price points before the title goes back to the regular price.

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How does the promotion benefit the reader, or buying public?
It creates the opportunity for a customer to buy a book at a knockdown price.

It also allows the customer the opportunity to perhaps try a new author without feeling that a lot of money has been invested on the basis of the free sample being interesting.

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How does the promotion benefit the author?
It creates added interest in that particular title, but also the author’s work in general.

If the author has an appealing style then he or she may gain many more fans from the act of giving up a little cash.

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I’ve recently promoted my brand by using a Free promotion for two days, and the book used then was one of my anthologies, Smoke & Mirrors; and other stories. It proved popular in six countries so even though I’ve given away hundreds of copies, I consider that a success.
As I’ve said to colleagues in my day job, ‘I don’t want to be famous with my writing – I want to be successful.’

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Writing a novel is not easy, and taking it beyond that first draft is hard. Each successive draft becomes harder as the author tries to tighten up dialogue, reduce excess word count and strive to produce a well-presented, entertaining read for the end user; the customer, the reader.

The most difficult task facing an independent author is not the writing of the story, or even the editing, re-writes, formatting, presentation or self-publishing – it is the marketing.

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There you have it. That is the single unambiguous reason for me pushing my name and brand at every opportunity.

It’s not about being egotisitical – it is quite simply self-marketing; because the only other person who will market for an author is that author’s readership.

Please note that I didn’t say ‘market free for an author’.

Why not?

The reader has paid hard-earned cash to buy into the brand, so when they are kind enough to write a review, it may be free to the author; but not to the reader.

As always, I thank you for coming by and reading my thoughts. Please leave a comment if you feel so inclined.

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