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| Chris Longmuir at the launch of Dead Wood which won the Dundee International Book prize |
I’ve climbed on the bandwagon and enrolled my nonfiction
book Crime Fiction and the Indie Contribution to the Kindle Countdown Deals
promotion.
Now, as you probably know I’m not the best promoter in the
world, and I usually leave my books to do their own thing. I don’t make a
fortune, but I do reasonably okay. However, I listened to another author speaking
about Kindle Countdowns, and with a certain amount of trepidation I decided to
try it out.
First I had to find out how it worked, and here is the Amazon link if
you want to have a look. The first thing I found out was that your book has to
be in KDP Select before you can use this promotional tool, and as I only have
one book in KDP Select, and that is my Crime Fiction and the Indie
Contribution, it had to be that one. I prefer a wider distribution for my crime
novels so that all ereaders can have access to them. I don’t particularly like
restricting my crime novels to Kindle only.
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| The book on Kindle Countdown |
The impression I got initially was that I couldn’t have my
book on countdown in both the US and the UK at the same time. So, I chose the
US. I suppose in a way my choice was a bit perverse, because I’m better known
in the UK. But the deed was done, and the book went on Kindle Countdown in the
US, with the price starting at $0.99, on Tuesday 8th July, with a staged
increase in price until it returns to its normal price of $4.99 on Tuesday 15th
July.
However, I soon found out I was wrong about not being able
to use more than one Amazon platform, for a countdown deal, and that the book
could be on countdown simultaneously in the US and the UK. Apparently all you
have to do is set them up as separate deals at the same time, one after the
other.
Hugely frustrated I reckoned I had missed the boat in
respect of having Kindle Countdown working in tandem in the UK and the US. But,
ever the optimist, I went back to the KDP page where countdown deals are set up
and I was able to schedule a UK countdown, but it would start belatedly on
Thursday the 10th July, 2 days after the commencement of the US countdown. Both
countdowns will end on the 15th July when the price will go back to normal.
So, if you want a bargain, hurry, hurry, hurry and buy it on
the 2 days it will be $0.99 in the US, and the 5 days it will sell at 99 pence
in the UK, but remember to wait until the UK countdown starts on the 10th.
Chris Longmuir
Countdown Deals on Amazon.com
Crime Fiction and the Indie Contibution at Amazon.com
Crime Fiction and the Indie Contribution at Amazon.co.uk
Chris Longmuir Author
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5 comments:
Really helpful Chris. Thanks
I've found the Countdown deals work really well for me in the UK. In fact it's tempting me to stay with Select for longer than I should (which is clearly Amazon's intention!) The best bit about it from my point of view is that I don't seem to need to do that much promo myself. I give them a push and watch them go. Now if I could find a way to improve my US sales, my happiness would be complete!
I'm biding my time to see what happens first. Also I'm a bit averse to exclusivity which you have to sign up to for Select and which is why my novels are not in Select.
Chris, I've done two Countdown deals, the first for The Anniversary, my first novel originally published by Random House, as you may remember. The second, just recently, was for The Secret World of Christoval Alvarez because I had just published the second Christoval novel, The Enterprise of England. In both cases, sales were good - slightly better in the UK than the US. An unexpected bonus was that increased sales continued AFTER Countdown finished and there has been an increase in sales of my other books, so it was certainly worthwhile. I just put up a few notifications on FB and Twitter, no other promotion.
Catherine, I did ok on a Countdown in the US recently - but it took a lot of work. I am a member of a free support group called eNovelAuthorsatWork, who have given me an intensive education course in promotion! Take a look at their resource page http://enovelauthorsatwork.com/useful-links/ and also the list of promo sites on Indies Unlimited http://www.indiesunlimited.com/book-promo-sites/ You have to work really hard to get on as many as you can, then work FB too. Nothing comes easily! I managed to get on eReaderNewsToday - widely regarded as one of the best sites. I also had a lot of support with tweets etc. I didn't make my fortune - but I did manage to shift books in a market I hadn't even opened the door into before. I'm hoping with my new deal with Accent Press I'll be able to sit back a bit from the promo work though!
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