I gave away almost 800 copies of The Monster’s Daughter on Sunday. That’s about double the total number of copies sold and given away in the 21 months preceding.
Earlier this year, I’d read about Amazon’s “KDP Select” program, which grants authors and publishers certain benefits in exchange for their providing a short period of ebook exclusivity. I dismissed the program out of hand for months. I didn’t want to give up my ebook’s reach into other markets.
Then, a couple of weeks ago, I did something sensible as I geared up to begin editing my next book: I looked at the actual numbers for my first book. I was startled to discover I’d sold four times as many copies of The Monster’s Daughter on Amazon as I had with all other retailers combined even without the benefits of the KDP Select program. After cursing myself for not looking at the numbers seven or eight months ago, I promptly began unpublishing the ebook elsewhere.
Saturday evening, the book was finally removed from other sites. I immediately signed it up for KDP Select, and then signed it up for one of the giveaway days available under the program.
800 copies, guys. 800. You’ve seen me do giveaways here before, but they were always a pain to administer. Now I can just say, “Get it off Amazon, and read it on any of the many platforms supported by Kindle!”
The hardest part of being an indie author is getting a book’s target audiences to even know it exists. Using this program, as many readers found the book in a single day as had found it in almost two years prior. That’s a powerful thing.
My hippie heart curses me for granting a behemoth retailer exclusivity for any number of days, but my business head curses me for not having done so sooner.
Next time I have a business decision to make, I’m going to use my business head first–a novel idea, as it were!
Get your own free copy here today through November 3, 2012.
