I discussed the importance of getting book reviews for your book in a previous post. Another way that I received many of my book reviews was through free book promotions. When it comes to giving books away for free it seems that there is a lot of controversy among authors who sit on both sides of the fence. Some love it, others refuse it. What I would like to do is share my own experiences with you, as well as some tips should you wish to go the free route.
UPDATE: Offering your book for free can still be a good option for book promotion, BUT it is no longer as effective as it was when I wrote this article. The reason being that the choice of free books at the moment is now overwhelming and, I believe, therefore less enticing. Read all about this in my article, The New & Only True Book Marketing Method.
Amazon’s KDP Select (Kindle Digital Publishing Select) Platform was launched in December 2011, just one month after I published my first book. At the time my book was only available on Amazon and I was wanting to offer it for free to reviewers, and so I jumped at the opportunity to join the program. As a formerly unknown international author, I was looking for ways to get my book ‘out there’, and KDP Select offered me the perfect opportunity. Within two months of publishing my book, 1,500 readers had downloaded a copy. I was thrilled. Over the following year, I took part in many free promotions, taking full advantage of spreading the word about me, as a new author, and my book.
A few wonderful things came out of my free promos. Firstly, I received many more readers and reviews than I would have done without offering my book for free. Secondly, after every free promo my book sales were higher than they were at any other time and that usually continued for a couple of weeks. Lastly, being a part of the KDP Select program gave me the opportunity to make additional money every time my book was borrowed from the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (a part of the KDP Select program). Some months this was a few hundred dollars!
One con that I would like to briefly mention here is that when something is offered for free, readers are less fussy and download books that they might not usually be willing to purchase, or are not in their favorite genre. Freebies can therefore mean the possibility of more negative reviews. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but more on that topic in another post.
Obviously if you are offering your book for free and no one knows about it, you will get very few downloads. This will be disheartening as well as defeating the entire purpose. The key to successful free promos is to market the heck out of them. Firstly, you need to make as many sites as possible aware of your promo – see links below. Secondly you need to put the word out there on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, and so on and get others to share the good news too.
Best Places to Advertise Your Free Book Deal
If you decide that the KDP program is for you and would like to offer your book for free, here are some websites where you can apply to advertise your free book promo at no cost. Note that these are not guaranteed listings. Each site has its own rules and specific ways you need to submit your book. Most require at least a few days notice. It takes time to go through all the sites and add your book, but, like all marketing, the few hours spent will be well worth the effort.
Free Booksy
Kindle Book Promos
The Kindle Book Review
Discount Book Man
Free99Books
Bookangel
Best Book Monkey
BookDoggy
It’s Write Now
If you are willing to pay for advertising (and you should), there are many sites that will guarantee a listing of your upcoming free ebook promotion for a fee. Here are some that I have used with success.
Freebooksy
ManyBooks
eReader News Today
Robin Reads
The Fussy Librarian
Hello Books
Ereader News Today
All the best with your book promotions!
Hi, interesting post. And thanks for the links!
However, I want to share (briefly) my experience. I have made free givaways on KPD of all my ebooks (which have had also few but very good reviews (all 4 or 5 stars), but I have sold IN ALL just 4 copies (one ebook) and 2 copies (two ebooks) and zero (!) copies (one ebook, nd it is even the best ever). And zero borrowings.
How is it possible? And now it is some months they are on.
And, last but not least, I have even made paid advertising on one of the most known readers’ website….
Hi Peter, I cannot say off hand why your books are not selling. It could be for any number of reasons. The place to start is to look at the number of hours you are putting into authentic online marketing, in other words, building relationships with fellow authors and potential readers. If you are doing this correctly, then you will look at the next step and so on, until by process of elimination, you’ve found a couple of the weak areas and you can begin to work on them. Usually though, I find that the first step has not been taken care of. All the best with your books, and the online marketing. I hope you will learn some helpful tips here. It takes several hours per day, but it is worth it in the end.
In future, I am going to be offering some giveaways for free online marketing advice. So stick around, and let’s see how we can help you.
Welcome to my blog!
~ Leila
Very helpful! Thanks for sharing.
Have I done everything I need to do to maximize sales on Amazon since the switch from Create Space?
Hi Ruth,
The move from CreateSpace to KDP Print is an easy one and won’t affect your sales.
Other than that, I’m not sure what you’ve done to maximize sales, so I can’t offer advice there 🙂
Kindest,
Leila