For authors going indie, it quickly becomes apparent that the best way to get the word out about your books and stories is to give some of it away for free. Although handing out novels like they are candy doesn’t have quite the same impact it did two or three years ago, it still may be the best strategy for newcomers to the digital publishing game.
There are several reasons why you should consider going free:
- General exposure: your name and your titles get into the market and under readers’ noses, even if none of them downloads your work.
- You allow readers to sample your work without any risk.
- If you’re writing a series, giving the first book (or related short story) away can be a “loss leader” for getting readers to commit to the whole series.
- Titles that are downloaded enough times can make it onto Amazon’s Top #100 lists in their category and sub-categories, leading to increased exposure, since many readers cruise these lists looking for something to read.
Fantasy and steampunk author Lindsay Buroker suggests that permanently or semi-permanently offering a title for free might even beat out all other advertising avenues. See her great post Does Advertising Work for Authors? (AKA We Wanna Sell More Books, Dagnabit).
How to Go Free
Currently, I know of two ways to go free and still keep the ability to charge in the future:
- The old fashioned way: you must format and upload your work to Smashwords and set the price to your desired amount. Wait for it to propagate to the various channels (Barnes & Noble, iBooks, etc.). This may take a week to several weeks. Once the price has migrated to all of the channels, set it to $0.00 on Smashwords and wait once again for it to reach your channels.
Click for larger image.
Amazon’s automated crawlers and bots will eventually detect the price as long as it’s with what it considers a major competitor (B&N, iBooks), and price match accordingly. This is not an exact science and may take some time. You can help facilitate the process by going to your book’s Amazon page and under “Product Details”, filling out the link “Tell Us About a Lower Price?” (see image, right).
- Enrolling your title in KDP Select. Amazon, knowing the Power of Free, permits authors that enroll a title in Select to make their title free for up to 5 days (in one day increments) over the 90 day enrollment period. In return, that title cannot be sold or given away during the same time frame, i.e., Amazon is the exclusive channel for your book. It’s generally understood that one-day sales don’t often get good results, as some people procrastinate and others like to pass on the sale info to friends who may arrive too late to take advantage of a single day sale.
Strategies
I’ve conducted two “sales” so far using KDP Select and have messed up a few things each time, so I thought I’d compile a punch list of must-do’s that might help if you want to give your sale a chance of making a splash. I’ve also put one title free the old-fashioned way and found out some interesting things there, as well.
KDP Select
(These tips are generally good for either free method, but some may only make sense if you are doing limited sales days through Select. Modify if your title is free the old-fashioned way for longer periods.)
Plan your sale in advance
Pricing your title $0.00 the day after you enroll it in Select doesn’t give any of your promotional efforts a chance to work; the sale will be over before anyone knows about it. As a rule of thumb, hold it at least a week in advance so you can get all your promo organized and give 3rd party websites (see below) a chance at listing you.
Pick your dates carefully
It should go without saying that if you enroll in Select in October, you should probably hold onto your 5 free days until closer to Christmas, or at least until Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S.) or Digital Monday (the Monday after Black Friday), right? But think about other holidays, three day weekends, and beach holidays throughout the year. David Gaughran held a $.99 St. Patrick’s Day Blowout sale where he gathered 26 authors offering 30+ books. The gimmick and the “feel good” nature of the holiday almost certainly helped boost sales better than if he’d held it on a random, unremarkable weekend in the middle of May.
In a more general sense, there seem to be better days than others. Personally, I’ve found weekends to be poor sellers; my assumption is that readers are out doing things, not buying books. I may try a few Tuesday-Wednesday sales just to nab them when they’re at work, clicking around the Internet. Also, Pixel of Ink strongly recommends not holding a sale on the 1st of any month; so many free books come out then, they argue, that yours will get lost in the mess. Read their nice article How to Maximize Free Book Promotions.
Get your social media cooking
Five months ago, the only social media I used was Facebook; I avoided all the other services like the plague, not wanting to get sucked in. Unfortunately, the days of writing in a corner and hoping someone finds you are over; if you want readers to be exposed to your work, you’re going to have knock on some digital doors. The good news is that it’s really not that hard or time consuming.
The basic services and sites I try to hit (by no means comprehensive):
- A blog post (make sure it’s linked in to your Amazon and Goodreads Author pages and it will propagate)
- Mail list if you have one (try Mailchimp.com)
- LinkedIn (several subgroups like Fiction Writers Guild)
- Goodreads (free ebook Group: http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/50149.eBook_Giveaways)
- Digg
- Stumbleupon
Two tips for using social media effectively:
- Register and tinker with these services before you start a sale. The day your book goes free is not the day to figure out how Facebook works. While some of the services and sites are straightforward, some are not and you might waste precious time learning that you’d be better off with a Facebook “page” instead of a “profile”.
- I’ve been experiencing with social media aggregators (HootSuite and Tweetdeck) that allow you to pull Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WordPress, and several other social media networks together into one software application. This may help you keep your sanity by just organizing things but the best part: it allows you to schedule Tweets, FB posts, and messages to other channels in advance. Time these announcements with your 2-day sale and you’ll be able to sit back and watch the numbers instead of scrambling to alert the masses.
Post your sale to sites that list and promote free books
This is the number one traffic-getter for authors just starting out who don’t have a robust personal network (read about the great success I had with one of them here). Many blogging and book review sites know that a huge number of their readers are looking for free books, so they’ll run daily or even hourly updated lists of free books. Note, however, that some require (or you’ll benefit the most from) being alerted ahead of time.
Check out the Squidoo article Going FREE! Kindle eBook Promotional Campaigns for Authors for other tips and sites, though be aware that some of the link information is already dated.
Sites you’ll want to hit on a sale:
Ereadernewstoday
http://ereadernewstoday.com/ent-free-book-submissions/
Pixel of Ink
http://www.pixelofink.com/sfkb/
Kindle Nation Daily
Booktracker
http://tracker.kindlenationdaily.com/tracked-books
Goodreads ebook Giveaways Group
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/50149.eBook_Giveaways
Freebooksy.com
http://www.freebooksy.com/for-authors/
Indie Books List
Make sure Sunday preceding if you can
http://www.indiebookslist.com/kdp-select-submission-form/
Books on the Knob
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHI3UVVZdTZkWUo3d2w3aDExbXk5MEE6MQ
eqReader
Contact form only
http://www.ereaderiq.com/contact/
eReader Freebies
Contact form only
http://ereader-freebies.blogspot.com/p/contact-us.html
Summary
I hope this article helps anyone out there trying to go free or considering it. The advice given and the sites lists are far from complete; please share your knowledge and experiences in the Comments Section!