Monday, August 18, 2014

My First Kindle eBook Goes Global!

I ran a little experiment that produced better than expected results. Author Jeff Goins has talked about boosting awareness for an eBook with a Kindle Countdown Deal. He has even used it to launch a new eBook.

So, I ran a Kindle Countdown Deal in July for my first eBook, Use Your Smartphone to Lose Weight. The eBook was offered for free for one weekend only. I wanted to share with you the results of that experiment as well as how I set up the Kindle Countdown Deal for those who are new to self-publishing on Kindle.

3-Day July Kindle Countdown Deal Results:
  • 1160 copies were downloaded
  • Breakdown of downloads by country
    • U.S. - 1129 (downloads)
    • U.K. - 14
    • Germany - 2
    • France - 2
    • Japan - 1
    • Australia - 3
    • Canada - 5
    • India - 4
  • Royalties from new Kindle Unlimited program: $5.42
  • Rankings
    • #602 for "Free in Kindle Store"
    • #5 for "Kindle Short Reads: 90 Minutes (44-64 Pages) - Had no clue that was even a category, but I take wins wherever they come.
    • #6 for "Kindle eBooks...Healthy Living"

Day 2 metrics from the 3-day Kindle Countdown Deal.

For a guy who has never published anything before, this was fantastic!  The royalties from the new Kindle Unlimited loan program were icing on the cake. Even cooler...my eBook was downloaded in a global market. Use Your Smartphone to Lose Weight went international! Woo hoo!

Running a Kindle Countdown Deal was about a learning experience for me and the Amazon platform, but it was also about getting my eBook into as many hands as possible. I want to help people with an idea.

Side note: commissions from the KU program are based on customers who download an eBook and read at least 10% of the book. I recommend anyone publishing eBooks through Amazon Kindle to enroll their product in the KU lending library. You can do this from choosing to allow lending for your eBook when choosing your rights and royalties options when you upload your eBook. You can always change your mind later.

How to set up a Kindle Countdown Deal
  1. Log in to your KDP account at kdp.amazon.com
  2. If your eBook is not already enrolled in the KDP Select, do so. One requirement of KDP Select is that you only have your eBook for sale on Amazon.com.
  3. With your eBook now enrolled in KDP Select, you can return to the Dashboard, click on “Manage Benefits” for your eBook.
  4. Click on the button that reads “Kindle Countdown Deal” and choose whether your deal will be a free giveaway or a discounted price. Your deal can last up to 7 days.
  5. Now, get the word out about your promotion through social media, email, etc.

Amazon also does a great job of getting the word out for specials that happen. In fact, the majority of the work was done by Amazon! Their system reminds its customers of deals, and targets those who have downloaded or viewed books similar to yours. Their marketing system is truly tailored to readers’ preferences.

Jeff Goins has a lot of resources to help you launch your next eBook and get it into the Top 100 list for your genre. Subscribe to his email list for those resources here.

Click here to download a free copy of Strength Revisited based on the TEDxCorpusChristi Talk about redefining strength in manhood.

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