It seems counterproductive, but a huge part of being an indie writer is that, at some point, you’ll have to give away your book for free.

…In a BIG way.

Never mind the fact that you took 15+ years to publish the damn thing.

Never mind the fact that you’re still at the point where you’re jumping for joy when you see even ONE sale pop up on your dashboard.

Never mind the fact that one measly sale only makes you like US$1-2, if you’re lucky.

None of that matters.

If you want to get your name out there (and I do)… if you want the world to meet your characters (and I do)… you have to bite the bullet and start flinging your goodies — for FREE! — at the universe.

KDP & Newbie Authors

First, a little about me.

I’m a newbie self-published author, with my first book “Climbing The Walls (Hart & Cole Book 1)” being on the market for about five months now (published July 28th, 2018).

So far, it’s gotten great reviews (5 & 4 star only) from anyone who made it through (check the Book 1 reviews here).

I must thank every single reader who read and reviewed, because I know that picking up a book by a new author (especially one 500+ pages) can be a bit daunting!

My book has always been in KDP Select / Kindle Unlimited — which allows users who pay a subscription to read all eligible books year-round at no extra cost.

One of the benefits of having your book in KDP Select is that you get to list your book for free, for up to 5 days within your 3-month KDP Select period.

KDP Select simply means you’re selling on Amazon only. It’s not for everyone, and some authors have good reasons not to do it.

I’m not a full-time writer, I’m new to the game, and I would hate to have to maintain multiple copies of my manuscript at different retailers (I don’t even know the number of times I’ve re-uploaded after noticing a typo!).

Also, I’m not looking to become a millionaire overnight, and just having my book published is huge for me!

So, all in all… KDP works for me.

And the “free” days are a nice bonus, but only really worthwhile if you’re writing a series.

My book pre-promo: some background

First of all, I should mention I’m not “killing it” by any means. A few sales here and there, and I’m a happy camper.

The most I’ve sold so far in one day was 6 books. Many days are 0. I’m cool with that.

It doesn’t upset me, because literally every single sale means that my cover design, my blurb, my writing (the Amazon “Look Inside” excerpt) are on point — and a few hard-earned dollars were spent by someone!

To my best knowledge (as I don’t religiously check this every day), for the Paid lists, my best stats have been in the top 1,000 in my three main categories (Romance, Family Life, Literary Fiction) and in the top 100,000 overall.

So like I said — not “killing it” by any means!

My book is a super-full-length 555-page 200,000+ word opus of a woman’s fiction/romance novel, the first in a series.

I added an excerpt and a pre-order link for Book 2 at the end of it, to promote sell-through if readers want more.

Book 2 “Pandora’s Poison” launches a month from my free promo (Jan 22, 2019). So, there you go — that was my purpose for making it free!

Preparing for KDP free days: Promotion stacking

In late November and early December, I scheduled my free promo through KDP on Dec 22-23, and then got cracking on the marketing strategy.

There’s no point in making a book free if no one knows to go get it!

I made teasers to be used on social media. Here are some samples:

Now, onto the websites/newsletters to mention the freebie!

First things first, I applied to Bookbub. I was declined. No surprise there. (It’s normal to be denied for a Bookbub deal – especially as a newbie!)

I wasn’t daunted, however. Onto other sites!

I put the promo up on BookSprout, which resulted in 43 opens and 14 clicks — not bad, considering this didn’t cost me anything.

Then, I did some research to find out which sites let you announce your freebie for free.

I found these lists handy:

• DigitalReader
• Kindlepreneur

I submitted my book to 45+ sites total.

This. Takes. Time. Lots. Of. Time. Loads. Of. Time. It. Is. The. Most. Tedious. Thing. Ever.

Of these, less than 10 posted my book (that I’m aware of, because they emailed me. There is a chance it was posted elsewhere but no one told me!)

Of the ones that DID post it, it was often buried at the bottom of the page/newsletter.

One site had a great post for the book, but the “Buy” button didn’t work! I reported it, but by the time they got it fixed, half the day was gone, so I’m sure I missed out on some sales.

…So, yeah. You get what you pay for!

Then, I booked a couple of paid promotions.

Now, I’m super cheap, and it physically hurts to PAY to give away your own book, so this was VERY minimal.

There are loads of newsletter options that have a small cover charge.

The thing is, if you want to crack the Bestseller lists, you need to stack your promos and run several at a time.

Unfortunately, that approach means that I have zero idea which ones paid off in the end between the free ones and the (cheap) paid ones.

I will say good things about Book Raid, though.

Their customer service is good, and you only pay per click — $0.05 per click, up to a max. of $20 for free books.

(For paid books, it’s $0.08 — and I’ve used them before, and only paid like $2. So, not bad!)

They also have a dashboard, so you know how many clicks you got — for this promo, I got 794 (about 720 of this came during the promo, others trickled in slowly after — as the book is offered via Kindle Unlimited, this extra amount may still count as readers).

As the book is free, and the blurb is in the newsletter, I’d like to assume that most of those clicks turned into purchases!

Plus – it’s purple.

And yeah, I’m into purple (in case you couldn’t tell).

…But that’s not a helpful measure of success! 🙂

Anyway, I digress…

The Big Day – FREE promo begins!

Okay, so December 22nd reached, it was 12:00 a.m. — then 1:00 a.m. (I catered for the time difference between USA/Caribbean) — and my book WASN’T free on Amazon. I panicked.

A couple of sites were already advertising it, and it wasn’t free! OMG!

I contacted Amazon support but the KDP team wasn’t available. I emailed some of the sites to tell them to hold off, and I thought the end of the world was coming.

Nothing else could be done.

I went to bed and when I woke up, my book was free… and had already sold over 100 copies.

Because here’s the thing — the promo is in PST. Pacific Time. As in, four hours behind my own time. Yep. I felt like a nincompoop.

Anyway, I posted on Instagram, Twitter, and multiple Facebook groups. I have no idea how effective these were, but they can’t hurt!

A huge THANK YOU to any and everyone who saw my post and downloaded the book!!!

Results – Short Term Ranking Boosts

At any given time, there are hundred of authors running their own KDP free days, and I’m sure at least half of them know MUCH more than I do, and can spend WAY more money than I can to push their book.

So I’m super-thrilled with my results.

I’m also happy that I was able to hit the top 3 in my categories — and the top 100 overall — three days before Christmas with a book that ISN’T Christmas-themed. I was worried. I needn’t have been.

I stayed at #1 in my two main categories for most of the 22nd. Not bad at all. Romance was a tougher nut to crack. Romance is a TOUGH category to crack the top 3! And then I sat in the top 100 overall (#87) for a few hours, which is AWESOME!

So overall, I’ve had almost 2300 downloads with minimal investment — at least 8-10 sites/newsletters/social feeds posted my promo for free, and I forked out the cash to be in a couple of (very cheap) newsletters.

I also sent out my own newsletter to subscribers — my list is tiny, under 200 — with the simple tagline “Here’s your free copy of Climbing The Walls“.

I got my best success rate yet, 41.5% opens and 27.7% clicks. (People seem to like the word ‘free’!)

I also spammed what seemed like a zillion Facebook groups. I doubt that did much. If I got one ‘like’ or comment on a post, that was a lot. But again, it can’t hurt.

Synopsis of my KDP free experiment

I don’t know how the Amazon algorithms work, but putting your book free helps it to get sold!

I’ve climbed the charts in the Paid listing (I’m in top 50,000 overall as I write this, and top 500-1000 in my main categories). It won’t last, but still… it’s the highest my book has ever been!

I also saw a couple sales come in, the day after the promo. Woohoo!

AND I’ve also seen a trickle of newsletter sign-ups and Bookbub & Goodreads followers. Nice! Be a dear and follow:

    

If I had to do it again (and I will sometime soon), I’ll connect with other writers to help push my book in their newsletters, groups and social media. That’s the only thing I didn’t really focus on this time, because I wanted to see how well I could do on my own.

If any other writers are reading this, feel free to reach out to drop me a line and see how we can connect to help each other out!

Connect via:    or drop a line here.

Conclusion: onto the waiting game!

So, here’s my key learning from this experiment:

A lot of TIME, EFFORT and ENERGY go into giving away your book!

It seems counterproductive that you end up paying people to buy your book, but that’s the life of a newbie indie writer.

I’m thrilled with the results. I was hoping to get around 500! At almost 2300, I’m hoping at least 5%-10% of that turns into a review of Book 1, a sale of Book 2, or both.

And now, almost 2300 people have the chance to meet my characters!

Of course, free books often end up sitting around on your e-reader for some time, since it costs you nothing to download it and you can download loads at a time.

BUT I have faith that the book cover will lure you in, while you swipe past others. I have faith that the first few lines will hook you. I have faith that by the end of Chapter 1 or 2, you’ll be invested in my characters.

Most of all, I have faith that if anyone makes it through my book and liked it, they’ll want to buy Book 2! And they should, because Book 2 is going to be SOOOOO much better.

Now, it’s just to sit back… and wait!

Feel free to grab up Book 1 (back to its regular $3.99 price now, BUT it’s still available on Kindle Unlimited), and to pre-order Book 2 – coming January 22, 2019!