Now I am no Shakespeare, but the question needs to be asked. Shall it be Free or not for free? However, before I get to that I wanted to give you an update.
I have spent so much time trying to learn the best way to sell on amazon kindle.
There are so many different opinions on the best way to write, format, upload and market your book, I got myself quite confused.
I have produced a few training courses over the years and have quite a lot of my own websites. I also sell physical products on Amazon and ebay. SEO and online marketing is my forte, and I would say I am pretty clued up when it comes to ranking websites and using social media.
Kindle however, is new to me and it is taking me some time to get to know and understand the best way to promote my book. I am not sure why as I usually get to grips with these things fast enough.
I think part of the problem is that the advice and opinions are so varied. I am very careful who I listen to and make sure that I checkout that person proffering an opinion, to ensure that they are qualified to give the advice. The 3 or 4 people, whose opinion I value and trust are top sellers on Amazon and very experienced in kindle, and yet they all teach something different in regards to selling price and ways to market your books on the kindle platform.
This has left me having to work it all out for myself. Now, that is not a bad thing, far from it, but, when I am looking at something new, I tend to buy a couple of different courses on the topic, that give me a heads up and a guideline on the best way to move forward and get results in the shortest possible time. Learning from a mentor or someone that has the relevant knowledge is the way I like to do it.
I have never been afraid to ask for help and am happy to pay of it.
In this instance it has not worked for me. I still do not know whether I have set the right price or not or whether I have chosen the right commission level.
What Currency I chose
I went for US dollars even though I am based in the UK and the book was written in UK English. I did this because the US is the biggest market and also because it was the default setting on the Amazon settings 🙂
What Price Should I choose
I went for $7.99 as I thought that this is a fair price for the book. There are other books on the subject of social media that sell from $0.99 up to $28!!! I am thinking that people will believe that, at that price, the quality will be good. I tend to pay a little more and don’t often go for the cheapest option. Only time will tell. It has been on the market for a week and has already had a handful of sales, even though everywhere that I have mentioned the book, I have told people that it will be offering it for free in a week or so.
This appears to suggest that the people who have bought it have found it from searching rather than from one of my promotional tweets or posts. I have not had any reviews as yet though.
What Commission Should I Take?
At the price I have set, I have the choice to take 35% or 70%. I actually went for 35%. That might sound nuts but, there is meaning in my madness. I am thinking that if amazon are getting the lions share then they will put more effort into promoting the book in the rankings and also in the “people also bought” section.
I can change this but, as this is my first attempt, and I am not worried too much about making money at this point with this book (although I am hoping it will be profitable of course). Learning the right way to do it is my goal and so I thought I would try this strategy first.
I did notice that Amazon was already retargeting me and I am being followed around the internet with adverts for Understanding Social Media For Business which is great. They are definitely spending money on marketing my book which is great.
KDP Select or Not
I decided to enroll in the Amazon KDP select program. Actually, that is not true. I clicked on it without thinking too much about it and it was only after that I discovered that a lot of people do not use KDP when they launch their book. It was too late for me and I intend to read a bit more about the pro’s and con’s as I still do not understand the why just yet.
Free or Not For Free
One of the reasons I thought KDP select would be good is that I can put the book up for FREE for up to 5 days. Apparently, they can be any single days or any number running consecutively.
There are so many different avenues to promote the book when it is free, I thought this was a good idea. It was not until I then realised that I have to actually register and upload the details of the book that it hit me. This is going to be hard work and very time consuming.
Software Services
I have found a couple of automated services but they only do a few sites. The one I bought was a software program called KDROI, it submits to about 32 sites. It is a one off payment and you can use it as many times as you like, unlike most of the others where you pay monthly. You can check it out here www.kdroi.com (that is an affiliate link, so if you buy it, I will get a commission). I have seen a few services offered on fiverr but I am a bit reticent about using them as the there could be problems and I don’t want any backlash from amazon for doing something dodgy.
Which Free and Paid sites are worth doing?
After realising that you have to register with a lot of the free book sites and it is very time consuming, it became apparent that this was not necessarily the best way to promote the book. I have used the Kdroi software and got one of my assistants to go onto as many of the others as possible to see how many she can get done in a week.
How many Days to make the book free?
Well again this is another subject which has varying views. In my case, I thought I would offer it for 3 days over a week end. The dates are set 15th to the 17th of April. So mark your calendars or get on my list here to get notified on the day. I just thought it would give people a few days to see the posts and tweets and pick it up for free. 🙂
So that is it for now. I will keep you posted over the next week
You can see the details of the book here
Amazon.com Understanding Social Media
Amazon.co.uk Understanding Social Media
My Publishing Website – Simple Simons Publishing
Join the List to get Notified when the book goes free
I welcome your comments and feedback and any helpful advice you care to share.
