# New Kindle Countdown Promotion Options-Promotions Tab on KDP (MERGED)



## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Does anyone else see this? 

Here's my snapshot -


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## Raquel Lyon (Mar 3, 2012)

I don't have one of those. What is it?


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

No idea but it's gone now. Looks like a test.


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## NicWilson (Apr 16, 2011)

Not there for me either. Can't wait to see what it is, though.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I don't see it.

Not seeing sales either. I just hope that means they're busy


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## D/W (Dec 29, 2010)

I haven't seen that in KDP, but there _is_ an Amazon "Kindle Countdown Deals" promotion currently running in the UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/b/ref=dp_brlad_entry?ie=UTF8&node=3167811031. I recognize some KB authors on the book list there, so perhaps one of them will enlighten us.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

DreamWeaver said:


> I haven't seen that in KDP, but there _is_ an Amazon "Kindle Countdown Deals" promotion currently running in the UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/b/ref=dp_brlad_entry?ie=UTF8&node=3167811031. I recognize some KB authors on the book list there, so perhaps one of them will enlighten us.


Interesting! I clicked on a 1/2 dozen of those titles and they were all Amazon imprints. It looks like a Bookbub promo but Amazon specific. Sooo the question is are they rolling it out to all KDP authors or just imprint authors? It wouldn't be as effective if everyone could do it though.


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

Makes me wonder if they're going to allow us to run sales promotions...?


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## David Wisehart (Mar 2, 2010)

This may be what Hugh Howey hinted at in another thread, but couldn't disclose.

David


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## Avis Black (Jun 12, 2012)

The only time I can remember Amazon doing anything that can be called a 'Countdown Deal' was for Christmas sales.  If they set up something of the same for indie books this Christmas, it might be an interesting experiment.


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

David Wisehart said:


> This may be what Hugh Howey hinted at in another thread, but couldn't disclose.
> 
> David


I was thinking the same thing.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2013)

Not sure if this has been out for a while, but I've just noticed in my dashboard a new option to track 'Countdown Promotions.' For KDP select there's a new third tab in the book details page where you create either a timed discount or a free promotion. Apparently it seems like the countdown promotion will place a time by the offer price on your book page so people know when it's running out.

What do you think on this? It's quite cool to make price changing automatic like this, and perhaps gives another incentive for joining KDP select. Not sure if that's quite enough yet, but it's nice to see something new added.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

This magically appeared on my dashboard like two months ago for an hour and then disappeared. And I'm not in Select. Is it fully rolled out now?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Could they be freshening up the Select option finally??


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## Cpersons101 (Aug 27, 2013)

I see it now, so hopefully it is here to stay and does mean you can put things on sale with a push of the button.  It could help get our books out there too, showing that we are running a sale.  Fingers crossed!


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## Cpersons101 (Aug 27, 2013)

This would be great!!  It will show potential customers that they have a deal for a short time.  Also, it might cut down in returns immediately after promotions, because they'll see that it's only a short time till it's over.


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## sighdone (Feb 4, 2011)

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20131031005883/en/Introducing-%E2%80%9CKindle-Countdown-Deals%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94Limited-Time-Discounts-Kindle-Exclusive-Books


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

I'm intrigued but a bit skeptical, to be honest.

Why?

Because I read the on-screen text capture.

Only ONE promotion per enrollment period? If that's per 90 days, that's a lot stingier than what they've been doing with five free days that can be divided up or grouped together.

I can see the potential in a countdown promotion, but the devil's in the details, so I'll await more details.

Personally? I'd be really excited if Amazon were to give up the ability to set up pre-orders by being in Select. That's something I could get behind, big-time.


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## Duane Gundrum (Apr 5, 2011)

It's not bad, but what I'm noticing is that you get to choose either the free books option OR the discount promotion. You can't do both, and they last for the same amount of time.


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

I see it as well. This could be big.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Okay, someone just bumped my old thread and linked to a new article.

Also I just checked my KDP account and it's under my tabs as well! 

Just an FYI for people trying to access the promotion page and aren't in SELECT. We can't get in. To do it you follow this - 

1- Go through the Publish feature, click Save and Continue, Save and Publish (Rights + Pricing), and then move to a new third option (Optional KDP Selects Benefits).


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

"Kindle Countdown Deals can be used by any publisher on any book that is exclusive to the Kindle Store."

So, Kindle Select titles only?


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

On my bookshelf, in the right hand column it reads "manage benefits". That's where I'm seeing the timed promotions. That book happens to be in Select. 

Apparently, you can only do one promotion per enrollment period. You can't do both a free run and a countdown promotion for the same book. 

I think I'll try the countdown for a couple of books.

I also notice that books I kept in Select now have the enroll option next to them. I'll have to see what happened because I know I left quite a few books in.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Ahem, what?

Royalty: Publishers will earn royalties based on their regular royalty rate and the promotional price. As a result, publishers using the 70% royalty option will earn 70% _even if the price is below $2.99_.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

scottmarlowe said:


> "Kindle Countdown Deals can be used by any publisher on any book that is exclusive to the Kindle Store."
> 
> So, Kindle Select titles only?


Yep, definitely looks that way. I just tried to go in and see it and couldn't get to the Promotions page. :-/ It seems as if it's an either/or option for free + a promo for each select book every 30 days. The catcher is that you can run a .99c promo for a 70% royalty rate. If they allowed a little more, i.e. you can do free and 99c or another incentive I'd move back I think.


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## Duane Gundrum (Apr 5, 2011)

Also, just discovered the promo lasts up to 7 days, whereas the free book giveaway lasts for 5 days.


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## Darren Wearmouth (Jan 28, 2013)

I'm not sure I understand the 'countdown deal'. Are they saying that you can advertise a period when your book will be discounted? Wouldn't that just stop the immediate sales at the 70% royalty rate? Unless someone is desperate to buy the book!


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## Cpersons101 (Aug 27, 2013)

Quiss said:


> Ahem, what?Royalty: Publishers will earn royalties based on their regular royalty rate and the promotional price. As a result, publishers using the 70% royalty option will earn 70% _even if the price is below $2.99_.


I didn't notice that...THAT would be nice.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Quiss said:


> Ahem, what?
> 
> Royalty: Publishers will earn royalties based on their regular royalty rate and the promotional price. As a result, publishers using the 70% royalty option will earn 70% _even if the price is below $2.99_.


It's the same for matchbook. If the original price is $2.99 or above and someone buys the matchbook at .99, you get 70% of .99 which comes to .64.

I just tried to enroll one of mine but it only allowed me to enroll it for a week. I decided to raise the price before I enrolled it so the discount would look even better. There's a second book in the series and I think it's time I did some cross-promotion for them.

I'll go back and set up the countdown for the first book as soon as the price goes up.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Oh, I like the sound of this. The still getting 70% royalty is great, but even better, there's going to be a specific deal list. Another list to get your book on sounds like one of the biggest benefits to me.

Pity if it's instead of your free days for that period, but perhaps that's why Amazon is doing it? To reduce the number of books that are free at any one time?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I suppose Kindle heard the "why should I stay in Select" whines.

So basically, you set a start price and then, over seven days the price slowly increases back to its original price.
Have I got that right?
And you an only do it once over 90 days?


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

Here's a link to the actual amazon discount deals page: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=7078878011

Looks like a few familiar KB faces are there


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## Duane Gundrum (Apr 5, 2011)

Quiss said:


> I suppose Kindle heard the "why should I stay in Select" whines.
> 
> So basically, you set a start price and then, over seven days the price slowly increases back to its original price.
> Have I got that right?
> And you an only do it once over 90 days?


Yep, that's how I read it. I enrolled one of my books in it to see how it works. I'm just hoping that it doesn't make so much money that I'll have to shovel cash out of my driveway again. Man, that gets so annoying.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Quiss said:


> I suppose Kindle heard the "why should I stay in Select" whines.
> 
> So basically, you set a start price and then, over seven days the price slowly increases back to its original price.
> Have I got that right?
> And you an only do it once over 90 days?


Yes, but if they're only allowing you a week, it doesn't make sense to raise the price two or three times in just seven days. Can anyone think of a reason for doing it that way?


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Quiss said:


> I suppose Kindle heard the "why should I stay in Select" whines.
> 
> So basically, you set a start price and then, over seven days the price slowly increases back to its original price.
> Have I got that right?
> And you an only do it once over 90 days?


I don't think it increases over that time period....more like there's a clock telling you how long the deal will last


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Wansit said:


> I don't think it increases over that time period....more like there's a clock telling you how long the deal will last


You have the option of one, two or three price increases during the seven days. But if there's a countdown clock for each price increase, it might make more sense to do the maximum number of increase.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> Here's a link to the actual amazon discount deals page: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=7078878011
> 
> Looks like a few familiar KB faces are there


When I look at scheduling, it says I can't start until Nov 2nd, even though that title has never been free or on sale. Weird.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

I have this on my dashboard as well. From hovering, I see an info box that explains you can use either the free days or the promo once per 90-day KDP Select period. You can't use both during the same enrollment period. Another thing I discovered is that your book much not change price for 30 days before you can schedule a promo. I tried to schedule one for one of my bundles, but it gave me a pop up saying I could not do it until Nov 19th to give it 30 days without a price change.  

Will be curious to see how helpful this is.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Book has to be priced at $2.99 to $24.99. Looks like you get a little notice stating it's a limited time deal.

Meh. I already do that in the book's description if I run a limited time deal. So you get your book on a special page. Not worth it for me to pull my books out of the other vendors.


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## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

I like the sound of the countdown promo... especially for older books.

After all, if the only option is free days, I've only liked using them just after launch, to get the book off on the right foot in also-boughts.

But, there's never been a big motive to stay in Select after the first 90 days, because all you can do is make it free again, and that trains folks to anticipate "free."

My having a countdown promotion instead, it's a better deal all around. Because you're actually selling paid copies (though discounted) and people know it's only for a limited time, and once it's gone, it might not be discounted again, or even EVER made free. At least not for 90 days.

I like the idea.

But I still want to see Amazon allow us to do pre-orders like the "big boys-n-girls." To get that same sort of spike, right off the bat, when our book is released.

Sure, not many of us are Stephen Kings, but even if a person only garnered 40 preorders instead of thousands like the big-names do, that'd still be a nice little boost on Day 1.


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## 69959 (May 14, 2013)

I like the feature, but it's not enough to lure me back into Select.


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## sarahdalton (Mar 15, 2011)

This is interesting. I had planned on running a free promo in Dec but I'm tempted to change it to a 99c one instead.


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## MGalloway (Jun 21, 2011)

Countdown Deals FAQ


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/help?topicId=A2MJTCAYTCBNW2

_What is Kindle Countdown Deals?

Kindle Countdown Deals is a new KDP Select benefit that allows publishers to run limited-time promotions on their books, which can help earn more royalties and reach more readers. Customers can see the regular price and the promotional price on the book's detail page, as well as a countdown clock telling them how much time is left at the promotional price.

Here are some of the benefits of Kindle Countdown Deals:
• Time: You control how long your book is discounted, anywhere between one hour and seven days.
• Discount: You set the level of discount, which must be at least $1 off the regular price.
• Royalty : You will earn royalties based on your regular royalty rate and the promotional price. As a result, if you are using the 70% royalty option, you'll earn 70% even if the promotional price is below $2.99.
• Reporting: A new KDP report displays sales and royalties at each promotional price side-by-side with pre-promotion performance, so it's easy to compare.
• Customer experience: It's easy for customers to see the great deal they're getting, as the regular price is included on the book's detail page, right beside the promotional price. Customers will see a countdown clock with the time remaining for the promotion. It's also easy for customers to discover Kindle Countdown Deals on a dedicated webpage at www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals

How will customers discover the deal on my book?

When your promotion begins, your book's detail page will be updated with the promotional price and countdown clock display, making it easy for customers to see the great deal they're getting. Some books will be featured on the Kindle Countdown Deals page which has a range of automated merchandising campaigns to help customers discover deals based on attributes including genre, most popular, recommendations, etc. Additionally, we recommend that you let your readers know about the deal while it is running. _


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## Duane Gundrum (Apr 5, 2011)

Stacy Claflin said:


> I like the feature, but it's not enough to lure me back into Select.


Same here. I'll try it for the few books still in Select, but it wouldn't cause me to unpublish my stuff elsewhere to take advantage of it.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2013)

It certainly makes doing a 99c promo way more profitable at 70% royalty. I can see BookBub + Countdown Promo = massive wins. And being featured on another page is yet another great addition to visibility. Once in a 90 day period though is the kicker. Could still be worth it though.


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## S.R. Booth (Oct 6, 2013)

My book is only in Select until Nov. 4th and I decided I would sign up for this for my last few days to see if it provided any noticeable sales increases.

I ran into problems on both the starting and ending dates. Your book price must not have been changed within the last 30 days of starting the promotion (which mine has) and the book has to be enrolled in Select for at least 15 more days after the Promotion end date. Oh, well.

I think I'm going to let Select run out so I can give Smashwords a try. I guess I can always go back to Select later if Smashwords doesn't show many sales.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

The word Select in this makes it a no win for me. Anything that stops me selling at Apple and Barnes is a "no way in hell" for me. I would simply be losing too much.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

I'm really torn about this. On one hand, I think the best opportunity for profitability with this new addition to KDP Select is now, when it's first being launched. On the other hand, I would almost need to be guaranteed that my income would increase be 2/5s to make up the income I'd lose from not publishing with the other retailers. At this point, it would probably be a safe bet. That 90 day exclusivity thing is a killer though. And if you can't use free days AND the discount promo, then I feel it's not worth it. Come on, Amazon, 12 days out of 90 isn't a whole lot to ask for. Making people choose one or the other lessens the sweetness of the deal.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

ebbrown said:


> I have this on my dashboard as well. From hovering, I see an info box that explains you can use either the free days or the promo once per 90-day KDP Select period. You can't use both during the same enrollment period. Another thing I discovered is that your book much not change price for 30 days before you can schedule a promo. I tried to schedule one for one of my bundles, but it gave me a pop up saying I could not do it until Nov 19th to give it 30 days without a price change.
> 
> Will be curious to see how helpful this is.


Bummer. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have changed the prices on the three books I wanted to put in countdown. Oh, well. I'll just have to wait.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

KMatthew said:


> I'm really torn about this. On one hand, I think the best opportunity for profitability with this new addition to KDP Select is now, when it's first being launched. On the other hand, I would almost need to be guaranteed that my income would increase be 2/5s to make up the income I'd lose from not publishing with the other retailers. At this point, it would probably be a safe bet. That 90 day exclusivity thing is a killer though. And if you can't use free days AND the discount promo, then I feel it's not worth it. Come on, Amazon, 12 days out of 90 isn't a whole lot to ask for. Making people choose one or the other lessens the sweetness of the deal.


I'm going to use it on one of my bundles which I never had in Select before. Of course, that means I'll have to wait to pull the stand alone versions out of Select an extra month since I re-enrolled them at the end of September. Oh well. Honestly, with this promo, I might very well enter my Omnibus as well. I haven't yet because I didn't want it borrowed at $2/pop, but who knows? Maybe I can make up in volume if I have a good sale?


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

MaryMcDonald said:


> I'm going to use it on one of my bundles which I never had in Select before. Of course, that means I'll have to wait to pull the stand alone versions out of Select an extra month since I re-enrolled them at the end of September. Oh well. Honestly, with this promo, I might very well enter my Omnibus as well. I haven't yet because I didn't want it borrowed at $2/pop, but who knows? Maybe I can make up in volume if I have a good sale?


Something I've wondered...can you have a omnibus in select if the books in the set aren't?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Wansit said:


> Something I've wondered...can you have a omnibus in select if the books in the set aren't?


No. If the books in the omnibus are published with other retailers, then you have to delist them before you can enroll the omnibus in Select.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

OK, I've got one set up. I was going to start a free promo tomorrow, but this looks interesting enough to experiment with.  I only have a month left on this book's select membership, so it's no hardship.

It wouldn't let me start until Nov. 2 and was glitchy trying to save the promo, but we'll see what happens when Young Moon drops to .99 for 7 days. Beware, though, it only lets your promo appear in one market (US or UK), unlike the free promos, so I'm not sure it's as good a deal as it could be.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

I'd love to give this a try - except all my books have vanished from my dashboard.  

Thankfully there still there in the reports.


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## Cpersons101 (Aug 27, 2013)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Book has to be priced at $2.99 to $24.99. Looks like you get a little notice stating it's a limited time deal.
> 
> Meh. I already do that in the book's description if I run a limited time deal. So you get your book on a special page. Not worth it for me to pull my books out of the other vendors.


However, on the other places you don't get a specific website that shows the deals. i wouldn't put mine on another site, mainly due to the fact that I don't notice any sales from those sites.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Cpersons101 said:


> However, on the other places you don't get a specific website that shows the deals.


I also like the idea of a dedicated page for this promotion.
Right now there are not a lot of titles to choose from which means visibility. I'm not sure what'll happen to that layout if they end up with hundreds of titles per category. That's a lot of scrolling around.

I'm going to give it a try while it's new and interesting.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Quiss said:


> I also like the idea of a dedicated page for this promotion.
> Right now there are not a lot of titles to choose from which means visibility. I'm not sure what'll happen to that layout if they end up with hundreds of titles per category. That's a lot of scrolling around.
> 
> I'm going to give it a try while it's new and interesting.


Yeah, if you can hop on this now, then it may be worth a go, but once the newness wears off and we're wading through 10,000 titles running a promo at any given time, then the luster will wear off, especially around Christmas. Thought I'd change the price of my shorts to $2.99, but then I have to wait 30 days before I can reduce the price on them? My Select runs out on Nov 24.


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

Seen it. Not impressed. At least not enough to pull down material from other sites. When Amazon stops focusing on exclusivity, I'll give it a try.


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## N. Gemini Sasson (Jul 5, 2010)

I'll have to mull this over, but I like the fact that they're changing things up with Select. It needed a boost of some sort. To me, the big problem with free runs is that it jumbles up your Also-Boughts. I've not had that issue so much when running discounts.

This past spring/summer I ran a couple of BB ads to try to snag readers on other channels. Sales were encouraging for a couple months, but eventually fell away to a trickle. Besides BB or going permafree, there doesn't seem to be a reliable way to maintain visibility on those other sites, being as clunky as they are. I have just one book in select right now and it earns me almost as much on borrows as the other six books do on all other channels combined.


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## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

I have a book that I was thinking of putting up for a free run sometime next week, but I think I'll try a 99¢ promo instead. Not much to lose, since the book was going to leave Select in mid-November anyway, and I was already sort of ambivalent about doing a free run because it's been selling decently.



N. Gemini Sasson said:


> I have just one book in select right now and it earns me almost as much on borrows as the other six books do on all other channels combined.


I'm about in the same boat w/borrows vs. sales at other channels. If the sale does well, I might rethink my strategy of only putting books in Select for one three-month period and then moving them to other channels.


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2013)

ChristinePope said:


> I have a book that I was thinking of putting up for a free run sometime next week, but I think I'll try a 99¢ promo instead. Not much to lose, since the book was going to leave Select in mid-November anyway, and I was already sort of ambivalent about doing a free run because it's been selling decently.
> 
> I'm about in the same boat w/borrows vs. sales at other channels. If the sale does well, I might rethink my strategy of only putting books in Select for one three-month period and then moving them to other channels.


I think that's what my strategy is going to be from now on: Release my books on Amazon first, run a countdown timer promo, pimp it as much as possible via some ads, and then when the 90 days is up place it elsewhere. I see it as a good way of getting some visibility in the main place where it counts.


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## Edward W. Robertson (May 18, 2010)

What a great program. Lends itself to an incredible amount of strategy. I'm not leaving the other stores, but I'm seriously jealous right now.


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## Kia Zi Shiru (Feb 7, 2011)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> It wouldn't let me start until Nov. 2 and was glitchy trying to save the promo, but we'll see what happens when Young Moon drops to .99 for 7 days. Beware, though, it only lets your promo appear in one market (US or UK), unlike the free promos, so I'm not sure it's as good a deal as it could be.


It sounded really cool up until I read this comment... This is so much NOT OKAY with me :/
1 promo (up to 7 days) each 90 days BUT only in US or UK
Original Select:
5 days free (whenever you want) each 90 days worldwide

I'm not in Select with any books but I was thinking about it for a pen name... Now, not so much any more.


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## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

I couldn't even get it to work. Weird glitchiness (and I tried in both Firefox and Chrome). I sent an email to support...I'll see what happens.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

ChristinePope said:


> I couldn't even get it to work. Weird glitchiness (and I tried in both Firefox and Chrome). I sent an email to support...I'll see what happens.


Okay, you guys work out the glitches since I raised my prices and now can't do it until 12/1.


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## jimkukral (Oct 31, 2011)

The concept of scarcity is right on. Very smart of them to test this. 

The problem is in their implementation. The countdown is so small and unnoticeable that it won't be effective really. 

The way this would work is if the put a very big, live countdown timer/feature high up in the book listing that would be in your face that you would see and make you go "wow, I better get this now."


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## blakebooks (Mar 10, 2012)

My initial reaction? Meh. And yawn.

Since being out of Select around Feb, I've earned, to date, an average of six grand a month from other channels, and my sales from Amazon have increased (due to no borrows cannibalizing my sales). 

I see nothing on this that makes me in any way interested in going back to exclusivity on my titles. 

Just my opinion.


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## Ardin (Nov 1, 2012)

I'm giving it a shot on two titles.


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## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> Okay, you guys work out the glitches since I raised my prices and now can't do it until 12/1.


Yep, this is what I got back:

"I'm very sorry for any frustration this issue has caused.

We'll need a little time to look into this problem you're having with the Kindle Countdown deal for your book.

We'll contact you with more information by the end of the day on Tuesday, November 5, 2013 .

Thanks for your patience."

I'll be over here, sighing heavily.  (Actually, I'll probably try again in a day or so, just to see what happens.)


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## David Alastair Hayden (Mar 19, 2011)

ColinFBarnes said:


> I think that's what my strategy is going to be from now on: Release my books on Amazon first, run a countdown timer promo, pimp it as much as possible via some ads, and then when the 90 days is up place it elsewhere. I see it as a good way of getting some visibility in the main place where it counts.


I have a new series debuting in December, and this makes me think a single stint with KDP Select might be worth it for the launch.

Not going to pull any existing titles out of the other stores, though.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

ChristinePope said:


> Yep, this is what I got back:
> 
> "I'm very sorry for any frustration this issue has caused.
> 
> ...


Why does every major company have to work out the bugs on their customers. <sigh>


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## Willo (May 10, 2013)

Ty Johnston said:


> Seen it. Not impressed. At least not enough to pull down material from other sites. When Amazon stops focusing on exclusivity, I'll give it a try.


Seconded.


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## Harvey Click (Oct 28, 2013)

Plenty of sites offer free advertising for free promos. I wonder what sites will offer free advertising for a Countdown promo.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Hey, for anyone that's thinking about trying and had a free run already- I just finished a free run last week and it still allowed me to schedule one of the countdown deals before the end of my select period- don't know if it's just because this is the first month they are doing it or it's a glitch or if it will stop me before the deal actually starts, but I thought I'd let you know in case that helps anyone (should I email and ask?  I don't want to do anything naughty)


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## Guest (Oct 31, 2013)

Harvey Click said:


> Plenty of sites offer free advertising for free promos. I wonder what sites will offer free advertising for a Countdown promo.


BookGorilla are already including a link to the countdown deals page in their latest email.


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

I'm in. Starting at $.99 for my Desolate Trilogy on 11/2 and going up 99 cents every 32 hours until the regular price of $5.99. This will be interesting.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

I scheduled mine for Christmas.


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## StephenEngland (Nov 2, 2011)

Here's my thoughts. I've never had an interest in "free"--giving away full-length novels does nothing but cheapen your work, in my opinion--and serves to glut the market with a lot of books that are never going to be read because people don't have anything invested in them. But, I've been in Select the entire year, making more money in each month off the "borrows" than I had previously in an entire quarter on the other sales outlets combined.

So, this is a massive inducement to stay in Select, and when coupled with a Bookbub promo would halve the number of books needed to break even. I personally couldn't care less about the countdown clock itself, it's the ability to get a 70% royalty rate on a promo'ed book.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

This is kind of a big deal.


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

What are your thoughts? Does it make sense to do this promotion on both of my books at the same time? Or to space them out?


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

Mimi, I agree, this is a big deal for writers who missed the early wave of self pubbing glory. I have stayed in Select with five titles now despite the fact the free option now feels like a disincentive; my 'borrows' are not enough to make any difference. I don't have dozens of reviews which limits my promo options and thus the cloak of invisibility is largely undisturbed.

Select 2.0: 7 days of countdown at full royalty per quarter. I have only begun to consider how best to coordinate this feature between the titles and the series and the sites that promote/announce/advertise such things. I think a cottage industry will spring up around the contours of this new version of Select.

Yes, it's possible that no one will notice one of these promotions but since the Countdown is replacing a dead horse I'm optimistic.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

This is cool beans. The FREE Promotions for my 22 books has garnered great circulation and has quadrupled my sales, so I'm gonna give this a shot too.

Edward C. Patterson


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

I have all my YA titles in Select, so I'm running a 99-cent promo across all the titles as soon as I can, since they're not doing anything else anyway.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

READ THE PRICING POLICY, FOLKS!

Some of you are seeing 70% royalties at 99 cents and jumping in without doing the math.

MATH.

Always do the math.

See where it says the delivery charge is $0.15 per MB? And where Amazon says it rounds file size to the nearest kilobyte? This is important, especially when it comes to box sets and doorstopper fantasies.

Let's take Robert's Desolate Trilogy from the comments above, which is 3515 KB, and apply the math at 99c.

.15 x 3.515 = .52725

That's a delivery charge of 52.7 cents. The 70% royalty is 69.3 cents. That means the NET ROYALTY - what the author can put in the bank - is* 16.6 cents* while it's 99c.

Yes, I'm probably going to play, BUT I'm going to be VERY selective about which titles I put on offer and when...


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Glynn James said:


> You aren't limited by one marketplace.
> According to the set-up, you can schedule one deal PER marketplace (UK + USA only at the moment)
> 
> quote "Kindle Countdown Deals are configured by marketplace. You can schedule *one Kindle Countdown Deal in each available marketplace* during your current KDP Select term."


Good catch, Glynn.


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## StephenEngland (Nov 2, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> READ THE PRICING POLICY, FOLKS!
> 
> Some of you are seeing 70% royalties at 99 cents and jumping in without doing the math.
> 
> ...


Yes, but most of us are talking about single novels, most of which are under 1MB. It's a point worth noting, but for most of us, it will still be a net increase.


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## Kat Lilynette (Oct 12, 2013)

Sliding promotion at 70%? That's all?

They're really going to have to try a lot harder than that to make it worth 90-day exclusivity. To me, it's still not worth it.

Maybe if they made it where only books in Select could be perma-free, then that would be something.


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## Maya Cross (May 28, 2012)

Seems like they've recognised the power of Bookbub and similar services and are giving authors a way to take maximum advantage of them. The profit from a bookbub ad just doubled for people in select. That's pretty damn enticing. It's not enough to get me to pull out of the other channels, but it's not a bad offering by any means.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Maya Cross said:


> Seems like they've recognised the power of Bookbub and similar services and are giving authors a way to take maximum advantage of them. The profit from a bookbub ad just doubled for people in select. That's pretty d*mn enticing. It's not enough to get me to pull out of the other channels, but it's not a bad offering by any means.


I think BB etc might not be as keen to take the advertiser if the book isn't on all venues, though, so it's sort of anti-BB, I think.


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## Pamela (Oct 6, 2010)

I think a lot of people are jumping in on this.  I just tried to do it for my Halloween novel for children because of the timing for this holiday. I got a message that the service is unavailable and to try again later.  Maybe too many people are trying it out all at once.


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

I too got that error message many times when I tried to set it up for 168 hours (7 days). I then set it up for 167 hours and it worked. Try it and let me know us know if that works.


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## Maya Cross (May 28, 2012)

Mimi said:


> I think BB etc might not be as keen to take the advertiser if the book isn't on all venues, though, so it's sort of anti-BB, I think.


Hmm, hadn't thought about that. I didn't realise number of venues was really a factor for BB. Perhaps it is a move against them then. I'm sure we'll know soon enough!


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Maya Cross said:


> Hmm, hadn't thought about that. I didn't realise number of venues was really a factor for BB. Perhaps it is a move against them then. I'm sure we'll know soon enough!


They don't get affiliate revenue for non-Amazon links, but I think they'd like to keep all of their subscribers happy.

Now, if Amazon offered 70% royalty _all the time_ on 99cent titles, I'd change my whole business model, LOL. This current deal works out to about one month out of the year at this rate. It's certainly not insignificant.


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## Pamela (Oct 6, 2010)

One problem is that you can't have changed your price within the last 30 days on the book you enroll for a Kindle countdown promo.  For those who do 99 cent promotions often, you can't do a promotion on a site, like ENT, and then do another for Kindle countdown within 30 days.  It will cut down on what author promotions we want to do on other promo sites.  Unless Amazpm really promotes our books in the Kindle Countdown it just messes with our other promos and may not be very profitable.

I just set up a promo for my Christmas children's book for the 22nd to 27th of December.  It hasn't been up long enough to have done a price change.  But now I can't do a promo before that time on another site with a price reduction.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

Mimi said:


> Now, if Amazon offered 70% royalty _all the time_ on 99cent titles, I'd change my whole business model, LOL.


'

Yeah, I agree, but it's not worth taking any of my titles out of the other stores like this. I'm pretty happy with my sales at B&N these days. It's a lot of extra money. In fact, I made the almost same amount selling 571 books at B&N as I did selling 3000+ books at Amazon at 99 cents. That's eye-opening for me.


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

> I just set up a promo for my Christmas children's book for the 22nd to 27th of December. It hasn't been up long enough to have done a price change. But now I can't do a promo before that time on another site with a price reduction.


This is the whole point of the new system from Amazon's perspective. Cut down on promos on rival sites. Reduce the number of free books. Crank up the price per book sold.


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## ChrisWard (Mar 10, 2012)

With a bit of luck, as people flock to it, it'll mean a drastic reduction in the number of frees since it appears you can only choose one of the two per promo period. Should mean perma-frees get a bit more visibility.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## Nigel Mitchell (Jan 21, 2013)

I don't like it. I love it. I don't think it's a feature that will draw people back into Select, but it gives those of us already in Select another tool in our toolbox.

For me, the big draw is that it completely automates the book promotion sale process. Before, I would have to go in on the night before, set the price down, go into the book description and add the "limited time sale for  until x/2013," and then go back in at the end of the promotion, put the price back up and delete the "limited time" line. Now I can just go in days or months in advance, set up the promo, and I'm done.

Bonus: with manual price dropping, no one knows the price has been dropped until they read the blurb. Some readers probably go, "Oh, it's a cheap 99 cent book" and never get to the blurb. New way, the full and discount price is right there, practically the first thing the reader sees. Plus, there's a clock that screams, "Hurry up, limited time."


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

Pamela said:


> One problem is that you can't have changed your price within the last 30 days on the book you enroll for a Kindle countdown promo. For those who do 99 cent promotions often, you can't do a promotion on a site, like ENT, and then do another for Kindle countdown within 30 days. It will cut down on what author promotions we want to do on other promo sites. Unless Amazpm really promotes our books in the Kindle Countdown it just messes with our other promos and may not be very profitable.
> 
> I just set up a promo for my Christmas children's book for the 22nd to 27th of December. It hasn't been up long enough to have done a price change. But now I can't do a promo before that time on another site with a price reduction.


This is what gives me pause. How am I going to run different promos over one month on one book if it's in Select? Lots of people like to get that great sales boost coming off a promo, and I'm wondering if that will really be so great when you're stuck at $0.99 or whatever for 2 weeks.

What if you do BookBlast one week, BookBub the next week, and maybe ENT in week 3? Let's say you need to be $0.99 for some of those but can't change your price down from $2.99 or whatever it was at. You have to think how you'll do promos, perhaps spacing them 2 weeks apart instead of 1.

30 days before a countdown with no price change. That's 1/3 of your 90 days right there that you can't do much with. And it seems there's restrictions on free promo and countdown usage and their combination.

It's got it's good and bad and I can't wait to see some good analysis on blogs. Hopefully some people signed up can inform us on how it works. I'm trying it out on Nov 8, since that'll be 30 days since my last price change, and I'll let people know.


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## journeymama (May 30, 2011)

It appears that you also have to be in Select for 30 days before you can schedule a promotion.


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

dkgould said:


> Hey, for anyone that's thinking about trying and had a free run already- I just finished a free run last week and it still allowed me to schedule one of the countdown deals before the end of my select period- don't know if it's just because this is the first month they are doing it or it's a glitch or if it will stop me before the deal actually starts, but I thought I'd let you know in case that helps anyone (should I email and ask? I don't want to do anything naughty)


Did you get an answer to this? I had a free run on a book, but it still allows me to set a countdown - which I would like to. But, like you, I don't want to break the rules. Is this something they are allowing for the first month only, due to a change we weren't expecting?


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Only found out about this when I went to my bookshelf. Not sure if this has already been posted, but in addition to the 5 free days, you can also (but not at the same time as free) have a discount on your rBook for upto 7 days and you will still get 70% royalties even if it takes the price below$2.99. Only available in the UK and on .com. They are also going to give the books visibility.

I'm guessing that this is meant to reduce the amount of free books available to a discount model.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Check out this thread already in progress: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,164078.0.html


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

Mysterygirl said:


> Check out this thread already in progress: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,164078.0.html


That seems to be a nano write thread.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Decon said:


> Only found out about this when I went to my bookshelf. Not sure if this has already been posted, but in addition to the 5 free days, you can also (but not at the same time as free) have a discount on your rBook for upto 7 days and you will still get 70% royalties even if it takes the price below$2.99. Only available in the UK and on .com. They are also going to give the books visibility.
> 
> I'm guessing that this is meant to reduce the amount of free books available to a discount model.


You can either do five free days or seven discounted days in one 90 day enrollment period, but not both.

Here's the correct link.

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,162013.msg2326974.html#msg2326974


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Daphne said:


> Did you get an answer to this? I had a free run on a book, but it still allows me to set a countdown - which I would like to. But, like you, I don't want to break the rules. Is this something they are allowing for the first month only, due to a change we weren't expecting?


When I tried to schedule a book that just had a free promo it did not allow it. But it shows Dec 2 as the first possible date. That's odd because my change to free was on Oct 15th

I have another book in the Countdown starting Nov 2nd. (I have the feeling that a LOT of books have that start date).
Kind of exciting to see what'll happen.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Quiss said:


> When I tried to schedule a book that just had a free promo it did not allow it. But it shows Dec 2 as the first possible date. That's odd because my change to free was on Oct 15th
> 
> I have another book in the Countdown starting Nov 2nd. (I have the feeling that a LOT of books have that start date).
> Kind of exciting to see what'll happen.


I think the system is still glitching. Might as well take advantage of it.

I can't do anything until 12/1 anyway since I just raised the price on the three books I want to discount. I'm just as happy with doing it in December. All three are in matchbook, too, so it'll be interesting to see if either of those programs work at all.


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## Anne Frasier (Oct 22, 2009)

Mimi said:


> I think BB etc might not be as keen to take the advertiser if the book isn't on all venues, though, so it's sort of anti-BB, I think.


yes, and the loss of BB, B&N, and iTunes sales...i don't think the 70% would make up for that.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I think the system is still glitching. Might as well take advantage of it.


Definitely glitching. My scheduling page says that, for this book, the countdown has to start AND end on Dec 2nd.


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

Here's the deal. If you're in select, jump on this now.  In a few weeks, the countdown deals are going to be flooded. Imagine 100 pages of countdown deals.  Early movers get the most advantage. 

If you're not in select and have books with other vendors then this deal isn't especially a great draw. First you'd have remove all your books from the other vendors, and that takes a few weeks anyway. Then you need 30 days on select.  You'd have to budget at least six weeks before you can take advantage.  Obviously you'd have to compare the sales from the other vendors combined and to speculated gains of a countdown deal. 

Is Amazon looking to get rid of the free list once and for all? Here's an even scarier thought: enforce a price floor of 2.99 on all kindle books and only those in select get to have .99 cent deals ...


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Looks like you have to have more than 14 days left of your Select plan to use this deal. Both of my books still in Select are expiring soon, and all the options are grayed out for me.

Bummer. Now I need to decide if I stay or if I go...


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

olefish said:


> Here's the deal. If you're in select, jump on this now. In a few weeks, the countdown deals are going to be flooded. Imagine 100 pages of countdown deals. Early movers get the most advantage.


I think the question is, will there really be 100 pages of countdown deals? Sure there will be thousands of books in the countdown program, but it says on the FAQ page for the program that not all books will be included on the countdown landing page here: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=7078878011&tag=viglink126429-20

If you're not default added to the bulk list, then the only visibility will come from a Bookbub, ENT, or POI etc... type promo.

Currently there's only 79 deals total. So let's see in the next week or so if that number goes up signficantly.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> I think the question is, will there really be 100 pages of countdown deals? Sure there will be thousands of books in the countdown program, but it says on the FAQ page for the program that not all books will be included on the countdown landing page here: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=7078878011&tag=viglink126429-20


THAT would be the deal breaker for me. 
I'm currently running a 99-cent special with an ad on Bargainbooksy and it's totally flat. Without the visibility gained through promotion by Amazon there isn't much difference between temporarily dropping a price and automating it through Countdown.
The higher royalty on the 99cents is only good if you move a lot of them.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> I think the question is, will there really be 100 pages of countdown deals? Sure there will be thousands of books in the countdown program, but it says on the FAQ page for the program that not all books will be included on the countdown landing page here: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=7078878011&tag=viglink126429-20
> 
> If you're not default added to the bulk list, then the only visibility will come from a Bookbub, ENT, or POI etc... type promo.
> 
> Currently there's only 79 deals total. So let's see in the next week or so if that number goes up signficantly.


At least they have it broken down by genre at the top. That'll help.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> *not all books will be included on the countdown landing page*: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=7078878011&tag=viglink126429-20


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## philstern (Mar 14, 2011)

I'm a little confused. It's telling me I can't schedule a countdown deal until December 2nd because I need to have been in Select for at least thirty days without a price change. But I have been in Select for more than thirty days without a price change. Is anybody grokking this?


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## timskorn (Nov 7, 2012)

If everyone flocks to KCD, won't that burst the "free" bubble and make that somewhat attractive again?  This will at least siphon away a good % of those people running free programs all the time.  If Amazon adds yet a 3rd promo option someday, that will only help to make all of them more effective as less people will be running one particular promo.  It's a win-win in my opinion.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

olefish said:


> Here's an even scarier thought: enforce a price floor of 2.99 on all kindle books and only those in select get to have .99 cent deals ...


I would welcome this change. It would mean that everyone who typically prices their books below $2.99 would be making more money. It would also put more value on ebooks in general.


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## Harriet Schultz (Jan 3, 2012)

I've never been in Select, but this is tempting. Of course it happens when I'm in the midst of running a $0.99 promo for the book I'd enroll. With the 30 days in Select requirement before you can list something in the countdown, I might qualify by January. Amazon sure knows how to mess with my head.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

KMatthew said:


> I would welcome this change. It would mean that everyone who typically prices their books below $2.99 would be making more money. It would also put more value on ebooks in general.


I can't see pricing a 5K short story at $2.99.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Hah, so now BookBub approved me for a freebie date and plunked me right into the middle of the long weekend (I'm assuming it's a BookBub definition of "flexible" date)
Now I'll have to shuffle my other dates around. This is getting complicated. Juggling promos must be really interesting for people who have books at all vendors.

BTW, this title is ONLY in Select, so I'm not sure if not having your title at all vendors is much of an issue for BookBub


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## Jonathan C. Gillespie (Aug 9, 2012)

This is a nice feature, but it still doesn't encourage me to deny my customers purchasing choices, nor does it provide enough incentive to move away from other channels, where I'm (slowly) bringing in money.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Oh man am I excited about this!

*Excited at the idea of other people in my genre doing it.*

Oh me, oh my, this is such a lateral move. Just to break it down:

- Automated Discounting

*Good!* This is something that is annoyingly missing across many platforms that even a monkey would know was a good idea (but sadly the employment rate of monkeys is very low).

- A New List

*Okay* For the next three months, this will be a good thing for those on it, gaining them visibility. And then people will notice that you can only be king of his particular hill for one week every 90 days at best. Depending on if Countdown sales translate to the Paid list, this might become Good.

- Full Royalties on the Discount

*Good* Again, something monkeys should have figured out, but I find that you need to encourage big companies to even convince them to display basic simian common sense, so I'll toss them a treat on this one--especially since that's their policy on their own involuntary discount policy.

- 7 Days every 90 Days

*Bad* Um... Amazon? Math. This isn't ten percent of the indenture period. And given the 'countdown' nature of the deal, it doesn't even lend itself to being broken up over days like the 5 dinky free days. It's one shot at glory, boom or bust every quarter.

- Mutual Exclusivity From Freebie Days

*Bad* Oh, and once you've, as Bond would say, 'had your six' with the countdown, you no longer have anything useful to do with Select (and don't say borrow. Borrows are awful). You're out. No more special promotional tools for you. Meanwhile, I can give out coupons and hold sales with Smashwords or DriverThru Fiction all the live-long day anytime I want while going free whenever I need to. So It's not _actually_ a new tool in the writer's toolbox, it's a Secondary Fire option (for you gamers out there) for the existing one.

- Price Change-based Lockout

*Bad* OH, but it's not even that! See, because it actually *removes* one of the few promotional tools you have left to you if you're exclusive to Amazon: you can't do a price change if you want to use that super-chocolatey countdown promo! Hurray? No, the other thing--WHAT?!

- No counter On Free

*Seriously?* No, no: Seriously? If you're still going to convince people Select is worth it, at least upgrade your one semi-useful option. 'This Item is Free for...' is a pretty big incentive to get people to sample it. And don't pretend that it would be a burden; Amazon basically provides the internet for half the world, that bandwidth does NOT cost them the 15 cents/MB they steal from you per paid dl.

- Linked to Select

*Bah-hahahaha* Like I said, automated discounting is just a smart idea... and Amazon tied it to their loathsome exclusivity program that really gives you nothing beyond the awful, awful borrows (unless you're selling at 2.99, of course, then they're just regular, singular awful). This is something, like Matchbook, that they should have given to everyone; maybe not with the snazzy little counter, but seriously, people, letting the vendor set their price in a timely and reliable manner is just playing fair with your *business partners*.

Bottom line, I wholeheartedly welcome this... for other people. Dropping folks from the Free lists for 18+ weeks (Select period + time it takes to reinstate permafree), reducing ad demand on the free announcement sites--it's going to be a good Quarter to be permafree.

By February, most people will have figured out it was a cruel joke and escaped, but by then it will be too late and my dark plans will have already come to fruition. *steeples fingers*.

But yes, everyone go sign up right now!


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Vaalingrade said:


> Oh man am I excited about this!
> [...]
> Bottom line, I wholeheartedly welcome this... for other people. Dropping folks from the Free lists for 18+ weeks (Select period + time it takes to reinstate permafree), reducing ad demand on the free announcement sites--it's going to be a good Quarter to be permafree.
> 
> ...


You've just outlined my marketing strategy: get folks to sign up for this, then quietly watch perma-free reap the benefits.

Seriously, though, I hope it works well for those able to jump on it now. I won't be one of them.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Well, that sucks. I just did a Halloween sale on my books, which means I can't even touch this feature until my prices have gone back to normal for 30 days. I'm anxious to try it out, but that's a long wait.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Daphne said:


> Did you get an answer to this? I had a free run on a book, but it still allows me to set a countdown - which I would like to. But, like you, I don't want to break the rules. Is this something they are allowing for the first month only, due to a change we weren't expecting?


No reply yet, and the thing is scheduled to start tomorrow, and it's too late to change it- so I guess we'll see what happens! I will let you know if I get a reply and/or angry email/kicked off amazon


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## CEMartin2 (May 26, 2012)

I couldn't understand it when I read it from my dashboard, but you folks have summed it up nicely. I think anything that helps us authors is great.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Having at least one book FREE every day of the year, I find this is a great option for those books that aren't pulling their locomotive weight (that is when a book becomes a sales caboose). I have books that are wildfire on FREE and they beget tons of sales, and I have the slow starters (particularly poetry, but others too). I also have 110 FREE days a quarter at my disposal, which leaves me with a surplus of 20 days to experiment with this new fangled deal - which might fit in well. And as some have speculated here, if the FREE lists thins, it might help the permafree gangers. When all is said in done, it's another tool, with all the game-rules of Amazon - but remember folks, and I remember having joined the Kindle game 6 years ago this month (11/18/07 to be exact). Amazon didn't make us authors, but it facilitated us to become publishers by giving us (did I say give? no, not give, but offering us) ways to play the game. Authoring is a serious art of high quality creativity to engage readers and leave a legacy. Publishing is the marketing beast, and it's nice to know that Mama Amazon is still stirring the pot — a vessel we can't really complain about (although we do, but only when we forget from whence we came).

Edward C. Patterson


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## Kathy Clark Author (Dec 18, 2012)

So their notice says..

Here are some of the benefits of Kindle Countdown Deals:
•	Set time-bound promotions – You control how long your book is discounted. The time remaining for your promotion will be visible for customers to help generate excitement for the price discount.
•	Customers get a great deal – Your customers will see the great deal they're getting with the regular price included on the book's detail page, right beside the promotional price. 
•	Retain a 70% royalty rate – You will earn royalties based on your regular royalty rate and the promotional price. As a result, if you are using the 70% royalty option, you'll earn 70% even if the price is below $2.99.
•	Increase discoverability – Customers can easily browse live Kindle Countdown Deals at www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals – a great way for you and your books to get discovered. 
•	Monitor performance in real-time – A new KDP report displays sales and royalties at each price discount side-by-side with pre-promotion performance, so you can compare results.


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## Tony Bertauski (May 18, 2012)

This thread (and many more) is why KBoard is invaluable. I pulled out of Select over a year ago, but am toying with the idea of putting a few books back in. This new promo will be interesting.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Having the page SAY that it is discounted is huge. Combined with say Bookbub promotions, it could really be a great selling tool, BUT...

But in Select? I dunno. I am not at all sure I want to do that. This is, I assume, their response to losing a lot of authors from it and it's a good thing. Good enough


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

dkgould said:


> No reply yet, and the thing is scheduled to start tomorrow, and it's too late to change it- so I guess we'll see what happens! I will let you know if I get a reply and/or angry email/kicked off amazon


I had an email response from Amazon which said: "In this case since you already used a couple of days of the Free Promotion Days for your title, the system will not give you the option to use the Kindle Countdown Deals since only one of them can be used per enrollment period. I apologize for the inconveniences that this may cause." But the system _did_ give me the option, although I cancelled it because I didn't want to break the rules. I guess we are not meant to be able to book the Countdown if we have already used free days, but a glitch is allowing some people to have both anyway. Will be interested to know if yours runs OK.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

I've got my historical thrillers set up back to back to run from Nov.21 effectively through December 6th. I chose the three price intervals because we all know what the ticking clock does in thrillers...maybe the same thing occurs in the wild.

My DiPino books are in the doghouse due to an ill conceived free promo in September. We haven't talked about it much but the first dichotomy for Select authors is to choose "free" or "countdown." I'm thrilled to see "free" ride off into the sunset. So long, farewell, auf weidersehen goodbye.


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

David Thayer said:


> I've got my historical thrillers set up back to back to run from Nov.21 effectively through December 6th.


Why did you choose to run them back to back rather than at the same time? I am in the same situation. Currently, I set them up to run at the same time, but still have time to change it.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Something to consider is that with additional promo ops for discounts and free, the readers might just get into a groove of simply waiting until something's on sale, knowing that'll happen sooner or later (if you're thinking of rotating books through the countdown option)
I always see most borrows happen at the start of the month so clearly people are waiting to get the best deals.


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## timskorn (Nov 7, 2012)

Quiss said:


> I always see most borrows happen at the start of the month so clearly people are waiting to get the best deals.


I'm sure everyone would rather buy a book cheaper than its listed price. The question is, what percentage of buyers are aware enough (or patient enough) to sit around in a 90 day period and wait for a particular book to go free or on sale? And would they ever buy the book if it never went on sale? I'd rather get a discounted sale than none at all, and I'm apt to believe that the "couponers" waiting for the best deal would make up a smaller percentage of overall sales.

I have no numbers to back this up. Just a lot of mojo.


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## Kenneth Rosenberg (Dec 3, 2010)

It would be a huge increase in profitability for a Bookbub promotion, but Bookbub wants you to be available on as many platforms as possible, so limiting yourself to Amazon through Select will mean your book probably would have a lot smaller chance of getting picked up by Bookbub in the first place.  I hate the whole idea of Amazon pressuring us into exclusivity.  It's why I dropped out of Select a long time ago, and I'm not feeling this is reason enough to jump back in.  The whole principle of this pressured exclusivity kind of pisses me off.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

JRTomlin said:


> Having the page SAY that it is discounted is huge. Combined with say Bookbub promotions, it could really be a great selling tool, BUT...
> 
> But in Select? I dunno. I am not at all sure I want to do that. This is, I assume, their response to losing a lot of authors from it and it's a good thing. Good enough


I kept several books in Select hoping for borrows to pick up when a new Fire came out with 30 day free prime. Also hoped Amazon would sweeten the pot which is what they are doing. Might be too little too late, but at least there's something to try.


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> I think the question is, will there really be 100 pages of countdown deals? Sure there will be thousands of books in the countdown program, but it says on the FAQ page for the program that not all books will be included on the countdown landing page here: http://www.amazon.com/Kindle-eBooks/b?ie=UTF8&node=7078878011&tag=viglink126429-20


This is the most serious drawback for me. Taken from the Count Down FAQ page:
*How will customers discover the deal on my book?*

When your promotion begins, your book's detail page will be updated with the promotional price and countdown clock display, making it easy for customers to see the great deal they're getting. Some books will be featured on the Kindle Countdown Deals page which has a range of automated merchandising campaigns to help customers discover deals based on attributes including genre, most popular, recommendations, etc. Additionally, we recommend that you let your readers know about the deal while it is running.

The biggest draw for me was getting on that page. It looks like not ALL books will be chosen to be posted there. You'll still have a notice on the sale page that it's discounted, but people still have to get to your page in the first place. I suppose this is how AMZ will keep the discount pages from growing like a gorilla on steroids, but it dramatically decreases the attractiveness of this.

That said, it's gonna be the new game in town and maybe it's worth a shot. I dunno. I might put one of my books in Select again, but we'll see.


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

Mysterygirl said:


> The biggest draw for me was getting on that page. It looks like not ALL books will be chosen to be posted there.


I wonder if this also depends on the genre. I see there are 41 "Literature & Fiction" books, 30 "Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense," and 10 "Science Fiction & Fantasy." On the other hand, only 6 "Nonfiction" and just 1 "History," which is my genre. I wonder Amazon will try to fill out each category.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

michaelenewton said:


> I wonder if this also depends on the genre. I see there are 41 "Literature & Fiction" books, 30 "Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense," and 10 "Science Fiction & Fantasy." On the other hand, only 6 "Nonfiction" and just 1 "History," which is my genre. I wonder Amazon will try to fill out each category.


I think we'll see those fill up very quickly as the early adopters jump on this.
Mine (and some other KBoarders') starts tomorrow, so I guess we'll see.

But, yes, without additional promo directly from Amazon, this really isn't any better than discounting a book manually for a few days.


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

Quiss said:


> I think we'll see those fill up very quickly as the early adopters jump on this.
> Mine (and some other KBoarders') starts tomorrow, so I guess we'll see.
> 
> But, yes, without additional promo directly from Amazon, this really isn't any better than discounting a book manually for a few days.


Mine start on Sunday. Fortunately, I am near the end of my window, so my next chance to run this promotion won't be too far in the future (if the thing works). The few books I've seen running the program have seen improved sales (based on the drops in their sales ranks). We'll see if that continues once there are hundreds or thousands of books in the program.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

Daphne said:


> I had an email response from Amazon which said: "In this case since you already used a couple of days of the Free Promotion Days for your title, the system will not give you the option to use the Kindle Countdown Deals since only one of them can be used per enrollment period. I apologize for the inconveniences that this may cause." But the system _did_ give me the option, although I cancelled it because I didn't want to break the rules. I guess we are not meant to be able to book the Countdown if we have already used free days, but a glitch is allowing some people to have both anyway. Will be interested to know if yours runs OK.


I did 3 free days in October but also signed up. Amazon really should have sent their email and TOS out yesterday instead of just putting it there on the dashboard for authors to play with. Their incompetence is my gain. Or is it? My book will never get on the countdown page because I don't have a cozy (read publisher) relationship with them. And if my hands are tied on how I can promote books for 30 days before and 14 days after, well, I don't know.

This is the new toy in the window and everyone's staring and thinking about going back into the store. I think Amazon was feeling a little more pressure from Oyster than I originally thought. I think I'll keep walking down the block, and stay on my schedule to pull my 2 Select books out come January.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Probably be a mass infusion of discounted books online in this once the folks are aware of it. Instead of millions of free books, you will have both poisons now, free and discounted books.
Face it, too many books vs. Fewer readers. At least you get the full profits on a book less than 2.99
So you have the choice, do a free promo or a discounted promo.....but only one out of the two.
Anyone had any good results out of this thus far?

BM


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Doesn't this diminish the value of BookBabe ads and their ilk? Once Countdown is common knowledge, won't those 1 million subscribers head straight for the Amazon discount landing page and search by favorite genre rather than waiting for BB to lead them to a specific discounted title? My ears aren't the best, but I swear I can hear the sound of rear ends tightening over at BB HQ.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Mike McIntyre said:


> Doesn't this diminish the value of BookBabe ads and their ilk? Once Countdown is common knowledge, won't those 1 million subscribers head straight for the Amazon discount landing page and search by favorite genre rather than waiting for BB to lead them to a specific discounted title? My ears aren't the best, but I swear I can hear the sound of rear ends tightening over at BB HQ.


I never thought about this before, but you are so totally right.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Mike McIntyre said:


> Doesn't this diminish the value of BookBabe ads and their ilk? Once Countdown is common knowledge, won't those 1 million subscribers head straight for the Amazon discount landing page and search by favorite genre rather than waiting for BB to lead them to a specific discounted title? My ears aren't the best, but I swear I can hear the sound of rear ends tightening over at BB HQ.


Maybe so, but what fraction of books are going to be eligible? The vast majority of books won't be is my guess.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

This part from the amazon email makes me feel better about this program:

"Increase discoverability – Customers can easily browse live Kindle Countdown Deals at www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals – a great way for you and your books to get discovered." 

Now it obviously the featured books will be handpicked by amazon, but the fact that it seems like anyone running a promo at any given time will be added at the bottom of the page, or page 2, 3, 4, 5 etc... depending on how many promos still makes it easier to get visibility.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Maybe so, but what fraction of books are going to be eligible? The vast majority of books won't be is my guess.


The fraction will be massively larger than the tiny sliver of books that pass current past BB muster.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

Michael, I went back to back in part to extend my time in the batter's box, so to speak, and because the two books in question have never been free or even discounted very much. One is new, and the first book in the series might as well be, so I'm trying to draw attention to the series.


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2013)

lacymarankevinmichael said:


> This part from the amazon email makes me feel better about this program:
> 
> "Increase discoverability - Customers can easily browse live Kindle Countdown Deals at www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals - a great way for you and your books to get discovered."
> 
> Now it obviously the featured books will be handpicked by amazon, but the fact that it seems like anyone running a promo at any given time will be added at the bottom of the page, or page 2, 3, 4, 5 etc... depending on how many promos still makes it easier to get visibility.


When was the last time you looked on page 3 or 4 of Google? I don't think it'll help out most authors. And I'm also sure the promo sites are scrambling now. I already sent an email to ENT asking them how they'd handle price changes in 24 hours, or if they'll even list those. No word yet (they never reply to me).


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## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

Saul Tanpepper said:


> Maybe so, but what fraction of books are going to be eligible? The vast majority of books won't be is my guess.


I started to freak out a little over this (since I have an ad scheduled for the 20th), but you're right. Most BB ads for discounted books are not in Select. The title I'm promoting hasn't been in Select since January.



Mike McIntyre said:


> Doesn't this diminish the value of BookBabe ads and their ilk? Once Countdown is common knowledge, won't those 1 million subscribers head straight for the Amazon discount landing page and search by favorite genre rather than waiting for BB to lead them to a specific discounted title? My ears aren't the best, but I swear I can hear the sound of rear ends tightening over at BB HQ.


I had the impression that people sign up for BookBub because they don't want to spend hours digging through lists of free or discounted books and would rather have a curated list delivered to them.


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

Anyone know if you can run more than one Kindle Countdown Promotion per period. If I run one for a day, is that it for the 90-day period? Or can I use the remaining six days some other time? I assume its the former (one promo per period, regardless of the length of time), but I didn't see this explained anywhere.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I'm thinking that once people get used to this new feature, they are likely going to only look at the new Countdown titles to see what's 99 cents and not pay a lot of attention to the ones that have raised in price a few days along. I can see myself routinely clicking on the link, glancing over the list to see what's new and come back the next day to see what's new THEN.


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I kept several books in Select hoping for borrows to pick up when a new Fire came out with 30 day free prime. Also hoped Amazon would sweeten the pot which is what they are doing. Might be too little too late, but at least there's something to try.


I may *consider* it for my new novel since I wouldn't have to withdraw it from other venues. It's something to think about.


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## SBJones (Jun 13, 2011)

> *Why can't I run Free Book Promotion and Kindle Countdown Deals in the same enrollment period?*
> 
> In designing our promotional features and options, we are looking to find a balance - if there's too much use of these tools, it may average down effectiveness for all authors. We've taken the approach of providing options and asking authors to choose in an effort to best strike that balance.
> 
> ...


I think for a new novel, you could leverage Select pretty well. But I for one would want some pre-approved and booked promotions from ENT and Bookbub before I ever signed a book into select. No amount of free or 70% royalty 99c promo will make you money unless you can generate the visibility to go with it.

Building a business plan around Select is ill-advised as well. Amazon changes their algorithms to much to rely on them as the only source of sales.

But if you can get the promo sites to take your new novel with 0 reviews and hammer out a few well timed promo's, it could really work quite well I think. We will have to wait and see how they weight the sales ranking on these.


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## Mike_Author (Oct 19, 2013)

For me it's a no-brainer.  I am in Select already as I had terrible experiences with Smashwords & LULU.

I have already signed up a few books for promos to see how it works.

Is Amazon losing authors to other platforms?  Are there any published pieces on current market share trends between the stores?  That would be interesting.  If Amazon continued to lose market share it would probably force me to try an aggregator again.  But I would have to offset it against lost borrows (which is one of my biggest money spinners)


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

As with all things Select, some  prosper and some don't. Those who don't will insist nobody can.


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## mariehallwrites (Mar 14, 2013)

I think it's great. I think it sucks that it's only available for Select though. I can't yank my titles from other places, I have too many readers at those other places to piss them off by putting all my eggs in the Amazon basket. Hopefully they'll offer this for all of us soon, though I doubt it.


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

I tested the countdown promo setups and here are a few of my notes:
- You can choose to run a Countdown from 1-7 days (though a few tests gave me a range from six to eight days, probably quirk of start/end or particular titles)
- Countdown is a one time only run, so if you only use 1 day then that is all the book will get for your 90 Select membership. I expect most authors will make a week long run when they do it. You can do .com and .uk separately.
- Free day promos you can post five single days or any combination up to five days straight. I use sniper shot free days on the days I know will maximize exposure. Almost no readers download on Tuesdays and very few on Fridays since they are too busy with funny Facebook posts and planning for after work activities for example to be looking for book promotions. Most free day users see a peak after three days of a run so most people use two or three days at a time. Countdown doesn't let you split days like this, which is a major disadvantage.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

My gosh!

You can all call me an oracle! What Aunty Amy's touting as a new promotional deal is actually a thinly disguised attack on free. You can have one OR the other but not both. I did say in that other thread (when authors write for nothing I think) that they would move to stomp on free. This is that next step.

However, I intend to use it. Not for any of my back titles. None of them are in Select anymore, and I don't want to take them out of Smashwords etc. But I have a new one in editing at the moment and I'll launch it with this promotion. One week at half price to launch a book should give it something of a boost, especially if they add it to their list. I wish I could run a bookbub add in advance but can't since they'd require proof that the book was going to be published on such and such a date when it hasn't yet been published.

Then in ninety days it comes out of Select because I don't want to offer a discount again on the book. As someone else so rightly said - readers will simply hold off buying if they know its coming up in a sale in a few weeks. I also don't want to use matchbook since so few of my sales are paper.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

I would answer, but I'm too busy pointing and laughing that this was thier Big New Thing to fix Select.

Between this and increasing the ceiling for Super Saver Shipping, I'm kind of stunned 'zon got their heads out of their butts long enough to implement the actual intelligent Matchbook program.

It's like watching someone fall down the stairs, but manage an Olympics style Y pose landing on one step before proceeding to tumble brokenly to the next landing right after.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Those readers that loved the freebie book promotions have just received another cheap way out as for getting great books to read for .99 each.

The only good part in this is the profit payout is double for the Author for each .99 book sold. Yes, it will eliminate some of those free books but it only trains the readers to search for both free books now and those discounted "almost free" books at .99 each or a little more.

As more books are written and uploaded each month, in a few years the chances of making any decent money in the ebook game will be lost. Its only going to get tougher down the road in marketing ebooks. I remember the micro-stock photo craze when it began. Photographers could make a small fortune with little risks or effort because it was in its infancy.

Well, the ebook craze has been out for years now and its harder to make money than went it first began. Another thing hurting sales of ebooks is the uncertain economy. I don't know where or who thinks the recession is over but hate to bear the bad news....it still continues daily for millions of people. Î know of nobody who is doing well now and in my area of the country, money is not plentiful. That 2008 trainwreck is still laying scattered throughout many households with many trying to dig their way through the rubble of the greedy.

I tend to agree with what Quiss posted about the readers checking back everyday or two for new .99 ebooks. Of course, there will be quite a few books that will take off in sales from using it.

The results of using the new program will slowly begin to infiltrate the threads here before long with results on how using this program helped with book sales.

BM


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## Terrence OBrien (Oct 21, 2010)

Vaalingrade said:


> I would answer, but I'm too busy pointing and laughing that this was thier Big New Thing to fix Select.


Its not broken. The number of books in Select continues to increase. Its at 350,000 now.

And they have just given Prime members twelve free books per year. I got my free book today. Think many Prime members are complaining about that? Think Prime members give a hoot what some authors think? Any reason to think Prime members think Select is broken? Think Amazon is more concerned with Prime members or a subset of independent authors?

So membership in both Prime and Select keeps growing. Whats broken?


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## Kathy Clark Author (Dec 18, 2012)

I took 15 off my back list that I have no intention of listing elsewhere and game them all  price discount few days.  I'm interested to see how they respond.

I would not take anything off other channels to put back on to KDP select however.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Well, my Countdown starts tomorrow.
I'm kind of stoked to see how it does. This early out of the gate it should do well.  If it doesn't, it's not going to do any better once hundreds/thousands more titles are added. 
Guess we'll all find out tomorrow.

ETA: of course I just realized that I forgot to change the time on this and by default it starts at 8am PDT rather than midnight PDT as I had expected.


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## James Bruno (Mar 15, 2011)

So, how does this sound as a strategy? Before I enroll in Select/Countdown, I jack up my ebook prices from $4.99 to $6.99. Once these new prices are set, I then enroll. This way, the discount to, say, .99, looks that much more appealing.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

I checked the program out earlier James and it looks like some others have maybe raised their prices some in anticipation of "making the cheese more tempting to the mouse."

Hey, it could work out though!

BM


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

James Bruno said:


> So, how does this sound as a strategy? Before I enroll in Select/Countdown, I jack up my ebook prices from $4.99 to $6.99. Once these new prices are set, I then enroll. This way, the discount to, say, .99, looks that much more appealing.


Timing is going to be our problem. You get one week of that promo and then you're stuck with the higher price for a month. If you use your discount, then hear about some cool group promo here for discount books _~*you're screwed*~_.


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## James Bruno (Mar 15, 2011)

I just re-read the fine print. You can't monkey with the price 30 days before and 14 days after Countdown. 

Anyway, having been among the front line of those who benefited when Select was launched (and reaped great rewards), to me, Countdown is a no-brainer. I'm willing to take the plunge. My sales with the other vendors have been nil. I've got nothing to lose. I just returned today to Select after a long hiatus to place my books strategically in time for the holiday shopping season. Early next year, those of us who entered Countdown will need to compare results.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

thats 44 days then of being "frozen" with one high priced book for only a promotional run of 6 - 7 days. That is like 8 weeks....quite scary to be trapped, not only are you secluded to select but your book price is frozen too.

You have to carefully consider what you do with this, "sounds more like we are the mouse and they are tempting us with the cheese."
Certainly think about not risking more than one book in this until later after others post results.

If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is!

BM


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## David Wisehart (Mar 2, 2010)

Book Master said:


> thats 44 days then of being "frozen" with one high priced book


You can promote a $2.99 book to 99 cents.

Is $2.99 high-priced?

Really?

David


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

olefish said:


> Here's the deal. If you're in select, jump on this now. In a few weeks, the countdown deals are going to be flooded. Imagine 100 pages of countdown deals. Early movers get the most advantage.
> 
> If you're not in select and have books with other vendors then this deal isn't especially a great draw. First you'd have remove all your books from the other vendors, and that takes a few weeks anyway. Then you need 30 days on select. You'd have to budget at least six weeks before you can take advantage. Obviously you'd have to compare the sales from the other vendors combined and to speculated gains of a countdown deal.
> 
> Is Amazon looking to get rid of the free list once and for all? Here's an even scarier thought: enforce a price floor of 2.99 on all kindle books and only those in select get to have .99 cent deals ...


Very scary thought and a possibility. They wouldn't even need to do it that way nowadays. They could simply stop price matching, or limiting it in some way. Let's say they decide not to price match books that are free for longer periods (compared to how long they are paid) in a year. Every permafree would be back to paid in a jiffy. That would destroy my sales, as most are driven by my two entry level books.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

David Wisehart said:


> You can promote a $2.99 book to 99 cents.
> 
> Is $2.99 high-priced?
> 
> ...


He's referring to James Bruno's contemplation of kicking his price up to make the discount look better.

44 days of not being able to drop from 2.99 to 99 to take advantage of other promotional opportunities is still brutal. You basically have to alpha strike everything you have into that 7-day window and pray because you're getting nothing special afterward.

And if they make Countdown sales only count for the Countdown list like the Free lists work? Oh my.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

James Bruno said:


> I just re-read the fine print. You can't monkey with the price 30 days before and 14 days after Countdown.
> 
> Anyway, having been among the front line of those who benefited when Select was launched (and reaped great rewards), to me, Countdown is a no-brainer. I'm willing to take the plunge. My sales with the other vendors have been nil. I've got nothing to lose. I just returned today to Select after a long hiatus to place my books strategically in time for the holiday shopping season. Early next year, those of us who entered Countdown will need to compare results.


We can just keep this thread going and report results here -- same thing as we did with Select Free. My first promotion is November 6th.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

I have never been in select, and while this sounds neat... It is not enough of a draw for me to abandon the rest of my stores. Still I will be watching this thread to see I am wrong... I suspect those of you in the first 60-90 days of this will reap rewards, then it will fall off.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

On the reports page, underneath prior months royalties, there's a #4 Promotions to track your countdown sales.



James Bruno said:


> So, how does this sound as a strategy? Before I enroll in Select/Countdown, I jack up my ebook prices from $4.99 to $6.99. Once these new prices are set, I then enroll. This way, the discount to, say, .99, looks that much more appealing.


You have to wait thirty days after joining Select to do a promo anyway so might as well raise your prices now. I raised mine but only by $1 to $4.99.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Well, my promo starts in two hours. I'll update here.

I just went to Amazon and, thinking like a reader poking around, clicked on Kindle Books.  There is no big announcement about this. Only a menu selection in the left hand menu. 

So I clicked on that. Yesterday, there was an scroll bar with sci-fi titles at the top of the page, today I had to refresh the page to make it pop up.
There are the same number of titles currently as there were yesterday. Isn't anyone jumping on this?


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## Lynn McNamee (Jan 8, 2009)

Quiss said:


> Well, my promo starts in two hours. I'll update here.


Could you make a new thread about your results? I would really love to know, and I'm afraid your post would get lost here.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

I just jumped in and noticed that the default start time--in my case 8 AM--would have shorted me 8 hours of promo time. To get your full 168 hours (7 X 24), be sure to scroll up to 12 AM in the drop-down start time window.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Quiss said:


> Well, my promo starts in two hours. I'll update here.


Great thanks!



> I just went to Amazon and, thinking like a reader poking around, clicked on Kindle Books. There is no big announcement about this. Only a menu selection in the left hand menu.
> 
> So I clicked on that. Yesterday, there was an scroll bar with sci-fi titles at the top of the page, today I had to refresh the page to make it pop up.
> There are the same number of titles currently as there were yesterday. Isn't anyone jumping on this?


There seem to be different books then when I looked yesterday. So I think something has changed. I did not look real close though.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

VydorScope said:


> Great thanks!
> 
> There seem to be different books then when I looked yesterday. So I think something has changed. I did not look real close though.


I'm seeing a big announcement on the home page. When I click on it, the categories are featured authors, literature & fiction, science fiction & fantasy, and mystery, thriller & suspense.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

I just bought a $6.99 mystery for $1.99. As a reader, I'm liking this a lot.

#66 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

#2 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators
#2 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Mystery > Private Investigators
#51 in Books > Literature & Fiction



ETA: Now that I bought this one, it disappeared off the carousel.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Jackung prices up to game the system is no more than abusing a reader. Readers are gold whether they pay or not.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> Jackung prices up to game the system is no more than abusing a reader. Readers are gold whether they pay or not.


Jacking up the price by only $1 gave me more countdown increments. The reader can get a $4.99 book at .99, 1.99, 2.99 or 3.99. I don't see where that's abusing the reader at all. Just giving myself more leeway in the timing of the countdown. And I intend to leave the price up after the countdown is over.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

I wasn't replying to you Gertie. My remark was general on in response to the previous proposal of price jacking to get full bl value, which oy hurts the reader and an author's branding. Royalties aren't affected


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Edward C. Patterson said:


> I wasn't replying to you Gertie. My remark was general on in response to the previous proposal of price jacking to get full bl value, which oy hurts the reader and an author's branding. Royalties aren't affected


I know you weren't, Ed. There will inevitably be some who jack up the price by several dollars to get the max royalty, but I hope those are few and far between.


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## James Bruno (Mar 15, 2011)

I decided not to jack up my prices, but to leave them at $4.99. Readers indeed are golden. 

This new AMZ offer may be good for those authors, like myself, who sell very little on the other sites. But if I were selling well on Nook, Kobo, etc., I likely wouldn't jump at this. But doing it as a 90-day experiment is acceptable in my situation.


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## Sandra K. Williams (Jun 15, 2013)

Quiss said:


> Well, my Countdown starts tomorrow.


Your author page shows the new price but not the countdown.  I was watching the author page because i didn't know which title would be on sale. I look forward to reading it.

Amazon kind of dropped the ball here. The countdown really belongs on the author page too.

Whine: Why can't *all* the retailers do something like this? It seems so backwards to have to manually change prices instead of scheduling sales.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

All right, Zon, it's fifteen minutes past the launch for my title and it's not there. Sheesh.  

Also not there is HSSt.Ours' Young Moon, which is tricky since he just sent an email blast to his readers. 
The suspense is killing me.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Sandra K. Williams said:


> Your author page shows the new price but not the countdown.  I was watching the author page because i didn't know which title would be on sale. I look forward to reading it.
> 
> Amazon kind of dropped the ball here. The countdown really belongs on the author page too.
> 
> Whine: Why can't *all* the retailers do something like this? It seems so backwards to have to manually change prices instead of scheduling sales.


Thanks for letting me know.
When I look it still shows the old price, but perhaps that is because I'm viewing this from Canada?


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## ElHawk (Aug 13, 2012)

Still not enough to lure me back to Select.


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## Lady Starlight (Oct 19, 2013)

Quiss said:


> All right, Zon, it's fifteen minutes past the launch for my title and it's not there. Sheesh.
> 
> Also not there is HSSt.Ours' Young Moon, which is tricky since he just sent an email blast to his readers.
> The suspense is killing me.


I put several of my books (went Live at 8:00 am PAC) up and they haven't appeared yet either. (If they ever will) It appears they choose who they want (people who are already doing well) so it's absolutely worthless if you're looking for visibility help or don't have anything planned for it to make it effective. But even if you had something planned, it's no different than just having manually changed your price anyway, so what's the point?

Kind of annoying they offer you a deal that in essence, is not really a deal.

If you could have been the first few on the page with only 79 results, it would mostly likely have been great for sales.

** To Clarify I meant to say my countdown sales were active right on schedule. However, it is not showing on the actual Kindle Countdown Page, which defeats the whole purpose of getting visibility for your books. As of now it still shows only the 79 results. This implies that Amazon must select whoever they want to appear on the page. Again, if this is the case, this "deal" isn't a deal for most authors and is not worth anything unless you appear in the countdown deals section. **


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## David Wisehart (Mar 2, 2010)

Mine is livel

http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Lair-David-Wisehart-ebook/dp/B003AOA4IQ

The new KDP report form for these promotions looks pretty awesome, too. New data fields include royalty/hour, revenue/hour, and comparison to prior week average.

David


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Lady Starlight said:


> I put several of my books (went Live at 8:00 am PAC) up and they haven't appeared yet either. (If they ever will) It appears they choose who they want (people who are already doing well) so it's absolutely worthless if you're looking for visibility help or don't have anything planned for it to make it effective. But even if you had something planned, it's no different than just having manually changed your price anyway, so what's the point?
> 
> Kind of annoying they offer you a deal that in essence, is not really a deal.
> 
> If you could have been the first few on the page with only 79 results, it would mostly likely have been great for sales.


What title is yours? Perhaps none that were supposed to launch at 8am are there yet. 
From what I understand, _all _titles will be listed at the bottom part of the page (where people can just sort by newest or price or whatever). It's the scrollbars near the top that'll make the difference, in terms of visibility.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Quiss said:


> All right, Zon, it's fifteen minutes past the launch for my title and it's not there. Sheesh.
> 
> Also not there is HSSt.Ours' Young Moon, which is tricky since he just sent an email blast to his readers.
> The suspense is killing me.


Yep, I think there's lots of us. They just aren't adding us to the deals page. Or at least not yet.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

David Wisehart said:


> Mine is livel
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Lair-David-Wisehart-ebook/dp/B003AOA4IQ
> 
> ...


Weird. Not seeing it. And when I go to your page at .com I still see the old price. This may well have to do with me being in Canada, but I see 76 other titles on the Countdown page, so what's up with that?
When I click on Konrath's Trapped which is showing at 99, I can only buy it at the regular not-discounted price. This is sure to annoy the international buyers, I'm thinking.


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## Lady Starlight (Oct 19, 2013)

Quiss said:


> What title is yours? Perhaps none that were supposed to launch at 8am are there yet.
> From what I understand, _all _titles will be listed at the bottom part of the page (where people can just sort by newest or price or whatever). It's the scrollbars near the top that'll make the difference, in terms of visibility.


I am hoping that is the case and I suppose we shall see in the next few hours. I think I saw someone in this thread quoting Amazon and the quote said that Amazon will selectively choose some books to appear on the page. If that is so, then that is most unfortunate as many will not be able to benefit from the program.

But as of now it's still showing the same results it's showed for the past several days. (79) If the numbers move we will at least know new titles have been added. Keep me updated and I will do so as well!


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I'm suddenly very glad that I did not do an email blast to announce the sale.

On their info page, Amazon suggest that authors do promote the Countdown sales. Given that this is only available in the US and UK, that'll make juggling such email notifications just a bit awkward. I'm getting a little irritated now. And I'm only on my first cup of coffee!


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## Lady Starlight (Oct 19, 2013)

Quiss said:


> I'm suddenly very glad that I did not do an email blast to announce the sale.
> 
> On their info page, Amazon suggest that authors do promote the Countdown sales. Given that this is only available in the US and UK, that'll make juggling such email notifications just a bit awkward. I'm getting a little irritated now. And I'm only on my first cup of coffee!


I suppose if you're already doing well enough that Amazon advertises your books and puts you on the page, then this program is great! But if you're not...

I just don't understand why even bother introducing this feature at all. It changes absolutely nothing unless you're the aforementioned. You could always manually change your price anyway.

Here's to hoping that we appear on the page  but I would not hold your breath!


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

By my reckoning (here in the UK and currently on GMT) it's 07.55am Pacific time so still 5 mins to go before my promo launches. anxiously biting nails now.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Lyndawrites said:


> By my reckoning (here in the UK and currently on GMT) it's 07.55am Pacific time so still 5 mins to go before my promo launches. anxiously biting nails now.


Clocks change tonight, right? We're three hours ahead of PDT. I think. Now I'm confused (which is actually my natural state of being)


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Lady Starlight said:


> I suppose if you're already doing well enough that Amazon advertises your books and puts you on the page, then this program is great! But if you're not...


The plan was, I believe, to put them all there, at least on the total list at the bottom of that page:

From Amazon:


> 4) There's a dedicated website: Customers can easily browse active; Kindle Countdown Deals at www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals, providing yet another way for books to be discovered.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

I do see David's sales page with the timeclock. I'm in Seattle. It may be worth noting that our freshening breezes are threatening to move Amazon headquarters from South Lake Union to somewhere west of the freeway.


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## Martin Rothery (Nov 2, 2013)

I've got one, but it's completely useless unless you're enrolled in KDP select.
It would be nice if Amazon let authors run more promotions without enrolling. I'm sure it would produce more sales for them.


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## Lady Starlight (Oct 19, 2013)

Quiss said:


> The plan was, I believe, to put them all there, at least on the total list at the bottom of that page:
> 
> From Amazon:


Yeah. I saw that. But so far, they've added no new titles. I wonder how many other people are out there that had theirs scheduled to hit today? Either way, it hasn't updated yet. So either there is a delay or it is like someone else said in this thread; they selectively choose the titles that appear there. Let's hope for the former!


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

I'm hoping/leaning towards delay too, just for the simple fact that I ran through all 80 some odd pages of Post-apoc books that are at the 99 cent price point and mine is not there, even though it's 99 cents on the book page for the promo.  So hopefully that means Amazon's just being slow about the entire thing.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

Perhaps like the guest who didn't realize that the party had ended hours earlier, I stayed in Select. I think I hear voices from the kitchen, maybe this party has started again.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

The UK store also appears to be listing a small (74) number of titles on its Countdown page.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Yes, Mike, and I rather think they're the same books. Deborah Geary and Stephanie bond are both there as is Kurt Vonnegut's _Slaughterhouse 5_.

Which is not what I understood when I read the TOC. I thought it meant you could promote to one market only and had to choose which one in which to do so. Colour me puzzled.

My book's still not there and I can't see anything by Quiss, either.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Lyndawrites said:


> Yes, Mike, and I rather think they're the same books. Deborah Geary and Stephanie bond are both there as is Kurt Vonnegut's _Slaughterhouse 5_.
> 
> Which is not what I understood when I read the TOC. I thought it meant you could promote to one market only and had to choose which one in which to do so. Colour me puzzled.
> 
> My book's still not there and I can't see anything by Quiss, either.


You can promote each book once in each market, US AND UK.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Lyndawrites said:


> Yes, Mike, and I rather think they're the same books. Deborah Geary and Stephanie bond are both there as is Kurt Vonnegut's _Slaughterhouse 5_.


yeah, that Kurt Vonnegut made me wonder.
I'm guessing they grabbed a random list of Select authors for display purposes, since those titles have been up since they posted the announcement. Maybe they ran into some glitches this morning.
I don't really mind being a guinea pig, but some authors will have made announcements and this is time-limited. So losing a day would be a big deal.

I'm going to take my annoyance out on on the bathtub, which is in need of caulking.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Which implies that if you promote in the UK, you can't promote it on dot.com, doesn't it? Doesn't it? When I booked the promo I had to choose in which market to promote it. 

Looking again at the UK site, there does appear to be one book there that's not on dot. com. Maybe the invitees (like Deborah, Kilborne/Konrath) are allowed to appear in both, and we poor Select schmucks can only be featured on one?

Quiss - I agree. I've only booked 3 days.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Lyndawrites said:


> Which implies that if you promote in the UK, you can't promote it on dot.com, doesn't it? Doesn't it? When I booked the promo I had to choose in which market to promote it.
> 
> Looking again at the UK site, there does appear to be one book there that's not on dot. com. Maybe the invitees (like Deborah, Kilborne/Konrath) are allowed to appear in both, and we poor Select schmucks can only be featured on one?
> 
> Quiss - I agree. I've only booked 3 days.


I did not have any problem scheduling promos this week in BOTH the U.S. and UK stores for the same book. Once I set up the promo for the US store, I clicked the same book on my dashboard and the drop-down window defaulted to the UK store.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Mike McIntyre said:


> I did not have any problem scheduling promos this week in BOTH the U.S. and UK stores for the same book. Once I set up the promo for the US store, I clicked the same book on my dashboard and the drop-down window defaulted to the UK store.


Ah, well. Lesson learned. Thanks, Mike.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I'm remarkably ticked off now.
Someone please stop me from writing a nasty note to Amazon.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

David Wisehart said:


> Mine is livel
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Devils-Lair-David-Wisehart-ebook/dp/B003AOA4IQ
> 
> ...


There was no countdown on your page when I clicked on it, David. It just had the normal price. (Checking from Canada on .com)

One of my books is supposed to be "counted down" today, too. No sign of it that I can see...yet.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

EC Sheedy said:


> There was no countdown on your page when I clicked on it, David. It just had the normal price. (Checking from Canada on .com)
> 
> One of my books is supposed to be "counted down" today, too. No sign of it that I can see...yet.


I'm getting that the discounts are only offered in the US and UK, so discounted prices would not appear for us, even if viewed on .com
However, we should at least SEE the titles, not just the 76 samples they threw up there. Or am I wrong?
Is anyone seeing more that 76 titles in total?


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Checked out the "Countdown deals"

http://www.amazon.com/b/ref=amb_link_386001482_1?ie=UTF8&node=7078878011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=auto-sparkle&pf_rd_r=1Z1GSZQNK1K24HQQD234&pf_rd_t=301&pf_rd_p=1647875822&pf_rd_i=countdown%20deals

Isn't there supposed to be clock that shows the countdown progression? These just look like normal price reductions to me.

EC (confused as always)


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Quiss - I'm only seeing 71 (in the UK looking at dot.com) starting with Slaughterhouse-Five and finishing with Close Enough to Kill by Marjorie McGinley.

I can't see any pricing details on David's page - the whole area is just white space. then again, I can't see any price on my own page either. Could someone kindly check it out, please? 
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C9KWJUI

EC, yes I thought there was supposed to be a clock too.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

well,
The kindle countdown deal seems to be underway for some.

So, the "question of the day" is who is showing and are you selling?

You know I just have to ask.......

BM


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

I'm in america and looking at the .com site.  I currently see 79 titles.  At launch, there were 79, then yesterday for a period, there were 80, and now they're down to 79 again.  But if you don't at least get added at the bottom of the screen in the mega list, even if it is on page 3 or 4, then this program will not be worth it save a ent, bookbub, or poi promo.  

I know that amazon can be slow to update lists until about 3pm eastern time a lot of days, but if that's the case, then they're burning over 15 hours of your first day promo.  

come on Amazon, just add our books for the mega list already.  That's what was promised in the email you sent you.  Jeez.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Lyndawrites said:


> Quiss - I'm only seeing 71 (in the UK looking at dot.com) starting with Slaughterhouse-Five and finishing with Close Enough to Kill by Marjorie McGinley.
> 
> I can't see any pricing details on David's page - the whole area is just white space. then again, I can't see any price on my own page either. Could someone kindly check it out, please?
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C9KWJUI
> ...


I don't see anything different on your page, Lynda. Just what's below--and lots of white space, too.

A Novel Way To Die [Kindle Edition]
Lynda Wilcox (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
Digital List Price:	$2.91 What's this? 
Kindle Price: $2.91 includes free international wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
Length: 94 pages (estimated) 
Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Bless you, EC. That's very kind.

Interesting though, cos it's retail price is $2.99, and that's what shows on my dashboard. I wonder why it's showing $2.91. Hmm/

Thanks again.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I sent a  message to Amazon, asking if the promo will be extended or if it can be cancelled/rescheduled before I lose more of my 99-cent day.

Tactfully, I refrained from asking if they were using the same web developers as Obamacare


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## Lady Starlight (Oct 19, 2013)

Quiss said:


> I sent a message to Amazon, asking if the promo will be extended or if it can be cancelled/rescheduled before I lose more of my 99-cent day.
> 
> Tactfully, I refrained from asking if they were using the same web developers as Obamacare


I'm a little miffed because I put five of my books into the promotion. So now I'll just lose money for the days I selected because of the few people that would have bought my books anyway will now be getting it at a discounted price that I only set because of the promise of visibility. Oh joy.

And as far as it being canceled or even rescheduled, it says you can't do either on the countdown tab. It's sure making out to be a great asset for indie authors!


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Only see 79 books listed over multiple pages? There has to be more than that of Authors who signed up to it.

Surely, its a fluke! Maybe Zon is trying to get the kinks worked out.

Going back to check it out once again.

BM


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Lady Starlight said:


> I'm a little miffed because I put five of my books into the promotion. So now I'll just lose money for the days I selected because of the few people that would have bought my books anyway will now be getting it at a discounted price that I only set because of the promise of visibility. Oh joy.


And don't forget that now you won't be able to use the free promo for your select titles for this enrolment.
Boy, I am unbelievably ticked. 
I may just eat some crow and join my fellow authors in their exodus from Select.


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## Daizie (Mar 27, 2013)

Lyndawrites said:


> Quiss - I'm only seeing 71 (in the UK looking at dot.com) starting with Slaughterhouse-Five and finishing with Close Enough to Kill by Marjorie McGinley.
> 
> I can't see any pricing details on David's page - the whole area is just white space. then again, I can't see any price on my own page either. Could someone kindly check it out, please?
> http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C9KWJUI
> ...


Did you wait a little bit? it took about 10 seconds to pop up, but the clock is very small. It could be a much more eye-catching graphic. It's lame. People who are flash browsing might miss the clock because of the little delay.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

For anyone who has scheduled a promo and is now worried about glitches discussed above, remember that you have until 24 hours before your promo starts to cancel it.


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## Daizie (Mar 27, 2013)

I wonder if they will be posting any erotica or erotic romance on their visibility pages. Most likely not.

If greater visibility is not guaranteed, I just don't see the benefit of this. The countdown is cute, but I'm not sure how it's any different than reducing the price yourself for a day, or three. You're expected to self-promo either way. If you get shiny shelf-space, that's entirely different, but they're still at 79 books, which says they didn't update to include new books at all in 24 hours and $crewed over all the happy guinea pigs rushing out of the gate.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

My countdown seems to be working but no one seems to be buying. Not that I did a vast amount of promotion. Still, I expected at least some results. 

And I'm miffed because they wouldn't let me run the UK promo at the same time as US. I have to wait 14 days (because they evidently count the US promo as a price change) and then I only have 3 days left in Select and that's all they'll let me schedule the UK promo for. So I'm out 4 days of countdown on the UK site.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> My countdown seems to be working but no one seems to be buying. Not that I did a vast amount of promotion. Still, I expected at least some results.


Are you in the US? Do you see your book at http://www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals ?
If so, do you see my title there? Should be under Sci-Fi "Rebel Alliances"


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Daizie said:


> If greater visibility is not guaranteed, I just don't see the benefit of this. The countdown is cute, but I'm not sure how it's any different than reducing the price yourself for a day, or three. You're expected to self-promo either way. If you get shiny shelf-space, that's entirely different, but they're still at 79 books, which says they didn't update to include new books at all in 24 hours and $crewed over all the happy guinea pigs rushing out of the gate.


Yeah, I'm starting to come around to this view. I have until midnight tonight to cancel my scheduled promos. If the Countdown page doesn't jump substantially beyond 79 titles before then, I'll pull out.

@Quiss: You mentioned above that you had emailed Amazon about this. Which email address are you using?


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Quiss said:


> Are you in the US? Do you see your book at http://www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals ?
> If so, do you see my title there? Should be under Sci-Fi "Rebel Alliances"


There're only 10 SF&F in that countdown list, Chris. And only 79 for all genres. Neither of our books are in it.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Well. I'm obviously still not listed. I've just had a sale of A Novel Way To Die at the regular price show up on my usual sales reports.

Doh.

I've not seen any KB boarders on the lists that come up for me.


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Greater visibility is NOT guaranteed. It says they choose who will be on the countdown list.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Mike McIntyre said:


> @Quiss: You mentioned above that you had emailed Amazon about this. Which email address are you using?


I just used the form on the KDP site. It's worked well for me in the past. Not sure they work on Saturdays, though.
https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/contact-us

I have a very bad feeling that Amazon will come back to clarify that only SOME books will get featured on the page. These two statements on their FAQ page are vague and conflicting

Under benefits:
_• Customer experience: It's easy for customers to see the great deal they're getting, as the regular price is included on the book's detail page, right beside the promotional price. Customers will see a countdown clock with the time remaining for the promotion. It's also easy for customers to discover Kindle Countdown Deals on a dedicated webpage at www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals_

Then below that:
_*Some books* will be featured on the Kindle Countdown Deals page which has a range of automated merchandising campaigns to help customers discover deals based on attributes including genre, most popular, recommendations, etc. _

(Emphasis mine)

I just can't imagine that they'd post 76 titles, including some very old stuff, and call it a day. That doesn't seem like the Amazon way of doing business.

If, however, that is the case, this thing is pretty worthless. I'd have to sell a lot of lower priced copies to be happy with the higher royalty or make it worthwhile to purchase advertising elsewhere to promote it. 
And of course, any chance of promoting the title via the five-day freebie promo for Christmas is now down the drain.
Man, I'm glad I didn't use my new title for this!!!!

Chris


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## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Quiss said:


> Are you in the US? Do you see your book at http://www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals ?
> If so, do you see my title there? Should be under Sci-Fi "Rebel Alliances"


Quiss, My understanding is that only SOME of the books put into Countdown will be displayed on the dedicated page. This is from the FAQs: 
*How will customers discover the deal on my book?*

When your promotion begins, your book's detail page will be updated with the promotional price and countdown clock display, making it easy for customers to see the great deal they're getting. Some books will be featured on the Kindle Countdown Deals page which has a range of automated merchandising campaigns to help customers discover deals based on attributes including genre, most popular, recommendations, etc. Additionally, we recommend that you let your readers know about the deal while it is running.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

DreamWeaver said:


> Lynda, I'm in the U.S. Here's a screenshot of your book's product page:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Odd, I still see Lynda's book at the normal price on .com viewed from Canada. No apparent countdown info.

The book I set up for countdown remains unchanged as well. Obviously, it depends what server is at work on any given moment...


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Mysterygirl said:


> Quiss, My understanding is that only SOME of the books put into Countdown will be displayed on the dedicated page.


I'm afraid you're right.

Now let's see...



> • Time: You control how long your book is discounted, anywhere between one hour and seven days.


Whereas before you could change your price for however long you like.



> • Discount: You set the level of discount, which must be at least $1 off the regular price.


Very good for those who can't figure out how to change their prices in the bookshelf...



> • Royalty : You will earn royalties based on your regular royalty rate and the promotional price. As a result, if you are using the 70% royalty option, you'll earn 70% even if the promotional price is below $2.99.


Meh. And it'll cost me $140 to advertise this on BookBub.



> • Reporting: A new KDP report displays sales and royalties at each promotional price side-by-side with pre-promotion performance, so it's easy to compare.


Be still my beating heart.



> • Customer experience: It's easy for customers to see the great deal they're getting, as the regular price is included on the book's detail page, right beside the promotional price. Customers will see a countdown clock with the time remaining for the promotion. It's also easy for customers to discover Kindle Countdown Deals on a dedicated webpage at www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals


Except for your deal of course. Cause your name isn't Konrath or Vonnegut

I need to learn from those who saw this as the non-entity it is, rather than jump on the nearest bandwagon when I see one.


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## Guest (Nov 2, 2013)

Cherise Kelley said:


> Greater visibility is NOT guaranteed. It says they choose who will be on the countdown list.


So how is this chosen? The same gatekeepers that are now blocking all the erotica books get to decide what's good for the promo page and what isn't. If my publisher greases their palm will that help. Oh yeah, I don't have one. Guess this Countdown is not for me.

I have a feeling this thread will be filling up with a lot of "I've been duped" comments in the coming weeks. And a few "I really had a ton of sales...at $0.99 and like 3 at the next 3 tiers."

I feel a little sorry for those running it now - seems like there's lots of problems. Past 30 days hasn't been much for rollouts.


----------



## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Quiss said:


> I need to learn from those who saw this as the non-entity it is, rather than jump on the nearest bandwagon when I see one.





Greg Strandberg said:


> I feel a little sorry for those running it now - seems like there's lots of problems. Past 30 days hasn't been much for rollouts.


And then again, for me it was an experiment, to see if being an early adopter for something new would pay off. If it doesn't, I'm only out another failed KDP promo and a few weeks more tied to Select. I'll survive. But if they come through in the next few days with an expanded Countdown listing, and they _promote_ that, it might be worth it. I'll suspend judgement. For now.


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## morgan_n (Oct 21, 2011)

My Smashwords sales are insignificant anyway. I'm going to put my main title back into Select. Nothing to lose, & the 70% royalty on the sale price will certainly help.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> And then again, for me it was an experiment, to see if being an early adopter for something new would pay off. If it doesn't, I'm only out another failed KDP promo and a few weeks more tied to Select. I'll survive. But if they come through in the next few days with an expanded Countdown listing, and they _promote_ that, it might be worth it. I'll suspend judgement. For now.


I found "Young Moon" on this page.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_1?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133143011%2Cn%3A7078878011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A668010011%2Cn%3A158591011&bbn=7078878011&ie=UTF8&qid=1383424444&rnid=668010011

and this page

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133143011%2Cn%3A7078878011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A668010011%2Cn%3A158591011%2Cn%3A158592011&bbn=7078878011&ie=UTF8&qid=1383424471&rnid=158591011


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I found "Young Moon" on this page.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_1?rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133143011%2Cn%3A7078878011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A668010011%2Cn%3A158591011&bbn=7078878011&ie=UTF8&qid=1383424444&rnid=668010011
> 
> ...


Thanks, Gertie. I was unable to locate any mention of Countdown Deals from the main Kindle Store or Kindle eBooks pages. How did you find it? Is there a back door?

UPDATE:
A Countdown promotion appeared for me on the Kindle eBooks. Finally. Maybe it's just now populating the system?


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Quiss said:


> I need to learn from those who saw this as the non-entity it is, rather than jump on the nearest bandwagon when I see one.


Personally, I love a good bandwagon ride.  But they are better when they have flags.

Unfortunately, it seems this wagon passed me by/buy.  Eight a.m. is long gone and still my book page shows no price reduction or countdown.

http://www.amazon.com/Morning-Contemporary-romance-friends-ebook/dp/B0075R4RAU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1383425633&sr=1-1&keywords=ec+sheedy


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

EC Sheedy said:


> Personally, I love a good bandwagon ride.  But they are better when they have flags.
> 
> Unfortunately, it seems this wagon passed me by/buy.  Eight a.m. is long gone and still my book page shows no price reduction or countdown.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Morning-Contemporary-romance-friends-ebook/dp/B0075R4RAU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1383425633&sr=1-1&keywords=ec+sheedy


I see your book as .99, EC. And the countdown clock shows 17 hours left.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I see Young Moon on the Countdown page now. Total 270 titles.
Not mine, though.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Quiss said:


> I see Young Moon on the Countdown page now. Total 270 titles.
> Not mine, though.


Hang in there, Chris. I think it's just taking it's sweet old time to populate.


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

I have a title countdown starting in 2.5 weeks. I'm interested to see what happens.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Quiss said:


> I see Young Moon on the Countdown page now. Total 270 titles.
> Not mine, though.


think it's still populating, my bookshelf report just changed too, hopefully you and I are up next


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> Hang in there, Chris. I think it's just taking it's sweet old time to populate.


Yes, I'm sure I'll pop up an hour or two before prices change back 
I'm so done with this. Why would we assume that, at this point, any new "feature" would significantly benefit the authors?

I think I will stick with my plan to make one of my titles permafree as soon as I can. Tired of the hoops.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> I see your book as .99, EC. And the countdown clock shows 17 hours left.


Good to know. Thanks so much for checking! I can't see anyone's countdown pages from my perch on Vancouver Island (Canada). Even the ones on the countdown list. Weird.


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## Iwritelotsofbooks (Nov 17, 2010)

Wow, I go out for a while and get back and the countdown page has gone from 79 to 274.  How long before there's 1000 or 10,000?


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

EC Sheedy said:


> Good to know. Thanks so much for checking! I can't see anyone's countdown pages from my perch on Vancouver Island (Canada). Even the ones on the countdown list. Weird.


Have you tried logging out of Amazon, then going to amazon.com without logging in?


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

18 pages of books now, but you have to dig and search. It shouldn't take many days to weeks before this program looks like the free book program. Lots of time searching page after page at discounted books.

Sounds like another great idea of Zon to sell more of those kindles only now the new purchaser gets free books and discounted books to boot.

Now that is a steal of a deal, a great marketing strategy by Zon once again.

The Authors will have to promote these discounted books just like with the freebie promotion. Some of the freebie sites let you list discounted books on promos so that is one option.

Once this thing gets running wide open, there will probably be some new book promotion sites popping up that let you advertise your discounted book promos. Maybe some of those free book sites that accept only free at the moment might change to discounted books for a fee.

There will be some serious money made off of this new Zon invention but not at its infancy stage. I wonder if anyone out there is thinking of designing a new website to host thousands of discounted book promos? Maybe another Bookbub type book site for discounted book promos......just saying

Have to applaude those who jumped right into the fire off the go to test this new program. You guys and gals rock!

BM


----------



## Incognita (Apr 3, 2011)

Well, now I don't feel so bad about it glitching on me so I couldn't set up a promo for my book.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> Thanks, Gertie. I was unable to locate any mention of Countdown Deals from the main Kindle Store or Kindle eBooks pages. How did you find it? Is there a back door?
> 
> UPDATE:
> A Countdown promotion appeared for me on the Kindle eBooks. Finally. Maybe it's just now populating the system?


Go to Kindle ebooks and on the left side of the page, you'll see a list of Kindle Book Deals. The countdown is under that listing.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

JFHilborne said:


> I have a title countdown starting in 2.5 weeks. I'm interested to see what happens.


Sounds like the early adopters are ironing out the glitches. Glad I'm waiting until December. Hope it's all smoothed out by then.


----------



## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

I haven't tried the FREE promotion sites yet. Just using facebook and the Discussion groups so far, but since I brought my 2 dozen books over the program (August), my circulation has jumped to nearly 40,000 books and sales have quadrupled (almost like the old days of 2008-9). I have a list of some 32 free promotion site tuck away somewhere when the eventual cycle runs low, but the new Countdown Promo looks like another alternative when the FREE push gets old and lonely. lolo. I'm an old hack t getting the word out and attracting readers, but was surprised with the jump, and with 22 books to make measurements, I can see patterns in which books move and which ones don;t. When I get a few more month of this . . . what d'ta call it, Permafree experience under my belt, I'll write an analysis and put it out (I was a Marketing Director for a fortune 500 company, before I discovered the error of the pursuit of money   or at east my employer thought it was time to put the dinosaurs out to the Jurasic pastures). I hope Amazon has a few of these stimulatic programs up their sleeve. 

Edward C. Patterson


----------



## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Well, I’ve opted in on my 2 experimental titles, one fiction and one non-fiction. These are the last days of remaining in Select for these titles — will see how it goes!


----------



## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Pfft, meanwhile they still be hatin' my book.
Instead, in my genre they have books published last century, a German language title and several without reviews at all.
I wonder what their criteria is for putting books on that page.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> My countdown seems to be working but no one seems to be buying. Not that I did a vast amount of promotion. Still, I expected at least some results.
> 
> And I'm miffed because they wouldn't let me run the UK promo at the same time as US. I have to wait 14 days (because they evidently count the US promo as a price change) and then I only have 3 days left in Select and that's all they'll let me schedule the UK promo for. So I'm out 4 days of countdown on the UK site.


They made me change my price in the UK. The price was OK in US but had to be raised slightly in UK, then I had to wait 30 days. If Amazon doesn't advertise all books participating in this--I don't see any value to it whatsoever. I don't think your landing page will make any difference if no one ever lands there.

Amazon could somehow rotate the books so that everyone gets a chance to be seen. I certainly don't like it when they use up space with dead people's books.


----------



## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Some not terribly meaningful data:

My jump on the countdown bandwagon has resulted in* 8 sales so far*. Of course, I didn't promo the sale in any way--didn't have time. I did tweet it once (and we all know how incredibly effective tweets are in selling books.)

8 cash register dings? Better than a hold up, methinks.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Hi, 

I've merged two similar threads, sorry for any confusion.

Betsy


----------



## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

It seems to be that one thing this may do (we can always hope) is help our rankings.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

took 13 hours but mine's in the list now.  Might want to check again Quiss, they added about 100.  I didn't see yours in sci fi though  which book did you put in?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Weeeellll, now we're up to 413 titles and mine isn't one of them.
For me, this has been an utter bust and now I'm stuck with a lower-priced title limping along and sinking in the rankings until I'm finally free of this bowser.
It'll take a great deal for me to try this again.

This new and exciting feature is not likely to improve any book's rank since it's most likely to be picked up on the first and second day of the sale and then not see a lot of sales after that. So once it's back at its regular price, its rank would be pretty abysmal.
Yeah, I'm feeling very positive about Amazon in general today.    Sometimes ya just want to throw in the towel.


----------



## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Just checked........535 books on 33 pages.

Maybe 5350 on 330 pages in a few weeks. Someone mentioned at another forum that this was the replacement for free book promotions.
Yikes!!!!!

BM


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I'm now seeing 606 titles.

And have to point out that these *cannot be sorted by genre.* Who in their right mind would scroll through all this?
I do see some titles appearing more than once and some that appear to have been created by pre-schoolers. What a mess.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Quiss said:


> I'm now seeing 606 titles.
> 
> And have to point out that these *cannot be sorted by genre.* Who in their right mind would scroll through all this?
> I do see some titles appearing more than once and some that appear to have been created by pre-schoolers. What a mess.


I can see them by genre


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

dkgould said:


> I can see them by genre


Just the few at the top of the page or all 600?


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

all of them I think.  You can go into the categories on the side and then sub cats after that
Yeah, you are up now quiss in Space opera under sci fi


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

yes its online there @ .99 Quiss, that book is sitting at a nice spot in sales rankings. It wouldn't take many sales to bump it on towards the front.

BM


I checked your book again since it was easy to find. Thought I use it as a guage to see what this program is doing.
Your book is moving to the front of the paid sales, its cut in half from where it was earlier. Don't know how much it would take in sales to get to where it is now but as long as its going forward, its all good.


----------



## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Book Master said:


> yes its online there @ .99 Quiss, that book is sitting at a nice spot in sales rankings. It wouldn't take many sales to bump it on towards the front.
> 
> BM
> 
> ...


And...since clocks fall back at 2 AM, you get an extra hour of promo time!


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## C.F. (Jan 6, 2011)

It's worth noting that when you're just browsing the store via best seller lists or popularity lists or whatever, it doesn't show that Countdown deals are on sale. It just looks like another $0.99 book. You have to click on the book to realize that it's a special offer and the regular price is more.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Yes, the fall back a hour tonight. 

Was thinking how great it would be to have hundreds of books online and not having to worry with writing but just putting 100 percent into marketing all those books.

It is hard to cover both among the other everyday worries. They are a few on here that are churning out those books. It had me wondering just who is the "King of the Nest" with most books online.

BM


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

It's now 6.30 am GMT here in the UK.

There are now 700+ Countdown titles on 46 pages. I can see Quiss's _Rebel Alliance _ on page 6 of that main list and it's half way down the first page on the Science Fiction menu in the sidebar.

But I can't find my own book at all - in any of those sub menus. It should come under Mysteries - either Cosy or Women Sleuths = or Humor. It might be in the main list, but I'm already up to page 20 )of 46) and I'm losing the will to live.

I haven't shifted a single discounted copy of _A Novel Way To Die _ - but I have sold 2 full price copies on dot.com overnight.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

I searched for it Lynda but no results. 
It has to be hidden in there somewhere because out of fustration trying to locate it, I clicked on the book in your posting and its showing the .99 price.
Looks like Zon would have some sort of easier way to find a certain book. Its buried in there somewhere!

BM


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

So . . . anyone else's rank nosediving even though they are selling books (as in 8 so far in the last half hour)?  Is this part of the deal that I missed or am I just seeing weird ranking lag?  (and did I miss info on this in the details?)   Just thought I'd check and see (and also let the people watching and waiting know what I'm seeing)

eta: just sever lag, in case anyone was wondering.  Ranks have picked up (so the promo units do count so far)


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Book Master said:


> I searched for it Lynda but no results.
> It has to be hidden in there somewhere because out of fustration trying to locate it, I clicked on the book in your posting and its showing the .99 price.
> Looks like Zon would have some sort of easier way to find a certain book. Its buried in there somewhere!
> 
> BM


Thanks, BM, much appreciated. I've apparently shifted 3 copies in the last 17 hours - obviously I'm a bestseller in the making  though a little more help on Amazon's part wouldn't come amiss.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

How do the Kurt Vonnegut books--Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions--qualify as Kindle Select when ebook versions of them are sold at Barnes and Noble and elsewhere?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I sent a message yesterday when I still hadn't shown up by Hour 12 into the sale.
In the message I asked if my sale can be extended to moved to another date, since I'd lost those hours.

Just got a reply, mostly with non-answers that don't apply, but this is sort of interesting.



> Also, I've checked your account and it appears that network latency delayed the start of your promotion.
> 
> Network latencies can occur while processing and sending data through communications systems, such as websites, due to things like traffic volume.
> Unfortunately, in cases of latency delaying a promotion, we're unable to issue a credit.
> ...


----------



## Donna White Glaser (Jan 12, 2011)

Quiss said:


> I sent a message yesterday when I still hadn't shown up by Hour 12 into the sale.
> In the message I asked if my sale can be extended to moved to another date, since I'd lost those hours.
> 
> Just got a reply, mostly with non-answers that don't apply, but this is sort of interesting.


So, basically, "Blah, blah, blah, blah. No."


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

Golly, Quiss, what a cop-out!

My book still isn't listed as a Countdown deal - and I've ploughed by way through all 46 pages of the list!

A friend in Australia has looked and although she can see the Countdown page, when she goes to any of the listed book's pages, there is no Countdown and they're showing full price.

So, it this wonderful (/sarcasm) new promotion only available to buyers in the USA and the UK?


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## Anne Frasier (Oct 22, 2009)

Quiss said:


> I sent a message yesterday when I still hadn't shown up by Hour 12 into the sale.
> In the message I asked if my sale can be extended to moved to another date, since I'd lost those hours.
> 
> Just got a reply, mostly with non-answers that don't apply, but this is sort of interesting.


that really sucks. i just saw your book on page 7 of the countdown pages. and the ranking was... i think 17K. is that an improvement over pre-countdown/broken countdown? or maybe what you would have seen if you'd reduced the price on your own?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Anne Frasier said:


> that really sucks. i just saw your book on page 7 of the countdown pages. and the ranking was... i think 17K. is that an improvement over pre-countdown/broken countdown? or maybe what you would have seen if you'd reduced the price on your own?


It is an improvement. 
I've now sold 10 copies at 99 cents. That's, like, six bucks! Practically Hugh Howey territory.
I'm guessing those got dumped in there all at once because of said "network latency", hence the jump in ranks. No way to know how many of those I would have sold at full price but I doubt it would have been ten.

I don't think that, without efforts at increased visibility via promo, simply dropping the price would gain much of a jump in sales. And of course, given this "latency", you'd be nuts to buy a BookBub ad to announce the sale.


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

I have a Countdown promotion scheduled to run from 3rd to 5th, but apparently nothing is happening. The promotion still shows as "scheduled" under “Manage Promotions” and under Reports: Promotions it says "No Promotions Found". I could only run the promo in the US because the $2.99 price was set to £1.91 by Amazon's exchange rate when it went up – below the £1.93 they now require for inclusion.

As I am in the UK, I cannot see the status of the book in the US and would be grateful if someone could look on the book page to tell me if it is still at $2.99 or if the Countdown has been set in place. The book is Immortal Pursuit which is in my signature.  Thank you.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Daphne said:


> I have a Countdown promotion scheduled to run from 3rd to 5th, but apparently nothing is happening. The promotion still shows as "scheduled" under "Manage Promotions" and under Reports: Promotions it says "No Promotions Found". I could only run the promo in the US because the $2.99 price was set to £1.91 by Amazon's exchange rate when it went up - below the £1.93 they now require for inclusion.
> 
> As I am in the UK, I cannot see the status of the book in the US and would be grateful if someone could look on the book page to tell me if it is still at $2.99 or if the Countdown has been set in place. The book is Immortal Pursuit which is in my signature. Thank you.


not yet Daphne, but you've still got ten minutes until it hits 8 am here on the west coast- don't know if you were scheduled for midnight or 8 am (think it's 8 am unless you manually change it)


----------



## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

dkgould said:


> not yet Daphne, but you've still got ten minutes until it hits 8 am here on the west coast- don't know if you were scheduled for midnight or 8 am (think it's 8 am unless you manually change it)


Thank you, dk  - I was assuming it started at 7am or 8am UK time (confused by US clock changes) - which would be midnight there. It is 4 pm here and I have just had my tea, so I was expecting something to happen. I didn't even notice the manual time change thingy.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Your deal is up on your page now, but unfortunately not in the countdown deals page yet.  I hope it happens much faster for you than it did for us yesterday!


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

dkgould said:


> Your deal is up on your page now, but unfortunately not in the countdown deals page yet. I hope it happens much faster for you than it did for us yesterday!


That's great - thanks.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

caethesfaron said:


> It's worth noting that when you're just browsing the store via best seller lists or popularity lists or whatever, it doesn't show that Countdown deals are on sale. It just looks like another $0.99 book. You have to click on the book to realize that it's a special offer and the regular price is more.


I hope Amazon makes a change to show when a book is part of a countdown deal.


----------



## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

I'm seeing no Erotica category nor any erotica books. Have I just overlooked it? If not, I'm assuming they won't be listing erotica titles. Has anyone attempted a Countdown Promotion on erotica that has some test numbers?


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

Robert Brumm said:


> I'm in. Starting at $.99 for my Desolate Trilogy on 11/2 and going up 99 cents every 32 hours until the regular price of $5.99. This will be interesting.


Started out slow but I'm starting to like what I'm seeing. It's been 14 hours since .99 and sales are finally coming in at a good rate. 47 sales so far and I'm in the top 100 list of 3 categories.

It took almost half the day yesterday for my book so show up on Countdown Deals page. Not sure if this is normal or Amazon is getting some kinks in the system. I feel a little ripped off but what are you gonna do.


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

Robert Brumm said:


> Started out slow but I'm starting to like what I'm seeing. It's been 14 hours since .99 and sales are finally coming in at a good rate. 47 sales so far and I'm in the top 100 list of 3 categories.


You are doing better than I am. Starting at midnight and just 5 sales across two books. Oddly, I've also seen two borrows in that time.
Did you do anything to promote your sale?


----------



## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

michaelenewton said:


> You are doing better than I am. Starting at midnight and just 5 sales across two books. Oddly, I've also seen two borrows in that time.
> Did you do anything to promote your sale?


I just mentioned it once on my personal FB page. As others have been saying the ranking seems to be a little off too. I'm not sure what's going on under the Amazon hood but I'm not sure things are working properly lately.

That reminds me...my Kindle, Paperback, and Audiobook versions came unlinked three or four times this week. I keep emailing support and asking them to fix. They do and it just gets broken the next day again. That's been frustrating.


----------



## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

29 hours in - a measly 4 books sold - and it STILL hasn't appeared on any Countdown list


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

Robert Brumm said:


> I just mentioned it once on my personal FB page. As others have been saying the ranking seems to be a little off too. I'm not sure what's going on under the Amazon hood but I'm not sure things are working properly lately.


So you suppose that most of your sales are coming from Amazon browsers rather than your FB friends?


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

74 so far.  I got some borrows too.  Didn't advertise anywhere, because it was last minute and I wasn't sure it was going to go through.  Had a panic about the plunging ranks last night, but that seems to have worked itself out, thank goodness, or I would have been in the million plus range by the end of the week or something.


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

Lyndawrites said:


> 29 hours in - a measly 4 books sold - and it STILL hasn't appeared on any Countdown list


Did you complain to support? I did.



michaelenewton said:


> So you suppose that most of your sales are coming from Amazon browsers rather than your FB friends?


Absolutely. 99% of people who know me on FB would have bought it by now.


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

Robert Brumm said:


> Absolutely. 99% of people who know me on FB would have bought it by now.


Same here. All my FB friends already have my books or won't be buying them at any price. So I didn't even bother posting it on FB. But I should send out some tweets. See if those have any effect.


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## RuthNestvold (Jan 4, 2012)

I hardly have anything in Select anymore, but I signed up for a sale of my short story collection "Dragon Time" starting tomorrow and lasting seven days. Short notice, so no ads -- just testing the waters. I've blogged about it and will post on Facebook and Twitter. To be honest, I doubt if much of anything will happen at all, but it's an experiment.


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## olefish (Jan 24, 2012)

the countdown page lists 825 entries now, so it seems Amazon is listing newer entries. 

Quiss I see your book in the first 120 entries.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

800 plus books in kindle countdown now, 650,000 plus in free books.
Nothing seems to be changing thus far but its still early in the kindle countdown program.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

olefish said:


> the countdown page lists 825 entries now, so it seems Amazon is listing newer entries.
> 
> Quiss I see your book in the first 120 entries.


Yes, it popped up late last night.
I'm at 20 sales. A bit underwhelming but I can see how this could work well if supported by additional promotion. Of course, you'd have to trust Amazon to start the sale when requested for that to work.


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## Lady Starlight (Oct 19, 2013)

This is really making me angry. Four books into the program and not one showing up. And it seems some people are reaping the benefits in being in the program early.


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

Lady Starlight said:


> This is really making me angry. Four books into the program and not one showing up. And it seems some people are reaping the benefits in being in the program early.


Don't beat yourself up too much. My books showed up with no problem, but few sales so far. Reports have been mixed. It appears to be hit or miss.


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## Guest (Nov 3, 2013)

Lady Starlight said:


> This is really making me angry. Four books into the program and not one showing up. And it seems some people are reaping the benefits in being in the program early.


To think that there wouldn't be problems is a little silly. When was the last time you saw a good rollout?


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Quiss said:


> Yes, it popped up late last night.
> I'm at 20 sales. A bit underwhelming but I can see how this could work well if supported by additional promotion. Of course, you'd have to trust Amazon to start the sale when requested for that to work.


Thanks for the update!

Mine should be coming out today, although I don't expect much as it's only the first book in the series...


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## Lady Starlight (Oct 19, 2013)

Greg Strandberg said:


> To think that there wouldn't be problems is a little silly. When was the last time you saw a good rollout?


Can't remember when I last saw a good anything. LOL

It's hard sometimes not to feel like you're personally targeted, even if you're not. I Wonder if someone else is having the same problem? My deals end tomorrow at 8 AM PAC so it looks like they will get no time on the pages. I have had one sale of one of my books since it started yesterday. Lost a dollar.  lol

I sent a complaint to KDP, but I know they won't be able to do anything.

*Sigh* It's whatever, though. Nothing less than I expected.


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## JezStrider (Jun 19, 2012)

Saw Quiss's book in the little scroll thingy on the first page.  Started mine today. Two copies sold so far. >.>


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

It was nice being in the first wave, but it didn't generate the kind of traction I was hoping for. Still, a dozen sales is a dozen sales, I guess.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I was on the scrolly thing?  Cool. Doesn't show on my browser but I think it gets switched around anyway.
Just a few hours left at 99 cents and I suspect after that things will slide. Still only at 22 sales so that's more copies than I'd normally sell in that time but at lower cost. However, if I get some sales for the other books or some reviews I'll be happy.


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> It was nice being in the first wave, but it didn't generate the kind of traction I was hoping for. Still, a dozen sales is a dozen sales, I guess.


I'm seeing your book in the list - hope it picks up for you still.

The list is kinda random though-romances, Japanese dictionaries, horror and children titles all bunched together. I leafed through all the 52 pages of it and didn't see my book there yet... hoping for the best!


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Austin_Briggs said:


> I'm seeing your book in the list - hope it picks up for you still.
> 
> The list is kinda random though-romances, Japanese dictionaries, horror and children titles all bunched together. I leafed through all the 52 pages of it and didn't see my book there yet... hoping for the best!


you should be able to sort through the categories and sub categories if you go to the countdown page, on the side it has Kindle Store then underneath is kindle countdown deals, underneath that is kindle ebooks. If you click on the kindle ebooks, it should bring up a list of categories on that same side bar.


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

I think the problem is that we are looking at it, as indie authors. When something like this launches, it goes around the indieverse like wildfire. It goes viral. Everyone knows about it and everyone is behind it. Everyone is coming up with plans and ideas on how to use it.

We are assuming that readers know about Countdown, I'm not sure that they do. Have you had any promo email from Amazon about it? Like any? Nobody I have spoken to has. I doubt anyone has at all. If they aren't promoting it yet (probably because they are doing testing to make sure it's working in it's first week) then it isn't going to do that well alone.

With a promo (like BB or ENT) you will probably do pretty decent numbers, but alone, and unless you are well known, it wont make much difference. Once readers are aware (when Amazon starts to spam them) and it's been around a while and has become a habit to check the list (like the other Amazon promos that run) you will see an upturn, I'm sure of it.

I think it is WAY too early to be making judgement on Countdown. I bet promo starts hitting mailboxes in the next few days, or next weekend. Give it 3 - 4 months, if it still doesn't work, then I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain this is the problem.

In short: Just because indies know about something and think it's the best thing since select sliced bread doesn't mean anyone else does.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Carl, I just said in the thread about amazon firsts that if it weren't for in, I'd never know what amazon was up to. You are so right.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

CarlSinclair said:


> We are assuming that readers know about Countdown, I'm not sure that they do. Have you had any promo email from Amazon about it? Like any? Nobody I have spoken to has. I doubt anyone has at all. If they aren't promoting it yet (probably because they are doing testing to make sure it's working in it's first week) then it isn't going to do that well alone.
> 
> In short: Just because indies know about something and think it's the best thing since select sliced bread doesn't mean anyone else does.


Yeah, Countdown doesn't jump out from the Amazon storefront at readers. As of now, all I see of it on my screen is a little blue link titled "Kindle Countdown Deals" amid another three little blue links under the heading "Kindle Book Deals." And those four little blue links appear within a long string of 70+ little blue links. Also, when customers click the blue "Kindle Countdown Deals" link, they see only five categories. They have to click "See All" to view Countdown titles by all categories and sub-categories. This may change; but for the moment, Countdown does not appear to be that discoverable.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

I have received two notices about Countdown. One telling me about the program, but I'm afraid I trashed it. It was written for writers not readers. The second notice verified when my novel's appearance would begin and end and the last date when I could cancel.

If I could I would cancel and redo it a little bit later, but I have to go now to get in twice before Christmas for this one book.


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## JezStrider (Jun 19, 2012)

I wonder if Quiss' book showed up in the scroll thingy for me since I have one of her books already. Maybe it shows books they think you'll buy based on past purchases.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

JezStrider said:


> I wonder if Quiss' book showed up in the scroll thingy for me since I have one of her books already. Maybe it shows books they think you'll buy based on past purchases.


One mustn't 'have'. One must 'read'. 

However the scrolly thing works, I didn't notice any increase in sales over the course of the day. I'm now at 24, with 3 hours to go at 99 cents.
Amazon says 21, so three of those might have happened before they started counting.

This is the sort of day where one must drink wine and watch Ylvis videos.


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> I have received two notices about Countdown. One telling me about the program, but I'm afraid I trashed it. It was written for writers not readers. The second notice verified when my novel's appearance would begin and end and the last date when I could cancel.
> 
> If I could I would cancel and redo it a little bit later, but I have to go now to get in twice before Christmas for this one book.


That's what I was talking about - there are no promo going to readers. It's not visible so none of the promotions (for the most part) thus far will be. When Amazon wants it to be, it will be. They will just hammer people (readers) with promo email about the program.

This is likely a soft release, they invited in people like Deb Geary, and opened it up to people already in select. It's like a beta test to get the kinks out. That will be why they put a 30 day block on anyone jumping back into select at this point, they didn't want 100,000 people jumping into the program until they were ready to promote it.

Standard business. As I said earlier, indies often assume because we know about something (because of the nature of the community) that everyone does... that really isn't the case most of the time.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

I was able to find it all day on Amazon. Now I can't.

Found them later but they did vanish for a while.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

This may have been a 'soft' release of the Countdown program, but for me (and others, I suspect) this has been a complete waste of a Select period. 36 hours in (out of 4 and my book has still not shown up as being in the Countdown program. It certainly doesn't appear in either the Mystery or the Humor sub-cats and I suspect it's not in the main list either. I did scroll all the way through it when it stood at 46 pages, now it's up to 50+ I'm not prepared to waste my time finding that A Novel Way To Die isn't there, anyway.

I've managed 5 sales in that time, all at 99cents, and I would probably have shifted almost that many at full price.


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

And that really sucks for you, especially if it really has been a big mess and waste of time... but...

The fact Amazon has done the release like this, and them knowing that the number of people in Select was not as significant as it once was, makes me think that this is their 'beta'. Letting people who were still in Select use it, work out the bugs, then in around 30 days when everyone who has jumped back in select can run the Countdown promo, it should be working well and stable. They (Amazon) can then start doing promo aimed at readers, making it worthwhile for them and authors (who by that point will be in the thousands, instead of hundreds)

I may be wrong. I hope I'm wrong. But this feels like a soft release/beta along those lines to me. This is what I would have done when I was in software development. 

Then again, they may just have done a really poor job on the release of it, who knows. 

Either way, there is no way to tell if Countdown is any good after a few days, none at all. It will be at least a month before real results can be seen. Maybe even longer.


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## JezStrider (Jun 19, 2012)

Quiss said:


> One mustn't 'have'. One must 'read'.


Oh, it will be read. IT WILL BE READ!


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Daphne said:


> I have a Countdown promotion scheduled to run from 3rd to 5th, but apparently nothing is happening. The promotion still shows as "scheduled" under "Manage Promotions" and under Reports: Promotions it says "No Promotions Found". I could only run the promo in the US because the $2.99 price was set to £1.91 by Amazon's exchange rate when it went up - below the £1.93 they now require for inclusion.
> 
> As I am in the UK, I cannot see the status of the book in the US and would be grateful if someone could look on the book page to tell me if it is still at $2.99 or if the Countdown has been set in place. The book is Immortal Pursuit which is in my signature. Thank you.


Just out of interest, can I ask why you still allow Amazon to set your UK price based upon US price? I haven't done this since leaving Select last year. In the UK you need to make a price up that includes delivery and vat so that it ends .99 So in my case I might need to set £2.87 on my dashboard to get exactly £2.99 for example, while in the US $4.99 will do as no vat or delivery appears added on sales pages according to some people who live there who checked for me.


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## Daphne (May 27, 2010)

markecooper said:


> Just out of interest, can I ask why you still allow Amazon to set your UK price based upon US price? I haven't done this since leaving Select last year. In the UK you need to make a price up that includes delivery and vat so that it ends .99 So in my case I might need to set £2.87 on my dashboard to get exactly £2.99 for example, while in the US $4.99 will do as no vat or delivery appears added on sales pages according to some people who live there who checked for me.


...Um, force of habit or laziness on my part. I mostly write short stories and am looking for the lowest price point. Where I have a longer work, like a novella or my collection of short stories. I tend to be just looking to get into the 70% bracket, but don't usually price higher than the $2.99 or country-equivalent.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

CarlSinclair said:


> .....
> This is likely a soft release, they invited in people like Deb Geary, and opened it up to people already in select. It's like a beta test to get the kinks out. That will be why they put a 30 day block on anyone jumping back into select at this point, they didn't want 100,000 people jumping into the program until they were ready to promote it.
> ......


Um. The 30-day thing might be about consumer laws regarding the use of the word "sale." Something needs to be offered at one price for a set amount of time before it can be reduced on "sale."

I don't know what the consumer laws are across the USA, but I run a retail store in B.C. Canada and it's a thing. :-D


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## Lady Starlight (Oct 19, 2013)

Quiss said:


> One mustn't 'have'. One must 'read'.
> 
> However the scrolly thing works, I didn't notice any increase in sales over the course of the day. I'm now at 24, with 3 hours to go at 99 cents.
> Amazon says 21, so three of those might have happened before they started counting.
> ...


I'm happy you got your sales and improved ranking!  Amazon must hate me lol.

Keep me updated on when your countdown ends and if your ranking improves, stays the same or gets worse please!


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

Mimi said:


> Um. The 30-day thing might be about consumer laws regarding the use of the word "sale." Something needs to be offered at one price for a set amount of time before it can be reduced on "sale."
> 
> I don't know what the consumer laws are across the USA, but I run a retail store in B.C. Canada and it's a thing. :-D


Could be. Probably is. That still doesn't change the fact Amazon hasn't promoted Countdown to readers at all. Until they do, it will never do that wonderful on it's own. Hard to sell something to someone if they don't know about it.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

markecooper said:


> Just out of interest, can I ask why you still allow Amazon to set your UK price based upon US price? I haven't done this since leaving Select last year. In the UK you need to make a price up that includes delivery and vat so that it ends .99 So in my case I might need to set £2.87 on my dashboard to get exactly £2.99 for example, while in the US $4.99 will do as no vat or delivery appears added on sales pages according to some people who live there who checked for me.


So I do this also... but it is mainly because I have no visibility in to that market, and I do not know any other way to make the price far. I don't want to sell to USA at one price, then jack it up and over charge UK folks, esply now that I am starting to get traction there. How else would I pick a price?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

CarlSinclair said:


> Then again, they may just have done a really poor job on the release of it, who knows.
> Either way, there is no way to tell if Countdown is any good after a few days, none at all. It will be at least a month before real results can be seen. Maybe even longer.


I think we need to keep in mind that we have no idea what Amazon's intent with this promo is vs our expectations.
Are we thinking that this deal is going to reach a BookBubbian scope with hundreds upon hundreds of sales, or is Amazon offering a couple of dozen sales through this? They dd not promise overnight fame and fortune with this.

I am guessing that their goal is to offer THEIR CUSTOMERS a good deal on as many books as possible. Also good is the fact that by having people jump on that, they are reducing the number of freebies, which make them no money at all. How many each of the participants sells is probably irrelevant to them.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

markecooper said:


> Just out of interest, can I ask why you still allow Amazon to set your UK price based upon US price? I haven't done this since leaving Select last year. In the UK you need to make a price up that includes delivery and vat so that it ends .99 So in my case I might need to set £2.87 on my dashboard to get exactly £2.99 for example, while in the US $4.99 will do as no vat or delivery appears added on sales pages according to some people who live there who checked for me.


Why do you need to end in .99 ?
I let my prices, in terms of conversion, fall as they may except for Canada. For the US mine actually end in .95.


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## shel (May 14, 2011)

I think the soft launch idea has merit. 

For the first day, there was no way to get to Countdown Deals in the web store on my Kindle Fire. Now it's the third item on the featured lists over on the right side of the screen. I expect there will be an announcement or roll-out at some point.


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## Christian Price (Aug 3, 2012)

Curiosity dictated my business judgment. I set two of my books to run for the first week in December. It was my intent to leave Select in December, but the whole promotional reminded me of Crosby Stills and Nash, _"Love the One You're With." _ It was there offering, and I was already there. If it's a dud, I will ride out the 3 months, and put them up with my other titles. My next work should be finished by Christmas and at that point, I'll have some feedback if it's helped or constrained me. If it's a bust, I will move forward with my plan I had before I received the email notifying me of this latest tool they're offering, and that was to leave Select. I must admit, I'm mildly interested in the results and I felt the possibility of gains, were worth the 90 day term.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

My books moved onto the Countdown page this morning in the US store. But in the UK, where there are currently only 169 Countdown books listed, they have yet to appear on the promo page, although the Countdown box does show up on the product pages. I don't know whether this is just latency in the system or a glitch.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

michaelenewton said:


> Same here. All my FB friends already have my books or won't be buying them at any price. So I didn't even bother posting it on FB. But I should send out some tweets. See if those have any effect.


I use facebook for my FREE promotions and announcements for new books. But after reading many posts here, perhaps authors are not usuing FB properly for promotions. Posting to your freidns is nice (and helpful), but posting on user groups, especially the Author-Reader groups is better, because authors will share and tweat. There's some (closed groups) where authors will post their books for specifically for toher members of the group to share and retweat and post to their FREE book sites. There's even a FREE Book Froup on FB. Also create a apage for your book or books and post there, where you can also for minimal charges boost the post into FB's advert database reaching thousands of non-friends, depending on what you pay.

Edward C. Patterson


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## Pamela (Oct 6, 2010)

Thanks Ed.

Mike - my understanding is that KDP won't let you promo both in the US and UK at the same time.  You have to pick one of the countries.  I may be wrong.  Correct me, someone, if I am.  But I had to pick US when I started a promo.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

shel said:


> I think the soft launch idea has merit.
> 
> For the first day, there was no way to get to Countdown Deals in the web store on my Kindle Fire. Now it's the third item on the featured lists over on the right side of the screen. I expect there will be an announcement or roll-out at some point.


There has been a banner on the front page of the store since last night for me. It's even sitting over the black friday deals for the rest of the store.


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## Pamela (Oct 6, 2010)

Another thing that bothered me.  Once a promo is set it can't be changed - like we do with Free promos--just end them is our book starts to slide in the ranks.  

(I thought maybe I had too many days on the promo I started and went back to change it.  It says I can't.  Yikes.  I'm stuck.)


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Pamela said:


> Another thing that bothered me. Once a promo is set it can't be changed - like we do with Free promos--just end them is our book starts to slide in the ranks.
> 
> (I thought maybe I had too many days on the promo I started and went back to change it. It says I can't. Yikes. I'm stuck.)


I think that's so people don't just take advantage of a day or two at 99 cents and then cancel the rest of the run to keep the higher ranking and get back to full price.


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

I suspect you are right there Quiss.

On the .99 over .95 thing. It's just based on consumer history. We have been trained to see 1.99 as cheaper than $2, on almost everything. .95 just looks out of place and makes take a second look, breaking the 'that's so cheap' auto response.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Is it possible that they ran this as a backdoor beta with the moronic freebie lock-out to drastically cut down on free books that will be on offer from the Xmas shopping season?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

CarlSinclair said:


> On the .99 over .95 thing. It's just based on consumer history. We have been trained to see 1.99 as cheaper than $2, on almost everything. .95 just looks out of place and makes take a second look, breaking the 'that's so cheap' auto response.


That's probably more of an incentive for Americans and anyone else who doesn't have to deal with VAT.
Here in Canada, we've long been used to reading price tags as "approximate" since most of us are too lazy to do the math to figure out the actual cost of an item. So if we see $2.99 we know it'll cost us over $3. Close enough is good enough 

On a more personal level, to me the .99 looks "cheap" as in "shoddy". 
.95 doesn't bother my eyes as much. Go figure 

Vaalingade:


> Is it possible that they ran this as a backdoor beta with the moronic freebie lock-out to drastically cut down on free books that will be on offer from the Xmas shopping season?


I'm pretty darn sure that's a big part of their equation. I used a book that I hadn't intended to run as any sort of special over the holidays, so nothing lost there.

It is worrisome to think that this may be a harbinger of Amazon making moves to reduce freebies. 
Without actually forbidding them (since the only way to do that would be to remove the books from their catalogue if they intend to be the lowest price going), they could manipulate us into deals like this, play with algorithms some more, burying free books even deeper etc etc 
I finally wrapped my head around making a title permafree and now things look iffy again


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

Vaalingrade said:


> Is it possible that they ran this as a backdoor beta with the moronic freebie lock-out to drastically cut down on free books that will be on offer from the Xmas shopping season?


Anything is possible. I don't think Amazon would go out of there way to create a way to make money, just to use it for another means. I'm fairly certain they will start promoting it and doing something with it.

Then again, Worlds got some promo but went quiet. I was just told that most of those books don't do stellar numbers via promo from Amazon. I never bothered to track those at all.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Vaalingrade said:


> Is it possible that they ran this as a backdoor beta with the moronic freebie lock-out to drastically cut down on free books that will be on offer from the Xmas shopping season?


While Amazon isn't in the business of supporting indie authors, they are in the business of making money, and that fact often aligns them with us. It's very likely that they've realized the same thing most of us have. All these free books are teaching readers to not be buyers. At this point, it's very unlikely that Amazon can remove the option for free promos from select. I mean, they could, but it may lead to some bad press. What they can do though, is train indie writers to hate the free promo option. It started with their changes to the algorithms, and this is the second act. It is in their best interest, and ours, for them to continuously tweak the Countdown Promo to make it successful so that we choose Countdowns over free. This is just in the early stages, and I'm sure they'll be making constant changes so this is a successful option. They have a stake in Countdown Promos being the best option for Select authors.


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## Wingpeople (Oct 7, 2011)

Robert Brumm said:


> Did you complain to support? I did.


I just added my complaint, too. It sounded like the Countdown books would show up in lists of books available through the Countdown program (one would think!). I can't even get my book to show up when I do a search on its title within the Countdown category.

Very frustrated.


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## Vaalingrade (Feb 19, 2013)

Briteka said:


> It's very likely that they've realized the same thing most of us have. All these free books are teaching readers to not be buyers.


Unlikely. Largely because that idea is really just a boogieman writers make up to scare people away from an effective marketing strategy for the sake of ego. Seriously, permafree is just a good, solid business plan for the digital age and has been *constantly* proven as such in other industries.



> At this point, it's very unlikely that Amazon can remove the option for free promos from select. I mean, they could, but it may lead to some bad press. What they can do though, is train indie writers to hate the free promo option. It started with their changes to the algorithms, and this is the second act. It is in their best interest, and ours, for them to continuously tweak the Countdown Promo to make it successful so that we choose Countdowns over free. This is just in the early stages, and I'm sure they'll be making constant changes so this is a successful option. They have a stake in Countdown Promos being the best option for Select authors.


My point being that this Obvious Beta is timed perfectly to lock existing Select writers out of using their freebies during the holidays and getting people normally rocking permafree to dip into Select (knocking them out of permafree) in the same time period.

The purpose would be to reduce 'unprofitable' bandwidth during the period where they'll be hit heaviest.

I expect the come January/February, either most people will see that this doesn't give them much (as I've outlined), OR an upgrade to the program will become available.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

I'm ready to hear some more results on how the sales are doing with the new program. Is it worth what you risked to invest in it?

Debating on whether or not to toss a brand spanking new Title into this in a few days.

Talk to us brave ones!


BM


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Book Master said:


> I'm ready to hear some more results on how the sales are doing with the new program. Is it worth what you risked to invest in it?
> 
> Debating on whether or not to toss a brand spanking new Title into this in a few days.
> 
> ...


It has been so far for me, but I'm still in the 99cent period, I'm in a small sub category, and I was used to selling only 1-2 a day, so it's all relative. I think what will make it worth it is if they allow the rankings to stick. If I stick with Select, I'd far rather do this than free even though I've only sold a fraction of what I've given away for free, just because of the ranking boost. Here are the advantages in my eyes thus far: I can earn a little money rather than giving away books, I can experiment with different price points because I'm too chicken to do it by myself, I get to have a burst in rankings that I can keep instead of falling into oblivion after a free run (of course, the burst will most likely diminish as more people jump in, but it will still probably get some).

But there's caveats. I'm new, I don't have permafree anything. I didn't spend any money on advertising this promo, so it's all profit this time. I was lucky enough to jump in at the beginning before it's saturated, and I was also very lucky that I made it to the countdown pages after only 13 hours instead of days. And amazon could change the ranking thing at any time. I think that's going to be the make or break, but again I'm really new so what do I know? Still, in the past two days I've sold more than double what I sold in the entirety of last month. Ask me again in a few days when I'm at the next price bracket or in a week when it's over (or a month after when I don't have the option to do it again) and my answer may be very different.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Mine switched to 1.99 and I had four sales overnight at that rate. Nothing since then. I think I'm around 32 in total now.

Bottom line (well, so far) is that I've gathered more royalties than I would have by selling at regular price (without promo) during this same timeframe.
Not overwhelming, but more copies out means a greater chance of sales of the other titles and reviews.

I see a few reasons why this is better than the free promo
- better royalties than just dropping your price
- even at 99 cents people are more likely to be discerning as opposed to those who just grab up freebies. That can translate into more books actually read and perhaps reviewed.
- rankings seem to be responsive to these numbers and don't appear to be fiddled with. I'm currently at 11k overall, where before I was around 80-90k or so. I do expect that to change over the next few days as the price rises. So perhaps shorter runs, fewer increments are better than drawing them out. 
- more visibility than just dropping the price

Drawbacks:
Does this mean that Amazon readers are going to head straight to the Countdown pile when looking for new things to read at the expense of other sellers?
The gist being that these are special deals of higher priced books, not permacheap. Perceived value.
The obvious: loss of feebie days, limited number of deal days, what's in it for non-exclusive authors?

Would I do this if I'd have to pay other sites to promote my sale to get "decent" numbers? Probably not. 
Would I give up the five freebie days? Only if I couldn't get a BookBub ad to get the downloads. 
If I had left Select, would I come back for this?  Not until a LOT more results are in, seeing how much of a pain that can be.


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## Briteka (Mar 5, 2012)

Vaalingrade said:


> Unlikely. Largely because that idea is really just a boogieman writers make up to scare people away from an effective marketing strategy for the sake of ego. Seriously, permafree is just a good, solid business plan for the digital age and has been *constantly* proven as such in other industries.
> My point being that this Obvious Beta is timed perfectly to lock existing Select writers out of using their freebies during the holidays and getting people normally rocking permafree to dip into Select (knocking them out of permafree) in the same time period.
> 
> The purpose would be to reduce 'unprofitable' bandwidth during the period where they'll be hit heaviest.
> ...


Permafree is a completely different beast compared to Select Free Promos. Select Free Promos do nothing for Amazon. It was only implemented to give authors an incentive to enroll. In the past, Select Free Promos really helped to boost indie authors because their books would come out with a high ranking and sell more. This also didn't help Amazon either. Select Countdown Promos are a vastly superior money-maker for Amazon than free, obviously. And because of this, they'll make sure that it's also better for authors than Select Free Promos. I fully expect Amazon to tweak algorithms so that authors, on average, come out with a higher ranking after their Select Countdown Promos than after their Select Free Promos.

It's a comparative thing. It's unlikely that Select Countdown Promos will lead to as much success as Select Free Promos did when they were first implemented, but through some Amazon voodoo, countdowns with be the better option going forward.

I don't think they're necessarily doing it because they don't want to give out a bunch of free books during the Christmas bump. They don't want to be giving out free books, period, and the Christmas-time bump is the best time to roll this out.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

A complete and utter waste of time and a 90 day Select period.

My book did not show up on ANY Countdown list. I sold 5 copies at 99cents in 48 hours. I usually sell that many at full (2.99) price.

Not a happy bunny.


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## Barbara Bartholomew (Nov 13, 2010)

I put House Near the River in the promotion at .99 cents starting Nov. 2 and have had 63 sales and, surprisingly, six borrows, so far. My young adult fantasy, Child of Tomorrow, also .99 and for the same period, reported three sales. A second time travel romance supposed to show up beginning Nov. 3 has never appeared on the lists.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

Are any of you combining the Countdown with advertising sites, and if so, which ones?  Or are you just doing the straight promo without any advertising.  I feel like such a dunce trying to understand this exactly and what would be my best option.  Happy writing, everyone!


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## Barbara Bartholomew (Nov 13, 2010)

Just the straight promo for me. No ads.


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## Wingpeople (Oct 7, 2011)

I don't know if it was my email to customer support or just luck, but BECAUSE IT'S THERE is finally showing up on the Countdown Deals pages.

Now, if only they'd make the Countdown Deals a lot easier to locate on their site...

(I'm never completely satisfied!)


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Lyndawrites said:


> A complete and utter waste of time and a 90 day Select period.
> 
> My book did not show up on ANY Countdown list. I sold 5 copies at 99cents in 48 hours. I usually sell that many at full (2.99) price.
> 
> Not a happy bunny.


I got in but didn't realize many sales. As a result, I've burned a complete promo period. I am tending to agree with the "waste of time and 90 day Select" summation. But I still have a few days to go, so we'll see.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Pamela said:


> Mike - my understanding is that KDP won't let you promo both in the US and UK at the same time. You have to pick one of the countries. I may be wrong. Correct me, someone, if I am. But I had to pick US when I started a promo.


You can do both countries simultaneously. It let me do it, anyway. The default setting in the drop-down window is the US store. Toggle down and you find the UK store. Once you set up promos in both, it tells you that you can't do any more promos for the current Select enrollment period.


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## RuthNestvold (Jan 4, 2012)

My countdown deal for "Dragon Time" finally went live, but no sales yet. Late here in Central Europe, though, and I don't have the brain cells to promote it right now. Tomorrow ...


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

bberntson said:


> Are any of you combining the Countdown with advertising sites, and if so, which ones? Or are you just doing the straight promo without any advertising. I feel like such a dunce trying to understand this exactly and what would be my best option. Happy writing, everyone!


I have been trying to advertise but I'm not willing to pay. If I have to pay for ads how is this program of any benefit to me? I might as well just reduce my price and advertise without having to follow all the rules. I have spent two days on this (off and on) and haven't found any sites set up for it. This is very time consuming. I'm almost ready to pull my stuff out because it hasn't started yet and no one is reporting wonderful results.
I think those who have sold have probably sold to other writers because I don't think the readers know anything about it yet. 
I think this program may mess up Christmas sales for a lot of people because why would people who get new kindles pay high prices for books when they can get loads for nothing or 0.99c?
I guess I will continue but I'm not expecting anything.
I may leave Select after this because it is harder and harder to see any benefit from it.
I may even regret saying this later but I think not.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> I have been trying to advertise but I'm not willing to pay. If I have to pay for ads how is this program of any benefit to me? I might as well just reduce my price and advertise without having to follow all the rules. I have spent two days on this (off and on) and haven't found any sites set up for it. This is very time consuming. I'm almost ready to pull my stuff out because it hasn't started yet and no one is reporting wonderful results.
> I think those who have sold have probably sold to other writers because I don't think the readers know anything about it yet.


I'm not trying to persuade you to go through with it, but I thought I'd offer some alternative information. If you do decide not to do it, remember you have to cancel 24 hours in advance or your hands are tied.

As for the advertising thing, amazon actually announced the countdown deal at the same time as the "kindle first" program for prime members, so it may have been overshadowed by that, but I have seen the announcement on at least two (I think I saw three, but I can't remember) technology sites. Not writer sites. Granted, I haven't seen it on any reader sites yet. I also saw a large banner on the front page of the entire Amazon store announcing countdown deals just over their black friday banners. It's gone now because of the FAA thing, but it will probably be back.

As far as results, here are mine thus far, without any advertising (paid or unpaid), facebook, twitter, goodreads or anything else. I literally signed up for the promo at the last minute, I was just playing around seeing how it worked.

In two days (actually, less. It took 13 hours for me to show up on the countdown page and to sell the first copy) have sold 215 so far, had 4 borrows and also sold 3 copies of another book that is at full price and is related in no way whatsoever to the book in the countdown (other than the fact that I wrote both). Before, in two days, if I'm estimating generously, I would have sold roughly 6 and had 2 borrows. And no sales of the other book.

But here's the real kicker. Two days ago, my rank was roughly 70,000 overall. These are the rankings for that book as of my writing this:

#1,384 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#10 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic
#11 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Dystopian
#15 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic

I've also hit the top 100 in both general horror and general science fiction today.

These may not be impressive numbers to anyone else, I really don't know. And I'm not writing it to brag or because I did anything special (the fact that I did NOTHING special is one of the reasons I'm writing this). I just wanted people to have some more data, and because someone is asking/considering investing ad money.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

215!  Way cool!

I'll add to what Deirdre said.

My book is now at 1.99
Not seen a single sale all day. So far 28 sold at .99, 5 at 1.99

However, my rank for this book is not dropping as quickly as I would have expected after not selling any of these since about 8am this morning.
I'm at about 14 k now.


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## MarcyB (Feb 10, 2013)

Great results, dk! Thanks for sharing. I am enjoying the results being posted. I have two promos starting Wednesday. I have nothing to lose as I average a sale a day.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Its great to hear the updates on some sales from tha ladies and gents who already participated in the program.

I had an email from Amazon today where they started trying to promote this program. Î sent out some tweets to the various hash sites such as #readers, #amreading, #reading,etc, etc to try and help get some readers on this discount program since Saturday. Of course who knows, that might have helped some get a sale or possibly not. I posted on my website about this program too. Every little thing you do positively towards something helps.

I placed three books into the program later in the month during the Thanksgiving holiday on both the .com and the uk sites. I was going to drop another one in the mix  but it ask me to increase the price in the uk....it said that my 2.99 price wasn't high enough for the uk euros price. Rather than try to change the price to a higher one just to add that book on both, I changed my mind with it to avoid the chance of it not accepting it with a higher price and making me wait it out longer on adding that book.

Anyway, to make the long story short, I added 3 out of 4 books into it around the holiday week of Thanksgiving . Yeah, I have quite a few books on Zon already under Pen names. 

The program does have some bugs to it you have to figure out but what the fudge, afterall, we can always add more books. You just keep writing and keep a positive attitude about these sorts of things.

Heyyyyy, good luck with those sales and rankings out there everyone!

Keep the Faith.
BM


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## David Wisehart (Mar 2, 2010)

I'm running a Kindle Countdown Promotion for Devil's Lair.

So far, so good. I'll share real numbers at the end of the promotion, but I've definitely seen a boost in sales and a better rank. Sales for the book had slowed to a crawl since early summer, so this may help jump-start sales leading into the holiday season.

My feeling now, after a few days with this new promotion, is that I may never use KDP Select free promotions again. My starting price is $4.99, and I like selling for 99 cents and getting $3.50 royalty for each sale. CORRECTION: I'll earn 70% of the promotion price, not the initial price.

I've already earned more money with this promotion than with my last BookBub promo for a free run, which didn't return the cost of the ad.

Another point:

You can get some great price data by using the countdown promotions. The report shows how many you sold for each price. So lets say you sell for two days at 99 cents, then two days at $1.99, then two days at $2.99, then a day at $3.99. Then compare the per-day sales for each price point to the initial per-day sales at $4.99.

Because each price was tested in the same week, this would give you a pretty good apples-to-apples comparison to find the ideal price point for that particular book.

I might look at the data after the countdown promo and decide Devil's Lair would make more money at $3.99 or $2.99 or even 99 cents.

My book hasn't yet been highlighted on the main page Countdown Promotions page, so my assumption is that the new sales are mostly a function of the price change, rather than of any additional promo from Amazon. (Though of course the countdown clock should help spur sales for those who do land on my sales page. However, since the clock shows up for all the promoted price points, this countdown clock is only a sales advantage over the initial unpromoted price.)

For my other books, the ideal price might be different, and I can test each one by putting it through a week of the countdown promo.

David


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

I put two books up starting "Sunday at 8am" (Nov 3rd) but I didn't see them in the charts until sometime in the middle of the day today (Monday), last I checked was late Sunday night and they were not up (except for the individual title's product page did show their timers most of Sunday). I suspect all the delays on the charts are due to Amazon staff being off for the weekend; they were probably pressured by internal management to get the program kicked off last Friday and now they are in fixing things today, Monday. Anyway...

No sales on either of the two titles I tested. Perhaps the readers are waiting until the clock runs down - eBay listings get more activity in the last five minutes than the prior five days so maybe I'll be surprised by the end of the week? 

This could be a hot program if Amazon places it on their front page and pushes it in their email blasts. As it currently sits, it's about as easy for readers to find as the top 100 freebie charts - which are hidden unless a reader knows the secret on how to look for them. Perhaps the Countdown magic juice will show up by the holidays and reel in all the Indies scampering away in search of promotion opportunities outside Amazon?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Quiss said:


> My book is now at 1.99
> Not seen a single sale all day. So far 28 sold at .99, 5 at 1.99


I'm glad I posted the above.
I just checked the promo page and my numbers changed to 29 sold at 99 cents (which ended last night) and five at 1.99
However, the actual total count according to the regular sales pace is 36 since the sale started, two of those in the last hour.

Lots of wonkiness going on.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

dkgould said:


> I'm not trying to persuade you to go through with it, but I thought I'd offer some alternative information. If you do decide not to do it, remember you have to cancel 24 hours in advance or your hands are tied.
> 
> As for the advertising thing, amazon actually announced the countdown deal at the same time as the "kindle first" program for prime members, so it may have been overshadowed by that, but I have seen the announcement on at least two (I think I saw three, but I can't remember) technology sites. Not writer sites. Granted, I haven't seen it on any reader sites yet. I also saw a large banner on the front page of the entire Amazon store announcing countdown deals just over their black friday banners. It's gone now because of the FAA thing, but it will probably be back.
> 
> ...


Thanks DK and congratulations. You are doing well. I won't spend any money, this time at least. Deirdre, you just sold another. I'm just in a bad mood because I'm on blood thinner and can't eat anything without calling and checking if it's OK.


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2013)

Sounds like one result was spectacular and one not as much as it could be.  I'm glad to hear you get to keep your position in the rankings, unlike with free. 

And if you do compare those apples to apples you'll be able to figure out what price readers like you at the most, or maybe just when your book was the most visible.  

I think it's a good point on the system being rushed, too.  Perhaps this week and next weekend will go better.


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

2 days in. JUST NOW appeared on the countdown page. So far, 2 sales @ 0.99 instead of my usual $2.99 or $3.99.

Of course, part of the problem is that it's the first book in the series with no follow up out yet. Will see how it goes, I've signed up for the full 7 days to evaluate the need to stay in Select. 

I will, probably, have the strategy to launch my new books via Select to build some following, but for now I don't see the point of staying there longer.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Might be a coincidence... but my books are not in select and my sales are down for the month so far. Any one else see that?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

VydorScope said:


> Might be a coincidence... but my books are not in select and my sales are down for the month so far. Any one else see that?


I hope it's just coincidence. I am seeing fewer sales of the books that are NOT in the Countdown, too.
In fact, I had more international sales yesterday than .com. That's a first.

ETA: Still registering sales at 99 cents even though I'm well into the 1.99 increment. Hmmm....


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

Book Master said:


> Its great to hear the updates on some sales from tha ladies and gents who already participated in the program.
> 
> I had an email from Amazon today where they started trying to promote this program. Î sent out some tweets to the various hash sites such as #readers, #amreading, #reading,etc, etc to try and help get some readers on this discount program since Saturday. Of course who knows, that might have helped some get a sale or possibly not. I posted on my website about this program too. Every little thing you do positively towards something helps.


Do you mind me asking if the email was sent to you as a reader, or an author? What was the content/purpose of the email?


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

VydorScope said:


> Might be a coincidence... but my books are not in select and my sales are down for the month so far. Any one else see that?


I haven't noticed my sales being down, but I have noticed that my book rankings were up (in the bad direction), even though I sold the same amount of books as usual.


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## Lyndawrites (Aug 7, 2011)

My sales are dead in the water on dot com - hence the (pointless) Countdown promo on _A Novel Way to Die _ - but holding up in the UK.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Hmmm, my sales are about where I expected them to be. Wonder if the new covers are masking a drop.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Let me just opine about this as a reader. You guys can take it or ignore it.  

I just went through a bunch of books in the romance section under the kindle countdown section. I recognized on first look a lot of books I have seen before on either free or sales. I clicked on a lot of them which gives me the options to see the sales history of each book. So a lot of the books in the countdown were bouncing all over the place in price over whatever months they been on sale. 

I mean some of them have been free again and again, down to 99 cents, up to 1.99, back down to free, up to 2.99. Basically all over the place. So for me as a reader and customer, there really isn't an incentive to buy a book with a count down clock on it, when I know it will be either free or at 99 cents again soon anyway. 

I bought a couple of books from the countdown and both where books that are 3.99 usually and haven't ever been free and as far as I can tell haven't been at 99 and maybe once a long time ago. 

I know you guys like to "complain" sometimes about us readers not wanting to pay for books anymore or always looking for the 99 cent deals, but is it really the readers fault when you guys price up and down all over the place again and again and therefore creating an expectation that at some point it will be free again?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Atunah said:


> I know you guys like to "complain" sometimes about us readers not wanting to pay for books anymore or always looking for the 99 cent deals, but is it really the readers fault when you guys price up and down all over the place again and again and therefore creating an expectation that at some point it will be free again?


Yeah, excellent point.
This is also what finally made me decide to make the first book (Sky Hunter) perma free and promote it like mad once it's out of Select and not run specials on the other titles after the holidays. January will start a whole different marketing strategy.


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

Atunah said:


> I clicked on a lot of them which gives me the options to see the sales history of each book.


I'm not sure what you mean by this. How can a customer see the sales history of a book. Can you explain more?


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Robert Brumm said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by this. How can a customer see the sales history of a book. Can you explain more?


I use the ereaderiq chrome extension. http://www.ereaderiq.com/tools/

There are other sites and other tools out there though, I think a lot of the sites that show free books and such have some kind of tool. I use it mainly to add books to my wishlist that I want to drop in price, or that are not out in kindle yet. Its like a all in one thingy. And yes, many of us readers know about it, especially those of us that do a lot of browsing for deals and such.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

I have my second book, March Into Hell, as a deal right now. It started on Sunday--which probably isn't the best day to start, but anyway, I did no promo beyond a five dollar FB post boost and some tweets. I sold 34 at 99 cents, and then the price changed to $1.99. I've only sold about 4 of those. In a few hours, the price goes to $2.99, then back to the original price of $3.99. 

I would not do the incremental increase again. I was gaining ground when the price increased and I lost any momentum I had. I had no borrows of that book, but I sold/had borrowed, about 10 of my other books. 

Another mistake I made was not realizing that to do a U.K. deal, you have to do a separate deal for it. Setting the deal for .com does not automatically set the deal for the U.K. The good news is, I can still do one for this book for U.K. only.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Atunah said:


> I use the ereaderiq chrome extension. http://www.ereaderiq.com/tools/


Nifty. As a reader, I would definitely use that.

Though I could certainly see that tool being an enemy of authors who discount frequently.

And as far as the sales dropping off from the countdown deal once the price increases, I think this is overwhelming proof that most readers are specifically only looking for the $0.99 deals. It doesn't seem like doing the incremental price increase will be worthwhile to anyone who isn't a big name author.


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## Mark E. Cooper (May 29, 2011)

Quiss said:


> Why do you need to end in .99 ?
> I let my prices, in terms of conversion, fall as they may except for Canada. For the US mine actually end in .95.


Sorry Quiss, the .99 wasn't the point of my reply just an addition really. I was replying to the idea that letting amazon set the price in UK based upon US price meant problems for the countdown. By setting it separately you can control things better. I usually set US and UK price to exact numbers like $4.99 and £3.99 and leave the other stores to follow US dollar amounts. I do it that way because the other stores only sell a few dozen of my books while US and UK are my biggest markets.

The .99 ending is just expected over here. .95 works too, but it always looks odd seeing .67 or .83 <shrug> I just follow along and it seems to work out.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Atunah said:


> Let me just opine about this as a reader. You guys can take it or ignore it.
> 
> I just went through a bunch of books in the romance section under the kindle countdown section. I recognized on first look a lot of books I have seen before on either free or sales. I clicked on a lot of them which gives me the options to see the sales history of each book. So a lot of the books in the countdown were bouncing all over the place in price over whatever months they been on sale.
> 
> ...


I've been guilty of this price meddling with some of my books--regarding it as some kind of digital-selling learning curve. I've always felt I was kind of crazy doing it and now you've confirmed it. Maybe not all readers are as savvy as you are, Atunah, but I'm sure the number is growing. Thanks for posting this pricing wake-up call.

I've got a BookBub ad (price reduction, not free) at the end of the month, and I've set up another Countdown promo for next week. After that, I'm going to take a rest from fiddling with my prices (Gawd some of them must look like bad penny stock prices by now!), choose the occasional ad site as carefully as possible, and let the chips--if any--fall where they may. (And maybe, if it looks worth it, do an occasional countdown sale--accent on occasional.

I've got a novella perma-free elsewhere (Amazon never matched the price though), and for now that will be that for free. I had my ride on the big give-it-away bandwagon, so going forward I'll start walking--and writing and publishing.

(Had a countdown sale out of the gate (Nov 2), and sold 18 books. It will be interesting to see how the second one goes.)


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Maybe the countdown thing is meant not only to get rid of the glut of free, but also to slow down or eliminate those unpredictable price variations.  With those participating forced to hold their prices at a fixed point for a month before and two weeks after (with a 7 day deal, that's almost two of the three month select period), it will probably stop lots of the wild back and forth without coming down hard and price fixing for people.  Also probably why you have to run this deal as a block of days rather than spread out.  And I'm sure Atunah's thoughts exactly correspond to market research- if you have to wait (as a consumer) for a long while for something to go on sale, you are more likely to snatch it up quickly (creating a burst of sales for the seller and amazon) when it is on sale or not wait at all and buy it for full price.  Either way, good for Amazon's bottom line (and ours too, actually)


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## Anne Frasier (Oct 22, 2009)

maybe this has already been mentioned, but i wonder if a book's long-term sales, ratings, # of reviews, etc. have something to do with where it ends up in amazon's countdown. so if you decide to countdown with your poorest selling title...does it automatically get buried? and if you decide to countdown with your bestseller, does it have a much better chance of a higher profile location right out of the gate?


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

Atunah said:


> I use the ereaderiq chrome extension. http://www.ereaderiq.com/tools/
> 
> There are other sites and other tools out there though, I think a lot of the sites that show free books and such have some kind of tool. I use it mainly to add books to my wishlist that I want to drop in price, or that are not out in kindle yet. Its like a all in one thingy. And yes, many of us readers know about it, especially those of us that do a lot of browsing for deals and such.


Good to know! I didn't know of such magical extensions.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Oh Goody I get to participate in something...finally. 
So my one lonely children's book is being discounted from 4.99 to .99 for a week.
Let the experiments BEGIN!!!!!!


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Atunah said:


> Let me just opine about this as a reader. You guys can take it or ignore it.
> 
> I just went through a bunch of books in the romance section under the kindle countdown section. I recognized on first look a lot of books I have seen before on either free or sales. I clicked on a lot of them which gives me the options to see the sales history of each book. So a lot of the books in the countdown were bouncing all over the place in price over whatever months they been on sale.
> 
> ...


So my policy of set a price and forget it is a winner here  I have 1 permafree and the rest at 3.99. Well one at 9.99 

But since I am a reader too... gonna check out that tool


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Robert Brumm said:


> Good to know! I didn't know of such magical extensions.


You don't even need the extension. Every book page on ereaderiq has all kinds of info about the pricing of the books. They even recommend to get one if it hasn't been on sale often. Looks like this



> Price Summary:
> We started tracking this book on December 24, 2012.
> The price of this book has changed 12 times in the past 317 days.
> The current price of this book is $0.99 last checked 6 hours ago.
> ...


This is just a example book I pulled. Some books have way more than 12 price changes in a year, heck in a few months. 
For this particular book they say 


> Our Recommendation:
> Wait: We recommend creating a price drop alert for $0.98.


And I am guessing this is because their algorithm says the book has a better chance of being really low priced again or free, based on the past behavior. This guide has helped me a lot when buying books.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Atunah said:


> You don't even need the extension. Every book page on ereaderiq has all kinds of info about the pricing of the books. They even recommend to get one if it hasn't been on sale often.


Good and bad with this services.
They recommend waiting for a discount on a book that I have no intention of discounting again. 
So frequent price changes can really end up biting you in the hiney.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

This is interesting. I haven't fiddled much with the price of this book but they still recommend waiting until it reaches 99 cents.


    We started tracking this book on January 14, 2011.
    The price of this book has changed 11 times in the past 1,027 days.
    The current price of this book is $4.99 last checked 10 hours ago.
    The lowest price to date was FREE last reached on September 27, 2012.
    The highest price to date was $4.99 last reached on October 31, 2013.
    This book is currently at its highest price since we started tracking it.

Those 11 times include two free runs and I haven't made it free in well over a year. It will be going down to 99 cents during a countdown deal and I'm thinking of keeping it at 99 cents for the duration or maybe just half of the week.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Oh dear, I just showed some of you some more data stuff to obsess over, didn't I.   

I think if I see a book hasn't been free or on sale in a year, I would be much more likely to jump on a sale. I mean its the overall graph. If a book goes down every month and back up, which I have seen a lot of books do, then I expect it to continue with that pattern. 
So I look more at the overall graph then just their recommendation. Now if the recommendation says grab it it hasn't been this low ever, then I'll take a closer look. And yes, I have seen that too a lot. 

I would just think that overall such promo's like this countdown work better when a customer gets the sense of value. A book on sale down from 3.99 to 99 is a better value then if it goes back up from 99 cents to 1.99 in 5 days. 1.99 is still quite a bargain, so the urgency isn't there as much. 

Example of this are the amazon own imprints. I see the montlake romance titles being at 3.99 usually and I have never seen them free. Some go on sale once in a while as either a daily deal or part of the 100 books a month and such. So the price lowering is always in conjunction with a very specific time sensitive promo.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

As a buyer if I want a book I can't be bothered waiting for a sale just to save a couple of dollars.


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## Guest (Nov 5, 2013)

Quiss said:


> Good and bad with this services.
> They recommend waiting for a discount on a book that I have no intention of discounting again.
> So frequent price changes can really end up biting you in the hiney.


Yes, print books have their price printed on the cover for a reason. Too many authors are selling themselves short with continual price fluctuations and rebates when they should raise their prices and forget about them.

The reader who put those number up on 12 price changes in 317 days says it all. More and more readers will discover this, and tons of authors will be penalized (no sales and relegated to bottom-basement prices which they really imposed on themselves).


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

Just a cautionary note:  I enrolled one of my books into the program, was going to line up some ad promotions, went to double check the date and it said that my promotion had been cancelled due to the fact they found the price of my book lower... somewhere... than for what I was going to list it...?  This book has never had a price change.  I have an email into Amazon to find out what's going on, but just wanted sound the alert.  Random cancellation glitches ahoy!


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Well, my official view of this new feature: Meh

No other promos supporting this
No money spent
Sold at .99 = 40
Sold at 1.99 = 8
Sold at 2.99 = 1 (few more hours to go, lost interest)
Royalties: $33.10
Sales of other books in series during promo: poor
Best rank for this title: 10k
Current rank: 18k
Author rank for sci-fi: sinking fast:


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Wow. I just checked, and saw that 4,410 titles are in the program. That’s only Day #5.

Swarmed!


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

In response to Mr. CarlSinclair......It was an email directed at m
e as an Author I believe.

Thats not bad Quiss for a new program coming out of the gate. If memory serves me correctly, Lynda have a tough go on her book. I hated it for her too.

Still have the 3 out of 4 slated for Thanksgiving week, so shall it be, for better or worse.......maybe.

I see we have ereaderiq? 

Even the books we write leave a footprint. Wasn't there an old story by a fellow named Orwell, about "Big Brother" watching our everyday moves in the future? It is a reality now.

I buy books online from time to time but never bother with worrying about price if the info or story is something of interest. Now, are we going to be afraid to change the prices on our own books because some use such a thing as ereaderiq?

Don't think so.

BM


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Austin_Briggs said:


> Wow. I just checked, and saw that 4,410 titles are in the program. That's only Day #5.


Checking my numbers this morning and, although October numbers looked like they were improving after the "summer slump", sales of regular-priced books have tanked these past few days.
I'm thinking that sales of those and non-select books are going to suffer until things level out again. 
Here's to hoping that this won't force everyone to bargain-basement their prices over the long run.

This could of course be a huge bonus for permafree and promo-free books being subsequently promoted.

I am getting a little irritated by the books that continue to be featured prominently at the top of the page, as they seemed to have stuck there beyond the 7-day limit afforded us mere mortals.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Quiss said:


> Well, my official view of this new feature: Meh
> 
> No other promos supporting this
> No money spent
> ...


That was almost exactly my experience. The Kindle Countdown Deal page did have books listed, but, while I didn't check all them, the most prominently listed books were all Amazon Imprints.

I'm going to try it a few more times but so far, I haven't been overwhelmed with success. In fact, the day my book was 99 cents, I had zero sales of the other books. It might have just been a slow day and maybe I wouldn't have had any sales otherwise, but I didn't sell enough to really expect a bump in sales of subsequent books in the series.


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## JumpingShip (Jun 3, 2010)

Atunah said:


> Let me just opine about this as a reader. You guys can take it or ignore it.
> 
> I just went through a bunch of books in the romance section under the kindle countdown section. I recognized on first look a lot of books I have seen before on either free or sales. I clicked on a lot of them which gives me the options to see the sales history of each book. So a lot of the books in the countdown were bouncing all over the place in price over whatever months they been on sale.
> 
> ...


You have a good point, but that doesn't explain my lack of sales. The book I promoted has never been on sale in almost three years (price actually has gone from $2.99, to $3.99 and has stayed there for about 2 years now.) It was free for about two days in Feb 2012 with underwhelming results. I think it had about 1500 downloads. It is the book that follows my best seller and the one that gets the most reviews--most of which are excellent reviews. I had just had a small freebie run of that book last week so I had hoped those who picked up the freebie would snatch up the next book for the sale price. Ftr, the book has had good sales and good reviews overall, so I don't think it's a book problem--it's a visibility problem. My book certainly didn't appear on any Kindle Countdown deal that I could see.

It'll come down to the books that go on the List will do well, the ones left off, won't. I don't know how Amazon chooses. I thought it was reviews/rating, but I saw books with fewer reviews, worse rating, on the list in the same genre. It could be random or first come first serve. Who knows?


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

MaryMcDonald said:


> You have a good point, but that doesn't explain my lack of sales. The book I promoted has never been on sale in almost three years (price actually has gone from $2.99, to $3.99 and has stayed there for about 2 years now.) It was free for about two days in Feb 2012 with underwhelming results. I think it had about 1500 downloads. It is the book that follows my best seller and the one that gets the most reviews--most of which are excellent reviews. I had just had a small freebie run of that book last week so I had hoped those who picked up the freebie would snatch up the next book for the sale price. Ftr, the book has had good sales and good reviews overall, so I don't think it's a book problem--it's a visibility problem. My book certainly didn't appear on any Kindle Countdown deal that I could see.
> 
> It'll come down to the books that go on the List will do well, the ones left off, won't. I don't know how Amazon chooses. I thought it was reviews/rating, but I saw books with fewer reviews, worse rating, on the list in the same genre. It could be random or first come first serve. Who knows?


No clue how they listing those books. When I go to romance for example new and popular I think is the default sorting and the first batch are books I have seen around while browsing romance. Many have some reviews. On the later pages I see books I have never seen before, many have no reviews and some are hard to tell if they are even romance or what. So the ones I have noticed while browsing and have gotten good feedback seem to be listed first. Well that would make sense with new and popular. 
I don't know if they rotate through the ones on the front page when one clicks on the kindle countdown. I just sorted by clicking on all romance. Since it wasn't a genre listed at the front, I had to use the side bar first for that.

This thing is so new though I didn't even know about it. I didn't get an email, I just happened to come across it by accident when I happened to look at a book that was part of the countdown. And I didn't even find it through the amazon search, but the ereaderiq price drop function.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

MaryMcDonald said:


> It'll come down to the books that go on the List will do well, the ones left off, won't. I don't know how Amazon chooses. I thought it was reviews/rating, but I saw books with fewer reviews, worse rating, on the list in the same genre. It could be random or first come first serve. Who knows?


Yeah, I think unless Amazon becomes more transparent about how they pick who gets on the pages and who doesn't, this is going to be a pretty useless promo option. I just wonder if the _are_ choosing yet, or if the system is still so glitchy that books aren't making it onto the pages when they are supposed to- there's books with zero ratings in my categories and I'm certainly not one of the top rated, yet I've been at the top of the category list this whole time (one of the books underneath me had something like 347 reviews, mostly 4-5 stars. I have 14) And I thought someone said the countdown pages were supposed to hold up to 10,000 books- or did I read that wrong? There's still less than 5000 altogether. If things aren't explained it's going to be like betting your paycheck in a roulette game.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

otoprover said:


> Seventeen Shades of Love! Starting at 0.99 today!


Did you have a question for us?


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## Guest (Nov 6, 2013)

Quiss said:


> Well, my official view of this new feature: Meh
> 
> No other promos supporting this
> No money spent
> ...


I'm glad you did one with nothing else supporting it so we can get a good idea of what to expect with this alone.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

still got two days left and then I'll post the finals too.  I will say this though, Wednesdays suck no matter what apparently


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Greg Strandberg said:


> I'm glad you did one with nothing else supporting it so we can get a good idea of what to expect with this alone.


Yeah, that was the intent. Feeling a bit like a guinea pig 
You could support this with additional promos but most places listing 99-centers will charge for that. So there goes your increased revenue.
So then you might as wall just pick dates of your own choosing, for whatever length and run a discount special.

If I did this again, I'd just do three days with one increment, that being 99 cents. Still, with the sheer volume of books now being added into this, the visibility isn't that great. 
Right now, there are 13 pages of sci-fi. That's a lot to scroll through for the reader.

I'd love to hear from someone who did well with this, so early in the game.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

I'm up today buried on page fourteen. No sales yet.

I notice they have only four pages of thrillers and suspense that are getting the big upfront treatment. Those pages aren't even full. They have two or three blank spots. What is the point of that?
Not expecting anything.


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

Quiss said:


> Did you have a question for us?


Ha. 

I'm actually very pleased with my results. I'm not bragging, just want to give an example of it working out for somebody. My book is $5.99 regularly and I started at .99 cents with a .99 cent interval every 32 hours. I'm currently on increment 4, $3.99. I've sold 162 units and have made $173.33.

.99 - 88 sales
1.99 - 46 sales
2.99 - 24 sales
3.99 - 4 sales and counting...


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

Quiss said:


> ... Feeling a bit like a guinea pig
> If I did this again, I'd just do three days with one increment, that being 99 cents. ...


Unlike Select Free promo, the Countdown promo is a one time option no matter the number of days used - so you might as well use all seven if using any.

I have four titles up since Sunday 8am, three at 99cts and one at 2.99 (normally 9.99), and no sales of any of them. I'm using a week long "naked" promo (only Amazon, no other promotion announcements).

Anyone that has had sales, did you get sales at the beginning of your promo run or near the end? I'm wondering if, like eBay, many wait until the end assuming flat pricing. Using the price increments will change that dynamic.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

jvin248 said:


> Unlike Select Free promo, the Countdown promo is a one time option no matter the number of days used - so you might as well use all seven if using any.


yeah, but you want to come out at the top of your ranking.
Sales dropped off steeply once the 99 cents increment was done. Would have done better if I had not had that last day.

Nice going Robert! I'm glad someone is doing well with this!


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

jvin248 said:


> Anyone that has had sales, did you get sales at the beginning of your promo run or near the end? I'm wondering if, like eBay, many wait until the end assuming flat pricing. Using the price increments will change that dynamic.


No, because unlike other countdown deals across the store, we don't get a big flashy banner in front saying, "These are the deals expiring soon!! Get em now" in fact, I think the only ones induced into panic are us, because we can see the time running away every time we look at the book . . .

And I have slowed down at 1.99 but I'm still about 2,000 in the rankings and have sold 322 thus far and had more borrows too. Interesting side note by the way- when createspace opened up the free distribution yesterday, I was playing around with it and raised the price of the paperback to the minimum for expanded distribution and saved it. I meant to go back and fiddle after I got a chance to discuss it with my husband (we are trying to make business decisions together), but I never got a chance to talk with him. This morning I looked and amazon had changed the paperback price and the percentage off that it showed on the page (and on the countdown deals) so it's now a whopping 88% saved. So even though they say you can't change prices- you can apparently change your paperback. Which may or may not be something to play with to make your discount look more attractive (also a good reason to have a paperback in the first place even if you don't think you'll sell any)


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

After checking over most all of those who posted their results, it seems the .99 , 1.99 pricing is getting the most sales. It might play out in the best interest of any that use the new program to use all the days avaliable with the two lowest increments.

Apparently, readers going there are after "bargain basement deals." Then again, the straight .99 for the entire book run might bring the most sales as many people and I hate to say this, "are broke until that next paycheck." Sometimes, .99 is about all they have to spend.

If nothing else, it could produce enough back in the profit columns for some to invest in fancier book covers for fiction titles or a paid advertisement for another book. Whatever anyone can make off of the program, it would be to their advantage to put the monies back into their books period! 

Sell 100 books over the promo span at .99 gives you 70 percent profit = a paid book advertisement or more. Sell more than the 100 and use the money to do more with your business. 

Just a thought, but always invest back into what you do until you are at a comfortable level. What you sacrifice early can pay larger dividends later.

BM


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

dkgould said:


> No, because unlike other countdown deals across the store, we don't get a big flashy banner in front saying, "These are the deals expiring soon!! Get em now" in fact, I think the only ones induced into panic are us, because we can see the time running away every time we look at the book . . .
> 
> And I have slowed down at 1.99 but I'm still about 2,000 in the rankings and have sold 322 thus far and had more borrows too. Interesting side note by the way- when createspace opened up the free distribution yesterday, I was playing around with it and raised the price of the paperback to the minimum for expanded distribution and saved it. I meant to go back and fiddle after I got a chance to discuss it with my husband (we are trying to make business decisions together), but I never got a chance to talk with him. This morning I looked and amazon had changed the paperback price and the percentage off that it showed on the page (and on the countdown deals) so it's now a whopping 88% saved. So even though they say you can't change prices- you can apparently change your paperback. Which may or may not be something to play with to make your discount look more attractive (also a good reason to have a paperback in the first place even if you don't think you'll sell any)


Wow Deirdre, you are doing well. Are you doing any advertising? I've sold nothing yet.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Well, I didn't want to be the only one in this program, so I enrolled the second book in my series (first one was at 99c last month for a few promotions I was part of). Just for data, this book has been out a month and a half now, and has never been free or discounted. It's been selling reasonably well, but I'm past the 30 day cliff, and sales have slowed a little. (I put it in select because the first one is, and it seemed pointless to but a second book on other retailers, so I figured I might as well take advantage of borrows. I have no intention of making this book free at any point.)

So far, the book has been up for an hour, and from my point of view, I've sold two copies. Amazon says they were sold before the promotion started, but it seems unlikely to me!

The book already appears to be on the countdown list, and I'm on the second page of the romance category, which hopefully means I'll see a few sales. Rank at the start was in the 120k range. I'm away from home, and behind on NaNo, so I don't plan to do any promo at all. I haven't even mentioned it on Facebook or twitter at this point, though I might.

Sad though, I can't see the markdown myself, perhaps because I'm in Australia? Pity, I really wanted to see what the countdown clock looked like!


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## journeymama (May 30, 2011)

KateDanley said:


> Just a cautionary note: I enrolled one of my books into the program, was going to line up some ad promotions, went to double check the date and it said that my promotion had been cancelled due to the fact they found the price of my book lower... somewhere... than for what I was going to list it...? This book has never had a price change. I have an email into Amazon to find out what's going on, but just wanted sound the alert. Random cancellation glitches ahoy!


Same thing happened to me and I got a standard email back saying that I couldn't schedule a promotion until 30 days of being in Select, which I KNEW, which was why I was scheduling for December 1. I have written back again and hopefully will get a more helpful response.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Book Master said:


> After checking over most all of those who posted their results, it seems the .99 , 1.99 pricing is getting the most sales. It might play out in the best interest of any that use the new program to use all the days avaliable with the two lowest increments.


That's what I was thinking, so I entered a title at .UK that I wasn't planning to promote over here and set it at 99 cents for four days.
22 hours into this, the book still isn't listed on the Countdown page so I can't report on results of this. Finding that odd, because there are very few titles in my genre. As at .com Kurt Vonnegut, zombies and strangely-shaped witches are all to be seen. In fact there are only 28 titles in Sci-Fi! 
Why on earth would they not want more titles on this?

How are others doing? This thread has almost 10k views and .com has 4700 titles listed - surely there are more than this handful of people willing to share results?


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Quiss said:


> That's what I was thinking, so I entered a title at .UK that I wasn't planning to promote over here and set it at 99 cents for four days.
> 22 hours into this, the book still isn't listed on the Countdown page so I can't report on results of this. Finding that odd, because there are very few titles in my genre. As at .com Kurt Vonnegut, zombies and strangely-shaped witches are all to be seen. In fact there are only 28 titles in Sci-Fi!
> Why on earth would they not want more titles on this?
> 
> How are others doing? This thread has almost 10k views and .com has 4700 titles listed - surely there are more than this handful of people willing to share results?


I am also surprised at the lack of comments from people.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Quiss said:


> How are others doing? This thread has almost 10k views and .com has 4700 titles listed - surely there are more than this handful of people willing to share results?


Wonder how many of them are on these forums... and how many of that subset are reading this thread?


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

I think maybe most authors haven't had their promotions scheduled yet. 
Mine is supposed to start today.
My mileage may vary ALOT since it's a children's book, but I'll definitely share my results.  

EDIT: There isn't no where near as much competition...I think there is less than 10 books up in an otherwise popular subcategory


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

Charmaine said:


> I think maybe most authors haven't had their promotions scheduled yet.
> Mine is supposed to start today.
> My mileage may vary ALOT since it's a children's book, but I'll definitely share my results.
> 
> EDIT: There isn't no where near as much competition...I think there is less than 10 books up in an otherwise popular subcategory


There will be in a month. All those people jumping back into Select who couldn't run a countdown for 30 days.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

CarlSinclair said:


> There will be in a month. All those people jumping back into Select who couldn't run a countdown for 30 days.


I wonder how big of a group that is? I suspect not very big.


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

CarlSinclair said:


> There will be in a month. All those people jumping back into Select who couldn't run a countdown for 30 days.


YES! I suspected this too. That's why I did the promotion now. In thirty days there's going to be more competition, maybe not a lot, but enough that I might lose some of the edge.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> Wow Deirdre, you are doing well. Are you doing any advertising? I've sold nothing yet.


sorry, just read this this morning. Nope, not any advertising, just sheer, extreme dumb luck. Which is really frustrating (yeah, I know, you're thinking I should cry you a river, right? but hear me out). It means not only can I not tell everyone else what went right, I can't even replicate it for myself, so I'll have no idea if I decide to do this again, whether I'm going to hit it big or it's going to be a flop (which also means that it's hard to justify spending ad money on the thing). The only thing I can think is that I'm in a relatively small subcategory that's experiencing a surge right now (post-apoc). I bet the mystery/thriller and romance people would make my sales look piddling if they were in my spot on the countdown pages- but it's been so glitchy that lots of them haven't even made it to the countdown pages before their run was up. I'm hoping to hear from some more people who've been successful in the next few weeks and months after everything is smoothed out. I'd be more confident about doing it again if there is some kind of consistency developed.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

I made 6 sales overnight (my night, so US day), which is a fair few for me! And one follow on sale of the first book. I'm pretty happy with how the promption's going so far. 

I just realised though, that the numbers have disappeared from my series title (I'm sure they were there last time I looked?), so I'm wondering if people are unaware that it's the second in the series? I probably should go fix that?


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

You are strong in number 2 position, Deirdre. Congratulations on such a good run. They have taken my book down in US. I've checked through all of them twice. I still haven't sold anything. I couldn't even find the Countdown in UK. Does anyone know how to track down the countdown in UK? When I put in a quest for Kindle Countdown. I got hundreds of books with the word countdown in the title.


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

My fiction book listed 2 days ago has sold 6 copies so far. It appeared in the list, although quite deep down, yesterday.

My non-fiction book listed yesterday has sold 16 copies so far. I don’t think it’s appeared on any lists. I’ve just decided to give it a boost with a sponsored post and some targeted FB ads. Will see how it works overnight (during the US afternoon, since I’m in Europe). 

Nothing in the UK. Gimme a “z”, gimme an “e”, etc. Zero, in other words.


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Charmaine said:


> I think maybe most authors haven't had their promotions scheduled yet.
> Mine is supposed to start today.
> My mileage may vary ALOT since it's a children's book, but I'll definitely share my results.
> 
> EDIT: There isn't no where near as much competition...I think there is less than 10 books up in an otherwise popular subcategory


Good luck! I'd be competing with you, but I JUST pulled all my children titles out of Select and made one of them permafree. So I won't be there...

Hope it works wonders for you!


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Austin_Briggs said:


> Good luck! I'd be competing with you, but I JUST pulled all my children titles out of Select and made one of them permafree. So I won't be there...
> 
> Hope it works wonders for you!


Thanks, so far all I can say is that it went up at noon


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> They have taken my book down in US. I've checked through all of them twice. I still haven't sold anything. I couldn't even find the Countdown in UK. Does anyone know how to track down the countdown in UK? When I put in a quest for Kindle Countdown. I got hundreds of books with the word countdown in the title.


here is the uk link, it looks like there are still only 542 books in it. http://www.amazon.co.uk/b/ref=amb_link_157681107_2?ie=UTF8&node=3415852031&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=left-2&pf_rd_r=1Z6E8408WTM3R17HT2JR&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=441340827&pf_rd_i=341689031
wonder if it's because they are having glitches over there too or if there just aren't as many in. My select time is up shortly though, someone else will have to try it out 

Did they take down your book because it was finished with the promo or is it more glitchy randomness? I'm so confused about how being on the pages works. Has anyone received a straight answer to an email about it yet?

eta: bah stupid html tags I give up lol


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

33 hours into my .uk promo and I'm still not up.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

that stinks.  They really ought to give people that didn't make it up there more time.  Its not like they were being choosy, its that someone is taking too long to post stuff.  I'm sorry but 33 hours isn't server lag.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

This is only my second day in US and first day in UK and I'm not showing in either. I was up in the US yesterday. I don't know why it was taken down. It is not erotica! I'm not feeling that this is a fair promotion at all.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> This is only my second day in US and first day in UK and I'm not showing in either. I was up in the US yesterday. I don't know why it was taken down. It is not erotica! I'm not feeling that this is a fair promotion at all.


 I see you, you're up under women sleuths in mystery, maybe it's just glitchy?


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Can anyone figure out how the books are ordered on the countdown category pages? Because it doesn't seem to be by rank. Weird.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

O.K. I did see my book up in US. I didn't see it in UK.
Still haven't sold anything. I think the order of books is somewhat rank based but it is not exact.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

46 hours into .UK and still not there.
The current list of sci-fi offerings has now gone from 28 to 25. Lovely.

Meanwhile, people are still piling onto the .com site, with over 5000 titles now. Including things like a 2012 title with two reviews that's been there since the promo went live. So much for that seven-day thing.
I see Rinelle's title on the featured scrolly thing at the top. Very nice! 

For me, however, it's been a bust all around. No incentive to stay in select.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Quiss said:


> I see Rinelle's title on the featured scrolly thing at the top. Very nice!


Oh, thanks for letting me know. I haven't seen it there. Perhaps they rotate through them a little?

I'm really happy with how it's going so far. Had 13 downloads of the promo book, and 3 of the first book. I think that makes it my biggest download day ever. Rankings are hovering around the 20k mark.

Will be interesting to see how it goes after it goes up a price point, then once the promo is over.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

All right, the promo ended about an hour ago, so I thought I'd put up the  final tallies.  This is no advertising, no facebook mentions, tweets or to my knowledge being picked up by any random deal site or anything (I keep looking, but I can't find anything):

at .99  253 books
at 1.99 175 books
returns: 3 (pretty sure at least two of these changed to borrows since they happened almost simultaneously)
total royalty of just the promo: 378.31
borrows over the same period: 13 (my average has been 4 for a month)
Sales of other books: 5  (normally would be zero)
My highest rank was at the end of the 99 cent period at 1360 overall and in the top 20 of my subcategories
My rank at the end of the whole promo is 1926 overall, still in the top 20 of my subcategories

I guess the next question is how fast the rank drops and if it matters now that the promo is over.  Is there any other info that would be useful to anyone?


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## michaelenewton (Feb 19, 2010)

dkgould said:


> All right, the promo ended about an hour ago, so I thought I'd put up the final tallies. This is no advertising, no facebook mentions, tweets or to my knowledge being picked up by any random deal site or anything (I keep looking, but I can't find anything):
> 
> at .99 253 books
> at 1.99 175 books
> ...


Congrats on you success.

I'll give a quick update on my results. I sold more books than I usually do during the promotion period. I even made more money despite the lower royalties on lower priced books. That said, it was not worthwhile if one accounts for the value of the time I put into it in terms of reading about the program and setting it up.

That said, I'd probably do it again because now that I know what I'm doing, I can set it up in just a few minutes and make a few extra bucks. If I'm lucky, I'll have some success like dkgould. If not, I still make a few extra bucks.

But what I won't do, however, is waste time on the program. I'll set it up and then go about my normal business (i.e., writing my next book).


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Wow, Deidre, excellent. I'm glad this worked for you.
Maybe it's not a total bust for some, so there's hope.

Meanwhile, I received a response from Amazon.

I sent them the following message yesterday:



> I'm now 35 hours into a Countdown promotion at .UK and my title has still not appeared on your web page:
> Kindle Store › Kindle Countdown Deals › Kindle eBooks › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Science Fiction
> 
> In fact there are only a handful of titles shown there. What is your criteria for titles to appear there? In your announcement of Countdown, you mention this Countdown page as an advantage for gaining visibility. That doesn't seem to be the case.
> Without appearing on that page, there really isn't much reason to enter titles into Countdown, since authors can simply drop the price manually. I am a little disappointed with this new feature.


Their response:


> Some books will be featured on the Kindle Countdown Deals page, but not all books will.
> 
> This page has a range of automated merchandising campaigns to help customers discover deals based on attributes including genre, most popular, and recommendations. Since not every promotion can be featured on the landing page, we recommend you let your readers know about the deal shortly before and during its run.
> 
> ...


Interesting.
Among the 70 sci-fi/fantasy books that their "automated merchandising campaign" came up with are *47* titles without any reviews, 5 are the same book in five different languages, NINE books by the same author, two are in Japanese. Really?

(Yes, I'm bitter. And now I'm getting a cold. This weekend may involve wine. And chocolate. Chocolate ice cream)


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Quiss said:


> Wow, Deidre, excellent. I'm glad this worked for you.
> Maybe it's not a total bust for some, so there's hope.
> 
> Meanwhile, I received a response from Amazon.
> ...


On the plus side, at least you didn't get a cookie cutter e-mail from them. It looks like they actually took the time to read your e-mail, which is more than can be said for most of the people who e-mail them.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Congrats dk on the nifty haul from the book promotion! i saw that book featured quite often while scanning through the "Countdown" pages.

Something that always helps me when sick Quiss is taking a couple of lemons and boiling them until the water is hot. Pour a coffee mug full, add a teaspoon or two of sugar and drink before bedtime. Its a cure for breaking a fever and helps knock out a cold that leaves you feeling lousy with aches and pains. An age old remedy that works!

Thank God for Grandma, that old gal knew what worked to make sickness go away!

BM


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Book Master said:


> taking a couple of lemons and boiling them until the water is hot. Pour a coffee mug full, add a teaspoon or two of sugar and drink before bedtime


That just sounds delicious, for some reason.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Hey Quiss, sent a general email too, requesting more info on how books being featured are chosen.  I figured the more of us that asked, the more likely they were to at least explain some of it (it only makes sense to- the more people that run successful promos, the more money they make.  And how can people make advertising decisions if the outcome is based on some dark whim of Amazon rather than a predictable set of guidelines?  I said that too, but nicer, so hopefully the money argument will get an answer)  I'll let you know if they say anything different.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Thanks, Deirdre,
I'm kind of getting tired of listening to myself whine.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Quiss, I'm going to whine louder than you. I have sold nothing, zip. Deidre, I'm glad that you did so well. I'll be interested to hear what happens after the run. I still haven't even seen my book in the UK. So far I'm very disappointed and I do see some books repeated several times.
Kboarders, please report what is happening with your books. IF you are selling nine don't be shy. If you are selling hundreds we need to know.
Thanks to everyone who has reported so far. 
Well there is some sun today and I'm going to take the dog out.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Well, I got Young Moon up on Nov 2 for .99 in the US store, for the full seven days. It's usually a strong seller, has great reviews and is the first in a series, so it was worth the experiment. 

Took until the second day to get posted, but it's been on the first page of Kindle Countdown Science Fiction Post-Apocalyptic and Science Fiction Adventure the whole time. A dozen sales. I tweeted and posted, blogged and IMed. Shouted at the reports, then cooed, then pretended not to care. 

Ten hours left.

I've got another pair of books coming to the end of their Select period. Not sure whether to run a Countdown for them, or a free promo. 

Or nothing.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Thanks for reporting H.S. I saw your book up. Let us know final outcome and what happens with rank afterwards.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Quiss said:


> (Yes, I'm bitter. And now I'm getting a cold. This weekend may involve wine. And chocolate. Chocolate ice cream)


Chocolate ice cream is very good for a sore throat. So is hot apple juice, but chocolate ice cream is more fun.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Something isn't quite adding up. I was looking at the earnings portion of details of my promo, and the amounts don't add up to 70%. I would just assume that it's because of the countries where we only earn 35% even at the 70% royalty option, except that I can't get the deals in Australia. Are they event available in any of the 35% areas? Or is there some other reason my royalties aren't adding up? Anyone else having the same thing?


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2013)

I'm doing a countdown deal for another day now on my 75 eBook promo sites book.  It's usually $4.99 and I lowered it to $1.99.  I've done no marketing on it or even mentioned it, so no surprise there's very little action.  

I got one sale at $1.99 and another shortly after it switched to $2.99.  24 hours from now and it'll be done.  I'm on page 2 for non-fiction and page 4 to 5 overall.  I'm not too impressed with it right now by itself, honestly.


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Well, just before opting out of Select I tried it with 2 books not from very popular genres: 

1. Fiction novel: 6 purchases in the US. 

2. Non-fiction: 27 in the US and 1 in the UK.

This promo might be worth it for some popular genres... but not my books. I’m still leaving Select as planned.

After seeing some reported results, I’m seriously considering some alternative genres  Even created a full outline for a book while waiting for my wife in the car park last night, lol. Now only to find the time...


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Greg Strandberg said:


> I'm doing a countdown deal for another day now on my 75 eBook promo sites book. It's usually $4.99 and I lowered it to $1.99. I've done no marketing on it or even mentioned it, so no surprise there's very little action.
> 
> I got one sale at $1.99 and another shortly after it switched to $2.99. 24 hours from now and it'll be done. I'm on page 2 for non-fiction and page 4 to 5 overall. I'm not too impressed with it right now by itself, honestly.


Greg, one of those sales was me and I didn't find the book from the Countdown promotion. I saw it from reading your comments on this thread!
Well I guess indirectly that was from the promotion.


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## Guest (Nov 9, 2013)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> Greg, one of those sales was me and I didn't find the book from the Countdown promotion. I saw it from reading your comments on this thread!
> Well I guess indirectly that was from the promotion.


Ha! I do have to admit I was being a bit mum about it during the $1.99 stage.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Wow, Rinelle. You have a HUGE file size for a 270-page book. Do you have a lot of images in it? My box sets aren't even that big. Here's where I discuss the peril of large file sizes earlier in this thread: http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,162013.msg2383651.html#msg2383651
> 
> Your file size is showing as 4.655 MB. At 15 cents per, that's a delivery fee of 69.8 cents. Which, well, kinda negates all of the 69.3 cent royalty from a 99 cent book. Are you showing that you're making *any * money?
> 
> ...


I just glanced at her sample... she has a big graphic for the start of every chapter. I assume that is where her file size is coming from.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

The file size shouldn't be anywhere near that!  

The total for all my graphics (which are saved very compressed) is under 700kb! I checked when I first uploaded, and the books came in at around 1mb. I have no idea what has changed!


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Rinelle Grey said:


> The file size shouldn't be anywhere near that!
> 
> The total for all my graphics (which are saved very compressed) is under 700kb! I checked when I first uploaded, and the books came in at around 1mb. I have no idea what has changed!


Go into your dashboard and down load the preview file maybe? See how big that is.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

The preview file is 7mb!  

No idea what is going on, but it must be on Amazon's end. I looked at my August sales, and my book (the first one, but similar in size) was 1.08mb. Now it's over 3mb. Sent Amazon an email. All I can think of is that they've changed how they convert files (especially those including images).


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Rinelle Grey said:


> The preview file is 7mb!
> 
> No idea what is going on, but it must be on Amazon's end. I looked at my August sales, and my book (the first one, but similar in size) was 1.08mb. Now it's over 3mb. Sent Amazon an email. All I can think of is that they've changed how they convert files (especially those including images).


How are you making the mobi file?


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

I make them in html and upload it directly. It isn't anything I'm doing. On my six weeks royalty chart, the file sizes are 1.22 mb and 1.07 mb. I haven't changed anything since last week, when they were last updated. It's something Amazon has changed on their end.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Rinelle Grey said:


> I make them in html and upload it directly. It isn't anything I'm doing. On my six weeks royalty chart, the file sizes are 1.22 mb and 1.07 mb. I haven't changed anything since last week, when they were last updated. It's something Amazon has changed on their end.


Are you saying that you did not upload a new file and suddenly the file is bigger? Or did you recently do an upload? What about the cover? Amazon adds the cover to your mobi after upload - even if you already have one in the files. Just some random thoughts... it will be interesting to see what they say.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

VydorScope said:


> Are you saying that you did not upload a new file and suddenly the file is bigger? Or did you recently do an upload? What about the cover? Amazon adds the cover to your mobi after upload - even if you already have one in the files. Just some random thoughts... it will be interesting to see what they say.


Nope, haven't uploaded a new file in quite a while. I have changed pricing (but not on the novel in the countdeal obviously) and maybe keywords, but not the file itself.



Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Have you checked your Bookshelf? What does it estimate as your delivery cost and net royalty there?


Ohh, good idea. Just checked, and the file size there is 1.22 mb (same as it's always been), delivery cost of 18c. So something is definitely wrong.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Have you opened that preview file you downloaded? Notice anything different in it?


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

I calculated it out, and given the 18c download charge, my royalties are about right. So the size on the page must be wrong? Will stop panicking, and wait and see what Amazon says. Sorry to derail the thread! Back to your regularly scheduled program....


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

I just noticed this thread, and also the caveat that books have to be in KDP Select.

I would appreciate knowing if this promotion has worked out for the majority of people who have tried it. And is it too late for someone to try it?

Thank you!


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Quiss and P.A.- just got the email back from support, they basically copy and pasted the same paragraph they sent to Quiss, but they did emphasize that it was an automated system, so hopefully it will be more predictable as glitches get ironed out.  But they also said it was going to require some advertising on some books part because only some of the books would get on the countdown page- very not worth spending on ads if you aren't going to be seen anyway, if you ask me.  On the good news front, I asked them about having a rotating bar of "sales expiring soon"  like they do for their holiday shopping on the rest of the store for the countdown deals.  They said that was a great idea and would look into implementing it in the upcoming weeks- so if they do, maybe even the books not on the countdown deals will get a few hours in the sun that way.  We'll see.  Overall, not too impressed with their answer   I tried, hopefully someone else will get a better answer.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

dkgould said:


> But they also said it was going to require some advertising on some books part because only some of the books would get on the countdown page- very not worth spending on ads if you aren't going to be seen anyway, if you ask me.


Most effective sites that promote 99-centers charge for the their ads. There goes your super-special royalties on this deal. 
If you do advertise, you're sure as heck not going to send people to the Amazon Countdown page, but just to your own book.
So then we're back to lowering our prices, Select or not, and advertising a promotion for whatever length of time we choose.
I don't see the win.

As far as UK is concerned, I can see the readers clicking on the Countdown page, seeing a really lame selection of 500 titles sprinkled here and there with a few interesting ones, and say "meh".
No win for the readers, either.

Either something went very wrong with the launch of this new feature or it's simply a way for them to remove a good number of Select titles from the free list this season.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Well, I just got an e-mail from the customer end about Kindle Countdown Deals. I guess they're finally starting to promote it to readers.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Phoenix, thanks for the info. I feel a bit better knowing that you aren't doing so well. That sounds terrible but what I mean is I have great faith in your ability to market and if you're not doing so well it's not just me. I wish (in your spare time) that you would throw together a book about marketing e-books. I'm sure it would be very helpful for many of us who are floundering. I also wish you'd write
another book like "Sector C".

I haven't looked this morning but still can't find my book on UK. I agree Quiss that this is going to be a pretty pathetic promotion if they aren't going to show everyone. You are right if we have to do our own advertising what benefits are we getting from Select? We are only getting a bunch of restrictions. I still have not sold one book. I will give them a little while longer to clear up glitches but I will probably leave Select. That's not really a big threat I'm sure Amazon could care less! You are right Quiss, the titles on the UK are lame. 

I haven't yet received any email advertising countdown for readers. Frankly I think Amazon should let all of us guinea pigs have a repeat 7 days as soon as they've fixed the glitches.

It does make me think a bit about how real guinea pigs, mice or rats used in experiments must feel. Time to stop that nonsense. One of the characters in my novel is called Phoenix--it's a dog.

DK what were your final sales figures? It seems the only possible advantage of the countdown is the 70% royalty on 0.99 and anything below 2.99 and that would just be swallowed up with ads. I was going to do a free before they came up with this and I got sucked in.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

P.A.- total numbers are a few pages back if you want the full breakdown, but the total books was 423, royalty was 350.00 or thereabouts.  The last time I ran a free run I gave away 600 or so (yeah I know, not impressive to most, but it got people to  start leaving reviews which was what I was after)  so at least I made a little money this time.

Other than that,  I'm not sure what the advantage is either- it's sure not worth staying in select for.  The only thing I can think is if you already have kind of a following and you could reach them without ads, you could get them to mass buy during the countdown and push you up the ranks.  But then, why would you do that, when those people will buy you at regular price anyway?  OR if you were releasing a really expensive box set of a series, you could do the countdown with a massive deal and get people to buy maybe just because of the price difference and push you up the ranks so other people would buy.

shrug.


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

KMatthew said:


> Well, I just got an e-mail from the customer end about Kindle Countdown Deals. I guess they're finally starting to promote it to readers.


Did this email come to you as a reader or an author? I subscribe to all the Amazon deals and haven't gotten anything about Countdown yet. Any chance you still have it and could send it to me? I have a bet with a friend on whether Ammy will promote this program or not


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

DK, at least you did pretty well compared to anyone else who has reported but it's not like the good old days.
.


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## Gennita Low (Dec 13, 2012)

137 copies sold, made $88.

Not impressed. Yes, I made some sales but but even a $100 ad on Bookbub for 2 days would have netted me 600 Kindle sales in the Romantic Suspense category (and I'm not including BN and Apple sales which would add 300-500 more). And if one is lucky enough to get on Bookbub in their romance category, you would be seeing 2000 plus sales. What would be the incentive to do this countdown thingie.

Of course, I reserve the right to go rah-rah if Amazon would use their email listing to promote my countdown book! Then we're talking excitement.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Is anyone seeing an unusual downturn in .com sales, possibly because of this new toy?

I ended October in good shape but over these last two days I've actually sold more internationally than at .com.
That just never happens.


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## Romi (Apr 4, 2011)

Quiss said:


> Is anyone seeing an unusual downturn in .com sales, possibly because of this new toy?
> 
> I ended October in good shape but over these last two days I've actually sold more internationally than at .com.
> That just never happens.


Yes, my .com sales went from steady and predictable to crashing to a near halt; it happened about 4 days ago...maybe it's a coincidence, but either way, blergh.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

Quiss said:


> Is anyone seeing an unusual downturn in .com sales, possibly because of this new toy?


Yeah... I mentioned that a few pages back... worst month for me in a long while. Hopefully it will readjust soon.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Trish McCallan said:


> Did this email come to you as a reader or an author? I subscribe to all the Amazon deals and haven't gotten anything about Countdown yet. Any chance you still have it and could send it to me? I have a bet with a friend on whether Ammy will promote this program or not


It came to me as a reader. I rescued it from the Delete folder just for you.  I put an image below. PM me with your e-mail address if you'd like me to forward the e-mail to you.


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2013)

I just noticed this at the top of my direct publishing menu. 

Looks interesting. You can keep 70% royalties on discounted prices, set times and dates for prices to incrementally increase or decrease, and have promoted items appear on a new Amazon website page. 

I think I like! And just in time for the holidays!


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## Cherise (May 13, 2012)

Here's our big thread on this:
http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,162013.0.html


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2013)

Oh, thanks!

I'll take a look!


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## CarlSinclair (Apr 7, 2013)

This email falls in line with what I was saying a few pages back. That Amazon is on a slow build with this. I expect more emails will come out in the coming days, with perhaps a bigger push towards the post 30 days mark, when all of the people who weren't in select can run a Countdown.

I understand a lot of people aren't getting much by the way of boost from it so far, but I still think this is WAY too early to call it a failure. There is no promo from Amazon. We know about it because we make things go viral (indies) but only amongst ourselves.

I hope that I am right and in a few weeks, this is going to boom and people will see some real sales from the program. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. But it seems to be going how I figured it would.


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Carl:

If indeed your theory is correct, I do not think it was fair to penalize those who faithfully remained in Kindle Select by imposing such a non-working system on them, to later reward all of those who had jumped ship. 

That makes zero sense to me.


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## Trish McCallan (Jul 16, 2011)

[It came to me as a reader. I rescued it from the Delete folder just for you.   I put an image below. PM me with your e-mail address if you'd like me to forward the e-mail to you.)

Oh, this is so sad.    This screen shot just lost me the bet, and now I have to write and post an original rhyming ode to The Glorious Carl Sinclair.  
The torture!


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## Sam Rivers (May 22, 2011)

I got out of Select about six months ago and put my books in D2D.  Since then I have made more money from D2D than I ever did from borrows.  So I made a good decision to leave Select.  If it wasn't for the exclusive requirement, it might be interesting to try it.  I have no plans to drop my other markets and come back to Select.

I think that this new program is too limited to be worth much.  If it could be used when you wanted and as often then it might have some value.  It makes sense to have a tool that you could use whenever you wanted to reduce prices for sales. However, the number of days that you can use it is too small.

I don't see a lot of authors rushing to come back to Select. 

This month has been really good for me in both Amazon and D2D and could turn out to be one of my best months for a long time.


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

I on the other hand made far more money than I have in sales on either D2D or Smashwords (one sale each, in 2.5 months). 

Both of my next books are going into Select.  I don't know whether I'll use either the countdown or the free days, but I might (if I can get BookBub to accept me).


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

beccaprice said:


> Both of my next books are going into Select. I don't know whether I'll use either the countdown or the free days, but I might (if I can get BookBub to accept me).


If you can get BookBub to accept you, just run a 99-cent promo for any book, Select or not (and they might like you better if you're not just at Amazon). Do this for only two or three days, come out at the top ranking and Bob's yer uncle.
I can't see why you'd want to use something as expensive as a BookBub ad for this promo tool.

At this point, I see the value in Select because of the 30- and 90-day new release lists. 
After that, the only reason to stay exclusive to Amazon is because things like free promotions and price drops are a lot easier to manage at one vendor than a bunch of them.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

Quiss said:


> At this point, I see the value in Select because of the 30- and 90-day new release lists.


Color me stupid, but I thought all new books went on 30 day new release list.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

KMatthew said:


> Color me stupid, but I thought all new books went on 30 day new release list.


Oh, wait. you're right.
Okay, so why am I in Select again?


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## beccaprice (Oct 1, 2011)

Quiss said:


> If you can get BookBub to accept you, just run a 99-cent promo for any book, Select or not (and they might like you better if you're not just at Amazon). Do this for only two or three days, come out at the top ranking and Bob's yer uncle.
> I can't see why you'd want to use something as expensive as a BookBub ad for this promo tool.


I've got D&D up at both D2D and Smashwords, and if BookBub will do a 99 cent promo for me, It could take as long as 2 weeks for the Smashwords sites to lower the price, and in the mean time, I'm selling at 0.99 everywhere else.

BB isn't *that* expensive for children's books, and I think that D&D has enough reviews to be acceptable to them - from everything I read here, BB is *the* way to go for sales, that nobody else has their reach.

When I release my other two books, I'd like to do a sale on D&D to entice readers to maybe buy the other two books - it's hard to do promo on new books with no reviews yet.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2013)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> 50 hours in on the US side - 61 sales - Countdown rank #85 overall
> 54 hours in on the UK - 4 sales - not ranked


There is a countdown rank? Where do I see that? 

I'm testing the program today with one of my books that averages 15 sales a day on its own. I'm curious to see if it will make any difference without any advertising. Will report results.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> Thanks for reporting H.S. I saw your book up. Let us know final outcome and what happens with rank afterwards.


My 7-day experiment is over. I chose a book coming to the end of Select that had generally good sales and decent reviews, and was lucky enough to see it posted by Nov. 2. It was on the first page of Countdown genre listings the whole time, even as more books populated the space, but sold only a dozen copies. The rankings weren't spectacular, either, and now they've tumbled back. Of course, the only push I gave it was internal: My FB, Twitter, Goodreads and Wattpad peeps. But I expected... well, I don't know what I expected. But this is what I got.

Do we have enough anecdotal info yet from the other early adopters as to the efficacy of Countdown, or is it still too early to tell?


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## Guest (Nov 10, 2013)

Thanks, Phoenix!

Interesting. 4 hours into it and I see my book at #64 with 4 reported sales.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

H. S. St. Ours said:


> Do we have enough anecdotal info yet from the other early adopters as to the efficacy of Countdown, or is it still too early to tell?


Too soon to tell, I think. Mainly because I think that Amazon isn't really done with shaping this promo feature.

Meanwhile, I'm starting to worry about my .com sales in general! Perhaps the Zon gods are punishing me for complaining.

The little spike up at the end is entirely due to international sales.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

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## Guest (Nov 10, 2013)

That makes sense, Phoenix.

By the way, have you seen this?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000677541

My book was on there about an hour ago but now they have different categories. I guess they rotate them.

Of course, I've no idea if people actually visit the page...


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

COUNTDOWN RESULTS:

I tossed all three of my books into Countdown for 7 days, scheduling the price to jump midweek for my two travelogues and leaving it the same for my mystery. I did this simultaneously in both the US and UK stores.

Bottom line: During the week prior to Countdown, my sales in the US and UK totaled 28. During my countdown week, sales in both markets totaled 438, for a net increase of 410 sales.

A few observations:
1. While my UK sales normally account for 15% of my total, they accounted for 60% during my Countdown promo. What's more, my two travel memoirs sold much better in the UK after the midweek price hike. The Kindness of Strangers got into the #500s in the overall store, and it became the #1 seller in the Travel category.
2. I have been in Select since the start. None of these books have been free since May, but each of them had seven or more free promos during the 17 months before that. I've given away 180,841 books through Select, but I doubt I will do any other free promos.
3. I do not Twitter or blog or have a website or mailing list, so I guess this jump is solely due to shoppers finding my discounted books on their own via the Countdown page.

These aren't big numbers, but they are big to me relative to how dismal sales have been in previous months, and I will be trying Countdown again. I will be curious to see what knock-on effect, if any, this mini bump has. I also hope Amazon decides to more strongly promote Countdown to consumers; right now, Countdown pages are not so easy to find.


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

I was shopping from my Kindle Fire last night and saw that they have a whole new section called "Kindle Count Down Deals" - and it seemed to me that many who shop directly from their Kindle may take advantage of this new clickable link to find new reads.

It's the first time I've actually considered putting a book or two into select to see how things will go...


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## P.A. Woodburn (May 22, 2010)

Congratulations on your results, Mike.
After several days I'm on page 83, at least I was yesterday. I've sold one book in US none in UK. Can't even find position on UK.


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## Heather Walsh (Jan 22, 2013)

Congrats on your results, Mike. I'm going to try a countdown in December. Your results are promising!


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

P.A. Woodburn said:


> Congratulations on your results, Mike.





hwalshwriter said:


> Congrats on your results, Mike. I'm going to try a countdown in December. Your results are promising!


Not sure congrats are in order, but thanks. I hope others will post their results so we can all guestimate where this is going.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

I'm still confused by Countdown Deals. (Ran one out of the gate, got 18 sales.) 

The thing is when I go to the countdown list and click on any of the books, I don't see any indication of the countdown sale on the actual book page. No clock. No time running out thingy... Nothing. The page looks as it always looks. What am I missing?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

EC Sheedy said:


> I'm still confused by Countdown Deals. (Ran one out of the gate, got 18 sales.)
> 
> The thing is when I go to the countdown list and click on any of the books, I don't see any indication of the countdown sale on the actual book page. No clock. No time running out thingy... Nothing. The page looks as it always looks. What am I missing?


You're in Canada. Where we pay the regular price. This Countdown only works for US and UK buyers.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

Quiss said:


> You're in Canada. Where we pay the regular price. This Countdown only works for US and UK buyers.


But I switched back from .ca to .com. I buy all my ebooks from .com. Weird...


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Quiss said:


> Too soon to tell, I think. Mainly because I think that Amazon isn't really done with shaping this promo feature.
> 
> Meanwhile, I'm starting to worry about my .com sales in general! Perhaps the Zon gods are punishing me for complaining.
> 
> The little spike up at the end is entirely due to international sales.


In my case, October was my best sales month ever. My sales went up +200% in August, same in Sep and then another +200% in October. I was feeling on a roll, and the bright future was looming, and all that.

Then in November so far, I've made only a few sales outside of the Countdown promo. It's like someone has shut the lid on my sales... a little unsettling, this unpredictability.

Anyway, I'm not giving up and trying to write even more than before.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

bah.  anyone else still getting promotion sales long after the promo is over?  I figured the reporting was off (and I think it still is) but it's been 4 days now and all sales are still going under the 1.99 price on the promo.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Looking back through some of the Author's sales data statistics resemble the seismograph meter they use to record Earthquake activity. It is good that we can actually get a read here on how this program is doing towards book sales.

BM


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## Charmaine (Jul 20, 2012)

Well here are my results for my children's book (I've got a few hours left but...):
I've sold 5 books. I'm not upset, since I hadn't sold one of that book since May. 
BUT, I'm positive those sales came from rearranging my title name and being put back up on the new release list by accident. 
Soooooooo.....Eh Whatevs.


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## Glenn Wood (May 7, 2013)

Haven't seen any noticeable bump in sales yet from Countdown promo on first book - though it is only day one - I was selling about 2 a day before that and no real change so far - Whereas when I ran a Book Bub promo on the same title for the same price I'd sold over 500 by this time.  I expected more but it's early days.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

I have a 4 day Countdown Deal _*supposed*_ to have started today. I set it up over a week ago and my price is still not reduced.  I'll wait until tomorrow to contact Amazon.

I have never actually seen a Countdown Deal on a book page--live in Canada, buy on .com--I'm thinking my location maybe a problem. My CD does show as "in progress" on my dashboard, yet...nothing. 

Would someone provide a link to their Countdown Deal, so I can go--again--and see if I can see the darn clock?


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

EC Sheedy said:


> I have a 4 day Countdown Deal _*supposed*_ to have started today. I set it up over a week ago and my price is still not reduced.  I'll wait until tomorrow to contact Amazon.
> 
> I have never actually seen a Countdown Deal on a book page--live in Canada, buy on .com--I'm thinking my location maybe a problem. My CD does show as "in progress" on my dashboard, yet...nothing.
> 
> Would someone provide a link to their Countdown Deal, so I can go--again--and see if I can see the darn clock?


Which book? I can check from my American IP for you.


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

VydorScope said:


> Which book? I can check from my American IP for you.


Thank you! The book is Killing Bliss, here: http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Bliss-Romantic-Suspense-Sheedy-ebook/dp/B00DLJPM9G/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1384395899&sr=1-6&keywords=ec+sheedy

If it shows up on your American IP, I will understand that I need a new deodorant. LOL


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

EC Sheedy said:


> Thank you! The book is Killing Bliss, here: http://www.amazon.com/Killing-Bliss-Romantic-Suspense-Sheedy-ebook/dp/B00DLJPM9G/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1384395899&sr=1-6&keywords=ec+sheedy
> 
> If it shows up on your American IP, I will understand that I need a new deodorant. LOL


Yep it is live. 99 cents. 1 day 5 hours till 1.99


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## EC Sheedy (Feb 24, 2011)

VydorScope said:


> Yep it is live. 99 cents. 1 day 5 hours till 1.99


Wow. Totally weird! But the downside of knowing it's on sale is that there have been _*no sales*_. Not one extra sale today. Bummer...

Thank you so much for checking for me! Truly appreciated.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Any thoughts on tossing a brand new book into the Countdown fire/flicker?


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

Mike McIntyre said:


> Any thoughts on tossing a brand new book into the Countdown fire/flicker?


I was thinking of doing it, but I'm no longer sure after running it with 2 books. Still pondering.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

I'll play.

I've worked very hard the past six days on one that hopefully will be finished by the weekend.
This is a ton of writing, editing and non-stop checking the work as I'm moving along. I plan to read the book from beginning to end as a reader watching for anything wrong.

This book will be along the paranormal genre. The book is going under a new pen name  and it will go from published to Countdown as quickly as possible. It is a "Test Book" to see what kind of results it might receive from Countdown Promoting.

Not one review, nor any sales or rankings but the book will have a great cover design and it has a great Title. Once this book has been ran through the motions including promo, the results will be posted here.

I have three other books already scheduled to run on Countdown but I may take two out for the moment. Still not sure I want to risk em.
This "Test Book" will be new, new author and nothing like anyone else has already published. It is kind of scary with so many books out now, you never know what to write. 

The thing about me is when I go to work on a mission, I steadily and diligently work on the job until its finished. That is just the way I can be when I become determined to do something.

Good luck with sales,

BM


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## Guest (Nov 16, 2013)

Those are pretty good results, Phoenix. 

I have a few more hours to go, but here are my results so far (I didn't do the whole 7 days, rather about 5 and a half. Also, I didn't promote it in any way, not even on FB or Twitter.)

2 days at 99 c - 114 sales
2 days at $1.99 - 61 sales
1 day at $2.99 - 46 sales

I also got 15 borrows.

Am I impressed? No. Did it work better than I thought it would? Yes. Especially since this was Book 4 in a series which means its appeal was limited to those who had at least purchased Book 1 before. 

I will update tomorrow when I have the final numbers.


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## kCopeseeley (Mar 15, 2011)

Hmmm... well, so far (3 days in) and my countdown deal is an utter failure.  I have had MUCH better results with a free run.  With free I would get several hundred downloads and several sales of the second in my series.

I guess I will reserve judgment until it's over, but so far this isn't a repeat for me, at least.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Starting on the 18th, I'll have 3 books on Countdown for the full week. Dec 5th, 2 more books sheduled for the full week.

I'm thinking I'll start throwing everything into the race, full throttle, just to get a feel on whether its the way to go.
Some of you have done well with it and should be thankful for the income produced from this.

I have another new book almost ready to go, and as soon as its online, its going on Countdown also.  

BM


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Throwing books in there "full throttle" would worry me. 
It looks like a lot of authors are doing that, like myself, to experiment with this new feature.
But are we then, instead of priming our readers to patiently wait until a book is free before downloading, encouraging them to just wait around until they are discounted? And does that not mean we're still in a race to the bottom?

I have another freebie promo coming up. After that book one is going into perma free for a while to see what happens and I will not promo the other titles.
Promoting a title in the middle of a series seems a little odd anyway and brought no measurable results for the one I experimented with.

For me, the Countdown feature is not just a dud for those who join in, but also for those whose sales suffer as a consequence.
I noticed that the Countdown total is down to 2600 titles shown on the page, down from over 5000. Either authors are giving up on this or Amazon is listing fewer titles there.


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

It could be that many people have to wait to place a book on Countdown because they change prices on books. I had to wait to the 18th for that reason.
Then some might be holding off until December to do a run considering it a better time to do it. There could be others that make alot of money going other routes so they feel its better to not participate.
I think its a good program especially considering the other option, free.
Everyone has to make their own decisions about what they want to do.I made one to give it a try because that is what its there for and will wait until after the Countdown runs on the books to see if it was worthwhile.
Amazon placed this program out there to help Authors with another re enue route. I'm not a complainer when it comes to what they do to help the Authors sell more books through another outlet.
Of course some always complain about all of the free books on the market and then others will complain about Countdown now because they didn't rack in thousands of dollars in sales.
Yes, a few bugs in the program but in time Amazon probably will get it corrected.

BM


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## Book Master (May 3, 2013)

Whatever amount of money that the books going on Countdown make will be invested right back into this as this is the prime reason for partipating in the program.
The money can be used for advertising. I can find other uses for any revenue that the program provides such as help paying upcoming taxes. 
It cost nothing to participate in Countdown other then a book Title for a period. Anything and everything adds up in the long run.

BM


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2013)

Okay, this is odd. My Kindle Countdown Promotion ended over 18 hours ago, yet all my sales today are going under the promotion tab.
Anybody else notice something similar? Could it be that sales are so far behind today?


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Stella S. said:


> Okay, this is odd. My Kindle Countdown Promotion ended over 18 hours ago, yet all my sales today are going under the promotion tab.
> Anybody else notice something similar? Could it be that sales are so far behind today?


Actually, mine ended on the ninth and my sales finally stopped being under the promotions tab _yesterday_, I emailed them about it, got a kind of non-committal response, so I have no idea how far behind reporting actually is.


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2013)

Oh boy, it sounds like a glitch. I hope we won't lose full-price royalties over this!


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Stella S. said:


> Oh boy, it sounds like a glitch. I hope we won't lose full-price royalties over this!


When I emailed kdp I made sure to ask them to check which price it's being sold at, the guy did at least say it was back to full price, but wouldn't say any more about whether the reporting is backed up, how long, etc. But that was my big concern too. My ranking isn't dipping enough to account for the slow drip of sales I've seen, so I'm hoping it's just days behind and the reporting will catch up soon (though I kind of expected it to when they did their october reports and it was still counting sales under the promo then)


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## Guest (Nov 17, 2013)

I will email kdp, too, so they know this is a problem for a lot of people.
I will let you know when they respond.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

I will do the Countdown Deal again. I am not looking at it as a money-maker. For me it is the exposure, and so far I am pretty pleased with the results. My book is hanging at #2 on the romance list and #4 overall (I think so anyway, it's fourth on the list on the right side of the page). My goal is to get my bundle into as many hands as possible, and hopefully gain new readers who will be looking for Books #3 & 4. 
I will check back an update with the results. 

Day 1 (so far)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,879 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

   #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Romance > Historical Romance > Ancient World
   #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Myths & Legends > Norse & Viking
   #1 in Books > Romance > Historical > Ancient World

Amazon.com - Time Walkers 2 Book Bundle: The Legend of the Bloodstone, Return of the Pale Feather	Nov 17, 2013 - Nov 24, 2013
Detail   List Price Start Time Hours Royalty Royalty/Hour Compared to Prior Week Average Total Units Units/Hour 
Prior Week $3.99	Nov 10, 2013 08:00 AM (PST)	168	$43.20	$0.26	n/a	16	0	n/a	$63.84	$0.38	n/a
Increment 1	$0.99	Nov 17, 2013 08:00 AM (PST)	22	$59.15	$2.69	935%	99	4	0%	$98.01	$4.46	1074%
Increment 2	$1.99	Nov 19, 2013 01:00 PM (PST)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Increment 3	$2.99	Nov 21, 2013 06:00 PM (PST)	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Promotion Totals 22	$59.15	$2.69	935%	99	4	0%	$98.01	$4.46	1074%
View Report in Excel: Create Excel Report	

I think the reports are lagging behind, because I know how many sales I had prior to the start of the Countdown Deal, and it is a little bit off. Not sure how often they update the report, should have a better idea after it is finished.


Edited to add: Scratch that, no longer on the main page scroll bar for romance, but still listed in the first page of overall. It will be interesting to see how it affects sales.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

THose of you that did this and are done... have you noticed any post promotion sales fall off when compared to sales prior to the promotion?


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

VydorScope said:


> THose of you that did this and are done... have you noticed any post promotion sales fall off when compared to sales prior to the promotion?


 The reporting is so screwy that I actually can not tell even how many I'm selling per day. I think it's close to what it was before the promotion. It's definitely not less. But the rank stickiness has been nice. It's been about 10 days since the end of mine and I'm just coming down to about 30,000 now, and I started right around 70,000 before the promo. Was in the top 100 of my categories a good 4-5 days after the promo, which was really nice. If reports ever catch up, I'll let you know for sure about sales.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

VydorScope said:


> THose of you that did this and are done... have you noticed any post promotion sales fall off when compared to sales prior to the promotion?


Yeah, completely. 
I've sold two copies of the book I put into Countdown since then. In fact, *all* sales except for one title crashed so spectacularly that I'm wondering if something happened with the visibility of my titles.
One of my titles is approaching 300k now - that hasn't happened for any book since I started this last year.

When doing a regular freebie or discount promo, there are always subsequent sales (even if no longer a huge bump) and sales for the other titles. For Countdown it's was like I've put up a "going out of business" sign on the shop.


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## Guest (Nov 18, 2013)

VydorScope said:


> THose of you that did this and are done... have you noticed any post promotion sales fall off when compared to sales prior to the promotion?


No, if anything I'm selling a bit more across all books. However, all sales still go under the promotions tab for some reason at the $2.99 price point.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

VydorScope said:


> THose of you that did this and are done... have you noticed any post promotion sales fall off when compared to sales prior to the promotion?


Yeah. My post-Countdown sales are way worse than what they were pre-promo. They are the lowest they have been since I joined Select nearly two years ago. I almost feel like I'm being punished for signing up for Countdown.


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

I started following this thread a couple of weeks ago while I was on vacation. Initially, I thought this was a great idea. But since I wasn't in a position to dig into it while I was out hiking and such, I left it alone figuring I'd deal with it once I got home. However, by the time I did get home, others had already jumped into the program with both feet and started reporting results. I know some have had good luck with the Countdown feature, but sure seems like most have not. The restrictions Amazon places on titles enrolled in the program was already making me put the brakes on. But now that I read about the post-Countdown sales drop-off some are experiencing... I think I'm just going to steer clear of this for now. It sounds like a lot to manage and track besides.

I had high hopes for some new feature from Amazon, too. Ah, well.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Mike McIntyre said:


> Yeah. My post-Countdown sales are way worse than what they were pre-promo. They are the lowest they have been since I joined Select nearly two years ago. I almost feel like I'm being punished for signing up for Countdown.


There really is no logical reason for it. I checked for my titles using keywords, categories and dates and they all come up. So it's NOT any change of visibility pre- and post-Countdown. The books are there but sales aren't.
Does this mean EVERYONE is only buying Countdown books? If that were the case so many of us wouldn't be complaining about it (I imagine we at Kboards serve as a good sample of KDP authors)
I'm not a tinfoil hat person so I won't imagine scenarios of hidden/late sales or evil schemes that Amazon is out to get us or doesn't know what they're doing. Still, I'm baffled. 
I've never had a promo where there wasn't some sort of positive after-effect, however small.


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## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

I’ve never sold so little (well, since April) as in the last couple of weeks, after coming out of Countdown. It’s like my sales have been axed. Creepy. 

I’m not actively promoting these days, only running 2 permafrees and some discounts. With this setup, I’ve been growing steadily before, but now I’ve tanked. 

Will find a way to grow again, of course, just need to re-group.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

So unofficially so far 3 said sales tanked, 1 returned to pre-promotion levels, and one is doing a little better. Not great odds so far.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

I think a lot of authors have experienced a decrease in sales since Countdown.


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## 68564 (Mar 17, 2013)

KMatthew said:


> I think a lot of authors have experienced a decrease in sales since Countdown.


I am not in select or count down and my sales have tanked as I have mentioned - but I was wondering of those people in select and who used the promo - if it helped them post promo.


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## KMatthew (Mar 21, 2012)

VydorScope said:


> I am not in select or count down and my sales have tanked as I have mentioned - but I was wondering of those people in select and who used the promo - if it helped them post promo.


Ah, well I am not in Select either, so I can't be added to those numbers. Just saying, that in general, I think a lot of non-Select authors saw a dip in sales when Countdown was launched.


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

Would some kind person in America check for me if my Countdown on _Remix _is actually happening? My dashboard says it's in progress, but I can't find where the reports are, and I can't see any sign of the promo on the book's page, but maybe that's because I'm in the UK. Here's the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Remix-ebook/dp/B003Z4KBF2/


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Lexi Revellian said:


> Would some kind person in America check for me if my Countdown on _Remix _is actually happening? My dashboard says it's in progress, but I can't find where the reports are, and I can't see any sign of the promo on the book's page, but maybe that's because I'm in the UK. Here's the link:
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Remix-ebook/dp/B003Z4KBF2/


Yep, you are up at 99 cents with the countdown timer on the side.


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

Thank you dk! Nice to know it's happening, even if no sales are.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

It looks like your subgenre is pretty empty in the countdown deals right now, so hopefully they'll get you up there quick and you'll have a nice boost!


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

dkgould said:


> It looks like your subgenre is pretty empty in the countdown deals right now, so hopefully they'll get you up there quick and you'll have a nice boost!


I do hope you're right. My sales too have dwindled lately - my theory is Amazon had yet another algorithm change last month.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Lexi Revellian said:


> I do hope you're right. My sales too have dwindled lately - my theory is Amazon had yet another algorithm change last month.


I tweeted it for you, Lexi. _Remix_ is a great book. _Replica_ is even better.


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## H. S. St. Ours (Mar 24, 2012)

Sales picked up for a day or three on my other books in the series after Young Moon's Countdown promo. Now, nothing seems to be moving for me at all. I didn't run the UK Countdown at the same time, but will run it next week along with a joint US/UK promo for book 2. We'll see what that does. Can't make sales worse than zero... can it?


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Lexi Revellian said:


> my theory is Amazon had yet another algorithm change last month.


I ran a graph of the past year, monthly sales. Although I have steadily added more titles, sales have seen a sharp drop approximately every three months. The last was August.
At the current rate, I'll start owning Amazon money by mid-February, I figure


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## Guest (Nov 21, 2013)

Phoenix, I've had almost 90 sales dumped into the $2.99 promo results since my promo ended on the 15th. I think it's a glitch.


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## Saul Tanpepper (Feb 16, 2012)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> 5-day post-promo update:
> 
> Since the promo ended on Nov 15, we've had 41 sales dumped into the $2.99 promo results, bringing the US total during the promo to 302 sales. Given those numbers, it looks like there have been 7 sales and 6 borrows at 4.99 on the set in the past week. This compares to 15 sales and 11 borrows at 4.99 in the week before the promo. (To be fair, borrows are always heaviest at the beginning of the month.)
> 
> ...


Looking at this, one might conclude that that readers rely heavily on services which list/notify them of reduced prices. Contrary to the post promo/higher ranking bump, we're seeing a dip, suggesting readers are less influenced by rankings and are being conditioned to expect promotional prices.

It's a limited set of data, so my 'analysis' is purely speculation and should be taken as such.


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## Lexi Revellian (May 31, 2010)

Gertie Kindle 'a/k/a Margaret Lake' said:


> I tweeted it for you, Lexi. _Remix_ is a great book. _Replica_ is even better.


Thank you! I am sure it is because of your efforts I have sold two.


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## David Thayer (Sep 7, 2012)

I have two of the DiPino books in Countdown as of today, 11/21. They will be there for a week and then I'll put my historical thrillers in next week and the week after. About seven hours in, there are no sales. On the other hand there are no returns.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

David Thayer said:


> I have two of the DiPino books in Countdown as of today, 11/21. They will be there for a week and then I'll put my historical thrillers in next week and the week after. About seven hours in, there are no sales. On the other hand there are no returns.


I wonder if the Countdown is why sales are down, overall. With some authors discounting their entire collection we may be leading readers to simply wait for sales, once again putting us all in a brand-new race to the bottom, price-wise.


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## StephenEngland (Nov 2, 2011)

Has Amazon straightened out the bugs of getting the price down on-schedule? The reason I ask is that I'm scheduling promos for a Black Friday-Cyber Monday Countdown. What's been the recent experience?


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## O_o (Aug 6, 2013)

Got my first taste of a countdown starting today  

7 hours in, approximately a million page refreshes, no sales


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

So my Countdown deal is completed. Was very interesting to observe the entire process. A few things I noticed as far as visibility (during the promo):
- making the genre scrolls on the main Countdown page seems to be at Amazon's discretion. My book was ranked much higher than many of the books that were consistently promoted in the scrolls for Romance and Fantasy, and I only made it there a handful of times. When my book did make the scroll, I noticed it was at weird times of the day, like in the middle of the night. (I worked nightshift a couple times during the promo, so I checked, haha). Seems like the books that made the scrolls were those by Amazon imprints and by authors that are bigger dogs. -- Like Jack Kilborn, who popped right up on the scrolls smack and center starting day 1 of the CountDown Deal for Whiskey Sour  (PS I heart Konrath, lol. I was briefly 7 degrees of Konrath because his book was on the also bought list for my book. For about 2 days, haha. Now I'm just 7 degrees of whacked out.)
- on the main page of the Kindle Countdown Deals there is a list of books if you scroll down the page. I did notice that my book was consistently one of the top 5 in that list, which I am assuming took into account sales. 
- to my knowledge, I never did get listed in the scroll at the top of the page, the "Featured Authors" scroll. Not sure what would prompt that, since it doesn't seem like it was purely sales. 
- On the "New and Noteworthy Kindle Deals," (to the right side of the Countdown page) my book was rarely shown in the list; however, if you clicked on the link I was always one of the first 5.

The book I put in the Countdown Deal is still selling better post-CD. It is a book bundle which was a moderate seller for me prior to this. Sales on the other books in my series, especially the one to follow the bundle, are also up compared to the last few months. Keeping finger crossed that it does not tank.

The point of doing a deal like this, to me, is to get a lot of visibility. I think it was a positive in that respect. I liked doing it with a book bundle, I think that had more appeal and it definitely prompted sales for the rest of the books in my series. I am planning on doing another Countdown Deal somehow tied in with the release of the last book in my series, just not sure how I want to run it yet since it occurs during the holiday season.

For those who like charts, here is my final one:


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## StephenEngland (Nov 2, 2011)

My promotion goes live in the morning. Will report on results.


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

ebbrown said:


> So my Countdown deal is completed. Was very interesting to observe the entire process. A few things I noticed as far as visibility (during the promo):
> - making the genre scrolls on the main Countdown page seems to be at Amazon's discretion. My book was ranked much higher than many of the books that were consistently promoted in the scrolls for Romance and Fantasy, and I only made it there a handful of times. When my book did make the scroll, I noticed it was at weird times of the day, like in the middle of the night. (I worked nightshift a couple times during the promo, so I checked, haha). Seems like the books that made the scrolls were those by Amazon imprints and by authors that are bigger dogs. -- Like Jack Kilborn, who popped right up on the scrolls smack and center starting day 1 of the CountDown Deal for Whiskey Sour  (PS I heart Konrath, lol. I was briefly 7 degrees of Konrath because his book was on the also bought list for my book. For about 2 days, haha. Now I'm just 7 degrees of whacked out.)
> - on the main page of the Kindle Countdown Deals there is a list of books if you scroll down the page. I did notice that my book was consistently one of the top 5 in that list, which I am assuming took into account sales.
> - to my knowledge, I never did get listed in the scroll at the top of the page, the "Featured Authors" scroll. Not sure what would prompt that, since it doesn't seem like it was purely sales.
> ...


Very nice results!! 

Did you do the Time Walkers series in that countdown? Or was it something else? Because I see them on Barnes&Noble too, and I thought you had to be KDP exclusive in order to get into the countdown  Hence the question


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## Christian Price (Aug 3, 2012)

My promotion goes live on Sunday! I have two books running together. I figured, I would go all in. _"Go big, or stay home"_...so they say. I have f/b community pages that are relevant to my book's content, willing to promote the offer.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

XXXXXXXXXX


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## Christian Price (Aug 3, 2012)

I can't find my books.  Overall, I've sold more books during the past 8 hours than all of November combined.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

One of my books is on the fourth page under "history" and it's not a history book. It's an historical romance. The other books in the list are definitely history and bios. I've tried to get Amazon to change that category several times. Each time they change it, it eventually reverts back to history.


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

I had two books listed on Countdown.  Both jumped about 80,000 spots in the rankings almost overnight and one is holding on in the 15,000s; the other slipped back. The book that didn't do so well still made the first page in the mystery/thriller genre and the other cracked the 10K ranking and lived on the third page of historical fiction. The book that did the better of the two had the exact same number of purchases in all three price points. The historical fiction book is the first in a series and I have had good response on the second book so far but I think it may be premature to credit the countdown for increased sales.

I did some week long promos on a couple of sites but have no way of telling if there were clickthroughs since Amazon killed adding tracking links on the description page.  I think the e-book promo sites are having a tough time with the rollout and I was disappointed Amazon didn't do a better job letting the reader know about the countdown deals.  For me at least I had to search 'kindle countdown' to find them.  I feel this may have been intentional and they will wait until they have more author participation.  When people learn to search for countdown books like they search for 'free kindle' I think business will pick up.  After all, freebies seems to draw people who just put stuff in their cart and never read.

I'm planning on finishing up a 'first impressions' blog on my site and will post when its done.


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## Mike_Author (Oct 19, 2013)

I have my third Countdown Deal starting tomorrow.  The previous ones were quite successful - nothing stellar but a definite bump in sales and royalties.

I know of all the places to promote free books but where are the places everyone is promoting Countdown Deals?
cheers
Mike


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Mike_Author said:


> I have my third Countdown Deal starting tomorrow. The previous ones were quite successful - nothing stellar but a definite bump in sales and royalties.
> 
> I know of all the places to promote free books but where are the places everyone is promoting Countdown Deals?
> cheers
> Mike


I think Free Discounted Books might start soon- the site owner sent out an email newsletter just about countdown deals being introduced and I emailed her back about it with some our results from here and told her (by the way, no idea if it's a her, never caught a name, might be a he) what we really needed was a place to advertise, got a nice email back about it. You might want to try contacting them and see if they are ready to implement anything yet. I think until we ask for it, not too many sites are going to jump on it because they assume we're just going to keep using free promos or plain 99 cent promos.


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

#580 "I have my third Countdown Deal starting tomorrow."

Didn't the countdown just start in mid-Nov? I guess you are talking a third book.

As far as who to pick to spend your promotion dollar, I always check the site popularity on alexa.com.

Freediscountedbooks.com is about 68,000 in US popularity so its not bad. On each search you will find sites popular in India. I think this is because of outsourcing.
Today I looked at http://bestindiebooks.com. They are not ranked well at 260,000 in US but if you look at what they provide for a week long promo @ $3. WTH


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

When I signed up for countdown (US), it auto-populated the info for a UK countdown but the latter was only two days.


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

"ETA: Has anyone used Digital Book Today?"

I used them as the ads are a week long and reasonably priced.  I asked if they had any feedback after the promo for the half dozen or so they had listed and said the authors didn't say yay or nay.  I asked several other sites if they had any  way to track click throughs and none said they could.


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

If you are excited then that's worth the price of admission all by itself.  You told Anthony you were a friend of mine, right?


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

For the free days, I've had real good luck using Freebooksy even though its a one day ad and costs $50.  They also run bargainbooksy at the same rate.  They don't have anything in mind yet for a week long countdown promo.  When I ran one day promos with them the freebies jumped up on to the first one or two pages in the genre.  Of course, I think people select freebooks like they are going through an all you can eat buffet line and come back to their seat with a seven inch high plate they aren't going to eat.  I see some traction in sales but nothing dramatic.  More of a slow and steady I guess.


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

My countdown deal will start later today. I still don't have enough reviews to get into the better promo sites (I tried! 30 review copies sent out -- all e-books, though), but I submitted to a bunch of free sites, plus Book Discovery here at KB and one $5 spot at moreforlessonline. We'll see how it goes.


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

The book I did on the countdown is the first volume of a two volume story.  My KCD ended on 12-3.  Since then the second volume has jumped up considerably and will probably surpass the number of volume one sold during the countdown.  Picked up two nice reviews as well.

During the KCD volume one rose to around 9500 in overall sales ranking.  Since then its slipped to about 29,000.  The second volume has jumped to the 15K mark.  

Executive summary:  If you have a series put the first volume into the KCD and spend a little to promote it.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

I just started a countdown this morning for Castle Juliet.  It's kind of hard to tell what everyone is talking about or what to look for.  I don't seem to be listed anywhere, but I did take out an add for BargainBooksy and another for kboards brook promotion just to see, but it doesn't look like anything is happening yet.  Still, there is the full 7 days to go.  Is the Kindle Countdown Deal a separate page on Amazon?  I typed it in but it just came up with a few titles.  Is that normal?


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## Ed Robinson (Oct 8, 2013)

Just finished my Countdown today:

72 hours at .99 sold 254 units
72 hours at 1.99 sold 103 units for a total of 357. 
Also had 34 Borrows.

Pretty happy with it. I did a Kboards promo and boosted posts on Facebook. 

Got up to number two in Happiness and number 12 in Social Sciences. Still hanging in there:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,488 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
#5 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Self-Help > Happiness
#8 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Mental Health > Happiness
#14 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

bberntson said:


> I just started a countdown this morning for Castle Juliet. It's kind of hard to tell what everyone is talking about or what to look for. I don't seem to be listed anywhere, but I did take out an add for BargainBooksy and another for kboards brook promotion just to see, but it doesn't look like anything is happening yet. Still, there is the full 7 days to go. Is the Kindle Countdown Deal a separate page on Amazon? I typed it in but it just came up with a few titles. Is that normal?


I see you up on the countdown pages, under teen and YA>Scifi and Fantasy so hopefully things will pick up very soon! You can get to the countdown pages by going to the general kindle books section of the store, then on the lefthand column near the top is Countdown deals. From there you can drill down to your category (but hopefully you'll make it to the front page anyway!) Good luck!


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

dkgould said:


> I see you up on the countdown pages, under teen and YA>Scifi and Fantasy so hopefully things will pick up very soon! You can get to the countdown pages by going to the general kindle books section of the store, then on the lefthand column near the top is Countdown deals. From there you can drill down to your category (but hopefully you'll make it to the front page anyway!) Good luck!


Thanks for that. It took me a little while to track it down. But I see it. I also forget the sale didn't start til 8:00 am today. No sales yet, but we'll see how it goes. Thanks for pointing that out.


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

24 hours in I've netted 18 sales and have gotten up to 10386 in the rankings. Some more ads and announcements coming online soon...


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

I've gotten 11 sales in 24 hours, #38 and #68 in action adventure, and fantasy sword and sorcery.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

Yeah, more sales would be great, Catherine.  Compared to some other people's success, it seems kinda small, but at least the rankings are going up.  Good luck to you with your work!


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

It started off kind of slow for me too- but it picked up over time.  By the last day of the 99cent part I was rocking!  Hopefully you will too!  It didn't get too bad as the price increased either and I managed to keep a fairly good ranking for almost two weeks after, which really helped.  And remember, I didn't have any ads behind me.  You guys are far more prepared than I was, so hopefully you'll do tons better!


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

35 sales in a bit over 48 hours (52 hours, according to Amazon). I peaked at 7,994 in the rankings this morning but still don't have a category rank. I don't know what you need to do to get a category rank. 

Anyhow, things are coming along nicely and at least I've covered the cost of the paid ads! ($15 for the Discovery program here, and $5 some other random place).


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

Catherine Gardiner said:


> You consider 11 sales in a day smail? If I got that many I would fall out of my chair it would be beyond a dream for me to get that many.
> 
> At the moment I am looking on facebook to see which pages accept daily author links. Does anybody know of any? I think there was a list of facebook pages where to could promote free days I was hoping they would promote 99c as well but I can't remember where I saw it.


Well, compared to some other people, who are having tons of success, it seemed small. Hope that didn't sound greedy.

I've been looking for the same things, too, Catherine, and Freebooksy and Bargain Booksy were the ones I found that were paid. 50$ but I never made the money back, not even close. For free, you might want to try:
http://bookpraiser.com/#sthash.gmcRipxB.u6FW9fsN.dpbs, but for today, since your ad starts now, I'm not sure. I've been looking, too, and it's better to go weeks in advance with free and paid advertising. With Kindle Countdown, unless you can get into BookBub, I was wondering if Kindle Countdown even needed advertising coupled with the promo. It's really tough to gauge it. I wish you the best of luck, though!



dkgould said:


> It started off kind of slow for me too- but it picked up over time. By the last day of the 99cent part I was rocking! Hopefully you will too! It didn't get too bad as the price increased either and I managed to keep a fairly good ranking for almost two weeks after, which really helped. And remember, I didn't have any ads behind me. You guys are far more prepared than I was, so hopefully you'll do tons better!


Thanks for the note of truth there, dkgould! Appreciate it. I like to see how others faired and what they did for their success. Peace!


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## Pauline Creeden (Aug 4, 2011)

you can find a lot of book promo sites on fiverr, too. I've had success with digital book spot's fiverr gig there.


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

https://www.facebook.com/iauthor"At the moment I am looking on facebook to see which pages accept daily author links. Does anybody know of any?"

https://www.facebook.com/AontheC
https://www.facebook.com/authormarketingclub
https://www.facebook.com/earthsbooknook
https://www.facebook.com/galleycat
https://www.facebook.com/iauthor
https://www.facebook.com/IndieBookLounge
https://www.facebook.com/IndieKindleWLC
https://www.facebook.com/KindleDealsDaily
https://www.facebook.com/EreadingTday?ref=hl

If there dupes in the above, sorry.


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

Hey, I figured out how to take a screenshot (the computer has a button for it. Who knew?).

My countdown sale ended about an hour and a half ago. Here's the official tally:









I'd sold a grand total of about 29 or 30 of this book before the sale started (uploaded 1 Nov., sale started 12 Dec.) so I'm pretty pleased with the results.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

congratulations Amelia!  Now hopefully you'll hang out in the higher ranks for a long time and sell a lot more at normal price!


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

dkgould said:


> congratulations Amelia! Now hopefully you'll hang out in the higher ranks for a long time and sell a lot more at normal price!


Thanks! Yes. That would be totally awesome. I made it all the way up into the 6,000s and touched #99 in my category for a fleeting moment.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

Congrats!  I didn't fair so well.  I spent 70.00 on advertising, and made back about twelve of it.  I sold 22 copies at .99 cents, and that was about it.  Maybe I was just in the wrong category.  Castle Juliet is more a literary, YA, but appeals to all ages, so who knows.  Good luck with your books, all!


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## Indecisive (Jun 17, 2013)

I only have an ebook available, but hope to put out a paprback in the future. 

Since my sale ended 2.3 days ago I have had exactly 0 sales... so it did not boost my regular-priced sales.  I can't say it was much of a drop, either, because I sold only one or two in the week before. I hope I sell more copies of this book eventually, whether on Amazon or elsewhere, when I get out of Select.

Bah, humbug,


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

I only have ebooks, too, but I'm trying to get a wide variety of stuff out, and so far, it hasn't been all bad.  Lots of reviews, and plenty of them the kinds of things you long to hear from readers.  The only way to fail is to stop trying.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

I have one more countdown deal starting tomorrow. If it's as pitiful as the other two, the last of my books will be coming out of Select. I kept five in waiting to see if they would sweeten the pot, but the pot stayed flat for me.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Are you guys doing ads? I'm in the middle of my Countdown, and so far, it's doing pretty good. But I've bought ads to promote the Countdown. 

I don't understand why some of the numbers people are posting are so low. I'm guessing the low numbers are due to not doing any promotion for the Countdown, but I don't know if I'm right or not.


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## pjchasesports (Nov 27, 2013)

My countdown promo was a stinker.  Only 51 sales.  Unfortunately, like a number of people here have said before, it's a shame that Amazon hasn't really gone out and promoted this program to readers.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

I don't get it. How is the Countdown not working for people? What are you doing or not doing to promote it? My month would be a total write-off without it.


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## Taking my troll a$$ outta here (Apr 8, 2013)

ClarissaWild said:


> Very nice results!!
> 
> Did you do the Time Walkers series in that countdown? Or was it something else? Because I see them on Barnes&Noble too, and I thought you had to be KDP exclusive in order to get into the countdown  Hence the question


Thanks! My books bundles have only been available as eBooks through KDP Select; the paperbacks are distributed everywhere else. You do have to be exclusive to Amazon to be in Select, but that only applies to your eBook. You can sell your paperbacks outside of Amazon.
I just did another Countdown Deal with my other bundle and I was happy with the results. Did not do any promo for this one. The one thing I did do was change the categories for the bundle and gave it a new cover. Here are the results:


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Catherine, I was looking at your book and I think the cover is great, I read the beginning and I love the writing. PM me. Maybe we can bounce some ideas back and forth about how to get your sales up.


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## David Wisehart (Mar 2, 2010)

Sophrosyne said:


> I don't understand why some of the numbers people are posting are so low. I'm guessing the low numbers are due to not doing any promotion for the Countdown, but I don't know if I'm right or not.


Aunt Tillie is being featured by Amazon on the front page for the Kindle Countdown Deals, under Science Fiction & Fantasy.

I think if you can get on that page, you can do very well.

If you don't make that page, you're getting bupkus.

Your paid promotions probably helped get you onto the front page. Or maybe it was an Amazon editorial selection. Either way, Amazon is pushing your book strongly by featuring it.

David


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## 71089 (Jul 12, 2013)

ebbrown said:


> Thanks! My books bundles have only been available as eBooks through KDP Select; the paperbacks are distributed everywhere else. You do have to be exclusive to Amazon to be in Select, but that only applies to your eBook. You can sell your paperbacks outside of Amazon.
> I just did another Countdown Deal with my other bundle and I was happy with the results. Did not do any promo for this one. The one thing I did do was change the categories for the bundle and gave it a new cover. Here are the results:


Hi  Thanks for your answer, but what I meant was that I saw the individual books on B&N. You have the same books in a bundle, right? And put that one up for select?

Because I asked amazon about this once, and they say this is against the TOS. So if you did do this, it's actually against the rules ;P That's why I asked. I was wondering how you cheated out of it, because I'd love to do the same with my boxed sets, but was told this could be a problem, since the individual books inside the boxed set are not exclusive.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Honestly, I think it's the ads. I tried to spread them out, so I'd have a different one every day, especially since it's the lead up to Christmas. I have one on your blog on the 24th, I believe.

Unfortunately, I had to change the Countdown to start a day early, so the 24th is the last day for me. I used to have it going to the 25th, but i heard so many horror stories about glitching promo starts, that I figured I'd better play it safe and start it early.

If it wasn't for the ads, I'd be doing bupkis. I think Amazon only puts books on that page when you hit a certain ranking on their list -- and they take you off just as quickly when your sales start going down. Right now, I'm trending downwards. :-/  But I'm hoping that changes!

A friend of mine did Countdown, and she bought ads, and she managed to sell 2900 copies. I don't think I'll get anywhere near her numbers, but I'm thrilled she did so well. I really think, once we all figure out the best way to work the Countdown, it's going to turn into the new Select Free, numbers wise, for all of us.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

Sophrosyne said:


> I don't get it. How is the Countdown not working for people? What are you doing or not doing to promote it? My month would be a total write-off without it.


I don't know. I took an ad out with Kboards and Bargain Booksy and it didn't seem to do much of anything. Maybe I'm advertising in the wrong place. Where are other people going to promote?

I think lots might have to do with readership. I'm still trying to build a fan base, so that's probably half of it. Maybe for those of you who already have good readership are fairing better.


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

I'm 14 hours in (started Christmas Eve 12am) with 3 books. 2 of those books are on page 20 of the Countdown Deals. Third book is not on the lists.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

Mine started on the 22nd. In the U.S., I'm on page 2 of historical romance, but there are only 33 books altogether and I'm almost at the end of the page. One sold in the U.S.

In the UK, there are fourteen listed and all on one page. I'm two up from the end and I've sold two.

At least the book has taken in a gulp of fresh air and I may be able to revive it when I finish the trilogy, hopefully, this summer.


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## sarahdalton (Mar 15, 2011)

I've set my countdown deal to come on today, but I can't remember what time I decided to start it. I've got an ad coming out and am getting a bit worried it won't change in time. 

Does anyone know how you find out what time it's set to come on?

The UK price has changed already, it's the US one I'm waiting for.


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## sarahdalton (Mar 15, 2011)

Catherine Gardiner said:


> I just checked and it is there on the US site with 2 days and 20 hours before it goes up.


Thanks Catherine! I wonder why it hasn't come up as started on my dashboard? Maybe there's a slight delay on KDP. At least it's started though!


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

40 hours in on two books, Corona of Blue, a horror ghost story, and When We Were Dragons, a YA fantasy.  No sales so far on either.  I did no advertising, thinking I'd been spending a bit on ads with very little results.  I wonder if I'm doing anything wrong or if its just the luck of the draw, some people simply having better luck than others.  Of course, my point is always not so much about sales (though that's great, if you're lucky enough) but the content of quality of the work itself.  I always hope this is what people see when they read the tales.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

Catherine Gardiner said:


> I just went to get your "When We Were Dragons " and it wasn't on a countdown deal. Well, not in the UK anyway. Was it only for 40 hours?


Oh, thanks, Catherine! No, it's in the US, and has about 100 hours still to go. Thanks for checking on it, though.


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## sarahdalton (Mar 15, 2011)

Catherine Gardiner said:


> Sarah has it shown up as started on your dashboard yet? I just grabbed a copy from the UK store but I need to charge my kindle so I don't know when it will be reported.


Yes! I think what happened was I set up the US deal to start a few hours after the UK deal. I think at the time I was setting it up it wouldn't let me have 72 hours for the US one because of my book coming out of Select in a couple of weeks.

Thanks, I hope you enjoy it 

68 sales for my first day! 

I've got some advertising coming out today so hopefully that should result in a few more.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

I'm on the last day and I'm very pleased with eleven sales in the UK. This particular book always sells better over there anyway since it's based on the reign of Richard III. I did no advertising and only a little promo on social media. 

I think there will probably be a couple of more sales, but so far, I have $15 more in my pocket than I did last week. 

A Happy Indie Prawn


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## Victoria Champion (Jun 6, 2012)

100 hours in. 1 sale on .com and 1 sale on .uk, despite my books being high on the Countdown Horror/Dark Fantasy lists and page 20ish on the Countdown general list. The book that sold in the U.K. wasn't even on a list. My first sale in the U.K. via Amazon ever, though, so that's cool. Pretty sure that came from my social media postings. I'll be leaving Select when term is over.


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## Derek Pedley (May 16, 2013)

Got myself into quite a tizz over the finish time of my Countdown Deal. Completely forgot the fact that I failed to schedule for the full 168 hours. Next time - if there is one - I'll make sure I do it for the full week, instead of missing out on 22 hours. Sent Amazon a fiery message and then had to withdraw it and apologise. "My bad" as the kids would say.

My big question now is - do I stick with the full price of $7.99 and risk alienating the bargain hunters, or do I drop it back to, say, $4.99 to try to catch the last wave of interest from the Countdown Deal and BookBub promo? Decisions, decisions.

Anyways, here's my results (which were dramatically influenced by a $360 BookBub promo on Dec 24). There were also 13 sales on the UK Countdown site:

Top chart figures:
Bestsellers (Paid store): #126 
Author rank (All books): #488
Author rank (Biographies & Memoirs): #12
True Crime (Kindle): #1
True Crime (Books): #1
Murder & Mayhem (Kindle): #1

Conclusion: I've sold a LOT of books (by my own humble standards), lifted the book's profile and even made some handy cash. Best of all, I have a screen shot of a No.1 Bestseller badge on the book (it's those little things that matter most!)


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## sarahdalton (Mar 15, 2011)

Well done Derek! 

I'm like you. I tweaked the start and end time of my deal and then forgot. It caused a little problem with my scheduled promo but luckily they were flexible about it.

I'm up to 204 sales after 42 hours. I booked KND and Bookgorilla. I think Bookblast comes out today. 

It's been all right, but nothing to write home about. It looks like I either haven't sold enough to be put on their front page, or they don't feature YA books very often. However, I am high when you click into the Teen and YA section. 

I think I should make my promo money back, and my sales are up slightly for book 2 and 3. 

I've only sold 2 in the UK.  

ETA: I don't understand the featured author thing. I just clicked into one YA paranormal book which has been featured by Amazon on the front page. The book is only at 18k. Mine is at 1.5k right now. So it isn't based on sales, and seems as though being featured doesn't even make a difference! It's promos that help. Plus, this book has finished the countdown deal, yet is still on the page. Weird.


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## RinG (Mar 12, 2013)

Wow, some people are getting awesome sales numbers.

I set my promo to start on Christmas day, hoping to catch some of the people with new kindles (figured they might be looking for a bargain), but I only had 4 downloads Christmas day, and none the following one. I was beginning to think it was a bust, but it's started picking up now. 5 downloads yesterday, and 9 today. Hopefully it keeps increasing like that....


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## Derek Pedley (May 16, 2013)

Thanks Sarah - I hope your numbers keep improving. I was also mystified by the Countdown Deal's Featured Authors category and how they choose them. I had sold 800 copies in three days before I even made it to the front page, and that lasted only about a day. 

Oh well, perhaps grubby little true crime books (and writers) just aren't Kindle's thing. In fact, I KNOW they aren't - we are buried so deep in the Nonfiction listings that you might as well put us all in coffins!


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

sarahdalton said:


> ETA: I don't understand the featured author thing. I just clicked into one YA paranormal book which has been featured by Amazon on the front page. The book is only at 18k. Mine is at 1.5k right now. So it isn't based on sales, and seems as though being featured doesn't even make a difference! It's promos that help. Plus, this book has finished the countdown deal, yet is still on the page. Weird.


try logging out and checking, you may actually be on there. I had no idea I was featured until my husband called from work to tell me, I logged out and could see it but not when I logged back in (probably because I bought a copy to check it when I uploaded)


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Just finished my first day. About 500 sold. I was quite upset yesterday because Amazon had told me they were going to put me in that "Featured Authors" section and something didn't happen and they didn't (and it was Saturday and I couldn't ask my "person"), which meant my numbers didn't do much. But after a day the book is #446 and on some lists, and today is my bookbub ad. I didn't buy any other advertising because of the "featured" deal (did I mention that didn't happen? Aargh.) But hopeful it'll still work out. 

I was very nervous because I've always done really well with free days, and wondered if I was doing right to try this instead, but the other books are starting to move up. Time will tell if the sales bump is equivalent to the bump from free. Gotta keep trying new things even if they're scary.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

Rosalind James said:


> Just finished my first day. About 500 sold. I was quite upset yesterday because Amazon had told me they were going to put me in that "Featured Authors" section and something didn't happen and they didn't (and it was Saturday and I couldn't ask my "person"), which meant my numbers didn't do much. But after a day the book is #446 and on some lists, and today is my bookbub ad. I didn't buy any other advertising because of the "featured" deal (did I mention that didn't happen? Aargh.) But hopeful it'll still work out.
> 
> I was very nervous because I've always done really well with free days, and wondered if I was doing right to try this instead, but the other books are starting to move up. Time will tell if the sales bump is equivalent to the bump from free. Gotta keep trying new things even if they're scary.


The really nice thing is that your book is at 446 on the PAID list and it will (hopefully) hang out there a long while, which you can't say for the free list. So even if the immediate bump isn't the same, hopefully over the time that you hang in the top 1000 (or 10000 or whatever) you will get more visibility and more sales over time. I think that's going to be the key to making this whole thing work (or not work) but I'm just guessing.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

dkgould said:


> The really nice thing is that your book is at 446 on the PAID list and it will (hopefully) hang out there a long while, which you can't say for the free list. So even if the immediate bump isn't the same, hopefully over the time that you hang in the top 1000 (or 10000 or whatever) you will get more visibility and more sales over time. I think that's going to be the key to making this whole thing work (or not work) but I'm just guessing.


Actually, my formerly-free book got a terrific bump last time (free promo first week of November); stayed around #1000 for a month post-promo even at full price of $3.99. Surprised me mightily. And, of course, bump on the other books has been terrific after promos. But we will see what this one does! Because it's good to have options.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Update at 2 PM on Day 2 of Countdown promo: BookBub ad happened today, and Amazon added me to the "Featured Authors" list on Countdown (THANK YOU). 2,000+ sales so far, and "Just for Now" is #122 in the Kindle store, phew. Hoping for my second overall bestseller out of this deal, think I SHOULD make it today. 

And, yes, they've both been 99 cents when I've got up there, but oh well! Highest I've got with a $3.99 book is #225. Someday, I'll hit it with the full-priced book. Gotta believe.

Gulp: #60 in the kindle store at 4:30 on day 2. Ok. I'm a believer.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

Congrats to everyone!  Your success is making me feel kind of like a doofus.  I have two countdowns going now, and I have 1 sale to show for it 80 hours in.  My work doesn't have enough reviews for some of the better paying sites, so I didn't do any paid advertising on these as an experiment because I was hardly making any money back on paid ads.  My experiment failed obviously.  A little probably would have made a bigger difference at least.


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## dkgould (Feb 18, 2013)

bberntson said:


> Congrats to everyone! Your success is making me feel kind of like a doofus. I have two countdowns going now, and I have 1 sale to show for it 80 hours in. My work doesn't have enough reviews for some of the petty paying sites, so I didn't do any paid advertising on these as an experiment because I was hardly making any money pack on paid ads. My experiment failed obviously. A little probably would have made a bigger difference at least.


hey, don't feel bad, we're all still figuring this thing out. Some got lucky, some didn't, we all learned some stuff and hopefully all of our next runs will be awesome


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Rosalind, your book is featured on my Kindle!


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Sophrosyne said:


> Rosalind, your book is featured on my Kindle!


Really? Holy cow! I am #45 now. Cannot believe it.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

dkgould said:


> hey, don't feel bad, we're all still figuring this thing out. Some got lucky, some didn't, we all learned some stuff and hopefully all of our next runs will be awesome


Thanks. I just checked my numbers again, and my one sale was refunded. Sometimes, it's just not your day.


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## sarahdalton (Mar 15, 2011)

Well it's finished with 275 buys, two of them from the UK, the rest from the US. 

I had something like 50 buys overnight which is great.

But it ended sooner than I expected and now I've had to cancel a promo. If you can't run it for the full term definitely write down the start and end times for the deal. It's tricky for me because I'm on UK time and everything else is PST, so I get easily confused about what I've scheduled. Gah! Oh well, overall it has been a success. I've also noticed an increase in sales for book 2 and 3 so it has worked quite well. It's just me who is maths challenged and apparently can't tell the time!


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

I ran a seven-day Countdown for The Kindness of Strangers in both the US and UK stores, Dec. 25-31. During the previous week, it sold 15 copies. During the Countdown, it sold 313 copies. Like my previous Countdown, I did better in the UK than the US, even though the UK ordinarily accounts for only 15% of my sales. Also in the UK, I sold more at the higher increment. Not sure what to make of this.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

12 hours to go on my first one (on Just for Now)--at the 7,000-sold mark (almost 6 days). Posting now because I'm going away-from-the-Internet for a week, tomorrow morning (and hooray for that).

Highest rank achieved on .com: 32. (Which was OH MY LORD amazing. All right, 99 cents--but STILL. Hyperventilation time.)
Most of the sales came from .com--I did .uk too, but results fairly pathetic, even though I usually sell OK there.

BookBub ad helped the most--got about 3,000 sales on my BookBub day. Next time, though, I'd buy other ads, try to have one place each day. (I only did BookBub, on Day 2 in case something was glitchy on Day 1.)

I priced at 99 cents for the whole thing, and I think that was a good move.

I also chose a book that I thought would be attractive for the holidays: family/home theme, very heartwarming, my most domestic book, with recipes in the back. I think that worked well, too. 

What I did wrong: didn't get the entire 7 days out of it, messed up on the hours. Also, as above, didn't buy more ads, which was dumb. 

What I don't know yet: how much bump I'll get on the other books. Have definitely got some, but the jury's still out.

Oh, and BTW: I estimated I might get 10% of the number of sales that I'd expect on a free download, and I think that number was spot on. You wouldn't think 99 cents would be so different from free, but it is. 

Another interesting thing: I got a lot of borrows on the book during the promo. Again--instead of 99 cents? But still. Free is free, I guess.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

I knew you could do it!  

I was one of your buys! That's right -- my one buy must have been responsible for putting you in the bestseller rank!   

Oh, fine. Okay, I won't take credit for making you a bestseller. But I am so thrilled for you! You did tons better than I did. Woo-hoo, Rosalind!


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## Derek Pedley (May 16, 2013)

Congratulations, Rosalind - those numbers are simply mind blowing! Based on those results, I'll seriously consider .99 instead of 1.99 - assuming, of course, that I manage to get another  BookBub promo.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Sophrosyne said:


> I knew you could do it!
> 
> I was one of your buys! That's right -- my one buy must have been responsible for putting you in the bestseller rank!
> 
> Oh, fine. Okay, I won't take credit for making you a bestseller. But I am so thrilled for you! You did tons better than I did. Woo-hoo, Rosalind!


Thank you!! I was totally shocked. I really appreciate the good wishes!


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## L.E. Parin (Nov 30, 2012)

Wow, these are some amazing results--especially to get on a bestseller's list!

I've been seriously neglecting my books and haven't run a kindle select promo *ever* so last Christmas, I decided to run a KCD on my $2.99 PNR Howls in the Moonlight to $.99 from Dec 25-31 and run a freebie run on my $.99 YA fantasy The Prince of Shadows from Dec 25-30. I didn't do any ads or anything to advertise it--not even mentioning it on my book blog or social links--just to see how they could do with no promotion for a baseline.

Overall, my PNR sold 13 copies (mostly at the start and then slow trickle) and my YA had 50 downloads. They're under different names although they have the same author page, but since they're different genres, I don't think there was cross-over interest, but who knows  My results are tiny compared to others but I am still over the moon by the results since I've sold about 1 book total in the past few months! It was super awesome to not have the BBoS (although it's back, lol)! I'm now motivated to get more books out there and try to utilize promotions better 

I love that everyone is sharing their results with the KCD! It's so helpful to see what others are doing


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## Heather Walsh (Jan 22, 2013)

Rosalind James said:


> Highest rank achieved on .com: 32. (Which was OH MY LORD amazing. All right, 99 cents--but STILL. Hyperventilation time.)
> Most of the sales came from .com--I did .uk too, but results fairly pathetic, even though I usually sell OK there.


Congratulations, Rosalind! You must have been absolutely thrilled with your results! Amazing!!


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## RuthMadison (Jul 9, 2011)

bberntson said:


> I don't know. I took an ad out with Kboards and Bargain Booksy and it didn't seem to do much of anything. Maybe I'm advertising in the wrong place. Where are other people going to promote?
> 
> I think lots might have to do with readership. I'm still trying to build a fan base, so that's probably half of it. Maybe for those of you who already have good readership are fairing better.


I'm about to try this countdown thing for the first time and I'd also like to know all the places people tried advertising them!


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

RuthMadison said:


> I'm about to try this countdown thing for the first time and I'd also like to know all the places people tried advertising them!


Here's my latest with results, copied from the other thread (this was my experiment with using lots of different sites):

My promo was on Book 2 in the new series. Here are the ranks:
Day 0 (day before promo): Book 1: 1236; Book 2 (promo book): 2826; Book 3: 872. NZ books pretty slow: 2000s up to 5000s.
Day 1 (BookGorilla): Book 1: 1239; Book 2: 446, #23 in Rom Suspense; Book 3: 1063. NZ books about the same.
Day 2: (BookBub): Book 1: 960; Book 2: 39, #2 in Rom Suspense; Book 3: 759. NZ books: the first three are up a bit, the final two down some.
Day 3: (BookBlast): Book 1: 909; Book 2: 51 (got to 34 earlier), #1 in Rom Suspense; Book 3: 648. NZ books: the first one is up pretty nicely.
Day 4: (promo blitz, KND):Book 1: 974; Book 2: 77, #2 in Rom Suspense; Book 3: 631. NZ books: about the same.
Day 5: (KBT, ENT): Book 1: 1012; Book 2: 105, #5 in Rom Suspense; Book 3: 540. NZ books: first one is doing a bit better still.
+2 days post-promo: Book 1: 1146; Book 2: 285, Book 3: 577. NZ books: first one is up to 1839.

Promotional sites and costs:
Day 1: BookGorilla ($150 for "starred book"--their curated deal, they say). Result: some decent traction up the list, not a ton of books sold for the money, but maybe helped get the book into position to take advantage of the BB promo.
Day 2: BookBub ($540). Not nearly as many sales as on my post-Xmas promo, but that's time of year; ranking-wise, great boost as always, and the other books are moving too.
Day 3: Bookblast ($50). Book got to #34 overnight, its highest rating. This ad did seem to keep the momentum going--much less steep drop-off in sales than last time when I advertised with BB only. Got to #1 in Rom Suspense in the afternoon, which was cool.
Day 4: KND (Kindle Fire sponsorship: $99.99); promo blitz on new book (Book 3; $30 for 40 blogs). The promos held the book in the Top 100 pretty nicely (was in the 60s for much of the day), which is a big contrast to last time. We'll see what ENT does tomorrow. Not nearly as much of a bounce on Book 3 as I'd hoped for, though. (Or nearly as much as I got on this book, when I did a Free offer on Book 1.)
Day 5: KBT (fkbooksandtips) ($25); ENT (amount TBD). Man, am I underwhelmed by ENT! They feature *one* of the books they include--only--on their Facebook page. That book wasn't mine. Needless to say, if the cover isn't even going to appear on their Facebook page--what's the point of their promo, exactly? Pretty much nothing. Will be skipping that one in future. (On the plus side, since you just pay a percentage of what you earned from the click-throughs coming from their site, I won't owe them much.)

I informed Pixel of Ink, just on the principle of "might as well." No idea if they did anything with it or not.

Notes:
1) Why I'm doing the promo: to give Book 3 a push (published Feb. 1). I waited till now so it would have some reviews. (Currently 22 on .com)
2) I went with 5 days because the 5-day-free thing has worked well, and I think 5 days is a limited enough time that it plants a little more urgency than 6 or 7 days.
3) I went with 99 cents for the whole time because I've heard others say it works better, and it just makes sense to me that a real deal (my books are normally $3.99) would be more appealing.
4) I went with Book 2 in the series because I'd just done a free run on Book #1 in early November, and 86,000 people had downloaded it--hoping some of those will want to pay for Book 2!
5) I did the deal in the UK as well as the US, even though my last UK Countdown was pretty anemic, because my UK sales are even MORE anemic this month, so--nothing to lose.

Oh, and by the way: Yeah, UK sales anemic as they were last time. Shrug.

Upshot: Next time, doing the Free promo again. I've got to #32 and #34 on my two Countdown promos, but the numbers are just so very, very much less than on a Free promo (as in, 5-10% of what I've been getting on 5-day Free promos), it doesn't translate into nearly the bounce on the other books--and the promo is twice as expensive! (As an example, last time, with Book 1 free, Book 2 got all the way to #225.) So, Free it is for me, next time around.


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## RuthMadison (Jul 9, 2011)

Thank you! That is just what I needed!


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

That is a very sound marketing campaign.  Congrats.  I was staying away from free for a while, trying the countdown thing, which I will be doing next month with some more paid advertising.  Do you think Free is still a good way to generate sales>  I haven't had much luck with it, but my work is more literary and supernatural.  Not there's a market for it, I just think it's a smaller market, and at least Countdown provides some ranking.  Also, I am relying on random strangers for reviews, whoever purchases the book, so it's slow going, but at least it's out there.  Good luck everyone!


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

bberntson said:


> That is a very sound marketing campaign. Congrats. I was staying away from free for a while, trying the countdown thing, which I will be doing next month with some more paid advertising. Do you think Free is still a good way to generate sales> I haven't had much luck with it, but my work is more literary and supernatural. Not there's a market for it, I just think it's a smaller market, and at least Countdown provides some ranking. Also, I am relying on random strangers for reviews, whoever purchases the book, so it's slow going, but at least it's out there. Good luck everyone!


My last Free was in early November 2013, and it still worked great (86,000 downloads in 5 days), and I got a much bigger boost out of it than on the two Countdowns I've tried since.

I HAVE heard reports that "Free" hasn't worked as well in 2014, but the only way to know for sure is to try it for myself and see, so that's what I'll do next.

By comparison--my other promos in 2013 were in the 40-62K range, but were all on books I'd promo'd before, with one outlier in January 2013 still my record at 92K--so the November one, on a book I'd never offered at any kind of discount, was unusually successful for me. But, I hasten to add, I'm in Romance, and that's obviously the biggest market for "Free," or for anything.) If you do try it again, please share, and I will, too.


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## Eskimo (Dec 31, 2013)

Rosalind James said:


> My last Free was in early November 2013, and it still worked great (86,000 downloads in 5 days), and I got a much bigger boost out of it than on the two Countdowns I've tried since.
> 
> I HAVE heard reports that "Free" hasn't worked as well in 2014, but the only way to know for sure is to try it for myself and see, so that's what I'll do next.
> 
> By comparison--my other promos in 2013 were in the 40-62K range, but were all on books I'd promo'd before, with one outlier in January 2013 still my record at 92K--so the November one, on a book I'd never offered at any kind of discount, was unusually successful for me. But, I hasten to add, I'm in Romance, and that's obviously the biggest market for "Free," or for anything.) If you do try it again, please share, and I will, too.


Thank you for sharing all of this Rosalind, much appreciated. I am planning a promotion in March and trying to decide between Free and Countdown. You've given me a lot to chew on.

I have had very good success with using Free last year. It's the primary -- and perhaps only -- reason I've sold over 1,000 books.

But going forward, do you get the sense that "free" is mostly viable as a short-term option? In total, I've given away over 100,000 copies of my novels, and I can't get past the notion that at some point, having given away so many books, there won't be many potential buyers left out there for me.

I'm in the process of writing the 3rd novel in a mystery series and hope to write a few more. Going free has provided a lot of customer reviews which is important. But it concerns me when I see a good review of Book #2, followed by a comment that the reader "just discovered" they also have Book #1 in their Kindle library due to a download many months ago.

I know this discussion has gone on in a lot on other threads, so I'm not looking to create yet another. But I am trying to develop a long-term strategy for marketing my books, and like a lot of authors, struggling to find the best path.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

David Chill said:


> Thank you for sharing all of this Rosalind, much appreciated. I am planning a promotion in March and trying to decide between Free and Countdown. You've given me a lot to chew on.
> 
> I have had very good success with using Free last year. It's the primary -- and perhaps only -- reason I've sold over 1,000 books.
> 
> ...


But you write crime/mysteries, right? What's the market for those? Got to be huge. There are millions of potential readers out there. All you're doing is letting more people know about you. I doubt most romance readers have ever heard of me. Like you, the only reason anyone has is because of the hundreds of thousands of free books people have downloaded over the past year and a half. I think E.L. James gave away a million copies of the original version of "50 Shades" via a fanfiction site before she published the books. All that did was give her a fan base.

I do think that more people read the free book the more they've heard of you. One reason I did multiple free offers of the same book was to jog people's memories in that way--they might click on "download" and be told that they already had the title in their library. Then they might go read it. It doesn't really matter how long it takes or that it takes multiple exposures.

That said, I wouldn't offer any but the first (and the second, for a long series) book in my series for free. I wouldn't want people to think they could just wait and eventually get the whole series for free. I price low enough that there isn't a big barrier to purchase (and I'm on Select, so they can borrow). Personally, I'll keep doing the free offers on early books, maybe do some select 99-cent sales on a later book when I have a new book out. Maybe.

The value of "Free" is just huge, bottom line. As in 10 to 20 times more powerful than 99 cents, at least for me, and like you, I have lots of reviews, there's a money-back guarantee, and all that--you wouldn't think the risk was high. But free means no risk.

Those are my early-morning thoughts. I'm no expert, just trying to learn as I go and not beat myself up if something doesn't work out, as long as I learn from it for next time.


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## Paul Kohler (Aug 14, 2013)

noting just to bookmark! I'm doing a CDD in March.


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

Just LIL but here's a thought.

In the book content I announced upcoming countdown deals for other works and for the second volume of my first book.  I have been advertising my free (a 50 page sample) on freebooksy.com and I get good results for a sample.  This time I'm doing a follow up on the companion site, bargainbooksy.com

If you have a book you are doing freebies on, plan ahead and list other books as countdown deals.  Of course leave enough time for the reader to finish the freebie (unless you want to put the announcement at the beginning which seems awkward).


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## Harriet Schultz (Jan 3, 2012)

Thanks for the very thorough list and analysis of the ads you placed to promote your countdown deal. 

After resisting Select for two years, I finally signed up for a three month experiment -- only with my first book -- and wondered about the best way to promote a countdown. BookBub would be out because I ran the same book there in January and would have to wait six months to do it again, but I'll schedule the others you used. I'm surprised that ENT's bargain book listing didn't work since I've had good luck with them in the past. 

Wonderful that you've shared a strategy that works! Gotta love KBoards.


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## Usedtoposthere (Nov 19, 2013)

Harriet Schultz said:


> Thanks for the very thorough list and analysis of the ads you placed to promote your countdown deal.
> 
> After resisting Select for two years, I finally signed up for a three month experiment -- only with my first book -- and wondered about the best way to promote a countdown. BookBub would be out because I ran the same book there in January and would have to wait six months to do it again, but I'll schedule the others you used. I'm surprised that ENT's bargain book listing didn't work since I've had good luck with them in the past.
> 
> Wonderful that you've shared a strategy that works! Gotta love KBoards.


Yeah, I ended up owing ENT $15! Which was about what it was worth. I skipped them for this next time. I added freebooksy, since I'll be promoting a "free" offer and I've heard good things about them. First time I've used them, so we'll see!


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## bonnerauthor (Jan 18, 2013)

Just follow up on my post #672.

I have one small  7 day/$40 ad currently running for this countdown.
About three weeks ago I did freebie promos for my introductory samples of books.
At the end of each sample, I announced the dates for the countdown deals.  I think its working.
I'm 21 hours in (of a 7 day/three tier) and my sales have equaled what I had done in 54 hours of the prior countdown for the book in late Nov.
I'm on the first page in countdown in both historical fiction and historical romance and jumped into the four digits on overall sales.

I think a pre-announcement for a future countdown at the end of the content on a freebie is working better than paid advertising.  I have a bargainbooksy ad running on Sat.  If I see a spike on Sat I will know whether the ad money was well spent.

Good luck, all.


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## bberntson (Oct 24, 2013)

bonnerauthor said:


> Just follow up on my post #672.
> 
> I have one small 7 day/$40 ad currently running for this countdown.
> About three weeks ago I did freebie promos for my introductory samples of books.
> ...


That's incredible! Good thinking! Did you say you just announced the countdown deals inside the free books? I was just trying to understand where you stated it for the freebies. Regardless, that's awesome! Best of luck. I hope it goes well.


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