# Worst KDP promo ever. Bleck.



## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

I love KDP Select.  I've been using promos for about 9 months now with great success.  I even used one just a few weeks ago that was awesome.  But this one I just finished?  Garbage in comparison.  3 days, 2,975 downloads.  I usually do that in less than a day. Just a few hours sometimes.  There was a glut of freebies and mine just got lost in the wind.

This does not bode well for the Christmas holidays or the months just after.  Now I'm wondering what the hell I should do.

Anyone who was holding out hope that January of 2013 was going to be like it was in 2012, well ... better start looking at your Plan B.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

*le sigh* if you with 20 books out can't get the freebie run to work, I'm not sure I have much hope for mine's tomorrow.


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## BlankPage (Sep 23, 2012)

_Comment removed due to VS TOS 25/9/2018_


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## RM Prioleau (Mar 18, 2011)

Almost 3k downloads is considered BAD?! O_O
This does not compute....


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

Just started one today, and it's not looking too good . . . Not that I have much history to compare it with, but I just downloaded around 20 free books myself, many without more than a cursory look, and my wrist aches . . .

I have no appetite for doing much more than a few posts to announce the free book, and then, it's up to the book: but today must be Black Friday for free books (or is every Friday bad?), it will be a miracle if someone even notices mine.

Nothing to do but write, write honestly and better, and eschew the world of gimmickry. If one can.


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## leedobbins (Feb 5, 2011)

I've been doing free promos for almost a year now and the past several months I've found them to be hit or miss.

I did one yesterday (yesterday and the day before so it ran for 2 days) on one of my fiction books and got 10699 downloads.

Did one the same timeframe (yesterday and the day before) on a non fiction book and got 16928 downloads.

The fiction book was newly released a couple of weeks ago.  The non fiction is about 6 months old and had totally bombed on its last several free runs (was thinking about taking it out of Select but gave it one last go).

My husband said the free promos was kind of like selling stuff on ebay - it depends on who is around looking and who else has stuff to offer on that day.

Oh, and I should add, the fiction book was promoted heavily - at all the freebie posting sites I know about (and I paid for extras where they were offered), the non fiction was not promoted at all.


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

So sorry to hear that… agreed, time for plan B or C or D or — you get my meaning.

Someone else posted about this and I think it is true, you have to give away 30 to 40 thousand or more to have a decent KDP Select promotion.


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## AmberC (Mar 28, 2012)

There is a sea of free out there right now. It's rough waters.


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## Wansit (Sep 27, 2012)

Richardcrasta said:


> Just started one today, and it's not looking too good . . . Not that I have much history to compare it with, but I just downloaded around 20 free books myself, many without more than a cursory look, and my wrist aches . . .
> 
> I have no appetite for doing much more than a few posts to announce the free book, and then, it's up to the book: but today must be Black Friday for free books (or is every Friday bad?), it will be a miracle if someone even notices mine.
> 
> Nothing to do but write, write honestly and better, and eschew the world of gimmickry. If one can.


I got 7 free books yesterday - barely glanced at them, just noted the cover.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

What's distressing to me is that a free promo in Select actually brings my sales to a complete standstill afterward. I guess this wouldn't be true if I ever had a successful free run, but free runs that result in a limited amount of books given away seem to actively harm sales, not boost them. I've decided I won't be doing Select anymore, even in the limited way I've been using it.


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## Nicole5102 (Mar 12, 2012)

I'm on my third day of a free promo and the grand total so far is...533 downloads. Talk about depressing. This is my worst KDP free promo ever.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Is this where I get to say: I told you so?

What we need now are some savvy marketers who will find ways to promote PAID books to attract people who are tired of wading through the freebies to find the gems among them.

I'm thinking readers will be looking for web sites that actually read and recommend books (hopefully with some sort of acumen that people can trust), rather than just charging people to call them "Book of the Day". Being called something "of the day" used to mean that you've earned that status rather than paid for it.
Of course, actually _reviewing_ the goods you recommend takes more time than simply adding a picture and a hyperlink. 

A great many of the sites out there flogging freebies are simply affiliates looking for clicks. This just can't keep working for any of us.
And, so far, I haven't found paid ads that work for me, either. But I keep looking


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## StrokerChase (Mar 4, 2012)

That doesn't sound TOO bad. That's still thousands of people. Who knows, maybe they'll start getting into it during the holiday and then give you some good reviews. Things should look much better after everyone is doing spending their money on Christmas presents. Those kindles under the tree haven't been unwrapped yet, probably just getting wrapped.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

EllenFisher said:


> I've decided I won't be doing Select anymore, even in the limited way I've been using it.


Starting to worry about that, too. While I was doing absolutely NOTHING at Nook, iBooks, Kobo etc, I'm not so sure that Select is doing much more either. 
What was November's KOLL share? A buck eighty or so? How's that working for anyone but Amazon? I keep hoping they will add some sort of incentive to Select to lure folks back but that doesn't seem to be happening either.

I'm happy with my Space Opera, and I thought that was _because_ of Select, but the other book is as sluggish as it was at the other sellers.


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## MegHarris (Mar 4, 2010)

> Is this where I get to say: I told you so?


Well, to be fair, Select DID work great, for a while. The market changes, Amazon changes, and we all have to keep running to try to figure out what works. I don't think Select is worth the loss in sales on other sites for me personally. Someone who manages to give away thousands of books and get into the top 100 freebies might have a different view on the matter. 



> What was November's KOLL share? A buck eighty or so? How's that working for anyone but Amazon?


It'd work great for me if I could get borrows. I had one book that had a lot of borrows, but that was a while ago. Since then... zip. A lot of borrows would keep me in Select, but that's not happening for me, either. It must be happening to _someone_, though.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

I'm selling one book for every 10.67 I give away free. I have two free KDP runs on the same book (running one at the end of the 90 days and at the start of the ninety) coming up. I only run the first book in a series free.


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## MGalloway (Jun 21, 2011)

Estelle Ryan said:


> Nope, I win!!!!! In September I had a promo day (only one) that resulted in *drum roll* 137 downloads. Granted I was (and mostly still is) a totally unknown, but that was terrible.


I can top that. I had a promo on a couple of weekends ago and it resulted in 38 downloads. It didn't help that the sales rank didn't even show up until the day was half over...even though several downloads had already occurred.

It just reinforces the importance of not relying on a single distribution point or even a single promo.


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

I once had a promo that gave away 18 copies.


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## Aya Ling (Nov 21, 2012)

That sucks. I also ran a promo in November that did nothing for my (already paltry) sales. About 180 downloads in 2 days, and only one sale--in Germany.


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## stephaniehale (May 15, 2012)

You are not alone, Elle. I just ran one last week and got about 9,000 downloads. I got as high as #36 in the Top 100 Free store. I was #1 in Teen Romance & Teen Mystery for several days. I thought it would translate into some pretty decent buys. Not! This is only my second time doing free days and I had a great promotion in June. I was pretty disappointed but then the reviews started coming in. I got nine new reviews, most of them five stars.    Hopefully things will go better next time for all of us. 


Stephanie~


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

ellecasey said:


> But this one I just finished? Garbage in comparison. 3 days, 2,975 downloads.


I'll admit I haven't been downloading free books lately because when I find one I'm interested in and try to click it, so many of them are ones I've already downloaded (either purchased or free). So could that be part of the problem?

I wonder if it will be better after Christmas, once there's a whole new crop of readers with EMPTY e-readers to fill.


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## Richardcrasta (Jul 29, 2010)

EllenFisher said:


> What's distressing to me is that a free promo in Select actually brings my sales to a complete standstill afterward. I guess this wouldn't be true if I ever had a successful free run, but free runs that result in a limited amount of books given away seem to actively harm sales, not boost them.


I've been having this suspicion myself. But as sales in general have been low, even without promotions, it's hard to be sure.


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

RM Prioleau said:


> Almost 3k downloads is considered BAD?! O_O
> This does not compute....


It's bad compared to my other runs. I find comparing myself to others does me no good since every genre has its own audience and I don't necessarily market like others, but looking at my numbers month over month does.



Wansit said:


> I got 7 free books yesterday - barely glanced at them, just noted the cover.


Yeah. You are not alone, I think. That's the problem with promos - only a small percentage of downloaders actually bother to read the book, and some only months later, so with a smaller run of 3,000 it's not doing a whole heck of a lot probably. The only good news it was mostly organic downloads, meaning I didn't get picked up by any major advertiser of free books. I'll keep my fingers crossed for quality over quantity this time.



stephaniehale said:


> You are not alone, Elle. I just ran one last week and got about 9,000 downloads. I got as high as #36 in the Top 100 Free store. I was #1 in Teen Romance & Teen Mystery for several days. I thought it would translate into some pretty decent buys. Not! This is only my second time doing free days and I had a great promotion in June. I was pretty disappointed but then the reviews started coming in. I got nine new reviews, most of them five stars.  Hopefully things will go better next time for all of us.


Yes. That's the problem with Select as I see it now. Free runs only boost the next in series for me, not the original book that was free. It used to affect the free book too really well. Now, not at all. Like someone else on this thread, my free book - when it comes back on market - is just dead in the water. It took a price drop to revive sales last time.



Quiss said:


> Is this where I get to say: I told you so?


No, it's not. Because I've used Select for 9 months now, and without it, I'd still be invisible and selling no books. After a Select run I still get a big increase in sales of the others in my series and then sales for my other series. I credit much of my success directly to the visibility I've gotten from the Select program at Amazon and will never not be grateful for that. I'm a fan as long as it works in some respect. My point is that it's not working like it was early last year or even in the early Fall. Last holiday season people sold hugely huge amounts of books using Select. That's not going to happen this year.



Edward W. Robertson said:


> I once had a promo that gave away 18 copies.


That stinks. I'm sorry. 



Amanda Brice said:


> I'll admit I haven't been downloading free books lately because when I find one I'm interested in and try to click it, so many of them are ones I've already downloaded (either purchased or free). So could that be part of the problem?
> 
> I wonder if it will be better after Christmas, once there's a whole new crop of readers with EMPTY e-readers to fill.


We shall see! I'm going to use Select and see what happens.


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## EC Richard (May 20, 2011)

Oh brother. How are you guys even getting 500 downloads? I promoted and promoted my promo and got 215 downloads over two days. What am I doing wrong?


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

EC Richard said:


> Oh brother. How are you guys even getting 500 downloads? I promoted and promoted my promo and got 215 downloads over two days. What am I doing wrong?


Your books are in a different genre than mine. That being said, here are some things that might help:

1. Get some reviews on those books. Real ones, not fakes, not paid for none of that garbage. Book bloggers are your best shot or a library thing giveaway. (I've never done one but I hear it works). Lots of people won't bother to DL something that isn't reviewed yet.
2. Notify the list of sites that might advertise it.
3. Facebook and Tweet the heck out of it.
4. Tell your friends and family to do the same as #3
5. Cross your fingers, toes, and eyes and pray to every god who might be listening.


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## Robert Brumm (Jul 17, 2012)

Last month I had a horrible 5 day run on Stage Five. 500 d/l's. This week I had an amazing one with Windigo Soul. Over 17K downloads, a bunch of reviews, and and uptick of sales with my other books.

You never can tell how it's going to go....


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## JRTomlin (Jan 18, 2011)

Robert Brumm said:


> Last month I had a horrible 5 day run on Stage Five. 500 d/l's. This week I had an amazing one with Windigo Soul. Over 17K downloads, a bunch of reviews, and and uptick of sales with my other books.
> 
> You never can tell how it's going to go....


Very true.


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## purplesmurf (Mar 20, 2012)

Estelle Ryan said:


> Nope, I win!!!!! In September I had a promo day (only one) that resulted in *drum roll* 137 downloads. Granted I was (and mostly still is) a totally unknown, but that was terrible. My usual promo days result in 2k-4k downloads. But last week my promo day was well below that. Most likely like you said - a glut of freebies. I have a plan B, plan C, plan D, but have no idea if any or all or some of it will work. So I (try to) forget about sales and get back to writing.


 lol, no, I WIN, I had a 5 day promo with only 165 downloads.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

I think in general sales & downloads are slow right now. I just had a major promotion on my permafree book. I got 10,000 downloads in one day. That put me at #10 on the overall free chart. Which is great, but back in April/May I never made it that high on the chart with that amount of downloads. Yesterday I only had 3000 downloads on the first book and it's still at #21 on the chart. Seems like it should have dropped faster with that amount. I feel like everyone is too busy with holiday stuff. Also when I get that amount of downloads, I usually see an almost immediate uptick on my other books. I have seen a small one in the last day, but not as good as normal.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Brian Spangler said:


> So sorry to hear that&#8230; agreed, time for plan B or C or D or - you get my meaning.
> 
> Someone else posted about this and I think it is true, you have to give away 30 to 40 thousand or more to have a decent KDP Select promotion.


If the book's in a series, you might sell a few sequels during the promo, even with very few given away. However, you have to give away at least 10k, probably more, to get any sort of bounce.

@Elle -- what's Plan B? Does it involve Prawns Uniting in some way? Please, please, tell us Plan B!!!


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## TexasGirl (Dec 21, 2011)

Deanna (the other Deanna!) is right. Freebie downloads have significantly slowed.

I think it's for two reasons: 1. the major sites have been told to slow down how many freebies they promote 2: the new Facebook algorithms mean subscribers there don't see a freebie post but about 15% of the time.

I'm not sure the mega-blast of freebies has hit just yet. I just checked KND and saw about 300 newly listed freebies for the 14th of Dec. When I did my last freebie run over the summer, we were getting 450 newly free listings per day.


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## CarlG (Sep 16, 2012)

I think 2013 is going to be all about Plan B. Whatever that is.

I predict that this holiday season is going to be nothing like last. Thousands of freebies and low priced books will water the effect for most individual authors. It's going to be a field day for those readers looking to fill up their new Kindles, with very little bounce, bump, and all that other good stuff for the average author.

As a reader I don't even visit ENT or POI anymore. I've already got more free books on my Kindle than I'll read in a year.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

CarlG said:


> As a reader I don't even visit ENT or POI anymore. I've already got more free books on my Kindle than I'll read in a year.


Agreed. But remember that there have been literally millions of new e-readers sold this holiday season (not just Kindles, but other e-readers like Nooks and Kobos, as well as smart phones and tablets), so there will be millions of new potential readers that will have brand new toys to fill up. Those who already have owned an e-reader likely won't be looking to download freebies or new books starting on December 25, but those who have never owned one and are anxious to start playing with their new toys will.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

Amanda Brice said:


> but those who have never owned one and are anxious to start playing with their new toys will.


But will they even know what POI and ENT even is?
Chances are that they'll go to Amazon, call up a category, sort by price and find freebies that way.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

Quiss said:


> But will they even know what POI and ENT even is?
> Chances are that they'll go to Amazon, call up a category, sort by price and find freebies that way.


True, but I also think that the various blogs that specialize in this will be really hitting pretty heavy on the advertising. I know that I'd started getting emails or notifications in my Facebook feed from several "free books" or "cheap books" sites before I'd ever owned a Kindle, simply because I knew I would be getting one soon and wanted to start getting books. I know plenty of people who have "liked" various books sites who don't own a Kindle right now, just because they know they're getting one in a few days from now.

But really, we have no idea what will happen. Kinda makes it fun. Okay, not fun. LOL


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

Sorry, but I don't even get what this thread is about. (Elle - nothing personal.) Seeking sympathy for only getting 3,000 downloads during a free promo? Three thousand? So how many people do you want to give your book to?

Sorry - just don't get it...


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## Patty Jansen (Apr 5, 2011)

Almost 3K is considered bad? Hmph. Some expectations need to come down to earth.

I did a promo once and got 20 downloads. That was during what was considered "the good old days" of Select, too. I only ever had one promo that exceeded 3K, and it did so by about 10K. But, when after 13K of downloads, I got a mere 60 sales, I decided that this Select gig is not worth it. I will be out on the 21st, when incidentally, the world will end 

Plan B:

Write books.
Put them on all platforms
Distribute to reviewers
Write more books.

And raise prices. That's been the best thing I've done in the last two months.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

ellecasey said:


> The only good news it was mostly organic downloads, meaning I didn't get picked up by any major advertiser of free books. I'll keep my fingers crossed for quality over quantity this time.


I bet that explains the low numbers. In fact, with no pick-ups from the big blogs, 3K downloads is probably really good.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Deanna Chase said:


> I think in general sales & downloads are slow right now. I just had a major promotion on my permafree book. I got 10,000 downloads in one day. That put me at #10 on the overall free chart. Which is great, but back in April/May I never made it that high on the chart with that amount of downloads.





TexasGirl said:


> Deanna (the other Deanna!) is right. Freebie downloads have significantly slowed.


Deannas: I've posted a download:rank chart before on the MEGA thread and on one or two other threads, and I have to disagree with your observations.

In Feb, Mar, Apr and May, it took 9000 - 10,000 downloads to hit a rank between #10 and #20, so your #10 rank is actually comparable now to what it would have been then (remember, this isn't basing off overall download numbers but how many it took to initially hit that rank to begin with). I noted that during Thanksgiving week, downloads overall were down about 15%. But they have recovered since then. It only feels like downloads are slowing substantially, I think, because it's harder to break into the Top 20 these days. Downloads may be off 5-10% today compared to their heyday, but it's not by a factor you'd notice unless you were keeping very detailed records.

I have 2 of our books on a free run right now. This is their third day in. Book 1 has had 10,600 downloads and Book 2 has had 3750. Both are romances, and both have about the number of downloads right now that I'd expect them to have without an ENT, POI or BookBub mention.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

Honestly, I feel that a lot of people downloading the free books that were advertised on the blogs do it just because it's free. They may or may not ever get around to it (and in most instances...won't). And when you get stratospheric downloads, you're much more likely to get people who either will never read it (in which case, you're not going to build a readership from them) or who will read it and hate it (because it was never something they should have read in the first place).

I've never done a free run. I only have perma-freebies at the moment, so I've never been picked up by the big blogs. Occasionally I'll get picked up by a smaller blog (usually several months after I reported it to them) and I'll see an uptick in the number of downloads, but those mentions are never on the same day, so it's never a long-sustaining uptick. Just a blip.

But those who do download it are much more likely to actually read it since like you said, they're finding it organically. They had to actually be interested in reading it. They discovered it through searching, not because a blog told them to download it. And *knock wood* all we've gotten so far (on a number of sites -- Amazon, B&N, Kobo, Smashwords, Apple, Goodreads, Library Thing) are 4s and 5s. Not even a 3 yet, let alone a 1 or 2. Whereas the one complain I hear all the time from people getting 30,000 downloads in a single day is that they end up with piles of 1s.

So take heart in the fact that the people who found your book probably really want it. you might not get much of a bounce, but you very well might get new readers out of it.


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

.
Because I did a huge data analysis in early November .. I happen to have some useful numbers on category competition.
.
Comparing the general "Romance" category as a quick test, there are only 10% more titles now than six weeks ago and to get into the top 100 Paid list takes 10% better sales than before. "Romance" is a hyper-competitive category and large enough that the sample size is trusty.
.
I'm not minimizing the growth rate of 10% in six weeks (it's actually quite huge) ... it just doesn't match with what the OP puts as I'm guessing a 10x shift in the free run results?
.
OP: Can you post which book you just ran and actual download data (or email me)? Did you happen to record the data during the run (I usually grab a dozen data points when I run, recording the date+time and the accumulated download#)? Any details like you achieved POI/ENT/etc placement or just a blind Amazon-only event? Any other notes? Keywords and categories you have it in can be useful to figure it out.
.
My suspicion is you used to be trenched with someone's "also bought" book that sold big and something happened to that book: like they changed their price up/down and Amazon doesn't tie yours to theirs any more. 
.


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

I wasn't going to come back to Select, but I did. At first, I was certain my bad feelings were justified, as
my 2-day promo weekend promo started off slow. 

But now Young Moon is #16 in science fiction adventure. It's been #1 before (and 2, and 9) so I'm hopeful this will be a good run.


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## Cheryl Douglas (Dec 7, 2011)

Quiss said:


> What we need now are some savvy marketers who will find ways to promote PAID books to attract people who are tired of wading through the freebies to find the gems among them.
> 
> And, so far, I haven't found paid ads that work for me, either. But I keep looking


Sad, but true.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

Sam Kates said:


> Sorry, but I don't even get what this thread is about. (Elle - nothing personal.) Seeking sympathy for only getting 3,000 downloads during a free promo? Three thousand? So how many people do you want to give your book to?
> 
> Sorry - just don't get it...


I wasn't being facetious in my previous post. As a relative newbie to self-publishing on Amazon, I genuinely don't understand what the issue is here. Please would somebody enlighten me.


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## Pnjw (Apr 24, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Deannas: I've posted a download:rank chart before on the MEGA thread and on one or two other threads, and I have to disagree with your observations.
> 
> In Feb, Mar, Apr and May, it took 9000 - 10,000 downloads to hit a rank between #10 and #20, so your #10 rank is actually comparable now to what it would have been then (remember, this isn't basing off overall download numbers but how many it took to initially hit that rank to begin with). I noted that during Thanksgiving week, downloads overall were down about 15%. But they have recovered since then. It only feels like downloads are slowing substantially, I think, because it's harder to break into the Top 20 these days. Downloads may be off 5-10% today compared to their heyday, but it's not by a factor you'd notice unless you were keeping very detailed records.
> 
> I have 2 of our books on a free run right now. This is their third day in. Book 1 has had 10,600 downloads and Book 2 has had 3750. Both are romances, and both have about the number of downloads right now that I'd expect them to have without an ENT, POI or BookBub mention.


That's interesting. Thanks for posting. I don't keep really detailed records of my free downloads (I do of my actual sales). It just feels slower than I remember.


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## Kathleen Valentine (Dec 10, 2009)

RM Prioleau said:


> Almost 3k downloads is considered BAD?! O_O
> This does not compute....


I was going to say the same thing. I did 2 this month that had 3,330 and 3,280 and I was thrilled. Guess I'm a minor leaguer.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

jvin248 said:


> .
> Because I did a huge data analysis in early November .. I happen to have some useful numbers on category competition.
> .
> Comparing the general "Romance" category as a quick test, there are only 10% more titles now than six weeks ago and to get into the top 100 Paid list takes 10% better sales than before. "Romance" is a hyper-competitive category and large enough that the sample size is trusty.


I'm not tracking this analysis. Sorry, but maybe you can help me see how you arrived at the conclusion that it takes 10% better sales than before to get into the Top 100 Paid based on an increase in number of titles available?

I've tracked sales of several books (romances mainly - ours - and some thrillers) that have hit the Top 100, and numbers of copies sold were only directly influenced by the amount of traffic other books were getting. For example, today it generally takes about 800 sales to hit #100. However, on Black Friday, it took over 1000 (our book had 1069 sales and hit #103). When Amazon ran a KDD that featured 25 of its previous deals, that split available space in the Top 100, and we hit #139 with about 900 sales. I agree that the number of sales to hit in the Top 100 has increased from about 700 back in April to 800 now, but that's more because of overall BUYING volume, not simply due to more books being available. At least, that's what my analysis tells me.

Am I missing something?


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Deanna Chase said:


> That's interesting. Thanks for posting. I don't keep really detailed records of my free downloads (I do of my actual sales). It just feels slower than I remember.


I only charted all this because folk were saying the same thing about freeloads slowing back in June, and I was curious as to whether the numbers bore it out or not. Kind of like the threads here where 1/3 of the folk say a month is the worst ever, 1/3 say best ever and 1/3 say meh.


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## Monique (Jul 31, 2010)

jvin248 said:


> .
> Because I did a huge data analysis in early November .. I happen to have some useful numbers on category competition.


Would you be willing share more of the data and your analysis?


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

Patty Jansen said:


> Almost 3K is considered bad? Hmph. Some expectations need to come down to earth.





Sam Kates said:


> Sorry, but I don't even get what this thread is about. (Elle - nothing personal.) Seeking sympathy for only getting 3,000 downloads during a free promo? Three thousand? So how many people do you want to give your book to?
> 
> Sorry - just don't get it...


It's all relative. If you've been averaging 15k in downloads and suddenly they slow to 3k, it's a big deal. If my income drops 50%, it's a big deal. I support my family on my writing income; it's not a sideline or a hobby and I don't want it to become that - which it could if I stopped paying attention to these details.

It's not about high expectations needing to be tempered or living within certain limits. I'm running a business, and part of my business is forecasting sales and putting together marketing plans, figuring out what's working and what isn't - improving what's working and jettisoning what doesn't anymore. I come to KB for feedback from like-minded authors and those who aren't okay with just accepting whatever passes their way.

To answer your question, how many people do I want to give my book away to? As many as it takes for me to reach my goals. Do you think Amazon executives and decision makers sit around their conference tables and ask, "Why can't you just be happy with what you have?" No way, man. They are where they are because they're always pushing the envelope, striving for more, not accepting limits. Why should we be any different? We're publishers, not just authors.

Whoo, I think I had too much wine.


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

jvin248 said:


> .
> OP: Can you post which book you just ran and actual download data (or email me)? Did you happen to record the data during the run (I usually grab a dozen data points when I run, recording the date+time and the accumulated download#)? Any details like you achieved POI/ENT/etc placement or just a blind Amazon-only event? Any other notes? Keywords and categories you have it in can be useful to figure it out.
> .
> My suspicion is you used to be trenched with someone's "also bought" book that sold big and something happened to that book: like they changed their price up/down and Amazon doesn't tie yours to theirs any more.


You can email me at [email protected] My husband keeps very detailed stats on all that stuff. I just write 'til my fingers fall off.


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

ellecasey said:


> Whoo, I think I had too much wine.


Good little prawns take their meagre downloads and they like it! 

For asking questions and trying to strategize like a business person, you win the naughty little indie prawn award of the day.


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## Dave Dykema (May 18, 2009)

My previous promos all turned out pretty good. My last one was a bit of a turkey. I don't remember the figures, but it was about a quarter of what I usually get.

I'm guessing there's a glut of product compared to a year ago. It will be interesting to see how the days after Christmas go.

I'm thinking (and really, I don't have a clue) that people are are just extrememly busy this time of year and not really buying things for themselves. I seem to remember this was a slow time last year too. Of course, genre might have something to do with it too, and maybe people want cheerier fare during the holidays.


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

Sam Kates said:


> I wasn't being facetious in my previous post. As a relative newbie to self-publishing on Amazon, I genuinely don't understand what the issue is here. Please would somebody enlighten me.


Because 3000 downloads isn't generally enough to result in a significant boost in sales. The number of downloads required to do that these days varies a lot by genre, but it's probably more in the 8000-20,000+ range.


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## 56139 (Jan 21, 2012)

Dave Dykema said:


> I'm guessing there's a glut of product compared to a year ago. It will be interesting to see how the days after Christmas go.


This is not my guess. I'm guessing that most of the issue is that the books with slower downloads rates, comparatively speaking, have been free before. Maybe many times before.

This is nothing but supply and demand the way I see it.


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

Sam Kates said:


> I wasn't being facetious in my previous post. As a relative newbie to self-publishing on Amazon, I genuinely don't understand what the issue is here. Please would somebody enlighten me.


What Edward said. Giving away a lot of books increases the visibility of your book when it goes back on paid sale. In the past, that resulted in a big bump of paid sales right after the free promo, so you might give away thousands of books and then sell/borrow hundreds in the days right after. That's the short-term benefit of a big giveaway. The long-term benefit is a slow trickle of readers who read your book (sometimes months after downloading it for free) and review it, become fans, join your mailing list, buy the sequel, etc.


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## Amanda Brice (Feb 16, 2011)

JanneCO said:


> This is not my guess. I'm guessing that most of the issue is that the books with slower downloads rates, comparatively speaking, have been free before. Maybe many times before.


Yup. It appears that there is a limited (albeit large) pool of people who love to glom onto free ebooks and if you've already reached them, they can't download it a second time so you could be out of luck. The more times a particular book goes free, the lower the response rate. And that makes sense to me. It seems every time I see a free book listed on BookBub or POI that I'm interested in, when I try to download it, I learn that I'd already done so on such-and-such date. I'm sure I'm not in the minority here.


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

Becca Mills said:


> ... Giving away a lot of books increases the visibility of your book when it goes back on paid sale. In the past, that resulted in a big bump of paid sales right after the free promo...


Lately it seems that Amazon's formula when a books goes post-free is to scrub off all prior sales. A book might be ranked 10,000 leading into a free day from some level of paid sales. Then the free day excitement pushes the book up in the top single digits. But the following day that book is thrown down into 500,000 land (dead cat bounce). And because it's there Amazon doesn't put it in the also-bought ribbons the book might have been on the day before the free run. Only by somehow getting a few purchases because it's linked on a review site/other third-party promotion pipeline the rank lifts out of the deep hole and starts to slide onto the also-bought ribbons again. Until you decide to run another free day.


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

.


Phoenix Sullivan said:


> ...maybe you can help me see how you arrived at the conclusion...?


.
Top down vs bottom up analysis. I'm looking at the two populations between buyers and offers and where they overlap. The rank at the 100th place is about 10% different than the rank six weeks ago (slight increase in sales activity). There are 10% more books offered now than then (slight increase in competition). This is in Romance, I see other trends elsewhere, some the opposite direction even. But the gross numbers don't add up to the suggested causes: If someone had a 50% drop in sales of a romance title over the last six weeks it's not because there are 50% more books (there is only 10% more) or 50% fewer buyers buying stuff (which appears about the same) - something else happened, something bigger. 
.
The OP's books sit in the YA market and I know there was some juggling with a new "teen" category listing just before the "Twilight" movie/book blitz at the end of November (I think my Kindle has screen burn-in from that series of advertising). That teen shuffle created a new discovery route for readers. Any author in any category shifted under teens instead of childrens books could be receiving that kind of big trigger (some authors up, some down, some meh as noted in previous comments). 
.
.


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## James Bruno (Mar 15, 2011)

This is why I opted out of Select on Dec. 1. Though I'd sold minimally through the other retailers pre-Select, now I figure, What have I got to lose? Select's incentives now amount to nil


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## Becca Mills (Apr 27, 2012)

jvin248 said:


> Lately it seems that Amazon's formula when a books goes post-free is to scrub off all prior sales. A book might be ranked 10,000 leading into a free day from some level of paid sales. Then the free day excitement pushes the book up in the top single digits. But the following day that book is thrown down into 500,000 land (dead cat bounce). And because it's there Amazon doesn't put it in the also-bought ribbons the book might have been on the day before the free run. Only by somehow getting a few purchases because it's linked on a review site/other third-party promotion pipeline the rank lifts out of the deep hole and starts to slide onto the also-bought ribbons again. Until you decide to run another free day.


Isn't placement on your genre popularity list (rather than sales rank or also-boughts) the main engine of post-free sales?


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## dalya (Jul 26, 2011)

Becca Mills said:


> Isn't placement on your genre popularity list (rather than sales rank or also-boughts) the main engine of post-free sales?


That's what most of the data-miners say. However, I think a good chunk of the first sales are people browsing the freebie sites and seeing yesterday's post and saying "I'd buy that for a dollar."


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## That one girl (Apr 12, 2011)

jvin248 said:


> Lately it seems that Amazon's formula when a books goes post-free is to scrub off all prior sales. A book might be ranked 10,000 leading into a free day from some level of paid sales. Then the free day excitement pushes the book up in the top single digits. But the following day that book is thrown down into 500,000 land (dead cat bounce). And because it's there Amazon doesn't put it in the also-bought ribbons the book might have been on the day before the free run. Only by somehow getting a few purchases because it's linked on a review site/other third-party promotion pipeline the rank lifts out of the deep hole and starts to slide onto the also-bought ribbons again. Until you decide to run another free day.


I'm not so sure about this. I just had an accidental two-day free run. When it began, I was ranked somewhere around 20,000, when it came off free about 50-some hours later I was ranked 45,000.


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## Quiss (Aug 21, 2012)

I have to say that I like the "Bleck" in the title of this thread. I shall use that from now on.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

jvin248 said:


> ..
> Top down vs bottom up analysis. I'm looking at the two populations between buyers and offers and where they overlap. The rank at the 100th place is about 10% different than the rank six weeks ago (slight increase in sales activity). There are 10% more books offered now than then (slight increase in competition). This is in Romance, I see other trends elsewhere, some the opposite direction even. But the gross numbers don't add up to the suggested causes: If someone had a 50% drop in sales of a romance title over the last six weeks it's not because there are 50% more books (there is only 10% more) or 50% fewer buyers buying stuff (which appears about the same) - something else happened, something bigger.


One thing to keep in mind about the bestseller ranks is that there is a lot of history weighted in that is exponentially higher the closer to #1 you get. By that, I mean that while it takes, say, 800 sales in a 24-hour period to initially reach the #100 rank, it does not take 800 sales to stay there. It might take 600 sales per day to keep you there for the first couple of days, then 500 for the next couple, then 400. But 400 over time would not be enough to sustain because of the accrual factor in the history weighting. Theoretically, you could have a period of time where the Top 100 in a given category could actually be selling only 60% of the volume if no new books are entering the ranks of the Top 100.



jvin248 said:


> Lately it seems that Amazon's formula when a books goes post-free is to scrub off all prior sales. A book might be ranked 10,000 leading into a free day from some level of paid sales. Then the free day excitement pushes the book up in the top single digits. But the following day that book is thrown down into 500,000 land (dead cat bounce). And because it's there Amazon doesn't put it in the also-bought ribbons the book might have been on the day before the free run. Only by somehow getting a few purchases because it's linked on a review site/other third-party promotion pipeline the rank lifts out of the deep hole and starts to slide onto the also-bought ribbons again. Until you decide to run another free day.


For a one-day free promo this especially isn't how the current algorithms work. Coming off free, a book is handed off from a free server to a non-free server. It initially has no rank as the server has to crunch the numbers to figure out where it should be. If a book receives no sales or borrows immediately, the algorithm looks at where the book was in rank, deducts the time it had 0 sales, applies the history weighting and produces a new rank based on that, which is, of course, worse than it had going into the free run since it's had 0 sales during that free period. Sometimes those pieces of the algorithm don't crunch at the same time, so the book may take a few hours to arrive at its new rank, hitting incremental ranks along the way.

Alsobots generally crunch twice a week, so a free book will stay in other books' alsobots until the next crunch, when the alsobot associations change. Depending on timing coming off free and whether the servers are doing the crunches on time (holiday batching appears to throw them off schedule), that could normally be anywhere from 1 to 4 days.

In general, books that don't move the needle much on a free run may see a decline in their bestseller rank coupled with an improvement of only a couple of ranks on the pop list, where that tiny incremental movement isn't enough to gain visibility.

Books that manage to move the needle through a few thousand downloads while free will likely be good candidates for buys - first from visibility on the freesites leading to sales, which tosses them higher on the bestseller lists, then about 48 hours later from visibility on the pop lists and the KOLL.

--------

One thing I've noted is that folk who haven't actually had their books in the upper echelons tend to miss a lot of the nuances of the algorithms because they've never experienced those nuances for themselves. Some very popular bloggers dismiss the power of the algorithms behind Amazon's bestseller and popularity lists and the recommendation engines because their own books have never been high enough - say, above a #2000 paid rank or in the Top 50 free - long enough to see firsthand how visibility converts to sales through the pushes the algorithms produce.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

Edward W. Robertson said:


> Because 3000 downloads isn't generally enough to result in a significant boost in sales. The number of downloads required to do that these days varies a lot by genre, but it's probably more in the 8000-20,000+ range.


Ah. I see. I didn't know that. Thank you

Apologies, Elle, if I came across as a little bolshie - too much beer in my case.


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## Lisa Grace (Jul 3, 2011)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> In general, books that don't move the needle much on a free run may see a decline in their bestseller rank coupled with an improvement of only a couple of ranks on the pop list, where that tiny incremental movement isn't enough to gain visibility.
> 
> Books that manage to move the needle through a few thousand downloads while free will likely be good candidates for buys - first from visibility on the freesites leading to sales, which tosses them higher on the bestseller lists, then about 48 hours later from visibility on the pop lists and the KOLL.
> 
> ...


This. Having made it to #13 in the top free of the whole Kindle store, I saw a tremendous boost on the hot new releases list and at one point my book was on about 17 different top ten best sellers' lists. All that visibilty keeps high sales steady (which helps with the history part of the book's algorithms.)

Consequently, having a bad run, can lose you all those important also boughts, and really do a number on your ranking with 2-5 days of zero sales (because it was free).

Since I saw the vast difference in runs, my strategy is:
Debut a new book with a free run in KDP. 
Only run the first in a series free until you have a second one up, then keep it enrolled in KDP only for the first thirty days (or however longer you have left out of your ninety) of the second one's release. After that, distribute to all sales channels.


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## otterific (Jan 31, 2012)

I've had the same problem. My last free run at the beginning of December resulting in just over 2000 downloads - my worst ever. I didn't get picked up by the "big" blogs, either. Sales afterwords have been nil. This book has been free several times before, and has always brought in 12-13k downloads each time, and very good sales afterwards.
December has been a slow month overall. Still holding out hope for a better January.


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## Kathleen Valentine (Dec 10, 2009)

For what it is worth I have a freebie (cookbook/memoir) running right now and with only 1,122 downloads it is ranked:

#184 Free in Kindle Store 
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Cooking, Food & Wine > Baking > Bread
#1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Cooking, Food & Wine > Regional & International > European > German


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## 54706 (Dec 19, 2011)

Sam Kates said:


> Ah. I see. I didn't know that. Thank you
> 
> Apologies, Elle, if I came across as a little bolshie - too much beer in my case.


Eh, don't worry about it.


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

Dalya said:


> That's what most of the data-miners say. However, I think a good chunk of the first sales are people browsing the freebie sites and seeing yesterday's post and saying "I'd buy that for a dollar."


I think you're right, actually. Day one post-free sales don't seem like they're being produced by Amazon--alsobots haven't updated, your BS rank is probably _worse_ than it was before you started, your pop list rank hasn't updated yet--so the only thing that makes sense to me is that people are still seeing your book on the outside sites and deciding it looks interesting enough to drop a few bucks on it even though it was just free.

It's something we see over and over in the Mega-Thread--day one sales are higher than day two, after which things take off. I've got no direct proof to support your theory, but it's always made sense to me.


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## PhoenixS (Apr 5, 2011)

Here's the chart I have from Jan to May for how many freeloads it takes to reach a Free Rank. I've spot-checked against it each month since and there hasn't been more than 10% deviation from the average except for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and Thankgiving itself when overall downloads were down about 15%. Then things ticked back up nicely on Black Friday. I generally run 10-12 freebies simultaneously each month, and the batting average for 80%+ of our books hitting within the Top 150 is just about 100%, so I'm pretty confident about the numbers/results/conclusions.

Kathleen, what we'd need to know is how long has it taken to get those downloads? This chart is useful for determining volume only when we look at it in light of number of downloads over a single 24-hour period. Any longer and we know it actually takes more downloads to reach a rank (over a 5-day run, someone could have 5000+ downloads, for instance, and never crack the Top 100). We also know there's been about a 6-hour delay in rank updates lately, so that timing has to be factored in as well. "Clean" data is very hard to come by...


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## Kathleen Valentine (Dec 10, 2009)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> Kathleen, what we'd need to know is how long has it taken to get those downloads?


The run started yesterday and that rank was there when I logged on at 11 this morning. I have NO IDEA what any of this means -- numbers make my eyes cross and my mind turn to corn mush.


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

Monique said:


> Would you be willing share more of the data and your analysis?


.
I fell into the trap of "don't confuse effort with results"  
(I've solved issues of how one book in an author's stable is under/over performing but to get a beginning author's book over that startup-chasm .. I'm still working that angle. If you want, send me an email with your best & worst performing title and I'll take a quick look.).
.
.


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## Decon (Feb 16, 2011)

My current free promotion on the last two books in my signature hasn't even got above 100 free downloads today as yet. I don't promote them to free sites, so maybe I have only got myself to blame.

Interesting that when the Canadian and Brazilian sites came on stream, free promotions where not activated on those sites, although they are now included. The other interesting point with the Canadian site is that there is no link to authors POD books.


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

My freebie isn't being downloaded in record numbers, but it is currently #7 in Free Science Fiction Adventure right under Hugh Howey's perma-free "Wool," and #15 in Free Science Fiction, again, right under Hugh. I keep chasing that man but can't catch him! Must mean that quality of downloaders is better than quantity.


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

Phoenix Sullivan said:


> One thing to keep in mind about the bestseller ranks is that there is a lot of history weighted in that is exponentially higher the closer to #1 you get.


Yes, I've seen this from both experience and reported elsewhere and agree. I'm using a clever to whack off the lizard's tail at 100 and I only see a 10% change in that meaty thickness, not the 50% change that was defined in the problem description - which suggests looking elsewhere for the OPs solution.
.


> For a one-day free promo this especially isn't how the current algorithms work.


I didn't see the dead-cat-bounce after free runs until recently, the last 6-8 weeks of free promotions. My promotions before then sustained themselves inside Amazon. This is not only single day runs but 1-3 day runs (I haven't done any 4 or 5 day runs because I like to parcel them out, haven't seen much improvement the third day tests vs the second day, and reports from others extending into 4 and 5 days are meh). 
.


> Coming off free, a book is handed off from a free server to a non-free server. It initially has no rank as the server has to crunch the numbers to figure out where it should be. If a book receives no sales or borrows immediately, the algorithm looks at where the book was in rank, deducts the time it had 0 sales, applies the history weighting and produces a new rank based on that, which is, of course, worse than it had going into the free run since it's had 0 sales during that free period ... Alsobots generally crunch twice a week, so a free book will stay in other books' alsobots until the next crunch, when the alsobot associations change. Depending on timing coming off free and whether the servers are doing the crunches on time (holiday batching appears to throw them off schedule), that could normally be anywhere from 1 to 4 days.


This info appears more concrete insider-type information than speculation looking at external data. Interesting stuff. I've seen indication of the 24hour batching processes and understand the trends.
.


> One thing I've noted is that folk who haven't actually had their books in the upper echelons tend to miss a lot of the nuances of the algorithms because they've never experienced those nuances for themselves. Some very popular bloggers dismiss the power of the algorithms behind Amazon's bestseller and popularity lists and the recommendation engines because their own books have never been high enough - say, above a #2000 paid rank or in the Top 50 free - long enough to see firsthand how visibility converts to sales through the pushes the algorithms produce.


I've been in the single digits on free and appeared on paid top 100's. I've been high enough to see benefits from Amazon email blasts "if you liked that you'll like these" and how that carries through in following sales. I'm not saying I don't believe Amazon's algorithms. I understand the algorithms effects magnify at the very top of all books and self-feeds on itself. I've noticed this apparent change with the dead-cat-bounce the last few weeks and "Hmmmm .. there it is again" even after a book that sat at #2 free while the whole Twilight stack, due to the heavy movie marketing, was in the top 5 paid. I waved and took a screenshot like a tourist
. 
.


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## jvin248 (Jan 31, 2012)

H.S. St.Ours said:


> My freebie isn't being downloaded in record numbers, but it is currently #7 in Free Science Fiction Adventure right under Hugh Howey's perma-free "Wool," and #15 in Free Science Fiction, again, right under Hugh. I keep chasing that man but can't catch him! Must mean that quality of downloaders is better than quantity.


LOL. I was chasing him the other day too! We should make a gang.


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## leedobbins (Feb 5, 2011)

There's some really amazingly useful information in this thread and I just wanted to thank everyone for sharing it.

Sorry, I don't have anything amazingly useful to add myself but I wanted to let you guys know it is appreciated.


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## kspringer (Dec 16, 2012)

Glad I found this thread! I just enrolled my first indie book in KDP today and was trying to figure out when and how long to use the free days. Is it better to do one day at a time or two or three in a row. Is it better on a weekday or a weekend etc. Seems like the answer is probably that it's all hit or miss huh?


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

When I last did a freebie run, it was horrible. Very few bloggers picked it up. I didn't even break the top 100.

So, this time, I tried a 99-cent sale instead. 

It looks to me like Amazon may have screwed up their own free runs, by tinkering with the algos too much and by threatening free bloggers with removing their affiliate accounts if their free click-throughs went beyond a certain percentage. As a result, free bloggers are posting fewer free books. And without publicity, the free runs are quickly losing their value.

Kspringer, what I would do is schedule all the days individually, together. So they make up a block of five, that you can cancel at any time without risking going into a new day and wasting it. Then, if you get picked up by the bloggers, and you break into the top ten, you can put all the days on it if you want. It used to be that bloggers wouldn't rerun a free book in 30 days, but lately, I've been running into 60 day rules.

Or, if you decide to split your days into a 3 and 2, you may want to pay for guaranteed listings. Because without publicity, it's a wasted free run.


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## T. B. Crattie (Aug 6, 2012)

3k downloads sounds pretty stellar to me!


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