The KDP Select Experiment: Part 9 - After the Sunset

It has been 10 days since my free promo of Divine Intervention ended, and 11 days since The River's, and I've received a lot of emails about my experiment. First, thank you for following my journey and sharing your thoughts and questions.

Today someone asked me what I would recommend with regards to the 5 days of free promo you get with Select, what days are better and how should one break the 5 days up. While I feel there's still room to experiment some more, this is what I said:

With Divine Intervention, a mystery about psychic agents searching for a serial killer (and book 1 in a series), I used up all 5 days. It was my first book enrolled in Select and I thought I’d go in strong. What I noticed was that free downloads were relatively consistent and strong for the first 2 days and then less for the last 3 days.

I set up my technothriller The River for a 2 day free promo (which overlapped with the 3/4th days of the promo for DI. It shot ahead in the 2 day promo and ended up with more downloads in those 2 days than DI had in 5.

In the past these 2 titles have sold relatively evenly, with The River maybe a few copies ahead of DI, definitely not such high numbers as in this promo time. This leads me to believe that one would be better off scheduling a 2-day promo and either a 3-day promo, or two 2-days and a 1.

I found that for an author who has done decently in sales but is not a big name author it takes 2 days to get the sales rank down low enough to really make a difference—ie. getting the book listed on multiple bestsellers lists.

My promo for DI ran Saturday to Wednesday; The River’s promo ran Monday and Tuesday. Most people download ebooks on the weekend, so my results for TR surprised me.

As for after sales, The River is still doing WAY above normal in sales. I am stunned by the numbers compared to my normal average. I estimate I am selling 10-15 TIMES more. But I believe it has a more universal appeal and a wider target audience, whereas DI appeals to a slightly smaller audience. Divine Intervention’s after sales have been steady and higher than normal, but even more, the sales for Divine Justice are much higher than usual. Even 10/11 days after these promos ended.

If you have found my experiment helpful, please consider picking up a copy of THE RIVER or DIVINE INTERVENTION and leaving me an honest review. Thank you.

P.S. I'm getting ready to put up another title--2 actually. I'll let you know what happens. :-)

The KDP Select Experiment: Part 10 - The Vow