My books are published on Amazon only. Available on Kindle and in paperback and published through Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP):

 “Kindle Direct Publishing is non exclusive publishing. There are no restrictions and you sell your eBook through any other retailers, as well as with Amazon Kindle.”

Derek Haines: What’s The Difference Between Amazon KDP and KDP Select?

Amazon also offer the opportunity to enrol the eBook in KDP Select, if you so wish:

“When you enroll a book in KDP Select, you’re committing to making the digital format of that book available exclusively through KDP while it’s enrolled in the program. All content enrolled in KDP Select must remain for sale through the Kindle Store only.”

Derek Haines: What’s The Difference Between Amazon KDP and KDP Select?

When I published Broken, my first eBook, I enrolled in the KDP programme only, unsure of the benefits of KDP Select and conscious that, I did not want to commit myself, before I fully understood how my book would perform and if I would publish with other retailers in the future.

 My book performed as most other debut novels do: A flurry of interest upon release, especially amongst friends and family, then nothing.

I took another look at KDP Select to understand exactly how it works:

“Paying members can ‘borrow’ books as part of their membership; Everyday Amazon users can buy the book as normal; and Authors can give their book away for free, as a promotion, for 5 days during a 90-day period. (The rest of the time, it remains paid for people who aren’t part of the club).”

Sean Ogle: How to Increase Your Amazon Book Sales by 600% in a Week

I made the decision to enrol in KDP Select to see if it would drive downloads of the eBook as their marketing suggests:

“Enrolling your eBook in our optional KDP Select program gives you the opportunity to reach more readers and earn more money”

KDP Select

It did not have any impact at all: No additional free downloads, awareness or sales at all by being enrolled on this program. However, many authors online would disagree and argue that KDP Select is a great tool, providing sales figures that support this, particularly in the nonfiction genre. Sean Ogle ran a 24 hour free promotion of his eBook and found that:

“At the end of the 24 hour period, my book had been downloaded 400+ times.”

Sean Ogle: How to Increase Your Amazon Book Sales by 600% in a Week

I decided to run a promotion myself and offer my book for free to see if this would drive awareness, garner more readers and increase the number of downloads and reviews.

I used my 5 free days consecutively over one week. I knew that just changing my book to ‘free’ wouldn’t change the eBook’s visibility to readers and automatically encourage downloads. That point had already been proven by enrolling in KDP select and not one download. I would have to do some marketing.

I created an advert for Facebook and Instagram through my Probable Writer Facebook page. I set a budget: The amount of money I would spend and how many people that budget would afford me to reach. I also set a time frame for how many days the advert would run. I utilised Facebook analytics to target people who are likely to read the book. I did this by setting the location, age and interests. This is what I chose:

• Location: US, UK and Australia
• Age: 18 -35 years
• Interests: New Adult fiction, Romance novels

I had no clue how to create a compelling advert, so I made it very simple. I posted a photo of my book from the store front of Kindle showing the book cover and the price, with a couple of lines explaining that the book is currently free to download.

This is the advert I posted:

• 

The results are interesting and illustrate the number of people who would need to be targeted to drive a large scale download of the eBook: Many thousands more.

Only 14% of people who saw the post engaged with it and only 10% of those downloaded the book.

Out of this paid targeted advertisement on Facebook (offering something completely free), only 1.4% of the people targeted actually downloaded the book. Although this is a small percentage, it is a great result because the 75 books downloaded represented a 210% increase on the number of people who had downloaded or brought the book so far.

There are many articles that go into the details of how to market your eBook to drive sales, including examples and results expected. I am not an expert. I am only sharing my own personal experience. Based on the results of this marketing campaign and free eBook offer, I would take the advice of TCK Publishing:

“Use Every Amazon Kindle Promotion You Can. Although you can buy eBooks elsewhere, Amazon dominates the industry, with more than 70% market share in the US, and even more in the UK”

TCK Publishing: How We Sold 200,000+ Books without a Big Marketing Budget

If you would like more ideas and information, definitely click on the above link and read the article for yourself. It has so many practical and affordable ideas and includes a thorough explanation of how to implement them in order to drive sales through Kindle.