J-Willy’s KDP Select Experiment … take 2…

On 2/20, I enrolled Slow Your Prose: 25 Tips On How New Authors Can Improve Their Craft in KDP Select, my first ebook in the program. On 3/15, I had the first two-day free promotion, arguably the best feature of the program. Once I compiled the results, I wrote a blog about the experience (you can find a ton of blogs from authors sharing their results). Based on the jumpstart of sales after the promotion, it definitely worked.

Figuring I could duplicate my success, I enrolled my second ebook Premature Eradication in late March, then held not only one, but two free-day promotions from 4/11 to 4/13 for both books. The promotions didn’t start at the same time, but I made it to where at least one day had both books free (4/12). Part of me expected the same results as the first time, another part wasn’t so sure.

What do you think happened? You think it worked just as well if not better the second time around, especially since I had two books in the mix?

Hell. To. The. Naw. If my second attempt were a follow-up album, it damn sure flopped. March went platinum; April barely went gold.

Worse, the total downloads for both books in April didn’t even come close to the total downloads of one book in March (not even 1,000 for PE). For total paid April sales, I didn’t even sell half the copies of SYP as I did in March. Crazy.

WTF Over? What happened? Who knows. Haters be hatin’ on me. Not showin’ J-Willy love. Naw, I’m just kidding. 

Well, I actually do think I know why I didn’t sell as much and didn’t have as many free downloads:

-       KDP Select is now flooded. The program is no longer a novelty as it was a few months ago.

-       Amazon changed their top-secret algorithms that give free books excellent face time during the promotions (interesting post on the algorithm change here).

-       Although featured on multiple sites, neither ebook was included in Pixel of Ink nor Ereader News Today (the top sites for showcasing free ebooks)

-       I received my first and only one-star rating of SYP

-       I only had four reviews for PE (still sitting at 4, actually).

-       I didn’t have enough advertising in place

-       Although I announced the promotions on Facebook and Twitter, I forgot to include the multiple Yahoo writer groups I’m in (each group has several hundred members)

-       Prospective buyers read an excerpt of PE and was like “was the author celebrating 4/20 early when he wrote this piece of sh*t?”

Here are the April numbers of free downloads and borrows:

Slow Your Prose

US: 1936 Borrows:  5

UK:  7 Borrows: 0

Germany: 3 Borrows: 0

Latin America: 1 Borrows: 0

Premature Eradication

US: 720 Borrows:  0

UK:  28 Borrows: 0

Germany: 3 Borrows: 0

France: 1 Borrows: 0

SYP had nearly 6000 downloads in March, but couldn’t sniff 2000 in April. PE barely made a blip. The number of borrows actually bested last month’s, though, which is interesting (4 in March; 5 in April).

I definitely did not reach my goals for April. No even close. Here’s a refresher on what I was trying to do:

(Repeated from the last blog) This next time around, here’s what I really want to see:

-       If I can top the number of free and paid downloads from March (aiming for 7,000 free and 200 paid!). That damn sure didn’t happen!

-       If stacking promotions for both books will send free and paid downloads through the roof. Nope!

-       If downloads of Premature Eradication will improve sells for my other novels. Yes and no, but mostly “no.” Matter of fact, one of my top-selling novels dropped from 5,084 to 14,043 in ranking … in the same freakin’ month! Ouch. However, when you look at “What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item,” several of my books reference each other.

-       If I can get a high Paid ranking for Premature Eradication after the promotion ends. Nope! As of this writing, PE is ranked at 254,669; SYP has been holding steady, ranked at 54,386, but way off from its best ranking around the 9,000 zone).

-       If I can keep this party rollin’! The “party” pretty much fizzled out. Maybe I needed more liquor?

Now, I can’t say the 2nd experiment was a complete failure. During the promotions, both books hit #1 in their particular categories (#1 in Authorship for SYP and #1 in Interpersonal Relations for PE). But remember this: A high ranking in a free category doesn’t always translate as well to a paid category. Man, oh man. I wish it did! Don’t you?

So what’s next? Well, first off, the 90-day exclusive period for SYP will end May 21^st and I’ve decided to disenroll. I truly think this kind of ebook—which is a great tool for authors trying to improve their writing skills—will be better off in multiple channels. However, I believe KDP Select is perfect for short stories, and I have plenty of ’em. I’m basically using the shorter works to bait and hook new readers, anyway. I want to work KDP Select to the hilt, and SYP should go out with a bang, so guess what my crazy butt is going to do for May? Yup, you guessed it!

Next up to bat (May 2012)

And this is just one, only because I haven’t gotten the cover art back yet for another ebook entitled What Plays in Vegas. So yes, I will have four ebooks rolling around the KDP Select assembly lines.

Mark your calendar: The next promotion starts May 15th. Four books in rotation! And if I can work it, I will have ALL books free on one day at the same time! Yezzir!

Now, I need to be realistic, of course (I definitely wasn’t last month). However, I still plan to go all out—go hard or go home, I say—and I have a few tricks left in the bag. So! This next time around, here’s what I plan to do:

-       Have an advertisement for each book (including my novels), either in a magazine, blog, Goodreads or Facebook

-       Publish more articles. I’d built a nice list of writer credits over the years, but hadn’t submitted articles for publication in a long while. Time to hop on that train again. It’s a great way to pack and stack your author platform.

-       Provide links to my other ebooks within each ebook

-       Make the usual annoucements for the promotions, but not forgetting my Yahoo groups.

-       Submit my works to more book reviewers and bloggers.

-       Redo this freakin’ author website! It definitely needs a major overhaul.

My wishful thinking for sales/downloads/reviews:

-       To have at least 1,000 downloads for each ebook during their given promotions

-       To receive at least five new reviews for each ebook in KDP Select

-       See a spike in sales for all books after the promotions

-       Sell way more than I did in April!

Now, since Open House and What Plays in Vegas are in similar genres as several of my other works, will they boost sales for each other, including the novels? Will sales improve in May overall? We will see, so stay tuned…

Oh, wait! On one cool note…

My novels A Hard Man is Good to Find and Sellout can potentially reach the 10,000 copies-sold mark by the end of the year (they’re neck-and-neck in sales)! Not bad for the indie publisher The Pantheon Collective (of which, I am part owner)! That’s THE ultimate goal!

Now, will that happen? Hmmm…

Well, after reading countless blogs from authors about their experiences with KDP Select—some wildly successful, others not so much—I took the plunge and enrolled my ebook Slow Your Prose: 25 Tips On How New Authors Can Improve Their Craft in late February. And man, let me tell you…

Wait, I don’t want to assume you know what “KDP Select” is. Call it another innovative promotional tactic in Amazon’s arsenal. If enrolled in the program, Amazon has exclusive rights to your ebook for 90 days, meaning you can’t sell the ebook anywhere, including your own website. That also means you have to disenroll your book from other distribution channels, such as Smashwords and its affiliates.

Now, this may seem kinda jacked up—like Amazon is on some type of Doctor Evil monopoly rampage—but it’s not as bad as you think. For one, most authors sell the majority of their books on Amazon, anyway. Also, Amazon Prime members can borrow the ebook for free; however, a “borrow” is another way to gain profit because authors get paid for each borrow from a monthly pool of KDP Select money (for March it’s $600,000).

Probably the most powerful feature of the program is you get 5 days where you can “sell” the book for free. Authors can set a free day anytime they want during that 90-day period. We all love “free,” but I’m going to show you how “free” turned into “paid” for this particular ebook.

BTW, for more information on KDP Select, click here:  Also, learn more about other KDP Select authors from the KDP Select News.

I enrolled in KDP Select for several reasons:

-       I wanted to see how a non-fiction ebook would do

-       I wanted to improve my Amazon ranking

-       I wanted more reviews

-       I wanted to resuscitate marketing for Slow Your Prose

-       I wanted to publish my backlist of short stories

-       I wanted to satisfy my curiosity

Of course, the number one reason was to improve sales. Slow Your Prose has been on Amazon since September 2011, but I had only sold around 10 copies (and that’s including the other distribution channels). I admit, I hadn’t promoted the ebook that much at all—nowhere near what I did for Sellout and A Hard Man is Good to Find—other than sending out a few PDF copies for reviews. As a result, the Amazon ranking dropped to its lowest at 475,195 on March 6^th. That basically means the book wasn’t selling #$Q@!

By that time, the ebook had been in KDP Select for a little over two weeks (since Feb 20th). I also bought a one-month ad on Absolute Write to help increase sales, but had set the free days for March 14^th and 15^th. To break it down, here’s a quick time line and results:

2/20 – Enrolled Slow Your Prose in KDP Select

2/22 – Bought a $10 ad for a Free Book Showcase on World Literary Cafe (for 3/15)

2/22 – Scheduled promotion on Pixel of Ink (Free)

2/22 – Scheduled promotion on Indie Books List (Free)

2/29 – End of Feb. Hadn’t sold 1 book in Feb or Jan

3/5 – Bought an ad on Absolute Write for one month

3/6 – Lowest ranking on Amazon at 475,175

3/6 – Scheduled promotion on Ereader News Today

3/6 – Scheduled promotion on Free Book Hub

3/7 – Received my first sale in over two months (I suspect via Absolute Write)

3/14 – Free Day Promotion began. Announced on Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo Groups and Kindleboards. The book also showed up on sites mentioned earlier. Got 1 more 5-star review. Approx 3,500 downloads

Note: The book somehow ended up on other sites that I hadn’t scheduled. I think there’s some type of free-book website algorithm or something. It also showed up in Twitter feeds. That’s more visibility, so I wasn’t complaining.  :-)

3/15 – Free Day Ended. Got 1 more 5-star review. Total: 5994 downloads. The breakdown (including other countries):

US: 5961 Borrows:  3

UK:  30 Borrows: 1

Germany: 2 Borrows: 0

France: 1 Borrows: 0

3/16 – Went back to “Paid” status

Nearly 6000 downloads and 4 borrows. Crazy! Also, Slow Your Prose was #1 in two categories (Writing & Authorship) during the two-day promotion. For the entire Free Kindle Store, it peaked as high as 51.

Wow.  Not bad at all.

Now, I know you’re wondering what happened when the book went back to Paid status right? Well, luckily I still had the Absolute Write ad up and three new reviews (total average rating 4.9). The momentum has been moving along nicely, I must say. Since it went back to Paid status, the book has been hovering between 9000 and 13000 in total Amazon ranking (remember, it was once at 475,175). As far as the genre categories, it’s ranked #3 in Authorship and #14 in Writing (as of this writing). So far, I’ve sold 70 copies this month—70 times more than February and January combined because I hadn’t sold any at all in those two months (total copies sold doesn’t include the borrows). Even though 70 isn’t a large amount, it’s still pretty significant in comparison to the previous months. And March ain’t over yet.

One thing I didn’t expect was the increase in books under Amazon’s Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought pages. Prior to the promotion, if you had clicked on Slow Your Prose, you would’ve seen one book. No, not one page of books, one freakin’ book. Pretty sad when you typically see four books per page. Now? 25 pages of books! I think that gives Slow Your Prose more visibility—which is what we want, right?

So would I say KDP Select was a success? Simply put: Hell-to-the-yeah! Of course, the true test is maintaining the momentum long after the free-day promotions, and I hope to keep it going. Now, will it work for you? Can’t say. If mulling over whether or not to enroll your book, I guess the first thing to ask yourself is am I really selling that many copies on other sites, anyway?

Next up to bat (April 2012)

Now, mark your calendar: The next promotion starts April 11^th. By then, I also plan to have my new ebook Premature Eradication in the KDP Select rotation, my first novel in the program. At least one of P.E.’s free days will be the same as Slow Your Prose—meaning you can get two of my books for free at the same time! How ya like that?

This next time around, here’s what I really want to see:

-       If I can top the number of free and paid downloads from March (aiming for 7,000 free and 200 paid!)

-       If stacking promotions for both books will send free and paid downloads through the roof

-       If downloads of Premature Eradication will improve sells for my other novels

-       If I can get a high Paid ranking for Premature Eradication after the promotion ends

-       If I can keep this party rollin’!

Check back the week of April 16^th for J-Willy’s 2^nd KDP Select report. I may even have my third book in rotation by then, a sexy novella entitled What Plays in Vegas. It should be interesting! Can’t wait to see…

The KDP Select Experiment is underway. I’ve enrolled my cocktale Slow Your Prose: 25 Tips On How New Authors Can Improve Their Craft in the program (click the pic for more info). Free day starts on March 14!

Enrolled

Coming March 2012

I plan to document the number of downloads, borrows, what methods I used to get the word out, and if they helped sales for my other books. Stay tuned!

EXTRA, EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

If you’re an indie author like me, you’ve probably been going back and forth on whether or not to use Amazon’s KDP Select. You maybe even searched the Internet for as much information you can on it, scouring blogs, discussion groups, Facebook, Twitter, etc. It can get time-consuming trying to find the latest info, so I made it a little easier for you! 

For more information on KDP Select, click here.

As you probably know, there’s all kinds of debates and discussions about Amazon’s apparent quest to dominate the publishing industry–especially with their 90-day exclusivity clause (meaning you can’t sell the book anywhere for 90 days, even you’re on website)–but how does KDP Select affect authors like you and me? With a newsletter I started called The KDP Select News, I hope the up-to-date articles will give you the tools you need to make a sound decision. The newsletter will be updated daily. This is the newsletter for you if you have questions like:

What are the consequences of removing my books from other distribution channels to sell exclusively for 90 days on Amazon? Should I add my book to the program? What are others saying about it? Will it increase my Amazon ranking? Is it a good idea to give my book away for free? What are other writers’ experiences so far? Will my KDP Select books increase or decrease sales of my other books? What genres are readers borrowing the most from?

KDP Select is barely two months old, so it’s still in its “toddler” stage. That means people have tons of questions and are trying to figure it out. I know, I have questions, too, so guess what? I’m taking the plunge. I can’t sit around looking at the playground and watching other kids play. I need to get in the game, too!

To give me a better analysis of how the program will work for me, I plan to enroll THREE ebooks from my backlist in different genres–Nonfiction, Contemporary Fiction, and Thriller/Mystery. I will also write a weekly blog during the 90-day period to outline my successes and failures, starting on 2/27/2012. Note: I’m only removing one book from other distribution channels, only because it’s my weakest seller (the non-fiction one).

Can’t wait to see what happens!

To checkout/subscribe to the FREE newsletter, click here:

Wait … maybe I’m too early. Isn’t the apocalypse slated for December 21st of this year, according to the Mayan calendar? I think so. But … didn’t some oddball preacher tell us to pack it up, pack it in on October 21st, 2011? Shoot, I remember people anticipating Mother Earth kicking the bucket on December 31st, 1999.

Man, I don’t know. I be so confused. Well, until then, I’ll go about my business as normal. On that note…

Happy New Year!

Yeah, I know I’m a week late, but 2012 is still in its diapers. And I plan to do my part to get this year “potty trained” with a few authorpreneur to-do’s (yeah, I know that didn’t make much sense to you, but somehow it did to me!). Here’s what I got:

Writing goals

-       Write 10,000 words a month until I finish my latest novel TANGLED WEB

-       Work on a SELLOUT sequel (?)

-       Post a new “cocktale” at least every two months

-       Submit more articles to magazines/websites/newsletters for publication

-       Finish my ebook “Barbershop Talk,” a collection of fictional stories about debates common in the black community

Marketing / Promotion

-       Get 100 Amazon reviews for SELLOUT (now at 74); 60 for A HARD MAN (now at 37)

-       By year’s old, have total sales of 5,000 copies for A HARD MAN and 8,000 for SELLOUT

-       Continue to promote other TPC books WHEN LOVE ISN’T ENOUGH and ONE BLOOD

-       Booksigning somewhere every three months

-       Invest more in ads to promote each book (something I didn’t do much of in 2011)

The Pantheon Collective (TPC)

-       Work on the TPC Independent Publishing Plan reference manual for publication

-       Attend the 2012 Black Writers Reunion not only as an exhibitor, but as a workshop presenter

-       Expand the Author Services division

-       Publish a book by someone named other than Qwantu, Stephanie or James

Sounds like some lofty goals, huh? I think they are, and achievable. But I need to get to it. As of today, I only have 356 days left.

In 2011, you would think dating anyone you want would be a non-issue. We don’t live in an era of pervasive hatred anymore, where a black man could get riot mob justice for merely looking at or saying “hi” to a white woman. Emmett Till was only fourteen years old when he was lynched in 1955 for allegedly flirting with a white woman. The murderers were acquitted.

During the Jim Crow days, some people would say interracial mixing was completely unnatural—like two disparate species engaging in the highest order of sin. A straight-up abomination. But that isn’t the consensus today, right? A recent poll indicated most people approve of interracial marriage. And our president is the product of an interracial pairing. We don’t really bat an eyelash much anymore when we see “disparate species” on TV, either. More than once I’ve seen people of all races bump and grind against each other on the show So You Think You Can Dance, many of the dance moves R-rated.

So as Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney sang, ebony and ivory are finally living in perfect harmony, right? Well…

According to the good ol’ boys from Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church in Kentucky, any couple who isn’t the same shade ain’t welcome. It definitely ain’t all harmony in that particular House of God.

I’m sure you’ve heard this story already, but keep in mind this happened in 2011-almost-2012, 50 years after the Civil Rights Movement.  What happened in Kentucky is similar to a case in New Orleans just a year before, where a judge refused to marry an interracial couple. Some people still try as hard as they can to safeguard the “status quo” of the good ol’ days.

To justify their racist beliefs, they claim the sinful actions of any mismatched couple will eventually produce a child who will suffer greatly (all biracial children are tragic sufferers, right? Just ask Obama or my nephew, a biracial twenty-five-year-old who’s a nuclear engineer). Or they throw bible scripture around, using the Tower of Babel as proof. I’m not going to get into biblical rant, but it seems to me if God created us in his likeness, that would include ALL the races. We all bleed the same, right?

When I wrote SELLOUT (a story about the struggles of interracial dating), some readers were surprised that people are still so caught up in race. After all, race is a minor thing when considering other qualities that would make a person a suitable partner, right? Like whether he or she is a good person, hard-working, has a job, takes care of his or her kids, shares the same religious beliefs, etc. It’s clear the banned couple in Kentucky–an African gentleman and his Caucasian bride–are on the same page, but that didn’t matter.

People still get heated over the topic of interracial dating, especially between blacks and whites. It’s double trouble if the black man takes a taste of forbidden fruit–a blond haired white woman.  Yeah, I live in the Bay Area, probably the top melting pot of the country–as of this writing, I’m in a college library where I regularly see people of all races mingling with each other, including black guys and white gals–but it’s not all Cumbaya in other parts of the country. Just ask the people in Kentucky.

Update: The church overturned the ban, but it reminds you we still have a loooooong way to go.

AND get a free copy of my latest book? NO JOKE! We’ve already offered $300 in prizes for our books SELLOUT and WHEN LOVE ISN’T ENOUGH, so the A HARD MAN IS GOOD TO FIND Sweepstakes is up next. What do you have to do, you ask? Just “Like” the A HARD MAN IS GOOD TO FIND Facebook fanpage, then go from there!

Get A HARD MAN IS GOOD TO FIND and SELLOUT for only 99 cents through Sunday at Smashwords! Use the following coupon codes for this special (ends at 1159pm 11/27/2011)

BS29L (click the title): SELLOUT
VJ36D (click the title): A HARD MAN IS GOOD TO FIND

See the trailer to find out!  

First Customer Review: “This book was/is the bomb! I had to be careful where I read it as there was always the possibility of me laughing out loud!”