Kindle Countdown

I tried, but couldn't get it to work. I kept getting a long, narrow box with a box to the right that said OKAY but there were no words in the box. I didn't want to click OKAY without knowing what I was saying okay to. Finally, I did click the OKAY and got the page to choose the dates (up to 7 days), but couldn't access the dates.

I tried with Safari, Google Chrome and Internet Explore. Nada on all three, so I sent a help ticket to Amazon KDP to ask what was going on. Haven't heard back yet.

I like the idea that you will still receive a 70% royalty, even if you drop a title from $2.99 to $0.99. It is for a limited time, which is also a good idea. And, Amazon will list your title along with the others that have a reduced price, so it could equal a bit more exposure.

ETA: I'm only doing this with my pseudonym because I don't have any e-books under my own name exclusively with Amazon KDP Select. Trying to keep my eggs scattered around rather than in one basket.

merrihiat - I had the same thing happening with one of my two non-fiction titles. I think it was because that title is currently scheduled to drop out of Select before I could use the program and it isn't acknowledging that I've agreed to keep it in now. Hopefully they'll fix it soon.

scifi_writer, I think it's good. Someone on another board wondered if it was like a Select-specific version of Bookbub and I like to think of it like that. As someone without enough reviews to qualify for Bookbub, I see this as a way to get some exposure and use a lower price but still get nice royalties.

What sucks is that I had dropped the price on both of my non-fiction books last night before I read about the program, so now I have to wait 30 days to use it.

Also, I was not planning on offering either of those books free because they wouldn't drive sales to any other book, so this is a great promo option for me.

I think it has the potential to drive sales. I just enrolled in KDP Select yesterday. I am releasing my second novel on December 1st and had planned to run a KDP Select free promo on the first novel when the second one comes out. However, I like the idea of the countdown deal more. I have read that the free promo doesn't necessarily generate sales. The Countdown Deal seems like it might. Everyone loves a discount, right?

I'm also thinking that it might give an indication of a more productive price point? For instance, I have my e-book listed at $3.99. If I sell a bunch at, say, $2.99 on the Deal, then that might lead me to adjust the price on the e-book permanently after the 14 day time period is up. Just a thought...

I have a month to weigh the pros and cons. If anyone is able to try it out, I would be curious to know your finding!

I'm signed up with a title that will be reduced 11/3-11/9 ($2.99 to $0.99). I'll report back.

This is something I'm really curious to see how it goes. It sounds like it has the potential to be useful.

merrihiatt said:

I'm signed up with a title that will be reduced 11/3-11/9 ($2.99 to $0.99). I'll report back.

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Thanks, Merri, I'll look forward to your report.

Guessing, I think this will have value for the early adopters. If it proves to be successful, the program will be flooded by offers and, unless Amazon is extremely clever, the average reader will find themselves lost in the title-wave.

(Yes, pun-ny. Bad me.)

I have signed two of my titles up, but due to a recent price change, I can't start the deals until late November/early December. I like this idea better than free books, because you can price your book at 99 cents and still get the 70 percent. Granted, you can only do it about 14 days put of every 90, and only if you are select, which I don't plan to be past the first 90 days. I want my books available at B&N and Sony, etc. I'll see if it helps sales. I haven't had much luck with free promos to increase sales of the free book later, although it seems to increase sales of the other titles that are not free.

First day of the reduced price has equaled zero sales. This was a title that I sold maybe one e-book a month, so I figured it was worth a shot. I don't promote the books under my pseudonym at all, so I thought it would be a great test.

Scifi_writer, you are correct that Amazon KDP Select Countdown only lets you choose one of the two options during the 90-day period. Consider that when choosing your promos through the holidays, everyone.

I went through 52 pages of Kindle countdown offers looking for my $.99 title. It was not listed. I sorted by price, so the $.99 titles were listed first. At the bottom of the screen (didn't see this until I was 40 pages in), I saw a note that some items had been filtered out and I could click on the underlined text to include them. Since this title was erotica, I assume that was why it was filtered out of the search. This is important information to know if you write erotica and plan to use the Amazon KDP Select Countdown feature. I did not start at the beginning and go through the pages again. I might go back and do it. It just takes a long time to wait for each page to load, scroll through all the books, then go to the next page and do it again.

Okay, I'm back, having gone through the entire list again. my title was not listed among the 829 titles in the group. I went to my Amazon KDP dashboard to re-read the details of the program to see if I overlooked any wording regarding this. I did. I bolded the revelant portion from the Countdown FAQ.

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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So, they are within their rights not to include a title. Apparently my title was one they decided not to include on the Kindle Countdown Deals page. It was having my book listed on this page that I was seeking, so it is worth noting that your title may not appear on that page. A notice is on my book page at Amazon, but that will do nothing to bolster sales.

Just a heads up.

merrihiatt said:

Okay, I'm back, having gone through the entire list again. my title was not listed among the 829 titles in the group. I went to my Amazon KDP dashboard to re-read the details of the program to see if I overlooked any wording regarding this. I did. I bolded the revelant portion from the Countdown FAQ.



So, they are within their rights not to include a title. Apparently my title was one they decided not to include on the Kindle Countdown Deals page. It was having my book listed on this page that I was seeking, so it is worth noting that your title may not appear on that page. A notice is on my book page at Amazon, but that will do nothing to bolster sales.

Just a heads up.

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Thank you for reporting on this because the whole Countdown thing was making my head spin! It seems like there are a lot of variables to consider/remember with this new promotional tool, and so far I'm really not liking it. Maybe living vicariously through the experiences of others will help me make up my mind.

I decided to try it for my one and only title so far. I have to wait 30 days because I had to re-enrol in Select, so I'll see how it goes.

It's not clear whether you can do only one "countdown" promo during the 90-day Select enrollment, but I'll need to figure that out before I choose the dates.

scifi_writer said:

That sucks Merrihiatt. I feel like everything I've done with Amazon has been undermined by some fine print or change in a program. I'm still giving it a shot because my book has sold a copy in two weeks, so might as well. Thank you for reporting back.

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My pleasure. Just another reminder to read all that fine print, it's important!

Ann Joyce said:

Or you could look at it this way, scifi... you've sold 3 times as many books in approximately one ninth of the time as your 1 sale in 2 weeks. And I'm pretty sure Merri would say something like, "A sale is a sale." Anyway, I bet you'll sell more. I hope it's a lot more. Congrats on the 3!

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Ann, I would normally say a sale is a sale, but I don't like the exclusivity clause with Amazon KDP Select. And, with no assurances that a title you place in Countdown will actually be listed in the Countdown category (mine wasn't), I consider this experiment a bust. I haven't had any sales because my title didn't receive any extra promo from being listed with the other Countdown deals. I could have simply lowered the price to $.99 myself. I was counting on the extra exposure to make a difference. Without that, it is useless to me.

scifi_writer said:

So I've been on countdown for almost 36 hours. Got 3 downloaded in that time. Not exactly a raging success (my free promo had 300 downloads in 48 hours) but at least I made a couple of bucks. It will pay for my next iced coffee.

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Good! Did your find your title listed with the other Countdown deals?

merrihiatt said:

Ann, I would normally say a sale is a sale, but I don't like the exclusivity clause with Amazon KDP Select. And, with no assurances that a title you place in Countdown will actually be listed in the Countdown category (mine wasn't), I consider this experiment a bust. I haven't had any sales because my title didn't receive any extra promo from being listed with the other Countdown deals. I could have simply lowered the price to $.99 myself. I was counting on the extra exposure to make a difference. Without that, it is useless to me.

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I'm really sorry you've had such a bad experience with the new Kindle Countdown, Merri. I don't blame you for being disappointed. It really is a bummer that they don't list all of the Countdown deals. We can only hope that will change in the future, because you're right, it does seem pretty useless otherwise.

I was only trying to offer support to scifi, but I shouldn't have spoken for you.

Ann Joyce said:

I was only trying to offer support to scifi, but I shouldn't have spoken for you.

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No worries, Ann.

scifi_writer said:

Thanks for the silver lining outlook, Ann. I need to be a little more positive.

Merri: It was listed, about 12 pages in. Not sure how much promo that got me. One of my three sales turned out was from a co-worker, and the other was from a self-promo post I did on a facebook writers group I'm in. Like you said, we could have done this promo on our own. Now I'm locked out of free promos for 2 months. They didn't earn me anything, but at least they got my book read and led to a couple of Amazon reviews. I agree with you that Countdown seems like a bust.

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Good, I'm glad it was listed. I think the deal can be good in certain circumstances, but the author won't know if their book will be selected to appear with the others. That is a problem in my eyes.

Merri, you could have just changed the price to 99 cents yourself, but then that you would get a 35% royalty instead of a 70% royalty on those sales. The higher royalty is what I like about this deal. I have long wanted to price one of my books at 99 cents to increase sales, but haven't done so because I did not want to drop down to a 35% royalty. I also like that it maintains your original price and shows it as discounted, which I do think has the effect of inducing more people to buy than if your books is simply priced at 99 cents to begin with.

I will see whether or not this deal increases sales. Of course, I'd have to sell more than 3 times as many books to make the same total amount as I make at the higher price, but there is also the promotional aspect of bumping the sales rank and possibly getting on some subcategory list.

At any rate, when this is all done, I am not renewing in KDP select as I wish to bring the book out on other ebook platforms.

Ralyks said:

Merri, you could have just changed the price to 99 cents yourself, but then that you would get a 35% royalty instead of a 70% royalty on those sales. The higher royalty is what I like about this deal. I have long wanted to price one of my books at 99 cents to increase sales, but haven't done so because I did not want to drop down to a 35% royalty. I also like that it maintains your original price and shows it as discounted, which I do think has the effect of inducing more people to buy than if your books is simply priced at 99 cents to begin with.

I will see whether or not this deal increases sales. Of course, I'd have to sell more than 3 times as many books to make the same total amount as I make at the higher price, but there is also the promotional aspect of bumping the sales rank and possibly getting on some subcategory list.

At any rate, when this is all done, I am not renewing in KDP select as I wish to bring the book out on other ebook platforms.

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I understand the benefit of the higher royalty. What I was seeking was exposure by having my title listed with all the other Countdown deals. It wasn't. I do not promote the books under my pseudonym, so Countdown (and Select) appeared to be the best options for spreading the word and getting more eyes on my book cover. Select has provided those benefits, Countdown has not. YMMV.