Amazon Changes Free eBook Policy for Associates

Amazon to Change Free eBook Policy for Associates - GalleyCat :

"Next month, Amazon will change its policy for associates who help readers find free Kindle eBooks online, making certain sites ineligible for advertising fees. Here’s more from the company:

Starting March 1, 2013, Associates who we determine are promoting and meet both conditions below for a given month will not be eligible for any advertising fees for that month within the Amazon Associates Program …
1. At least 80% of all Kindle eBooks ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links are free Kindle eBooks
2. 20,000 or more free Kindle eBooks are ordered and downloaded during Sessions attributed to your Special Links. 

The company predicted that the new policy will only affect .1 percent of its associates and will not count for advertising fees accrued before March 1, 2013. 

The online retailer explained in the FAQ: “the Amazon Associates program is designed to compensate advertising partners for referring paid business to Amazon.” If your site exceeds the free eBook limit on any given month, you can still be a member of the Amazon associate program."

Amazon's recent change in policy undoubtedly will affect those of us who have continued to use KDP Select free book promotion as a marketing tool. Kindle On the Cheap sent out a plea to its members today on Facebook: "Amazon has placed a limit on free Kindle book downloads that our community could go over in just a few days, putting our site in peril. Anytime you click to Amazon from our site, a cookie is opened for 24 hours and any free Kindle book you download counts against us. Please, to help us stay open, do not click and purchase a free Kindle book in the same browser where you browse books from TheCheapEbook.com (our new blog coming March 1) or our Facebook pages. Or, please use your device to search in the Amazon store for the freebie and download it that way."
For KDP Select promotions to be truly effective, book sites that promote free books have been essential for getting the word out and leading people to download our free books. Other similar sites will also, if they haven't already, be forced to change how they include free books, if at all. I have been leaning away from continuing with KDP Select and the time to make a change may be now. The free book promotions on Amazon may have run their course and this is probably not such a bad thing. The glut of freebies out there has weakened the overall strength of indie books. Time to regroup, adjust , and move forward.
What does everyone think?

So What About Those One-Star Reviews?

Guest Post by Kristin Comstock

1 of 10 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars DONT READ THIS BOOK, January 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fahrenheit 451 (Paperback)

Ray Bradbury tries to write a bestseller in this boring novel. He keeps the audience in the book for about three pages, then everyone falls asleep. If he could do it again, I think he should have never written books in the first place.

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The dreaded one star review. What does it mean really for writers and readers? I am not an author, and only a sometimes writer, but I am an avid reader and sometimes reviewer, and strong supporter of indie writers. Personally, I will probably never write a one- or two- star review. Why? I think I need to have actually read a book to review it fairly, and frankly, life is short and my reading list is long. I would never make it through a 1 or 2 star book. But that's just my personal philosophy. And I certainly don't subscribe to the  "I think this book is just a 3- star book, but there are a ton of 5 stars,so I'll give it a 1- star so it all balances, and everything will be right with the universe" phiIosophy. (Yes, I have seen this stated more than once. I'm not an author, but this one kind of steams me!) Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are plenty of one-star reviews just begging to be written. Obviously, there are plenty of readers with a different perspective than mine,leaving one- and two-star reviews. I started thinking about this the other day while catching up on all the hot news surrounding reviews. What is the value of legitimate one-star reviews and why do reviewers leave them? So I spent a little time browsing reviews on Amazon. What I found was just what you would expect; the reasons for leaving one-star reviews are as diverse as the tastes of readers reading the books. Here's a look at some of the most common ones that I found.
Many one-star reviews were given because a reader "couldn't get into it". As in " I just can't get into ________ (wizards, vampires, bondage, etc), so I'm giving this book a one star review." These reviewers seem to be using the star system to rank books according to their personal preferences,or as a way of relating how much appeal the book had for them.

Sometimes one-star reviews are given for typos, or poor editing. I have seen poor reviews based on one error that was troubling to the reviewer. ( By the way, lest we begin to believe this happens only with indie published books, I can point to at least 2 traditionally published ebooks I have read recently which would need to get this rating because of several minor proofreading errors.)
Particularly fascinating to me are the one-star reviews that  also talk about strong points of a book or things that the reviewer liked. For example, Agatha Christie's classic bestseller, And Then There Was None: "It was well written. It was a page turner. But it had a very anti- climatic ending. So not worth my time or money"  or this for a more recent bestseller, Water For Elephants, " This writing is exceptional and managed to keep me interested during the course of the book. Still these marvelous little glimpses of author Sara Gruen's potential do not permit me to recommend this book to anybody." (Huh?) So why a one star and not a 2 star? Or 3 star, if you find a book "fast paced and super compelling" but you didn't love the way the characters developed, as one  Hunger Games reader wrote?
Sometimes reviewers wish  the author had done something different , gone in another direction, as again in The Hunger Games: "I hoped that the plot device would give an opportunity to explore human nature...but it fails." And sometimes a reviewer just is not comfortable with the subject matter. How about those one-star reviews for the popular parenting book, Everyone Poops?

************************************************************************

9 of 61 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Ewww, February 14, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Everyone Poops (My Body Science) (Hardcover)

Honestly, if you're reading this book, you're in need of serious psychiatric help. This book should only be read by the most hard-core of poop fetishists, as it contains words that no self-respecting sailor would use. This is terrible. "POOP" STINKS
*********************************************************************************************

So with so many reasons for giving out 1-star reviews, how should we, as readers and writers, be looking at this dreaded rating? The master science fiction writer,Ray Bradbury, may have just shrugged off the review above. He expressed this perspective in his 1996 interview with Playboy magazine, "When I started writing seriously, I made the major discovery of my life - that I am right and everybody else is wrong if they disagree with me. What a great thing to learn: Don't listen to anyone else, and always go your own way." There may be something to this attitude-after all, a writer has to be true to him or herself.  But, as a writer, you may not be quite as confident or successful as Bradbury yet, so , perhaps, a more useful attitude may be to take what you can learn from the review and move forward- just as Ray Bradbury surely did. 
Maybe writers should even consider one-star reviews as a badge of honor. After all, most bestsellers have a healthy blend of 1 to 5 star reviews. Hang around long enough and it's hard for a book to escape them. Sure, I know those 1 star reviews are about as welcome as a bad case of poison ivy, but consider this: A few thoughtful, yet less than stellar, reviews, may lend a bit of authenticity to the book's reviews as a whole for the potential reader. People tend to be suspicious of a book with nothing but glowing reviews. Wool (the Omnibus Edition) by Hugh Howey, one of my favorite reads of 2012 has 1562 five-star and 12 one- star. A few of the negative reviewers express doubt over the validity of all those 5 star reviews. They can't believe they're in the minority and dislike a book that so many people are raving about. But the reality is, readers hand out stars for all kinds of reasons and many times the basis for the rating is purely subjective and the low (or high) rating may or may not be an accurate reflection of the quality of the work. Readers and writers both need to take the stars as a tool but certainly not as gospel. Different strokes for different folks, y'all.. and on that cliched note, I'll leave you with this profound quote from Kurt Vonnegut:
"Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae."

What are your thoughts on one star ratings as a reader or writer? Do you give out negative reviews? What is your criteria for a one star rating? 



Kristin Comstock is a transplanted Michigander just like her friend,Jeff Currie. She is an educator, social media consultant and manager, avid reader, sometimes reviewer, and strong supporter of indie writers. She resides in Texas with her 3 very busy children, and 2 ornery cats. Track her down on Twitter @krismos.

KDP Select Free Days: 3rd Time's the Charm

It has been over 3 weeks since I ran my last KDP Select free promo for my thriller, Judgment Tramp. And, although, I was never unhappy with my results the first 2 times, (I figured any exposure was good exposure),I had never reached anywhere near the success of some of the authors who were kind enough to allow me to share their experiences on this blog.


But, you guessed it, this last promo blew the roof off the previous two.


Before I get into why I think this happened, let me give you some numbers. We all like numbers, don't we?


1st promo Dec. 26 & 27 (Mon. & Tues)--fresh out of the box, no platform, barely on twitter or other social media sites; in other words-I was clueless.
---Sales prior to promo: 2 No borrows (what are those?)
---Downloads: 400 US; 64 UK; 4 DE Total= 468 ;
(Averaged about 8-10 DL's /hour & they were fairly consistent; Highest ranking: #1431 in free)
--Post-promo sales: Sales did not happen. Book plummeted back to where it had been prior to the promo. I had only 2 sales the whole month of January.
 --Attitude: Still hopeful. Learning experience. Hoping for a few reviews.

2nd Promo Feb. 21-23 (Wed-Fri)--I considered myself to be a toddler more than a baby, at this point. I was active on twitter, blog up and running, but still working on adding other areas of marketing and social media activity-Reading, reading reading what others have shared.
--Sales prior to promo: 2 in Jan., 6 in Feb. before promo. No borrows ( and seriously not expecting any)
--Downloads: 693 US; 67 UK; 11 DE; 1 FR Total=772;
(Averaged 20 Dls/hour the first day, decreased to about 10/hour second day until late afternoon on second day, wherein I started to see a downward trend in DL's. By 3rd day the book was getting maybe 5 an hour. At this point, ranking started the plunge despite having over 24 hours left AND having broke into top 100 in Mystery/Thrillers. Highest ranking reached: #510 in free, and #68 in Mystery/Thrillers.
---Post-promo sales: About 20 in the first week or so following the promo and then sales were trickling in every once in a while up until the 3rd promo. Not great, but, then again, better than prior to the promo.
Attitude: Hopeful. Learning experience. Disappointed that DLs seemed to hit a wall and decline suddenly before end of promo so the book's rank also declined but still more successful than first attempt.

3rd Promo: April 25,26 (Wed, Thurs.)--Added social media sites like Goodreads, and more reviews. I have toddling along and learning a little bit more about this online selfpub/marketing monster. Read, read, reading what everyone else is doing.
--Sales prior to promo: 14 in March, 7 in April prior to promo. No borrows.(Again, not expecting any)
--Downloads...wait for it... 8480 US;119 UK;7 FR;5 DE;1 ES; Total= 8612!
Wow.  
Over 10x the DLs of the last promo which ran 1 day longer. Ok, so bear with me, because I don't mind saying, it was exciting. Instead of counting DLs by the hour, I began to count them by the minute! My hope had been to double what I'd done in Feb. and I far exceeded that. By afternoon of first day , JT had already been downloaded more than in all 3 days of the Feb. promo. That evening, at one point, I realized over 800 had been downloaded in an hour!  I climbed to the top 5 of my 2 niche categories-Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue, and Police Procedurals- fairly quickly(sometime the  first morning), and by afternoon broke the top 100 in Mysteries/Thrillers. I stayed in the top 100 of all of these lists all the way through to the end of the promo. I reached #1 in Spy & #2 in Police, #11 in Mysteries/Thrillers. By evening I was in top 100 of the Free Bestsellers! I saw my book sitting there on the free lists next to heavy hitters like John Grisham, Vince Flynn, Ken Follett, and Jeffrey Archer, and so did readers-can't be anything bad in that! Early on I even fleetingly hit the Popular list. I even ended up on the bestseller lists in the UK.
My fear had been that JT would repeat what happened in Feb., when 3/4's of the way through the promo., the ranking started to slip. When the promo ended the book was no longer on a bestseller list, which I believe was the reason sales never really took off, even for the short period of time others had reported. I wanted badly to end in the top 100 and this time I was not disappointed.
--Post-promo sales: Ok, so that was exciting, but what would happen after the dust cleared and my little book was out there on it's own without 'Free' to help it along?
When I woke up that morning and looked at the ranking my heart about fell out of my chest-- #388,000 seriously? 
Ok, while I was picking myself up off the floor, somehow it had climbed back up to 4 digits. Those Amazon algorithmists, what a bunch of pranksters....
It didn't stay there, of course, but the book has enjoyed steady sales since it went back to paid. The first few days, just as so many have reported, were the best: Day 1:14 books, Day 2: 21  Day 3: 28 and 2 borrows (my first!); Day 4:19 and 5 borrows. The book even managed to stay in the top 100 in Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue for 5 more days, which was totally unexpected, and probably helped somewhat. I've even had borrows which continues to amaze me. I won't bore you with more details, but sales and ranking have slowly decreased, but not unexpectedly. However, over 3 weeks later, sales are still happening at a steady pace of 1-3 a day. Not amazing, but considering sales prior to this promo were more like 1-2 a week, I am still very pleased. ( I have seen only 1 UK sale by the way. International Sales is an area that needs exploring.)
--Attitude: Hopeful. I see more possibilities now. It's all a learning experience right?


SO what made the difference?

1. Categories- I switched JT over to less populated niche categories after reading Ben Wretlind's analysis of categories on his blog here. This made it supremely easier to climb into the top 100 on the bestseller list.
2. Help- I asked my twitter buddies to retweet me. I mean I specifically messaged and asked other authors with whom I felt comfortable because we had a mutual helping relationship already established; and true to form, my fellow indies jumped right in there. In fact, I really do attribute the very quick rise in sales to their early tweeting and if you are one of those authors, I can't thank you enough for your help. At one point a twitter bot picked up that my twitter handle was the #5 twitter name on Twitter.(yes, that was 4 twitters in a sentence!). I have no idea how long that brief flash of social media fame lasted (I was right behind MSNBC) but I'm sure it gave JT the early boost at a critical time. I also joined tweet teams at WLC which I like to do as often as I can anyway.
3.Exposure- Although I had submitted to Pixel of Ink (again), Ereader News Today, Digital Book Today, I was apparently too late and never got picked up (again). However, I had posted on many facebook sites, (actually I didn't have time to post on even half of the sites I had found), and some minor ebook sites. I sent an invitation out on Goodreads. and I posted on the Kindle Boards. I did not realize until sometime after that I had popped up in a couple places unexpectedly. I have an extensive list that hopefully I'll be able to share at some point, but I worked on doubling my exposure. I employed a friend to help me with this part, by the way. It is time consuming, but key. I believe downloads slowed so quickly during the previous promo because I had reached the limits of my platform at that point.
4. Luck and the old Success Begets Success thing- I really think with some of this the stars have to align. I think that in my case, things fell into place this time. Also, when you hit those Bestseller lists, the ball really starts rolling.  Downloads beget downloads. I'm not sure if it would happen this way again. There are rumors that the KDP Select magic is wearing off and others are not getting the great results they got before. Recently bloggers have reported Amazon algorithms have changed, and not favorably for the Select books. Perhaps. But for me the 3rd time was the charm. I plan on doing another free day soon. I'm hoping it will goose sales a bit and keep Judgment Tramp floating where it is- way above the pre-promo ranking and sales.


**Oh,and one other thing, I decided to change the pricing for the book to $.99 after about 7-8 days, when I thought the book's ranking was slipping, to see if it would help keep it from plummeting. I saw absolutely NO difference. The sales stayed steadily the same and there were no borrows during that time period of 2 days. It simply wasn't worth losing the $1.65 per book, so I probably will not do that again, and certainly not as a means to jump start sales.


So, now the question is, how to maintain decent sales after a successful KDP Select Free Book promo? What has everyone else been doing?


Read other authors' experiences on my page "A Gathering of KDP Select Experiences".

My Results With KDP Select's Free Days Part 1

I've spent the last week perusing blogs to see what other self published authors have reported on their results from the KDP Select program. As I wrote back in December, right after I'd published my debut novel, Judgment Tramp, on Amazon, I decided to give it a try and enroll Judgment Tramp in the program. I'd heard about KDP Select as my hand was literally poised to upload to Smashwords. Although I understood the reluctance of some to give over exclusivity to Amazon, I decided to hold off putting the book on any other sites to give this a try. My reasoning was that a) I am essentially a total novice to the ePub world. Although I self published Judgment Tramp and sold print copies of the book, I am essentially a brand new indie author with little or no following, b) I could take advantage of the 5 days for "selling" my book for free. With the program, you can schedule the days you want the promotion to run and they can be used any way you like.  I felt I could use those days to gain exposure and jumpstart getting my book out there, and c) I basically had nothing to lose. 

So today I will share with you my results and in Part 2 of this post I'll summarize what I've learned from my experience and what I've gleaned from taking a look at other people's results.  However, before I give you my results, I think it's important to point out a few things.  First, I had published my book a mere week prior to enrolling. Second, I had done very little marketing of the book prior to publishing. I realize this is not the way to do it, but I am a confessed social media neophyte. At that point I had only been on Twitter for a short time and rarely visited my Facebook page.( ok, ok. No need to make that face). My blog had been up and running only 2 months. Obviously on the far,far newbie end of the self marketing curve... I did Tweet quite a bit about the promotion the day before and throughout the 2 days I held the promotion as well as posted on my FB page, but in retrospect I should have done much, much more of this.

I decided to run a 2 day promotion on Dec. 26, and Dec. 27 ( a Monday and Tuesday) hoping that right after Christmas all those new Kindle owners would be trolling for free books. I had absolutely no idea what would happen. I kept my expectations low. I needed exposure and was hoping I would at least get some reviews out of it. The minute it became free I started to get downloads. I averaged about 10 per hour and that was pretty steady throughout the promotion. In the end I had 400 US DLs, 64 UK, and 4 Germany. As soon as the promotion ended, DLs promptly stopped. I had no borrows, but would have been surprised if I had. Now I realize these numbers are nothing compared to many of the writers whose blogs I have been reading, but considering I had marketed very little right before( something I will absolutely increase next time), and had been on Amazon a few short weeks, I was pleased.  468 people who now have Judgment Tramp somewhere in their Kindle queue. Surely a percentage of those will actually read the book, and at least a few of them will post reviews. This remains to be seen, but that's my hope. I have had one new glowing review since the promotion but I have no way of knowing if this came from a "freebie" reader. 

Unfortunately, since the promotion ended I have sold only a handful of books. But again, although I would be doing cartwheels ( a sight to behold , let me tell you) if I had suddenly starting selling hundreds of copies of my book after the promotion, I hadn't really expected that, and my primary goal as a new author in the Kindle Store was to gain some exposure and,hopefully, reviews. I still have 3 promotion days left. Later this week I'll summarize what I think I've learned since I did the first promotion and what I've gleaned from the experiences of others.
In the meantime, I'd love to hear from you. Have you tried KDP select? What are your thoughts? Results? Anybody else out there who is as new to this adventure as me and has experimented with KDP Select? I haven't read very many reports from novice indie writers like myself and this would be interesting to me.

The Writing Bomb: Why I'm Joining Amazon's KDP Select Program

Wow...just when I was getting the hang of the indie pub thing, Amazon throws in something new for me to consider.. I just published my very first novel on Amazon Kindle (Judgment Tramp) and was about to submit it to Smashwords.. , Needless to say, this has me reconsidering.. After reading Jeff's post, my first thought was, what have I got to lose? I have already been wondering how Kindle Fire would affect the market. (By the way, I totally agree with Jeff, libraries really should be doing this.Maybe as a way for them to survive?) I'm thinking the KDP select program might help with the promotion of my book and I have to admit this whole self-marketing thing feels a bit like trying to fix my old Corvair in the dark... What does everybody else think?

The Writing Bomb: Why I'm Joining Amazon's KDP Select Program: Amazon is playing games and they're changing the rules again. They're changing the game, and they're doing it in time for Christmas. Most A...