Free Promos That Are Worth What You Pay For Them

 

KDP offers a couple of free (to the author) promotions ~ Kindle Countdown Deals and Free Book Promotions. Neither of them work.

I've done both because they're, well, free.  It's tempting to click on them, since once you've uploaded your book, KDP offers a few options, and one of them is "promote and advertise".  What could it hurt, right? The correct question should be, how can it help? I've never, ever gotten a download from either of these methods. 

As I write this, there are more than 50,000 free ebooks offered on Kindle. I don't know exactly how many, because I'm not about to manually count them. Suffice it to say that the results state, "over 50,000 results for 'free books'. 

As for Kindle Countdown Deals, how does one go about finding them? And does it really matter to anyone that a book they've never heard of has been marked down from $3.99 to $2.99? I price all my novellas at $1.99, so I guess my two steps in a countdown deal would be $.99 and free. Why not just go straight to free? The results would be the same.

I view KDP as a depository. I am eternally grateful that it exists. I've tried Barnes and Noble and Kobo and Apple, but have never once sold a book through those sites. KDP is so convenient. Not that I've sold books (not many) through Amazon, either, but it allows me to link them to my website and use those links for advertising on BookBub and various other promo sites. And a book on KDP automatically appears on Goodreads, since the two entities are sisters (or brothers; whatever).  

And I wonder whether KDP views itself that way as well. Face it, in the book-selling biz (which, by the way, is how Amazon started out) Amazon makes its money from trade published books. They're really only doing us indies a favor by hosting our works. They for sure don't promote them. Thus, Kindle Countdown Deals and Free Book Promotions are a smoke screen.

I change my prices on KDP based upon whether I'm running a free or reduced-price promotion on another site; not because I expect any Amazon sales. I change my book covers on KDP simply because something about them bothers me. I use its preview feature to see just how badly (or "goodly") one of my books appears. And I make changes as needed.

Sure, if you want, click on one of those two options. A click doesn't cost you anything. Just be forewarned that absolutely nothing will happen as a result.