A Helpful Tip About Free Advertising (Free Kindle Promotion)

If you're a penniless author and/or you've already blown far too much money on marketing your book, you might, like me, start paying more attention to KDP's Free Book Promotions (if your book is enrolled in KDP Select, that is). 

I used to click on the option every now and then, whenever I happened to think of it, but my catalog didn't lend itself to success, even free download success. (Nobody wants novellas, as I've mentioned repeatedly.) Even with my current novel, the free promotion rarely crossed my mind. 

Well, now that I've wisely decided not to throw away any more money, this free option has begun to look more appealing. No, the KDP free promotion isn't a game changer, but it can drive more Kindle Unlimited reads, which will at least earn an author a few pennies.

KDP is pretty strict with its guidelines. An author only gets five days per 90-day period in which to offer his or her book for free. Is there a  "best practice" for how to use those five days? Well, what I have found is, the longer a promotion lasts, the more the ROI dwindles. I recently chose to run my promotion for three days, and the third day's results were pitiful. The second day's weren't great, either. My stats:

Day One ~ 410

Day Two ~ 38

Day Three ~ 9

I should have chosen a one-day promotion and saved my remaining four days for later. I wonder if there is a finite group of people who browse for free books regularly, and the first time they see your book, they either grab it or pass it by. It hardly helps to see it again the next day. Or the next.

I don't even know how people find these deals. I tried plugging "free books" into Amazon's search bar, but many of the results stated, "free with Kindle Unlimited membership". That's not what I was looking for. Nevertheless, people are finding them.

As far as which day(s) of the week are best, Google's AI claims that Tuesdays are tops for an algorithm spike, followed by Thursdays. Friday through Sunday are the prime browsing days (makes sense). So, apparently steer clear of Mondays and Wednesdays. Poppycock. I ran mine from Wednesday - Friday, because that happened to be when I thought of doing it, and Wednesday worked out great.  

In keeping with my advice to use one free day at a time, I asked Google, so you wouldn't have to:

• How it works: Spacing days evenly prevents your book from disappearing from the "Also Bought" recommendation loops for too long.

• The Schedule:
  • Day 1: Day 18 of your term.
  • Day 2: Day 36.
  • Day 3: Day 54.
  • Day 4: Day 72.
  • Day 5: Day 85 (leave a buffer before the 90-day term ends). 

This makes me laugh. I can barely keep track of my real-life appointments, much less when to schedule a promotion. Do I need a separate calendar? An email reminder? A special app? I'm not going to do any of this, because I have a life. And I'm bad at math. 

But if you've drained your marketing coffers or you never had any to begin with, at least take advantage of the free (actually free to authors!) KDP book promotion. And parse your days wisely. I only got 1/2 the number of downloads from this than from my past FreeBooksy ads, but FreeBooksy cost me $60.00. This cost me $0.00.