Kindle Forum banner

Changed permafree to paid and it's selling better than ever - why?

2K views 11 replies 7 participants last post by  Ana Spoke 
#1 ·
Hi all, I have recently changed the first book in my series, Shizzle, Inc from permafree to paid and enrolled in Kindle Select. All of a sudden it has started steadily selling, not much 1-3 copies per day, but that's better than ever before.  Does that mean that:

1. It made it onto some kind of a list on Amazon? I tried searching through new releases (which it's not), and could not find it.
2. Assuming it's made it onto some kind of a list, then is zig-zagging between permafree and paid a useful strategy?

Would love to know what you think.
 
#2 ·
Perhaps KU borrows are feeding the algorithms, prompting Amazon to give the book more visibility, which then leads to more sales.
 
#3 ·
You changed it from perma-free to paid in Kindle Unlimited.  So... you are likely seeing numbers from borrows as well and extra visibility from being KU after not being in KU. That will probably fade wtihout additional promotion. Popping out of KU in 3 months to make it free again and then popping back into KU after a while might not have the same effect as the first time the book goes into KU.

Also, are those sales not in the US?
 
#4 ·
That's great to hear, Ana. I love your work. A similar thing has happened to me.

I have two books, first in series that had been free for years in different pen names. One was fiction, the other nonfiction, both have taken off and are selling well as paid books. I do not have any books in KU.

I've promoted these books through two of my blogs that have been established since 2007 and get ten thousand readers a week. The books relate to the blog topics, and the books get a mention on every blog.

I also opened a private online paid store to sell my books at around the time these books began selling well. I mention paid because a former free store I'd used did not help my sales. This new store costs me $20. a month, and it further splits my sales from each outlet, which lowers my book rankings with all retailers. Overall, I am gaining more book sales and a higher rate of newsletter subscribers, which makes me think that for mainstream and nonfiction it is the topic or author's promotional work that sells the book, and the Amazon ranking is less important than I thought it was, at least for my non-genre specific writing.
 
#7 ·
I know for me as a reader free-fatigue has long since set in. I get so many offers for free books and articles from people trying to sell me things that free books from authors are just one more noise in the din from other salesmen. I've already got a hard drive full of free books that I haven't gotten around to reading and probably never will- and so many of the ones I have read have been disappointing. Books for sale, on the other hand, even at 99 cents, say to me, "Here's a book I might enjoy- maybe I should check it out."

I'm aware that some people still do very well with free, but I suspect they are people whose audience consists of avid readers who read many more than the 80-100 books a year that I do. I think if your audience is more us slower readers what's likely to attract our attention are quality signals and recommendations from trusted sources. I have about a dozen authors that are automatic buys for me now, even though they don't usually produce more than a couple of books a year. Full trad. publisher price will make me hesitate, but anything under $5.99 I'll snap up without a second thought if it's from one of these favorite authors. And if it's from an author I don't know whose blurb reminds me of those favorite authors, or better yet, who's recommended by one of them, I'll happily take a chance if it's under $3-4.
 
#8 ·
Thank you Sarah, that gives me new hope! The book does have a lot (84) ratings, so perhaps it was time to put it back to paid. In any case, I'm excited, because one of the side effects of giving it away for free is that some readers grab it without reading the blurb, get disappointed that it was not the genre they expected, and then post negative reviews. I would imagine that even for $2.99, they are probably more likely to read the blurb and understand what it is they are buying.
 
#11 ·
To expand on what was said about your Bookbub in case you're not sure why it's having an effect at this point - if your Bookbub was in the last 30 days, then those downloads are still counting as 1/10 of a sale for your poplist ranking (as opposed to the bestseller list where they don't count at all). If you check the poplists for your sub-cats on the relevant Amazon stores, I suspect you'll find you're in a much better position than you were previously. Be prepared that you may see a drop when you hit 30 days out from the Bookbub - but you never know, maybe not :) (And if you're already more than 30 days out, then any downloads/sales you got in the last 30 days as part of the tail must have been high enough to give you a poplist boost on their own.)

At least, that's the lastest info on Amazon lists as I understand it from people much more knowledgeable than me :D

(In case anyone doesn't know how to easily navigate to your sub-cat's poplist - scroll down to the very bottom of your Amazon product page and click the sub-cat link there. The sub-cat links higher on the page, under your kindle store rank, will take you to the bestseller lists. The ones at the bottom of the page will take you to the poplist.)
 
#12 ·
The International Bookbub was just over a month before I changed from permafree, so I didn't expect it to still have an effect, especially since Amazon is supposedly not counting free downloads towards the ratings on paid lists. However, it could have been word of mouth. There was definitely a pronounced spike in the first two days of changing to paid, so I can only guess the book was temporarily on a special list.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top