A Little Wonky

My blog is getting a little wonky, a little writerly if you know what I mean, but I had to pass along this great blog post today from Phoenix Sullivan about the ins and outs of how the Kindle Direct Publishing free trials work, and the hidden benefits of running a free trial.

Not all books will benefit. Not all books will achieve the downloads needed when free to compare favorably to other books in their categories. Not all books will resonate with readers and benefit from a free run whether they're in Select or not, whether they get prominent category placement or not.

I'm currently writing works that are far out in the fat tail of the publishing world.  That being said, many of Phoenix's insights apply even at the extremes.  I have now run two free trials with moderately successful results given my low expectations. As I learn more with each passing day, it is now apparent that the apprenticeship at this craft will be a long one.  I advised today on Kindleboards that building an audience is a marathon, not a sprint, and that it takes time to get out of the doldrums of free trials with several hundred free downloads to numbers greater.

There is reason to hope, even as the Kindle Store becomes the new slush pile of the publishing world. Why am I hopeful? Because there is a huge, untapped audience out there who don't yet have e-readers. And of the ones who do have Kindles (and the ones to come), many of these readers haven't yet signed up for Amazon Prime, which is looking to foster additional new readers and new income for writers.  I'm amazed to read reports of genre authors with borrows ranging in the upper three-figures per month.

Although the payment rate for borrows for January hasn't been set yet, it could very well turn out that a few of us in the fat tail slush pile who are trying to claw our way out and find an audience could make as much or more from borrows than from actual sales.  The wisdom of the crowds from an informal survey seems to put the January expectation at around $2.10 to $2.20, although my latest assessment is that it will be closer to $1.75.  We should learn the final answer this week.

By this time next month, I hope to have my first longer work in the store, what currently looks to be a 15,000-word novella serving as the first book in a new series, and which will be my first entry at a higher price point.  It's time to step things up.

There's a marathon to run.

Update on the Remote Control Trial

I try to be transparent about how it's going as I learn the publishing game. Last week, mid-week, I offered Remote Control: What You Want When You Say What You Want for free with the thought that the "alsobots" (customers who bought X also bought Y) would kick in before the weekend and before Valentine's Day, netting a boost in sales.

It turns out that just a few hours ago today (Saturday afternoon), my second round of alsobots were updated. So far, no post-free sales, but I expect that to pick up. What I've noticed though:

• Going free mid-week in February didn't generate as much activity as going free in January with "The Hen Party".  Down about 25% in free downloads in the US, and about 30-40% in Europe.
• I'm concerned that some of the Amazon system glitches may have affected performance slightly, although it is more likely it is a difference in the combination of the work itself and the time of the trial.
• Placement on the alsobot lists isn't quite as good in terms of being on the first page or two (presumably due to lower free trial sales), but the quality of associated works is higher.
• I think the slightly higher price ($1.29), the different cover (more detailed and interesting, but less visually arresting in thumbnail form) and the long title may hurt a bit.

The best time for erotica sales and borrows appears to be Saturday through Monday, so the verdict won't be in until sometime next week.  Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, the glitchy sales updates have allowed me to make great progress on my first erotic novella where I enter the world of "The Hen Party" and go even deeper into the lives of those crazy Christian wives gone wild.  Look for a release sometime before the end of the month.

Psssst: Remote Control Going Free Wednesday and Thursday

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Remote Control: What You Want When You Say What You Want is going free Wednesday and Thursday in the Kindle Store if you want to do a little exploring with me in my erotic short story, a tale of cybersex, menage and romance.

Based on the success of my previous free trial, I wanted to try it again on a story with a little more of a romantic element to the sizzle. Let me know what you think, and be sure to leave a review if you liked it! Act fast! Tell your friends! Supplies are unlimited! At least for the next two days. It's a great story to share with your partner to set the mood for the upcoming weekend.

And if you're a sports fan or consorting with one who loves hoops, don't forget to check out March Madness: The Secret Sex Life of a Sideline Reporter as sideline reporter Chloe Severeid gets the scoop for the evening's game...and a little extra. I'm trying to decide whether to go "full novella" on Chloe's story. Tell me what you think!

Guess the Kindle Direct Publishing Borrow Payment Rate

In addition to geeking out on erotica, I geek out on numbers.

So sue me.

I posted a thread on Kindleboards tonight asking people to estimate what they think the rate paid for borrows will be for January for the Kindle Select program.

If you have followed such things, the December pool was $500,000 and paid $1.70 per borrow. For whatever reason (larger user base, or better performance), Amazon raised the pool to $700,000 for January. Later this past month, they announced that the pool would be $600,000 for February.

To register your vote, leave a comment here, or post on the Kindleboards thread at this link.

For what it's worth, my guess is $2.10. As of this post, the wisdom of the crowds says the amount is $2.72.

(By the way, feel free to check out my story The Hen Party which recently went onto a Kindle Select promotion and did well, presaging my forthcoming novella regarding Christian wives gone wild.

Final Results of the Trial

Kindleboards is down due to service provider issues, so I'll post the almost-final verdict on the free trial of The Hen Party here before sharing it there.

The Hen Party is my first published work, a 5,500 word story about Jen, a Christian wife who attends a bachelorette party with the girls from her Bible study group, and gets a little wild.  The story debuted in the Kindle Store on December 27th, but netted only a single sale prior to the free trial.

I ran a two-day free trial last Friday and Satuday.  The final figures are now in: 606 free downloads, 481 in the US, 102 in the UK, 10 in Germany and 3 in France.  I reached as high as #82 in the free Fiction>Erotica category, and around #784 in the overall Kindle Free store, getting into the top 30 in the free UK Fiction>Erotica category, and top 25 in both Germany and France for the free store.

Later on Sunday, "The Hen Party" had earned some linkages in the "Also Bought..." recommendations for other stories that had been offered for free, which produced some benefit in sales as the story returned to its $0.99 price.

My expectations from having read about the effect of other free trials is that my total sales would equate to around 2% of the free copies given away.  Based on the free numbers, I estimated I would have around 12 sales.  As it turned out, "The Hen Party" sold 17 copies this week, and had two borrows.  Of these sales, two-thirds of the sales came on the first two days after the trial.  By the end of the 5th day, additional sales had returned to the earlier rate.  But the two day boost put the story at around #22,000 in the paid store for a couple of days.

There was a small halo effect for the other works.  During the trial, I sold another copy of Remote Control: What You Want When You Say What You Want and one copy of March Madness: The Secret Sex Life of a Sideline Reporter.  That's close to what the baseline rate is for those stories, so I would say there's little effect, particularly since those stories have little in common with "The Hen Party".

The free downloads progressed at a rate of about 16 an hour on the first day, dropping to around 10 an hour by the end of the second day.  Most of the sales activity appeared to be between 6PM PST and 6AM PST.  Historically, I tend to see more sales on Sunday through Tuesday.

The free trial period produced no additional sales of anything in Europe, which is easy to explain.  First, the volume of free European downloads was very small (<20% of the total free sales), and while it produced reciprocal also bought recommendations, I'd maybe expect 20% of 2%, or perhaps one sale every two weeks.  Second, the subject matter (Christian wives gone wild) may be more popular in the US based on differences in religion in the culture.  Finally, I'm unclear as to who the 13 readers were in the foreign language stores who bought the book.  Bots?  Expats?  Students seeking to learn English?

No one has reviewed any of my stories yet.  Reviews offer social proof and create a visual enticement to purchase, and I suspect that a story or book that has favorable reviews that then goes on trial will see both more downloads as well as more sales following the end of the promotion.  Some authors appear to have learned this and are creating bogus reviews of their works (note when an author has single reviews on all of their works, each with five stars and the same reader reporting).  I refuse to do that, and would prefer to exist without reviews or accept my lumps rather than create a misrepresentation.

Overall, my expectations for the promotion weren't high, yet the KDP Select free promotion still performed better than I expected as an unknown author writing short stories.  Over 600 people have a copy of my story! Maybe some will read it!  Maybe one will review!

Stats update

Look for an update on the "week after" statistics and lessons learned on Sunday.  Until then, a few anecdotal data points to tide you over.

• A KDP Select free couple of days produces downloads in Europe, but apparently has little residual follow on.  The cause of this may simply be not enough free downloads to get onto the "also bought" lists, although Europe combined accounted for about 19% of my total free downloads.
• It appears to take about 48 hours to show up on the also bought lists in the US, although I didn't time it exactly.

A rough rule of thumb for translating Kindle Store rank into sales:

• Top 1000 free threshold seems to be about a sustained 15 downloads per hour.
• A 20,000-25,000 paid store ranking seems to correspond to around 5 purchases per day.
• Anything around 80,000 is probably doing about 1 purchase a day.
• Beyond 80,000, a book/story hasn't sold anything within the last 24 hours.  The farther down you go, the more days since the last sale.  No sales rank: no sales ever.

Early Report

Early report on the two-day free trial of The Hen Party.

Had a little over 600 free "sales". Sold a couple of copies of my other stories, although based on their normal rate of sales, I think this was in line with what would normally be expected.

I sold copies in the US, UK, DE and FR stores. The numbers from Germany were surprising to me. I actually reached a pretty high category-specific ranking in both the French and German stores.

I was briefly in the top 100 for Fiction-->Erotica, topping out at around #82.

After the sale ended, I had several more sales, enough to take an unranked story and move it to around #30,000 in the paid store.

What I've learned about the distribution of sales and titles:

• A single short story sale is usually enough to get you into the high five-figures in rank.  If there are no new sales, this ranking drops about 40K spots per day.
• A sustained rate of around 15 to 16 sales per hour is enough to get you into the top 1,000 in Kindle-->Free, and into the 80s in Fiction-->Erotica.
• For the erotic story, the US is anywhere from 80% to 85% of total sales. I was surprised, thinking that the rate would be higher for an English language title.
• The first day of the free trial produced the highest rate of sales.  Performance tapers off after day 1.
• There may be a residual effect for purchases of other works in your catalogue, but I didn't see a strong correlation.
• Most of the benefit appears to accrue to the story given away, after it comes off free.
• All of this is subject to change--I have to wait a week to get the actual post-free sales figures.

Overall, I'm happy.  Coming from nowhere, this managed to take a title that hadn't sold anything and turned it into a profitable title.

Stay tuned for more details as the aftermath becomes clearer.