Why Free Ebook Promotions Aren't Helping Your Sales

Although I've never had amazing results, I was thinking about running a Free Book promotion this week since I still have a few promo days left for my KDP titles. But you know what?  I've talked myself out of it. Why? Because I realize that it will have little to no impact on my overall goals. If I am going to make my work free, I need it to accomplish something. Something like:

Increased sales
Name recognition
Best selling status
Amazon Prime borrows
Increased reviews
Higher (sustained) rankings

Free promos worked a year ago when Amazon's KDP program was fresh and new. An author would do a promo, offering his/her title for free, then make enough money on the following days, weeks, and maybe even a month or two to buy a Ipad or make a full month's mortgage payment.

Unfortunately, for most authors running promotional campaigns now, the results aren't so productive or lucrative.  Why?  Because our potential readership has been completely spoiled with the overwhelming number of free book titles offered daily. Why buy books (especially from an author whom you've never even heard of) when you can have your pick from a constantly changing list of hundreds of free titles 365 days a year?

Here are some quotes from readers who suffer from Chronic FEDS (Free Ebook Download Syndrome) Give special attention to the text in bold.

"The impact of having many books on my computer or on my Kindle has little if any negative impact. On my computer, my 20,000 books take less space than one hour of recorded TV. And on the Kindle, they are always there just in case I want to read them."

"If it says free and has a semi interesting looking title and cover art I will download it.  I will probably never even look past the first page."  

"I download about 15 to 40 books per week at least. I doubt I'll ever be able to read them all, but I can't help it." 


So with that said . . . I think I'm going to try Sample Campaigning.  Yeah - I just made that up.  Like just now.  You heard it here first.  No more will I promote free titles, but I will encourage readers to download a free sample of my books instead, and here's why:

• Samples are free.  People love free, as we've learned from the comments above.
• Samples are short, therefore fitting right into the lives of busy Ereader readers. 
• Although short, samples generally give enough content to help a potential buyer decide if they like/dislike your work enough to want to read more - unless the ebook is front loaded with a lot of blah-blah-blah that readers like to skip past. 
• In my opinion, samples are more likely to be read, because more thought goes into the download. 
• Samples have a "Buy Now" link at the end, for ease of ordering. 
• Samples are typically deleted guilt-free if a reader has no interest. There's no unspoken pressure to keep the content and eventually read it.
• 
  

Maybe FREE will work for me later, but for right now, I'll give Sample Campaigning a try.
I'll keep you posted.

Kimberly T. Matthews

"I knew exactly how many condoms were left in his gym bag, in a little black box, wrapped in gold foil. Seven. Each time I randomly checked for no other reason besides I knew they existed, there'd always been seven. So I was taken aback that morning when I went to do his laundry, peeked in the box and only found three..."
 Lisa from - "Lisa's Dress" 
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