Adventures in KDP Select (Part 2)

So, wow. Really, really WOW. Approximately 30 hours (out of 48) of my first free days are over. Here are the stats for the first day.*

Heartless sat in the #2 spot on Amazon's Best Sellers in the Top 100 Free in Historical Romance list (as shown in the image above). It also had the #37 spot in the Top 100 Free in the Kindle Store. That was with over 6400 downloads in the US store. 

click image to enlarge

I will post again with the final counts tomorrow morning when this is all over. ♥

*I am giving these numbers and images from the point where I finally went to bed last night, about 1:30 am (EST). That was pretty close to 24 hours after Amazon started the first free day, which was supposed to have been around 3 am (EST). 

Adventures in KDP Select (Part 1)

I promised a good friend that I would share my KDP Select experience, and though I still don't care for Amazon's exclusivity agreement, I will say that [so far] it's been a great way to promote a new book—or the re-release of an old one. 

I'm not sure how much credit I can actually give Amazon. The initial sales, I believe, can be mostly attributed to my loyal fan base anxious to get their hands on another of my books. (I LOVE YOU, FANS!!) Perhaps the book does rank higher on Amazon searches because of the "Select" thing. Who knows. 

The really interesting thing is what's been happening since I started promoting the fact that I have a couple free days coming up. I whipped up this ad... 

...and Saturday (11/24) I shared it on my FB author page, asking people to share and help spread the word. Since that day I've had 79 shares and 12 new followers to my page. I was not expecting that much activity and am beyond pleased with the result. The other thing I expected was a pause in sales as people wait for the book to become free. Sales have slowed down but they haven't stopped.

All in all, this has been a very interesting experiment. I will be sure to share the results of my first two free days, which as the ad says, is Nov 28-29. Be sure to CLICK HERE and grab your FREE copy then!

Re-Releasing Heartless ~ KDP Select

I promised I'd explain my reasons for choosing to enroll Heartless in the KDP Select program, thus making it unavailable at any other eBook retailer for at least a 90-day period, and here they are....

KDP Select....

Amazon has a program called KDP Select in which Amazon receives exclusivity of an eBook for 90 days. For those 90 days the eBook is given more attention on Amazon than it would if it wasn't enrolled in Select. I'd also have the option to do free days, days in which Heartless would be free for up to five days. I can even space these days out throughout the 90-day period. Meanwhile, the title could be borrowed (for "free"*) by anyone who has Amazon Prime. 

Now, anyone who knows me knows I despise the exclusivity part of the KDP Select contract. DESPISE IT. I believe exclusivity should only be granted to a publisher, one who has the goal of getting the book listed in as many eBook retail sites as possible. The Select agreement even states that I can't give copies away on my own site. That particularly irks me.

That said, I want to get Heartless into as many readers' hands as possible and I do think the Select program can help me get a jumpstart on that. So Heartless will first be released in the Kindle Store for 90 days, kind of like a pre-publication test run. When the 90 days are up, it will then be removed from the Select program and uploaded to all the other eBook retailers through Smashwords. 

I apologize for the additional wait for Nook, Kobo, Apple, and Sony readers. It will reach those outlets, I promise. I refuse to allow Amazon exclusivity longer than 90 days. I also refuse to deny my non-Kindle readers the ability to download the format they prefer. However, if you just can't wait, Amazon has many free reading apps for the purpose of reading Kindle books without a Kindle.

All that said, Heartless will appear in the Kindle Store very, very soon.

*I say "free" because Amazon Prime costs an annual fee, thus it's not really free. However, some have received a free Prime subscription to get them "hooked" or because they are a student.

A Heartless excerpt....

This past Saturday (11/3), I posted a Sweet Saturday Sample on my author blog. The excerpt was from the revised edition of Heartless. It's not a romantic excerpt, but part of a scene between the duke and his cousin, taken from chapter 15. 

Click HERE if you'd like to take a look. 

♥

A heartless blurb....

I finally came up with the back cover blurb for Heartless! I agonize over the blurbs and they seem to take far more out of me than any other aspect of the publishing process. But with the help of my two best friends, two very talented writers themselves, I finally nailed this one. Happy dancin' here, let me tell you! 

Without further ado, here's the final blurb: 

A dark stranger....
Finding herself abandoned after the death of her father, Leandra Harcourt takes the greatest risk of her life. She accepts the marriage proposal of a complete stranger, the Duke of Derringer—a man the world calls Lord Heartless.

A heartless proposal....
A desperate girl with no prospects seems the perfect solution to Derringer's most recent problem: marry before his 30th birthday to gain his rightful inheritance, though marriage is the last thing he needs. The need to find his missing cousin takes priority over any silly marriage and he quickly abandons his new bride in the wreck of his family estate.

A perfect love....
Two people were never more suited for each other than the duke and his wife, but will they discover it before it's too late? With an assassin dogging his heels and a suitor wooing his wife, love will not have the luxury of time.