Adventures in KDP Select (Final Thoughts)

The following post was written closer to the end of my Heartless KDP Select run—around March 2013, I believe—but was never actually posted. I'm posting it now, just to give everyone my final thoughts on my Heartless KDP Select run. Believe it or not, things have changed a great deal since this post and none of it can be laid at Amazon's door. ☺

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There is a lot of controversy surrounding KDP Select. Amazon demands exclusivity and that rubs a lot of authors raw. It makes me mad but there's very little one can do about it just short of cutting off your nose to spite your face: refusing to sell your books on Amazon. 

I know it's not an effective tool for all authors. I decided to try it simply because the majority of my eBook sales have always come from Amazon, ever since I uploaded my first titles back when there were only 40k books in the Kindle Store (2008). When Smashwords started up, I added my titles there too and when they started distributing to the other major retailers (beginning with Barnes & Noble) I was right there with them, my titles (4 at the time) in one of the first batches of books sent out. But my highest sales were still Amazon and that never changed. 

The stats for my Heartless run in KDP Select (90 days): 

• Free books: 19,195 
• Lending Library:  217
• Sales (not including Feb 1-4): 998 

I believe it is safe to say that KDP Select worked for me. Unfortunately, I cannot pinpoint exactly what I did (or what happened that had nothing to do with me) that really catapulted Heartless out there, causing the success. I hyped the revamp for over a year, hyped the re-release (a little), hyped the free days (a lot), appeared on one site that catalogs free Kindle downloads (HUGE thank you to OHFB for that!!), and... hmmm. I think that's it, though I'm sure I've forgotten something I did. I have tons of friends who helped with the hype too and I will be forever grateful for that. (Special thank you to Linda Boulanger, Rachel Rossano, and Airicka Phoenix. ♥)

In bonus news, my Smashwords sales have also increased. They are still NOTHING compared to my Kindle sales but they are much higher than ever before. I think enrolling one of my books in KDP Select successfully got my name out there, thus increasing sales in ALL outlets.

Thank you so much for tagging along with me on this journey. It's been a rollercoaster of emotions, let me tell ya!

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Things have changed greatly since I first drafted this post. Long story short, I am done messing with Amazon's exclusivity clause and will never enroll another book in their Select program. I plan to post to my author blog with the details on my decision, but in the meantime, email me if you can't wait, or don't follow my author blog: jaimeygrant (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Lots of ♥, Heartless Readers!!! 

Adventures in KDP Select (Part 4)

I've used all five of my free days now. My total worldwide downloads was 19,195. That's a heck of a lot of potential readers out there! Thank you to everyone who took a moment to grab a copy! MWAH! ♥ 

Here is the breakdown by Kindle Store: 

• BR (Brazil): 2
• CA (Canada): 49
• DE (Germany): 426
• ES (Spain): 11
• FR (France): 23
• IT (Italy): 20
• JP (Japan): 2
• UK (United Kingdom): 1515
• US (United States/India): 17,147

If you've read Heartless and enjoyed it, please consider taking a moment to leave your review on the Amazon site where you purchased/downloaded it. I would appreciate that more than words can say. 

♥ 

My last two free days...

Heartless is FREE again, worldwide, in Amazon's Kindle Store. This is the LAST TIME it will be free. This book leaves the KDP Select program Feb 4 so I will no longer have the opportunity to offer it for free. If you don't want to spend $3 on this book but you still want to read it, grab it NOW.

And do me a HUGE favor. Tell your friends it's free right now so they can go grab a copy too, if they wish. Thank you so much!!

~♥~♥~♥~♥~♥~ 

Here are the store links: 

• US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001IZZ2RC 
• UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001IZZ2RC 
• CA: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B001IZZ2RC 
• DE: https://www.amazon.de/dp/B001IZZ2RC 
• ES: https://www.amazon.es/dp/B001IZZ2RC 
• IT: https://www.amazon.it/dp/B001IZZ2RC 
• JP: http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B001IZZ2RC 
• BR: https://www.amazon.com.br/dp/B001IZZ2RC

The Heartless Paperback

Heartless is now available in paperback!! YAY!! It's in several Amazon stores worldwide and I've linked each and every one of them on my website. 

Here's the print cover, in case you're interested in seeing it: 

Click the image to see the LARGE version. 

A bit of Heartless cover trivia: 

The pink fringed tulip from the original cover (and now the back of the new cover) was one my mother gave me from her garden to brighten up our house a bit a few months after we moved back to Michigan. I thought it perfectly represented Hart's love for Leandra, beautiful but rough. 

☺

Adventures in KDP Select (Part 3)

Wow. My first free days were completely nerve-wracking. I forgot to eat, didn't want to sleep, neglected my kids and my husband—only remembering to feed any of them when they complained—and felt like garbage physically the whole two days. That said.... 

WHAT A RUSH!!!!!! 

Screecap of Amazon's Top 100 in Historical Romance lists

Heartless peaked in the US Kindle Store at #1 in the Top 100 Free in Historical Romance (shown above) and #14 in the Top 100 Free in the Kindle Store (shown below—sorry for the HUGE pic). 

Screencap of Top 100 list in Amazon's Kindle Store

My final download counts:

• US: 12,415
• UK: 1062
• DE: 344
• FR: 15
• ES: 8
• IT: 14
• JP: 1 

Grand total: 13,859 downloads worldwide. Besides that, 31 copies of my other books sold in the two days Heartless was free. (That may not seem like much to some of you more successful writers out there, but for me, that's AWESOME!) I think I can count this as a successful two-day promotion, don't you?

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.

Re-Releasing Heartless ~ Step 2: Review Copies

My final read-through is complete and Heartless has been sent off to get formatted for Kindle, so now it's time to get busy with the pre-publication promotion. I owe e-copies to a few people from over a year ago, lovely people who volunteered to beta read. One of those lovely readers will get a paperback edition—I have yet to select the winner. That's neither here nor there, however.

Review Copies....

For one part of my pre-publication promotion plans, I am willing to send e-copies of Heartless to anyone willing to post an honest review (negative is fine as long as it's honest). I do require that you indicate in your review that you received a free copy from me, the author, for the purpose of providing an honest review (this is also a requirement of the FTC). I have no preference in regard to where the review appears, whether it's a blog, Goodreads, Amazon, B&N, or any of the other sites out there that cater to the book-loving world. I also have no requirements as to the number of blog readers your review blog has. Everyone is eligible. However, I reserve the right to refuse anyone's request for any reason whatsoever. I find it highly unlikely that I will refuse anyone's request, but just so we're clear.  

If you're interested in a copy to review, please comment on this blog post with your email and preferred eBook format. (I need your email so I can send you your copy. I will not sell your email address, share it, add it to my mailing list, or otherwise misuse it. If you are uncomfortable typing it below, you can email me your request at jaimeygrant {at} yahoo [dot] com.)

Your eBook choices are:

• PDF (Adobe, but works with many eReaders) 
• EPUB (Nook, Kobo) 
• PRC (Kindle) 

If there's another format you prefer, indicate it in your comment and I'll see what I can do. Review copies will be sent out right before Heartless is enrolled in KDP Select.* The exact date will be announced here when I know it. After it's enrolled, I won't be allowed to give copies away.

So get those requests in! If you use an EPUB format eReader, I strongly urge you to take advantage of this review copy offer. That way, you'll get a 3-month jump on the availability of this title. I will update this post when this offer is no longer available.

For those who purchased a copy of Heartless in the past, paperback or eBook, I have good news for you. Stay tuned for my follow-up blog post to find out how you can get an e-copy for FREE.

*I will explain the details of my decision to enroll Heartless in KDP Select in a future post....

Edited 11/2/2012 to add: I am no longer accepting requests for review copies of Heartless. Thank you so much for your support! ♥

Heartless: What I'm Doing Now....

Covers for other authors have been keeping me pretty busy lately. That's not a big deal since I rather enjoy the cover design work I do. It does take my time from writing/editing, however, so Heartless has fallen temporarily to the wayside.

Again.

I have received the notes from my final proofreader and I fully understand now why it's recommended that several pairs of eyes proofread a manuscript prior to publication. Each reader spotted different typos and had different questions. While applying their suggested changes I spotted a few typos that NONE of them caught. Which means Heartless will be getting one final read-through from me before it gets formatted for eBook publication. I am now several chapters into that final read-through. 

Which leads to another question. How do you stop your overly critical inner-editor and only fix typos? 

Re-Releasing Heartless ~ Step 1

There are a number of things that must be done for the actual release of a new (or revised) book. 

The first step is the highly anticipated 

 

Just as I've been working on the revised edition of this book for over a year, I've been working on the cover too. So here it is, my lovelies, the cover of the new revised edition of Heartless. 

So what do you think? Would it stop you in your tracks while perusing those shelves at your favorite book store? Would you pick it up, turn it over, see what it's all about? If you saw it on a website, would you click over to find out more? Better question, would the cover alone make you buy it? 

And no, you don't have to answer any of those questions. I love the cover, love the story, and I hope you do too. 

Now that the reveal is done, I will get the final edits done (just fixing typos and whatnot). This has been one consuming task. 

Thank you all so much for your PATIENCE. ♥

Today's [supposed to be] the day!!

Yeah, Heartless was supposed to see the publishing limelight [again] today. 

Not. Gonna. Happen. 

I'm sorry for that, truly I am. It's my fault for thinking I could get it done in the one month all year that I'm busy from Day 1 to Day 31. Bah! 

Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that the proofreaders have the book and I'm waiting to hear back from two of them. Hopefully, there will only be typos to correct and not major plot issues. There's the chance a plot hole snuck its way in. You just never know sometimes especially when you LIVE in the story but you're ripped out of it for irritating and mundane chores like eating, sleeping, and showering. The nerve of these things! 

So that's all I've got for you now. I know the Heartless delays are reaching into the Realm of the Ridiculous but I really appreciate your patience and understanding. ♥ 

Slow and steady....

Two more solid days of Heartless work (it would have been three days but Sunday was spent working on Part 2 of The 11th Commandment, the serial Regency I'm writing for InD'Tale Magazine) and I still have 30 pages left to edit. This is rough going, as I have to tie in certain mystery elements that I didn't have to before, and all because I decided to remove the prologue, which gave a lot away at the very start. 

At this point, I think it's going well. I should have it in the hands of proofreaders by next week, if I can continue at this pace. Too bad vacation is gonna eventually get in the way of this productive pace. 

Oh well. 

Family has to come first at some point and I have a fabulous family. Hubby pushes me though he doesn't approve of this Heartless revamp (he said it was perfect as it was and I shouldn't have touched anything) and my kids give me a lot of space so I can work. It's nice that they have such varied interests, even though they're only 6 and 8. 

So despite my slow start, I just may win this race. I'm steadily working through this difficult section of the book and I think it's smoothing out nicely. I just hope the readers will agree. 

☺

The turtle pic is mine. If you take it, you're a thief. Just sayin'.

The countdown continues...

Just under 50 pages remain of this major edit.

YAY, ME!!!! 

I'm getting into another spot that requires everything from major rewriting to simple sentence restructuring, some clarification, and probably a bit of scene shuffling. I can't say how long that will take even though the previous 50 pages only took two days.

And though I tried to approach this project objectively, I still laughed and teared up at certain points. 

I've also figured out how to let people know this story, while remaining the same, is substantially different from the first edition. This edition will include the subtitle new revised edition.

I think that's it for now. Have a productive weekend! ♥

*Thumbs-Up Guy and Wow Gal are licensed for my use, not yours. Don't steal them. That means don't copy them, right click and download them to your computer, or screen cap them. That's stealing and it's illegal. Thank you for understanding. 

The end is in sight....

I am 100 pages from completing this edit on Heartless. 

Woo-hoo!!!

Now, that doesn't sound like much but I know there's some work ahead of me. 

Hubby pointed out several inconsistencies, solutions that were just too easy and too convenient for belief. Those will need to be addressed when I come to them and that may require the addition of a scene or two. 

Oh, and did I mention there's a release date for this bad boy? That's right, New Heartless has an official release date and it's probably an INSANE one. Oh well. I'm nothing if not insane. 

Watch for this one to hit the virtual shelves [again] by.... 

August 31

Until then, I'll be working my tail off to get this one ready and that also means a cover reveal very soon. With a billion family-related things going on this month, and the fact that I'm easily distracted, this is truly a challenge. But enough is enough and Derringer wants to get back out there, have his [second] chance in the limelight.

*This is Wow Gal. She is not yours to take, so don't do it. That would make you a thief. I licensed the use of her. You did not. I cut her out of her background. You did not. I added my watermark. You...get the idea.

HUGE Leap Forward

I spent yesterday with Heartless and managed to get through the rest of chapter eight. I then moved on to complete nine, ten, and eleven. I'm reaching the halfway done mark. So here's that thumbs-up guy again, 'cause wow. I might actually deserve a thumbs-up this time. :O) 

Meanwhile, I may need to select another excerpt to tide y'all over until this book is back on the shelves. Let me look through what I've edited so far and see what I'm willing to share. ;O) 

Narcissism and ADD

Chapter 7: DONE! 

Chapter 8: two pages away from DONE! 

You may wonder why I didn't just finish the final two pages of chapter eight but that's because you don't know me nor the nature of the ADD beast that rides me. Yes, it's that bad. Thus the reason Heartless is not back on the market. 

I think I deserve an enthusiastic thumbs-up, despite the paltry amount I accomplished. So do you, nameless reader of my narcissistic little blog. What writing task have you accomplished today (or this week, month, or year)? 

Again, please do not steal my guy. He is licensed, not owned. If you steal him, you are a despicable human being. Just saying. 

Another chapter done!

  Thumbs-Up Guy*

  Chapter six of Heartless is officially edited and I'm halfway through chapter seven. YAY!! 

 Meanwhile, inspiration struck, compelling me to write the first 1000 words on one of my many other Regencies, specifically Flawless. A major plot change demanded a full rewrite, thus rendering the 30k I'd already written worthless. (In case you're wondering, Derringer is not in Flawless, though he does [will] get a mention. He's out of the country at the time Flawless takes place.) 

  So, that's it for Heartless updates, for the moment, anyway. I hope to get back to it later today. 

  *FYI, this is Thumbs-Up Guy, here to give me a big thumbs-up for my itty-bitty accomplishment ... hence the name. You may see him from time to time from now on, as I work my way through this and other stories of mine. He makes me smile. If you've accomplished something today, he's giving you the thumbs-up, too. ☺ Please don't steal the image; I don't own it, I've only licensed the use of it. Thank you.