FREE STUFF - READ ON

Free stuff is good. I think we can all agree on that one. When I lived in Hawaii and taught SCUBA diving I used to say that nothing in Hawaii is free but the sunshine. Customers used to laugh and nod knowingly at that one. Every once in awhile, you run across something entirely free and wonder 'what's the catch?' sometimes there's no catch. Sometimes your email address is needed by the good folks who offered you the free beauty product or free pair of pantyhose. That's when it's handy to have an address for junk mail only. Sometimes a phone number, or a friend's email address is needed, or signing away your first born.
Here's the beauty in Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. Everyday the good people over at Amazon in Seattle offer the world FREE BOOKS. In every genre. Entirely free. All you need to get one, or a hundred, is an AMAZON account, which is also free. You can read these ebooks on your computer, phone, ipad, kindle, nook, and any mobile device just by downloading the Kindle App. You don't need to own a Kindle! Ever. At all! The catch has nothing to do with you. They are simply trying to generate eventual  sales by letting the publisher offer books free for a few days every 3 months.

You can even get on a list that sends you an email daily (or weekly)with free books in your favorite genre. There are about 50 sites out there that compile these on a daily basis. Check our Freebooksy, Kindle Books and Tips, Pixel of Ink, eReader Cafe, Free Book Dude, Awesome Gang, Bargain eBook Hunter.
As an author, going free is a wonderful marketing tool to generate interest in your book. Especially first time authors. Or Indie Authors. Building a readership is key to us new authors and getting 20,000 downloads on free days is going to look good for our book's ranking, as well as get reviews from people who don't expect much from something they didn't pay for. My latest review for THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE this morning said "I feel guilty for not having paid full price!" Those words were payment enough, Rhonda.

Here's my tips to authors when getting ready to go free on Kindle Select:

1. Do 3 days and save 2 for later
2.Two weeks in advance, submit your free day notice to as many sites as possible. See AuthorMarketingClub for a good start on this
3. Write some blog posts and set up several days of blogs during free days to lead readers to your book.
4. Get ready to Facebook blast and ask friends to do this by sharing. People love free stuff, don't be shy!
5. Prepare tweets on Hootsuite or another timed site, to go off every 30 minutes for hours on the first day. (Say something compelling and include #Free#Kindlefree)
6. Retweet, share on FB, and keep promo going the first day, especially from about 2 a.m. Pacific Time to noon. This is when you'll get your biggest 'sales'.
7. Set up some cheap ads for the day after you are free. Keep the book at .99 or 1.99 to avoid sticker shock for those lollygaggers who got their emails late about free days.
8. Keep the momentum going as long as you can for downloads- have a contest, do a radio interview, drop flyers from the sky.
9. Write the 2nd in the series ASAP and get it out there!
Remember free days isn't a time to make money, but to generate interest. Two to four days after the promotion ends on Select, you'll see a bump in sales and this is the golden time to keep the momentum going.
Enjoy all the free books out there, everyone and be sure to review as if you're saying this to the author's face.

Good luck Authors and You're Welcome Readers!

Kim Hornsby is the author of Amazon Best Seller The Dream Jumper's Promise

Kindle Select - FREE BOOKS!

Why would anyone want to give something away that they spent years creating? Aside from blatant benevolence, the answer could be to eventually direct you to something that does cost money. Like your second book. If you are a new author, building a reader base is extremely important. More important than money, unfortunately. Especially if you are in this for the duration and hoping to build a career. Getting in people's faces and heads is everything for a new author. visibility. Exposure.

And that is why Amazon Kindle has a program called SELECT where you can give away downloads of your book 5 days out of the 90 day program--free downloads of a book that you might have spent years writing. It seems like a terrible idea when what you want is to make money from writing books. However, if you can see ahead a year, the free days can help your ranking on Amazon, which helps to sell books. On Amazon, (the biggest book sellers in the world), ranking is everything. If you get yourself in the top 100 on the paid list, you can look forward to some sales that are generated purely by being on that list. No advertising necessary. Unless you want to keep the momentum and propel it farther up the list. Which you should. It's not a great idea to sit back and watch your success. Marketing is an ongoing process.
Unless you're Nicholas Sparks and wrote Safe Haven. Then you can sit back and rake in the money because your book reached #1 and stayed there for a long time.

Kindle Select gives you the opportunity to get exposure, but it's up to you to advertise your free days and get on lists with your generous offering. Over the last few months, I've compiled a secret list of forty publications who will announce your free days and direct traffic to download your novel. The higher your ranking gets, the more likelihood that when free days ends, you will maintain sales for a while if you play your cards right. And it's good to have a marketing plan for after free days like cheap ads, keeping the cost of the book low and good reviews to keep sales coming in.
Should you do all 5 days together or split them up? I've done both and I'm not sure what is best. When my Romantic Suspense did all 5 together it garnered 35,000 downloads and got some kick-ass sales for six weeks after. Then the publisher raised the price and things are not going as well. My Paranormal Romance has only ever split up the free days. Because it's self pubbed, I can choose and it does well enough with 3 days in a row. I would never do one day because you need the momentum to build. And five days feels like too much. I want to save two free days to give the book another shot in the arm next month. The Dream Jumper's Promise was free May 26-28 and after the first 24 hours, had 12,000 downloads, reaching #4 in the Kindle store FREE and  #1 in paranormal romance. The FREE lists are way different than the paid lists but still a good indication of how the public likes your cover and blurb. At the point of writing this, in my free days, I'm just hoping, that with another 40 hours to go, I can maintain my position or even reach #1 in the Free Store (above that dad-burned 160 calorie cookbook!)
Free Days has helped us self pubbed or newbie authors gain a fighting chance in this market. Since ebooks and self pubs have opened to writers who used to spend years trying to get an agent, editor, publisher and readers, there is now a lot of floatsum and jetsam out there and the discerning reader must sift through it to find a good read. But, if they like your cover, your blurb, you reviews, your name, anything, they might 'buy' it for free, read it, review and tell their friends to read it when it costs money.
Granted, many of the readers who buy your free book will never read it and those who do will probably never write a review or refer someone to your book but some might. There are millions of readers out there in the world, buying books, downloads, entertainment, and even if there is a slight chance of a hundred real sales and 2 reviews, it's worth it to do free days.
Even though it's hard to giveaway something that you value greatly, the idea behind free days is that you have to 'spend money to make money'. Give something away for the reward later. Readership. So go ahead and get writing that second book while free days are on because you know they're going to ask for it. And you'll probably have to offer that one free at the beginning too.
Good luck Writers and don't forget to check your SELECT actions on KDP to make decide if you want to re-enroll in SELECT when your 90 days ends. Otherwise it automatically gets re-enrolled for you.

Kim Hornsby is the author of NECESSARY DETOUR, published by The Wild Rose Press and
THE DREAM JUMPER'S PROMISE
as well as a contributing author to SWEET SUMMERTIME LOVE