A how-to YouTube video by Julie Broad (Book Launchers) explaining how authors can use Amazon promotions—free ebook giveaways and Kindle Countdown Deals—to boost discoverability and sales. The video compares free promotions (up to five days) with Kindle Countdown deals (5–7 days, commonly five days starting at $0.99 then rising daily), discusses pros/cons for nonfiction vs fiction, and gives practical promotion steps (audience outreach, paid newsletter promo sites, scheduling in KDP and manual price changes when not in KDP Select). It also lists constraints and costs (ad prices, scheduling/editing limits, price-change blackout windows).
Questions this video answers
Once every three months.
Up to five days.
Five-day sales starting at $0.99 and increasing about $1 each day (commonly used).
Ad space ranges from $20 to $110 (varies by site and package).
You cannot edit or stop a scheduled Kindle Countdown within 24 hours of its start; the book's regular price cannot be changed for 30 days before and 14 days after the promotion.
Chapters
A book promotion might just be the perfect solution to spark some energy back into your book sales. If you're part of Amazon's Kindle select program, you're eligible to run a free ebook giveaway or a Kindle Countdown deal. But even if you're not in those programs, because I know my books are not in those programs, you can still make it happen with a couple extra steps. If you're wondering how to do that, well, stick around because this video is certainly for you. Hello there, I'm Julie, the book broad of book launchers, the awesome Self Publishing Services team. Authors enrolled in KDP select can promote their book with a free book promotion or a Kindle Countdown deal once every three months. It's great timing because it's common for sales to need a pick me up every quarter or so, depending on what else you've been doing to market your book. Now, a free book promotion is, well, obviously free. For up to five days, you can give away free copies of your ebook. Of course, when you're giving away your book, you're not making any profit from it. But there's a trade off that can be worth it sometimes, because sometimes once a reader grabs a copy from your giveaway, they can leave a review. If you have other books, a free book can often be a great strategy to introduce them to your book ecosphere ecosystem. You know all your books. It's a typical strategy for fiction authors. They introduce the first in a series for free and then sell the others. But for nonfiction, reviews are really what we do it for. And if you're experiencing a recent dip in sales, reviews can add to that by providing social proof. A free giveaway may not put money in your pocket while it's happening, but if those free readers post a review, you are boosting your potential for money making opportunities in more ways than one. All that said, I'm not a big fan of giving nonfiction books away for free. I have a few reasons for this. One is that I do believe it devalues the massive amount of value that is in a nonfiction book. In in some books like my book Self Publish and Succeed, you're gaining steps and resources that are equivalent to thousands of dollars of advice and mistake avoidance. That's really high value. And to give it away for free, well, I don't think it puts value in the mind of the reader. Which leads me to the second reason I'm not a huge fan of free nonfiction books. They don't get read through very often. Maybe you give away 100 books and possibly five read it. Well, I'd rather sell 20 and have 10 people read it. And finally, the reason I don't think it's a great idea for nonfiction to go is that you're rarely trying to get those readers into your ecosystem. You might have more books for them to read, in which case it can be a consideration. But generally free doesn't attract highly committed people. And if you've written a nonfiction book, chances are you're hoping they're going to come in and check out your business or your product or your service, or hire you to speak or do something else beyond just read your book. And free doesn't equal commitment. So that usually won't lead to all those wonderful things you hoped would happen when you write a book. But those free ebook deals are there for you if it makes sense for you and your strategy. Now, a Kindle Countdown deal, on the other hand, starts your sale price low and increases it slowly over a set number of days until it returns to its normal price. Your sale can last from five to seven days and you can set your pricing in whatever increments that your little heart desires. So it's really more of a count up deal. On average, we see the best results with five day sales that start at 99 cents and and increase a dollar each day. Now you don't have to start at 99 cents. You can drop your price down to 57 or 24 or 13 cents. But a 99 cent price tag tends to grab attention and grab the most sales. And it's just what people most commonly see, so it won't surprise them. In a weird way, five day sales also tend to have great traction. They're shorter, so you'll won't get that one day sales hit that Amazon actually doesn't like. And it also could get missed if it's only one day. So by having it five days, more people will see it. But if you run a sale that's too long, it can also not work in your favor either. So five days is kind of a sweet spot. We run 99 cent promos for clients that aren't in Kindle select as well. Like I said, my books are not in Kindle Select. We just manually set the price down to 99 cents and run the paid promos. But Kindle Countdown deals include two little features that help get readers to buy. One is the placement of a promotional price right next to the regular price, showing readers how much they're saving. The other is the slightly anxiety inducing countdown clock, letting them know how much time is left until the price raises to put the pressure on you. Don't get that if you're not in Kindle Select. Now, Amazon also features countdown deals on a dedicated page so so readers can browse the books on sale that week and find new books to try without a huge financial commitment. So you're not simply potentially upping your sales, you're upping your discoverability too. Okay, so that's the logistics of setting the price and getting ready for this. Now you have to promote it. Now the first way you're going to want to promote it is of course, to your audience. Social Media Email List Website Now Time and time again, I've said email list is one of your most valuable tools as an author. Well, if you here's another reason. You can tease the upcoming sale at the end of one of your newsletters or social media posts and then a week or so before, Promote it sharing the reason behind the sale, why you're celebrating, why you're having the special offer, and then the specifics like the date it starts and the price on the day of the sale. Of course you need to announce it and make sure to send out another reminder the day before it ends. It never hurts to share a few posts to your Facebook or Instagram story either. Now, aside from your own promotion, you should be doing things to gain traffic what we do is purchase ad space from ebook promotional sites for our clients. We test a lot of different sites, but we consistently use Bargain Booksy and Fussy Librarian, which have reasonable rates and sizable audiences. We are also commonly using sites like Buckbooks, Rifle Books, Goodkindles, but like I said, Bargain Booksy and Fussy Librarian consistently return the best sales results. I'll link to a page on kindlepreneur that has a gigantic list of ebook sites that you can test. A lot of them are for fiction, so us nonfiction authors do have some limitations. Now, these sites work by sending daily newsletters to readers that advertise that day's ebook sales. Ad space ranges from $20 to $110, but there are variances based on what packages you choose. Usually we purchase three to five ads for a five day sale, so spreading them out over the course of that promotion. Sure, this costs you money, but you're potentially reaching a whole new audience, specifically signed up for emails to find new things to read. Worth it? We definitely think so. Word of warning though, these promo sites can fill up quickly, so that's why it's beneficial to plan your sale dates well in advance. At Book Launchers, we purchase space three to four weeks in advance for our authors and longer when it's the holiday season. Sites have limited space available and some have an approval process before they will even run the ad. Now you've picked your dates, you've purchased your ads, and you've got your own promotions lined up and you're ready to run your sale. Well, here's what you do. First, go to the Marketing tab in your Amazon author account. Then in the Run a Price promotion, select Kindle Countdown Deals and click Create a Kindle Countdown Deal. Select the book you're going to promote if you have multiple books, and then click Continue. Enter your selections for Marketplace, date and time, number of price increments and starting price. After you hit Continue, you'll see a table pop up. Edit the price increments and start times you'd like and then finish up by clicking Add Promotion. If you're not in Kindle select, you'll have to do what I do and that is set a reminder to drop your price the day before your promotion starts, go in and do it, and then set another reminder to go in and raise your price when your promotional period is over. We don't get that cool countdown, nor do we get that promo price notice, but we get to sell our books wherever we want and we haven't given Amazon all the power. So there's trade offs, right? All right. Something to keep in mind before you rush over to Amazon to run your promotion. Once you schedule your Kindle Countdown, you won't be able to edit or stop it within 24 hours of its starting time throughout the entire deal period. Amazon also requires that your book's regular price can't be changed for 30 days before and 14 days after the promotion. Surprising well, there's more surprising facts about Amazon that you need to know as an author in this video right here. And if you still haven't heard about a content on Amazon, well, you definitely need to watch this video right here. Either way, I can't wait to hang out with you and I think it's a win win both ways.
