COUNTDOWN EXPERIMENT

Here’s the thing about the new Countdown promotion scheme from Kindle Select: You might not be able to jump in and do it the day you first hear about it. There may be some prep time needed.

The idea is you're going to place an existing book at a significantly lower price and hold it there for a short time. For best results, there should be several "ticks" to this countdown clock, starting at the lowest price and jumping by stages back to your regular price.

For that to work, you need to have a regular price somewhere north of 99 cents, which is the lowest price you can set for the promotion. For a series of steps, you need to start with a significantly higher price.

I suppose you COULD drop your $1.99 book to 99 cents for a day or so. But for the full effect, it would be best to have available multiple steps. This pattern of higher and higher prices is designed to put the spurs to the customer, to create a fever for action as the price mounts—and to enrage and frustrate customers unwilling to act quickly.

(Okay, that last result might be an unwanted side effect.)

So, in order for me to work my best countdown I needed to first raise the "regular" price of the book. And according to the rules, that regular price has to be in effect 30 days before the countdown can begin. (And survive the promotion for at least 15 days afterward.)

With this in mind, over a month ago I raised the price on my techno thriller MAD MINUTE from 99 cents to $4.99.

Starting tonight at midnight, the price will plunge back down to 99 cents. It will hold there for 48 hours, then jump to $1.99 for another 48 hours, and from there to $2.99 for the last 48 hours. It will then resume its lofty life at $4.99. (After that, I don't know.)

These price breaks—and the length of time the book spends at each price—are adjustable from the Manage Promotions page. I just chose the bottom price and set the steps to three. At four steps, the book would spend less time on each plateau, as well as adding $3.99 to the list. Either way, the promotion would run six days.

(Technically, this is called a seven day promotion, the longest countdown period available. [The shortest is apparently one hour.] The price on the seventh day is the full price. Just think of it as a SIX day promotion.)

In the case of MAD MINUTE, I've also set up a FREE promotion for the book's prequel (HOT STATUS) that runs for the first three days of the countdown period. I want to see if having the prequel free for a few days will drive potential buyers to the sequel, where they will discover the relentlessly ticking clock of the countdown promotion.

In my experience, the vast majority of free book grabs will take place in the first day or so, pointing folks at the sequel when its price is lowest (and annoying the stragglers).

In previous times, giving away the prequel led to sales of the sequel. With the added lash of the rising price, the number of secondary sales should be higher—at least, that's the theory. In addition to increasing sales at the lowest price, I might also see some buys at a higher price. We'll see.

Confusing the numbers is the fact I'll be promoting MAD MINUTE's countdown on a few Web sites. Maybe next time I should let the countdown run without notice.

By the way, I've made another book (SALESMAN OF THE YEAR) free for the same three day period as HOT STATUS: Wednesday through Friday (Jan 15 – Jan 17).

I'll let you know how this all turns out.