SELECT INFO LINK

For the last few weeks I was unable to get my Select enrollment dates from the KDP Dashboard. I noticed the "info" link in the Select column for each book points right back to the Dashboard page. I'd open the page in a new tab (Firefox) and get exactly what I expected: another copy of the same page—but no Select info.

Same thing on the "title – setup" page: The "enrollment details" link was set to open another copy of the same "title – setup" page.

It wasn't just a question of finding out when the Select period ended for a given book (so promotions could be planned). You can always go into Promotion Manager and see the end date there. But it might be important to be able to get your hands on the automatic roll-over box and remove the check—for those interested in ending the Select program altogether for a particular book.

In fact, I went ahead and set up some promotions without the official Select Info window available. Even so, I was concerned something wasn't quite right, so I got KDP support into the act, asking what was up. I thought maybe the some of the links on this new version of the Dashboard weren't ready for prime time.

Wrong. Turns out it was MY fault all along.

See, I have a very slow rural phone line connection to the Internet. As a result, I'm reluctant to give up a page already downloaded onto my browser until I'm absolutely sure I'm through with it. So when I click a link on any given page, I'm in the habit of right-clicking and selecting "open link in new tab."

But in this case, that won't give you what you want.

You need to left-click the "info" link on the dashboard. It causes a kind of pop-up over the entire original page—a semi-transparent black window containing a smaller white box that is already in the process of loading the information you want.

Same thing on the "title – setup" page (which you can get by clicking the title of your book on the Dashboard or by clicking "Edit Book Details" at the right side of your book's listing).

The difference there, you have to wait until the page completely loads before a left-click on "enrollment details" will work. (For my slow connection, that can take many minutes—the page is loading my book's cover image and so forth.) At any time, however, you CAN right-click and open it in a new tab—the "title – setup" page, not the Select Information window.

Bottom line: Whatever page you use to get Select info for your book, it's ONLY available as the left-click pop-up. You can't open it in a separate tab. Very likely this is not a change peculiar to the new Dashboard. I must simply not have noticed before.

In other words: Never mind.

SLOW WEEKEND GIVEAWAY

I mentioned last week my middle-grade chapter book (EXPLODING WIZARD) would be free last Friday and Saturday. Just one week before, the book was also free for three days, but I submitted that information to none of the promotion sites I use. Still got a substantial number of hits, though.

I was convinced this time—WITH promotion—I would get even more.

Wrong.

Maybe it was the timing: Valentine's Day and the Saturday after. It was also during part of the Presidents' Day three-day weekend. On the other hand, maybe just about everybody interested in the book already had their free copy.

In any case, the two days of promotion yielded only 16% the downloads as the first two days of the un-promoted giveaway. Not, as you might expect, only 16% MORE than before. I mean 16% OF the previous giveaway. In other words, going WITHOUT promotion captured more than 6 times the downloads.

I was shocked, I tell you.

Now, I'm pretty sure promoting the book didn't turn folks OFF. The traffic to those sites must be made up almost entirely of people looking for free and bargain books.

And to be fully accurate, I didn't look at the sites to see if the book made it onto the page, so I don't even know for sure the book WAS being promoted last week.

I probably ought to pay more attention, but frankly this whole promotion and selling aspect of indie pubbing makes me sleepy. I'd rather put my time into writing more books.

(Writing more books also makes me sleepy.)

At some point in the next few months I'll repeat this experiment, perhaps with two different kinds of books and with a little more separation in time. I'd be astonished to find promoting free books was the WRONG way to go.

STEALTH PROMOTION

Last week I put a number of books up for free (it's near the end of the Select period, and I'm tidying up). I decided to skip the part where I send information about the giveaways to a half dozen Web sites dedicated to this activity. (The half dozen I use; there are many more, of course, but the others tend to demand lots of reviews before they'll list a book.)

Here's what happened:

For HOT STATUS (the techno thriller): the un-promoted giveaway resulted in only 12.7% of the action in the previous promoted session. Reversing that: promotion resulted in 7.85 times the activity.

For SALESMAN OF THE YEAR (police procedural): only 22.25% of the promoted session. Or: promoting the giveaway yielded 4.44 times the number of book grabs.

Clearly, a little promotion substantially beats letting people stumble upon a free book during the happy time.

By the way, one of the sites I used for listing giveaways (Sweety's Picks) no longer accepts listings of Kindle freebies. Might be related to the dust-up with Amazon over changes in policy about rewards.

One thing different this time: HOT STATUS lost ground to my middle grade fantasy (EXPLODING WIZARD'S RIGHT-HAND BOY). Back in November, STATUS dominated WIZARD by a factor of 4.38. This time, WIZARD was the big dog, doing 3.37 times the "business".

How come? Maybe most of people who wanted STATUS has already grabbed a copy. Or maybe more people prowl the children's fiction section than the thriller pile, resulting in more discoveries of free books. Don't know.

In the next Select period I'll try running the books head to head again, but with some promotion for both.

And now a special bulletin from the Department of Buried Leads: EXPLODING WIZARD will be free Friday and Saturday (Feb 14 - 15). This time I sent the info to five of the sites I use (minus Sweety's Picks). I'll let you know if the numbers pick up. They certainly should.