Tag Archives: amazon

Aug28

Createspace Closing: Merges into KDP Print

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This is a three cookie day. It’s a chocolate day. I’m trying to remain calm. But when I saw that email in my inbox this morning, I knew it had happened. Createspace was closing. Most of us in the Indie/Self-Publishing community knew it was going to happen. But the timing is not the best. I had just pushed the button to self-publish the print edition of The Lost Secret of Time last night. I’d received my proof, and everything looked good. Everything seemed set, right?

But I forgot Murphy’s Law. I look over the emails and start to follow the instructions for the merge of my books from Createspace to KDP Print. I figure it will be easier than having it automatically moved over later by the Zon. But no. Even that doesn’t go well. In fact, it’s been horrific. Even though I’ve read on a couple writing boards and blogs that some people have had a seamless move, mine has had a series of bumps and rolls that have pretty much brought my new release to a stop.

I’M TRYING TO REMAIN CALM!

**It’s important to take deep breaths in self-publishing.*

Basically when I transferred my books, it only showed my print books from Createspace. It didn’t join them as one account with my ebooks. So, I had to log out and try again. This time I logged in and went into my ebooks. After awhile, I realized I had wisely different passwords for my KDP account and my Createspace account. So, it looked like the merge created two accounts, each one tied to the password. Now, that makes sense, but really isn’t going to be seamless for others. I’m not sure if that is the thing going on, but I can’t see my ebooks and print books at the same time. It is VERY WEIRD!

Also, my Createspace covers are disappearing off of the print books. When it first moved over, there was one missing. Later when I checked there were two missing. Now when I checked there are 5 covers missing. At first I thought it was the website just not loading the thumbnail, but I checked with other authors on the Createspace Merge thread on Kboards.com, and they mentioned that KDP Print MIGHT have different specs than Createspace.

So, maybe I jumped the gun and trusted Amazon too much to have this merge go right. Maybe I should have checked out that the covers would match or gone over everything with a fine tooth comb before hitting the merge button. But no. I trusted Amazon and KDP. I went back to try to get into my Createspace account to see what I could do, and all the books were gone, moved already, and supposedly on KDP Print.

So somewhere in the ether of the internet, five covers have been lost, and I can’t get into any of the details of my books. I am locked out. I have emailed support twice already and all I hear is crickets. So, maybe I should have known better. I knew Murphy would do something with my book launch. Or I should look at the glass half full. My books ended up somewhere.

Yes, I’m sure it will eventually all get sorted out. But there is a lesson maybe in all of this. Self-publishing has never been easy, and things will come up that throw you for a loop. You just have to keep going. Hope that customer support will slog through your request with the onslaught of other authors moving at this time.

I just need another cookie. And some more chocolate.

***Tiffany Turner has been a self-published author for 10 years. Her fourth children’s book, The Lost Secret of Time, will be releasing on September 10 both in ebook and print (I’m still keeping the faith).

 

 

Jun21

The Amazon Price Matching Experiment

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Book 1 sold over 9,000 free copies in over a month.

Sometimes you can find some really good ideas on Writing Boards. Some turn out to be fabulous ideas. Back in Dec. 2011, I noticed some posts on kindleboards.com in the Writer’s Cafe about a back door way of getting your books to go free on Amazon. I’ve heard from another author this is even difficult for traditional publishers to do. Amazon tends to not let books go free. Unless you know the back door.

The key ingredients to start the experiment turned out to be Smashwords and having your book on the Premium Catalog. Other authors tried this with having their book published on the Apple Store as well. I don’t have a directly published edition through Apple, but it is something to be noted. This way was possible as well.

I listed my first book, The Lost Secret of Fairies, as $0.00 on Smashwords. It takes a few weeks for it to set to that price on the other websites like Barnes and Nobles. But I noticed that it went free on the Nook within 2 weeks. Once it hits a big site like Barnes and Nobles, Amazon will often price match it with the Kindle edition. Then the fun really begins.

By the end of January, I’d sold 400 free books of The Lost Secrets of Fairies. Amazon matched it on Jan. 24, 2012. I watched the numbers climb to 1,739 to 2,037 by the next day. I noticed it averaged about 200 free downloads in one hour. As I tracked the numbers, it slowed down to 100 free downloads an hour over the next few days. By the end of January, I had 5,386 free downloads for my first book. The second book in my series, The Lost Secret of the Green Man, had 21 books sold.

February was a fun month. The sales continued with free downloads changing to 100 a day for The Lost Secret of Fairies. Sales of the second book followed. My first book returned to its normal price of $0.99 by March 15. The total free downloads for Feb. included 3,642. There were only 9 refunds in that time. Making the total free downloads for end of January, February, and beg. of March at: 9,894.

To see if all this would benefit my second book sales, I crunched some numbers. There were 21 sales of the Secrets of the Lost Green Man in January. February had 35 paid sales, and March had 24. The grand total of sales was 80. So, for about every 125 free downloads, I had a paid sale for my second book.

The Lost Secret of Fairies became the top in the Free Store for several listings. On Feb. 6, it listed as #1 children’s books/social situations. On Feb. 7 it was #1 children’s books/self esteem and respect. I witnessed it topping out at #110 in the Kindle Free Store around the same time.

After my first book returned back to $0.99, the free bump kept it selling at 2/3 higher than normal. My average sales is about 10 books a month. In March, it was at 64 sales, and for April dropped in sales down to 29.

About the end of March 2012, other authors noticed drops in sales ratings even with free book sales. After a while, people reported back trends on the Writer’s Cafe board that Amazon must have changed their algorithms in regards to free book sales. Free book sales were no longer being counted the same as paid book sales. The ratios seemed to work out to 10 free book sales equaling 1 paid book sale.

For the month of May, things returned to normal. The Lost Secret of Fairies had 12 Kindle Ebook sales while my second book, The Lost Secret of the Green Man, had 9.

What did I learn from this experiment? I’ll benefit from the over 10,000 sales of my first book, free and paid. I have an awesome reader base now. This will help when the third book is ready for release this fall(2012). Plus, for every 60 copies downloaded for my first book, a second book was bought. The Free Download bump raised my sales for two months. I even received 3 new reviews on Amazon, and 4 new reviews for the Nook. They were all positive. In addition, there were fewer refunds than I thought.

The most important thing I walked away with; I have thousands of new readers introduced to my series. That, in itself, is priceless.

Crystal Cluster**The Crystal Keeper Chronicles are available on Amazon.com as paperback or Kindle editions.
Also available on Smashwords.com. and the Nook by Barnes and Nobles.