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MenuIs it possible put your kindle book for free, and get a lot of reviews, and then reverse to a paid book?
I have a couple thousand supporters that would be please to back my work and give me positive reviews, but I wonder if I could put a free version of my book and then put it on a paid version when I hit for example more than 200 reviews
What are you guys thoughts?
Answers
If you sign up with KDP select, you'll be given 5 days where you can drop the price to free. You'll be restricted to only publish on their platform, however.
Hit up your email list, use sites like BookBub, or reddit.com/r/FreeEBooks in order to prepare for the discount launch. Start the deal on a Sunday since more people will be at home and prepared to read rather than Friday and Saturday nights when they're out.
Include, at the end of your book, a request for people to leave honest feedback. They're more apt to do it if you remind them. You can also include links to your other titles.
I've published a handful of titles under different pen names but I'm not an expert. I just figured I'd share what my research picked up.
You can put your book for free on multiple vendors (Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Google Play) and try to get Amazon to price match, or use KDP Select if you want your book exclusively on Amazon.
Another alternative, though, is to give out Advance Review Copies to your supporters. These reviews are weighted less heavily than verified purchased reviews, but they'll still show up on Amazon.
Most people have success rates of about 10-30% of people who receive an ARC actually leaving a review, but this is hugely dependent on genre and your relationship with your review team.
When you set your book to perma-free on Amazon, the people who "buy" the book during that period are still considered a verified purchase if and when they leave a review simply because they clicked the buy button and grabbed your book. I have tons of verified purchase reviews for my book My Fair Assassin because it is perma-free.
I would set your book as free on all major sites like B&N, Kobo, iBooks, etc. and then once they are free, contact Amazon and ask them to pricematch for you. It helps to check and make sure that the book is free on all Amazon sites around the world. Sometimes Amazon will allow a book to be free in the USA, but it won't be free in India or the UK, etc.
Just contact customer service, be very nice and personable-these folks speak to mean people all day-and let them know you're running a short promotion and you would be so grateful if the book could be set to free on all Amazon sites. Include the links of your free books from other retailers to prove the price is free on other sites, and then wait for their response.
If you get a rep saying they won't do that for you then just keep sending in requests until you find someone who will. Always be very nice during the whole process.
Then once the book is free you can send your supporters links to the books on these sites, and once they read and post their reviews, the reviews will show up as verified purchases on Amazon.
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