How are people finding my book?

[EthanRussellErway]

My book was selling a handful of copies each month until Amazon price matched it for free.  Overnight and the next day it shot up, eventually reaching #304 on the list of free kindle books.  Now it's dropped back down and hovering in the low 1000s, but is jumping between #1 and #2 in its specific category.

My question is- how did so many people find my book so fast?  I usually go and check the top 100 list of free books when I want something to read, and I consider myself fairly proficient at finding what I want online, but I just can't figure out how so many people found my book so quickly after it went free.

I kept my fingers crossed that it would go into the top 100 free, but that's something I'll have to keep trying to strategize.

The book is not in KDP Select, if that matters.

[David Adams]

Really, that's a very good question and I have absolutely no idea how one or two people a day are finding and buying my books. o_o

I assume a wizard did (does) it. That or David Dalglish (he giveth and he taketh away).

[TiffanyTurner]

I think it has a lot to do with past purchases and "People who bought this book also bought:" links. Amazon links and shows books of interest throughout the pages. I find them mighty tempting myself. When a book goes free, more people are purchasing, which spurs more people to see it on Amazon pages.

I had my book go free end of Jan., and it sold 1500 copies in one day. It clicked back to $0.99 for a few days and went free again. Loving the price wars really. The more people that see and read your book, the better I figure. Cross the fingers for the top 100 free. It gets you on more pages.

Total free sales so far over the last two weeks, 6,000. Question is, has anyone seen more reviews as a result? I figure all the new readers have to read the book first, or I at least I hope they read it first. Looking forward to more reviews and comments. 

[D a l y a]

Ethan, if you google your book, you'll discover there are about a gajillion little blogs and web sites that list free books.  My guess is one or several of those blogs picked up on your book and broadcast it to their subscribers.

One of the KBers posted this list of free-book announcement blogs recently: http://www.squidoo.com/going-free-kindle-ebook-promotional-campaigns-for-authors

[Alan Petersen]

I think it has a lot to do with past purchases and "People who bought this book also bought:" links. Amazon links and shows books of interest throughout the pages. I find them mighty tempting myself. When a book goes free, more people are purchasing, which spurs more people to see it on Amazon pages.

I had my book go free end of Jan., and it sold 1500 copies in one day. It clicked back to $0.99 for a few days and went free again. Loving the price wars really. The more people that see and read your book, the better I figure. Cross the fingers for the top 100 free. It gets you on more pages.

Total free sales so far over the last two weeks, 6,000. Question is, has anyone seen more reviews as a result? I figure all the new readers have to read the book first, or I at least I hope they read it first. Looking forward to more reviews and comments. 

Sorry for the dumb question, I'm not familiar yet with the free model on Amazon. What exactly is "free sales"? Do you actually make money from those downloads?

[David Adams]

No, but they're a massive marketing boon. Think of the potential lost sales on the day as a marketing cost.

[EthanRussellErway]

Yes, free marketing is a very good thing.  I figure if even a fraction of the people who get my first book for free return to buy the second in the series when it comes out, I'm still coming way out ahead.

[Zelah Meyer]

You also get people like me who will break the norm and wade through pages of search results searching for a book that looks interesting, even if it takes several days to do it.  When I first planned on getting my Kindle, I worked my way through pages and pages of search results describing every single free ebook on Amazon at the time.  That's right, every single one - modern & classic/out of copyright, checking out the descriptions for any whose titles looked tempting and adding them to a wish list.  I have around 300 classic books on that wishlist (mostly non-fiction) that I haven't got around to downloading yet. 

Equally, I am capable of searching through every single ebook in 'Fantasy' if the mood takes me.

I'm sure I'm not the only reader out there who hates to think that they might miss a gem just because they didn't look hard enough!  So wherever you are in the rankings, someone, somewhere, will still see your book occasionally. 

[otterific]

I'm in the same boat. It baffles me how people find my books. Still learning about all the marketing strategies, and how readers go about searching.

[Phyllis Lily Jules]

You also get people like me who will break the norm and wade through pages of search results searching for a book that looks interesting, even if it takes several days to do it.  When I first planned on getting my Kindle, I worked my way through pages and pages of search results describing every single free ebook on Amazon at the time.  That's right, every single one - modern & classic/out of copyright, checking out the descriptions for any whose titles looked tempting and adding them to a wish list.  I have around 300 classic books on that wishlist (mostly non-fiction) that I haven't got around to downloading yet. 

Equally, I am capable of searching through every single ebook in 'Fantasy' if the mood takes me.

I'm sure I'm not the only reader out there who hates to think that they might miss a gem just because they didn't look hard enough!  So wherever you are in the rankings, someone, somewhere, will still see your book occasionally. 

Wow, Zelah. What a gem of a reader you are. Can you be cloned?

You don't know how much your words brighten my day...

[Alan Petersen]

No, but they're a massive marketing boon. Think of the potential lost sales on the day as a marketing cost.

Got it, thanks Dave and Ethan.

Do guys try to get them to sign up to your mailing list? Include a page at the end of the book where they can join your mailing list so they can know about your other books or new books coming out?

[EthanRussellErway]

Alan, no I've not done that, but it sounds like a really good idea.  I think one of the biggest lures about Indie authors is their approachability.  I try to do it with social media, but man does that get time consuming.

[Rejean]

When DreamWeaver went free it was picked up by Kindle Nation Daily before I even managed to send out notices of freeness. Over the next couple days the other sites like Pixel of Ink and Kindle on the Cheap promoted it heavily, so did one of the british blogs. I ended up giving away over 10,000 copies.

Since it went unfree a couple weeks ago it has settled down to a steady rate of sales that is approximately 10 times higher than before it went free. I'm happy with that.