Yay! Oh my God! Yay!
I'm very excited. Yesterday I was skipping in the street. I looked like a lunatic bit it's not every day that one of your books becomes a bestseller.
My short story, Lipstick and Knickers is currently doing itself proud in the bestsellers' charts over at Amazon.
1st in Humour / Fiction
2nd in Humour / General
2nd in Contemporary Romance
29th in the Paid Kindle Store (reached 20th yesterday)
I have KDP Select to thank for this sudden burst of success. Amazon have started a new lending programme, which has a range of advantages for authors who choose to enroll. One of the main benefits, for me, was the promotional period.
Every ninety days, KDP Select members get five days during which they can price their book at £0.00. This might not seem like an advantage, but it was for me. During the five days following its launch, thousands of people downloaded Lipstick and Knickers, which had two major advantages:
- the book shot up the charts, making it instantly more discoverable
- reviews came flooding in
By the time the book was priced at its more permanent 77p, it was already popping up all over Amazon, and with reviews attached.
The downside of KDP Select is that you have to make your eBook exclusive to Kindle in order to enroll. This has both ethical implications for the indie writer, as well as inhibiting sales for those authors whose work is popular on other platforms.
As somebody who writes many short stories, KDP Select is ideal, because I can make some books exclusive to Amazon and publish others further afield, getting the best of both worlds.
Thanks also, to everybody who has bought and/or reviewed my book so far, and to Patti, Highwayman and Naomi for running great forums.
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