Review Group discussion

This is both a request for advice as a general check to see if I have my facts right - I'd appreciate all comments.

I've been looking into the Kindle free promotion days, and I don't know how I didn't notice this before, but you need to be enrolled into KDP Select in order to do so. If I understand it right, doing this means that you give Amazon the exclusive rights to selling your book for the duration of your enrollment, which is a minimum of 90 days. During these 90 days you have up to five days when you can offer up your book for free. Please correct me if I'm wrong here.

My issue is that I currently have my book available on Smashwords as well. Could I simply unpublish my book there for the duration of my enrollment in KDP Select, then once that enrollment expires re-publish it? I don't really want to fall foul of Amazon's rules on this and risk being banned or something.

Now, going on the assumption that I can indeed do the above, has anyone else ever done this? My book is in Smashwords premium, so it includes the extended distribution to B&N, Kobo, Apple, etc. If I unpublish on Smashwords, does that then automatically also unpublish it on all the extended sites?

I've been working out a bit of a marketing strategy for my book, and it rather requires me to be able to offer it up for free promotion, so any thoughts and advice from other people here would be very much appreciated.

Erica, you got everything right about KDP Select, and I have read quite a few posts and articles that Smashwords is very reluctant to unpublish books. And there were cases when they couldn't do it for over a month.
But why do you want to go KDP Select at all? You can easily make your book free without the program. And the benefits are not that great to go exclusive.

Good luck with your book and best reviews for it!

I think you'd be better off listing your book for free on Smashwords. Amazon price matches, so eventually they'll note the free book on B&N or one of the other distributors and match it.

I have one book on KDP Select and do use the free days. Each time I do so, I get a couple of real sales just after for both the formerly free book and occasionally my other book. The key to this, however, is you have to tell people the book is free. I've tested this by posting it unannounced and then later announced and it makes a big difference. As for the KDP Select lending library, I haven't lent a single copy of either of my books through that program, though some authors have.

I haven't tried listing my Smashwords book for free for any length of time, but I think it will work as I mentioned before based on my understanding of how Amazon works and from discussions I've read on the KDP message boards.

I don't think it matters how your book becomes free, it should have the same effect. I'd say that as far as free kindle days are concerned, the only benefit for using KDP Select is that you have control over exactly when those days occur and can then promote those days with confidence.

As for your question on unpublishing on Smashwords so you can enroll in KDP Select, I'd recommend confirming that's ok by contacting KDP.

And yes, your facts are straight. :-)

The reason why I'd want to go with KDP Select is exactly the fact that you get to choose when your book is free. There are many sites you can contact to list those days, but some of them need to know several weeks in advance what the exact dates are. From what I have seen so far these sites specifically target promotional free days, so just making my book free wouldn't work, I think. I didn't even know you could do that, tbh! I thought everything on Amazon had to have a price. Shows what I know.

Thanks for the comments so far - I had no idea that unpublishing on Smashwords might be a problem. They've got that easy 'unpublish' button and the straightforward explanation below it, which all suggests that it's dead easy.

Erica, why do you want to make it free at all? These days don't actually lead anywhere. And you can easily see free books which are not in the program when you choose the lowest price category on Amazon.

I think the value of free days is getting your work noticed and perhaps garnering sales of your other books (so long as they aren't free).

The outcome is quite elusive. There's the entire thread on this topic here.
Though I found out Amazon does free email promotion to the enrolled books, but I don't know on what basis. That is the only benefit, but still not clear if it's done for all such books, or some particular.