COUNTDOWN DEALS: HOW WILL ANYONE FIND THEM?
Yesterday, I saw this cool banner on the top of Amazon’s homepage, advertising Kindle Countdown Deals.
When I clicked on it, I was taken to the Countdown Deal homepage.
I thought this was pretty cool. It’s a small step (not too small—advertised on Amazon’s homepage) toward helping publicize Kindle Countdown Deals.
This is good news for authors with books in KDP Select.
I noticed that 6 of the books on the first page of the Countdown Deals had the #1 bestseller tag. Obviously, some authors are making effective use of this promotional tool.
And the top selling books that happened to have Countdown Deals running yesterday probably received a nice boost from Amazon’s ad.
It’s a nice step in the right direction. I actually sent a suggestion into Amazon about this about a week ago.
Countdown Deals need more publicity. How does anyone find them?
Well, you could find the book itself, then you see it’s on sale and maybe feel more compelled to purchase the book.
But you’d really like to attract customers who wouldn’t have otherwise discovered the book. That’s the goal.
Of course, it helps if you advertise it on BookBub, E-reader News Today, or one of several other similar services. See a list here.
Yet Amazon is where you really want your Countdown Deal advertised. KDP advertises that one of the benefits of KDP Select is that the Countdown Deals are advertised on Amazon.
They are, just not as well as they could be.
Where are they? Visit Amazon’s homepage. Hover over Shop by Department, hover over Books & Audible, and click Kindle Books.
Look under Kindle Book Deals. You’ll usually find Countdown Deals on the list.
But here’s the problem. Imagine you’re a customer who has no idea what a Countdown Deal is. Here are the options that you see:
- Kindle Daily Deals. (Sounds good, right?)
- Monthly Deals, $3.99 or less. (Low prices, sounds good, too.)
- 50 Kindle Books for $2 each. (Great price, that’s enticing.)
- Kindle Countdown Deals. (What on earth is that?)
- 30 Kids’ Books for $1. (Great price again.)
You see the problem: Kindle Countdown Deals has the least compelling name on the list. It doesn’t mention price, % off, and it doesn’t sound like a good deal.
But many of the Countdown Deals are 99 cents or $1.99, with discounts of 50% to 90% off. The deals are a lot better than the name suggests. So what’s to attract Kindle customers to this option?
I feel like it could be merchandised better. I think Amazon wants to help KDP Select books (at least, those with better potential to engage readers), and wants to attract indie authors into KDP Select. So why not merchandise this better? There is an opportunity here.
This advertisement on their homepage is a good sign. It shows that Amazon wants to help merchandise KDP Select books and make the program more compelling for authors.
If you want to check out some Kindle Countdown Deals, click here to visit Amazon’s Countdown Deal page.
Write happy, be happy. 🙂
Chris McMullen
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Chris McMullen, Author of A Detailed Guide to Self-Publishing with Amazon and Other Online Booksellers
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chrismcmullen 
I am SO looking forward to using the countdown deal. I read, though, that you can’t do it until the book has been up a month, so it will be a while – but then, what a great thing to tell everyone on your mailing list: I’ll let you know when the Countdown Deal temporarily reduces the price.
I hope you get a great boost. 🙂
First things first – final editing pass coming up next, and the almost final pass at the book description, and locating the right keywords, and …
You know how it goes. You check one little thing off the To Do list, its feelings get hurt, and it grows two more arms. Hydra-like.
Kind of like a two-do list. I know the feeling. 🙂
I’ve run a lot of countdown deals, mostly very successful (only my science fiction novel did not do well). Amazon used to have a prominent “countdown deal” note on the book’s product page, with messages like “goes up to 2.99 in 6 hrs. 30 minutes.” That note seems to be gone now, and the Kindle price is in small print under the Kindle Unlimited “free” box. Countdown deals are good for authors, so if Amazon wants to keep authors in the Select program and make Select worthwhile, there should indeed be better marketing of countdown deals. Thanks for your post!
They could also add a Countdown Deals filter right next to the Kindle Unlimited filter when searching on Amazon. I always wondered if some customers didn’t like seeing the clock changing; I wonder if that was a factor…
That’s a great idea! Countdown deals never worked all that well for me, but with this new feature I’ll give them another go. Thanks for sharing 🙂
There always seemed to be some luck to it, unless you sought a hot external promotion (and even then…). If you try it, I hope it works out nicely. 🙂
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