Well, just when we see the roll out of Matchbook (which I wrote about here), Amazon hits us with another program! This one is called Kindle Countdown. Unlike Matchbook, in order to participate in this program, a book must be enrolled in KDP Select. 
From the Amazon press release – here are the details:
Authors and publishers determine both the length of the Kindle Countdown Deals promotion and the level of discount, offering them control and flexibility. KDP Select authors now have more choices for running promotions: each 90-day term, they can schedule one Kindle Countdown Deals promotion per available marketplace, or use up to five free promotion days. For KDP Select books, here’s how it works:
- Time: Publishers control how long the book is discounted, choosing any time between one hour and seven days.
- Discount: Publishers set the level of discount, which must be at least $1 off the regular price.
- Royalty: Publishers will earn royalties based on their regular royalty rate and the promotional price. As a result, publishers using the 70% royalty option will earn 70% even if the price is below $2.99.
- Reporting: A new KDP report displays sales and royalties at each promotional price side-by-side with pre-promotion performance, so it’s easy to compare.
- Customer Experience: It’s simple for customers to see the great deal they’re getting, as the regular price is included on the book’s detail page, right beside the promotional price. Customers will see the countdown clock with the time remaining for the promotion. It’s also easy for customers to discover Kindle Countdown Deals on a dedicated webpage, www.amazon.com/kindlecountdowndeals.
Now, I am sure naysayers will poke at Amazon for not making this available for any/all titles in the system, versus just KDP Select. On the one hand, I agree, that would be great. On the other hand, there really isn’t anything stopping their competition from creating similar programs to KDP Select, with similar incentives. They just haven’t. Why? No idea. Will I be enrolling all of Booktrope’s titles in KDP Select, probably not. Will we be considering enrolling far more than we have previously? Well, I have to say, yes.
As a final note, this also makes the move earlier this year (see the details here) to dis-incent affiliates from offering primarily free book promos, more logical. I had been a bit perplexed, given the main driver for those of us in KDP Select were those free promotion days; it seemed weird to make it harder for the newsletters to make money by penalizing them for converting more free downloads than paid. Now I get it.
At any rate, we shall see if this latest move makes a difference for authors, or just for Amazon. Let me know whether you plan to check it out!
