How to make a book temporarily free on Kindle (How to guide for publishers and authors)

Before posting in this marketing forum, please try to read 10 Step Plan to Promote Your Book: Online Book Marketing on Any Budget. This forum is mainly for followup questions and discussion after reading that book. This forum does indeed allow for much broader discussion of marketing and promotion than just that book, but it's good for everyone to be on the same page about the basics.

Please note, this forum is not for self-promotional plugs. It's for discussing how to promote your book or other writing.
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Scott
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How to make a book temporarily free on Kindle (How to guide for publishers and authors)

Post by Scott »

Typically, the publisher of a book sets the price of the book. If a book is self-published, then the author is the publisher and thus author controls the price of the book.

If you are an author but your book is not self-published, then the below guide most likely will not work for you. In that case, you would then want to contact your publisher to make prices changes. You can also check your publishing contract for more information about price changes.

If you are the publisher of the book you want to make temporarily free on Kindle, you can do using the following steps.

Step 1 -- Log into Amazon KDP at: https://kdp.amazon.com/

Step 2 -- Click the "Promote & Advertise" on the right side of the panel for the book you want to make temporarily free on Kindle

Step 3 -- If the book is not enrolled in Kindle Select already, click "Enroll in Kindle Select". Otherwise, if the book is already enrolled in Kindle Select, skip to step 4 below.

Step 4 -- In the "Run a Price Promotion" section, select "Free Book Promotion" and then click the the button that says "Create a new Free Book Promotion". From there you will be able to select the start and end dates of the promotion.

You are typically able to schedule a Kindle book to be free for up to 5 days each quarter (3 months).

In the event, you can not or do not want to enroll the book in Kindle Select, a workaround is to make the ebook free on a different retailer such as Smashwords or Barnes and Noble and then use Amazon's price match feature to get Amazon to make the Kindle book free on Amazon. However, that workaround is bit more complicated and less reliable, so it is not recommended for those who are not computer savvy and already familiar with navigating Amazon's backend.
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Makaber269
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Post by Makaber269 »

This is agreat Idea,my book is new to Kindle and has had only a couple purchases. Most likely from my personal promotions at local venues. Thanks for the info.
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Post by aruntr2001 »

That's a great idea. And making the book free for some short period of time would definitely attract readers to have a firsthand glance through the book and also may receive honest reviews for the same.
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StephenManning
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Post by StephenManning »

Thank you I will try this process!!
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Goriaharris789
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Post by Goriaharris789 »

Thank you for this great information.
I will put it to use now,
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My son
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Post by My son »

Thank you. We will try to implement your suggestions.
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Denilin+
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Post by Denilin+ »

Awesome info, Scott. I've not made my book BOTD due to the cost of it all plus the wait time. Will give the free suggestion a try and if it works, will likely help with the BOTD pricing. Thanks again.
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Anmeishen
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Post by Anmeishen »

I did not self publish my book “ ATale Out of Season”
and I have tried multiple times to contact Amazon about BOTD free kindle without success.
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