I got a question from an author this morning on how to make an Amazon book permafree (not the five-day option that KDP Select users have). It's useful information, so I figured I would share the strategy here as well.
First you make the book free everywhere you can. You can do so directly with Kobo. With Nook and Apple and others, you must go through Smashwords, as the retailers themselves don't offer a free option. Once the books are free, go to the book product page on Amazon and find the "tell us about a lower price" link (currently, it's on the product details section right before the start of customer reviews). Click on the link and copy and paste your book URLs from the other sites. Try to get as many people as possible to do this because the more notifications, the higher chance you get of making a freebie. It's far from guaranteed but is the only way. And once in a while, Amazon UK, say, will pick it up while Amazon U.S. doesn't. If you ever decide to make the book paid again, it may take several weeks to months for Amazon to follow suit. There's no neat and orderly process, but it has worked for me most of the time.
You generally don't need to worry about submitting links to all the individual Amazon markets (U.S., UK, DE, etc.). Once the U.S. market picks it up, the rest will follow suit. But be sure permafree is what you want. I still don't know how the UK thing happened to me; it was with my The Old Woman and Other Lesbian Stories collection. I made it free on Smashwords (ONLY Smashwords) for two days. I changed my mind and reverted it to paid. It would most likely have trickled onto Nook, etc. for a few days before I changed it back to paid. A few weeks later, it suddenly became free on Amazon UK for several months but nowhere else. It all turned out well, though, because when it did finally revert to paid in UK, the sales were astronomical and made up for the months it was free.
Check out my permafree lesbian short-story collection, A Sprinkling of Lesbian Short Stories:
Amazon
Amazon UK
Nook
Apple
Smashwords
Kobo
First you make the book free everywhere you can. You can do so directly with Kobo. With Nook and Apple and others, you must go through Smashwords, as the retailers themselves don't offer a free option. Once the books are free, go to the book product page on Amazon and find the "tell us about a lower price" link (currently, it's on the product details section right before the start of customer reviews). Click on the link and copy and paste your book URLs from the other sites. Try to get as many people as possible to do this because the more notifications, the higher chance you get of making a freebie. It's far from guaranteed but is the only way. And once in a while, Amazon UK, say, will pick it up while Amazon U.S. doesn't. If you ever decide to make the book paid again, it may take several weeks to months for Amazon to follow suit. There's no neat and orderly process, but it has worked for me most of the time.
You generally don't need to worry about submitting links to all the individual Amazon markets (U.S., UK, DE, etc.). Once the U.S. market picks it up, the rest will follow suit. But be sure permafree is what you want. I still don't know how the UK thing happened to me; it was with my The Old Woman and Other Lesbian Stories collection. I made it free on Smashwords (ONLY Smashwords) for two days. I changed my mind and reverted it to paid. It would most likely have trickled onto Nook, etc. for a few days before I changed it back to paid. A few weeks later, it suddenly became free on Amazon UK for several months but nowhere else. It all turned out well, though, because when it did finally revert to paid in UK, the sales were astronomical and made up for the months it was free.
Check out my permafree lesbian short-story collection, A Sprinkling of Lesbian Short Stories:
Amazon
Amazon UK
Nook
Apple
Smashwords
Kobo