Ebook Promotions: How to Run a Sale That Actually Works

Dropping a price on its own rarely does much. A sale nobody hears about is just a lower price. The authors who get results from promotions plan them: they know what they want the sale to achieve, choose the book that serves that goal, and make sure the right readers know about it while it lasts. This guide walks through each of those decisions.

Start with the goal

Write the goal down before you set a price. It decides everything else, including how you'll judge the result.

Discount or free?

A price drop still earns money on every copy, and it attracts readers who are willing to pay something, which often means readers more likely to finish the book. A free promotion reaches many more people but earns nothing directly, and many free downloads are never read.

Free can still be a smart move for the first book in a long series, where every reader who finishes it may buy several more. For a standalone, or for a series with only two books, a discount is usually the better bet. See series pricing strategy for more on pricing across a series.

How deep a discount?

There's no single right number, but there are patterns. A small cut, such as $4.99 down to $3.99, is easy for a reader to overlook. A clear drop to a low impulse price, such as $0.99 or $1.99, is easier to promote and gets more attention. For a book in the middle of a series, a moderate discount can nudge readers who stalled after the first book.

Remember how each store pays you. On some stores, dropping below a threshold reduces your royalty rate as well as the price. On Amazon.com, for example, KDP's 70% rate applies from $2.99 to $12.99, so a $0.99 sale earns 35%. On BooksOasis, authors keep the full ebook price at any price, so a discount reduces only the price, not your rate.

How long to run it

Short promotions create urgency. Many authors run sales of three to seven days, long enough for readers to hear about it and short enough that "limited time" is true. A sale that runs for a month tends to lose its pull after the first few days, and readers who miss the start stop paying attention.

Telling readers about it

1. Your newsletter first. Your subscribers are your most likely buyers. Send the sale on day one, with the end date.
2. Back matter. If the sale is on book one, make sure book one's back matter links to book two.
3. Social media and your website. A simple post with the cover, the price and the end date.
4. Promotion sites and newsletters for readers. Many sites share discounted books with their subscribers, some free and some paid. Book them early; the best fill up.
5. Ads. A small budget aimed at readers of similar books can amplify a sale.
6. A last-chance reminder. A short note the day before the sale ends catches readers who meant to buy.

KDP Select promotions

If an ebook is enrolled in KDP Select, Amazon's exclusive programme, it gets two promotion tools, but you can use only one of them in each 90-day enrollment period:

KDP says unused promotion days don't roll over. The trade-off is exclusivity: an ebook in KDP Select must be sold only on Amazon while it's enrolled. See KDP Select vs going wide for whether that trade is worth it for your books.

Promotions on BooksOasis

1. Open the format you want to discount: ebook, paperback or hardcover.
2. Enter a promotional price below the regular price. For print, it can't go below the minimum that covers printing.
3. Set the dates. Leave Starts empty to begin today; leave Ends empty to run until you remove it.
4. Readers see the saving. The regular price appears crossed out, and the book can appear in On Sale banners across the store.
5. Earnings follow the promo price. Your earnings on each copy are worked out from the promo price while it runs; ebooks still pay you the full price the reader pays.
6. End it any time with End promotion now.

Because there's no exclusivity, you can run a promotion on BooksOasis at the same time as sales elsewhere, or keep your BooksOasis price as a steady option while you experiment on other stores.

Get the book ready before the sale

A promotion sends new readers to your book page, so make sure it's ready for them. Check that the cover still looks right beside current books in your genre, that the description opens with a strong hook, and that the first pages are clean and gripping. Most importantly, check the end of the book: the back matter should point readers to the next book in the series, your newsletter, or your other titles. A reader who finishes your discounted book with nowhere to go is a reader lost.

If you've been meaning to refresh an old cover or tighten a description, a promotion is the moment to do it. The extra attention magnifies whatever is already on the page, good or bad. See writing a book description for help with the listing.

Seasonal and themed promotions

A reason for a sale makes it easier to promote. Holidays, seasons and events give you a natural hook: a cosy mystery sale as the evenings draw in, a fresh-start sale on self-improvement books in January, a romance sale around Valentine's Day, a history sale on an anniversary your book covers. Readers respond to a story, and "on sale for the holidays" is a better story than "on sale".

Themed promotions with other authors can widen your reach even further. When several authors in the same genre discount a book at the same time and each tells their own readers, everyone reaches readers they wouldn't have found alone. Agree the dates, the price and how each of you will announce it, and share the results afterwards.

Measuring the result

Before the sale, note your normal daily sales for the book and the rest of the series. During and after it, track sales of the discounted book, sales of the next books in the series at full price, newsletter sign-ups and new reviews. Compare them with your goal. A sale that earned little on the discounted book but lifted book two and three for weeks afterwards may be your most profitable promotion.

A promotion calendar

Promotions work best as part of a plan rather than a reaction to a slow month. Many authors plan a handful a year: one around each new release, one for each series starter, and a few seasonal sales tied to holidays or themes that suit their books. Spacing them out keeps each one special and stops readers from simply waiting for the next sale.

Common promotion mistakes

• No announcement. A lower price that nobody hears about.
• Discounting the wrong book. A sale on book three rarely helps readers who haven't read book one.
• Running too often. Readers learn to wait for the next sale.
• No next step. Back matter that doesn't link to the next book wastes new readers.
• Not measuring. Without a before and after, you can't tell what worked.

Sources

Checked October 2026: KDP Free Book Promotions; Kindle Countdown Deals; KDP Select; BooksOasis publisher dashboard.

In short

Pick a goal, discount the book that serves it, keep the window short, tell your readers loudly, and measure what happens afterwards, especially to the next books in the series. A well-planned promotion is one of the most reliable ways to reach new readers without spending much at all.

Curious how readers find books? Browse our reading guides on the BooksOasis store.