I recently launched two business books in a series on Kindle as an experiment.

I wanted to see if all the Kindle hype was for real.

To my delightful surprise, within just hours they reached #1 and #2 on the Amazon Kindle Bestseller list for the Business>Marketing section.

I was thrilled!

I want to take you through, step-by-step exactly how I achieve this. By the end of this post you should be able to replicate my success because I honestly believe that if I can do it, you can too!

Kindle’s Most Powerful Tool

The first decision that you will have to make in order for this method to be successful is whether or not you’re going to enter your book into the KDP select program.

The downside to submitting your book into the KDP select program is that Amazon requires that you do not publish your work anywhere outside of Kindle for the 90 days that your book is in the Select program.

For some, that might feel limiting but I decided to submit both of my books into the KDP Select program so that I could capitalize on the biggest benefit of the program:

 Free massive exposure for my books.

The KDP Select program allows you to list your books for free on Amazon’s site.

In other words, for a grand total of zero dollars you can have one of the largest websites in the world actively share your book with hundreds of thousands of potential readers.

For the budding writer, this exposure is priceless – if you know how to capitalize on it.

Making Free Work For You

It is important that you don’t just put your book out there for free without some sort of funnel to capture all the value that you’re giving away.

Here is what I did:

Step #1: Set Up An Email Opt-in

I set up a very simple landing page on my website with an e-mail opt in form that gave readers an exclusive free bonus.

I then put a link to that page into both of my books so that when a reader downloaded the book and read it, they would click through to my opt-in page and I would get a new subscriber.

This might seem like an awful lot of work, but it is well worth it!

I was able to secure a 15% opt in rate from the number of downloads that I had of the book itself.

Step #2: Link The Books Together

I made sure to put links to each of my books throughout the body and at the end of the books themselves. If you go to Amazon today and look up my books, you will see under the “Customers Also Bought…” my other book listed #1.

This occurred because I linked them together. But here is why it was such a powerful move:

I initially loaded the two books onto Kindle within two days of each other.

I wanted to use them to propel each other into more sales, so I only let one book be given away for free at a time.

You’re allowed 5 free giveaway days per book for every 90 days that your book is in the Kindle Select program, so what I did is I used three of those five days for each of my books and I interchanged them every other day.

For an entire week I had at least one book being given away for free, driving traffic to my website, building my e-mail list and driving up sales of my other books because they were linked together.

After just a few short days of this, my books had leapfrogged their way into the #1 and #2 position on the Kindle Bestseller list.

How My Books Are Doing Now

Aside from the initial income that these books gave me, being able to say that I’m a best-selling Amazon Kindle writer is a powerful by-line for someone like me.

The only way that I was able to achieve this success was by utilizing the Kindle Select program to give one book away for free to drive traffic to other being sold.

I did also notice that the level of reviews that I received were more optimistic and more grateful than most I had read on other business books on Kindle. I attribute that to the fact that many people who left the reviews were readers who downloaded the book on a free day.

Those reviews continue to help me make sales today.

Now, I don’t want you to get the idea that I am making hundreds of sales per day and I can now retire. The fact of the matter is, that I only make between 2 to 10 sales per day between the two books now that the initial promotions are over. At 2.99 per book, it doesn’t take much math to see that I still need to show up for work tomorrow!

But, is it worth it?

I am absolutely pleased with the results of this initial test. Both of my books are under 100 pages, they were written using Dragon Naturally Speaking and some decent editing, and they helped to build my list quickly.  I also received several inquiries from potential prospects who read my books and wanted to hire me for copywriting services.

For me, it was definitely worth it.

I encourage you to get out there and try the KDP select program yourself. You might be surprised at how effective it really is.

Mike Shreeve is a copywriter, best-selling author and entrepreneur. He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and son and LOVES to connect with fellow writers. He can be found on Twitter @smmykal.