Amazon sells over one millon ebooks a day

and Indie Authors now dominate those sales!

It was reported this week by Roger Packer, that Amazon now sells over 1 million ebooks a day, worth $6M in revenue.  The interesting data from the daily sales is that Indie Authors now are 42% of those sales versus the Big Five’s 23%.  (The rest of the sales come from Amazon imprints, small publishers, and uncategorized single publisher)

AutoEarnings reports the Big 5 are finding it harder to compete because Indie Authors bring a broader diversity, price, quality and frequency of titles. They also contribute the shift in market share to a price change by the Big 5, called agency pricing which has steepened the prices of their ebooks.

The other interesting data point is how Indie Authors are now taking over Amazon’s Best Seller’s list.

4 of Amazon’s overall Top 10 best-selling ebooks were self-published indie titles.
10 of Amazon’s overall Top 20 best-selling ebooks were self-published indie titles.
56 of Amazon’s overall Top 100 best-selling ebooks were self-published indie titles.
20 of Amazon’s overall Top 100 best-selling ebooks were indie titles priced between $2.99 and $5.99.

The survey does state KindleUnlimited does play into the statistics but direct retail Indie books are up substantially.  In fact, AutoEarnings states at the time of their data grab, 25 of the Top 125 overall best sellers were not in the KU program.

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Here are three more interesting tidbits from the report:

Self-publishers were found in surprising sectors of the print market, including the adult coloring book sector which was a big success in 2015. In January’s snapshot, 11 out of Amazon’s Top 35 best-selling print books were adult coloring books and 5 of those 11  were self-published coloring books by indie authors.

Indie authors are taking home a far bigger share of the proceeds of a print book sale (36% of list price, on average), compared with the 8% paperback royalties and 15% hardcover royalties that are typical for traditional publishers.

Audiobooks are one of the industry’s fastest-growing segments and indies are also starting to make inroads into that market. AE says in January, Amazon was selling around 119,000 audiobooks a day — about $2,100,000 worth — generating $204,000 a day in author earnings.

So what does this mean for us Indie Authors?  We control our destinies. We are no longer the poor stepchild of the industry, no matter how hard the traditional publishers/authors try to beat us down.

It also reflects, more importantly, how Amazon is growing and will take over the marketplace.  With the growth in their imprint business (Createspace and others) and now with ACX in audiobooks. Amazon intends on being “THE” marketplace for Indie Authors.  That has its dangers and will require watching.

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Next an update on the Dark Desire Series. 

With the data above and the 2017 trends that I shared last week, I had to make a business decision.  When I published, Facade’s Surrender, last summer, Amazon banned it due to content.  It was a time when Amazon seemed to be cracking down.

It forced me to seek other distribution options. I did not want to do it but had no choice. So I had to leave KindleUnlimited, and move my titles to Smashwords and Draft2Digital. The experience was okay but cumbersome and frankly I tried but it did not feel right.

Eventually, Amazon relented and published Facade’s Surrender.  But I had already made the move and shifted my promotions to Smashwords.

With all that said, re-evaluating the business, the numbers and trends being reported. The ease of use and customer loyalty to Amazon. I have decided to move all my titles back in KindleUnlimited.  That means I had to delist from Smashwords and D2D.  That change has already happened.

I am also changing my pricing model (which has been all over the place). Book One, Unveiling Facade will be at 99cents. The other three books, Facade’s Retribution, Facade’s Surrender and Facade’s Salvation will be $1.99 and the Four-Book Box Set will be $3.99 (after January 14th, still on sale for $1.49, so better get it fast).

The reason Unveiling Facade is at 99 cents for it is a short story and did not feel it was right to charge a price relative to the other three.

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The last item on the Series, yes, I am writing a book five and I even started it.  However, when I got ill this past fall I did some reflection.  As some know, I have a story I want to write that is different than the Dark Desire Series and decided to do it.  I am writing it now and will be longer than my previous stories.

I should have Running Blind done and out by March, then back to book five,   Facade’s Soul of Darkness. So stay tuned.

Thanks for reading and please leave comments, your input is valuable to me.